Hot To Go-Bag: Bonus Episode with Aundrea Cline-Thomas

We get the inside scoop on what it was really like producing a live, chaotic political interview with then-candidate Donald Trump — the pressure, the reputational stakes, and Aundrea’s strategies for the toughest of interviews.

This bonus episode is packed with big energy, behind-the-scenes moments plus Aundrea’s “Wobbly Middle” Go-Bag essentials.

Listen now! Don’t miss the full conversation with Aundrea Cline-Thomas in our main episode, Lights, Camera...Pivot!

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To hear more from Aundrea, listen to her totally energising podcast The NEXT Best Thing. 

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About the Hosts:

Susannah de Jager has just relocated to Abu Dhabi, where she’s podcasting, consulting with start-ups, and occasionally advising on scale-up capital. After leaving her role as CEO of a boutique asset manager, she asked the all-important question: what next? Five years later, she’s following her curiosity —The Wobbly Middle is for her and every woman doing the same.

Patsy Day is a lawyer on a break—and a podcast producer. She’s worked everywhere from London to Ho Chi Minh City, but these days she lives in Oxford. Patsy is knee-deep into podcast production for SafeHouse Amsterdam (launching 2025) and co-hosting The Wobbly Middle.

What is The Wobbly Middle?

Patsy quit her job. Susannah quit the city. Now they’re on a quest to find the path through the wobbly middle of their careers. This podcast is for every woman who’s asking “What now?”.

Hosted by Susannah de Jager and Patsy Day, The Wobbly Middle features interviews with famed city superwomen, dazzling entrepreneurs and revolutionary midwives and doctors who reveal what they’ve learnt through their own wobbly middle experiences.

[00:00:05] Patsy Day: Welcome to The Wobbly Middle, and today a little something different. This is our very first bonus episode.

[00:00:13] Susannah de Jager: Yeah, we couldn't resist asking last week's guest Andrea Klein Thomas more about that interview with Donald Trump.

[00:00:21] Patsy Day: Andrea produced the National Association of Black Journalists sit down with Trump before he became president.

[00:00:27] Susannah de Jager: For the second time.

[00:00:28] Patsy Day: It's the very interview where he made that. Now infamous comment about Kamala Harris.

[00:00:33] Audio Clip: I've known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.

So I don't know. Is she Indian or is she black? She is always identified as a black. She historically black college, I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't

[00:00:59] Patsy Day: and Andrea gave us this rare glimpse behind the scenes into the pressure cooker of producing a major political interview.

[00:01:06] Susannah de Jager: It's not often that you hear from somebody who's actually had a front row seat to something that historic and the total chaos behind it. We started by asking Andrea what the experience of interviewing Trump was like.

[00:01:22] Aundrea Cline-Thomas: It taught me a lot. I'll start there. It taught me a lot. It was very chaotic. Then candidate Trump did not want to be fact checked in real time, and NABJ stands for the National Association of Black Journalists. It's the oldest,journalist organization for journalists of color.

There was a lot of reputational currency on the line. The organization had gotten a lot of backlash for even inviting candidate Trump at the time. But was, along with its long held tradition of every election year, they always invite the candidates to come to the annual conference for an interview with a black journalist.

At that point, Vice President Harris had just started her campaign. So they had first gone out to the Biden administration, but then Biden was no longer the candidate. Vice President Harris was literally just starting her campaign and she could not make it in person. They ended up interviewing her a month later.

So the day of the event, Trump and his team did not like that he had to be fact checked online, we know why, and there was a huge tension to where the conversation almost did not happen. NABJ did not back down to their credit and then that conversation happened. But there was a lot of reputational currency from NABJ, from the Trump campaign, from each individual journalist that was on the stage. It was chaotic.

The main moderator came out with a really tough question, basically asking, Trump, why should black people support him? Seeing his history of what he said about black journalists in particular and black people, and why should they even trust him? And so then the campaign was upset about that. They were threatening to end the interview early and come on stage to do it and creating a spectacle.

And so I think everybody's trying to figure out how to cover when misinformation is leading campaigns and leading the rhetoric. But also saying that person's in a very big position of power that you know globally, and you still have to cover them and what does that look like and how do you hold them accountable, when they erode trust and they operate in such a chaotic space?

[00:03:32] Patsy Day: I mean. Can you imagine trying to manage that level of tension live in a room where everything could fall apart?

[00:03:44] Susannah de Jager: No, I can't. It's so terrifying. But she could, she called it reputational currency, and I feel like that says everything. Everyone in that room had something at stake, something to lose. And it reminded me that often in life, the hardest conversations happen when we can't afford to let it go wrong.

[00:04:06] Patsy Day: And you don't always have control. Andrea wasn't the one asking the questions, but. She talked about how to manage the unmanageable, doing your research, anchoring the question in a fact, and letting that lead the charge. Also the idea that at this moment, this very chaotic, high stakes moment, it opened the door for someone else's career to change course.

And that's huge.

[00:04:32] Aundrea Cline-Thomas: I learned a lot from that. There are things that I, that should have gone differently. But I'm grateful for the opportunity and I'm grateful that NABJ held the line on fact checking and I'm grateful that they put certain journalists in place because it has expanded their career opportunities. Because when these big interviews happen in the networks, the black journalists or the journalists of color, is probably not at the top of the list of getting these big interviews and so they're creating a platform for journalists who are more than capable to have this opportunity and it can change the trajectory of their careers and we saw that happen with one of the journalists on stage that it has changed the trajectory of her career.

And I think it's also sometimes, you know, people just have to show you who they are in a very blatant way, and a journalist's job is not to make you feel any kind of way. You're agnostic to the results. You're just there to illuminate and provide perspective and context.

And so one of the things that they did not do holistically that I had advised to do, is that when you interview somebody like Trump, you have to start with the fact of the matter and establish the data shows the facts, show and site your sources X, Y, and Z happens. Immigrants do not cause more crime than Americans.

According to a Pew research study, this and that concrete fact, and then you ask the question. Cause it's very hard to fact check him in real time. But to be of service to viewers, you have to create what the fact is then ask him the question and let him respond, and then bring it back to what the fact is.

And that's how you have to govern those conversations and I think that's one of the things that I wish happened more in the space. And because of the tensions, because of there was a lot at stake there, that didn't end up happening in real time. That I really wish there was grounding for that to happen to be a little bit more of a fruitful conversation.

But he's gonna say whatever he's going to say.

[00:06:35] Susannah de Jager: We wanted to end on a slightly more upbeat note. As a journalist, Andrea always had two bags as in a ready to go bag by the door, a hot bag if she was heading somewhere hot and a cold one for stormy or snowy weather. We asked her what she would put in her go bagg if she was heading into her wobbly middle.

[00:06:56] Aundrea Cline-Thomas: I think you need a journal first and foremost, lots of pens, you're gonna wear them out, right? Put a blanket in there. Put your favorite snack. You need your cell phone, because you're gonna call some folks. You need to be in community with people and you're gonna need the phone calls of when you can't see yourself, to have other people around you who can remind you of who you are.

If you have a faith practice something regarding your faith practice because it is not a mathematical equation. One plus one doesn't always equal two, and that's where your faith comes in is when that math doesn't quite math, you've gotta lean on your faith to fill in the gaps. I think those are the things that you need in your go bag.

[00:07:37] Susannah de Jager: Honestly, I'm obsessed with that list. A journal snacks community. That's basically the survival kit for life.

[00:07:45] Patsy Day: Right, and having the support you need to get through the stretch where she put it. The maths doesn't math.

[00:07:50] Susannah de Jager: I love that. That's us for now. We'll be doing a Q and A bonus over the next few weeks, so if you've got any question for us or our guests, please send them through to [e-mail]. That's [e-mail].

[00:08:06] Patsy Day: And if you haven't listened to the full episode with Andrea, definitely go back and listen.

[00:08:11] Susannah de Jager: Thank you for listening to The Wobbly Middle, a podcast about women reinventing their careers in midlife. Next week, we have the advertising alchemist Hannah McCracken, sharing how she stepped back in and up after a six year career break.