Monday’s debut of Ana Cabrera Reports under the brand new MS NOW banner proved to be predictably preposterous, with over 12 minutes of complaining about just how sexist America was in terms of electing leaders. This was in reaction to comments made by former First Lady Michelle Obama on Friday, who made waves for claiming that America was “not ready for a woman” president.
Fortunately, MS NOW Capitol Hill reporter Ali Vitali reminded the audience that something could be done about America’s rampant sexism: “The thing that I try to keep in mind, though […] is that women are electable simply if voters vote for them.”
Despite that touching truth, Vitali repeated Obama’s fear that voters would privately conform to… silent pressure?:
… this idea that people might look at their neighbors and say, “Well, I don't think my neighbor will vote for a woman, but I myself would do it.” […] It led them away from voting for the woman that they thought was best fit for the office, but ultimately they worried about their electability. And I think the only way that you counter the specter of electability is to just vote for the person that you think is most qualified, gender aside.
What? People didn’t vote for women because they didn’t think they would win?
Political commentator Danielle Moodie continued down lunacy lane: “… I think that we have to understand that we have deep seated misogyny inside of this country, right? […] I mean, they elected Donald Trump twice, which shows you that against very qualified, capable women, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, America chose Donald Trump.”
Laughable. Clinton, a name synonymous with scandal and establishment corruption, faced off with the outsider candidate. And Harris (who received exactly zero primary votes in 2024 and dropped out early in her 2020 candidacy), was given the vice presidency because Democrat voters demanded a black woman be selected.
And wasn’t like Americans were totally unwilling to elect either of those terrible options. In 2016, Trump actually lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly three million votes. And in 2024, he beat Harris in the popular vote by just over two million votes. Those weren’t blowout victories for Trump. So how was the United States deeply misogynistic when nearly half the voting population went for the female candidate, exactly?
Forward Party CEO Lindsey Drath mentioned some statistics, the most “disturbing” being that nearly 60 percent of young men believed men and women were equally suited to lead. According to her, this only proved, "we're going backwards right now […] and there's a lot of work that we need to do to elect women into positions of office across the country to dispel these misconceptions here and push back.”
Vitali came back with a bleak outlook on the American conception of the Presidency:
When you say President of the United States, the thing that jumps into everyone's mind is a man standing behind a podium with that seal of the Presidency on it. What women have to counter, and this is always the unquantifiable thing that swirls in the electability pot that men will never have to counter, which is that for women vying for the presidency, they are asking voters to imagine something that has never been.
Oh, heavens! Voters couldn’t possibly be expected to imagine a woman being President. These people can't imagine that people didn't want to vote for Hillary or Kamala because they didn't like liberal policies.
What a great start to the first full week of MS NOW (or as they might like it, Ms. NOW). Too bad flashy new graphics can’t hide ingrained idiocy!
The transcript is below. Click "expand" read:
MS NOW’s Ana Cabrera Reports
November 17, 2025
11:28:59 a.m. EST
(…)
ANA CABRERA: Ali, does what we're hearing now from the former First Lady, square it with what you hear from other women leaders there in Washington who may have aspirations for higher political office?
ALI VITALI: Look, I do think that there is this hangover effect, and I saw it when I was writing my book after the 2016 election. Every day during the 2020 campaign, these female candidates, more of whom ran in that Democratic primary than in any primary before, had to consistently confront this specter of electability simply because Hillary Clinton was the first female major party nominee, and then ultimately fell short of that final prize of breaking the glass ceiling into the Presidency.
The thing that I try to keep in mind, though — and again, I understand where this hangover, this concern, this handwringing comes from — is that women are electable simply if voters vote for them. And I think that one of the things that Michelle Obama touches upon is this idea that people might look at their neighbors and say, “Well, I don't think my neighbor will vote for a woman, but I myself would do it.” And it's that specter of uncertainty that ultimately led people away in 2020. And I met these voters. It led them away from voting for the woman that they thought was best fit for the office, but ultimately they worried about their electability. And I think the only way that you counter the specter of electability is to just vote for the person that you think is most qualified, gender aside.
And I do think that when you look at what happened in Virginia, it's a proof positive of the fact that when women run, they can win and that when they are in executive roles, the more of them who vie for those positions, the better it ultimately will be for the women who come after them.
CABRERA: We have seen so many women and there has been progress when it comes to women holding leadership offices in local, state government, also there in Congress, in the Senate, there have been huge strides. But still no woman elected President of the U.S.
Danielle, Michelle Obama's perception is actually backed up by numbers. Four in 10 Americans say they know someone who would not vote for a woman President, according to American University. Why? Why do you think that is? And where do we go from here?
DANIELLE MOODIE: I mean, I think that we have to understand that we have deep seated misogyny inside of this country, right? That there are things that we have seen, whether it was in the 2015 — 2016 election, 2024, that America does not see women in roles of power and leadership. I mean, they elected Donald Trump twice, which shows you that against very qualified, capable women, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, America chose Donald Trump.
And so, if we don't deal with the deep seated misogyny that this country, frankly, was built on, including racism, those are the two things that Kamala Harris had to overcome in 107 days. And so, those are real issues that we actually have to deal with and not just pretend they don't exist.
CABRERA: Lindsey, other countries have had female leaders. What's different about the U.S.?
LINDSEY DRATH: I'm so excited to be here to talk about this subject today, because I was at the Reykjavík Global Forum last week in Iceland, and it's a forum for women leaders across the country. Iceland has led on electing women into positions of power. And what's interesting is last week, listening to Danielle's comments just now, is they presented the Reykjavík Index, which is a study of how individuals, men and women, in countries across the world perceive the ability for men and women to lead equally. So, not just in positions of elected office, but also in business. And also as caregivers, when we talk about a care economy and the importance of electing women into elected office.
And when Danielle talks about 2016, actually we've seen a backslide since then in the perception of Americans, men and women, who feel that women are equally qualified to lead as men. So the high watermark on the Reykjavík global Index was in 2019, and 18 to 34 year olds, women — 83 percent of women thought that men and women were equally qualified to lead. This year, they just got those numbers back, and the numbers have gone down to 64, from 83 to 64 percent of women. And what's really interesting is it's actually more amongst younger voters, so you're looking at 18 to 34 year olds. What's really disturbing is the number that 58 percent of young men between the ages of 18 and 34 think that men and women are equally suited to lead. And the only G7 country that actually ranks behind us is Germany. So we’ve — we’re actually backsliding —
CABRERA: And Germany, which is also a country that's actually had a woman who led.
DRATH: Angela Merkel.
CABRERA: Yes.
DRATH: Yeah, so we're going backwards right now —
CABRERA: Huh, that’s so surprising.
DRATH: — and there's a lot of work that we need to do to elect women into positions of office across the country to dispel these misconceptions here and push back.
CABRERA: I mean, there's always been gender stereotypes —
DRATH: Absolutely.
CABRERA: — in terms of gender roles and where certain sexes belong in our society. And I have these conversations at home with my own kids, and I thought we were breaking through, Ali. My kids have said things that make me realize they don't have the same gender role stereotypes that my generation had, and yet now we see this backsliding.
We mentioned American University survey and the head pollster there said this, quote, and I think that this is important to note, “Voters trust women on the issues that matter most and want to see more women in office. Yet when asked about the [P]residency, bias and narrow expectations resurface.”
You were on the campaign trail, Ali —
VITALI: Yeah.
CABRERA: — for three Presidential election cycles. You've covered multiple women candidates. What have you seen and heard?
VITALI: Look, I think it can both be true that voters crave this kind of leadership, and yet, I remember writing about this in my book. When you say President of the United States, the thing that jumps into everyone's mind is a man standing behind a podium with that seal of the Presidency on it. What women have to counter, and this is always the unquantifiable thing that swirls in the electability pot that men will never have to counter, which is that for women vying for the presidency, they are asking voters to imagine something that has never been.
(…)
