Latest / Pod Save America / “'Tis the season for virtual treason.”

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“'Tis the season for virtual treason.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy. Did you just cough? I'm just kidding. I'm
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Tommy Vitor. We'll get to that later.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Jon Lovett is on vacation. Well-deserved. Well-deserved vacation for John Lovett.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, we'll have my conversation with former
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Senator Harry Reid. He joins us for the first time.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I miss him.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Me too. Me too. We're also going to share at
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the end of that interview the game we played with
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis about student debt. It was
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a very funny game. Sadly, we didn't have time for
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it on Thursday's Marathon Pod, so you'll be hearing that today.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: But first, we've got a lot of news to talk about.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: We've got some warmongering with Iran. We've got cyber attacks
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: on Russia. We've got more from Trump's batshit interview with
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: George Stephanopoulos.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: It just keeps going.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We've got the Democratic debate lineups and Elizabeth Warren's climb
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to the top of the Democratic field. Also, we've got
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a brand new episode of This Land out today, Monday.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Have you listened yet?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I'm halfway through, and then I get to work, so
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I'd stop.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: It's excellent.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: It's about the opposition.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It just keeps getting better and more interesting.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It's such a great pod. I'm so happy with it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Download. Mash that subscribe button.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Thislandpodcast.com. Is that right? Mm-hmm. That's right. Sure. And go
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: buy some tickets to our L.A. show at the Greek
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Theater on August 17th. We'll be joined by Emmy Award-winning
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: journalist Jamel Hill. There'll be special performances by Amanda Seales,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Best Coast, and Jim James. And proceeds from the show
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: will go to four organizations that are protecting your right
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to vote. Vote.org, Election Protection, the National Redistricting Foundation, and ThinkSocialImpact.org.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Great cause, great show. What are you waiting for? Go
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: get your tickets. Crooked.com slash the Greek. Okay. Tommy, I
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: wanted to start by getting your thoughts on what's going
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: on with Iran right now. On Sunday morning, Secretary of
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: State Mike Pompeo said, quote, there's no doubt that Iran
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: was responsible for the attacks on two commercial tankers in
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz last week. But in addition to
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Iran denying this, which you'd expect them to do, some
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of our allies have said they're not sure Iran was
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: responsible either. And Pompeo has not offered any additional evidence
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: beyond sort of the grainy video that was out there
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: last week. The New York Times also reported that on
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Friday there was a meeting in the White House over
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a proposal to send as many as 6,000 additional troops
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to the Gulf region, including warships and fighter jets. What
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: do you think about all this?
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Send them all, John.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, on the credibility point, I mean, look,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: we don't have a great track record when it comes
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: to intelligence assessments that lead to wars with countries that
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: start with I-R.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: IRA, I guess.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: That was, when you said we don't have good credibility,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I was thinking because the president lies about everything big
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and small all the time, but you're right. We don't
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: have credibility from two administrations ago that took us to war.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: The Iraq war was bad.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: You know, also, but I mean, look, there's the broader
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: problem that Trump lies all the time about everything. But
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Pompeo's case was strange. Like, I will admit that the
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: video of what clearly looks like an Iranian fast boat,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: they have these little fast boats that tool around the
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Strait of Hormuz and cause problems. It looks like they
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: are unattaching a limpet mine, which is like a magnet
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: mine to the side of that same ship with the
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: same markings in a similar area.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It looks bad. It looks really bad.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: But Pompeo then went on this longer litany of things
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: that he blamed Iran for, including the IED attack in
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Kabul that the Taliban had taken credit for. So they're
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: laying out this confusing case. I think they should Find
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: all the evidence. Like, this is why you collect intelligence.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: This is the whole point. Release everything you have. Take
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: it to the UN Security Council. Get your partner's buy-in.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Don't leap to saying this was clearly Iran's fault within
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: 24 hours of the incident occurring without any sort of
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: credible amount of time to have an investigation. It's also
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: the fact, you know, John Bolton shouldn't be your messenger here.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: That's probably why they have Pompeo out. But Bolton is
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: a guy who is known for manipulating intelligence that helps
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: get us into wars. So, you know, he's the wrong team.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: liar at the top and a, you know, pretty delicate issue.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the politics here. It seems like we
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: know why certain members of the Trump administration want war
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: with Iran. You have sort of longtime Iran warmongers like
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: John Bolton there sort of driving the process. From Iran's
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: point of view, what are the politics within Tehran that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: may have led them to attack these boats, carry out
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: some of these attacks in Iraq, etc.? Why is Iran
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: doing all this? Do they want war?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think they want war.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: I think that it's likely they feel like they cut
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: the JCPOA, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which was supposed to
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: provide them sanctions relief in return for stopping certain enrichment activities.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: They have been denied that sanctions relief. In fact, the
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Trump administration has come down harder on them and not
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: just tried to cut off all their sales of oil
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: and gas to the region. but also sanctioned their metal
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: industry with the goal of crushing their economy and leading
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: to regime change in the region.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: So they are lashing out in response.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: Trump also designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: which his own chairman of the Joint Chiefs anticipated and
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: opposed because he thought it would lead them to lashing
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: out in response, particularly in places like the Strait of Hormuz,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: where they know they can screw with global oil supplies.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So I think they're probably trying to show that they're
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: not going to just take take it from the Trump administration.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And, you know, who knows?
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Like, who knows who's really calling the shots here? It's
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: probably a more hardline faction, but we just don't know.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's not the best idea to speculate. How
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: worried are you that this could lead to a wider conflict?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I think we should all be pretty worried. We should
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: be pretty worried.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you have the Trump administration road testing
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: its argument that a vote in 2001 that was taken
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: in response to the 9-11 attacks justifies them going to
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: war in Iran, it feels like they're really thinking through
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: this and trying to lay the groundwork for something bigger.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: And it would be a big deal. I don't think
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: we'd have any international support. I don't think our allies
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: would be with us. It would potentially be disastrous.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what worries me about the whole thing
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: is I was looking at polling on this, and I
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: think the last time it was polled was basically a
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: year ago this month. They said that only 23% of
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the public said they'd support the U.S. deciding to declare
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: war on Iran. I'm wondering if You know, if you're
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Bolton or you're Pompeo and you want to sort of
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: gin up public support for, if not war, at least
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: sort of further escalation of this conflict. Do you constantly
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: have these episodes where you're saying, look, Iran's a bad actor.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: They're attacking ships that could attack our troops like. Do
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you think they're trying to build support for this? They're
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: definitely trying to build support.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think Pompeo told a bunch of members
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: of Congress in a closed-door briefing that he thought the
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: American people would support war with Iran. That leaked out
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: in one of the many stories about the conversation of
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: them trying to use the AUMF as the legal justification.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: But certainly they are trying to make a bigger case
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: that goes well beyond these tankers in the Gulf. They're
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: pointing to this incident in Kabul. they're, you know, they're
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: pointing to every bad action that they could possibly credibly
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: tie to Iran, including things that are happening in Yemen. So, yeah,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: they're definitely trying to make the case.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And it seems really like the only war-weary or war-skeptical
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: person they need to convince is Donald Trump. It's so
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: scary that, are we counting on Donald Trump here to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: rein in John Bolton?
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: That's what freaks me out. I mean, he said it
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: on the record. He's like, I actually moderate John. That
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: shouldn't make anyone feel good. And, you know, I think
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Dunford and, you know, the The chairman of the Joint
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Chiefs and that team, hopefully they're providing him appropriate military
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: advice and, you know, counseling caution about what this could
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: lead to, how it could escalate. Because the Iranians, it
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: wouldn't just be a fight against the Iranian military. They
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: have proxy forces and terrorist groups like Hezbollah that they
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: can direct that could launch huge rocket attacks against the
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Israelis or go after our guys in Iraq or Afghanistan
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: or various places. So this could escalate incredibly quickly. It
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: is not well thought through. And it's also just a
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: question of stepping back, like, what is the goal?
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: That's what I was trying to ask earlier. What outcome
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: do we want out of this? Because sanctions in and
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: of themselves are not a strategy. Crushing another country's economy
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: is not a strategy. If your goal is to prevent
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: them from getting a nuclear weapon, well, we kind of
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: had that one.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we had a whole deal.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Under control.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: And now I feel like I'm in a fucking time
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: machine because we're having the same conversation.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: about Iran doing the same things it's not allowed to do.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Like now they're going to enrich up to 20% enrichment,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: which makes it easier for them to get to a
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: bomb quickly. And they'll say it's for medical research and
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: we'll say you're a liar. And it's like, I did this.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: We did this in 2011 and 12 and 13. We
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: had this conversation. We had managed it in the Trump
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: administration against all the advice from their top uh, national
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: security team at the time, Mattis, HR McMaster, Rex Tillerson,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: they all told him to stay in the deal and
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: he pulled out and now we're relitigating the same shit
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and we're no safer. In fact, we're clearly less safe
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: because the Iranians possibly are going, are targeting commercial vessels
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: in the Strait of Hormuz, which was always the, the,
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: one of the nightmare scenarios in terms of preventing or, or, uh,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: allowing the free transport of oil in the region.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Like that was what always freaked people out.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I saw in, uh, The New York Times story, there's
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: an analysis piece about this, I think David Sanger wrote,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that within Iran, sort of the so-called moderates in Iran
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: are basically trying to argue to the hardliners, well, maybe
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: we can just wait out the United States and bet
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: on change in 2020. And if there's another. administration that
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: comes in, then they'll maybe take us back into the deal,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the Iran deal, and lift the sanctions and stuff like that,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: which is, It's a good political calculation from them. Hopefully
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: people in our country do the same thing. What a
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: depressing conversation. No shit.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: We used to have conversations in the U.S.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: That, well, maybe if we can get past Ahmadinejad and
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: the Supreme Leader, we might have a different set of actors.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, the Iran deal was made.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Because Iran potentially having a nuclear weapon was seen as
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: an existential threat to the U.S., to Israel, and it
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: would create an arms race in the region, which is
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: why we carved it out and Obama negotiated on its own.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: But certainly.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: there was a hope that if you cut one deal,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: then you can think about some of the other things
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: we need to talk about with them and increase diplomatic engagement.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: And maybe that work and the sanctions relief that would
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: come from the Iran deal would empower the more moderate
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: forces in Iran, like Rouhani, who is not a moderate
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: in a term we would use here in the United States,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: but compared to like Qasem Soleimani and the IRGC Quds
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Force guys who literally sponsored terror, that we would want
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: the more moderate factions to win out. We don't know
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: exactly how things are going to play out in Iran
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: right now, but they have real politics. And I imagine
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: that the team of moderates who cut the deal with
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: the U.S., who said this would benefit the people, are
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: facing a raft of shit because it has not. And
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: that is likely to empower the people who said, we
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: need to fight the Americans everywhere we can because they
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: will always try to take us down.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And Trump is making their case for them.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Trump is making their case and Bolton's making their case
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: and Pompeo's making their case.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: And Tom Cotton... U.S.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Senator from Arkansas went on one of the shows this
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: weekend and said that we should, um, we should blow
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: up Iranian ships in response, which is setting a precedent
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: that the U.S. military will respond to an attack on
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: a foreign commercial vessel by blowing up another ship, which
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: is a troubling precedent.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Great. Uh, the cotton doctrine, the cotton doctrine. Um, Okay,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: there's one more crazy national security story I wanted to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: ask you about before we move on. David Sanger wrote
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: a New York Times piece this weekend about how the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: United States is escalating digital attacks on Russia's power grid.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: The most striking part of the story, however, was that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: officials said that Trump hasn't been briefed in detail about
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the attacks because of, quote, concern over his reaction and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: with foreign officials as he did in 2017 when he
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Always forget about that one. The president tweeted that the
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Times piece wasn't true and was a, quote, virtual act
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: of treason. The Times responded that Trump's National Security Council,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: when shown the article, said they had no national security
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: concerns about the reporting. What do you think about this story?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And how unusual is it for DOD or whoever's doing
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: these cyber attacks to not loop in the president of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the United States?
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, three things jumped out at me in the piece.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: It sounds like Trump has deferred a lot of authority
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: for what to do and how to do it when
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: it comes to cyber warfare to the cyber command, which
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: is surprising and interesting to me because this stuff's kind
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: of the wild, wild west. I mean, it's relatively new,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: but it's made it incredibly significant. And you'd think that
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: White House would want to tightly control it, too. The
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: fact that the NSC didn't express any concern about the
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: leak when The New York Times approached them. Says to me,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: maybe they wanted this known. Maybe this was a shot
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: across the bow to the Russians. Pompeo has been talking
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: about these things in broad strokes.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So I don't know.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: But the fact that they're three, that the fact that
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: they won't brief Trump on it was troubling to me
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: in a couple of ways. Like, one, we should be
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: able to trust the president of the United States with
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: sensitive information.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: But two, it's not acceptable.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: For the Pentagon or any agency to just kind of
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: run shit on its own and not tell the democratically
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: elected president of the United States where we have civilian
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: control of the military about offensive cyber capabilities. Like none
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of this should make anybody feel good.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: It's all weird. Now I had that same concern. It's like, yeah,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: none of us like Trump. All of us think he's
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: fucking crazy. Shouldn't have his finger on the nuclear button,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: but how would we be feeling if there was a
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: democratic president in there or even some more moderate Republican
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: president and just because the folks in the Pentagon or
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in the CIA or whoever it may be didn't like them.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: They just kind of, ran missions on their own?
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: If some four-star walked into the Oval Office and was like, oh,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: President Obama, I forgot to tell you, we planted some
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: malware in a Moscow security grid so we can take
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: them down in a future day. My bad. His ass
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: would be fired right away. I mean, this is the
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: future of warfare. This is not an insignificant thing. The
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Russians turned the lights off in Western Ukraine back in
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: 2015 for hundreds of thousands of people before they took Crimea. So,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: we should care about precedent and rules of the road
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: and what's happening. And then I would think you would
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: want the white house to tightly control these things, but
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: it seems like there does not.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Um, I also, it's just, it seems like we skipped
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: over the fact that, uh, the president accused the New
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: York times of treason, which is a word he now
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: uses all the time. Virtual trees, virtual treason, uh, He's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: talked about now former Obama administration officials committing treason because
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: they tried to stage some coup against him with the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Mueller investigation. Now he's talking about the press like this
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: because he has to step up from enemy of the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: people to something else now, so now he's calling it treason.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Just sort of something we all just move on from
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: on a Monday.
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: Here, I guess.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: It's all bad.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Trump's interview with George Stephanopoulos,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: which was aired in full for the first time last
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: night on ABC. It was a real tour de force
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: of delusional buffoonery. Real smorgasbord. Yes. According to CNN's Daniel Dale,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the president told at least a dozen easily provable lies.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: The president also said that, quote, Abraham Lincoln was treated
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: supposedly very badly. Was treated supposedly very badly. Some might
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: argue that Abraham Lincoln was treated badly.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: It's the dumbest example he could have used. But nobody.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Nobody has been treated badly like me. And then this happened,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: which you just have to hear for yourself. I think
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: we have the clip here.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: At some point, I hope they get it because it's
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: a fantastic financial statement. It's a fantastic financial statement. And
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: let's do that over. He's coughing in the middle of
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: my answer.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: I don't like that, you know?
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: You're chief of staff.
• 16:28
  Speaker 7: If you're going to cough, please.
• 16:29
  Speaker 8: Leave the room.
• 16:31
  Speaker 9: I'll come over here.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: You just can't.
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: Just to change the shot.
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 16:36
  Speaker 9: Sorry, Mr.
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: Trump.
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: Okay, do you want to do that a little differently then?
• 16:40
  Speaker 8: Yeah, we just changed the angle.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: It's like, it's crazy for a couple of reasons. First
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: of all, he's a weird germaphobe and whatever, people are
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: like that. But second, moments like that shows you that
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: he views the whole presidency as a performance.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I know. That to me was bigger than just the... Like, oh,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: he's coughing and he doesn't like coffers. Like, whatever.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It's weird.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: He's weird.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: He sounds like a director. He's like, do you have
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: coverage on all the angles? Like, do you want to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: get another shot of that? And he repeats it in
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: the same tone. It also shows that he repeats... His
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: statement was stupid in the first place.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not like he's losing his train of thought
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: when he says these sort of things. He's purposely saying
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: things that's fucked up. You know, like, I have the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: best financial statements. Where do you see my financial statements?
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: He's talking, by the way, about his tax returns. Right.
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: Which.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: once again, he's saying, you know, he won't say whether
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: he'll provide them or not. He's saying that the lawyers
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: are holding them up. That's not true. George didn't really
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: press him on that, but he just sort of yada
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: yada his way through the fucking question about his tax returns.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, George pressed him on some things pretty hard,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: not everything. Clearly he was trying to preserve all 30
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: hours of that access, knowing that if you just kind
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: of stick around, the guy's going to make news on
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: something bizarre. I mean, It's also a reminder that we
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: only see him in his Fox News safe space or
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: friendly interviews. And even when he does the press conferences
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: or two-and-twos with foreign leaders, he starts with Fox or
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: OANN or some right-wing network, and he never gets real
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: follow-up questions. I mean, he kind of unravels pretty quickly
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: if anyone asks him deliberate, repeated follow-ups.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was an interesting strategy from George
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: because you could tell he went into that interview, you're right,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: he's spending... however long he spent. Three days or something?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: 30 hours.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: 30 hours.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: That sounds awful. Over the course of a couple days. Yeah,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that's fucking miserable. That's probably why Melania's not there that often.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: And so he's spending all this time with him, so
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to scare him off right away. But
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: it was interesting comparing that with Jonathan Swan's interview with
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner on Axios. Swan decided he was going to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: go at Kushner on birtherism, and when Kushner dissembled, he
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: was just going to go back to him five or
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: six times. In this interview... when George wouldn't get an
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: answer from Trump and Trump started getting angry at George,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you know, and started getting a little pissy, you know,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: George did one follow up and then he just sort
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of moved on because I feel like he thought, well,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I have a bunch of other topics to get to.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I think he pushed him pretty hard on obstruction.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: And that was when Trump got the most pissed and
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: accused him of being a wise guy. But yeah, I mean,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of these guys view it as
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to give him enough rope to hang himself.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: And he certainly did that many times. I mean, he
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: had to do a, 50, 5-0 minute interview on Fox
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: & Friends on Friday to try to clean up his
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: suggestion that, yeah, it's totally cool to take intelligence from
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: a foreign adversary.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Which is another thing we're just sort of, I guess
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: we've just moved on from that last week.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and his cleanup was basically, he tried to explain
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: how hearing works. He was like, first you hear the words,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: and then you know if they're bad, and then FBI.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is not really... not really part about.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: The russia being in the email to his son pitching
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the meeting.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Were there any other notable moments from the stefanopoulos interview
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: that stuck out at you.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Um i think a couple things i mean it it
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: it looks worse than it reads so if people have
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: only read the the uh transcript give the whole thing
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: a shot um it was funny that that he's so
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: inside his own head about muller that Stephanopoulos was like,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: what's your pitch to a swing voter? He starts with
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: the economy and within two sentences he's complaining about Mueller.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I thought that... He.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Asked him how his son Barron was doing and within
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: two seconds Trump's like, no collusion!
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: He is just... It's shocking. You flagged this on Twitter.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: He is just serving up healthcare to the Democrats for
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: the 2020 elections.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I thought this was the most politically significant comment to
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: come from last night's interview, aside from the portions that
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: were released last week about foreign election interference, the new
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: portions from last night that were most damning to Trump,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I think, were his reiterated promise to repeal the Affordable
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Care Act if Republicans win in November of 2020, and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: his promise, again, to come up with a replacement plan
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: very soon.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's bad. Two other quick things.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: One, I'm getting really sick of reporters teeing up Trump
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: to blame Obama for spying on him.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And then not following up.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: It's an annoying headline grab. It's like the fourth time
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: it's happened. Either get some fucking evidence or don't ask
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: the question that way. But you know he's going to
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: concede that Obama was part of it because he can't
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: back down from a claim once he's made it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I will say, I mean, it was an interesting interview
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in that, you know, George really wanted to get Trump
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: to lay out what the reelect strategy is. And it's
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: basically just grievance over the Mueller report. The economy's the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: best ever. The military has been rebuilt. Our veterans are
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: doing great. And when pressed on something, he might be
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: more defensive about health care. Oh, don't worry. I have
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a great replacement, which is basically what he's been saying
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: since he started running for president in 2015. And there
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: has been no replacement. I think I mean, I said
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: this on Twitter, like every Democratic candidate for president should
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: be out today talking about this, because I can tell you,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think many House and Senate Republican candidates are
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: going to want to be running for on Donald Trump's
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: secret plan to repeal Obamacare.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: No.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Just a hunch.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: And in fact, magically, it showed up afterwards. There are
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: some stories in the New York Times or the Washington
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Post about how Congress is eager for him to let
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: the subject drop.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: What was his exact line about the vets? Did he say, like,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I solved vets?
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I solved vets. Vets have a choice now.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I solved vets. Vets have a choice now.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I fixed vets.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: He fixed vets.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: He clearly thinks that the tweaks he made to the
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: way VA health care is delivered to veterans is one
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: of his signature accomplishments. And the total lack of fluency
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: with which he discusses the issue is baffling.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: He's like, I gave that to Choice. He just can't,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: he can't speak about it.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: He can't. No, because he doesn't know what the fuck
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: he's talking about. All right, let's talk about 2020. The
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: first Democratic presidential debate will take place in Miami just
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: nine days from now on June 26th and 27th. The
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: candidates have been sorted into two groups. that were announced
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: on Friday. The group debating... Jocks and nerds. Very NCAA
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: tournament here. The first group debating on the opening night
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: includes Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: a bunch of candidates polling at 1% or lower. The
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: second night will feature Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, and a bunch of candidates polling at 1%
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: or lower. The 20 candidates who qualified were split into
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: groups of 10... Three other declared candidates, Steve Bullock, Wayne Messam,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and Seth Moulton, failed to meet the criteria and will
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: not be debating. First of all, before we get into
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the lineups, how big of a deal is it for
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the candidates who didn't qualify?
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: I think it's a fairly big deal. I think it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: going to be hard to get the spotlight. It's going
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: to be hard to show that you're credible or raise money.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It's a problem.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you think they should have qualified? Do you
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: think the DNC should have made exceptions?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: I think it's hard to say. I mean, and I
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: like some of these candidates. I think it's hard to
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: say that we need more than 20 people on the
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: stage over those two nights.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I also think, you know, you could look at it
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and say, oh, just three didn't qualify, but They had
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to set the rules before the race started. And what
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: if it was five or six more or seven or
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: eight more? Like, this is an imperfect process. And I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: don't think that even Tom Perez would argue that their
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: rules are perfect. But I think they probably made the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: best of a really tough situation.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: You know, there was a lot of predictable criticism on
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: Twitter and news reports after this happened. And, you know,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: when you have 20 different candidates who have a different self-interest,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: of course, people are going to take shots of it.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: But I think the primary is a bit of a mess.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: The debate process is going to be a bit of
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: a mess. I don't know how you fix that. The
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: only thing that I thought was weird was NBC just
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: kind of arbitrarily deciding the order of the two debates
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: based on what would get them the most ratings.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: How did we not have that process set up ahead
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: of time?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So they would have been nailed down.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I'm okay with NBC saying they're the ones who are
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: going to decide, but if they were going to decide,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: they should have let the campaigns know and the DNC
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: know that they were going to be the deciders on that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: The DNC protested in the room, apparently.
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can, now, from the media perspective, you
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: can see why they went with the one, the decision
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: they made, because the more exciting debate is probably going
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: to be the second night, because that's got the more
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: front runners. Now, About that, we should just let everyone
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: know how these groups were divided up. What the DNC
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: did is they decided that they're going to put all
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: the candidates who were polling above 2% into a hat
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and then divide them evenly. And then all the candidates
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: below 2% went into a hat and were divided evenly.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Actually, they went into two gold boxes.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Two gold boxes? Oh, my God. So, yeah, there was
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: some complaining, too, like, oh, Elizabeth Warren got screwed or
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: this person got screwed or whatever else. No, it was
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: just people put in a hat and picked out.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: And I don't know that we know that. You know
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: what I mean? Why are we gaming out how this
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: is going to go before we know? I mean, we
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: can certainly speculate.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Who do you think got lucky and unlucky in these groupings?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think we know yet.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I think that Biden probably got unlucky because he's got
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: a lot of people who are going to be coming
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: after him in this debate.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I think that probably would have been in either. I
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: don't know what Biden's ideal stage would have looked like.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: Honestly, maybe he's lucky that he's not on with Warren
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: because she has been formulating probably the best message against him.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, There's an argument that Warren got screwed because
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: she's not on the stage with the other frontrunners. I
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: also think there's an argument that she could just own
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: the night and really stand out, and everyone will watch
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: both debates and decide that, well, if she'd been on
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: stage the second night, she would have won that debate anyway.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So it's impossible to know. Yeah, I went back and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: forth on this, too. I mean, my first reaction was, yeah,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: she's climbing in the polls, and Elizabeth Warren probably wants
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a shot at um, Bernie and Biden, or maybe one
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: or both, whether it, whether she takes an explicit shot
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: at them or whether it's more of an implicit shot.
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: But then the more I thought about it, Elizabeth Warren, especially,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: in fact, actually a lot of these candidates, uh, on
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: that second night that are above 2%, both Warren, Beto, Booker,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and Klobuchar, they've all sort of staked their candidacies, not
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: necessarily in opposition to another candidate like a Biden or
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: a Bernie. Like Elizabeth Warren, she goes out there, she
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't even talk about Trump that much. She knows what
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: her story is, what she's saying. She doesn't necessarily need
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to have one of those other candidates there to take
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: shots at to do really well.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think you want to take big shots at
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: any of your opponents this early.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think so either.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Iowa voters hate that. You want to make a case
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: for yourself. Now, that said, I don't think you should
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: go up there and be boring and repeat the same
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: talking points and attack Trump. I think the press is
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: looking for a good story to come out of this. So,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Say or do something interesting. Don't repeat yourself.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Be funny.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Tell a moving story. Make a contrast in a deft way.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Show that you could debate Trump well. There's a lot
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: of ways to stand out on the debate stage.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: You just have to have a strategy and try.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: That said, I think two candidates who are probably happy
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: with where they ended up are Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Sanders because... You know, he's slipped in the polls a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: little bit because, you know, Warren's gaining in the polls.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: And he has staked a lot of his candidacy on,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you know, he's been doing this no middle ground, hashtag
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: no middle ground thing, which is basically about Joe Biden.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: And so I think Bernie sort of wants the contrast
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: with Biden. And you saw, you know, his campaign manager,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Fad Shakir, said on the record, you know, we couldn't
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: be happier with this. debate stage pairing because now we
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: can talk about what's really at stake in the primary.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It seems like Bernie could be the one that goes
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: right after Biden. That's right.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: And Mayor Pete's whole case is generational change. And the
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: visual of being with Bernie and Biden certainly will make
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: that case because he's a lot younger.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And the other person who gets that opportunity, I think,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: is Kamala Harris, because her case is both generational change
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and that she can build this multiracial coalition. And her
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: being on stage as sort of one of the front runners,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: one of the top five or six on stage, contrasted
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: with Bernie and Biden, probably helps her, I think.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: The thing that's funny is, yes, they've divided the debate
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: night equally, but that doesn't mean everyone on stage is
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: going to get equal time. There's a lot of discretion
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: here that will go to the moderator. If a candidate
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: is attacked, he or she will get to respond in kind.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: So there could be some candidates who just get lost.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I do think this first debate night is going to
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: be fascinating, and you don't want to bet on anything,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: but my hunch is that there's probably going to be
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: less conflict among that crowd? I mean, because I think
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the other candidates who probably did well here in the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: drawing were Beto and Klobuchar and Booker, because now those
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: three who sort of been, I don't know whether you
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: call them second tier or third tier, you know, they're
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: all kind of stuck between two and five percent in
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the poll. Now they get to be on stage without Biden, Bernie,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: who the moderators might try to make go at each other,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: or even Buttigieg or people like that who've been getting
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: a lot more attention. And maybe they have a chance
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: in that first debate to sort of stand out. But
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like any of them are going to
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: stand out by going after Warren or each other.
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: No.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: And my guess is the moderators on the first night
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: would still try to bait those candidates into criticizing Biden
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: because he's perceived as a front runner. And, and Beto
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: has been hammering away at Biden by name on a
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: whole bunch of issues recently.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: So we'll see if he keeps doing that.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And I can't really imagine anyone in that first night
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: going after Warren. Can you? No.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And on what grounds?
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. No one, no one has sort
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of like prepped the territory for this, um, which I
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: thought is interesting. Um, How do candidates prepare for a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: debate like this? We talked about this a little, but.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, so the one argument for saying maybe your
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: time is better spent not on the debate stage is
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: that you're not spending two or three days locked down
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: with your advisors at a debate camp, preparing lines, going
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: through research, preparing responses, literally practicing having your staffers play
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: candidates who you're up against. I mean, I imagine that
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: these guys... These candidates went down for two or three
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: days and are holed up somewhere in a conference room
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: just practicing nonstop.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I've been in debate preps both with
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Obama when he's been prepping for a general election debate
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and a primary debate. General election debates are a completely
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: different ballgame, right? You actually have time to make your case,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: so you're practicing different lines of attack and all this bullshit.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: The primary debate preps are just like, okay, you're going
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to have five, six, seven minutes— probably with these crowds
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: at most, what do you want to say? What's your story?
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: And I thought, you know, Peter Hamby wrote a story
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: in Vanity Fair about the debates, and there was advice
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: from David Kochel, who was a Republican who prepped both
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Romney and Jeb Bush. I thought this was such a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: fantastic piece of advice. I just want to read it.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Whoever can tell the best, most compelling story in the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: three minutes they have will be the one who helps
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: themselves the most. Issue laundry lists are useless. Most of
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: these candidates support the same things with a few distinctions.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Biography is fine, but I think a story... From the trail,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: from their experience, from their public service, that puts their
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: candidacy in context is the best approach. Can lines from consultants,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: sharp attacks on other candidates, or even a clever attack
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: on Trump will get lost in the shuffle, I think. Yeah.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: That couldn't be said any better.
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: Totally.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: And look, I think you hear that, and I think
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren will talk about her plans a lot and
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: her issues. But again, she doesn't just list off her
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: policy positions. She talks about them within the larger context
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: of her story.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: From the very first event I watched Warren do in Iowa,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: she was doing a town hall meeting. She was talking
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: about her policies and her plans, but she was linking
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: it to her upbringing in Oklahoma. And I just felt
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: from the beginning that it was a better way to
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: deliver a message and it was going to play well
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: in Iowa.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: And I think it's benefited her over time.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: But she's also really interesting because Warren in particular– doesn't
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: go on the campaign trail to deliver a message. She
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: really does seem to absorb what she gets back. And
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: you hear her repeat a lot of stories from people
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: she met in Keokuk, Iowa, or wherever she might've been.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Beto does that too.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: And I think that if you can incorporate the things
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: you've learned in the past six, seven months, however long
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: it's been that they've been running, that's a beneficial way to,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know, just tell a story.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It shows that you're listening and also shows your
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: growth as a candidate. So speaking of Warren, it's a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: good segue.
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It appears as though she has now climbed to the
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: top of the Democratic field, along with Joe Biden and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. Polls are obviously just a snapshot in time.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: We will say this a million times between now and
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the election. But when you look at the polling averages
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: in the early states and nationally, Warren is now a
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: solid third and has actually overtaken Bernie in a few
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: recent polls, including a few state polls. She's also caught
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the attention of Trump's team, whose pollster told Politico, quote,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Although our own early published polls and internal polls discounted
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren, Her recent momentum in May and June in
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: national and early caucuses and primary states into a strong
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: second place to a flat Joe Biden is now a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: cause for our campaign's attention. What do you think is
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: driving Warren's increased support? I mean, I think she's a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: good campaigner.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: I think she invested early in field staff on the
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: ground in Iowa, and that's one of the places you
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: saw her make a big bump. I think that the
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: narrative around her went from people aren't covering warren's plans
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: to oh she's the one with all the plans right
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: i mean that's like a good thing to be known
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: as you're the person who's who has big policies and
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: who's rolling out big ideas and i think that you
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: know there's been always a discussion about electability whatever the
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: hell that means but clearly people are are deciding that
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: they like the things that she would do and that
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: she stands for and they want to see her as
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: president so yeah i've been really impressed also She made
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: a decision not to do these big fundraising events. So
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: I think she really needed some momentum early to be
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: able to continue to raise money through the fall. You're
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: reading reports about the various candidates that Wall Street is
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: choosing as their favorites. She's not going to have that cash.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I would not be happy to be a candidate in
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that story.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I would not either. And a deft campaign or a
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: campaign ad by Warren or Bernie Sanders would use that
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: headline against the candidates who are mopping up Wall Street
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: money to show why they're different.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if she... talked about that during
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the debate, not as an attack on people, because I
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: don't think she does that, but just touting her own
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: decision not to take that money and to spend time
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: with voters. There's a fantastic profile of Elizabeth Warren in
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: The New Yorker right now. I think the headline is,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Can Elizabeth Warren Win It All? And it really tells
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you everything you need to know, I think, about her
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: rise in the polls. I mean, we said this from
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the day she announced her candidacy, right? Like, the most
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: important thing when you're running for president is to have
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a biography that links up with your career, that links
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: up with your policy choices, that links up with your
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: theory of the case and your value, why you should,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: why you can beat the opposition, whether it's in the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: primary or the general election and how you see the
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: country and where it's going. And, you know, there is
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: an argument that Elizabeth Warren's entire life and career led
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: her to this moment. Um, and, When you talk to her,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: all she talks about is inequality and the wealth gap
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and how corporations have gamed the system. Everyone can tell
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: you Elizabeth Warren's rationale who pays any attention to politics.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And there's not too many candidates running where you can
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: say that right off the bat like that.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she leaves you with the impression that she's running
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: against something bigger than Trump. or any of her primary
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: opponents that she's running against a broken system, um, against corruption,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: against money in politics.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: And certainly her career.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Before she was in politics leads you to believe that she, uh,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: holds those views sincerely and actually wants to do it.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And, and we know this from being in campaigns and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in politics for a long time, hammering, hammering, hammering economic issues. Um,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and like, I think we had a, you know, there
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: was a long discussion after the, uh, 2016 race, uh,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: They made a lot of fun of economic anxiety and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: stuff like that because it is very true that a
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: lot of the vote for Trump was driven by racial
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: resentment among non-college educated whites. This is a fact. This
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: is true. And yet, there is this feeling of economic
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: angst in this country. It is a feeling held by
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: non-college educated white voters, black voters, Latino voters, young people,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: all across the spectrum that the economy is not working
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: for them. And Elizabeth Warren in this profile actually said,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: she goes, As a Democratic candidate, you just have to
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: make sure that you are talking to the economic concerns
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: of Americans all the time. She's like, I read a
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: line from Steve Bannon, of all people, in 2017, who said,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: if the Democrats keep talking about the economic concerns of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: working people and actually focused on that, I'd be worried
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: because then they'd win. She goes, and I read that
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: line from that asshole and basically thought to myself, like, yeah,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that's the ticket. And I do think for all these candidates,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: like she said on that message. Now, the question that
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: raises is, so Bernie Sanders would say, yeah, I also
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: have that message.
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Why do we think she's eating away at support from
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders?
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Well, look, it's hard when you are Bernie and you
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: come in with a floor at sort of 30%. When
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: you start stronger, it is much easier for it to
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: look like you are losing support. When you start low,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: it looks like you're gaining momentum. So Bernie was always
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: going to lose some votes. It's not possible to jump
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: in a race with 20-some-odd other people and not have
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: supporters come and go. You know, I think he's fighting
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: against his own expectations. I mean, the same expectations game
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: that benefited him in 2016.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, and we said this at the beginning
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of the primary, too. How much of the Bernie vote
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: in 2016 was a vote for Bernie and how much
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: of it was a vote against Hillary Clinton in the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary? And I think we're finding out that a
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: good chunk of that vote was against Hillary Clinton. I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: also think Bernie is a victim of his own success.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: He has moved the debate. in the Democratic field to
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the left, to a more progressive direction. He has won
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: that debate, but he is not the new shiny object.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: And the way that the media is right now, the
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: media focuses on a new story. And it's been, you know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren has been putting out these plans left and right.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders is probably sitting there like, yeah, I've had
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of these plans for my whole life, but
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel as new to people.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: I do remember thinking that Bernie was pretty good in
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: the debates in 2016.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: He's someone to watch.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's relentlessly on message and he.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: I don't care about your damn emails moment. Maybe it
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: wasn't the.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: Smartest strategy when you're trying to attack an opponent, but
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: it made him seem like genteel.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: It made me like him.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: That is an excellent point because it's something I was
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: just about to say. I remember watching those debates, and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know much about Bernie Sanders at the time
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: or think much about Bernie Sanders. And when he said that,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I like this guy. He's talking
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: about the issues that matter to me, and I like him.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And from that moment on, even though I was for Hillary, Clinton,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I never got the Bernie hate. I never really hated Bernie.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: But I think what I wonder about in this campaign,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: and I wonder how he'll deal with this on stage,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: is sometimes it seems like Bernie's campaign, his supporters, enjoy
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: being at war with the Democratic establishment. They feel like
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that's a useful villain. And Bernie himself doesn't do that
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: too much, but sometimes he does. Elizabeth Warren has all
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the progressive positions that Bernie Sanders has, and she'll attack
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the Democratic establishment on specific issues. She gave the Obama
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: administration some tough time on things when it seemed like
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: they were picking some corporate stooge for this or that.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: But she doesn't run her campaign against the Democratic establishment.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Sometimes Bernie supporters, they seem like they don't want you
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: on their team.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: It's a, it's a argument against a broken system. It's
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: not a grievance based argument.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: You know, like I think that Bernie's done a lot
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: of really smart things. I was a little confused by
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: the speech ostensibly defending democratic socialism. That was really more
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: about FDR and the new deal. I mean, it was
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: sort of like a forgettable, not, it wasn't like a
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: really compelling speech. Like I didn't think the language all
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: that interesting or kind of long, but it wasn't, It
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: also didn't really live up to what I thought it
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: was framed to be, which was a robust defense of socialism.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: But it's likely to tee up that question from the
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: moderator to Bernie and then to all these other candidates,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: which will highlight a distinction that I'm not sure is
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: necessarily beneficial or at least is a little more esoteric
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: than the actual concerns of working people. And I think
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: he's incredibly good at speaking to those concerns.
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: If you're Bernie Sanders... Would you rather hang a lantern
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: on the fact that your label is a democratic socialist
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and get into a debate over democratic socialism, or would
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you rather talk about the economic issues that are sort
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: of driving the debate within the Democratic Party, of which
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: you've been at the forefront on for a long time?
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, some of Bernie's videos, when they come out
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and they have someone, you know, in the middle of
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the country who's going through a job loss, something like that,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: they're fantastic videos. They almost make you want to cry,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: you know. Why have a debate about democratic socialism?
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: I feel like AOC's approach was sort of like, ah,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: I don't really give a shit about the labels.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: I just want to get things done. Right.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: She's a very smart politician.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Utilitarian perspective on politics. And he's also done a lot
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: of smart things on foreign policy. So there's a lot
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: of ways Bernie can go.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, this.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Iran news could tee up an anti-war message for him
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: that becomes incredibly helpful.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that speech was weird.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. When we come back, my interview with Senator
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Harry Reid. and the game we played in Minnesota with
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Annamarie Cox about student debt.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: She hates student debt.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Doesn't like it. Was against it. On the pod today,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: we have the former Democratic leader of the United States Senate,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Harry Reid. Welcome, Senator.
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: Pretty good to be with you.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: It's good to hear your voice. First and most important question,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you said a few months ago that your cancer is
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: in remission. How are you feeling? How's your health?
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: I'm feeling quite well. Everything's good. My mobility is not
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: as good as I'd like it to be, but it's
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: getting better. I had chemo, five of my vertebrae, so
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: I had a couple back surgeries, but I'm doing okay.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Well, you've always been a fighter, so it's really good
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: to hear that you're better.
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: So earlier this month, You told USA Today that your
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: thinking had evolved on whether the House should move forward
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: with impeachment hearings against President Trump. You said that, quote,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: it's not the right thing to do nothing. What do
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you think the costs are of doing nothing?
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: Well, I think it would be really wrong to do nothing.
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: I think it would be wrong to jump into impeachment
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: right now. I think the way forward should be one
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: that is deliberate. I think it should be a inquiry
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: into a Mueller report and inquiry as to whether or
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: not there should be impeachment. I think that would give
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: the American people in their own way an ability to
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: understand what was in the Mueller report. I think it
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: would help lawmakers understand what Trump has done that deserves
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: a real close look.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: So you think that next step should be the House
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee voting to begin an impeachment inquiry would that
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: be your recommend.
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: That i believe the there should be an inquiry started forthwith.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: You also said in that uh... in that you say
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: today interview that you're going to reach out to nancy
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: pelosi on this issue can you talk about what kind
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: of advice you gave her about dealing with.
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: This well uh... speaker has done such a remarkably good
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: job uh... i served as the leader when she was
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: a speaker the first time i've never served with anyone
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: that is better than she. She is someone who is
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: very smart. She's courageous and determined. And so she knows
• 44:50
  Speaker 6: what my position on this is, and that's not going
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: to change anything that she is going to do.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: So if you were in Speaker Pelosi's position and you
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: had you know, a majority of your caucus still not
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: on board with impeachment, and you had, you know, I
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: think it's now 60 Democrats who were in favor of it.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: How would you be handling such a situation where you're
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: sort of torn between two sides of the caucus?
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: I think the way that should be handled is the
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: way that she's handling it. I think it's appropriate that
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: she make sure that a very, very large conference that
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: she has understands what the efforts being made by others,
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: and that includes the press. I think that when I
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: was the leader, I had a very small number of
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: people compared to hers. She's got 230-plus people in her
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: conference alone, so she can't jump into anything. So I
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: think she's doing just fine. I've expressed my opinion that
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: I think there should be an inquiry, but she'll determine
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: what she thinks is best.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Now, you were Senate Minority Leader when Bill Clinton was impeached.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: What lessons should today's Democrats take from that experience, in
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: your view?
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: Well, that is seared into my mind. I was a
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: new leader at the time, and I had really a
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: front-row seat right up to the Chief Justice of the
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: Supreme Court. And in my mind, I can see impeachment
• 46:27
  Speaker 6: and how very, very difficult it is. And we have
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: to understand, at that time, Democrats and Republicans worked together
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: in the Senate. The way things are now, not the case.
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: Impeachment is a very serious thing. I think it's really
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: too bad that we don't have members of the Senate.
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: We've only got one Republican member of the House who
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: has talked about a need for impeachment. moving forward on impeachment.
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: I think that's unfortunate because the Speaker has also the
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: problem involved that the Republicans in the Senate are kowtowing
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: to everything that Trump wants. Yeah.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the Senate as an institution
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit since there's few people who know it
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: better than you. Do you see any truth in Joe
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Biden's recent statement that with Trump gone, we're going to
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: begin to see things change in the Senate because, quote,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: these Republicans know better. Do you think that with Trump gone,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the Republicans would change their behavior in the Senate?
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: I sure hope that's right. Here's the problem we have, though.
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: The Republicans now for 10 years have done everything they
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: can to do away with the Senate that we all loved.
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: What do I mean by that? What I mean by
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: that is that Senate Republicans have created a program now
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: where if you want to get anything done in the Senate,
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: you have to have 60 votes. That's not the way
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: it used to be. Filibusters were used very sparingly, and
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: I was responsible for my staff person, Bill Douster, to
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: write a law review article for the New York University
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: Law School While we do, in that article, we talked
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: about the fact that unless the Senate changed quickly, the
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: Senate was going to wind up turning out to be
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: just like the House of Representatives because you can't go
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: on the way it is. Now, that would be not
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: the way the Senate used to be, and that's too bad. However,
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: if you had the Senate was like another House of Representatives,
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: It wouldn't be the end of the world. You still
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: have a bicameral legislature. You have senators with six-year terms,
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: House members with two-year terms. So having a democracy wouldn't
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: be all that bad. The simple majority would win. However,
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: I hope Vice President Biden is right. I hope that
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: things go back to the way they used to be.
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: But as we talked about in that Laura Vee article,
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: things are not headed in that direction.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know Mitch McConnell very well, probably
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: better than most, you know, and he's right now bragging
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: about how the Senate is a legislative graveyard and he's
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: the Grim Reaper and all that kind of stuff. I mean,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: what does the next Democratic president do about the problem
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: of Mitch McConnell and in this crop of senate republicans.
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: Well if you understand and it's easy to understand what
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: i just said democratic president which i think we're going
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: to have i think would be just fine uh... you
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: know because you majority would rule in the senate so you.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: So you you would be for uh... getting rid of
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: the legislative filibuster uh... for the if the uh... if
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the next democratic president runs into the same kind of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: obstruction i.
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: Am in favor recognizing reality. And the reality is Republicans
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: have made the Senate something that is no longer the
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: way it used to be. That is really too bad
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: because it's not a question of simply wanting it to happen.
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: It's just accepting reality. Yeah.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, in about 20 years, something like 70% of
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Americans will be represented by just 30 senators. Obviously, the
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Senate has always been weighted towards smaller rural states, but
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: now that those states are mostly Republican and deeply Republican,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: what options do the Democrats have? Obviously, we just spoke
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: about the filibuster. Is there any other sort of strategy
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: that you have in mind for the Democratic Party?
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: They had about seven times more power than the state
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: of Virginia, which was the most populous. But now the
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: situation has gotten so out of hand that the state
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: of Wyoming is 70% more powerful than California. So that's
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: something to be concerned about. Now, accepting the facts... I
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: don't see any change in taking away the way the
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: Founding Fathers set up the Constitution where, you know, you
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: have each senator, each state has two senators. I don't
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: think anything's going to change in that very quickly. But,
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: you know, when you start talking about that, you start
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: talking about a lot of issues, issues such as the...
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: how presidents are elected. You know, we, in recent years,
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: we look and we find that presidents are being elected
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: with less than a majority.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: There's a rolling number as to how many votes Trump
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: lost by, but it's a minimum of 3 million. It
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: could have been more votes than that. So there are
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: a lot of issues that we have to work on,
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: and nothing's going to happen very quickly because these are
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: all constitutional-based issues. issues are you.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: In favor of the uh... national popular vote compact which
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: sort of gets around some of the constitutional issues but
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: would still sort of effectively eliminate the electoral.
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: College well it's something that needs to be talked about
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: more of the state of nevada for example benefits from
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: what we have right now that's why governor sisolak vetoed
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: the uh... majority vote uh... issue this past election right
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: so you know it's it's uh... It's an issue that
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: we have. What they were trying to come up with
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: is a compact where states would agree in this compact
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: or contract that they would cast their votes with the
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: person running for president who got the most votes. That
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: would eliminate the electoral college as we now have it.
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: But that's not going to happen real soon because a
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: lot of states are just like Nevada. That's an issue
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: that's been going on for generations.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Right. So I know you've served with a lot of
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the Democratic candidates for president and you aren't endorsing. Um,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: but which candidates running have impressed you so far in
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: this race?
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: I've been impressed with, um, of course, you know, Joe
• 53:52
  Speaker 6: Biden is somebody that I served with for, um, three
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: and a half decades in this Congress. Um, personal friend.
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: He's such a wonderful human being. I like him a
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: great deal. So, you know, that's Joe Biden. And I
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: don't think there's any doubt that he would be a
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: good president. But as everyone knows, I'm not endorsing anyone
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: because we have our caucus next February. But there are
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: so many people that are impressive. Elizabeth Warren has certainly
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: shined or shown, I don't know, a proper grammar. The last...
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: several months. People are recognizing her basic intelligence and understanding
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: of our financial system. I think that people are accepting
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: some of the things that Bernie talked about four years ago.
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: You know, there's a real discussion going on about health care,
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: with the Republicans having eliminated Obamacare in many instances. It's
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: good that we're having a debate on that. We're having
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: a debate on education, how young men and women can
• 55:04
  Speaker 6: get a college education. Right now, even in state institutions,
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: it's really difficult. I'm glad we're having a discussion on that.
• 55:13
  Speaker 6: So you have Buttigieg, who's been interesting and has created
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: a lot of interest all over the country. And you
• 55:22
  Speaker 6: go through the list of candidates, and they're all really,
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: really good. I am personally not at all disturbed by
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: the fact that we have 23 candidates have already said
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: they want to run for president. Our debates are coming
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: up next week where we have two nights of debates,
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: 10 candidates each night. I think that's good. I think
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: that's very, very good.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can remember when I served in Senator Obama's
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Senate office and you were one of the people who
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: encouraged him to run for president. I read that this
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: time around you actually encouraged Senator Warren to run. What
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: made you encourage her to run?
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: Well, I had an issue that I needed some help on.
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: We had statutorily set up a debt commission to find
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: out what happened to Wall Street, why did it collapse.
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: And I'd read one of her books dealing with poor people.
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: I was impressed with her being a Harvard professor. I
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: knew about her background. So I called her in my office.
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: She brought her daughter, I put her on the debt commission,
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: and she was a star. And as you will remember,
• 56:32
  Speaker 6: it was her idea to come up with a consumer
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: affairs department within the Dodd-Frank legislation. But she couldn't get approved,
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: and the Republicans fought that tooth and nail. As a
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: result of that, she didn't take that job. In fact,
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: she ran for the Senate and won very easily. So
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: they wish, in hindsight, but they wish they had done that. So...
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: I chose her because she's a very in-depth person. I
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: think the world of her. But, you know, I served
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: in the Senate with a number of people that are
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: running for president. There are a lot of really good candidates,
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: and I repeat, Democrats should feel good about the fact
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: that so many talented, well-reasoned people want to run for president.
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: I think it's good. It shows our country is in
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: the right direction.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: What qualities do you think are most important in a
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: candidate when it comes to being able to beat Donald Trump?
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: I think that every candidate is different. And the reason
• 57:40
  Speaker 6: that I spotted President Obama is I just thought at
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: that time that he was just what the country needed.
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: And that's why he called in my office. We had
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: a nice visit. I just... thought it was the right
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: thing to do. I can remember when he was re-elected,
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: I was told, the president's going to call you as
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: soon as he finishes his acceptance speech, and he did.
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: He told me, thanks for helping me decide to run. So,
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: you know, I think that you can't give every person
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: the same brush of paint. Every candidate has different strengths
• 58:20
  Speaker 6: and weaknesses. You have to recognize those.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: If you were leader in the Senate right now, if
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: you're a minority leader right now, what would you be
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: doing to maximize the chances that Democrats flip the Senate
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: in 2020?
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: Well, it would be really wrong for me to second
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: judge Senator Schumer, and I'll tell you why. Senator Schumer
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: helped make my career. I needed somebody to help me
• 58:50
  Speaker 6: take the Senate back, and I called upon Senator Schumer.
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: I put him in a leadership position. He served as
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: chair of the DSCC twice, which was unheard of at
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: the time. And he did a remarkably good job. And
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: as you know, we took the Senate and we had
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: a significant majority. majority. I give a lot of credit
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: to him. So he's now the Democratic leader. And I
• 59:18
  Speaker 6: think that people don't understand, first of all, how hard
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: he works. And number two, how smart he is. People
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: do not understand that Chuck Schumer got a perfect score
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: on the SAT, a perfect score on the law school
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: aptitude exam. You know, people listening to this think I'm
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: making this up, but it's true. You can't blame people.
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: But that's happened very often. In fact, rarely. So I'm
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: not going to second-judge what he is doing in the Senate. I,
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: of course, am very, very concerned about the Republicans being
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: lapdogs for Trump. I think that's really too bad. The Senate,
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: as I knew it, we had courageous Democrats and Republicans
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: who would stand up against the president of their own party.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: You don't see that happening with the lapdog treatment Trump's
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: getting from the Republicans in the Senate.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, we have some great recruits for 2020.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Senator Schumer's been doing a great job recruiting some candidates.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Do you feel bullish on our chances, or how worried
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: are you about flipping the Senate in 2020? How do
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: you feel about that?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: I feel really good about the fact that we could
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: retake the Senate. The sad part about what's happened is
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: that we have really a fine number of recruits. They're
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 6: not all done yet. I talked to Senator Schumer recently.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: He's still working on it. But one of the things
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: that the Republicans have done is created an atmosphere where
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 6: people aren't as anxious to run for the Senate as
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: they used to be because... of the republican shenanigans.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Last question for you you came to washington as a
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: pretty moderate even conservative on some issues democrat you left
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: as a progressive uh... having shifted on immigration gun control
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: gay marriage abortion what what caused your thinking to evolve
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: over the years.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: I laugh when i get questions like this one of
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: the first time i ran statewide in nevada for Lieutenant Governor,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: I didn't have many credentials. So one of the things
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: I did in high school, I played football. I was
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: a left guard. And what we did is we changed
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: it to right guard because I had the reputation of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: always being too progressive, even as a very young man
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: running for Lieutenant Governor. So yes, I acknowledge that my
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: positions are on quite a few different issues. developed over
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: the years. But I can say without any equivocation, if
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: you find a senator who comes to the Senate and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: believes in certain things and never changes, you'll find a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: senator who didn't accomplish much in the Senate. I evolved
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: and I think I did it for the right reasons.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 6: It was good, I believe, for the state of Nevada.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: I believe it was good for the country and I
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: believe it was good for my Democratic caucus that the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: leader was somebody who was not locked in step, how
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 6: he felt when he ran for lieutenant governor or when
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: I came to the Senate.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Well, Senator Reid, I was privileged enough to have a
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: front row seat watching you be leader for all those
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: years during the Obama administration. And I can remember President
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Obama singing your praises and Speaker Pelosi's praises almost every day.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: He really loved working with both of you. And so
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: thank you for all that you did. Thank you for
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: your service. And thank you for joining us on the pod.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much for asking. I'm very, very flattered.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: You guys want to play a game? Minneapolis.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 9: In 1885, a visiting reporter from New York City called
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 9: the Twin Cities another Siberia unfit for human habitation. And
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 9: like most comments from New Yorkers about the Midwest, it
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 9: was accurate.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 7: It wasn't.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 9: It's 100 degrees out today. It also wouldn't be the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 9: last time the coastal elite unfairly maligned the people of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 9: this fair city. But while a certain Manhattanite has been
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 9: insulting a certain Minneapolis- It's got a weird cadence, Minneapolis.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: Did I get it? Minneapolis, did you say that?
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 10: Minneapolis.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: What did we say? I googled it.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 10: Minneapolis?
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: What do you say then? What do you say? Minneapolis? Yeah, okay.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: Why are they booing you? I'm sorry.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 9: How is their dissensus? We're in the fucking city. What
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 9: do you call this place? We have two presidents on
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 9: our stage right now.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 10: I'm going to go with whatever Ilhan says because I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 10: feel like.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 11: I'm... How about we just do Minnesotans?
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah. There we go.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 8: There we go.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 10: Spoken like a true Minnesotan.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 11: We're at the U, not at, you know, there's Minnesotans
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 11: in this audience.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: There are.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 9: That all happened like halfway through a dependent clause.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: What am I supposed to.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: Do?
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 9: But while a certain Manhattanite has been insulting a certain Minnesotan.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 7: That Minnesotan. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm so sorry
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: for them.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 9: Has been attacking the student debt crisis. So let's talk
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 9: about Congresswoman Omar's proposal to deal with student debt in
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 9: a game we're calling, hey, what if we dismantled a
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 9: vast and cruel system that saddles the best and brightest
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 9: young people in our country with student debt like a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 9: massive weight forever pressing down on the chest of a generation?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 9: Would someone out there like to play the game?
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: Travis is over here. Travis, I really, I mean.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 10: Something might happen over here.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: Hi, what's your name?
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 7: Hi, Dan.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: Where are you from?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: I'm a Minnesotan.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 7: Have you heard the term Minneapolis?
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: You know what, John? I'm a love it, so yes.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 7: You got it. Thank you, Dan. Okay.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 7: Let's begin.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 9: What is the current total in the United States of
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 9: all student loan debt?
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: Is it A?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: $ 156 million, slightly less expensive than the yacht Betsy DeVos
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: enjoys when she needs a little time away from her
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: bigger yacht.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 7: Or is it B?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 10: $ 15. 6 billion, or how much Melania thought Trump was worth
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 10: when she agreed to marry him and when he got
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 10: down on one knee and handed her the NDA.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 7: Or is it C? It was very romantic. That's how
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: it works for him.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 9: He gets down on one knee and he presents a
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 9: nondisclosure agreement.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: No comment.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 7: Or is it C?
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: $ 1.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 7: 56 trillion or enough to buy the world a Coke.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: In fact....
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 11: It's enough to buy every single person on earth 200
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 11: bottles of Coke each.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: Or is it D?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I bid $ 1, John.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 7: Doesn't make any sense. Or is it E?
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 8: The student debt is so high that if you took
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 8: that money and used it to buy kegs and slip
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 8: and slides, you would have one killer spring break.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 7: My broseph.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: My broseph.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: I told Travis to cut that one, and he told
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: me that it was great. I think it worked, Travis.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: Worked great. What do you think, Dan? C. You got it.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: Question two.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 9: How many Americans under the age of 30 currently have
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 9: student loan debt?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Is it A?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: 1.6 million people are all the people who signed that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: petition to remake season eight of Game of Thrones.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 7: Or is it B?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 10: 300 million, or the number of people who have said, listen,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 10: you're incredible, to their significant other. while dumping them.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: Or is it C? 32 million.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 11: That's how many homes Baby Boomers own. Two out of
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 11: every five homes in the country.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 6: Boo.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 9: I apologize for giving you the clue where I mercilessly
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 9: attacked Baby Boomers on the stage.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: She needs their votes, man.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: Come on.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about this later.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: Or is it D, 5 million, or the number of
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: Harvard grads who wrote about saving the world in their
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: college application but ended up working at McKinsey?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 7: Tough Buttigieg hit there.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't write this crap.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 8: Or is it E, 16.8 million people, or roughly the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 8: population of West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 8: Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Washington, D.C.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 7: Vermont, and Wyoming combined?
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: What Dan said.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: Yep, you got it. Question three.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 9: Some people think that the federal government canceling student debt
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 9: would cause the economy to explode. What would actually happen
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 9: if we canceled student debt?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Is it A?
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: While canceling student debt might create financial instability in the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: short term, the damage would quickly be reversed by the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: free electricity radiating off of furious baby boomers shouting, participation trophy,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Edison bulb, fast casual motherfuckers, and a Tucker Carlson segment
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: on their 72-inch Costco TVs with the motion smoothing turned on.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 9: LAUGHTER Listen, baby boomers, we've had our differences. Ask your
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 9: children to go into the settings and turn off the
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 9: motion smoothing.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 7: Or is it B? The economy would, in fact, explode.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 10: Chernobyl style. Get ready to bury some dogs.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 7: Who are you mad at? Who are you mad at?
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 7: Or is it C? C.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: There has to be a disclaimer for this.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 10: Yeah, no, everyone knows it's him.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, got it, got it.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 7: Just want to be safe.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 11: There would be a boost in GDP by an average
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 11: of $ 86 billion to $ 108 billion per year. The added
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 11: cash in the pockets of millions of Americans would lead
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 11: to roughly $ 1.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: 2 million to $ 1.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 11: 5 million new jobs per year.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Sounds pretty good.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 10: Maybe you should take credit for that one, actually.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 7: Or is it D?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Those scammy credit score commercials would disappear, freeing up ad
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: time for more useful products like catheters, weight loss supplements.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: Burritos with Doritos inside. Our society is fucked.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 6: Or is it A?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 8: Free to follow their dreams, more young people could become teachers,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 8: social workers, and sadly, magicians.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 9: The harm, therefore, vastly outweighing any benefit. So is a
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 9: surplus of prestidigitators worth the candle, as they say, you know?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: I think we're going to increase aggregate demand and go
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: with C.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 7: You got it.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: Look at that. Dan's wearing a ZCon 101 t-shirt. Question four.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 9: Lightning round.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: There's no sound.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 9: We're going to read you facts about student debt, and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 9: you have to say whether they're true or false.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: Are you ready?
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: We're going to go down the line, probably twice.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: Is it A?
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 7: Wait, no, that doesn't make sense. John, kick us off.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Unlike other forms of debt, it is virtually impossible to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: declare bankruptcy to escape it. True.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 7: Got it.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Next.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 10: After you hit $ 100, 000 in student debt, they let you
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 10: drive the Zamboni during the broomball game at your 10-year reunion.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: In some places it's true, but false.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 11: People with student debt are less likely to get married.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, true.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: People with student debt blame their debt for not getting
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: married when really, how are you supposed to know if
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: this is it?
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: It's like.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: No relationship is perfect.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: How do you know that he's the one or she's
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: the one when there's so many ones out there?
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 7: There's no manual, Tommy.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 9: Is this a normal problem or is this a problem
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 9: that means you should leave?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 7: How are you supposed to know?
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 9: What if the next relationship is worse and you look
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 9: back with regret? Or what if a better person is
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 9: waiting on the other side of this relationship?
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 7: True or false?
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: True.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 7: Got it.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 8: Collection agencies pursue student debt aggressively, including calling borrowers at
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 8: all hours.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: True. Those with student debt are disproportionately young, which means
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: receiving a phone call is a fate worse than death.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: Correct. True.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 7: I'm not answering.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not answering when you call me.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 7: Honestly.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Text me. Email me.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 9: Even screening my call. I call my friends. Buckle up.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 9: You're friends with me.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 7: I call you. You know what that is? That's a
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 7: wannabe boomer.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Tell me what you want first.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 10: It explains a lot, John. The movie It Follows was
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 10: not actually a metaphor for sexual relationships. It was a
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 10: metaphor for student debt following you around like a creep.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 6: True.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 7: No, that's false. It was about teen sex.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 11: There's got to be a bonus, maybe.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: Half a point?
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: Half a point.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: Half a point.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: Sorry.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 7: Can we get an air horn? That's leadership. That's leadership.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 7: Changing the rules. Changing the rules.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 9: He's playing.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 7: Changing the rules to win. I like that a lot.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 6: $ 1.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 11: 56 trillion sounds like a lot. But it's actually the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 11: same amount the government committed to bailing out the banks
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 11: during the financial crisis.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 10: True.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 7: False. Tommy, you're up.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: 1.56 trillion sounds like a lot, but it's only half
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: the size of the bank bailout.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: True.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: False.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 7: Dan, you're up.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 8: 1.56 trillion sounds like a lot, but it's just a
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 8: quarter the size of the bank bailout.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 7: Wrong, Dan. Shame on you. Get it. Get it. John,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 7: you're up.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: I have something totally different. 1.56 trillion sounds like a lot,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: but it's just a tenth of the size of the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: bank bailout.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 7: True. You got it.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Ding, ding, ding, ding.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 9: Rescuing students from debt would cost only about 10% of
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 9: what the government committed to rescuing the banks during the
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 9: financial crisis.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 7: How amazing is that? Dan, that's why this is, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 7: What are you booing?
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 9: You're booing an inequitable system we're trying to change.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: Dan, you've won the game. Thank you for playing.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 9: Hey, what if we dismantled a vast and cruel system
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 9: that saddles the best and brightest young people in our
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 9: country with student debt like a massive weight forever pressing
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 9: down on the chest of an entire generation?
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 7: Thank you, Congresswoman Omar, for playing and for being here tonight.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 7: One more time for the congressman. Thank you guys all
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 7: for coming. Have a great night.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Harry Reid for joining us today. Thanks to
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: Congresswoman Omar for joining us in Minneapolis.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 10: And.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you later this week.