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Is it possible to be totally gobsmacked and not the least surprised, all in one moment? Why, yes it is!! Heather Cox Richardson, you are a real life wonder woman. I have yet to read your letter because I raced to tell my husband about this. Bearing in mind that he is mostly Norwegian, his eyebrows-up response of, "Oh, WOW!" was maximum enthusiasm level. Did President Biden say something like this? "I hear you've been writing daily letters to Americans. I hear they're listening closely to what you say. So, my question is: Will you help make me smarter and wiser?" Now to read this day's letter.

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You summed up my thoughts, exactly. I don't know if I'm more excited that Heather got to meet President Biden or that he got to meet her!

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I'm definitely in the camp of being impressed Pres. Biden got to meet Heather!!

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I'm even more impressed that he knew why he should meet her, and initiated the meeting.

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Absolutely agree!

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Whether Heather meets individually with the president or a few of us who had the privilege of speaking with her briefly after a WBUR event (and before she met with Biden 😉), she is the same unpretentious person you see on her videos: down-to-earth, genuine, and brilliant! Fiona Hill and Nick Burns (current Ambassador to China) are cut from the same cloth. When you meet and speak with them they are completely engaged as though you are the only one in the room!

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Yes, I watched Fiona Hill testify to the fruitless enquiry, and thought exactly the same thing

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I am so jealous... Of President Biden. He got to sit down and talk to Heather.

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Haha! Love that comment!!

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Hear hear!

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So true!

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Exactly!!

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Perfect!

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EXACTLY!!!

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Yes, Biden smartly listened to his staff who called to his attention that 1.5 million Americans and foreign nationals read Dr. Richardson’s daily Letters. And then she humbly and generously diverts the light to us, her readers, as she did to Fiona Hill on last week’s panel. It’s so heartening to see compassionate conscientiousness in action!

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Ellie, is it really 1.5 million?!!!

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Yes, HCR has 1.5 million Facebook followers. Then there are her Substack subscribers, though no doubt with significant overlap, and harder to assess as Substack only discloses the number of its writers' subscribers in terms of "thousands" or "tens of thousands." She might also have YouTube subscribers not overlapping with FB or Substack.

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And I, also a subscriber, share every one of Heather's letters with many friends. 1.5 million may be a small estimate of her readers!

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Thanks Ellie!

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Ellie, I hve not gotten anything from HCR today (4/20). did you?

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Not last night but I saw her LFAA on FB and figured she fell asleep or had rural internet problems. You probably also saw it in this afternoon's email.

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I did see it. Thanks Ellie!

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Aho!

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Mar 5, 2022
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Very cool: I tweeted the link to HCR and Fiona Hill’s interview (to make it easier to find) and HCR just retweeted it!

https://twitter.com/ellie_kona/status/1500228645192830977?s=21

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On February 22, members of the WBUR Edward R. Murrow Society joined Fiona Hill, senior fellow of the Center on the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution, and Heather Cox Richardson, political historian, for a conversation with Here & Now co-host Scott Tong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCT_pavcAXg

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Thank you, Nancy! I spent a half hour searching through Twitter and FB. This event was not even listed in the WBUR website. Yay YouTube!

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On a WBUR program. Will look more later.

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I love your response! Only I don't think he needs to be smarter and wiser so I I would have him ask a slightly different question. "Will you help me get this information out to the American people in ways they can actually hear and understand?"

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That, too!!!

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Exactly my sentiments!

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