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"Trump Loses Georgia Again?" · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: What's this?
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We're all back together in the studio again. It's nice.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Not for a while because... We had COVID.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: And I wasn't allowed in. I wasn't allowed in the
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: studio once because I was dancing between the raindrops.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We're all here, Tommy and I, with our super immunity.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Amelia had COVID.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Amelia's here.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We're all super immune.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Sort of tore through the office.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a lot.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Anyway, you guys don't need to hear this.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Trump is headed for a big loss
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, but Trumpism may still prevail on Tuesday. New
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: data offers some hopeful signs about Democratic enthusiasm and voting.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And later, Congresswoman Karen Bass stops by Crooked HQ to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: talk about her campaign to be the next mayor of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Lovett just recorded the interview.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's a good conversation.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Fantastic.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We even managed to get to the CIA in crack.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: See, even if you're not a Los Angeles resident, this
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: is an interview you want to hear.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I was surprised we got there. Cool.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Before we start, check out the Crooked store. Our Memorial
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Day weekend sale is here. Did you guys know we
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: were having a Memorial Day weekend sale?
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: I did not.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Well, it looks like we are. Until you just said that.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: This Tuesday, May 24th through Tuesday, May 31st, you can
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: get 15% off site-wide and up to 80% off new
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: sale items. It's our biggest sale ever.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It's our biggest sale ever.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Five years. Biggest sale ever. Also, we have a very
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: exciting launch coming up that our marketing department has asked
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: us to tease in a vague... but clever and entertaining way.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Mission accomplished.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Love it. I think you got it. That was it.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: That's a good tease. I think for a Memorial Day sale,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: you technically need one of those things that kind of
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: inflates and dances.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like an Uncle Sam. Is that what they're called? No, no, no.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Like an Uncle Sam version of it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Because it's Memorial Day.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: What are those things called? I just equate Memorial Day
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: with car dealers. What are those things called?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: People are probably tweeting at us right now like, you idiots,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you couldn't think of that. Anyway. You all know what
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we're talking about. And anyway, just think about the tease, though.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Something's coming.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Something's coming. D from Always Sunny acts like one in
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: an episode.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's very funny. All right, let's get to the news.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: We got another big set of primaries this week in Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and Georgia, which features maybe the biggest race with possibly
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the most predictable outcome. The polls show incumbent Governor Brian
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Kemp leading former Senator David Perdue by an average of
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: 23 points. And every single poll in Georgia since April
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: has Kemp over 50%. which would allow him to clinch
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the nomination without a runoff. Uh, Kemp is of course
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: at the very top of Donald Trump's enemies list for
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: refusing to overturn the 2020 election, uh, which is why
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the former president has spent a couple million dollars to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: help Purdue, but the Republican governors association has spent $ 5
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: million of their own to help Kemp. Uh, and they
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: have been somewhat fairly bragging, uh, that they've already protected
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: incumbent governors from Trump endorsed challengers in Nebraska and Idaho. Uh,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And just to twist the knife, Mike Pence campaigned with
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Brian Kemp on Monday, which led to Trump's spokesman accusing
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the former vice president of being, quote, desperate to chase
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: his lost relevance.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: If some of those Trump supporters had gotten their way,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: they'd have twisted the knife and Mike Pence would be
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: dead because they wanted to kill him. They wanted to
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: kill him at the Capitol.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, but like desperate to chase his last relevance.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Like my first question is, like, can you lose something
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: that you never really had?
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how much relevance does a community theater Reagan impersonator
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: start with?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Hey, you guys want to hear every Pence voter in
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the world screaming all at the same time?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Was that it? That's it.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Mike Pence kind of lives in the uncanny valley of humanity.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: He's just like some dignity and emotion and a little
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: bit of courage away from being a human.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Just for pure political analysis here, Mike, you know, Because, like, right,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence did the right thing by not overturning the election,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: even though he had a ceremonial-only role in counting the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: electoral votes. Good for Mike Pence. But, like, the idea
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: that Mike Pence is going to run for president in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: 2024 is so laughable to me. Like, where is— I
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: love it. We've talked for so long. I love it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Is there a space for, like, a non-Trump candidate in 2024?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Good debate to have. Is that non-Trump candidate Mike Pence?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Who can make an argument for Mike Pence in that role? Anyone?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I remember a couple of months ago, he did his
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: first little rebuke of Trump. And I took that as
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: a sign that, of course, he can't be running because
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: you can't just beat Trump except on the three things
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: his voters care most about. It doesn't make any sense.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I think even if the concern about 2020 fades from
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you know, the top spot in Trump voter concerns. Like
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you can't be all, I was part of the Trump
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: administration and I loved everything we did, except that little
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: thing at the end there.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: No one likes Mike Pence when he was chosen for
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the job, except for a small subset of evangelicals somewhere
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: in Indianapolis.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: He took it to get out of losing an election
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: in Indiana.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: He is the lucky- Which is what Trump said. Yes.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And it's absolutely true. He had no constituency. The job
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: went to him because- He was one of the people
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: that would say yes at a time in which everyone
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: assumed Donald Trump was going to lose because people didn't
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: understand that we lived in hell.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: All right. You know what? We probably just talked about
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence more than America will over the next four years.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: More than Karen Pence has talked about him.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Why do you guys think Brian Kemp is on his
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: way to such a big victory in the Georgia primary, Tommy?
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: First of all, Trump told The Washington Post that he
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: heard that Purdue is surging. So I just think we
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: need to have some balance here.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did. From Traufelger or whatever?
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: He did an interview. So everyone's like, well, what does
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: this mean for Trump's endorsement?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: We'll get to that later.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: But I do think that endorsements matter most when it's
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: sort of an open field or less well-known candidates. Incumbency
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: is powerful. These voters know Kemp. Trump endorsed Kemp back
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: in the day. Trump fights every culture war battle he
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: can find. But he also has an actual record as
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: a governor that he talks about all the time. So
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: he talks about education. He talks about inflation. if you're
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: mad about the 2020 election being stolen, even though Trump
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: is pissed at him about that, Kemp says, well, I
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which made Democrats really,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: really mad, which is all you need.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: To know about it.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And triangulating on democracy.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: And so look, Kemp's not out there criticizing Trump ever.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: You can be pro-Trump and pro-Kemp and vote for them.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: And so ultimately, I think that Georgia voters are the
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: most nervous about beating Stacey Abrams. And David Perdue is
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: just a absolute loser. He sucks at politics. He's bad
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: at debates. He can't raise money. He's running an ineffective campaign.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Nebraska, Idaho, and Georgia as
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: places where Trump's endorsement isn't getting him very far. They
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: also are three candidates who were terrible in different ways.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: There was McGeehan in Idaho, who was most famous for... No,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: it's pronounced McGeehan.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: It's McGeehan?
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I believe it's pronounced McGeehan. There's McGeehan in Idaho.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: You got a name off. No, you know what?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Don't fix it in post. Don't fix it.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: We'll find out.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Tweet out. I believe it's pronounced McGeehan. in Idaho, who's
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: most famous for pretending to be governor when the governor
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: tried to go on vacation. So she's a loon.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Less funny was her posing with some white nationalists in
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: a picture.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: And then refusing to apologize.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And then the militia. No, she spoke at a white
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: national event. She posed with the militia. It's tough to
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: keep track of it all.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Why do all the militias end up out there?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: They're in Oregon. Anyway, love what you're saying.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: And then Nebraska was a groper who didn't have the
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: endorsement of the current governor. And then Purdue, man, this
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: guy seems to have no interest in politics.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Nebraska, like Ricketts, Governor Ricketts has kind of a machine
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: up there that Trump went against.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Didn't work.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But also, Kemp is doing Trumpism without Trump, right? So
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: in addition to signing the voter suppression bill, which he
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: brags about, Tommy just mentioned, this year alone, he signed
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: bills that let you carry a gun without a license,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: criminalize most abortions. And prevent teachers from talking about race
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: or LGBT issues. Right. So he is like doing all
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the Trump. And and not just Kemp. This goes to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: your point, Levitt, too. Like part of it is the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: bad candidates that Trump is endorsing in these specific races.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: But also in none of these races where Trump Trump's
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: candidates are losing. Like you don't see the candidate who's winning.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: opposing trump in any way.
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: They're not ready it's not susan collins and mitt romney
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: they're not they're not criticizing trump they're just trying to
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: ignore trump i mean and kemp himself apparently said to
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: reporters recently about trump he's like i'm not mad at
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: him he's just mad at me it's.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Very sad which is so sad that rules.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not mad at him he's just mad at me
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and there's nothing i can do but honestly i think
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that is that is it's if he wins today which
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: it seems like he's going to Like, that's the model
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: for them, right? Like, you don't have to necessarily, you
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: can win by not criticizing Trump, but be as Trumpy
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: as possible. No one out there is, like you said,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: no one out there is winning by being Susan Collins
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: or Mitt Romney or Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney. No
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: one's winning like that.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Do you think that Brian Kemp saying, I can't control
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: how Trump feels, I can only control how I feel,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: means that he's one of the therapy boys? That's a
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: good question.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: That's a real swerve to get a therapy boy.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Do you think Brian Kemp may be a therapy boy?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Could be.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I hope so.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's a secret weapon.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's not,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: this isn't about like an anti-Trump thing. This is about
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Republicans trying to go beyond Trump. This is what they're
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: all trying to do. It's a very, and look, it's, it's,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it's a hard space. It's a difficult space to occupy
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: because Trump's always out there about to attack you. But,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: You know, if you if you just tell people that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: you think, you know, the 2020 election was bullshit, but
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you don't want to focus on it and then you
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: do a bunch of other extremely right wing things. you
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: could probably survive without Trump's endorsement.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you look at like DeSantis as well. And
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: there's there's so much power in the perch of being
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: a governor that you can kind of shape your own narrative.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: You can control media cycles. You can demonstrate you can
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: you can pick fights with the left. You can pick
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: fights with the media in a way that's pretty effective.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Again, I just want to stress it once again that
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: David Perdue absolutely sucks. No, that's very important. It's a
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: weekend at Bernie's campaign. He can't raise money.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: He can't. He doesn't work hard.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Trump complains that he's lazy.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: What are you doing?
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: If I was a rich guy, I would just go
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: be a rich guy. Go be a rich guy and don't.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: You're a loser who lost. That's what voters think. Go
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: have fun.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Go play golf. Now that we've said all this, when
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Kemp wins, can we still say the narrative is about
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Trump as a loser? Well, I flagged that he was surging.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: He was surging.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Because I still want to, how much is this race
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: about Trump?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, we can do whatever we want. It is 2022.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: You tell whatever story makes you feel good.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Just in the next five seconds, just change like that.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: But here's the key.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think Georgia primary voters will probably tell
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: you that this race is about beating Stacey Abrams. Donald
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Trump makes everything about himself. So that's what the media
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: narrative is going to be. He dumped $ 2. 64 million of
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: his own PAC money into the state. He recruited Purdue
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: to run. He's done rallies in the state. He's doing
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: a teletown hall tonight. It's such a half-assed thing, a
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: teletown hall.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Isn't that what he did with Youngkin at the end, too?
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: He should have gone there. With Youngkin, he was a
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: little worried Youngkin was going to lose.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: But Chris Christie's out there doing a weird victory lap
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: on all this stuff for the RGA and talking about
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: how they're defending incumbents and they spent $ 5 million they
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: should have spent against Democrats. But Christie was quoted somewhere
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: saying that this was the number one most important race
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: for Trump. And he's a guy who would know. And
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: the good thing about all of this is in a
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: race against Stacey Abrams, this could be decided by a very,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: very small margin. And at those small margins, as we
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: learned when Warnock and Ossoff wins, enough demoralization, enough Trump
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: nonsense and noise and distraction can make a difference.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. The other important Republican primary in Georgia
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: where Trump may prevail is the very close secretary of
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: state race between Brad Raffensperger, who famously certified Biden's win
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: in Georgia after rejecting Trump's attempt to overturn the election.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and state representative Jody Heiss, who will have the power
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: to certify or decertify future elections in Georgia. Heiss is
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: just one of many state-level candidates Trump has endorsed because
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: he hopes they'll help him steal the 2024 election if necessary.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Here's a quote from a New York Times piece over
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the weekend, quote, In an interview with the Times, Mr.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Trump acknowledged that in deciding whom to endorse in state
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: legislative races, he's looking for candidates who want state legislatures
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to have a say in naming presidential electors, a position
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that could let politicians... I like laughing at this line.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: A position that could let politicians short circuit the democratic
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: process and override the popular vote. Yeah, you think overturning
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the election would be short circuiting the democratic process?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that could happen.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Democracies hate this one weird trick.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Find out what it is. The Times piece also analyzed
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: just how many Republican state legislators were willing to discredit
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: or overturn the 2020 election. Anything surprise you guys or
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: stay with you from that analysis?
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's just a lot of them. 357 sitting
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Republican legislators in battleground states only have tried to overturn
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: or talked about overturning the election. 44% of lawmakers in
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: nine states, 22% actively tried to delay the vote or
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: overturn the election. 11% wanted to send an alternate slate
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: of electors. So, you know, pretty bad.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Pretty fucking bad.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Pretty deep infection.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Here's what stuck out with me. You hear 44% of
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Republican legislators in the battleground states voted to either overturn
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: or discredit the election. And you're like, that's a lot.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But that number actually sort of undercounts how many did
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: because it takes into account Texas, Florida, and North Carolina
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: where Trump won. So in those states, there wasn't a
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: lot of Republicans who did it just because they didn't
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: have to. They didn't have to care. If you look at,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize how, Pennsylvania is actually the most dangerous
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: state of all this because It was basically almost 100%
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of Republican legislators in the state of Pennsylvania. were in
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: this category.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I think Arizona's the same.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Arizona was close, yeah. Arizona comes in second, but Pennsylvania
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: was like very fucking alarming.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Just a brief aside, sort of separate news cycle today
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: was that Kellyanne Conway has a book coming out, Who
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Gives a Shit.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: No one's going to read it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Apparently just sort of.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: You know, Dan's in stiff competition with her. Oh, don't
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: buy it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: But it's mean to Jared Kushner, so point for Kellyanne.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Kelly's going to buy it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Apparently the book starts with an anecdote where Kellyanne Conway
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: takes a call from, you know, now anti-Trump whatever, anti-MAGA guy,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Michael Cohen, where they are trying to fix the Iowa
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: straw poll and trying to get Kellyanne Conway to do
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: it for them. So, you know, election rigging has been
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: part of their DNA. Hey, I'll take straw poll rigging
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: any day.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, it's such a joke. I mean, it
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: took him a day to accuse his former aide's husband
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: of rigging the vote because Oz was behind a bit
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: in early counts in Pennsylvania.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: He accused Ted Cruz of fixing a vote in Iowa. Like,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: it's not partisan. It's whoever, I mean, it is partisan
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: because he's- But did he? But did he? But he
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: did he. Yeah, but there's only, you know, there's only
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: two kinds of elections. There's legitimate ones, Republicans won, and
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: illegitimate ones, the Democrats won. That's right.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I will say that the Times piece and the Secretary
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of State race in Georgia and some of what's been
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: written about it just made me realize how, like, I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: think that people, I think most voters don't understand how
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: critical- these state-level elections are. And there were some focus
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: groups that people did in Georgia where everyone, of course,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: heard of Kemp versus Perdue and everyone knows Stacey Abrams,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: but a lot of voters just hadn't heard of Raffensperger
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and Jody Heiss.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: No one was paying attention.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And so, like, this is what happens is you sort
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of sleepwalk into these state legislative candidates that Trump endorsed
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: winning who have now promised to overturn an election. And
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: it's really fucking scary. And in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona...
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: it's actually really close to them having a majority of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: people who would actually do something bad. Now, the only
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: good news in this piece, I counted this for good news,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: is so they have like voted, they have either tried
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to discredit or overturn. Only 11% supported sending alternate slates
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: of electors, which is, of course, the nightmare scenario. But
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that's still, again, in Pennsylvania, it was getting up. In
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and Arizona, two states where there's a lot of
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Republicans in the legislature, it's getting up there. It's getting
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: close to a moment where, so this is, it's not
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: even a question of like, if at this point it's
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: when Republicans have critical mass in these legislatures to actually
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: send a different slate of electors and cause a constitutional crisis.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a huge problem.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And it's why people need to pay attention to state
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: elections so much.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do think our hope now has to
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: be to figure out how to tell a story that
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: ties their delegitimizing of democracy and their refusal to allow
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: people to make their voices heard to what's happening today.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: on abortion because they are connected. It's only a group
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: of people that believe they won't be held accountable by
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: voters that believes they can slowly unravel basic rights, which
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: they're doing in schools, which they're doing to trans kids,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: which they're doing to teachers, which they're now going to
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: do to women. And we have been talking about our
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: inability to convince people to focus on the threats to
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: our democracy and this puerile debate we have over and
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: over again about We need to talk about kitchen table issues,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: but we also need to talk about democracy. Why don't
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: people care? How do we make them care? But I
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: do think choice and abortion is the issue that has
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: unlocked this broader debate about freedom and democracy. And if
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: we can tie those things together, we can hopefully prevent
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: them from picking up the seats that they otherwise were
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: on track to get in November.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I also think on the threat to democracy, we have
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: to talk about it as a future threat and not past. because,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: you know, Greg Sargent just had a piece about this
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: today in the Washington Post. David Binder, who worked for Obama,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: did a bunch of focus groups. And the more you
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: talk to voters about January 6th and what happened in
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: 2020 and the big lie, people just see it as
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: something that happened in the past. And they think that
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you're partisan talking about it. When you start talking about,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: we need to make sure in the future that people
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: do not have the power to overturn the will of
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the voters, then people's, that's what they care about.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Even Republican primaries don't really want to talk about past election.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, the CBS national poll of Republicans found that
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: 52% of Republicans want nominees to focus on loyalty to Trump.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: 44% want them to focus on discussing the 2020 election.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Like they're not even that jazzed up about relitigating the past.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: You know, that's one thing, you know, we'll talk plenty
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: about the January 6th hearings, but they really have to
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: make sure those hearings are framed as we are here
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: today to talk about future threats of democracy and how
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to prevent them and not to like relive January 6th
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: over and over again. Yeah.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: In the same way, you know, In the same way,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: you know, Tommy, I know you're just beating the drum
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: about Jared Kushner's just rampant corruption. Love that guy. And
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: there's always this refrain about not looking backwards. But no,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: we are trying to figure out how to prevent our
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: government from being co-opted in the future. And the way
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: we do that is by having absolutely, you know, proctology-level
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: invasive interrogations of Jared Kushner's finances. You know what I mean? Jared, Jared.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Did a bunch of favors for the Saudis and got
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: $ 2 billion. But the other part of the quid pro
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: quo for Jared is like, hey, give me this money
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: now because my dad might be back in there, so.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I'll take care of you later.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It's ongoing.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: But it's hard to understate the madness that's happening in
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: state capitals.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Look at Massachusetts. Back to the point about how there's
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: not a bunch of Bill Welds running around winning primaries.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: In Massachusetts, the governor is Charlie Baker, the most popular
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: governor in America, 74% approval rating. He's not running for
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: a third term because he could not get his own nomination.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: At the party convention this weekend, it went to a
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: guy named Jeffrey Deal, who's a Trump person. Corey Lewandowski
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: works for him. Typical Fox News MAGA guy. He wants
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: to deploy the National Guard to the border because that's
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: what we do in Massachusetts.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: The border of New Hampshire?
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: The Republican Secretary of State candidate said the following at
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: the party's convention. This is a quote from the Boston Globe.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: This is her.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's nice when they're telling your five-year-old
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: that he can, parens, perform a sex act on another five-year-old,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: she said, drawing gas from the audience.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Do you?
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: This person is trying to distort all these sort of
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: conversation we've been having about curriculum and sex ed in
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: school in Florida to suggesting that Teachers are teaching kids
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: to have sex with each other. This is the Secretary
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: of State candidate in Massachusetts.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Seems like she's not going to win.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: No, it's Massachusetts. Charlie Baker, though, didn't even go to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the party convention. You put her in Arizona or Michigan.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Who's the name of the person? I have a joke,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: but I can't remember. Who's the name of the person?
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Martha Coakley.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hold on. Oh, no, she's running against Martha Coakley.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: That still stings.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: But it's just like, you know, Charlie Baker, 74% approval rating.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: can't get the nomination to run for a third term
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: in Massachusetts.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Because he's a Trump critic.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Democratic side in Georgia. Thanks to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Republican gerrymandering, there's a competitive primary between Representatives Lucy McBath
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and Carolyn Bordeaux, who've been drawn into the same district.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Other than that, Stacey Abrams will once again be the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee for governor, and Senator Raphael Warnock will try
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to hold his seat against a challenge from Herschel Walker. Uh,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and even though they will be facing a brutal political environment, uh,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: here's a hopeful piece of data from a Washington post
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: story about how early voting in Georgia is surging despite
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Kemp's voter suppression law quote, by the end of Friday,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the final day of early in-person voting, nearly 800,000 Georgians
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: had cast ballots more than three times the number in
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: 2018 and higher, even than in 2020, a presidential primary. Um,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: So the piece also, of course, has Republicans accusing Democrats of, quote,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: hyping accusations of voter suppression and saying that these turnout
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: numbers prove that the rhetoric around the law was false.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think? Tommy, was it false?
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I just don't think we know yet. You know, we're
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: not going to know the real impact of these laws
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: until after the primary election day when we have, you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: like precinct level data and absentee ballot rejection rates. And
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: then again, we'll have another look after the general election. But,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the Abrams campaign put out a memo,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Lauren Grovargo, her campaign manager, said that 45% of total
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Democratic primary turnout to date didn't vote in 2018. 11%
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: of the vote didn't vote in the general election in 18.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: So they're bringing in a bunch of new voters.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: That's exciting.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: But she pointed out that, you know, there is a
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: lot of, like, seemingly efforts to scold Democrats for raising
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: awareness about this law. First of all, the voter suppression
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: law changed because we all screamed about it. That's like
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: the key point that seems to be getting lost.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: They stripped out the worst provisions and they didn't strip
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: them up out of the goodness of their heart.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: No.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Because of political pressure and fear of corporations. Yeah.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: And like losing the all-star game and everything else. But
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: she also mentioned that we, Lauren Gowargo, Abrams' campaign manager, said,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: we already know that mail ballot rejection rates are higher
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: than they were in previous elections. So that's worrisome. And
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: then there's a voter shortage. in Forsyth County who has
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: challenged the eligibility of 13,000 other voters in one county.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of weird stuff happening that has
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: to play out.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: So here's the, I think this is simpler than it's
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: made out to be. Like two things can be true.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Like Trumpy Republicans tried to make it harder for people
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to vote with this law. That was their intention. But
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: because they're getting out organized, it's not working and people
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: are voting anyway. Like both of those things can be true. Yeah.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: And again, like creating a bunch of barriers to voting
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: based on an entirely manufactured claim of electoral fraud can
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: be overcome by people who know the barriers are there
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and so come with ladders and come with galoshes and
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: other shoes to get over the moat. But like you
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: still dug a moat for no fucking reason to make
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: it harder to vote.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: And look, I do think they're getting out organized. I
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: think like Democrats on the ground in Georgia are doing
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: amazing work. But there's a less complimentary version of it
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: where voters are just really worried that if they mail
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: in their ballot or they wait, that it'll get struck
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: or thrown out. Or if they try to vote absentee,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: so they're voting in person early. Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Well, also- Out of fear of this law. Mail-in voting
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: has plummeted since 2020 in Georgia, but it's still higher
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: than what it was in 2018, which strongly suggests it's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: just because people weren't comfortable voting at the height of
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the pandemic. And so even the mail stuff, it's actually
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: not going back to what it was before the pandemic.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It's still higher than what it was. It's just People
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: don't want to, people don't want to mail in their ballot.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: They want to show up in person because that's what
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Georgians have always done. That's what most people have always done.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And I do think even the Forsyth County example is
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: basically what I was saying with keeping these two truths
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: in mind at once, which is like this fucking person
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: challenged 13,000 voter registrations in Forsyth County. And, but because
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of organizers and the hard work they've done, only a
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: handful of those challenges of 13,000 were successful. So it's
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: like now, Should a whole bunch of organizers have to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: do all this extra fucking work and put more money
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and time into fighting this voter suppression law?
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: No.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It's outrageous that they did. But I think the only
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: point that people should keep in mind is this isn't
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the end. Like, you should not be discouraged by these
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: voter suppression laws into saying, I might as well not
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: try anymore. Because in Georgia, where 95% of eligible voters
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: are now registered, thanks in part to Stacey Abrams and
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: all of these groups on the ground, like, people can
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: out-organize these laws. It is possible. I do think the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: one big flag, though, is primary voters in both Democratic
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and Republican primaries always tend to be the most engaged.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And therefore the most likely to vote no matter what
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: obstacle you throw in their way. And I think the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: key is what happens in the general. And that's where
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of these groups on the ground have their
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: work cut out for them. But just don't ever let
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: yourself think that because a voter suppression law was passed
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: in a state, That that's it and it's not worth
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: trying because clearly in Georgia they're showing that they can
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: overcome this.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: The reason to not try is because the legislature will
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: invalidate the election entirely. Okay.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, that wasn't the point?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: That's not the point.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Now I'm sad.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: All right. If you squint really hard at some new
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: polls from CBS and Marist.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You put the screen on the other side of
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: the room. You squint. You put on a strobe light.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And then what do you see?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Well, you see some glimmers of hope for Democrats. So
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: even though Joe Biden's approval is at 39% in the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: mayor's poll, that ain't great. The survey also shows the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Democrats are up 47 to 42% of the generic ballot,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: an increase in eight points from last month's poll. It
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: also shows that 66% of Democrats say the draft Supreme
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Court decision overturning Roe makes them more likely to vote
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: in November compared to just 40% of Republicans. The CBS
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: poll shows that only 35% of voters want Roe overturned.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And in that poll, more voters have an unfavorable view
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Uh, 54%
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of voters in that poll described Republicans as extreme, the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: word extreme, more than any other word, uh, given to them.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And 51% described the party as hateful. That was the second,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the second most common word to describe the Republican Party.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: For Democrats, of course, the top word was weak. Kevin
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Cummings hit 51%. Um, So forget about what these polls
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: may predict or not predict. We're not going to do that.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Do these numbers tell you guys anything about what Democratic
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: candidates should be talking about in their ads and on
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the campaign trail?
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: So I think like these, let's just be honest, these numbers,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Biden's approval rating is quite low and it's quite worrisome
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: and it's nerve wracking. I think one of the numbers
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: that really popped out from, I believe the CBS poll,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: was that I think 89% or 90% of voters in
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: both parties are most concerned about inflation. So I do
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: think that will be the driving issue for a lot
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: of voters. There is increasing evidence that the Republican Party's
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: incredibly extreme position on eliminating abortion rights and this potential
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: ruling from the Supreme Court could be the type of
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: issue that clarifies the contrast between Republicans and Democrats in
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: a way that really turns out voters. There's the Marist
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: poll you mentioned. There's the CBS poll you mentioned. Then
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy Center did
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: an op-ed a couple of weeks back in the New
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: York Times where he talked about how in focus groups
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: of young voters, this draft opinion from the Supreme Court
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: on abortion rights has the potential to motivate younger voters
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: the way Parkland did in 18 and the way George
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Floyd's murder did in 2020. So there is some hope
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: here that there are some issues on the table that
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: could really fire Democrats up. I do think it's challenging
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: with the economic news really dominating what people are hearing.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: I remember when we were in the run-up to 2020,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: we talked a lot about the coalition of basically pro-science
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: people that wanted a better response to the pandemic, that
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: was pro-vaccine, that was pro-public health measures, that was against
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the chaos that we're seeing coming out of the Trump administration.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And that was a coalition that was broader than than
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Democrats and brought in the kind of independence we need
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: and the moderates we need without us giving up anything.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: And I do think that choice is that issue now,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: that abortion access is that issue now. There is a very,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: very big coalition of people. There is no state in
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the country that wants Roe overturned. And if we can
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: make everything seen through the lens of reproductive health care,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: of access to abortion, of choice, I think that that
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: is something that can I mean, look, we needed something
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to change everything. This is something that changes everything. I
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: don't tell everyone, you know, vote pro-choice, up and down
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: the ballot, vote for the candidates that are in favor
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: of Roe.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: And then everything can flow into that.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the part that I think is important because
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I think that Roe is probably the central issue that
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: is salient enough for people and that people know the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: most about because everyone's heard about the draft, let alone
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: what happens when the Supreme Court actually hands down the decision.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: But I think there is increasing evidence in all these
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: polls that Republican extremism is the one thing that could
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: keep the Democratic coalition that turned out in 2018 and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: 2020 together. I am now doing a bunch of interviews
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and focus groups for the next season of The Wilderness,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: which we just announced will be out in September. But
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I was struck by I talked to a Democratic strategist
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: who was maybe the one strategist in 2020 that when
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: all the polls were showing that Democrats were comfortably ahead,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: kept sending out these updates that said it was going
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: to be much closer. The polls were on. He was
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: like very dark about it. And I asked him about
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: 2022 and he was actually more optimistic about 2022 only
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: because he said if the Democrats do this, he's like
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: there's there's a coalition of Democrats that turned out in
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: 2018 that sort of like shattered all midterm turnout records.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And what happened was there's people who usually only vote
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: in a presidential race, but they showed up in 2018
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: to vote in the midterms. Those people, if you can
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: bring them out in 2022, the people who usually just
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: vote in presidentials but voted in 2018, then Democrats can
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: keep it much closer than we think it's going to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: be right now. And the way to turn them out
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: is to make sure they know that the threat from
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Trumpism is not over and that Republicans are They're coming
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: after Roe. They are coming after, some of them are
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: coming after gay marriage. Some of them are coming after
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: fucking birth control.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: A Trump endorsed candidate in Michigan says she would vote
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: to ban all birth control that comes off her vote. Because, quote,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: sex ought to be between one man and one woman
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: in the confines of marriage.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Fuck off.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You are a crazy person. There is a sitting United
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: States Senator from Indiana who is on video saying that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court should leave the decision about interracial marriage
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to the states. What are we doing? Half the Republican
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: caucus in the House just voted against funding to help
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: with the baby formula shortage.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Melissa Murray in The Times today talked about how quickly
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: this can lead to bans on contraception. And it isn't
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: even perspective to a lot of these right wingers who
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: are extreme on abortion. They consider contraception like IUDs to
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: be abortion and they are already banning it or trying
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: to ban it or making it impossible. for people to
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: get access to the care that they need. So it's
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: already happening. They've already moved on to trying to ban contraception.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: And House Republicans in Louisiana made an effort at drafting
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: a law that would have made abortion homicide. The Marist
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: poll shows that two-thirds of Americans do not support overturning
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Roe and that Democrats are more likely to turn out
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: in the election because of what they learned about that
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: draft opinion. But there are even more extreme cases that
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: we can lift up and highlight as a party the
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: way Republicans lift up every candidate extreme case on the
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: left all the time, always, and act like that is representative.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And all I can say is our job and our
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: work is to never forget to lift up the specific examples.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Do not take the shortcut because we're all in our
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: echo chamber. We all talk to each other of just
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: saying that Republicans are extreme and leaving it at that.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Find the stories in the states where you have all
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: of these extreme Republican candidates proposing these very, very extreme policies.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Because if you just say They're far to the right
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: of their extreme. People aren't going to know what you're
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: talking about. And they're not just going to assume that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you're correct. Like, Democrats just have to do a better
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: job of lifting up these examples. All right. When we
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: come back, John Lovett interviews L.A. mayoral candidate Karen Bass.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Grills Karen Bass.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Then we're going to head down to the
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Grove for some cheesecake factory.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: We didn't. We didn't.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Joining us in studio, the representative from the 37th District
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: of California and a candidate for mayor of the city
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: of Los Angeles, Congresswoman Karen Bass. Welcome back to the pod.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Thanks for having me on again.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So you want to be mayor of the city?
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: You can't even get a decent slice of pizza. I know.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: It'll all be fixed.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: It'll all be fixed. Wait, so why are you running
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: for mayor?
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Really on the serious side, because Los Angeles is really
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: in a terrible crisis. A lot of different cities are
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: dealing with homelessness. They're unhoused. But in Los Angeles, when
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: the count comes back, we anticipate it being more than 50,000
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: people on the streets, in tents, in cars, in RVs.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: And I believe it is a public health and a
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: public safety emergency and needs to be treated as such.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: So we're in this home stretch. And as you said,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of the dynamics playing out in the race
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: are being experienced by cities across the country. Questions around
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: crime and the housing crisis. Your opponent is a wealthy
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: business person. He was a Republican. who registered as a
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Democrat to run. He's dropped a million dollars.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: Two weeks before.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Two weeks before. It was a very important two weeks
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: for him. He learned a lot.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: Changed all the values.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: He also dropped a million dollars to support a pro-choice
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: initiative to make up for having been donating.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: He committed a million.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: He committed a million. He dropped 100,000.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: See, this is why. This is good. This is good.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: This is good.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: But he's been a Republican his whole life. At the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: same time, he spent tens of millions of dollars blanketing
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the airwaves in L.A. with advertisements to frame the choice
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: in the race a certain way. How do you frame
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: the choice in this race?
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, I frame the choice as whether Los Angeles is
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: going to go in a direction that is more conservative,
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: is going to take a turn to the right, is
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: going to reach back into the past with old, tired
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: policies that do not solve problems, or whether we're going
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: to continue moving in the direction of an inclusive city.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: of a liberal city, of a city that embraces everyone,
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: and a city that comes together to address the problems.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: I'm very concerned, and one of the big reasons why
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: I made the decision not to run for Congress again.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: You know, after experiencing four years of the Trump administration
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: and the way Trump tore this country apart, we're still
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: suffering from it. I think if we learned anything in
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: those four years, we better learn that we can't take
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: anything for granted. And just because this is an overwhelmingly
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: democratic city, it doesn't mean we can't slip and make
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: a turn to the right. I don't want to see
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: that happen.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: So there's two pieces of this. One is just making
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: sure everybody turns out, right? And nobody takes this for granted.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: But there's also a city that is seeing tons of
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: these ads that is worried about crime, that is worried
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: about unhoused people, both because they view it as... public
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: safety issue for their families and also plenty of people
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: want this to be a just and safe place. They
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: want there to be enough housing. What do you say
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: to people who still feel undecided right now because they're progressive,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: they're Democrats, but they're seeing these ads and they're just thinking, well,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: this is a person who says they're just going to
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: fix it. I'm going to hand them the keys and
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: they're going to fix it.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Well, we have been there before. We've been there, done that.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: And a strong man is not going to solve the problems.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: One who has never been in the public sector. He
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: has been a wealthy businessman his entire life. He inherited wealth.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: And I think you have to look at it from
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: the perspective of he has run a company, never had
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: a board of directors, never had shareholders. This is not
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: an autocracy. This is a democracy. And I don't believe
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: that a person coming in like that can solve our problems. Now,
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: the whole world watched us experiment with this. Do we
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: really want to do this again? And in California, you know,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: as well as around the country, there have been numerous
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: attempts where billionaires and millionaires run. I think there's somebody
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: who's not in the White House right now who spent
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: $ 1 billion in 30 days. So, yes, of course, the
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: ads are troubling. But I would just ask people to
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: look below the surface. Where has this person been? If
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: you're worth $ 4. 3 billion, why is it that you never
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: have built one unit of affordable housing in all that time?
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: How is it that you've paid $ 1. 6 million in taxes
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: over five years, but yet you won't show your taxes?
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: So this is a movie we've seen before. I don't
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: want to see it happen again in our city.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: You have to admit, it's pretty smart to inherit money.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: Oh, hey, I'm not mad at him. I'm not mad
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: at him.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I just think it's like, I think it'd be cool.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Well, I hope I have some money to leave my kids.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: So that is around how, you know, people who have
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: run as business people have defined what it means to
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: be a leader. But I want to hear from, rather
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: than defined against what kind of he's offering, what is
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: your view on the role of the mayor? Someone who's
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: been in public service for decades, who kind of sees
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: this from the, not from a kind of business angle,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: but from like how you bring people together. How do
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: you view the role of mayor? in terms of not
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: just being one person solving problems, but getting coalitions together?
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, first of all, I've spent most of
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: my life not in public office. I've spent most of
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: my life as a social justice activist building organizations, building coalitions.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: That's one of the things that I have done for decades,
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: bringing people together across geography, ideology, race, class, and that
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: is what is needed to solve the problems. I do
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: not believe that politicians alone can solve problems. To make
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: our democracy really work, we need people to participate. That's
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: what an organizer does. I served as Speaker of the
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: House in Sacramento for two years during the worst recession
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: since the Great Depression. And the only way California got
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: through that was by bringing the entire legislature together to
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: the table to say, you know what? We all have
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: to make these bad decisions, but that's what we need
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: to do in order to prevent the state from defaulting.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Do you think the L.A. mayor should be more powerful? Like,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I hear what you're saying, that we need, you know,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: this idea of one person can fix a problem. That's
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: been tried. It doesn't work. But at the same time,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: you know, I see Nithya talking about the fact that
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: taking a citywide crisis like homelessness and dividing it up
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: by district Sometimes it doesn't work. You know, there have
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: been confusion and COVID protocols between the county and the city.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's felt like Barbara Ferrer is more powerful than
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: elected officials. The mayor isn't in charge of the schools.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Do you think that the L.A., that L.A. 's mayor
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: should have more power to solve some of these problems?
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm not sure if the mayor needs more power.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: But what I do know is that you can use
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: the power you have and then you can take power.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: You can take charge. It's a question as to how
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: you lead. And, you know, the job is what you
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: make it. And so you just touched on one of
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: the fundamental areas of dysfunction in this region, and that
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: is the gap between the city and the county. We
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: will not solve the problem of the unhoused if the
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: city and the county cannot work together hand in glove.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: I have worked with the county for a number of
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: years on the issues I've worked on. The five supervisors,
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: I know each of them personally very well. So one
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: thing that I bring to the table that I don't
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: believe my opponent does are deep relationships on every level
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: of government. And it's going to take a whole of government, federal, state, county,
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: and city to work together to address this emergency.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: And on this question of the homelessness crisis being addressed
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: district by district, What would change if that power wasn't
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: devolved to the city council members?
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: I actually think that the problem is not going to
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: be addressed until we address it countywide. So I just
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: was speaking to the function between the city and the county,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: but we have to take a regional approach. So when
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: I said over 50,000 people who are unhoused, I was
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: just referring to the city. If we talk about the county,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: it's probably another 20, but we're all waiting for the
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: count since it hasn't been done for two years. The
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: numbers should be coming out in the next month or so.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: And that would... But then, so, okay, there's the difference
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: between addressing at the county level and at the city level.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: But then there's also this, you know, you read between
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: the lines and you feel like certain city council members
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: take a different kind of approach than others. Some push
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: the problem around. Some try to just get them out
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: of their area. That can't be solved at the county level.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Well, no, but that's why I say we need a
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: countywide strategy and a citywide strategy as well. I don't
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: like the council... by-council approach at all. Because you know
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: what's going to happen? It's pretty easy. The people that
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: are unhoused in the affluent areas are going to be
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: moved into the low-income areas if we don't solve the problem.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: And if we take the tack of, look, just get
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: it out of my sight, I don't really care what happens.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: But again, that's why we have to have an entirely
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: different approach. We have to get people off the streets immediately,
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: but we also have to address why were they on
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: the streets to begin with? And if you don't mind,
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: can I just take one second to describe the population?
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Because right now, people are being viewed all the same.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: They're all drug addicts who don't want to come inside.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: And you have multiple categories of folks there, people who
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: are just economically unhoused, people who are working full time,
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: living in their cars or their RVs or in tents.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: You have former foster youth who turn 18 or 21.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: And we, as a society, just kick them to the
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: curb because we cut them off of everything. You have veterans.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: You have people who were formerly incarcerated. When we downsized
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: the prison system, we didn't think about where people were
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: going to go. And then you have people who are
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: suffering from chronic diseases, like substance abuse and mental illness
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: or other diseases. We have to have strategies to address
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: each and every category of person that is unhoused. And
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: until we have a comprehensive approach like that, we're just
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: going to be dabbling at the problem.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: So we talk about two aspects of that. I think
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: one is just access to housing.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: It's not enough.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Not enough. So there's both. You just talk a little
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: bit about what you view your role as mayor would
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: be both in terms of just building a ton more
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: housing and then also targeted affordable housing for people even
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: at moments of crisis.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Well, let me just say, yes, building the housing, but
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: working hand in glove with the county so that the people,
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: the minute they get the key to the door, they're
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: also getting services. If we just put people in the
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: house without addressing what drove them outside to begin with,
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: they're not going to stay in the house very long.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: So I think that that's critical. Now, overall, we have
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: a problem. I believe the root problem in L.A. is
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: profound income inequality. The gap between the rich and the
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: poor is massive and the middle class disappearing. The city
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: has become unaffordable. So we have to build 500,000 units
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: of housing and a significant percentage of those need to
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: be affordable. but I would really question when people say affordable,
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: affordable to who? So that's gonna be really important.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: But we need tons of it. We need like a map.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: 500,000.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: And then one other piece of this is what happens
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: when people are on the precipice of homelessness? Thank you,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: thank you. They're living in their cars. I mean, sometimes
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the government is not only not helping them, government is
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: part of the problem, right? Absolutely. People being ticketed, cars
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: being impounded, right? At the moment of crisis, right when
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: they could be helped, they're sort of punished for their
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: economic situation. What can the mayor do, you know, day one,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: what could you do to help those people that are
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: right on the edge?
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Well, one is that you stop ticketing cars when you,
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: or obvious people are living in them, because then you're
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: going to wind up towing that car. And that's ridiculous.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: What I would do on day one, though, is declare
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: a state of emergency and push the governor to declare
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: a federal state of emergency. The bottom line is, is
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: that you're absolutely right. We're not gonna solve this problem
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: if we do not address the thousands of people that
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: could become homeless any day. We have to make sure
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: that those people that are still housed, I'm not talking
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: about in cars, those people that are still housed stay there.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: And so that's gonna need rental assistance right now because
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: we're still not out of the consequences of this pandemic.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: So one thing you've talked about is bringing mayors from
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: other cities together because this is a problem that is
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: sort of growing in a lot of different cities What
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: would that do? And how do you think about, like,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: on the one hand, people just want the mayor to
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: solve this problem. And they don't want to hear excuses that, oh,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: this is happening everywhere. But on the other hand, this
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: is a city dealing with a national trend. How do
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: you think about that?
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: Well, the point of bringing the other mayors together is
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: to go to Washington to say that this is an emergency.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: This is the richest.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Country in the history of the world. How can we
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: have people sleeping on the street? I mean, we've grown
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: to accept this. And there is an entire generation that
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: has grown up thinking this is normal. I remember... when
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: we didn't use the term homelessness. That's new. That's new
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: meaning from like the 80s, which is when this problem
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: actually started. Now there's always been a handful of people, okay,
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: who were unhoused, but extremely rare. This problem took off
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: in the mid 80s.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: And even if you build 500,000, you're not gonna be
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: able to build 500,000 units overnight. We are making up
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: for decades of a failure to build more broadly. One
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: criticism of the way Democrats have governed in California is
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: we've just made it really hard to build. We've made
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: it hard to build schools, made it hard to build parks,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: made it hard to build infrastructure. We can't get a
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Are there ways
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: in which you would want to cut red tape and
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: just make it easier to build in the city?
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you just said it right there. I would cut
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: red tape and make it easier to build. But, you know,
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: the way that I would do that, though, is by
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: centralizing a lot of the functions and fast forwarding it.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: So For example, you know, there's 88 cities, by the way,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: in L.A. County. And you can go to an adjacent
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: city and have no problem building. It's L.A. that is
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: the problem. And it is the problem because of the
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: massive bureaucracy and because there's so many departments you have
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: to go through if you want to build something. To me,
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: anybody that comes to me and says that they want
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: to build housing to address the unhoused or they want
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: to build affordable housing, I don't want them to go
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: to the front of the line. I want them to
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: have their own line. And I want the departments to
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: be centralized. I want them to have access to bridge
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: funding because that's one of the problems too. The financing
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: takes so long that it winds up increasing the costs.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: And so the way that you can deal with that
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: is dealing with the red tape and also providing people
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: loans that So that while they're going through the process,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: they can build quicker and then pay it back when
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: the public money finally kicks in.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's crazy that we can't build a
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: train from San Francisco to Los Angeles?
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: Oh, let me just tell you something about that.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: I don't get it.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: When I was speaker, one of the things I was
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: very proud of was getting the high speed rail on
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: the ballot. That was legislation that put it on the ballot.
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: And I was so excited. We're so behind the world. France, Japan.
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, everybody has high speed rail.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: But like the state voted to do it. We passed it.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: The public voted.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: The public voted to pass it, voted for this to happen.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: And Jerry Brown wanted it to happen. It's supposed to
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: go from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The next thing
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: we know. Now I'm building a train from Merced to Bakersfield.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a great route. What are we doing there?
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Who needs high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield?
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: Look, when I got the legislation on the ballot, that
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: was 14 years ago. 14 years ago. And the first
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: leg was supposed to be L.A. Orange County.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, why can't we build that? Can you
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: build that as mayor? Who's going to build it?
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: No, I can't.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Well, what are we going to do? Why can't Gavin
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: build it?
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: Well, we'll have to call him up. You'll have to
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: have him on the show.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: This is frustrating to me.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I wanted to sort of step back because I think
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of people are hearing this. They're not in
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles, but this is something that in terms of
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: the story that is being told about our politics. right now,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: you are running in a city that is worried about
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: crime and and worried about unhoused people at a time
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: in which the right wing has villainized Democrats, blamed progressive politics,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: blamed progressive DAs, blamed liberals for creating this crisis. And
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: I think sometimes even in Los Angeles, that narrative has
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of power for people. So how do you
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: talk about the progressive vision for addressing these issues in
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: a way that's humane and just without giving into some
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: of these sort of right-wing stories?
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: So I couldn't have said it better. You just explained
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: every reason why I'm writing. Because to me, I could
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: see the writing on the wall. I was flashing back
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: to the 1990s when we went through— we were exasperated then,
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: too— because it was the Crips and the Bloods, thousand homicides,
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: crack cocaine, AIDS. All of these problems converged, not everywhere
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: in the city like the in-house, but in certain areas
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: like South LA. At the time, I was on the
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: faculty at USC Medical School. I walked away from that
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: job to go to the heart of South Central to
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: start an organization to address these problems, because the only
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: solution politicians had were to pass sentencing laws. And so
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: my concern is that to where we are right now,
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: The stage is set to repeat that. And because we basically,
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: as Americans, we have an ahistorical culture, we don't look
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: to history as a guide. When I see what is
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: happening right now, I think the stage is set for
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: us to move in that punitive direction, which might make
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: people feel good because those homeless folks will be off
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: their block. But if we just lock them up, they're
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: going to be out in three days and they'll just
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: move to another area. And so What I'm doing in
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: terms of my vision is to fight for the problem
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: to be addressed in a comprehensive manner, to talk about
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: the root causes, the reasons why people are unhoused, to
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: fight for those services that we stripped away in the
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: 90s while we were locking everybody up, and to understand
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: from history that we really should not repeat this. Now,
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: we do have a problem with crime. We have to
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: address crime. And progressives can't run from that. If we say, well,
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: it's not as bad as it was in the 1990s,
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: but if your house was broken into, you have a
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: crime crisis. We have to face it. And we have
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: to say that if somebody commits a crime, they have
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: to be held accountable. Now, at the same time, I'm
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: going to invest time, money, and resources in crime prevention
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: strategies that we pioneered back in the 90s when I
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: was running community coalitions. Those strategies were professionalized, researched, and replicated.
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: We know how to prevent these problems. We just never
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: invest in it. So what you're going to find from
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: my administration is I'm going to address crime head on,
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: but I'm going to dive into addressing the crime, stopping
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: the crimes of today, but preventing the crimes of tomorrow
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: by addressing those communities and dealing with the problems before
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: they reach the point of criminal activity.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like there's been, obviously there's this fight
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: between you and Rick Caruso, but there's also this intra-left
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: debate about how to answer what Republicans are saying. And
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I think you're offering one vision for how to respond, right?
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: It's acknowledging, recognizing the fear people have and talking about
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: some of the ways you'd address it, both in terms
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: of policing and also in terms of broader reforms. Do
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: you worry at all about the critique you're getting from
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: the left for what you said about.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: Police, about hiring police officers.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: About hiring police officers.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, no one wants, everybody wants
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: a kumbaya, but I understand that criticism. but I will
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: tell you it's the same criticism I received in 1990
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: when I said to the left at the time, crack
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: cocaine is a problem. It's not okay. We can't just
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: look away. This is having devastating impact in communities. And
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: what people wanted to talk about then was the CIA's
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: involvement in bringing cocaine into the country. Now we knew
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: that was factual. Senator Kerry at the time did a
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: congressional commission looking at the CIA's involvement in that. You
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: know what I'm talking about? Oh, Okay, but people were
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: dying in South Central. I understand they were involved in CIA,
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: but I think that our side sometimes has a hard
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: time dealing with some of the social problems. And, you know,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: you can talk about root causes, of which I believe
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: in fighting and pursuing, but if somebody's being shot at,
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: what's your answer? So I think you have to address
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: crime because let me just tell you this. If we
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: don't address crime, if we don't have a response, then
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: we've conciliated it to the left. I mean, to the right.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: We've just handed it to them. We don't have a response,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: so you do it. And what happens when we hand
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: it over to them? We got mass incarceration. I mean,
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: I watched this happen in the 90s, and it was
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: so frustrating because during that time, you know, I had
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: no power, no position, no agency. We didn't even have
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: social justice nonprofits, okay? That was a new phenomenon that
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: started in the 90s. We had to create all of that.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: And so here I am, fast forward to now. Now
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: I'm in this whole different position. That's why I had
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: to come to this decision. I wasn't ready to leave Congress.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, what I will really miss about Congress the
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: most is that I was able to do international work
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: and domestic work at the same time.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Taco Tuesdays?
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Taco Tuesdays. My focus was Africa, actually. But I walked
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: away from that. And if this was about my quote-unquote career...
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: I would have stayed in Congress and run for a
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: leadership position. It's never been about that. That's not how
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: I've made decisions. When I walked away in 1990, I
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: had a cush teaching job on the faculty at the
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: medical school.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I could have stayed there.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: But what drove me to walk away from that and
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: go to the heart of South Central was that I
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: felt like black folks were going by the wayside. I mean,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: we didn't use the term mass incarceration at the time,
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: but we saw it happening. We saw the laws changing
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: and we didn't have the power to stop it. Now
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: I'm in an entirely different position. So that's what compelled
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: me to come back.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Congresswoman Karen Bass, thank you so much for being here.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: We're recording this Monday, which we may put out a
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: clip saying this is your last day to register, but otherwise,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: everybody got a ballot in the mail.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: The election, the last day to vote is June 7th.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: You need to vote now. You can go to karenbass.com.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: We need volunteers. We're having people phone banking, walking precincts.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: Do it the grassroots way because the way I want
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: to win is is by building a grassroots coalition that
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: all around the city with all of the rainbows that
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: are reflected in our city, all of the diversity, to
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: build a movement that says it's not enough just to
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: get elected to someone to get elected to office. Then
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: we have to help them govern, help them lead.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Should we go canvas at the Grove? No. No, we can't?
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Hand out some food for the Cheesecake Factory? I think
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: it's a good idea. I don't think that would be
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: a good idea. Make some trouble, no?
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Good trouble. It's my idea. It wasn't your idea. I
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: can still do it.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: You can canvas.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here.
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: All right. Thank you to Karen Bass for joining us today,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you later. Bye, everyone.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Bye. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montouch. Our
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.