Latest / Pod Save America / “RBG and the fight to come.”

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“RBG and the fight to come.” · Pod Save America

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is a life-changing election. This will determine what America
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: is going to look like for a long, long time.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: This is the most important election in the history of
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: our country.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: On today's pod, we reflect on the life and legacy
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: on Friday. We'll also talk about what comes next as
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump prepares to name a replacement and Washington gears
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: up for a nomination battle with just 43 days until
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  Speaker 3: the presidential election. Then Lovett talks to Take Back the
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Court's Kate Kendall about the case for expanding the Supreme Court.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: But first, Lovett, how was the show this weekend? I
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: hear you hung out with Jane Fonda. That is very cool.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I had a great time with Jane Fonda. She tolerated me.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: It was very funny. She talked about trying to flip
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Harvey Milk. Among other topics, it was very, very entertaining. Also,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Varshini Prakash from the Sunrise Movement about how climate is
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: reshaping the election. And Hari Kondabalu was back and hilarious
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: as ever. We talked a little bit about the news
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: that broke Friday night as well. It was a barn burner. frankly.
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  Speaker 3: Diverse set of topics there, Lovett.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we live in a country with a diverse
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: set of topics.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: A few other quick notes. Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: We will assume that if you listen to the show,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: you are already registered to vote, but you should still
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: double check. Double check at votesaveamerica.com slash verify. Look at that.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: We got a website just for you to check your
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: voter registration. And you should make sure that your family,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: your friends, anyone else you can think of is registered
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: and verified as well. Then go to votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: for opportunities to volunteer and donate to organizations that are
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: registering as many voters as possible in these last few
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: weeks before the election. Basically, just go to Votes Save
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: America all the time, every day. Just look for things
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: to do. We got information there. We got things to do.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: You can't go wrong if you just go to Votes
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Save America. Finally, we're going to talk more about this later,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: but on Friday morning, last Friday morning, our Get Mitch
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: or Die Trying Fund had raised $ 3. 5 million. By yesterday,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: two days later, the fund broke $ 21 million. That money
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: will go to 14 Democratic Senate candidates in the final
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: weeks of some very close campaigns. So thank you. You
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: are all incredibly generous and inspiring. You also blew through
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: the goal we had on our Every Last Vote Fund
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: to help register voters in battleground states. This is a
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: group where $ 2 covers the materials needed to get one
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: person registered. So if you would like to contribute, visit votesaveamerica.com
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: slash everylastvote. Amazing stuff.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Can I just say one thing?
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Please do.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Amazing stuff. Thank you to everyone who gave even a
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: dollar to the Get Mitch Fund. Just one thing to
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: know about giving to Get Mitch.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Is it's not a pack.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: This just gets split between all these candidates. And when
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: you give directly to candidates, it's the most efficient way
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: to spend money in a campaign. The FCC requires that
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: TV stations give federal and state candidates the lowest rate
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: you can get on TV ads within 60 days of
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: a general election. So you're going to see Sheldon Adelson
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: keep pumping money into Republican super PACs and just know
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: that your dollars go further if you're giving to candidates.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: So thank you again.
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  Speaker 3: You guys are the best. All right. Let's get to
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: the news. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away
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  Speaker 3: on Friday as a result of complications from pancreatic cancer.
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  Speaker 3: She was 87 years old. Ginsburg was the second woman
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  Speaker 3: to serve in the court and the first Jewish woman.
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  Speaker 3: She served for 27 years, wrote numerous landmark opinions, powerful dissents,
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  Speaker 3: and voted consistently to expand women's rights, protect reproductive justice,
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  Speaker 3: expand protections for LGBT individuals, and protect the Affordable Care Act.
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  Speaker 3: Before the court, she was a law professor and head
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: of the ACLU Women's Rights Project. where she crafted the
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  Speaker 3: legal strategy driving the fight for women's rights in the 1970s.
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  Speaker 3: Justice Ginsburg knew that her passing would set up a
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  Speaker 3: battle over her successor just before the election. So on
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  Speaker 3: her deathbed, she dictated this statement to her granddaughter. My
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  Speaker 3: most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced
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  Speaker 3: until a new president is installed. Guys, before we get
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  Speaker 3: into the nomination fight and the politics of it all,
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  Speaker 3: do you have any reflections on Justice Ginsburg's life and
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  Speaker 3: career that you want to share? Love it.
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  Speaker 2: So, The news sort of hit like a ton of bricks.
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  Speaker 2: It was devastating. It was devastating, I think, because of
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  Speaker 2: the role that she played as a judge and as
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  Speaker 2: a justice on the Supreme Court. It was devastating because
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: we were forced to immediately imagine the worst case scenario
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: of what happens next. We were all immediately sort of
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: plunged into fears about what happens with her seat. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I know this may seem like a strange
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  Speaker 2: thing to point out, but I feel like we've all
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  Speaker 2: seen a lot about Ruth Bader Ginsburg over the last
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  Speaker 2: 48 hours. And one thing that was just striking to
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  Speaker 2: me is the model of leadership she offered, which is
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  Speaker 2: this is a tiny, in her later years, frail woman, soft-spoken,
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  Speaker 2: who commanded such a following and such a position of leadership,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: both in terms of what she represented, I think, to
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  Speaker 2: a lot of women, but also what she represented in
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  Speaker 2: terms of legal scholarship for progressives. And she did that
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  Speaker 2: as a person fighting in a male dominated world, a
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  Speaker 2: male dominated career her entire life, struggling to even get
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  Speaker 2: hired as a lawyer when she graduated from law school.
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  Speaker 2: And she did it up until the very end of
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  Speaker 2: her life. And I find the rejection of masculinity and
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  Speaker 2: all the ways in which she led to be inspiring.
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  Speaker 2: And that's oddly what I focused on. And I don't
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  Speaker 2: really know why, but I haven't left my house in
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: six months, so I'm allowed to feel whatever I want.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Tommy.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So I worked in the press office on foreign policy
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  Speaker 4: at the White House. I never had the pleasure of
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  Speaker 4: meeting her. So I'm really reflecting back what I've read,
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  Speaker 4: what I've heard from friends and colleagues who did work
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  Speaker 4: with RBG. But she is a singular figure in our
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  Speaker 4: country's history. She was enormously influential on the court. She
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  Speaker 4: was inspiring to a generation of women and progressives in
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  Speaker 4: this country. And she also just sounds like she was
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  Speaker 4: a wonderful human being. I highly, highly recommend listening to
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  Speaker 4: Nina Totenberg's tribute to RBG on NPR. They had been
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  Speaker 4: friends for, I think, 50 years, dating back to when
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  Speaker 4: RBG was a law professor. And I just thought it
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  Speaker 4: was worth listening to that piece because it's beautifully done
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  Speaker 4: and it underscores, you know, her brilliance and her decency
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  Speaker 4: and her sense of humor. And Nina Totenberg herself is
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: the treasure. And so I would highly recommend that.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure everyone or a lot of
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: you who are listening to this have seen this. But,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: you know, I finally watched RBG, the documentary, I think
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  Speaker 3: just before the pandemic hit back in the old world.
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  Speaker 3: And it's a must-see. It's incredible, not just because of
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: how it chronicles her life on the court, but all
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  Speaker 3: the work and incredible work she did before she got
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: on the court when she was an attorney with the
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  Speaker 3: ACLU and how she led so much of the strategy
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: around the women's rights movement. She's been known as the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Thurgood Marshall of the women's rights movement and like Marshall.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: She was incredibly strategic and persuasive, which is something you
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: don't sort of hear as much in the reflections because
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: at the end of her life, she was so well
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  Speaker 3: known for her powerful dissents. But, you know, the documentary
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  Speaker 3: sort of gets into how she argued one case about
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: gender equality before the Supreme Court in 1975. And, of course,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: she was arguing in front of a court filled with
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  Speaker 3: men about gender equality. And the case that she argued
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: challenged a Social Security provision that that deprived widowers of
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  Speaker 3: survivor benefits because the law said that a wife's income
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  Speaker 3: wasn't as important as her husband's income. And the plaintiff
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  Speaker 3: in the case was a man, which is something that
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  Speaker 3: she did specifically to make the case to help her
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  Speaker 3: persuade an all-male court. And it worked. And she furthered
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  Speaker 3: the cause of gender equality and women's equality through that.
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  Speaker 3: And she was constantly thinking of these very strategic ways
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  Speaker 3: to persuade people in a male-dominated world to win advances
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  Speaker 3: in women's rights. And I just think it's something to remember.
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  Speaker 3: And the other thing that I would read is, you know,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: there's obviously a lot of talk about should she have
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  Speaker 3: retired back when Obama was president. And I think Rebecca
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Traster wrote a very powerful piece in the cut called
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  Speaker 3: It Shouldn't Have Come Down to Her, which is about
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  Speaker 3: us sort of focusing on an individual and not focusing
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  Speaker 3: on the institutions of ours that are quite broken right now.
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  Speaker 1: And I.
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell immediately announced they'd be replacing her,
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  Speaker 3: not just in a presidential election year, which Republicans are
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  Speaker 3: all on tape saying should never be done, but as
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  Speaker 3: people are literally voting. So we'll get to the debate
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  Speaker 3: around all that in a minute. But first, I want
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  Speaker 3: to talk about Trump's potential picks. He committed on Sunday
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  Speaker 3: to selecting a woman, and he said he expects to
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  Speaker 3: announce his decision this week. This morning, I believe he
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  Speaker 3: said Friday or Saturday. Right now, the two top leading
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  Speaker 3: contenders appear to be Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa,
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  Speaker 3: both of whom Trump put on federal appellate courts during
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  Speaker 3: his first term. Both women are extremely young. Coney Barrett
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  Speaker 3: is 48 and Lagoa is 52, meaning that if either
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  Speaker 3: is confirmed, they would be on the court for generations.
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  Speaker 3: um there are a few more nominees out there that
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  Speaker 3: are potential nominees but you know these are the two
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  Speaker 3: women who are mentioned the most uh tommy what do
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  Speaker 3: we know about these two potential nominees.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah like you said you know the two most discussed
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  Speaker 4: nominees are these two so barrett was among the finalists
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: for anthony kennedy's seat which ultimately went to uh a
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: famous beer lover brett kavanaugh um Trump's, you know, former
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: White House counsel, Don McGahn, Mitch McConnell, they get lots
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  Speaker 4: of credit for Trump's success appointing judges. But the truth
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: is that this entire process is run by the Federalist
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  Speaker 4: Society and the Federalist Society loves Amy Barrett. She is
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  Speaker 4: currently on the Seventh Circuit. She's a professor at Notre Dame.
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  Speaker 4: She was reportedly Antonin Scalia's favorite law clerk. So that
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  Speaker 4: should tell you something about her. I think there is
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: no question that she would undermine, if not overturn Roe
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: versus Wade. When it comes to the Affordable Care Act
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: in 2017, she wrote a law review article that criticized
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: John Roberts' opinion that preserved the ACA. So if she
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: is named to the Supreme Court, it's likely that the
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: ACA would be toast. So if you are a fan
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: of far, far right judges, she is your pick. Barbara
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: Lagoa is less well known. She was approved to the
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: 11th Circuit with 80 votes. So, you know, that's something
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: that she would bring to this process, a big bipartisan
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: vote fairly recently. Before that, she was on the Florida
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court. She's Cuban-American. She's from Florida. And a lot
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: of high-profile Republicans in Florida are in the press today
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  Speaker 4: saying she is the key to Trump winning the state.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: Her views are less well-known than Barrett's. I suspect she
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: has not been as thoroughly vetted. But it's worth pointing
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: out that when Florida voters passed a law that would
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: let recently incarcerated people restore their right to vote. She
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: sided with the majority that is forcing them to pay
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: all kinds of fees and other things and essentially is
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: creating what's called, you know, considered a new poll tax.
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  Speaker 4: So she's not great. I suspect Trump will make his
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: decision based on whatever he thinks will help him get reelected.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: And it's worth noting that he visits Florida on Thursday.
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  Speaker 4: So something to look forward to.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Love it. Yeah, it doesn't seem like either of these
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  Speaker 3: women would do anything but move the court extremely far
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  Speaker 3: to the right, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Like back in the day, you get Republicans nominating justices
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: or Democratic presidents nominating justices, and there may be some
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: surprise along the way, and maybe they're not as liberal
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: or as conservative as you seem. It seems now that,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: as Tommy mentioned, since the Federalist Society runs this process,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: he's not going to nominate someone that he's not sure
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: is going to be as right-wing as possible.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, there are Republicans, I think, feel as
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: though they lost seats by accidentally nominating people that turned
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: out to be progressives. It's a mistake they're very intent
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: on never making again. So far, recently, they haven't. I
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: think it's a sucker's game to talk about these nominees
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: as individuals because that's what they want to do. They
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: want to focus on how reasonable the appointment is. We
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: need to focus on the fact that this is about
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  Speaker 2: shifting the center of the court even further to the right.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: It is worth remembering that. just how conditioned we are
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: by how conservative the court is already. First with Anthony Kennedy,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: then with John Roberts, we are told that those were
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the swing votes. But for the most part, what we
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: have been living with is a right-wing court that governs
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: conservatively on matters of the regulatory state, on matters of
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: our democracy and voting rights. What we have seen is
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Anthony Kennedy occasionally siding with those fighting for progressive causes
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: like gay rights because he viewed it as part of
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: his legacy. or John Roberts, occasionally surprising people by trying to,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: in some way, preserve the legitimacy of the court while
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: overall ruling in a conservative way. What is frightening to
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: me about all this is, regardless of the merits that
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: they try to claim for these two candidates, they are
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: right-wing judges. There will, I mean, you can say there's
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a swing vote somewhere to the right, but really what
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: it means is there won't be a swing vote anymore
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and this will be a radical right-wing court for a
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: very long time.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: I think that's an incredibly important point about how Republicans
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: want to make this about the character of the nominee.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: You know, they're already saying that Trump wants to appear
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: with the nominee. And, you know, if it is Lagoa,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: you know, Republicans are already openly saying, oh, we dare
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: the Democrats to vote against a Latina justice. And they're
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: talking about how she's Cuban-American and how she's going to
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: help him in Florida. I mean, it's it's pretty gross.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: And pretty cynical.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Pretty cynical. And then, you know, we already saw this
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: with with Barrett when she was a potential nominee last
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: time during the when he ended up going with Kavanaugh that,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: you know, they're saying, oh, Democrats are against her because
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: she's Catholic and Democrats hate religion.
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: And so they're and in both cases are going to
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: say Democrats are voting against a woman. And I think
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: it is. very important for Democrats to keep this about
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: what the court would look like and how extreme the
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: court would be and what the court would do on
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: issues that affect people's lives. If there is a six,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: three extreme right-wing majority on the affordable care act on choice,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: reproductive justice on climate on labor rights. I mean, Barbara
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Lagoa has, you know, not as an extensive as a
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: record as Barrett who Barrett is extremely right-wing, but you know, Lagoa,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: you know, Tommy pointed out her decision on what is
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: essentially a poll tax in Florida. One of her first
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: decisions on the state Supreme Court sided with businesses challenging
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Miami Beach's decision to raise the minimum wage. So that's
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: two cases where voters decided something by a majority in
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Florida and Lagoa decided to overrule what majority of people wanted.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Don't legislate from the bench, though. We can't do that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: But it is the decisions that these justices will make.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: not for the next five years, not for the 10 years,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: potentially for the next 30 or 40 years that we
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: should be focused on right now.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I will say also, you look at the ACA,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: this court, the Roberts court already, they undermined the ACA,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: but ultimately didn't strike it down. That result wasn't accepted, right?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: They didn't accept it when Congress passed it legitimately. They
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: didn't accept it when voters affirmed that decision at the polls.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: They didn't accept it when the court ruled already upholding
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the law. They will try again and again. And they
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: are going to do it until they have a Supreme Court.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: They're going to try to make a Supreme Court that
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: rules as they see fit. Also, on choice, conservatives see...
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: this as the chance to finally kill Roe versus Wade,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: that they are angry that they have successfully been able
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: to win in the courts, but not on this issue,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: that they've gotten close, but not been able to get
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: it done. They've been able to undermine the right, but
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: not destroy the right. And we should be very clear
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: that that is almost certainly what will happen if they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: are able to successfully get a 6-3 Supreme Court.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: And I will say, if you guys remember in 2016,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: when Obama nominated Garland, and everyone said, well, Garland is
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: this more moderate judge and Republicans should welcome him and
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: meet with him. And why won't they even meet with him?
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: And all these Republicans said, it's not about Merrick Garland.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: It's not about Merrick Garland's life story, who he is,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: how people like him. It is about the principle of
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: nominating some, you know, so I do think Democrats, whoever
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: he nominates, we cannot fall into the trap of making
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: this a fight over Barbara Lagoa or Amy Barrett specifically
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: and their character and their person. It is about what
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: the court is going to look like and the fact
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are trying to ram
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: through a nomination that could lead to millions of people
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: losing their health care, not being able to pass a
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: single piece of legislation to do anything about climate change
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: for decades and overturning Roe v. Wade, among other things.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: And this is why Democrats need to be confident here,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: because if you ask voters whether or not they want
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: to see Roe versus Wade overturned, 70% say no, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: that's the policy goal of the Republicans. If you ask
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: people if they think the government should be ripping healthcare
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: away from people in the middle of the pandemic, they
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: say that you are crazy, but the Supreme Court is
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: going to hear a case on the ACA.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: A week after the election.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, at issue could be whether the EPA even
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: A new court could overturn that or restrict.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: The EPA's ability to deal with it. So like, There
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: are a million different things that we need to help
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: people understand. The entire regulatory state could be at risk.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: The EPA, the Clean Water Act, OSHA, the whole concept
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: of an independent agency could go out the window. Civil rights,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: gun control. So there are huge, huge issues at stake
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: this cycle, and we need to fight like hell on
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: this issue.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about Mitch McConnell's strategy to get this nomination confirmed.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: He wants to move as fast as possible. But it's
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: not yet clear whether or not he wants to vote
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: before the election or after in the lame duck period
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: before the next president's term and the next Congress begin.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: It's also not clear that Mitch has the 50 votes
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: he needs to confirm Trump's nominee. Mike Pence would break
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: the tie if it's 50-50. Already, Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: and Susan Collins put out statements opposing the idea of
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: voting for a nominee before the election, which means if
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: two more Republican senators join them, there wouldn't be enough
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: votes to confirm Trump's Tommy, let's start with the question
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: of whether Mitch pushes for a vote before or after
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Election Day. What do you see as the pros and
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: cons of each option?
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, I think for McConnell, this is the
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: only thing he cares about. His legacy is the courts.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: So I suspect there's a part of him that just
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: wants it done. And he may also think that a
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: court battle before the election will help senators up for
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: reelection in more conservative states like South Carolina and help
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: distract senators from a conversation about, say, the coronavirus or
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: the economy. McConnell is also probably nervous about the Arizona
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Senate seat. If Mark Kelly wins, he could be sworn
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: in as early as November 30th, which takes a vote
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: away from Mitch. There's also a runoff potentially in Georgia
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: in the Ossoff-Purdue race. And if neither of them gets
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: 50% of the vote, that seat becomes vacant on January 3rd.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: So he could lose some of the votes he really needs.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: The cons, as you sort of mentioned, John, is this
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: exposes the rank hypocrisy of the entire Republican Party. I
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: don't know if voters will care or notice, but every
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: senator who said it was inappropriate to vote on Merrick
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Garland before the 2016 election.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Will be exposed as a hypocrite and a liar.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: The country... does not want this process rushed. So that's
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: a con for McConnell here. I tried to do it
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: before the election. Polling shows that 62% of the country
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: wants his seat filled by the winner of the November election.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: So maybe that could backfire politically.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: He could motivate.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Democrats if he rushes things. I mean, the other thing
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: that I wonder is the average Supreme Court nomination takes
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: 70 days. We're 43 days out from the election. So
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I don't know how you get it done necessarily. I
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: also just think like if you asked a what do
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: you want done first? Coronavirus relief legislation, a budget? They
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: would probably argue for those things over ramming through another
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: judge so they could just look out of touch.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: So look, we'll see what happens.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: If Trump loses the election and he names a Supreme
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: Court nominee anyway, I think that will be giving the
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: middle finger to voters and Democrats will be forced to
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: expand the courts. So there's a lot of, it's hard
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: to figure out how this will play out, but it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: not an obvious answer here for McConnell or frankly for Democrats.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I looked at the legislative calendar right now. There's only,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, they can always bring people back and call
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: emergency sessions. There's only 13 days counting today of 13
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: working days on the legislative calendar between now and the election. Very,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: very difficult to get something done in that time, though.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I guess when you are completely cynical and have no principles,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: you can do whatever you want. Lovett, what do you
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: think about this sort of before versus after election day option,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: and what other two Republicans might join Collins and Murkowski?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for that one.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Who do you believe in, Lovett?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. Look, we got the principled one. We got Murkowski.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know what vitamin regime Lisa Murkowski's on. I
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: don't know what's going on up there in Alaska, but
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: she's got principles. No one else does. Wild. We don't
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: know what Romney's going to do. You know, but just
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: sort of stepping back, McConnell is not behaving like someone
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: who thinks it's easy or has a lock on the votes.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: He put a letter out right after this happened, saying
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: urging his members to keep their powder dry. That's not
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: what you do when you think you have them when
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you're basically saying, I know it might be easier to
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: say something now that you don't want to do this.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Please wait and say it to my face, because I
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: know that's going to be harder for you is not
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: like super confidence inspiring. So I don't know that McConnell
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: is behaving with a lot of assuredness that he can
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: get this done. before the election. So it does seem
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: like they're leaning towards doing it after. Beyond that, I
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: don't know. You know, people were like having a tiny
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: bit of a, you know, lighting a candle for Lamar Alexander.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: That candle is out. Romney, you know, Romney is another
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: human being who became, whose personality changed when the threat
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: of running for president went away. He seems to have
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: a set of principles he's operating under. I don't know
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: what those principles will dictate in this case. You look around,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: you start to see some sort of craven operators. I
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: don't know. Cory Gardner is keeping his powder dry. I
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: don't know what he sees as in his best interest,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: though I fear Cory Gardner, who operates completely cynically, if
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: he views his seat as slipping away, he will do
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: whatever it takes to remain in the good graces of
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Republicans because I don't think there's a lot of money
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: in voting for Kavanaugh and against Trump's pick. I'm honestly
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: not sure. I think our only hope is pushing this
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: beyond the election. winning the election, winning the Senate, winning
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: the White House, and sending a powerful message that there
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: will be consequences that vitiate the gains they can make
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: by doing this. And I think that is in part
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: why I was glad to see Schumer and AOC together
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: giving a statement, because I think what it says, beyond
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: just showing unity of Democrats in this fight, is it
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: shows that Democrats see this as a whole Congress battle,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: not just a Senate battle. And it shows that we're
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: willing to fight in a broader way, and use other
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: pieces of legislation, other areas to sort of pull out
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: all the stops and throw the kitchen sink at this thing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: So it's interesting. McConnell has two goals here, right? Two
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: big goals that are probably equally important to him. One
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: is seating a conservative justice, and two is keeping his
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: job as majority leader and making sure there's a Republican Senate.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: And so I think what he has to figure out is,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: you know, there's an argument that if he, if Trump
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: names the nominee, but the vote is after the election,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: then- Republicans, Republican voters who may not like Donald Trump
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: can say, OK, but if I vote for Donald Trump,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I'll get this conservative justice. And in some of the
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: redder states where his members are up, that maybe that
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: can drive some base turnout. The problem with that is,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: unlike 2018 in the midterms, when you had people like
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly, you know, up in states,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: in red states, those were states that Donald Trump won
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: by like 19, 20 points.
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: So they're pretty, pretty red states right now. McConnell's got
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: like Susan Collins up in Maine where Joe Biden's up
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: like 13 points in the state. He's got Cory Gardner
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: up in Colorado who's losing by like 10 points to
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: John Hickenlooper. He's got Martha McSally up in Arizona who's
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: losing by 10 points to Mark Kelly. So he's got
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: all these members up and in control of the Senate
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: hinges on people running in states where it's not clear
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: that putting a very conservative justice on the ballot who's
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: going to overturn the Affordable Care Act and Roe v.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Wade and stop climate legislation and stop labor rights is
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: going to help drive Republican turnout. And so I'm not
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: sure it makes it might just be the calendar that
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: dictates what actually happens here and what they can get done,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: because I'm not sure putting this on the ballot is
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: after the election helps McConnell. And I'm not sure putting
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: it on before does either. Like, I don't think it's
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: clear who it helps.
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I will say, though, I agree with that. And I
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: think that actually, yeah, I think it's concerning, right? Because
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: if it's not clear how it affects the politics, and
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: he's worried he's going to lose the majority anyway. He
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: starts to say, well, there are only two things I
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: care about. One, I've sort of lost control of basically
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving. I'm in the hands of the voters and
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure what's better politically. So why don't I
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: just ram this person through? Because that's my legacy.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: That's my legacy. I've been thinking that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: I also just think for Mitch, like if Donald Trump
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: decides that naming someone before the election will help him
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: win reelection, that will be his all consuming focus. And
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: he will hammer Mitch McConnell and he will hammer other
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Republicans until he gets what he wants. I mean, that is,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: I think, the bind for these Republicans. I do think
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: it's hard finding that fourth vote, too. I think you
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: got Collins or Murkowski. I would not be surprised if
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: Romney joins Collins or Murkowski on this, but that makes three.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: And the only senator up in 2020 who has not
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: come out yet is Cory Gardner.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you're Cory Gardner, it's tough. Like he's
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: he's losing that seat. That's probably the first one to go.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And so because of that, because he's losing so badly,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Cory Gardner might think I'm not coming back to the
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Senate anyway. So I might as well get myself a
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: good lobbying job and be good with the Republican Party
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: and just do this. So it's now, you know, the
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: flip side of that is Cory Gardner has not commented yet.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: So he's keeping his powder dry. But once you get
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: past Cory Gardner, there's no Republicans that are politically endangered.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: And there's no real institutional Republicans who might care about
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: the institution, the principles more than just, you know, getting
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: a justice through.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: I'm not betting on this, but like I do think.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: The threat of court packing and other changes to the
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: makeup of the court could be the kind of thing
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: you could use to go to someone like Mitt Romney
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: and say, let's cut a deal that avoids ramming this
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: through and avoids Democrats doing court expansion on the back
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: end of this to try to come to some accommodation.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: I'm not betting on that happening, but I do think
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: that's kind of what Democrats, in part, what Democrats are
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: doing here with this strategy.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: So I could see Romney saying yes to that. The
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: question is, I can't figure out who beyond Romney, who's,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: you know, like, Grassley hasn't said anything yet. But like,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Lamar Alexander would have been a perfect person for that, right?
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: He's retiring. He's an institutionalist. You would have thought that
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: maybe you could make a deal. But no, Lamar Alexander
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: came out today too. And then once you get past him,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know who else there is.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Are you saying that we can't, you know, you think
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio is going to go back on his word?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's running in 2022, so. So let's talk about
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: the Democrat strategy. On Saturday, Chuck Schumer previewed what they'd
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: be willing to do if the Republicans forced through the appointment,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: telling his colleagues on a call, let me be clear,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: if Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this,
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: then nothing is off the table for next year. Nothing
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: is off the table.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: You're talking about nuclear weapons.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: So we're talking, we'll talk, I want to get into the, the,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: the court expansion, but like short of that, is there
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: anything else? Cause I say a lot of people talking
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: about this on Twitter. Like, is there anything else Democrats
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: can do to slow down or stop this nomination short
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: of getting two more Republican votes to join Collins and Murkowski?
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know how effective these things are,
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: but you know, you're seeing a lot of talk about
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: how Democrats can object to like routine matters and slow
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: down Senate proceedings and try to buy time that way. There's,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: You know, Democrats could try to enforce a rule that
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: bars committees from meeting past the first two hours of
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: the day.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: They could object to other.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: Routine business from like the naming of, you know, a
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: post office to something more serious. McConnell could probably get
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: around all of this with votes on rule changes, but
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: it takes 51 votes. It could eat up some time.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: People are talking about impeachment hearings against Trump.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Or Bill Barr.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: I would be a little worried about how the politics
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: of that cutting pretty hard against us, but we'll see.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: So those are some of the.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Things that are basically delay tactics that you're hearing talked about.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd be all for delay tactics too, but even
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: on the even politics aside on the impeachment strategy there, um,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: we remember the impeachment hearing. You can still do Senate
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: business before the hearing start at the beginning of the
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: day at the end of the day. So you could
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: still have an impeachment hearing and have McConnell ran through
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: a vote while you're doing impeachment hearings. I'm not quite
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: sure that one's been thought that well through, um, love it.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Should Biden and the Democrats expand the Supreme court next year?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: If Trump's nominee gets confirmed, let's, let's move to that, uh,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: that scenario.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So I just talked about this with Kate Kendall, who
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: is from Take Back the Courts, who is an expert
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: on this. And we basically talked through, and it's just
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: worth listening to it in full, but it's worth listening
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to because I think the way we talked about it
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: is there's basically sort of three different arguments you have
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: to think through. One is around whether it's just the
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: right thing to do and whether we're not sort of
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: part of an escalation. And she had a really good
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: answer about that, that basically we are not escalating a fight.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: We are trying to redeem a body that has been
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: politicized and pushed to the right and become anti-democratic in
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: a profound way that has basically put America on the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: precipice of losing its democracy. Then there's the question about
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: the outcome of doing it. Will it work? Can it
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: be effective? And I think there's a really strong argument
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: that we should put our trust in democracy itself, that
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: if we try to expand the court, we should be
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: doing it while thinking about how to make sure that
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: people in Puerto Rico, people in D.C. have a say
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: in our democracy, that we are restoring the Voting Rights Act,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: that we are ending the filibuster, that we are taking
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: the steps necessary to force Republicans to compete on a
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: level playing field, which would require moderating or accepting permanent
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: minority status, that they could no longer win by riling
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: up white people in certain parts of the country. And
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: then there's just the matter of getting it done. And
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I think that's the work that would come next, right,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: about persuasion, about pushing people to understand why this is
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: necessary and why it's not necessarily extreme. What I certainly
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: believe right now is that we do have to send
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: that message, that if they take this drastic step, if
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: they steal Garland's seat and then don't apply their own precedent,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: They will have done so much damage to this court.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: They will have done so much damage to our democracy.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: They will have done so much damage to the court's
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: legitimacy and their own legitimacy that we will have no
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: choice but to expand the court. It is the only way.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: It is the only way to protect the Supreme Court
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: from what they will have done.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Tommy?
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, I think we just need to
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: all be clear that Republicans play an entirely different game
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: when it comes to the courts. Our friend, Mike Gottlieb,
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: who worked in the White House Counsel's Office with us,
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: pointed out to me that If you look at a
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: list of the youngest 25 federal circuit court judges appointed
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: since Reagan, they were all appointed by Republicans, right? Dan's
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: joke about who he would name to the Supreme Court
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: if he were president was he would go to the
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: Harvard Law 10K and pick whoever won, right? They go
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: for youth and longevity, and that's all they care about.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: So yes, I do think that we need to be
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: talking about court packing. I mean, we need to do
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: a lot of education here. The Constitution says that there
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: must be a Supreme Court, but it doesn't set the
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: number of judges. That's Congress's prerogative. were currently operating under
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: a precedent set during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in 1868.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: So I do think, you know, maybe it's time for
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: an update. People always obsess about the blowback from Roosevelt's
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: court packing effort, but I think it's a little bit
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: silly to assume that the politics today are the same
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: as they were in 1937. So yes, I mean, like
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Republicans are trying to cement the power of a minority
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: in perpetuity. We cannot let that happen given the stakes involved.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: We have to fight back or else we are just
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: resigning ourselves to never advancing any of the priorities we
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: care about. What's the point if we won't fight?
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: That's right. I mean, I think we have to start
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: this debate with the consequences and not about precedents and
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: not about norms and institutions and all this shit that
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: like most people in the country don't pay a lot
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: of attention to. If there is a six to three
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: extreme right wing conservative majority on the Supreme Court, you
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: could have a Democratic president, And you could have super
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: majorities in both houses of Congress, which a lot of
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: voters would think, OK, well, that means that the Democrats
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: get to pass a bunch of legislation. So anytime a
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Democratic president and Democratic Congress passes legislation to cut carbon
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: pollution in the air, protect a woman's right to choose,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: expand health care, raise the minimum wage. protect voting rights,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: do anything. You could have majorities in Congress pass that legislation,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: a Democratic president sign it, and it will be struck
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: down by the Supreme Court. And that will happen for
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: 30 years, 20 or 30 years, depending on, I guess,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: when Clarence Thomas retires or Alito or whenever else we
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: might be able to get another shot. So if that's
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: the country that we want to have for 20 to
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: 30 years, for decades, then yeah, then we shouldn't touch
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: the court. If we want to have a country where
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: we can actually do things that improve people's lives, that
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: we can have progressive victories, even center-left victories. Forget about
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: like left-wing stuff. Let's just think like moderate legislation, a
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: right-wing court would strike down. If we want to have
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: that kind of country, then we can do what has
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: happened in this country multiple times in the past when
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: the size of the Supreme Court was changed multiple times
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: in the past. And the way we should talk about
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: this is we are trying to rebalance an institution that
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: is way out of whack right now. It is way,
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: way far to the right. And what we need to
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: do if we get power and they do this is
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: to rebalance the court so that we can, so that
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: when the president and a democratic Congress pass legislation, it
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: does not automatically shut down by an extreme right-wing court.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: That is the argument I think we should make. So
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden hasn't yet publicly backed rebalancing the court. Um, he,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: he's had some opposition to this in the past, but
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: he did give a, a very powerful speech on Sunday.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: I thought about the nomination fight, um, where he called
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: what Trump and McConnell are doing a, quote, constitutional abuse
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: of power. Here's a few excerpts from Biden's speech.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: In the middle of the worst global health crisis in
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: living memory, Donald Trump is before the Supreme Court trying
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: to strip healthcare coverage away from tens of millions of families.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: They strip away the peace of mind of more than
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions. If he succeeds, insurers
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: could once again discriminate or drop coverage completely for people
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: living with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes, cancer, and so
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: many other problems. If we go down this path, I
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: predict it will cause irreversible damage. The infection this president
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: has unleashed on our democracy can be fatal. Enough Enough. Enough.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: We must come together as a nation. Democrats, Republicans, independents, liberals, conservatives, everybody.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying we have to agree on everything. But
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: we have to reason our way through what ails us
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: as citizens, voters, public servants. That's the guidebook called the Constitution. Constitution.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: We have to act in good faith and mutual goodwill
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and the spirit of conciliation, not confrontation.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: So there are two parts to Biden's strategy here. One
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: is to stop the nomination by appealing to a few
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: more Republican senators to join Collins or Murkowski, which is
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: basically what he was doing at the end there. And
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: then they want to make this battle about Trump and
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: McConnell destroying the Affordable Care Act. Lovett, what do you
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: think about that strategy?
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think we've seen polling that shows, right,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: that that making this about the actual consequences of people's lives,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: making it about the fact that the Affordable Care Act
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: is before the Supreme Court right now, making it about
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: the fact that they are more focused on filling a
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court seat than they are on helping people in
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: the midst of a massive economic crisis and a pandemic,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: that they have been sitting on a bill to help
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: people right now for months, but they are springing into
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: action to fill this seat, tells you a lot about
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: their priorities, seems to be the right decision. And I
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: actually sometimes think, I think about Adding seats to the
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court, like I think we should think about the filibuster,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: which is, I think as an abstraction, you kind of
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: end up in debates about process and norms. But when
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: push comes to shove, the sky has been orange in
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: San Francisco. There are five storms in the Gulf of Mexico.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know what they're, I sincerely don't know. Is
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: it right to add the seats to the Supreme Court
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to prevent them from overturning a climate bill or wait
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: till after they've done it? to respond to it. I
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know what the right thing to
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: do is. But I do know that we're going to
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: have one period of time to do this. And the
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: fact that Joe Biden, in everything that he does, acts
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: like he has to be dragged, kicking and screaming to
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: these kinds of maneuvers, it may be frustrating at times
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: to all of us. But in the end, it actually
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: gives him strength when he ultimately takes on the more
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: progressive position.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: I totally agree with that. Tommy?
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I mean, a lot of, look, a lot
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: of some people, including us, have expressed frustration at times
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: when Biden suggests that bipartisanship will come back when Trump
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: is gone. But that's what voters want to hear. And
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: his job right now is to win an election. So
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: he's doing exactly the right thing. He's talking about the
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: impact of the Supreme Court on people's lives, specifically the
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Affordable Care Act. And he is talking about bringing people
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: together He doesn't have to channel my rage tweeting id
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: when he goes out to the podium and gives a speech.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: He needs to win more votes than Donald Trump does.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: in key states. So I think he's doing exactly the
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: right thing. That said, I think a place where Democrats
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: have failed in the past, Barack Obama included, is not
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: using their power swiftly and brutally once they have it.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: And that's what I want to see from Joe Biden
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: and Senate Democrats when we, inshallah, win the White House,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: win the Senate. Let's not wait around for six months
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: to get rid of the filibuster. Let's not do much
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: of procedural bullshit to make ourselves look like good guys.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: You never know what's going to happen. If we win
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: back the Senate and win back the White House and
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: keep the House, we need to move quickly and advance
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: all of our priorities and do it as brutally as
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell does.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, something I've been thinking about over the weekend is
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: this may be what radicalizes politics. Joe Biden and a
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: bunch of moderate Democratic senators pushing through this nomination. And
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: if that's what it takes, then so be it. But like, look,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, I'm all for getting rid of
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: the filibuster, obviously, and also changing the makeup of the
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: court to rebalance it. It costs Joe Biden nothing. It
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: costs all of us nothing for Joe Biden to try
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: at this point and say, Republican senators do the right thing.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: Let's walk back from the precipice. And then if they don't,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: He can say, I asked, I held out the olive branch,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: you decided not to, and so here is what I'm
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: going to do, right? Provided now, as Tommy said, like
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: now he has to do it, right? Like if they
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: ran through this nomination and we have a 6-3 court,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: I do not see how Joe Biden as president and
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: a Democratic Senate, Democratic House can survive, can continue with
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: the filibuster intact and a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know how the country survives, right?
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: So- Then I'll be pushing them as hard as possible.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: But right now, if Joe Biden wants to extend that
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: last olive branch, I don't think there's a cost. But
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: we'll see how the Republicans respond. Let's talk about what
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: this means for the presidential race. There was plenty of
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: very predictable punditry over the weekend that the Supreme Court
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: fight will, quote, upend the race and help Donald Trump
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: by energizing his base and moving the conversation away from
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: issues like the pandemic. Tommy, what evidence is there for
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: either assertion?
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Well, 90% of voters in the latest NBC Wall Street
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Journal poll say they have made up their minds. So
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: that means 11% of the vote is up for grabs.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: So if we're upending the race, we're upending a very,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: very small portion of that race. Like, I think this
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: might change the DC political press narrative for a while.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: There might be a big fight that grabs a bunch
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: of headlines. But like, hey, I can't leave my house
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: because there's a pandemic. And I also can't go outside
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: because the air quality is unsafe in Los Angeles. I
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: still think that people are going to be more worried
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: about the coronavirus and the economy. And those are the
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: things they're going to vote on, as opposed to like
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: some secret groundswell of rabid right wing conservative voters who
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: care about the courts but didn't vote for Trump in
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: 2016 or who aren't already showing up in the polls. Like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I just find this This conventional wisdom that this is
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: somehow going to be a huge boon for Republicans to
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: be unconvincing, or at least not based in any data.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: On the flip side, like ActBlue did $ 100 million in
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: donations to Democratic candidates over the weekend. That suggests that
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: there's some pretty intense enthusiasm on the left. So look,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: we'll see. I'm not predicting. Let's wait for opinion polls
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: to come out. But, you know, we're constantly told that
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: something is going to upend the race. It repeatedly does not.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: You know, we'll see if that pattern is broken here.
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: Love it. Love it.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Nothing upends the race. It's 2020. We are stuck. The
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: pandemic didn't upend the race. 200,000 Americans are dead. The
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: polls have been frozen since what, June? Since Joe Biden
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: secured the nomination? Maybe this will have an impact. I
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: don't know what it is. I don't think anyone can
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: say with certainty if there will be an impact or
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: what it actually, or whose benefit it will actually redound to.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: The one thing I will say is the hope that
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: I had that I clung to over the weekend was,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: you know, John made the point that This may finally
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: wake up some people in D.C., politicians, to the actual
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: threat Republicans are posing. My feeling as I watch the
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: donations coming in to get Mitch is this terribly devastating event,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: this sort of gut punch. Maybe we'll look back and
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: say it woke us up because Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: was always at stake. It was at stake the whole
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: fucking time. And if Donald Trump won, he was getting
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: that judge and maybe two more. The court was gone.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And so maybe we can look back on this moment
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: and say we felt viscerally what was true the whole
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: time and that actually this got people out of the
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: pandemic torpor, out of four years of paying attention to
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Trump and not being able to muster any more energy
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: for this last 40-day push. Maybe this is the thing
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: that got people alive to the threats that we're actually facing.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, in 2016, when Donald Trump released his
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: list of potential justices, One of the reasons that that
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: potentially helped him is he did not have every conservative
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: on board. And just about every poll right now shows that, like,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: 95 to 99 percent of conservative Republicans are backing Donald Trump.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: You cannot juice that base anymore. They're not they were
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: not waiting for a nominee. Even in 2018, there's this whole,
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: you know, misunderstood history of the fucking Kavanaugh hearing and
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: the effects it had.
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: The Democratic senators, again, who lost in 2018. lost in
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: states where Trump won by 19 points or more. In Florida,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the one state that was close where Bill Nelson, the
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Democratic senator, lost, voters who said Kavanaugh was a factor
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: were more likely to back Nelson than Rick Scott in
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: that state. The voters that are up for grabs right now,
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: the small undecided percentage of voters, right, These are voters who,
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: by and large, do not want health care being ripped
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: away from 20 million Americans. They do not want protections
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: for pre-existing conditions being ripped away. Dave Wasserman made the
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: point that one in five Trump voters in swing states
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: in 2016 were pro-choice.
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: Right? So, like, there is just as much of a
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: chance that this motivates— forget about Democrats, because, again, Democrats are— and,
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: you know, it was incredible and amazing to see everyone
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: give so much money— I'm sure everyone who gave money
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: is already voting for Joe Biden. But the voters that
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: are up for grab still, there is a good chance
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: that knowing that their health care could go away, that
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: their right to choose could go away, that they might
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: never see something done about climate could actually help motivate
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: them to get off the sidelines and vote for Joe Biden.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Is there a ton of evidence about that? We don't know.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: But there is just as much evidence for that as
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: there is that this somehow is going to fucking help
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: And by the way, also, just to add to that,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: It's not determined in advance whether this helps or hurts
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. That's in part determined by us. Let's make
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: this about the ACA. Let's make this about choice. Let's
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: make this about the economy. Let's make this about the climate.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Let's make this a fight about big, actually important issues
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: in people's lives. And, you know, the abstraction that was
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and the dirty deal he made with Republicans
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: that basically put in a monster, and I'll give you
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: your judges, that's baked in now. People know that that happened.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: That is quite real. Let's make the consequences real for
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: people in a way they haven't been before.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: And just so everybody knows, the other amazing thing about
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: people giving almost $ 22 million now to Democratic Senate candidates
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: over the weekend is that you guys upended the narrative
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: that was already setting in Washington, D.C.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: Among political reporters.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: You could see reporters in real time, like, quote, tweeting
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: their previous bullshit tweets about how this helped Trump, how
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: this helped Republicans, how this helped McConnell, and be like,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: Actually looking at these fundraising numbers, maybe that's not the case. So, right,
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: like Lovett said, we have a lot of agency here.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: We can fight this thing. There's no reason to lay
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: down before there's a big, nasty fight.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: And this is very important for everyone to keep in
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: mind in the weeks to come, because Trump is going
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: to nominate Amy Coney Barrett or is going to nominate
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Barbara Lagoa. And if it's Barrett, they might say. oh, no,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: now he's going to win over the Catholic vote away
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: from Joe Biden, or more suburban women are going to
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: vote for Trump. And if it's Lagoa, they're going to say, oh,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: he's going to win Florida now because of Lagoa, and
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: that's bad for him. And then if that justice is confirmed,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: which there's a very good chance that justice could be confirmed,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: there's going to be a whole other slate of stories, right?
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Democrats are demoralized. Democrats are upset. We lost this fight.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: We can win this. We can win this election. Joe
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: Biden can win. We can have a Democratic Senate, a
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: Democratic House. And if there is a justice... that it's nominated.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: We can rebalance the court once Joe Biden is inaugurated
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: and we seat a Democratic Congress. We can keep fighting
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: and win this thing. So like, do not be demoralized
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: in the weeks to come, especially if, you know, this
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: justice is confirmed, which there's a very good chance they
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: could be. It is not the fucking end of the fight.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: It is not the end of the fight. It never is.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: So we just got to go straight through to November
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: and not let this get us down.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: When we come back, We will have Lovett's conversation with
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Take Back the Court's Kate Kendall.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: She is a lawyer and the campaign chair of Take
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Back the Court, an organization pushing to expand the Supreme Court.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: And she previously led the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Kate Kendall, thanks for being here.
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: My pleasure, John. Thanks so much.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: So we all are We all can't help but jump
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: right to what's next. But I want to start by
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: just asking you, you were involved in a number of
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: incredibly important fights before Ruth Bader Ginsburg or fights that
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: were influenced by her decisions. What was your reaction to
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: the news of her passing over the weekend?
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: I was devastated.
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: I will remember exactly where I was when I got
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: the news from a colleague of mine at the Southern
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: Poverty Law Center where I currently work. You know, we
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: know that she had had some health issues. And yet,
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: it felt like even though I never met her, having
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: had cases, my organization had five cases before the Supreme
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: Court where she was a key vote in every single
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: one of them, voted in our favor in every single one,
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: was in the court, for both the challenge to the
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: Defense of Marriage Act and the marriage cases, the one
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: in 2013, then in 2015, so saw her. And even
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: though we never met, I felt like I had lost
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: a family member. And what I was struck by is
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: not only how devastating it was, but then I was
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: enraged that rather than just being able to sit with
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: being devastated at the loss of this iconic, legendary, outsized hero,
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: that I had to worry about what was going to
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: happen next with this administration.
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: And that's just infuriating.
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: I think we were all denied an appropriate pace of
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: grieving because we're so scared of what this administration and
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: a GOP-led Senate might do next in their evisceration of
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: democratic ideals and liberty for all.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think that part of the reaction obviously
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: was grief, but also an instant feeling of knowing that
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: it didn't matter what they had said before. It didn't
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: matter what they had promised, that we knew we were
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: in for the fight of our lives. And I think
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: it certainly took me some time to stop just imagining
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: how badly it could all end and start thinking a
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: little bit more about what we could do to sort
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: of fight for a better outcome. And I know that
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: that's what you've been doing with Take Back the Court.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: So I really wanted to talk to you about it
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: because I think That is a new conversation for a
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: lot of people about adding justice to the Supreme Court,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: reforming the court. And, you know, you've been at this
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: for a long time, you know, that this one sort
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: of devastating event is not making this a new issue
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: for you. So can you talk a little bit about
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: what Take Back the Court is fighting for and what
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: the baseline argument is for why we need to expand
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: and reform the judiciary?
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: This context is so important, John. I really appreciate that question.
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: It reminds me a little bit of Maya Angelou's quote,
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: when people tell you who they are, believe them the
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: first time. We have not done that as Democrats. We've
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: not done that as progressives. We've not done that as
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: advocates who fight for a full and fair judiciary. We
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: believe what being told that people will play by the rules,
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: a GOP-led Senate will play by the rules.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: They didn't do that with Merrick Garland.
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: And right after They refused to confirm Merrick Garland during
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: the Obama, the second Obama administration. Aaron Belkin, our director,
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: founded what was then called Pack the Courts and is
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: now Take Back the Courts. We wanted to make sure
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: that people understood we're not talking about doing something like
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: Roosevelt did way back in the 30s, where under the
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: dark of night, essentially just trying to add justices to
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: the court. What we wanted to ignite was a conversation
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: about how deeply dangerous the illegitimacy of this court has become.
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: and the refusal to play by democratic norms led by
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: Mitch McConnell and the GOP Senate. We have seen the
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: evisceration of voting rights. We have seen the undermining of
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: fair elections by treating corporations as people. We have seen
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: power grabs for power grabs sake and a complete evisceration
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: and obliteration of democratic ideals. Democracy is hanging by a
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: thread and the only way to save it is in
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: the hands of a fair Supreme Court that can only
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: be fair by restoring its legitimacy, made illegitimate by Gorsuch,
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: who should have never been confirmed.
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: That is a stolen seat.
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: And by Kavanaugh, whose nomination was jammed through without a
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: full and fair airing of all of his behavior and
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: whether he should be on the court or not. The
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: only way to play in that arena, we need to
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: stop bringing, you know, cotton candy to a knife fight.
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: We need to get in the ring and say, we
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: are going to go toe to toe with you. And
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: the way we're going to take back our democracy is
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: by expanding the size of the court, adding justices under
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: a Democratic Senate and a Democratic White House and restoring
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: the legitimacy of the court in order to save democracy,
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: restore voting rights, restore full and fair elections, and really
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: have a constitution who actually is animated by liberty for all.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Because cotton candy in a knife fight is useless.
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: They're not going to work.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: You'd instantly realize you'd brought the wrong thing. You'd be
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: so foolish to bring canned candy to a knife fight.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: It's the absolute worst thing to bring. So I want
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: to interrogate the argument because there are, to me, I
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: think sort of three questions that I see. One is
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: around the morality of it, just the pure integrity of
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: doing this. One is around the politics of it and
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: the actual consequences of it. And then one is just
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: about the challenges, the nuts and bolts practicality of it,
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: of getting it done. So let's start with the morality
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: of it. Look, I am a progressive. I believe, based
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: on evidence, evaluating as objectively as I can, that this
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: notion that there's been this tit for tat over many
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: years is a fantasy, that we have seen a right-wing
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: assault on the judiciary. And while there have been some
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: fights that Democrats have fought, right, that we have the
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: fight over Bork, we have Harry Reid's decision in the
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: face of incredible, unprecedented intransigence to change the filibuster rules,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: for the most part, we have been on our heels.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: But I know that despite a lot of bad faith
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: arguments on the right, there are, I think, some good
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: faith arguments from people who sincerely believe that just as
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: we're saying we've been bringing cotton candy, that they believe
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: they've been bringing cotton candy. And what you really have
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: is two people with knives pretending they're fighting with cotton candy.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: What is the argument that we're not just part of
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: the problem, that we're not escalating the devaluation and the
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: lack of legitimacy of the courts by escalating this fight
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: even further?
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: Well, I want to change your framing.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Please do.
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: It's not escalating the fight it's saving democracy.
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: And if we continue to believe democracy can save itself
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: through the regular cycle of elections, we are acceding to
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: the venality and the corrupt behavior of our opposition. When
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: the other side cheats in any game, When the other
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: side cheats, if you're willing to ignore the cheating, overlook
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: the cheating, and not attempt to stop the cheating and
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: to re-correct and to re-assert the rules, you're a chump
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: and you're going to lose. And that is exactly what
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: we're– you just– you outlined it. Right now we have
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: a court that humanizes corporations, treats them as people, allows
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: a flow of unlimited dark money into elections– has completely
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: eviscerated voting rights and Ginsburg famous line, you don't pull
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: your umbrella in in the middle of a rainstorm because
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: you weren't getting wet. And that is what the court
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: did with voting rights. There is still massive, massive attempts
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: to ensure that the people, the GOP doesn't want to
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: see at the polls, can't go to the polls to
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: suppress turnout and to suppress the ability of the right
• 56:39
  Speaker 6: to vote. If we do not understand the nature of
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: that threat for what it is, which is really at
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: the heart of democracy, and we simply sit back and say, oh,
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: but this seems so extreme to add justices to the court.
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: Why should we have to do that? We are whistling
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: in the wind.
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: And if we're not willing to be at the vanguard
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: of what it takes to protect democracy in the light
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: of the behavior that is unprecedented and incalculable in terms
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: of its danger to democracy, we're We're part of the problem.
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: There is nothing wrong with looking at a system that
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: has been irretrievably tortured and broken and saying the way
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: to correct it and to fix it and to re-legitimize
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: it is by adding justices to the, adding justices to
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: the court is no big deal. The makeup of the court,
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: the number has changed many, many times up until modern times.
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: And then the GOP Senate under Obama changed the number
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: again by leaving it at eight instead of nine. So
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: understanding that landscape and understanding that expanding the size of
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: the court means we will once again have seats that
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: are filled by individuals who legitimately belong there and then
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: can make decisions and rulings consistent with principles of true democracy,
• 57:57
  Speaker 6: restore voting rights, and the flow of dark money. That
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: is the course correction that we must have. And the
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: only way to get it is expanding the size.
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: Of the court.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: So then... I guess I want to push on this
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: just because I want to understand it myself. So I
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: feel like there's two ways in which you're describing these
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: anti-democratic forces. One is around the rulings themselves, right? That
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: this voting rights decision strips the rights of millions of
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Americans in a completely illegitimate way. We could talk about
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Bush v.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Gore.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: We could talk about Shelby as rulings that were just
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: sort of bald-faced attempts at sort of maintaining power for
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: a minority of the country. And then there's the issue
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: of these stolen seats, of of what happened with Garland,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: for example. How do you put those things together? If
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: we are able to successfully prevent the vote on a
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: replacement for Justice Ginsburg, does that do anything to undermine
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: the argument for expanding the courts?
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: What do you do with your two stolen seats? What
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: do you do with a stolen seat and an illegitimate seat?
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: We're not correcting anything. We've just, by the skin of
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: our teeth, saved the court from lurching even further rightward.
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: But we haven't actually corrected the fundamental misalignment in terms
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: of how partisan the court has become. When I became
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: a lawyer during the Berger court, you know, I kind
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: of grew up a little bit with the Warren court
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: as an idealistic, you know, young girl who at 11
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: decided she wanted to.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Be a.
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: Doing good things for people who had suffered oppression. You know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: this was during the, some of the criminal justice cases
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: where you were Red Miranda rights, for example, and Gideon
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: versus Wainwright, or civil rights cases, upholding the 1964 Civil
• 59:42
  Speaker 6: Rights Act.
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: The court was a force for good.
• 59:45
  Speaker 6: And it didn't almost matter whether a Republican president or
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: a Democratic president appointed you because there were ideals and
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: values and principles that transcended party.
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: We don't live in that world anymore.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: And I feel like a very short time and certainly,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: you know, only half of my lifetime that has been
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: completely reversed. And the GOP led Senate treats the court
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: like they live in a banana Republic and they get
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: to put anybody they want on, no matter how unqualified
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 6: or how ideologically riven and how clear it is that
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: they will only rule one certain way in every single case.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: The only way to correct that is by diluting the
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: power and the force of those individuals' votes.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: And the only way to do that is expanding the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: number of justices.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: So you've persuaded me I'm on board. Now we're actually
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: doing it. What do you say to the argument that
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: this is going to just lead to retaliation? That, okay,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: we add seats when we're in power. They add seats
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: when they're in power. It doesn't actually, we're down to
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: our benefit. We've done this. We've taken this dramatic step.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: And in the end, Republicans will find some creative way
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: to retaliate and leave us back where we started.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: So, John, I'm going to answer that question with a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: rhetorical question, and then I'm going to answer my own
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: rhetorical question.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: That makes it so easy for me.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: The rhetorical question is, why are they doing this in
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 6: the first place? And the reason is they know they
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: can't win popular elections if they're fair.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: Republicans saw this 20 years ago. You know this data
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: as well as I do.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: They know they can't win popular with free and fair
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: elections and without voter suppression. So beginning 10 years ago,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: even 20 years ago, really, they started laying out a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: plan for cheating and trying to game the system. So
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: if we were to be lucky enough to take the Senate,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: keep the House, and have Biden and Kamala Harris in
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: the White House, What we could then do is all
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: the corrective actions. It's not just adding justices to the court.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: It's doing what the Brennan Center said, giving voting rights
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: to Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, re-enfranchising people
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: who have lost the right to vote based on felony
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: convictions that have nothing to do. They've paid their debt,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: they've paid their fines, and they're still unable to vote.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: And we're in the middle of a case right now
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: in Florida doing this.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: We correct all of the manifest injustices put in place
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 6: to game the system.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: In one direction.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: We get rid of all of those barriers and all
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: of those hurdles. According to the Brennan Center, if you
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: do all of that, you restore voting and add to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 6: the voting rolls 50 million voters. If that happens, Republicans,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: as they are currently manifesting themselves with the highest level
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: of toxicity and ideological purity, will never be able to
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: be in a tit for tat or a tat for tit,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 6: whatever it is, position, because they'll never again win a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: majority in the Senate and they'll never again regain the
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: White House unless they moderate themselves and their approach to
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 6: how they want to govern.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: So then now I want to ask you about this,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: the third piece of it, which is just persuasion, just
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: getting people on board with this plan, uh, You know,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, adding more justice, it's constitutional. It's happened
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: many times before. It is true the Republicans decided for
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: a while that there should be eight seats on the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court. How do you change public opinion around this issue?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: And what guidance are you giving to candidates who are
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: nervous about the idea of running on court expansion and
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: getting labeled as extreme or endorsing a fringe idea?
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: The most gratifying thing that has happened in my experience
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 6: now being involved with Take Back the Course for a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: little bit over a year is was how massively quickly
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: attitudes have shifted. We couldn't get our phone calls returned
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: when I first started talking about this.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: We were looking for donor money.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: We didn't need that much, but we just needed enough
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: to be able to continue to get our message out.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: Within six months of me starting with Take Back the Courts,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: a little over a year ago, Eric Holder came out
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: in favor of court expansion. Different elected officials came out
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: in favor of court expansion. We ended up with And
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: then we had, predictably, Marco Rubio dropping a bill to
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: stop our efforts. So once we knew we had opposition,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: then we knew we were making inroads. We have completely
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: changed the conversation. And even like just this morning, I
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: did a little Google search of articles on, you know,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: expanding the court or taking back the court or packing
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: the court. And it is now, especially in the wake
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 6: of RBG's passing, It is a conversation that leads or
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: is embedded in the news stories of her passing and
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 6: what might happen next. So everyone is focused on how
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: important the court is and people understand at some even
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 6: visceral level, even if they're not like you and me
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: where they're sort of political junkies, they understand that something
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: is deeply corrupt in how the GOP Senate has regarded
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 6: the court. And they're open to thinking about how do
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: we correct this? We love this country. We want it
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: to be a vibrant democracy. We've been reminded over the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 6: course of the last four years what a fragile democracy
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 6: it is.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: But if we had a chance, if we had a.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: Chance for the future of our kids and grandkids to
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: have them be proud of the justices that sit on
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: the Supreme Court, to have them once again see the
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: court as a force for true liberty and justice for all,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 6: what decisions would we make right now to make sure
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: that happens? And Many, many people are now willing to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 6: engage in that conversation. We still have some persuasion to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 6: do to say it is expansion of the court because
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: we all grew up with nine justices. That's the way
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: it's kind of always been until 2016. But when you
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: understand what you're up against and what your opposition is
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: willing to do, violate every single constitutional and democratic norm
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 6: to keep power, you have to recognize that reality and say,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: as much as I'm reluctant to do it, I'm dropping
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: the knife, and even though I'm no big gun proponent,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: I'm grabbing the right kind of weapon to assure that
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: I can protect democracy and be an agent for real
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 6: change so that my kids and grandkids are going to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: grow up in, once again, a vibrant democracy that has
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: a Supreme Court that operates for everybody.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: Kate Kendall from Take Back the Courts, thank you so
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: much for your time.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: Pleasure to be here, John.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thanks to Kate Kendall for joining us today.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: And thanks again to everyone for everyone who donated this weekend.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: It was just, it was amazing to see.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: Can I make two points?
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, you can.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: Point number one, it doesn't matter, but when I saw
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: that video of Trump pretending he was learning that RBG
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: had passed while Tiny Dancer played in the background, I
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: realized that hell is other people's watchman. When you live
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: inside of someone else's watchman, it's very, very scary. And
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: then the second point, and this doesn't go anywhere, there's
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with it, but I don't want to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: miss a chance to say it, which is accepting a
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court nomination from Donald Trump is proof that you
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: should be disqualified and not able to take the seat.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: That is a very good point.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, no, no, you shouldn't be on the Supreme Court.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: You accepted a nomination from Donald Trump. That means you
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: don't really understand the role or the job and you
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have it. So you know, it's a self-fulfilling and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: doesn't really have, I don't know where to put that,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: but I don't want to go away. I don't want
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: to not say it even while there's music playing, you know?
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: No, I'm glad you said it. Me too.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: I'm glad I said it too.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Pavadimitriou,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: Quinn Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: episodes as videos every week.