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“Coronavirus doesn’t watch Fox News.” · Pod Save America

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, a conversation I had on Friday
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: with Cal Cunningham, who's running against Tom Tillis for the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: North Carolina Senate seat that could give the Democrats the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: majority and cost Mitch McConnell his job as majority leader.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: I like him. I like the cut of his jib.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: He's great. And.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I don't have this in the outline, but also news today,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Steve Bullock is officially in. So Montana also in play now.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Hey, real quick, though. Shout out Chuck Schumer, who clearly
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: made a lot of these recruits get in the game.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Chuck got his got his men and women.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: We got to give Chuck some credit where credit is due.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But first, before that, we're going to talk about the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Trump administration's frighteningly incompetent response to the rapidly spreading coronavirus.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And we're going to take a look at this Tuesday
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: showdown between the last two Democratic candidates standing, Joe Biden
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: How was the show this weekend?
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: We had a great, love it or leave it, looking
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: at Super Tuesday and everything else that happened with Yasser
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: Lester and Megan Gailey. It was a cathartic, drunken experience.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: Check it out.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Ooh, that sounds great.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It's what happened.
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: They cut the part where I laid down on the ground.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: I was in a headspace. It was a strange week.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is a weird, weird week.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Also, some exciting news. The first two episodes of our
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: new sports podcast, Hall of Shame, are out today. Subscribe
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: now and make sure you stick around for the end
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of this episode where you can hear a short interview
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Lovett had with the show's hosts, Rachel Bonetta and Retina Fruckbaum.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It's an awesome show.
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: And if you don't believe me, just listen to how
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: funny and smart these hosts are when we talk to them.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: It's great. I think it's going to be a hit.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Yes, it is.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Let's start with the latest on the coronavirus outbreak. The
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: global pandemic has now affected more than 100,000 people and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: killed 3,800 people. Here in the U.S., we're now over
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: 500 confirmed cases across 33 states, with 20 Americans who've died.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: In northern Italy, the hardest-hit place outside of China, the
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: government has instituted a lockdown, which the leading U.S. official
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: for infectious diseases said might have to happen in certain
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: communities here. Probably less of a lockdown, but some social distancing.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci also recommended that the elderly and those with
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: underlying health conditions avoid travel and large public gatherings. Meanwhile,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: global stock markets are collapsing over the economic impact of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: coronavirus as well as an oil price war between Saudi
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Arabia and Russia. Trading was halted on Wall Street this
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: morning after the market plunged 1,800 points at the opening bell.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I think right now we're around down 2,000 as we
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: record this. And how is our president handling the crisis?
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yesterday he was golfing after holding a press conference at
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the CDC on Friday where he said this.
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: Anybody that needs a test can have a test.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: They're all set.
• 2:48
  Speaker 6: They have them out there. In addition to that, they're
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: making millions of more as we speak. But as of
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test, that's
• 2:56
  Speaker 6: the important thing. And the tests are all perfect. Like
• 3:00
  Speaker 6: the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. This was
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: not as perfect as that, but.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Pretty good.
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: We have great experts, including our vice president, who's working
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: 24 hours a.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: Day on this stuff. They would like to have the
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: people come off.
• 3:17
  Speaker 6: I'd rather have the people stay, but.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: I'd go with them.
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: I told them to make the final decision. I would
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: rather because I like the numbers being where they are.
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: I don't need to have the numbers double because of
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: one ship. That wasn't our fault.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Guys, initial reactions?
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: I think it was a mistake to have Donald Trump
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: be president during this crisis.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: There's so much back patting. There's so much congratulating for
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: working hard. Yeah, there's a global pandemic. It's kind of
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: priced in. Yeah, go to the office. That'd be great.
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, look, the strange word association that, you know, obviously
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: tests weren't available.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: That was a lie.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: They still aren't for anyone who wants them.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, they are shipping, you know, a lot of
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: tests now. There was a huge delay caused by the
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: Trump administration's incompetence. The fact that his brain... makes the
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: word perfect come out to describe his conduct, and then
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: he immediately goes to his perfect call. The perfect, you know,
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: as we all know, the classic phrase, it was as
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: perfect as my call with Ukraine, which is in a
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: sense true. They're both, you know, historic blunders and a
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: sign of deep inherent narcissism and corruption. But yeah, no,
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's a dystopian image, all of these people
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: around Donald Trump praising him to to the high heavens
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: in the hopes that he might let them say something true.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: It's a small point, too, but he's wearing a Make
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: America Great Again hat during his CDC headquarters briefing, which
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: is just probably illegal under the hat jack. It's incredibly inappropriate.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: And like, come on, man.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: But I mean, there are like, there's a couple of
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: buckets of screw ups here. There are things that his
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: technocratic scientific health leadership team did that were mistakes that
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: set us back weeks. And then there's clearly a series
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: of decisions that flowed from Trump's desire to downplay this
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: pandemic that had a cascading effect that has left us
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: in a terrible, terrible position to deal with this virus. And,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you know, what has been also obvious at all these
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: press events is he cares more about the economic impact
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: because that has clear political consequences for him. So you
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: have to imagine that the White House is panicking right now,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: watching the markets down 7% today, when on Friday, the
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Larry Kudlow has ripped from the CNBC Green Room economic advisor,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: said now's a good time to buy the stock market
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: dip because we have this thing contained.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I think Trump saying that he didn't want the Americans
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: brought ashore from the cruise ship because he doesn't want
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the numbers to go up because he likes the numbers down.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I think that is indicative of how he has fucked
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: up the entire response to this crisis, which is he
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: only views it through the prism of his own political
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: standing and how it's going to look. And so therefore
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: he continues to downplay the severity of the crisis because
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: he's worried that he's worried what Tommy said about the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: economic implications, but also if it looks like more Americans
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: have the virus, that looks bad because Trump told us,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of course, a couple of weeks ago that there were
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: only 15 cases and it would be down to zero soon.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Larry Kudlow also said that it was being contained. Kellyanne
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Conway said it was being contained. The administration's telling people
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it's being contained. That isn't true. I mean, there's a
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: couple of things he's done here, right? Like there was
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a number of, uh, really great tech talks of how
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the administration, uh, has handled this, mishandled this over the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: last couple of weeks in Politico. Uh, Dan Diamond wrote
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: one there. And then in the Washington Post and the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: New York Times, basically the story is like he yelled
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: at experts who told him bad news. He doesn't want
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: bad news. And so the staff is now the administration officials,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the nonpolitical administration officials are afraid to tell him that
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: they're conditioned. They're conditioned, right? Cause he doesn't want it. Um,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: They said the tests would be ready. They weren't. They
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: were slow on the testing. They could have eliminated regulations
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that would have allowed private companies to do testing weeks
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and weeks ago. They just did it late last week.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So they were late there. And basically, if he had
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: talked about the severity of the crisis earlier, hospitals, other
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: health care facilities could have been prepared. they could have
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: started buying more respirators, getting more hospital beds, more staffing.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: They could have been prepared earlier than they have been.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, also, personnel is policy, right? And so
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: from the very beginning of this, technocratic leadership at places
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: like CDC have been muzzled because they've been speaking hard truths.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: And then on top of that, the presidential personnel office
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: is being filled with Trump fans, right? He just brought
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: back his body guy who had been fired for some reason.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: He's now in charge. There's a report in Politico saying,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: that the latest presidential personnel office hire is a 23-year-old
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: college senior. That's how unserious they are about staffing the
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: government with people who know what they're doing.
• 7:56
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Apparently, Trump aides were mocking Alex Azar, the Health and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Human Services Secretary, for being alarmist about this, mocking him
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: because they're a bunch of children.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: I mean, Trump has been furious at some of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: career officials, actual medical experts, for telling the truth before
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: getting ahead of the administration and being honest, right? I mean,
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: it's not just that when these people were saying it
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: was contained, it was rosy, it was unknowable and not true.
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: And it's because they were worried, not just, they're not
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: just thinking politically. They're not only thinking about PR. They're
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: thinking about PR in an incredibly narrow and foolish and
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: short-sighted way.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Right. Even if you wanted, even if you said, okay,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: they just want to think about the political implications and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the public opinion, all that stuff, they're still doing it wrong.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: They're still doing it wrong.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's like, you know, let's say Donald Trump
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: was just, all I care about is winning. What do
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: I need to do to win? A a smart political
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: person would say, you need to be honest now to
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: create the conditions for you to demonstrate that you're doing
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: a good job managing this over the long term. because
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: the coronavirus doesn't watch Lou Dobbs and doesn't respect Republican
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: talking points. So if you don't get ahead of this now,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: everything you're doing to be rosy will make you look
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: that much dumber in a week's time.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: It's what you said last pod, which is it's short-termism, right?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It's like, I just got to get through today and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: tomorrow and win this news cycle, and I don't have
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: to worry about what's happening down the road. So there
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was an AP report. A government official told the Associated
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Press that the White House overruled health officials who wanted
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to recommend that elderly people and physically fragile Americans be
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: advised not to fly. So this story comes out. And
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of course, Fauci on Meet the Press on Sunday basically
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: gave that recommendation anyway. So the recommendation came out, but
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: now they look like they covered it up because they
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: did cover it up.
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Containment buys you time. You can stop flights to China
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: and maybe get yourself a couple of weeks before the
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: outbreak grows. But any public health expert could have told
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: you for months now that this was inevitable, that there
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: was going to be a massive global spread of this disease.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: And so On top of what you guys were mentioning,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, when Congress first started talking about some sort
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: of a package of funds to deal with this crisis,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Trump literally made fun of Chuck Schumer at a press
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: conference for proposing $ 8 billion when what he wanted was
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: basically $ 2. 5 billion, half of it stolen from other programs.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: So from the very beginning, they've minimized this in very
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: real ways that have had a cascading effect. And now
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: here we are.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And to tell you how bad that is, They passed
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the $ 8 billion. Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, found
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: out that New York was only getting $ 35 million of
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the $ 8 billion. And now he's pissed at even the
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: bigger package that Democrats in Congress agree to because New
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: York now has a crisis on their hands and they
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: don't have enough money to handle it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: And by the way, the debate about $ 2 billion versus
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: $ 8 billion is going to seem like nothing. When due
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: to the mismanagement of the Trump administration, we start talking
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: about a massive stimulus to help the economy when people
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: can't go to work, when kids can't go to school
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: and parents have to stay home. When people have to
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: cancel their shifts because they can't do food service work
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: and they don't have any money to get them through
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: the periods of time when they can't go to work
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: or they're desperately trying to figure out if they can
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: work when they're sick.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Never mind all the associated health care costs.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: All the associated health care costs.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Literally trillions and trillions of dollars in value of the
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: stock market have just been wiped out.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: And look, we don't know how bad this is going
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: to be. But, you know, in that same press conference
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: where Trump made fun of Chuck Schumer for wanting the money, Azar.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: After getting down on his knees and kissing Trump's feet
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: and telling the dear leader how marvelous he was doing, said,
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: thanks to President Trump, his actions have bought us time.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: Because even then, they knew that what was coming was
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: going to be really serious. And why is buying time
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: so important? Well, we don't know how big the peak
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: of this is going to be. But if you can
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: spread it out over time, maybe our healthcare system can
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: have the capacity to deal with it. And because because
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: we have no idea how far this has spread because
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: there was so little testing, we do not know just
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: how bad a position the administration has put us in
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: and that people who are sick may not be able
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: to get the care they need in the emergency that
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: may be coming.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Hey, love it. You practiced social distancing in high school.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Can you describe that to listeners?
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: What was that?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: Well, basically what happens is a really cool girl waves
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: at you and you wave back and she says, I'm
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: waving at someone behind you and then repeat that every
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: day for years.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Some social distancing can be spent in a locker or.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Or a recycling bin.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Or a recycling bin.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Or playing Mario 64 during your prom.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Listen, nothing wrong with that.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: So there's another danger here, which is that because Trump
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: is downplaying the crisis, his propaganda outlets are doing the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: same thing. Laura Ingraham said Democrats are using the pandemic
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to smear the administration. Sean Hannity said the left is
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: rooting for the coronavirus. And Medal of Freedom winner Rush
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Limbaugh said the coronavirus is just like the common cold.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Also.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Both CNN and MSNBC have run clips of Trump supporters
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: outside a Trump rally saying that coronavirus is, quote, a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: hoax made up by the Democrats. Now, this is, in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the age of Trump, I think this is something relatively
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: new that we may now have a, you know, global
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: pandemic in this crisis where, you know, a whole segment
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: of the American population who gets their news and information
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: from propaganda outlets just doesn't take the proper steps and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: precautions because they don't believe it to be true.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: The Trump administration has been shitting on globalism for a
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: long time. And there's a healthy dose of anti-Semitism in there.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: There's a bunch of nationalist MAGA bullshit. But it's quite
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: frustrating when you think about these challenges because it is
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: a global world. And Republicans are willing to talk about
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: targeting terrorist groups overseas so that they don't come here.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: We need to apply that kind of approach to the
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: logic when you're talking about global climate change or disease
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: mitigation like this. But for some reason, it just gets
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: demagogued and dismissed. And then on top of that, we
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: have these insane conspiracy theories that are not inconsequential, right?
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: QAnon went from a thing that people scoffed at and
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: mocked to omnipresent at Trump rallies. And it's a deeply
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: scary theory when you really dig into the details. So
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I suspect these conspiracy theories are going to grow and
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: get worse.
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: It's also, you know, again, the coronavirus doesn't listen to
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Rush Limbaugh. And Rush Limbaugh's audience, Laura Ingraham's audience, Sean
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: Hannity's audience, these.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Are older people.
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: These are people whose immune systems are not receptive.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: To these arguments.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: And Scott Gottlieb, who's a former FDA commissioner, I believe,
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: gave a pretty chilling interview on one of the Sunday shows.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: By the way, former FDA commissioner under the first two
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: years of Trump.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: And he said, basically, this is not the flu. This
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: is far more serious than the flu. And the inability
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: of experts to overcome... what the right-wing media is trying
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: to do inside the administration, outside of the administration, is
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: a genuinely dangerous and new aspect of how this is
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: going to just make life worse for everybody.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, a few examples. Matt Gaetz mocked coronavirus by
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: wearing like this big gas mask the other day. And,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the first people who died in
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Florida was in his district. CPAC, Conservative Political Action Committee,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: had their conference. And One of the attendees at CPAC
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: has now tested positive for coronavirus, and Ted Cruz was
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: there and had contact with the man, and he's now
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: self-quarantined for this week.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Paul Gosar, a member of Congress, a couple days ago tweeted,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: for a moment I thought Donald Trump created this virus
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: in a secret lab in Wuhan. At least that's how
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: the Democrats, hysterical Dems, make it sound. Remember when Obama
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: brought in Ebola patients at good times? Now he is self-quarantined.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Maybe we could take our jobs seriously.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Republican member of Congress. Right. No one needs to panic.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And we should just, like, listen to experts. But we should, like,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: when the experts speak, don't call it a fucking hoax.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: And we should talk about how the non-Trump media is
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: covering this, too. Last week, Trump told this complete lie
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: that the testing delay was Obama's fault. And the New
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: York Times headline was, quote, criticized for coronavirus response. Trump
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: points to Obama administration. You have to get to the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: third paragraph. And even then, it just says, quote, it
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: was not entirely clear what he was referring to. How
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: should the media cover a president who's just lying to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the public during a global pandemic?
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: I don't think that's the right way. When Donald Trump
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: is flailing and making things up on the fly, you
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: don't have to pretend that you just couldn't put enough
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: researchers on the case to get what he was referring to.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: And one of the authors of that story, Peter Baker,
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: famously talks about how hard he works not to form
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: his own opinions online. to not even discuss political matters
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: when he is in private, to not vote. And Peter,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: if your mind is so open that your brain falls
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: out of your head and into the fucking sewer, maybe
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: there's just some utility to being a little bit critical
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: of what you're told, given that you're the paper of
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: the record and one of the most important places people
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: get information about a ongoing pandemic.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I just think on a normal day,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: just sort of uncritically repeating Trump's lies is shitty journalism.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: And it's, you see it all the time, especially on
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: social media feeds for news outlets. Like Trump says that Obama,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: you know, killed an innocent person, you know, something ridiculous
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: and just gets repeated. And we need to fact check
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: it in the first instance, because it doesn't matter if
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: you have one story in the paper, that's just the
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: crazy attack on Obama from Trump. But then the lead
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: all is a bigger analysis about the way he lies.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: In this social media driven world, the Trump campaign can
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: take the story that blames Obama and put a couple
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars behind it on Facebook and boost it
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: to all these people. So when Trump is spinning like
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: dangerous health information, I think we have an extra obligation
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: to fact check that on the front end or not
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: even report it. You don't have to repeat crazy lies.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: He says a lot of crap all day.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I realize it's important to cover what the president says, right?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Of course you have to do that, but you don't
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: have to cover every single word. You don't have to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: cover every single lie. Look, Trump's out there. This morning
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: he was having a complete breakdown on Twitter. He's tweeting
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: how many times this is fake news, everything's fine. Of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: course it is the job of the press in a
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: time like this, in the midst of a public health crisis,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to call that out. If that's not their job, I
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: don't know what is.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: I'd also just say, too, what's the biggest story right now?
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: about Donald Trump? Is it the precise attacks he launched today?
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: There was one about Elizabeth Warren. There was one about
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: Chuck Schumer. There was one about Barack Obama. There's one
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: about the fake news. There's one about lies about the market.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: There's one about gas prices. It was all this morning.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: What's the most important thing about what Donald Trump did today?
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: Is it the substance of what he's saying, or is
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: it the fact of of in the midst of a crisis,
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: we have someone desperately looking for ways to blame others.
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: To me, that seems to me to be the most
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: important thing.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: And to protect himself.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: And to protect himself.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: That to me seems to be the most important thing,
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: not in a partisan way, not in an ideological way,
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: just the fact of what we are going through, a
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: global pandemic, the president is flailing and looking for someone
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: to blame. Who he's blaming is such a second order
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: concern compared to having an incompetent commander-in-chief trying to treat
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: this like a PR crisis.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the most important stories over the weekend were those
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: TikToks that the New York Times did an excellent one
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and the Post and the Politico about all these administration
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: officials who are trying to do the right thing and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: are afraid because Donald Trump is only concerned about his
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: own political future that he's not listening to them. That's
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the most important story to know.
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: In one of the stories, I believe it was the Times,
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: looking at the mismanagement and decision-making process over the last
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: few days, by the way, in that story mentioned in
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: passing that one of the key voices in making the
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: decision as to whether or not to allow travel from
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: China was Kellyanne Conway. Glad she's on the phone case.
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: That's really good to get her expert take. But also
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: it just included in passing that Trump's press conference at
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: the CDC was rambling. And one of the hard parts
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: I think about, and I don't begrudge the way in
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: which reporters have to do this, is the need to
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: just simply impose order on what Trump says. Some hides
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: just how lost and meandering his words have been in
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: the past few days. And so the imposing of a
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: narrative on what Trump says, even that Peter Baker story
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: talking about Trump launching an attack against Obama, his behavior
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: has been erratic and hard to follow, misleading lies, contradicting
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: experts who are standing right next to him. And that,
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: to me, is a big part of this, too.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what Democrats should be saying and doing here.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Last night, Pelosi and Schumer put out a pretty strong
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: statement hitting Trump for considering more corporate tax breaks instead
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of things like paid sick leave for people who are
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: sick or quarantined, expanded unemployment insurance, protections for health care workers,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: free testing and care for people who have the virus,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: more money for hospitals, etc., etc. What else do you
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: guys think? How do you think Democrats should be handling this?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, if there is not a way for people
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: who work hourly jobs to survive, to pay their rent,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: to put food on the table, to pay for childcare
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: while they have this virus, they are going to go
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: to work. And we have no hope of preventing the
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: spread of this thing unless paid sick leave is on
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: the table. So I feel like that has to be
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: the thing that Democrats absolutely go to the mat to
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: fight for. Not just you know, aid to US energy producers.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: There's a whole separate problem happening right now that we
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: haven't talked about. Over the weekend, the Saudis and the
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Russians got into a massive oil price war where the
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Saudis basically said, fuck you to OPEC. We're going to
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: cut prices. We're going to increase output. And what they're
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: trying to do is so thoroughly collapse the price of
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: oil that US energy producers just can't function anymore. So
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: they drive them out of business. So all the fracking
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: and all the sort of ways that the US has
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: become energy independent recently go away. So that's happening in
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: the background. And Trump's trying to tweet that that's good
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: for the nation and that gas prices will go down.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: But in the long term, it's incredibly destabilizing. So what
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: you're just seeing out right now is reporting that some
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: of the latest ideas lead with aid to energy producers,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: support to small businesses, help the airline industry, which frankly
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: will probably have to get bailed out because who the
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: hell is going to fly right now? But we have
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: to help hourly workers first and foremost.
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I think that No one should be
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: rooting for a recession and obviously no one should be
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: causing panic that is unnecessary. But in every way that
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: is warranted, Democrats should take this up to an 11
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: here because you have a president who is massively mishandling
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a really serious public health crisis and also a president
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: who now we could be headed into a recession and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: has no idea how to handle anything and is basically
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: only thinking about everything through the lens of what's going
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to get me reelected in November. And he is sitting
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: here talking about tax breaks for, you know, airline industry
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and for energy producers and all this other shit when
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Democrats should be standing up for most of the workers
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and people in this country who could be hurt by this,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: both from a healthcare perspective and from an economic perspective.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And like, I have just not, I mean, I think
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders should both be talking about
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: this nonstop. I think every candidate who's dropped out and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: is now a surrogate should be talking about this. I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: think every member of Congress should go on TV.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: It's a competence argument. He is incompetent. These people are
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: incapable of running the government.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that should be everyone's message over and over again.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: He disbanded, because it was from Obama, the team that
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: would have handled a pandemic inside the White House. He,
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: in the midst of a period of time where there
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: was absolutely no economic justification for it, passed a massive
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: tax cut for the biggest corporations and the wealthiest people
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: in this country, that created a trillion dollar hole. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: now at a moment where we really may be in
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: a crisis, where we really may need the government to
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: step in, they have already pulled a bunch of those levers.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: And now they're going to try to do it again
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: to pay another corporate tax cut instead of paid leave,
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: instead of just help for people, tax rebate, what have you,
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: but that their first instinct is to protect the airlines,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: protect the corporations instead of ordinary people is despicable.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats should dictate the demand, what's in the stimulus.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: And they should because there's probably going to be a
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: bigger package debated, and Trump's going to try to just
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: do the bare minimum for most people in this country
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and try to do whatever it takes to sort of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: calm the stock market. And Democrats should, you know, it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: good that Schumer and Pelosi got out ahead of this
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: last night, and Democrats should be demanding all of those
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: priorities in any kind of recovery stimulus, whatever you want
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to call it, package that comes, and not move on that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: And just one thing I'd love to say. So after
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: the Ebola crisis in 2014, Ron Klain, who coordinated that response,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: told President Obama, hey, you probably shouldn't hire someone like
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: me every time there's a pandemic, right? We should have
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: a full-time person who works on this who prepares. Because
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: a pandemic response is a global effort that requires the
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: entire government and requires dealing with foreign governments, et cetera.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: So they created a person on the National Security Council
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: and a team there that handled pandemic response. Trump got
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: rid of them, right? On top of that, there's been
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: budget after budget after budget of CDC cuts. So there's
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: the near-term fuck-ups, and then there's this much more probably
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: impactful long-term gutting of public health infrastructure, gutting of a
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: program that was designed to identify diseases that jump from
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: animals to humans that was set up during the Bush administration.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: They got rid of that. That one feels a little
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: on the nose to me. Maybe a bad idea in hindsight.
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: Not to mention, by the way, desperately trying to throw
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: people off their health care. by trying to get rid
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: of the Affordable Care Act in the midst of a
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: moment where what we need is for everyone to be
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: able to access care.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Which, again, Democrats, you know, are in a position to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: be talking about. This is the, this should be the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: whole story. And everyone should get on TV and be
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: talking about it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You know, and I think talking about it more than
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: we're about to talk about sort of the differences between
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, which, you know, of course
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: we have to talk about, we're in the middle of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: this primary, but I do think, you know, If you're
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a Democrat out there, if you're on Twitter, you're going
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: on TV, you should be talking about what is a
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: massive public health and growing economic crisis in this country
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and Trump's mismanagement of it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: And it does go to a broader vision and difference
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: between what Trump offers and Democrats offer. Crisis aside, when
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: people get sick and have to go to work, that
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: is a problem all the time.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: All the time.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: It is a problem every flu season. It is a
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: problem every cold season. And we just ignore it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And we can't.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the Democratic primary, which is
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: down to just two candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: The two men will compete on Tuesday in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: North Dakota, and Washington State, where 352 delegates are up
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: for grabs. Sanders is favored in Idaho and North Dakota.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Biden is favored in Mississippi and Missouri, while Washington and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Michigan are competitive, though a few polls out today with
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: huge Biden leads show that might not be true anymore.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: The former vice president has around a 90-delegate lead on Sanders.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: And they're still counting votes in California. Guys, what kind
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of wins does Bernie need to narrow Joe Biden's delegate
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: lead right now?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I think he needs to win over 50 percent of
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: all the remaining delegates right to win.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was at 55 last time.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And so that's why these these numbers today are
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: a huge problem for Bernie Sanders. I mean, the challenge
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: is in some of the biggest states, if you win
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: by a small margin, you don't net that many delegates.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: but in a state like Mississippi that has 30 delegates
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: at stake, if Joe Biden wins that with 77 or
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: 80% of the vote, he could net 30 delegates out
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: of Mississippi, which puts it on par with, you know,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: a Texas victory or, you know, it's a couple, it's
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: not that many delegates away from the California victory. So
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Biden could rack up a huge lead here.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I did a little math. I played around with the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: delegate calculator on 270 to win. So Bernie could pick
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: up about 40 delegates if he wins Michigan and Washington
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: by 10 points, which would be hard, but let's give
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: him– this is the best outcome for Bernie. He wins
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Washington by 10 points and North Dakota and
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Idaho by 40 points because they're smaller states. He has
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: a bigger lead there, right? So then he would pick
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: up 40 delegates. But then Joe Biden can also pick
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: up 40 delegates by winning Mississippi and Missouri by his
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: current polling margins. And so that means we would end
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the day with Biden still 90 delegates ahead because it
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: would be a wash. And that's like one of the
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: best cases scenarios for Bernie. So you can start to
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: see and we talked about this before Super Tuesday. You
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can start to see why building even a modest delegate
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: lead early in a Democratic primary with proportional allocation of delegates,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it becomes really hard to catch the delegate leader early.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And this is why we thought Bernie Sanders might come
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: out of Super Tuesday with an insurmountable delegate lead, even
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: if it was only 100 or 200 delegates over the
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: next candidate.
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: And that would have been a challenge for any candidate.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: It's an even bigger challenge for Bernie Sanders when the
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: states that follow Super Tuesday are more demographically favorable to
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the worst two states he's got coming is Florida
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: on the 17th, where he's polling very poorly, and then
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Georgia a week later. which, you know, if it votes
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: like all the other Southern states, he's going to have trouble.
• 28:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: And for what it's worth, the 538 model currently gives
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: Biden an 88% chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: That is a massive swing from where we were before
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Super Tuesday. There was enormous strength for Joe Biden among
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: African-American voters in a lot of these states, and then
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: a very rapid consolidation for Joe Biden among late deciders.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: And It seems like the Sanders campaign is going after
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Biden on a whole bunch of fronts, Social Security, a
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: bunch of previous votes. But it's unclear to me what's sticking.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And frankly, making something stick, getting people's attention in a
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: media environment that is dominated by coronavirus seems challenging as well.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about Bernie's strategy. He ditched an event
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: in Mississippi and was focused on Michigan over the weekend
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: where he was endorsed by Reverend Jesse Jackson. He's also
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: been running ads and giving speeches, as you mentioned, Tommy,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: that focus mostly on Joe Biden's record on Social Security, NAFTA. Iraq,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: LGBT rights, and women's reproductive rights, essentially pointing out that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Biden's past positions as a senator aren't in line with
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the mainstream of the Democratic Party today. What do you
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: think about that strategy?
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: I think it's half of what we've been talking, we've
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: been talking about this for a while. I mean, you know,
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: he's launching a pretty hard you know, a contrast against
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden. But the other half of that is a
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: broader message to appeal to more people than what he's
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: appealed to so far. And I don't know that we've
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: seen that. I also, at this point, you know, in
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: the week before Super Tuesday, everyone was like, we are
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: heading towards Bernie Sanders likely having a delegate lead coming
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: out of Super Tuesday. But there was a lot of
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: things we couldn't foresee and things we weren't seeing. And
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: so Joe Biden wins South Carolina. There's this incredible consolidation
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: and he performs incredibly well, surprisingly everybody with just how
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: well he does on Super Tuesday. We're about to have
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: another set of votes tomorrow and in the days that follow.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: And it seems to me that what we are talking
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: about is whether or not there's another big change that
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: we're currently not seeing.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: That's all.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: And if there is, Bernie Sanders can do this. If not,
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: I don't, doesn't, the message, the direction, the strategy seems
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: to me almost beside the point.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: It's been very hard to get people to Worry about
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: old votes. I think it's likely that most people who
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: are going to the polls know that Joe Biden supported
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: the Iraq war. And to date, that hasn't really impacted
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: their votes seemingly. You know, and I do think if
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: you dig deep enough in someone's past, they've said things
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: that make them seem inconsistent or out of step with
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: current times. And I think voters intuitively understand that. There's
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: some allowance for tacking to the middle in a general election,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: and I think we're seeing that. I mean, people think
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: they know Joe Biden. He was Barack Obama's vice president.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: They like him. They think he's nice. They know his
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: family story. That can, I think, go a lot further,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: especially on voters who aren't paying attention day to day,
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: hour to hour, than dredging up old votes. I'm not
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: saying it's out of bounds for Bernie Sanders to do that.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: They absolutely should talk about policy contrast. I'm just wondering
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: about the efficacy.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is completely fair of Bernie Sanders
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to talk about Joe Biden's record, 100%. On Social Security,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: for example, he's running a clip of Joe Biden in
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: 1995 talking about a 1984 proposal that he had to
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: freeze Social Security spending for a year. And then other
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: times in Joe Biden's career, he's talked about perhaps raising
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the retirement age or stopping sort of cost of living increase,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: slowing cost of living increases for Social Security. The tricky
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: part about that is a couple things. The Biden campaign
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: can point to, and they have, many, many votes over
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's long career where he has not only protected
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Social Security but expanded it, even though he's talked about
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: making these modifications that you can certainly classify as cuts. And,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: sort of what Tommy was saying, you know, if Joe
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Biden had just been a senator for his whole life
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: and then was running for president, it might be easier
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: to point to all of his old Senate votes and
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: have them stick. But, there was this thing in between
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: where he was Barack Obama's vice president for eight years,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and most Democratic voters, you know, saw Barack Obama as
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: plenty liberal enough, plenty progressive enough, and Joe Biden was
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: his vice president and agreed with him on just about every,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: in fact, on LGBT rights, got out ahead of Barack
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Obama on gay marriage, you know? So I just think
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: it's totally fair for Bernie to go down this road,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: but it is, I wonder how how it will be
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: able to stick.
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I do think, I think it's actually
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: fair on a number of levels. I actually think the
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: deeper critique of Joe Biden, which I think is what
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: undergirds this, is also completely fair, which is Joe Biden
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: has been for a very long time a consensus Democratic politician,
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: well within the mainstream of where the party is. And
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: where the party has been is to the right of
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: where the party is today and where Bernie Sanders has
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: always been. Bernie Sanders has been saying for a very
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: long time, we're too far right on this issue, on
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: Social Security, on health care, on what have you, on trade.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: and Joe Biden has been where the party is. The
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: issue right now is where the party is has moved
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: to the left, in part because of the leadership of
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: Bernie Sanders over the last four years.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Well, the other problem is Joe Biden has moved with it.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's what I'm saying.
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: He is where the party consensus is. He is the
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: consensus candidates. Why all these people got behind him? And
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: where that consensus is kind of answers the Bernie critique.
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: He can just say, in the same way that Joe
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: Biden can say to Bernie, you had these terrible gun votes,
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: and Bernie can say, but now look where I'm at.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: Biden can say, oh, you had these, you know, Bernie
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: can say you've had these terrible Social Security votes and
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: Biden can say, well, look where I'm at.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Now, one thing that Bernie can do and he has done,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: but maybe not as much, at least that I've noticed
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: over the last week, is use those, use his positions
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and Biden's positions to make more of an electability case
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and say, look, we want someone running against Trump who
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: has a clear case on, you know, I've supported Social
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Security and wanted to expand Social Security my entire career.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants to cut it. And it's not as
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: clean of a case if you have Biden who has
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: some of these votes.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And I still think, I mean, it's a little harder
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: to make that case, but, you know, it's an electability case.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: And again, as we've seen from all the results so far,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: electability is on people's minds. And so whatever sort of
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: electability case you make and everyone can make different cases.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: it ends up being important to voters.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if Bernie Sanders went out and said,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: I can make an argument against Donald Trump on trade
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: that is clean and clear and direct to the American
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: people that I think will help me win, that's powerful.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: I think he can say, I have a cleaner record
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: on social security, though not perfect, than Joe Biden, and
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: I'll make that fight against Donald Trump. That may be effective.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: I think it requires focus. I think when you attack
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: someone on everything, lots of old votes, it can feel
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: like a kitchen sink strategy. And then it's just worth
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: noting that, you know, Bernie's online supporters, the Bernie Sanders
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: aligned media, is going after Biden in much shittier, more
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: personal ways that are much less founded in fact. So
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: there is this cacophony of attacks on Joe Biden happening
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: right now, and it can feel like a wash.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the other strategy that's coming from Bernie's campaign,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: is basically contrasting his fitness for the job with Joe Biden's.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Over the weekend, Bernie's campaign manager, Fash Shakir, tweeted, quote,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Bernie has three public events just today in two different states,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: each speaking engagement extending for close to an hour. This
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: was in response to a report that Biden only spoke
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: for seven minutes at a campaign rally in St.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: Louis.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: And in response to a new DNC debate rule that
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: would have both Biden and Bernie seated, Bernie's campaign advisor,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Jeff Weaver, said, quote, Why does Joe Biden not want
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to stand toe to toe with Senator Sanders on the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: debate stage March 15th? Bernie was later asked by Jake
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Tapper if he thinks Biden isn't up to the task
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of being president. And Bernie said he believes he is
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: up to the task. and said he believes that Biden
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: can beat Trump. So is this a wise fight for
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the campaign to have here?
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Bernie knows the stakes.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: He does.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And Bernie understands.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: What's at stake.
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: And I say this not as an advocate for Joe Biden,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: but for someone who's now looking at a situation where
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden is more likely than Bernie Sanders to be
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: the nominee. You know, we are all playing sort of
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: with live ammo. And, you know, it's the flip side.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: So Bernie says, look at Joe's old position on Social Security.
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: And Joe says, here's where I'm at now. There's a
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: kind of phalanx online that says Joe Biden doesn't really
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: mean it. What he really means is he wants to
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: cut Social Security. And this is sort of the is
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden up for the job version of that debate.
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: Bernie's going to say he is. There's going to be
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: a bunch of people online that says he isn't. And
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: to me, right now, it's like we have these two
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: candidates and they both have strengths and they both have
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: incredible weaknesses. They're going to go toe to toe. And
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: if what Bernie Sanders wants to do is say, you
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: should have buyer's remorse. Joe Biden is too weak to
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: do this job. He is unable to give the kind
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: of direct message speeches. He is not doing enough public events.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: He's lost a step. You can't trust him to be
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: the one to get us over the mantle. It is
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: another version of the critique he's offering now on personality,
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: now on fitness. But it still leaves open this question
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: as why now, right at the end, do we have
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: a bunch of people desperately trying to find a safe
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: place for their vote? not seeing Bernie Sanders as the
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: safe place to put that vote.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: The other thing is 15 million people watched the last
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: democratic debate where Joe Biden stood there for two hours
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and debated. And a lot of people thought debated well.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And then on super Tuesday, uh, So far, 4.8 million
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: people voted for Joe Biden, which was about a million
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: more than voted for Bernie Sanders. The idea that this
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: is somehow hidden from people, right? We have seen a
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: lot of Joe Biden speeches. I have seen a lot
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: of Joe Biden speeches over this campaign. And usually, they're
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: way too fucking long.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: We've been the ones saying we want to hear a
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: tight message speech.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: And I have to say, I looked. And yes, at
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the St. Louis event, he gave a seven-minute speech in
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Kansas City later in the day. It was an 18,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: 19 minute speech, right? So there's one speech that we're
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: talking about here. And then on the debate thing, this
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: was CNN and the DNC that decided these debate rules
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that now that there's down to two competitors, they would
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: sit down. David Plouffe pointed out online that in 2008,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: three of the four one-on-one debates between Barack Obama and
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton were seated debates.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: It just happens.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: So it's like, again, all three of us have criticized
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's debate performances many, many times throughout the course
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: of this primary debate. But like, I don't think we
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: should be now looking for random things like a debate
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: rule and a one seven minute speech to sort of
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: make the argument.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Listen, I've watched the Joe Biden debate performances several times
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: and it's made me cringe. I worry more broadly about
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: his message discipline. I think the week leading up to
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: South Carolina showed a different candidate that was far more impressive. But,
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: you know, I also think the discussion around does our
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: candidate have the stamina to be on the campaign trail
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: all day, every day? is a fair thing to discuss
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: in something that's important. But what's happening online is very different.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: People are circulating selectively edited clips to argue that Joe
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Biden is somehow not up for the job. And when
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: you point out to them, hey, maybe we should ask
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: the journalists who have been on the road with him
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: every day for a year plus what they think, they say,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: fuck you. I know what I see with my own
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: eyes because some random Twitter account tweeted it out. And
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I think That is a very gross way to approach politics.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: It's also, you know, Joe Biden has been a rambling
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: gaffe machine for four decades.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: How old is he?
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: 78?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Seven decades.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: And he's also someone who has talked about his lifelong
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: struggle with a stutter. There was a, I think, very
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: nuanced and thoughtful piece about this in The Atlantic. I'm
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: not going to diagnose Joe Biden from afar, but I
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: do think that the point that that piece made by
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: someone who has struggled with this himself is maybe as
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: he has gotten older, it has been, and he is
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: tired and he's on the trail. He is overcoming his
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: stutter once again. And for people to take all of
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: that together and try to diagnose somebody from afar, I
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: think is really irresponsible.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: It's gross.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: And also like you look, you know, sometimes you look
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: at him and maybe he's having trouble reading off a prompter.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: And now I think all of us, a lot of
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Democrats in particular, have seen anecdotes that come out in
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: books that say, Omarosa said that Donald Trump talks in
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: circular ways and repeats the same story every 10 minutes.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: And you wonder like, Is this guy sundowning? We've talked
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: about it on the show. Other people have online. That's
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: a different thing, though. If the closest people to Joe
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Biden were leaking anecdotes like this to newspapers, I'd be
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: really fucking worried. I'd be talking about it. But when
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Biden sucks 420 is tweeting out some selectively edited clip
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: that I find a little distasteful.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: But again, it's just like take it up with the
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Democratic voters, people like you can't argue. Joe Biden was
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: on stage seven times for two to three hours each
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: time in this debate. Everyone has watched him this whole primary,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and then they went and voted for him. They voted
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: for him more than other candidates.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Also, let me do one other point about this.
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: I don't want to live in a gerontocracy where our
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: final three choices are going to be a 78-year-old, a 77-year-old,
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: and a 73-year-old fast food enthusiast who's never seen a treadmill. Like,
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: I don't like that this is where we're living. But, like,
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: Bernie Sanders had a heart attack pretty recently. You know,
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump has been lying about his health results. We
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: do not know how healthy Donald Trump is or isn't.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden is now facing these attacks from the left
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: because he's now consolidated support, and it looks like he
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: may become the nominee. You know, I'm sympathetic to everyone
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: who's like, why are our candidates so old?
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: But here we are.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: This is it. Here we are.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: This is it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: This is what you got. And I keep saying back
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: to the voters, like, this is one of the reasons
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: that we all sort of stayed neutral in the primary, too. Like,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: we have to see what the voters decide. And we
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: have a primary process. We have all these states voting.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Everyone got all the information they needed from a lot
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: of debates and a lot of public appearances from all
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: these candidates, and this is how they are deciding. And
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that's where we.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Are, you know?
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, that was one fight that people
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: were picking online. You know, Bernie was on ABC over
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the weekend, and he said, one of the things I
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: was kind of surprised by was the power of the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: establishment to force Amy Klobuchar, who had worked so hard,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: and Pete Buttigieg, who really worked extremely hard as well,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: out of the race. First of all, a lot of
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: love for Pete and Amy there. I do have problems
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: with this. That is not why Amy Klobuchar and Pete
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Buttigieg dropped out of the race, because anyone forced them to.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: In fact, Pete Buttigieg said that this morning when he
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: was asked on Morning Joe. He said, I looked at
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the math and I realized there wasn't a path, and
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: so I dropped out.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: Bernie usually doesn't talk that way. It's usually his campaign
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: allies that talk this way. He's usually not so willing
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: to blame the establishment for the decisions of competitors he
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: has previously shown a lot of respect for.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: He hasn't had a chance to. Look, I mean, he
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: has to be really careful with comments like that, because
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: like you said, John, Klobuchar and Pete can very quickly
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: fact check you and speak for themselves for why they
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: decided to do what they do, but also can sound
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: a little condescending to voters who in many states have
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: genuinely chosen Biden over Bernie. And I think you got
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: to go bigger, find a way to reach these people.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Don't act like their strings were pulled by some DNC
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: operative in Washington.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Tom Perez, you know, high above the stage, pulling the strings.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I just think there are lessons for progressives to learn
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: from this primary. And I think one person who has
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: clearly learned them and who's been talking about this is AOC.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: And she was at a rally yesterday in Michigan and
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: she started talking about how the progressive movement needs to
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: be inclusive and you need to build movements and you
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: need to add people and you need to persuade, you know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: and AOC, we should say who, you know, over the weekend,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: in an attempt to practice what she preaches, there's the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: SNL video of Elizabeth Warren and Kate McKinnon, and AOC
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: replies by saying, this is amazing, or I love this,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: or something like that, obviously trying to build bridges to Warren.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: She probably really did like it. It was fucking funny.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: But also building bridges to Warren and her movement. And
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: if you go look at the replies to AOC's tweet,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: it will make you want to destroy your phone forever.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe don't look.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Just whatever.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Let's hear John's summary.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: It was just like a lot of online folks on
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the left with fairly big followings saying all kinds of
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: horrible things to her for reaching, merely reaching out and
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: saying something nice about Elizabeth Warren.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: It's, um, forget, obviously there's all the ways in which
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: it's toxic, but, but, but, you know, millions of people
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: really like people to judge.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Millions of people really like Amy Klobuchar.
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: Millions of people really like Elizabeth Warren, really believed in
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: her candidacy, not in a kind of, uh, in a
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: deep and personal way. And you can mock that and
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: you can belittle that, but it certainly doesn't help draw
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: people to your cause. And it doesn't make your movement
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: seem inclusive and welcoming.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: That's all.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, this isn't to like lecture anyone. It
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: is just like pure politics here, right? Like if you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: just want to win, the question you have to ask
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: yourself is our movement so far, Bernie Sanders has been
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: hitting between 25 and 35%. in every state so far.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And he's hit basically a ceiling at 35%, and California
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: was the highest he's gotten. So the question for the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: movement is, How do we get above 35% next time?
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: How do we get to 40? How do we get
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: to 45? Who do we need to talk to? Who
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: do we need to persuade? Who do we need to
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: bring in the movement? Just from a pure political standpoint.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I don't care what people... I'm not offended. I don't
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: give a shit.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: You can send all the mean tweets to me you want.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: You want to tweet snakes and rats?
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Have a great time.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Have a good time. It's a real zoo on there.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: But I don't... I believe in.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Progressive causes, too. I want progressive candidates who win. I
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: just want them to actually win.
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: And by the way, Bernie Sanders is a broadly popular
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: figure in the Democratic Party. The question I would be
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: asking is, why does Bernie Sanders consistently poll with a 77,
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: 80% approval rating among Democrats, but then only poll 25, 30, 35?
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: What is the delta there between what people are willing
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: to vote for and what people are willing to claim
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: they believe in? And they haven't been able to close
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: that gap.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: The flip side of this is that Joe Biden seemingly
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: is not getting levels of support among young people that
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: he needs. And so some people suggested over the weekend,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: a former Warren policy director and then Tom Perriello, a
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: former member of Congress, suggested that Joe Biden consider adopting
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: the Warren J. Inslee climate plan, which is a really
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: major progressive approach to combating climate change. I think if
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden could find an issue like that, that signals
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: how deeply he cares about climate change, it makes it
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: a priority in the first place. hundred days or less,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: that might go a long way.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree.
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: I think it's a, yeah, I think it's a really,
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: and by the way, one thing about that policy too,
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: is it's, it's even, Joe Biden has already set pretty
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: big goals. What he's actually saying is I'm going to
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: do what Jay Inslee and Elizabeth Warren say, which I'm
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: going to set really tough benchmarks to get us there.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: I'm going to demonstrate how committed I am to this.
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: And it doesn't involve him fundamentally altering his position at
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: this point.
• 47:09
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: We should talk about how he's handling all this. Biden
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: spent the weekend campaigning in Mississippi and Missouri. Tonight, he
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: does a rally in Michigan where he'll be joined by
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: his newest supporters, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. What an event.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: The establishment forced them to Michigan tonight.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: Definitely got the last Bolt bus out of California.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I was like, I thought you were going to go
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: with New Jersey.
• 47:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Who among us hasn't taken a Bolt bus through New Jersey?
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Biden's also been endorsed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin, and his campaign has now made the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: largest campaign ad by the date, $ 12 million in digital
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: and television ads in the big states voting this Tuesday
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: and next Tuesday. It does seem like he is responding
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to these Bernie attacks, or these, you know, Bernie discussing
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: his record, basically by just, you know, he defended his record,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: he had an ad defending his record on Social Security,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: and then he said negative campaigning only helps Trump. He also...
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: said he suspects he'll have to respond to, quote, an
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: increasingly negative campaign that the Bernie Brothers will run, which
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: is so funny.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Those guys are plumbers. The Bernie Brothers are plumbers.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: The thing about the Bernie Brothers is you don't get
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: that three-for-one suit deal, but you get kind of like
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: a boxy version. You know, you see it in D.C.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: a lot.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: What were you going to say, Tommy?
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know. All I can think about is how
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: worried I am that we have these like three 70
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: year old people, including the president of the United States,
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: campaigning as a pandemic just flourishes across the country. It
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: seems completely insane to me. And that's where my brain is.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: When I watched Trump get off Air Force One today
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and start shaking hands in Orlando on the rope line,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, what are you doing, man?
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: First of all.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I thought he was supposed to be a germaphobe.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: What's wrong with you?
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Is he overcoming him being a germaphobe just to own
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the libs?
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Is that what he's doing.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Now in the media? Mike Pence will pray away his illness.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: He'll be fine.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: But look, I do think that Biden's sort of response
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to all this by just saying, he's basically just waving
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: it off.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: You should go big.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to defend my record, but I'm just going
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: to say I don't want negative campaigning because we want
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to defeat Donald Trump. And I don't think, I think,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: He could start talking about Bernie's record, but I sort
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: of think at this point, if I were him, I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do that.
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: He doesn't need to make Bernie lose.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: He just has to prevent himself from losing. he just
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: has to and he needs.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: To show some some grace to bernie supporters and talk
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: about bring them in and some of the policy stuff
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: we talked about go big.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Bring them in uh debate format notwithstanding i would be
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: deeply frustrated if i were in the bernie sanders camp
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: that this next debate isn't until after the contest this
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: week that's shitty timing for them i feel for them
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: that stinks that said uh you know it's not.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Over There was some annoyance from them that the debate
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: has gone from being a traditional debate format to a
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: town hall format where they're taking questions from the audience.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: There's some questions from the audience instead of fully moderated questions.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know why that would be worse or better.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I was kind of confused by why you would.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: I just think it's hard in that context to get
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: a question from a veteran who needs his benefits and
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: is frustrated with the VA and turned that into an
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: attack on the person next to you. It feels awful.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of how the second debate went
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: between Trump and Hillary when it was a town hall.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. Remember their second one was a town hall?
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one with the pacing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, that was the lurking.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: That was the lurking Trump.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: They found a way to do it.
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: Traditionally, when you're in front of actual people, it's harder
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: to just... Take out an Uzi, a rhetorical Uzi and obliterate.
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: Thank you for your wonderful question about healthcare, Angela. This
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: fucking asshole.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: This guy.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: This guy over here.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I do wonder how this debate's going to go. I mean,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: if it's very close tomorrow and Bernie ends up doing
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the best case scenario for Bernie, then you can see
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: it being a traditional kind of debate down to two
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: candidates where they really go after each other and it's
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: quite contentious. If Biden does quite well tomorrow, according to
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: some of the polls he is, Then I wonder what
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: that last debate looks like if he's built up this
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: big delegate lead.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll be wonderful on Twitter to follow along.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think, you know, Bernie... You know, Bernie,
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: I think, is torn by two ideas. One, that he
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: genuinely and sincerely believes he would be a better president
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: and deserves the opportunity to prove that and has been
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: hamstrung by the media and the process.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: That's, I think, what they believe.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: And I think he believes he's more electable, too.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: And believes he's more electable, while at the same time
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: recognizing that he... understands that we're playing for everything and
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: isn't going to do anything at this point to make
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden unelectable. He won't.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: He just doesn't have it in him.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: And look, and for all the complaining about, you know,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: some folks on the online left, you're right. Bernie understands that.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: AOC understands that. A lot of the leaders of the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: progressive movement who are elected leaders totally understand that. And that's,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that's a good sign.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: 155 years of decency on that stage.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, on that note.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Quick math.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have my interview with
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: North Carolina Senate candidate, Democrat, Cal Cunningham.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, we Cal.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, we Cal.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Watching our Cals. Let's do it.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I am now joined here at Cricket Headquarters by the
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidate for Senate in North Carolina, Cal Cunningham.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Cal, welcome.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: John, glad to be on. Appreciate it.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Good to have you. So for all of our listeners
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: who might not know you, can you talk a little
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: bit about your background and also sort of what got
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: you into politics in the first place?
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: Sure. Look, I grew up in the little town of Lexington,
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: North Carolina. the pork barbecue capital of the world. Educated
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: at UNC, undergrad in law, slipped a master's degree in
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: from London School of Economics in between, and went back
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: to my home community after law school and was elected
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: to the state Senate when I was 27, representing a
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: really swing part of North Carolina. Al Gore got about
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: 40% of the vote in my precincts the same night
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: I got about 54% of the vote. 27 years old.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: 27 years old, yeah. Wow. Felt I mean, look, I
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: grew up in church and scouting and youth group, believing
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: in public service, believing in serving people. And I stumbled
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: into an internship with Carl Levin on Capitol Hill in 1993.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: And I was struck by the opportunity to really serve
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: people that way.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: And then you were a state legislator for a little while,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: and then you left.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: I did. Look, my district got chopped up in redistricting.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: It was a court-imposed, very partisan redistricting situation. But September
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: 11th had happened while I was in the Senate, and
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: I joined the Army Reserve. I've done tours in Iraq,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: tour in Afghanistan, spent time at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: training special operations troops, and now at the rank of
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: lieutenant colonel in the reserves.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: And what made you decide to jump back in?
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: Jump back into politics?
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: Well, look, I'm a parent. I've got two teenage kids.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: And really, they would come home after school and say, Dad, what?
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: The world is on fire. What are you going to
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: do about it? My daughter, who is very passionate about
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: animal welfare, like one morning, almost a year and a
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: couple of months ago, we had sort of Morning Joe
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: playing in the morning. We were supposed to get out
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: the door to school, running late. I got drop off
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: at school. And my very reserved but very passionate young
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: daughter just got fired up and started yelling at the TV.
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: And she looked me in the eye and she said, Dad,
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: what are you going to do to fix it?
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: And so- She was radicalized by something on Morning Joe?
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: Yes. Well, the president had been up all night tweeting
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: about like gutting the Endangered Species Act or something. And
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: she looks at me, but this is my son and
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: daughter walked out of school after Parkland. They put on
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: black and walked out of school after Parkland. And they're
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: looking to me and Elizabeth, my wife, as their parents
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: and saying, what are we doing about this? And so there's,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: I think, the moral compass of our children right now is, is,
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: is very true. And, uh, so this is part of
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: how I respond to them to leave the world in
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: a better place for them. They're about to inherit the
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: keys to this country. And my sweet daughter, Caroline turned
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: 18 in January and she and I walked into an
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: early vote site a couple of weeks ago. And my
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: answer to Caroline is I'm at the top of your ballot. Yeah.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: This is how we solve it.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: That's great. Um, so you just won a pretty sizable
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: victory over a primary challenger, Erica Smith. Um, She did
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: get about a third of the vote, and I saw
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: some exit polls out of North Carolina that said majority
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: of Democratic voters are for Medicare for All, for free
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: public college. What did you learn from your primary, and
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: how do you keep the folks who didn't vote for
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: you energized and excited for November?
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: Well, sure. Look, I mean, first of all, other really
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: good people in the primary. It's a five-way race, and
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: they're very good-hearted people. Um, I think that the primary
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: made me work and it made us a sharper team.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: It made me, put me in better touch with the
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: electorate in North Carolina, made us run a campaign, uh,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: which was good. You may know, I mean, Mitch McConnell
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: set up a super PAC and dropped into the middle
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: of our primary really to, uh, create a lot of mischief.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: We can talk a little bit about that, but I
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: would say just to get to your question, I had
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: to work and Raised my profile with the electorate. We
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: got 10.5 million people in North Carolina. Had very nice
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: turnout for a Democratic Party primary, about 1.3 million people,
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: considerably higher than the Republican primary. And it gave me
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: a chance to engage. And so we're all ready. Look,
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: so the polls closed Tuesday night. I got up Wednesday
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: morning and I kicked off a two-day tour across North Carolina.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: explicitly talking about the fact that folks may have picked
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: a different ballot. They may have voted Republican in that primary.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: They may have picked another candidate in my primary, or
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: as with the vast majority of people, they just sat
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: it out. They didn't vote at all. And so I've
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: got to get to them. I've got to go to them.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: And I didn't start my tour in blue North Carolina.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: I went straight into the heart of red North Carolina
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: and kicked off like a seven or eight county tour.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Tom Tillis. When you talk to folks
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina, What do you find to be the
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: most persuasive arguments about why he shouldn't be reelected?
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: It really kind of boils down to this. He isn't
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: putting North Carolinians first. He's decided something's more important. We
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: see this in vote after vote. He's got a partisan
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: interest that he's vindicating. He's got political self-survival interests that
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: he's trying to vindicate. And he is in lockstep with
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: some special interests on Capitol Hill. And so time and
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: time again, North Carolinians get to see him doing things
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: for others and not doing things for us. And, you know,
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: almost no better example than a year ago, he wrote
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: an op-ed in the Washington Post and he said, it's
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: a simple matter of principle. No president should use the
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: emergency powers to fund the border wall. And I remember
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: reading that saying, well, you got one right, Tom. But
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: then 10 days later, he walks onto the floor of
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: the U.S. Senate and he says, I've had further conversations
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: with my Washington friends and flips in what the Charlotte
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: Observers had called an Olympic gold medal worthy flip-flop to
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: give the president exactly that authority. So then the president
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: starts rounding up money to pay for the border wall.
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: Where does he get it? He gets it from Fort Bragg,
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: North Carolina. He gets it from an ambulatory medical facility
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, a barracks for Marines. He
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: gets it from infrastructure at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: in North Carolina. How much clearer example could you get
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: of a senator who puts his own interests here hugging
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: the president ahead of North Carolina.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: It does seem like a, it's a bit of a
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: sleeper issue, the president sort of funding his, his wall
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: with just sort of taking money from everywhere else. I,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I did some focus groups for another podcast
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I do. And I had a couple people in Milwaukee
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: who were Trump, Obama, Trump voters. And they were like,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I just don't like this idea that he's trying to
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: fund this wall by maybe taking money from my retirement
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: or other, factories in Wisconsin and stuff like that. So
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: it is interesting that this is an issue that resonates
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that you don't hear people in the media talking about
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: as much.
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: Well, let me give it even more granular detail because
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: Tillis has managed to do something that is remarkable even
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: in this day and age. So obviously Democrats and unaffiliated
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: voters have a lot of skepticism about him. He's cut education.
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: He's passed When he was Speaker of the House, did
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: bad things on health care, has gone to Capitol Hill
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: and voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, all the
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: sort of bad acts that you would expect. But he's
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: also managed to alienate Trump's people in North Carolina. So
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: I can go to the state fair, as I did,
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: and I'm at the Democratic Party booth, and it's all
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: hugs and smiles and high fives and selfies. But I
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: see the Trump booth across the way. And this is
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: the kind of candidate I am, this kind of Democrat
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: I am. I went over and introduced myself to the
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: Trump table. Uh-huh. And I said, so what do y'all
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: think of our junior Senator Tom Tillis? And these are
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: their words, not mine. They say he's immoral and unethical.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: They say he flip-flops. He doesn't know who he is
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: and we don't trust him. And so true to form, John,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: on election day, Tuesday, Tom Tillis got 140,000 fewer votes
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: in his primary than Donald Trump got write up the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: ballot from him. 140,000 Republicans knew Tom Tillis and decided
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: to cast their votes for really nondescript other Republicans in
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: that primary.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: That's pretty rough for Tillis.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: And so when Trump comes to North Carolina, he held
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: a rally in Fayetteville. He held a rally in Greenville.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: He held a rally in Charlotte. He gets Tom Tillis
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: up on stage with him. Trump's people boo Tom Tillis.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: That's interesting because he's not Trumpy enough for them.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: They don't trust him.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: They don't trust him.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: That's what it is. He flip-flops.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: That's always, yeah. So let's talk about some of those
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Trump voters because, you know, if you're going to win
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: in November, obviously you're going to need some of those
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Trump voters. That's why I presume you started in a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: lot of those red counties. How do you run a
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: campaign where you appeal to those Trump voters and also
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: appeal to maybe some of those voters in the primary who,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: you know, voted for, you know, candidates that were more
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: progressive or whatever else it may be? How do you
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: sort of, it's a very diverse state ideologically as well.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: How do you sort of keep that coalition together?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: No, we're a swing state. We're very much a purple state.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: And by the way, when we win this, when we're
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: taking the U.S.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Senate, I mean, this- Yeah, I was going to say,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: yours is the seat, man.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: John, I was going to say, you got North Carolina
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: ranked as a second tier. No way, baby.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 7: Okay, all right.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, this is good. I'm going to drop the gauntlet
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: right here. In fact, I'll bet you a barbecue sandwich
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: from Lexington Barbecue that at 10 p.m. my time, on
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: November the 3rd, which will be 7 o'clock here, you're
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: going to turn on MSNBC, and you're going to see
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: the Associated Press call this race in my favor. And
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: when they do, the dominoes will fall all across the country,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: and we're going to take the U.S. Senate.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: We don't do predictions here anymore after 2016, but that
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you can't. So we have this now
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: on tape, which is great.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: You do. This is the race that will decide it.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: Let me tell you how we get those voters. We
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: start by listening. And there are a lot of people,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: even Republicans, that don't feel like their voices are being
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: heard on Capitol Hill. They see in a Tom Tillis
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: somebody who is putting his own interests and special interests
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: ahead of North Carolina's interest time and time again. And
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: so I can tell a North Carolina story. It's a
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: state that raised me. It's a state where I went
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: to school. It's a state where I built an environmental
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: company headquartered in Raleigh. I've served with Army troops from
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: North Carolina. I can tell a North Carolina story, and
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: we do. But also... Look, in a democracy, folks are
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: going to disagree on the issues. And we can do
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: it without being disagreeable. But it starts by listening. My
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: aunt's sis was an elementary school teacher. She raised me.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: She taught me to read at a very early age.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: She said a good listener is a good learner. And
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: in all my experiences in government and in business and elsewhere,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: I've also come to believe that a good listener is
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: a good leader. And so it starts with engaging. And
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: that's why I kicked off the Carolina Conversations Tour Wednesday morning,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: traveling across red North Carolina. just having conversations with folks.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: We need to make sure all 10.5 million North Carolina
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: voices are being heard on Capitol Hill, even though there
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: are going to be disagreements on the issues.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: How much is the president part of your race? How
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: much do you talk about Trump?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: I talk about Tillis. I'm focused on North Carolina. Look,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: I'm going to be ready to work with whoever the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: next president is. Obviously, I've got a strong set of
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: personal beliefs about who that we need to change up
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: what's in the White House today. But I got to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: be prepared to work with whoever's there. And so I'm
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: very focused on North Carolina.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: You live in a state where Republicans have, you know,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: done everything they can to sort of wage war on democracy,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: whether it's gerrymandering, whether it's some of the tricks they
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: pull on Governor Cooper in the legislature. You know, if
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: you get to the Senate, you'll obviously find that Mitch
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: McConnell uses the same playbook. What are some sort of
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: pro-democracy reforms you're interested in if you get to the Senate?
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: Well, look, before I even get there, Tom Tillis is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: the guy who passed the law when he was Speaker
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: of the State House that was struck down by the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for targeting African-Americans with surgical precision.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: He's a bad actor on this front. And Mitch McConnell
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: himself has already, through his super PAC, has already waded
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: into our primary, spent millions of dollars trying to beat
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: me in the primary. It's like a Hail Mary pass.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: He knows that in the head-to-heads between me and Tillis,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: which incidentally two polls since just in the last week,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: plus five. Me. And public policy polling just came out
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: as well, plus five. Good government. This is at the
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: heart of the conversation I'm having with North Carolinians. It's
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: about corruption. It's about reforming our democracy and healing our democracy.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: First piece of legislation I'm going to file is an
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: effort to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United. This
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: unregulated dark money in our politics is exactly how independent
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: group can come into North Carolina posing as a Democratic PAC.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: the Faith and Power PAC, to try to interfere in
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: our own primary. So we need to overturn Citizens United.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: We need to reenact Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: We ought to add partisanship as one of the things
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: that's getting reviewed by the Justice Department. I want to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: see us end the revolving door on Capitol Hill and
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: in and out of the administration. I've taken a pledge
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: in this campaign not to take corporate PAC money. I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: think that's an important step in the right direction for
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: how we reestablish the link between voters and the folks
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: that are being sent up there to represent us. And
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: so just as I did in the state legislature, helping
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: create a voter-owned elections program, just as I did in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: Iraq when I prosecuted corrupt government contractors and put a
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: military contractor in a military court and prosecute them, we've
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: got corruption problems on Capitol Hill, political and financial corruption problems.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: And I'm going to Washington to work on them.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: It said in the exit polls that the most important
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: issue to voters was health care. Is that what you're
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: hearing out there?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: I do, second only to corruption.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Second to corruption.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, there are North Carolina local factors that you've
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: identified in the state legislature. I mean, we just had
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: a special election in the 9th Congressional District because of
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: sort of a vote-buying scheme. The largest donor to the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: state Republican Party was just convicted in federal court for
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: trying to bribe the Republican Insurance Commissioner. So corruption is
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: very top of mind in North Carolina. Second only. to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: that is healthcare. That's the most substantive issue. And so frankly,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: I talk about corruption as standing in the way of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: progress on healthcare, and that's part of the dialogue we're having.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: What do you think should be done on healthcare when
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: you get to the Senate?
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: We need to add a public option to the Affordable
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: Care Act. We need to give Medicare the right to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: negotiate for lower prescription drug costs and cap out-of-pocket costs,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: particularly for some therapies like insulin and and we've got
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: asthma inhalers, just the costs of prescriptions are really causing
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: a big burden. There's a subsidy cliff in the exchange
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: for use of subsidies to help bring those costs down.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: But I'll tell you one of the things North Carolina
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: hasn't done, one of the tools in the Affordable Act
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: toolbox is the Medicaid expansion. North Carolina hadn't done it.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: I have a million 70,000 uninsured North Carolinians, one of
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: the highest uninsured populations. And so In North Carolina, we're
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: paying between 8% and 12% higher premium costs because we
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: have such a high uninsured population. I've got rural hospitals
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: teetering on the verge of bankruptcy because they're treating people
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: in the emergency room and not getting reimbursed for it.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: And so among the many issues, I mean, I've got 85,000
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: opioid dependent North Carolinians that don't have care today because
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: we haven't expanded Medicaid. Guess why we haven't expanded Medicaid?
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: Tom Tillis was speaker and he passed a law. He's
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: proud of having passed a law that stands in the
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: way of Governor Roy Cooper.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: That seems like a good issue for the general election.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: Oh, we're already talking about it. We're already talking about it. Look,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: this same guy that owned Capitol Hill has voted repeatedly
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I mean, that puts 1.7
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: million North Carolinians at risk because of pre-existing conditions.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: I read that you filled out your absentee ballot for
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg, your fellow veteran, when he was in the race.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: Who would you rather see at the top of the
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: ticket in November, Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders?
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: I can work with anybody.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: You can work with that?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: That's the right answer.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Well, it's true.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: Look, I'm focused on building a campaign that's going to
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: connect with North Carolinians. And I'm prepared for a day
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: where I am able to work with whoever's in the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: White House, either party and either one of the Democrats
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: that are still in this race. So I will see
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: a play out. I'm going to support the ticket this fall,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: and let's see where the rest of the country goes
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: with this.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I asked folks on Twitter for questions for you, and
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I got this one a couple of times. What is
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: your go-to order at cookout?
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: Oh my God. Are you kidding? Cheeseburger, dude. Cheeseburger. Bacon cheeseburger.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: You know, look, we got some.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: Elijah said it was, Elijah says the tray, right? That's
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: what you're, We'll look. We have another North Carolina fan
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: right here.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: So look, we got some good eating establishments in North Carolina.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: You certainly do. Got a little Bojangles if you ever
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: get to the neighborhood. Love Bojangles.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: I've been to a Bojangles.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: Oh, come on, baby. Come on. But I'll tell you
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: what I'm an ambassador for. What's that? North Carolina barbecue. Yeah. Lexington,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: that's my hometown, man. We are the pork barbecue capital
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: of the world. And in politics, I mean, politics is
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: serious business in North Carolina. Yeah. But East versus West
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: barbecue is... That's where it gets intense, right? It gets
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: really intense. I mean, it's not quite as bad as
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: Carolina versus Duke, but you know.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: I won't even get into that.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Cal Cunningham, thank you for joining us and best of
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: luck in the race this fall.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: John, happy to be on here. Upgrade my race. This
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: is where we're going to decide it. And tell your listeners,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: get tuned into this race at cal4nc. com. This is where
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: when we win this, we win the Senators.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Well, it's one of the six states we're going to
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: have in our Adopt a State program. And so we
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: got to get a bunch of people to adopt North Carolina.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: And you can be the ambassador for North Carolina trying
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: to get our listeners to adopt that as one of
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: their six states.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: I'm going to be the senator for North Carolina.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: Perfect.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: Thanks, John. All right.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Take care. Thanks to Cal Cunningham for joining us. And
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: now an interview that Lovett had with the hosts of
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: our new sports podcast, Hall of Shame, Rachel Bonetta and
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Retina Fruckbaum.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: Thank you for being here. We were so excited about
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: launching the show. I've been listening to the episodes.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: I love them.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: It's great because this is a sports show for everyone,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: not just sports fans. For example, Tommy and I both listened.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: There was an episode about figure skating that one of
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: us loved. There was an episode about a football that
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: another one of us loved. And you'll have to decide
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: who loved which. So, Rachna, Rachel, can you tell us
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: a little bit about this show and why people are
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: going to love it?
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 7: So, basically, Rachna and I are huge sports fans. And
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 7: there's so many delicious scandals that happen in the sports world.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 7: And we're going back in time and like rehashing all
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 7: of them.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 8: And we feel like sometimes they're not available to everyone
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 8: because it feels like I got to know about sports.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 8: But the truth is, they're just like awesome, interesting, funny
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 8: stories that are worth telling.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: And I wouldn't want any like non-sports fans to feel
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 7: alienated or feel dumb going into them because it's not
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: like that. We're not getting into the nitty gritty of
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: like plays or anything like that. It's more so like
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 7: I show up, Rasha and I are going out for
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 7: a drink and I'm like, holy shit, have you ever
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 7: heard this story? It's like there's an excitement to show
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 7: up and tell her these like bonkers stories.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: So what are some of the stories people can look
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: forward to?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 8: Well, there's one that I loved about Rosie Ruiz, who
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 8: basically is a cheater.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 8: A marathon cheater.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: Dirty, dirty cheater.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 7: I don't want to, like, no spoilers. She rode a
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 7: subway to the finish line.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: And then got first place. So, like, also our hero?
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: I respect it.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 8: So do we.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: The confidence that that requires.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: And then, yeah.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: You know what?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: I was just about to spoil the fun. Forget it.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 7: Just keep them wanting more. There's also the story of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: Tencent Beer Night where Cleveland Indians offered Tencent beer.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: So you can figure it out.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 8: Shit got crazy. Shit got real. A bunch of people
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: from Cleveland given essentially free beer.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 8: While watching their team play.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 5: Obviously, like sports right now, there's a lot of political
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: aspects to it, whether it's you know, head injuries in
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: the NFL.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: Or any of the other sundry sports political intersections that
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 5: people that pay attention to that part of the feed
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: could talk about. Like, how political is the show?
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 8: It really, like, it's like organic because so often these
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 8: stories go... go in that direction. It's just like there's
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 8: an inherent... Well.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 7: There's just so many things going on in the sports world.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 7: I mean, like Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James in China. There's
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 7: a million things. We're never going to ignore those things.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 8: And even in the figure skating story, which ostensibly is
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 8: not about politics, but it veers into it.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: We talk about Russia.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 7: It's all over the map. Listen, Russia.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 8: We talk about Russia a lot because they're just all over.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 7: They're just somehow embroiled in every single sports scandal that
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: we found.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 8: So it comes up.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: They've got a penchant for fixing things.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: They do.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: They like to get in there.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 5: You guys haven't recorded yet, but they were passing the
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: blood test through the walls.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: During one of the Olympics. I just respect the hustle.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 8: There's something about it where it's crafty. It's the most
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 8: low-stakes shit, and you're like, God, you could just love
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 8: the hustle of it. Absolutely.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: It's like gold medals are not that important on this podcast.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: To a government.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 8: And yet.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: I also want people to know a little bit about you. Rachel,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 5: you come from the sports and comedy world. Rechna, you're
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: a just like crushing.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: You're a crusher.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: Crushing a comedy writer. A comedy writer who crushes.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 7: Hey, man. Thank you.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: It was easy.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: I nailed it.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah. I didn't start comedy writing until I was a
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 8: little older. So after I had my kid.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Which is awesome.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: What did you do before?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 8: I was like an assistant in film development. And then
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 8: I stayed home with my kid for a little. And
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 8: then I was like, I really don't want to be
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 8: stayed home. So I started writing.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 7: And then you went on Parks and Rec. Wasn't that
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: like your first writing job?
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 8: Lucky bitch.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: What about you, Rachel?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 7: I've been covering sports for like the last eight years,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 7: I think. Kind of going around to all these different sports, football, soccer, basketball,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 7: a little bit of everything.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: And I'm from Toronto. I'm Canadian.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: That's really all I need to know.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 8: And I'm from Cleveland. So sports is sort of baked in.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 8: No matter what.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: You– You were at the 10-step beer night.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: You nearly died.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 8: I'm a Highlander, so it was in 1974.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 7: She was either there or conceived there.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: She's a Highlander.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: She grabbed a 10-step beer and she just fell down
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: onto the third baseline screaming, there can be only one.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 8: And that's why Rachel picked me. So that's to be
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 8: your co-host. It worked beautifully. It all worked out. I
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 8: love sports because I think for my dad as an
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 8: immigrant– connecting to sports was a way to like connect
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 8: to this country oh that's awesome so like in our
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 8: family is like so huge I feel like it's like
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 8: common for immigrants because it's like a international language.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 7: I will say I will add one more thing I
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 7: think it's rad that two women are doing a podcast
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 7: about sports because I really don't think I work in
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 7: sports and have worked in sports for a really long
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 7: time and it's not very often that you see women
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 7: you know sharing their opinions and insight and being smart
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 7: about and funny about sports so I would just you
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 7: know Force that onto your listeners that it's a cool thing.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 8: We just got really serious, both of us. We just
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 8: were like, I had something deep I.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Wanted to share.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I just wanted people to hear from you because
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 5: I think once they get to know you, they're going
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: to understand why this is going to be everyone's favorite
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: new podcast. I know that when I listened... to the
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 5: most recent episode, I didn't get out of my car
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: until it was over, which I think.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: Is the test.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 8: That's so nice.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 7: And I also think they're super digestible. They're 20, 25
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 7: minutes long. Yeah. And hopefully people will just want to
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 7: keep on going to the next one.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 8: That's the dream. Thanks for having us on here.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 7: Thanks for hearing us.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: Are you our boss?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: This isn't for you. This isn't for you. This is
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: for the audience to understand how good this show is
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 5: going to be.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: And I hope everybody goes to subscribe to Hall of
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: Shame right now.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: All right. I want this thing to rocket up the charts. Okay.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 5: Obviously, I am still a little sore from what happened
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 5: with Love It or Leave It in S-Town because Love
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 5: It or Leave It was never able to move above S-Town.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: But I want to get– Hall of Fame has got
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 5: to get to number one.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: This is a sports podcast.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 7: It's going to be really fun.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: Number one. It's so fun.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: But there are two episodes you.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 5: Can check out right now that are up. And it's
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: not– don't do it as a favor to me. Do
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: it as a favor to yourselves. This is not for us.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 7: Also, I will say, you'll be an awesome party guest
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 7: or dinner date because you're going to have crazy stories
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 7: in the vault that you can just whip out at
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 7: any time.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, when you're sitting across First Date, you're a genuine
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: monster in a fedora.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 7: Perfect.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 5: Entertain yourself by recounting it.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 8: You just made me feel great as I entered single
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 8: life for the first 10 to 20 years of sex fun.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 8: There you go.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 5: Wow. And also, just at the very end of this interview...
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: one sentence that opens up a whole world of information.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: That's so true.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 8: I don't know why I threw that in there like
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 8: a weirdo.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: Millions of people are now going to know this. Subscribe
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: to Hall of Shame. Retchna needs this.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 7: Do it.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 8: Don't do it for, love it. Don't do it for Rachel.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 8: Don't do it for yourself.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: Do it for me.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: Hall of Shame.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 8: Hall of Shame.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: Down now.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Cal Cunningham and Rachel Bonetta and Retchna Fruckbaum
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: for joining us today. That's all we have. Everyone, you know,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: wash your hands.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: Don't touch your face.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: Don't touch your face.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Don't touch your face. Don't touch your 401k.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: Don't check your 401k. That's not my joke. Don't check
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: your 401k.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: That's someone else's joke from Twitter.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: We'll all laugh anyway.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: every week.