I'm Margaret Talib. Welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story. Today's Tuesday,

November 23rd, and we're focused on how to bring grace to your Thanksgiving table.

America is so politically and culturally tribalized right now,

grace itself has become a loaded word.

Here's the perfect example.

In Congress, that shining example for America's youth,

a lawmaker was censured after tweeting an anime video,

depicting him killing another lawmaker,

and his reaction to the censure was to retweet the video.

If you thought the pandemic would restore our humanity, it turned out our disagreements over

everything just made it worse, over shutdowns, over masks, over vaccinations. What about inflation? What about

schools? This Thanksgiving, you may be among millions of people who are dreading a return to the

family table because you're going to have to interact with relatives with whom you may deeply disagree.

You might be worried they'll try to draw you into an argument you don't want to have.

You might be worried that sitting near them without telling them how wrong you think they are

is tantamount to validating beliefs that you oppose. Kirsten Powers is a USA Today columnist and a CNN

analyst, and she hit the bottom in her own struggles with that kind of judgment,

anxiety, and anger towards others a few years ago. And then she decided that the only way out

was for her to change the way she was processing these interactions. Her book, Saving Grace,

chronicles that journey, and I sat down with Kirsten to ask how she applies the idea of grace to the

holiday table. We're joined now by Kirsten Powers, author of Saving Grace. Thanks so much for

joining us, Kirsten. Hey, it's so great to be here. I'm excited about this conversation.

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