Latest / Pod Save America / "Criminal Apprentice." (with Anat Shenker-Osorio!)

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"Criminal Apprentice." (with Anat Shenker-Osorio!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Jon Favreau
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is on vacation this week. So joining me is communications
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: guru and host of the podcast, Words to Win by
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Anat Shankarosoriok. Anat, thanks for doing this.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, thanks for having me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We've got a big show today. On today's show, Donald
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Trump gets a few steps closer to seeing the inside
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of a jail cell, the House votes to create a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: select committee to look into the January 6th attack, and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a look at the potential 2022 Republican blueprint for taking
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the House. Later, I talk to NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: about Trump's latest visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. So, Anat,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: in the long history of this podcast, we have become
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: notorious for in some small circles of people for having
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: huge news break right after the podcast drops. But this morning,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the news god smiled on us. Earlier this morning, Allen Weisselberg,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the CFO of the Trump Organization and the former president's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: closest business advisor, surrendered to authorities. Later, he is expected
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to appear in court where he and the Trump Organization
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: itself will be charged with tax crimes. While Trump was
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: not indicted, this move will put some additional pressure on
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Weisselberg to flip on Trump, something that prosecutors have been
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: pushing him to do for months and Trump advisors have
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: long feared. Anat, what is your reaction to this fortuitously
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: timed and seemingly good news?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: You know, good news is good news, and let's take it,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: and let's be happy about it, especially quasi going into
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the weekend today. I think in terms of what that
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: means among us, yes. Great. I think in terms of
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: what that means for our public response, I think that
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: as much as we would like to have some well-deserved
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: schadenfreude here, it's really, really important, and we're probably going
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to come back to this a bunch of times because
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: of all the news, to retain the moral high ground.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And what that means is that if our public response
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: to this is like nanner, nanner, nanner, or some more
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: sophisticated version of that, then we are quickly gonna fall
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: prey to the Republican backlash, which is, you see, they
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: just keep relitigating the last thing, they can't get over
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the last guy, they're just vindictive, they just want blood,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: they don't care about this country, they don't care about truth,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And so what we need to do is
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: we need to frame this as it is, which is
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a win for truth, a win for integrity, a win
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: for transparency, And a win for a country in which
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: no matter what you look like, what's in your wallet
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: or what position you hold, the laws apply equally to
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: all of us.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: So are you saying that I should cancel the confetti
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: cannon and tell the crooked media merch folks to put
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: a stop on the order for convict Trump champagne flutes
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: that they're planning on selling later today?
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm telling you that it depends on your
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: theory of change. If your theory of change is a
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: permanent lucrative sort of money coming in for Crooked, then
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I definitely see the Champagne Flutes being a big seller.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: If your theory of change is that we're supposed to
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: equip our choir with the songbook that they're supposed to
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: then repeat to the congregation, then I would have to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: put a pause.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, that seems fair. Now, Donald Trump seems to be
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: on the same page as you because according to Politico
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: playbook this morning, and I swear I'm not making this up,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Trump apparently thinks these criminal charges are a boon for
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: his potential 2024 campaign. He reportedly told his aides, just
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: wait until 2024. You'll see. This is going to hurt
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Sleepy Joe. Is it really possible that Donald Trump is
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: right here and that a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: his associates and businesses could help him reclaim the White House?
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Listen, motivated cognition is a hell of a drug. And
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: what I mean by that is, I mean, we see
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: throughout all experiments that we do, all different kinds, all
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: different disciplines, academia, political communication research, that people have a
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: set of preexisting ideas and they will go out in
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: search of information that reconfirms them. That is a serious
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: and significant issue that we have in communication. And so if.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is able to render himself not just a martyr,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: but sort of a hero for the everyday man who
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: is sticking it to the evil IRS, right, who is
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: triumphing in the face of the deep state or whatever,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the boogeyman, they decide to label it this time around,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: then it is possible that there will be a reanimation
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: of his base, which basically is his only inroad. Do
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I think that that's, you know, plausible enough to take
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: him over the line? Not really. But, you know, in America,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the implausible seems to be happening on a daily basis.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I sort of agree with at least part of
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Trump's logic here, which is... I.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Have to tell you, you just use the phrase Trump's logic.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's fair. But... Like a logic in a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: broken clock sort of right twice a day sort of situation,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I guess. But let me rephrase that since you were
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: on the podcast today. I agree in a sense with
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the political analysis of this as relayed to Politico Playbook
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: without any sort of scrutiny anonymously by Trump's aides, which
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: is– Donald Trump and the right wing have done so
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: much to sow distrust in institutions and done such a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: good job of building this hermetically sealed right wing information
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: bubble that I think it is actually possible for Trump
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and Republicans to run around flying Blue Lives Matters flags.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: calling themselves friends of law enforcement, supporters of the police,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the Law and Order Party, attacking Democrats as defunding the police,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and at the same time viewing any criminal investigation into
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a Republican as a product of a cabal of liberal
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: elites and deep staters who are trying to take down
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the MAGA movement or whatever. So I think, I mean,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: what is a sad fact of life is I don't
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: think this is going to help him win a general
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: election in 2024. But unfortunately, for American politics, and, you know,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: sort of just the state of life in American democracy,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it's not going to hurt him as he should, right?
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: In the old days, this would be the end. you're
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: enmeshed in a legal morass, investigations left and right, that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: would be the end of your political career. And here,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: it could probably help you win a Republican primary and
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it's not going to hurt you in a way in
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: which you would think. So I think this is enjoyable.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: We will keep our schadenfreude inside. It's sort of at
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the risk of helping Donald Trump in this situation. But
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I think the politics of it are not what we
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: would hope for either progressives or just democracy generally.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, I agree.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Moving on from crimes Trump may have committed before he
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: was president to crimes he committed while he was president.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: After Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan independent investigation into their
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: own attempted murder, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: create a select committee to investigate the causes of the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol. Representatives Adam Kinzinger
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and Liz Cheney were the only Republicans to join Democrats
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in voting against. Kinzinger had this to say.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It's not my favorite option, but the point is we
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: can't keep pretending like January 6th didn't happen. We need
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: full accounting for it, and then we can move on.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Anat, the substantive reasons for such a committee are, I think,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: beyond question. But this is a podcast where we talk
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: about politics. So I feel compelled to ask you, is
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: this a good political move for Democrats?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It's the only move. And the reason why it is
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: the only move, if you'll allow me to go deep for.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: A moment, Dan. Go deep.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And... I really just want to blanket credit our mutual friend,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Mike Podhorzer, for a lot of this thinking and a
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: lot of this framing. So shout out there. Is that
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: it is a massive mistake to position and, you know, Kitzinger,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: the end of that little clip, the we can move on,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: like that's problematic, that last part of the sentence. It's
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a massive mistake to let this fly in any way,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: shape or form. And it's a mistake that this country
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: has made over and over and over again. What we
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: need to recognize is that the people who attacked our country,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: the people who attacked our Capitol, the people who attacked
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: our way of life and our way of governance, they
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: belong to a faction. We can call it a Jim
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Crow faction. We can call it a Confederate faction. It's
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: a faction. And as James Madison defined it, a faction
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: is a small group of people, a minority that is intent,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: who are united and actuated by some common impulse of
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: passion or of interest adverse to the rights of other
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: This is what Madison was writing about in the Federalist
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Papers that he feared. And we have had this faction
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: as a facet of our history from the founding of
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: this country. This is a faction that of course refused
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: to join the United States until they were assured that
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: they could enslave other human beings. This was a faction
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: that nullified laws that they rejected. This is the faction
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: that more recently refused to grant that President Barack Obama
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: was actually a United States citizen, American born. This is
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a ethos and an idea that has been part and
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: parcel of this country since its founding. And at every turn,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: we have not vanquished it. At every turn, we have
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: not identified it. And if we do not understand that
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: today's big lie, the big lie that the will of
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: the people should be vacated because of course we have
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: the temerity to let black and brown and young and
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: new Americans vote is simply the latest iteration of the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: overarching big lie. The overarching big lie that we are
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: in fact not created equal. The overarching big lie that
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: there are certain people, African-Americans, indigenous people, newer immigrants who
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: will never be in some people's eyes, full and true citizens.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: And so I think it's incredibly important to position this
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: 1621 investigation, this attack on our country as a rooting
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: out of a supremely undemocratic, unequal, unjust force that we
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: need to get to the bottom of and to understand
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that this faction It's not a political party. It's taken
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: a post in the GOP, right? It's a parasite on
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: our nation, but it operates well beyond the GOP. It
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: operates as a media syndicate, as you know better than anyone, right?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Fox News, Sinclair, Newsmax, OWN. It operates through talk radio.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: It operates through state legislatures. It operates through social media.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It operates through paramilitary like the Proud Boys. This is
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: a faction that every single American of good conscience needs
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to care about, needs to get to the bottom of.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And it is something that we simply cannot continue to
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: live with as a nation if we are going to
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: be united and make real the promise of liberty and
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: justice for all. And so once we recognize that this
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: faction is sort of, it's a parasite on our nation,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: And if you'll allow the mixed metaphor, it's either a
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: boil that we will lance or it's a cancer that
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: will continue to spread.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Mixed metaphors are always allowed on this podcast. I am
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: a frequent violator of that grammatical edict. You know, obviously,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I think Democrats had to do this. You cannot have
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: an assaulting a head state's capital for the purposes of
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: overturning an election that was violent and violent. filled with
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: white supremacist ideology, people flying the Confederate flag inside the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: United States Capitol 100 years after the Civil War, you
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: can't not investigate. That is not an option. What is
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: hard about this is it gets to the structural challenges
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of politics in this polarized age with a political system
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: which very alarmingly disproportionately awards political power to the faction
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: to which you are referring. This is how we got
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump as president. And so like you have to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: investigate it. You have to have a historical public accounting
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: of what will happen. My fear with all of this
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: is the– and this is not a critique of what
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is doing. This is– her approach here is
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the only one available to her. But the January 6th
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: assault is only the end result of a whole bunch
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of other things that happened during the Trump era, that
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: happened in our politics, that have to be addressed– investigated, addressed,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and explored. And I don't think this is going to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: help Democrats win the next election or it's going to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: be this great silver bullet or anything like that. It's
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: just something you have to do that is the important
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: right thing to do. But I think if the only
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: narrow thing is that we're going to come out with
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: this report, it's going to come out five months before
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the election, it's going to demonstrate beyond a shadow of
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a doubt that Donald Trump did X, Y, and Z,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and he fomented this, and these members of Congress took
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: people on tours. That's like a micro-level accounting. What we
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: really need is what you're talking about, which is a
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: macro-level accounting of how this faction gained so much power
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: in our society when the, I think, naive hope is
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that they would be sort of fading into the sunset
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: as opposed to rising in this moment in time, if
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that makes sense.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: I think I'm going to take, well, I'm going to
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: take issue with one thing that you said, and then
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: I'm going to offer sort of, I agree with you
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: that I don't think this is like the campaign slogan
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: for 2022.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I don't think this is like the banner thing. I
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: think the campaign slogan and then the banner thing for 2022,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: which we may or may not get to, is about
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: what Democrats are delivering and about making people's lives better.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And that is not this. I think that the issue
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: with calling anything polarization is polarization, I mean, it's a
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: little bit like the fact that when we learned about
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the Civil War, right, we learned about it as a
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: war between North and South, which it very much wasn't.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: It was a war between a seditious faction and the
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: United States who won the Civil War, not the North,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: the United States won the Civil War, right? And so
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: what happens when we say polarization is the same as
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: when we learned that, you know, the North battled the
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: South And that's the best of it, right? That's if
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you learned that version of it. Some people learned it
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: as the war of Northern aggression. If we talk about polarization,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that is in fact, Dan, a both sides argument. It
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: is somehow this idea that like there is some screwed
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: up thing on both ends when in fact, what is
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: going on is there is a minority, a small and
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: potent and powerful group of people who are determined to silence, black, brown, indigenous, young,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: new Americans, so that they can rule for the wealthiest few.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: That's actually what's going on. And when we name it
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: problem of polarization, which I'm not arguing you're doing, I
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: think you threw that off not as a talking point,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: then we are falling prey to that same narrative that
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: this is somehow sort of a both sides kind of thing,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: which it just isn't.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: That is a very important flag, and I should have
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: used my asymmetric polarization explainer with that. You're 100% right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: This is not a both sides problem. This is a
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: one sides problem. And that one side is in a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: war of aggression, partisan and sometimes violent aggression against the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: United States as it stands. The idea, the democracy, the laws,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: all of the above. The point, I think, of the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: polarization of my mention, my mistaken, if you will, mention
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of polarization, is that we have to recognize the persuasive,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the limits of truly factual persuasion on some elements of
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that minority.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, completely. And that's why, and I'm going to, you know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: go out of here on like, I mean, I probably
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: already am out on a limb, right? I took you
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: out on a limb, I'm going to take you farther.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I think that the fixation, the understandable fixation that we
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: keep having with, you know, only X number of Republicans
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: voted for X for this idea, or this many Republicans
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: are doing this, or only Liz Cheney, or, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: this constant reaffirmation of partisanship, this constant reaffirmation that this
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: is sort of a Democrat Republican thing. I think that
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: that's a mistake. And as much as I am sort
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: of a tried and true Democrat, because it's the best
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: that we got, imperfections and all, I think that us
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: continuing to fixate on that is really a big problem.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And I think that when Nancy Pelosi is talking about,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: for example, who is serving on this committee, I think
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that it is a matter of these are the patriots
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: who are ready, willing, and able to get to the bottom,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: to get to the truth. We offered representatives of this
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: country the opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism, to demonstrate their
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: commitment to truth, to demonstrate their belief that all of
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: us are created equal and that we believe in a peaceful,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: orderly transfer of power. And these are the folks who
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: took us up on it. And these are the folks
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: who refused.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: You know, you're 100% right about sort of in our
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: public language that we use We too often, I think
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: you're correct, validate the both sides narrative by talking in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the context of Democrats and Republicans. We'll probably get to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: this later in the podcast, but I think a big
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: challenge for democracy is that we have two political parties
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and one of them has been taken over by this faction,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: this very dangerous faction to which you referred previously. But
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think that narrative is as well known and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: as well understood by voters, a lot of the media
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: who cover these two political parties for a living, and,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you know, stakeholders throughout the political process. And so there
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: is this challenge is like, how do you shake people
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to recognize that there is one path to saving democracy,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: as we said, to preventing more things like the January
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: 6th assault from happening? There's one party who is trying
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to expand and create and live up to the ideals
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of a multiracial democracy one that is trying to graspably
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: hold on to the birthright political– the seen as birthright
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: political power of a white Christian minority and that is
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Democrats versus Republicans. Because at some point, they're going to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: walk into a voting booth or they're going to get
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: a ballot if they're lucky enough to live in a
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: state where this is still allowed, maybe it's in their home,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: where they will have to choose among those two. They
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: may– in a presidential election, you know that's Trump and Biden.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: in a congressional election, it is for a lot of voters,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: anonymous person with an R by their name and anonymous
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: person by a D by their name. And how do we,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and the question is, I don't have the answers. This
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: is like a much longer conversation is how do we
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: make sure that people associate the right characteristics with that
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: D and that R since they will not know almost
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: anything about the two individual people who they are voting for?
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely hear you. And that is an absolute reality.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And we, need to think about that for 2022. I
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: am thinking about that. You're thinking about that. Lots of
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: us are thinking about that. But to the first point
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: you made, good thing that you and Crooked Media more
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: broadly has a gazillion listeners because we actually do need
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to make this radical shift in understanding. We need to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: make a radical shift in understanding away from this idea that, oh,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: we're trapped in this sort of worse than ever polarization
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: as if it were just a matter of you know,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: both sides being sort of equally obstreperous. And in fact,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: what's happening is that we are in a battle of
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: a faction that is omnipresent. It has existed, as I said,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: since our founding. It has taken different forms. And let's
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: be honest, right? It has had different hosts. It used
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to live inside the Democratic Party. This is why we
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: had a reversal of parties. It was at one point
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: called the Democratic Republican Party. It lived inside the quote
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: unquote Dixiecrats. It has taken up different hosts. It currently,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: as we've said, operates through the Republican Party, but it
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: is not the Republican Party. It is a faction that
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: is fundamentally at odds with America. And so the battle
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: that we need people to understand that we are locked
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: into is a battle of good-hearted, good-natured people who have
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: also always existed since our country's founding in different amounts
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and different numbers and different levels of power and awareness,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: who believe, as you said, in multiracial democracy, who believe
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: in reconstruction, who believed in civil rights, who believed in
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Brown v. Board, and who in this most recent election
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: turned out in record numbers despite a pandemic and every
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: barrier thrown at them to keep them, to silence their
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: voices and to keep them from voting. And so that
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: is also America. That is also us. And I think
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: that when, I mean, obviously there's a million different interpretations,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: but one interpretation of what happened in 2020 is that
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: people turned down in record numbers because they got it, right?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: They got that there was this supremely I mean, problematic
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: is not a strong enough word, but there was this extremely,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: let's call it demonic force that was just encapsulated and
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: embodied in the figure of Trump, but obviously is bigger
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: than Trump, precedes Trump. We wouldn't have had a Trump
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: were this not sort of a bigger part and a
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: reality of who we are as a nation and our
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: history and everything that's happened over time. If people do
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: not understand that it really does go beyond DNR, it
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: really does go beyond I'm team red and I'm team blue,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: which is a big part of what animates political participation,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: we know, right? It's tribalism and that's a big problem
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: that we've got. If people cannot see in 2022 that
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: we are at that same crossroads, we have not left
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: that crossroads, right? then we are not going to be
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: able to animate enough people to both turn out as
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: a base and to flip against that team red party identity,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: tribal loyalty, to see that we have to stand united
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: as Americans for the values that we at least pretend
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: to espouse.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: If I am correctly interpreting what I think you're saying,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the way to think about how to talk about this
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: dangerous trend, this faction, whatever you want to call it
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in American life, is to try to isolate it. And
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: by using the term Democrat and Republican, we are ascribing
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: essentially in sort of a public mindset, 50% of America
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to this, which then, and this will get to our
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: next topic in a second, abuse it with strength and
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: social proof. And the better way to do it is
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to consistently describe it as a minority, as a I mean,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the word faction works for that too. And in doing that,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: which I think is mathematically and statistically correct, also isolates
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: it in a way, right? Makes it seem less, and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: maybe even as the potential to separate it, if our
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: first primary identity, which a lot of social science research shows,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is our partisan identity, that trumps our policy views or
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: anything else, by saying that it is not Republican, you're
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: at least giving yourself a fighting chance with some collection
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of people who currently self-identify as Republican for rejecting that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: That's correct. And in addition, that's absolutely correct. In addition
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: to that, it removes us from the trap of what
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: one of the many things people abhor about politics, or
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: at least profess to abhor, which is oh, that's all
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: just partisan bickering. That's all just infighting. Republicans say crappy
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: things about Democrats. Democrats say crappy things about Republicans. That's
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: just how this is, which is, as we see in
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: public opinion, a lot of what people think. That's back
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to that. Like, it's all just polarization. And this is
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: sort of the way the game is played. And this
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: is why, quote unquote, I hate politics. I can't stand it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I don't even want to think about it or talk
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: about it, which is a view that many sort of Americans,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: not listeners to your podcast, I would imagine, but lots
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: of Americans who are like, oh, politics, gross. I want
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: no part of it. We have to get away from
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: that because even though that is in fact not true,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: and that is not in fact sort of the way
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: that things are operating, when we also put things in
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: partisan terms, rather than being Americans united against this faction
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: that is just sort of supremely against every one of
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: our ideals. And yes, in political terms, we have to
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: defeat it by turning out and voting against the people
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: with the R next to their name. We have to
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: change this understanding.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: So, Anat, when you were on this podcast in 2020,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you and I talked a lot about how Democrats were
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: inadvertently helping Trump with his voters by calling him an
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: authoritarian and a strong man and sort of unveiling these
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: fan fictions of stolen elections and military coups and things
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah. But even after Trump's defeat, anti-democratic authoritarianism
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: is growing as a political force in America. Just this week,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: a morning consult poll found that 26% of Americans now
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: qualify as highly right-wing authoritarian within the context of, uh,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: one of our two political parties, that trend seems to
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: be growing, not receding as even as Trump has receded
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: somewhat to the background of at least the daily political conversation.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: What's your level of concern that this focus on the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: stolen election and these big things you think are really
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: important could wind up with Democrats making that same mistake
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: again about inadvertently helping Trump by talking about the thing
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that his voters most like?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Well, since the editors work for you, I'm going to
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: pick on your language again, Dan, and take this out.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I would never, ever use the phrase stolen election. That's
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: their phrase, not ours. There was a stolen election. So
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: that's not a thing. I would call that the big lie.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: But going back from nitpicking to your actual question, I
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: still hold the same concern. I still hold the same
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: idea that, I mean, obviously what you're quoting and what
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: you're citing is absolutely correct. There is a growing sort
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: of hunger, not just in the United States, but disturbingly,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: you know, we've seen this over time. We see it
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: with Duterte, we see it with Bolsonaro, we see it
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: with Orban, we see it in Poland, we see it
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: to a certain extent with Brexit, Boris Johnson. It's like,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: it's not a US only thing. It's a global thing. Still,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: in terms of public messaging, not in terms of like
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: academic descriptors of what is happening in the world, but
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: in terms of strategic communications, labeling what the right wing
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: is doing as authoritarianism still does have that same problem
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: of the cynicism. And what I mean by that is
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: that what we often see in the research that we
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: do is that broadly speaking, Our opposition is not the opposition,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: it's cynicism. It's not that people don't think our ideas
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: are right, it's that they don't think our ideas are possible.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: So why bother? And if it is indeed the case
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: that there is this giant overwhelming authoritarian force that's just
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: gonna come through and clobber us, for many of our
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: high potential voters, which is my term for what are
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: traditionally called low propensity voters, because we don't call them that,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: for high potential voters, that whole why bother instinct is
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: very strong, right? Because we need to remember that in
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: every single election, there are actually three candidates. There's ours,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: there's theirs, and there's stay at home. And stay at
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: home has the literal home team advantage because the person's
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: at home. So when we're thinking about how do we
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: mobilize people for something, how do we get people to
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: believe that this is worth in some of these states
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: intentionally standing in epic and endless lines and having to
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: endure a poll watcher army in any measure of indignities
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: and horrors that people are being intentionally subjected to by
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: these right-wing lawmakers who are intent to want to silence
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: people's voices, they have to feel like it's a fight
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: that's worth participating in, which means it has to feel
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: like it's a fight that is winnable. Most people do
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: not want to sign up for a lost cause. And
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: so that is why we want to position them yes,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: as powerful, I mean, yes, as damaging, yes, as destructive, yes,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: as nefarious, but not as authoritarians. And that also is
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the reasoning behind this sort of faction idea and language,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: that there are potent, lying, horrible group of people that
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: have a hold on many, many things, not least of
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: which is the media, right? Especially their own media channels.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: But that this is something that we have vanquished before.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And it's something that we can vanquish again. One of
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the things, I don't know how many friends you have,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: you know, that regularly follow US politics, I'm sure outside
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: of the country. But one of the things that was
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: most heartening to me personally, after the 2020 election was
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: my friends in Australia, where I have lived and work
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: and my friends in the UK, where I've also done
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: some work, saying to me, Whoa, holy shit. Y'all dealt
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: a blow, not a fatal blow, not enough, don't mistake me,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: but y'all dealt a blow to fascism at the ballot box.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: That has never happened, right? The only check that we
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: have had in history on fascist forces has been through
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: military action. And their view, my friends' views from abroad
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: of our election was like a shot in the arm,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: at least for me, to be like, yeah, we did
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: do that. We did do that. And we can do
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: it again.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: When I think about how to talk about these things, right,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and whether you want to use the phrase stolen election
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: or not, there are two ways to think about a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: stolen election. One is the idea, is the very specific idea.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Was Trump ever actually in danger of remaining as president
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: because despite losing the popular vote in electoral college? No,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: that was never really in play. But we came within
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, tens of thousands of votes in four
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: states of the person picked by an overwhelming majority of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Americans not becoming president, which is, you know, that is
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: an alarming factor of our system that is getting worse
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: every day and something that I think we need to
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: talk about and address. But when I think we, like,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the conversation for the next year,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: whether it's the commission investigation, whether it's the attempts to
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: pass the For the People Act in the Senate, you know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court today, further weakening the last remaining shred
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of the Voter Rights Act. Like this, this is, I mean,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: this is the thing. This is the, literally the elephant
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: in the room that we are dealing with. So the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: question is, how do you talk about it? One of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the ways that I think, uh, Democrats need to do
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: is they need to ascribe these efforts to, and I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: say Democrats, which I know you're about to correct me on,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: but I say Democrats because it's Democratic politicians that I
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: want to say the right thing. But also any American
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: in their water cooler conversations, their Facebook posts, their now,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: thanks to Joe Biden, in-person family reunions, but is to
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: ascribe the things that are happening in in Georgia, Texas, Arizona, elsewhere,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the big lie is something that arises from weakness, not strength.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: That is because they do not have the ability to
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: win fair and square, to appeal, to have ideas that
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: appeal to the majority of Americans. They have to resort
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: to these extreme measures. The part that I think gets
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: really hard is while, you know, like you, as one
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: of those people who in the run-up to the election
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and then the period afterwards before the January 6th assault
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: was trying to calm people and say, Donald Trump is
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: not going to steal this election. That is not something
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: that happened. These sort of state legislatures and certification issues
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: all ran into huge problems that you or, you know,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: this one was a famous one. Donald Trump's going to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: cancel the election that like 13 seconds of Googling will
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: show you that that is not an actual thing that
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: can happen. But I do think the threat of an
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: actual subversion of the election results is much greater in
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: 2024 if Republicans take the House. You have all the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: sorts of things that are happening in Georgia, in Arizona,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and elsewhere with being able to replace election board members,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: all those things. But it is a real challenge of
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: how do you raise concern about it? Because I am
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: deeply concerned that, as of this moment at least, no
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: one- with the power to do anything, seems to be
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: doing anything in terms of federal legislation, even if we
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: were to get the For the People Act, as currently written,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: does zero to deal with the certification problem without doing
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: exactly what you say, which is make people think their
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: vote does not count, that it does not matter because
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: no matter what you do, Republicans will just steal the election.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: And that is this fine line. We dealt with it
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: years ago when I worked for President Obama in 2012.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: How do you talk about voter ID laws and lines
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: and all of that without convincing people to not vote.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's a really hard and tricky balance to
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: try to strike over the next 18 months or so here.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: So my answer to that is we've been looking at
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: this for a very long time, doing in some cases,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: daily research, weekly research, fielding all sorts of different instruments
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: beginning in October and continuing on now, you know, through,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: the insurrection post-election up until today. And basically what I
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: would say is that the encapsulating value or phrase that
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: keeps popping and rising to the top is freedom. And
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: what I mean by that is that we need to
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: talk about this as an attempt to take away your
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: freedom to vote, an attempt to take away the freedoms
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: that Americans of every race, place, wallet size, walk of
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: life hold dear and cherish. And so a message that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: threads that needle that you're talking about, which I think
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: is exactly the needle, I agree with you entirely, is
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: that in America, we value our freedom. And right now,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: a handful of lawmakers want to take away our freedom
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: to vote so that they can rule only for the
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: wealthiest few. And then whatever the ask is, right? If
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the ask, and I take your point about the For
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the People Act being an insufficient rejoinder to the certification problem,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: so I'm not pretending like it's the be-all, but to
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: make the ask framed as a protection of a preservation
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: of a continuation of our freedoms, because what we find
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: is that when we try to talk to people in
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: terms of democracy, and saving our democracy or having a
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: democracy or protecting our democracy or whatever, first of all,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: we run into the challenge of the fact that we've
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: never had a democracy. And there is very, it's very
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: difficult to sort of make a language formulation. We can,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: it's a little bit tortured that says, you know, like
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: create a democracy or make the promise of democracy real
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: that doesn't fall into that trap of implying that we've
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: had one when we haven't. And secondarily, what we find
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: is that democracy is an abstraction, right? Democracy never bought
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: you dinner. People do not sort of have a tangible
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: feeling about it. And so what we've seen is that
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: we need to make arguments around these anti-voter laws, arguments
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: around these anti-election integrity laws that Republican state legislatures are
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: passing in places like Arizona, Georgia, etc., We need to
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: frame them as them trying to take away your freedom,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: them trying to silence certain voices, them trying to rule
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: for the already rich. And this is a lot, and
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I grant that this is a lot, but we can't
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: let the voting conversation and issue, we're also seeing this,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: wander away and be in its own space. We can't
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: let it wander away from what those votes deliver. So
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: what I mean by that is, You know, in America,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: we value our freedom, the freedom to raise our voices
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: and to cast our votes so that we can elect
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: leaders who deliver on our priorities from creating jobs to
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: expanding health care to ensuring rights for all. But today,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: a handful of lawmakers want to take away those freedoms
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: so they can rule for the only for the already
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: wealthy and powerful few. by coming together to pass the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Affordable People Act or by coming together to vote in
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: record numbers or whatever the ask is, we can ensure
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: that this is a place of freedom where the leaders
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: that we elect govern in our name and act in
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: our interest. We have to still keep in that piece
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: that is about essentially good governance, that this is about
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: the delivery of things that we want, whether that be
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: stimulus checks or whether that be sort of the ability
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: to vote freely and fairly, whether that be affordable health care,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: et cetera.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I want to put a spotlight on something you just said,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: because it is the absolute most important thing that anyone
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: who is listening to this podcast, who works in politics
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: or talks about politics with people in their lives, is
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: you have to explain who benefits from these laws, these things.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: And it can't just be politicians, because people naturally assume
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: that politicians will do things to keep themselves in power.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: And so that is priced into the baseline of people
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: of an inherent centuries-long cynicism in American politics. But you
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: have to tie it to, and this is exactly right, corporations,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the wealthy benefiting, right? Like that is just so important,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: which is a perfect transition to our next topic. Earlier
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: this week, Axios laid out the GOP's supposed blueprint for 2022.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: According to the report, Republicans plan to win back the
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: House by pushing the narrative that, quote, Biden Democrats are
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: soft on crime, soft and ineffective on illegal immigration, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: reckless and wrong about government spending. This blueprint is already
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: being put to use. Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: visited the border yesterday to stoke fears and spread a
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: bunch of racist and inflammatory bullshit. Now, what do you
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: think of this strategy? Is it surprising? Does it give
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: you concerns?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: I don't remember who said this, so I feel badly
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: not being able to credit, but you'll never go bankrupt
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: betting on racism as a strategy from the right wing.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So does it surprise me? It surprises me precisely 0%.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: For all of the reasons that I raised earlier, they
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: have one strategy. They have always had one strategy. It
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: was sort of raised up and articulated in Nixon's quote
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: unquote Southern strategy, which is, whatever, it's the oldest trick
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: in the book, right? Machiavelli wrote about it. It's called
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Divide and Conquer. Anytime you want to try to win
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: from a minority position, meaning a position that the minority
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: of people actually espouse and hold, you have to create
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: a scapegoat. You have to create some sort of other
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: of them because there is no quicker route to the
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: construction of an us than the manufacturer of a them.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And so if the answer is that you know, Democrats
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: are aiding and abetting, enabling, quote unquote, inner city crime,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: which of course is just black, is code for black people. Or,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: you know, helping new immigrants, which of course is just
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: code for brown people. When people say new immigrants, I
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: don't think they're envisioning Swedish backpackers who overstay their visa, right?
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: And even though immigrant is a dog whistle, even though
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: inner city crime is a dog whistle, even though law
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and order is a dog whistle, right? It doesn't name race.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: It does not say the name of a race, it's
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: racially coded. This is work that, of course, Heather McGee
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: and Haney Lopez have spelled out over and over and
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: over again. And it's part and parcel of the research
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: that we conducted in 2017 and have kept doing and
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: applying through 2020, which is something we call the race
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: class narrative. Do I think that it is a winning strategy?
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I think that's what you asked me, right? I went
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: off on my little soapbox.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: That is what I asked, yes.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: That's good. It's good one of us knows.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, to be fair, I had to look at
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: my sheet to know for sure, but yes.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: So do I think it's a winning strategy? I think
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: it is a winning strategy in certain places. And I
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: think it is a winning strategy if Democrats, I'm just
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: going to go ahead and say it, fuck up and
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: don't recognize that race neutral is not a thing. Race
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: neutral does not exist. When we are fighting in an arena,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: as I frequently like to say, politics is not solitaire.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And so we need to recognize that our messages are
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: not heard in a vacuum. Sometimes it just makes me
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: laugh when people will, on the phone with me or whatever,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: they'll be like, why don't Democrats say this? Why don't
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Democrats say that? And I just really want to stare
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: at them and say, do you actually think people's opinions
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: about Democrats are formulated out of what Democrats say? Is
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: that really where you think that idea comes from? I mean,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: wouldn't that be nice, Dan? Wouldn't it be great? if
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the public's formulation of what Democrats are and believe and
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: stand for actually emerged out of what Democrats say, our
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: lives would be so much better. We would be sipping
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Mai Tai somewhere.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I would be so happy if we were just in
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: a world where people actually heard the things Democrats said
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: because we weren't being drowned out by a right-wing media
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: machine and Facebook, et cetera. That would be a huge victory.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: We just get to that starting point, it would be good.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if they heard it, if that was the basis
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: upon which they made their judgment about who Democrats are
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: and what they stand for, that would be beautiful. But
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: it is not. And so we need to recognize that
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: in every one of these races, regardless of who the
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: person running is, they're going to be lobbed with charges
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: of socialism. They're going to be lobbed with charges of
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: wanting to defund the police. They're going to be lobbed
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: with charges of, you know, law not being for law
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: and order and for handing out free money and I
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: don't even know what to quote unquote illegals as the
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: right wing will say. If we don't have a rejoinder
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: to that, if we don't have a way of talking
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: principally about race, then what happens is that the only
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: messaging that voters that could go either way are going
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: to hear, is race baiting from the right. It's not
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: like the conversation about race is just going to go
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: away because we don't get to pick that, because we
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: don't get to decide the entirety of the conversation. And
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: so it is incumbent upon us and it is incumbent
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: upon our candidates to be able to do what you
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: just said, which I call ascribed motivation. To explain to
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: people not just what the other side is saying and
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: certainly never to repeat what the other side is saying
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: in a fruitless effort to debunk it, because that does
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: not work, but rather to highlight the fact that they are,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: for example, shaming and blaming people of color or trying
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to divide us by race and by place, hoping we'll
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: look the other way, hoping to distract us from their
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: failures to contain and deal with this pandemic, which Democrats
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: came in and did, hoping we'll look the other way
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and not notice that they voted against the rescue plan
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and the stimulus checks that we needed to get care
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: to pay off bills, to be able to buy our
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: kid an ice cream cone or whatever folks did with
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: that stimulus check. We need to come over and over
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: and over again back to that ascribing motivation for why
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: it is that they're doing and saying what they're doing,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: not run away from it.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: So as Republicans are trying to scare voters into voting
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: for them, Democrats are taking a different approach, celebrating the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Biden administration bringing the country out of the pandemic, restoring
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: the economy. On Tuesday, the DNC put out a new
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: television ad. Let's take a listen. In America, in America.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: The coronavirus has changed life as we know it across America.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: This is truly an unprecedented situation.
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: July 4th. The American holiday. A celebration of freedom. And
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: this year, there's more to celebrate. The freedom to hug
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: a grandchild. To see a baseball game in person. To
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: come back together again. America, leading the world out of
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: a global pandemic with honesty and compassion. America's journey continues
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: through fireworks and parades to build a better future. A
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: future that only we, the people, can make together. America,
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: we're coming back.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: In addition to that ad, the DNC has ice cream
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: trucks touring the East Coast bearing the message, shots in arms,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: checks in banks, jobs coming back, and scoops in hand.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming the scoop part is specific just to this
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: ice cream truck and will not be in ads in
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the fall of 2022. Anat, do you think Democrats can
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: really run on economic and pandemic progress when Republicans are
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: throwing all this other bullshit against the wall?
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I think that it's a– It's a question of both and, right?
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: So it's both about lifting up the achievements and accomplishments
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: and it's about that middle bit. And I say the
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: middle bit because as we've discussed before, order matters. It
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: actually matters the order in which you construct your message
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: and the exact same message, the same three sentences, when
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: we test it in one order and when we test
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: it in another, it has a really, really different effect
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: in terms of whether or not it's persuasive. So it's
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: about first setting the positive context that yes, we can, yes,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: we did. You know, this is all the stuff that
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: we're delivering. This is the stuff that we're getting done.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: This is the beautiful tomorrow, et cetera. And then in
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the middle bit, the essential sort of shit sandwich or
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: problem sandwich, it's calling out what the other side is
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: saying and ascribing motivations. So for example, you know, no
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: matter what we look like or where we come from,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: in America, we value our freedom or whether we're black, white,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: or brown from a city or small town, North or South,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: most of us believe that people who work for a
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: living ought to earn a living. And today, Democrats have
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: delivered relief checks. They've delivered vaccines. They've delivered a better
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: tomorrow alongside the voters that turned out in record numbers.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: The thing that's really missing from that ad, I would say,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: is that we also need to remember that we have
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: to start how we want to finish. That's true both
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: in parenting and in politics. And so if you eventually want,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: and that ad is far away from 2022, to be fair,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: When we are doing ads that are intended to inspire
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: people to vote, we need to remind them that they
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: were voters. And we need to talk about voting a lot,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: a lot, a lot, which isn't a fair condemnation of
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: that ad because that's not its job. But we want
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: to make sure that we imbue the listener with agency,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: that we make it not just that Democrats delivered this,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: but voters turning out in record numbers to elect leaders
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: did this. It was we, the people, who did this.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: in order to make people feel like those agents who
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: will do it again in 2022. So you do that
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: at the top, and then you say, but today, you know,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: this person that I'm running against, I almost said guy,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: stats are on my side that if you're running against,
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and it is guy, person, this person I'm running against
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: today is throwing out lies, just as he did about
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: our election, hoping to divide us or hoping to scare
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: us or hoping to distract from the fact that he
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: wants to take away your freedoms. deny you your stimulus check,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: and refuse to deal with this pandemic like the rest
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: of his party.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right that this ad is not
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: your GOTV ad or your 2022 ad. This is an
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: ad about this for a moment. It's a different sort
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: of advertising strategy that Democrat, the DNC, and a lot
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: of the super PACs are doing this year, which I
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: very much support, which is basically taking diminishing the Democratic
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Party's dependence on the mainstream media to get our message
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: to the voters need to see it. Basically, I've always
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: believed that, particularly in recent years, Democrats have a huge
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: last mile problem where because of the constrained reach and
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: sort of things, sort of the topical biases of the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: mainstream media, the things we want them to know are
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: the things they are least likely to see if we
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: depend on the New York Times or local news or
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: et cetera to show it to them. So you kind
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: of got to throw money at it. And so You
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: want people to know that July 4th is going to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: be a different sort of thing, and it's because of
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: these things that Joe Biden and Democrats did. Then this
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: is one way to do that. I think you're 100%
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: right that a huge part of this is, as you
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: get closer to the election, is pushing agency down to
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the individual level. You did this, and you're responsible for
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: making sure it doesn't get undone or overturned or whatever.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: That is a core part of Obama's message. It was
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders or his nod. not me, us, all like that,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: that needs to be a part of it. You know,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think this is a real, this is sort
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: of a press gimmick, but the DNC is also going
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: to have planes flying banners across beaches in battleground states
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: that say, thank you, thanks to Joe Biden and Democrats.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And it's really like, thank you. Thank you, voter. Thank you,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: the majority of Americans who came together in a pandemic
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: and stepped up to, you know, to defeat what was
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: before us or whatever that is. The thing that I
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: sort of wrestle with here is doing popular things successfully
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: that people want and delivering is like table stakes. It's
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: not enough, right? And I think a big challenge for
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Democrats to figure out is how do we avoid complacency?
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: How do we keep people who voted for Joe Biden
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: over Donald Trump but tell focus groups and polls now
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: that they are very open to voting for generic Republican
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: over generic Democrat? How do we convince people that what
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: motivated them to step up in 2020 is still here
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: right now? A phrase I've used recently is, the fire
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: is contained briefly, but not out. And so you cannot
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: step back. You cannot default to what you used to do,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: either how you used to vote or how you used
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: to not vote. So I think that's this big challenge
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: is that I don't think simply Gratitude is not going
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: to be enough to overcome the structural impediments for Democrats
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: in this midterm. We're going to have to really figure
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: out how do we play on other emotions to get
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: that done.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: And I think that that both brings us back to
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: the earlier conversation around this notion of a faction that
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: is still very much alive and present and has taken
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: a post in the GOP, at least in large parts.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: measure and exists well, well, well beyond the GOP as
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: it has forever and ever. And that that is sort
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: of still the clear and present danger and still the
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: thing that we need to vanquish and get rid of that.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: I think that first of all, doing that, and then
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: I think The other piece of it, and you know,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: it's funny, if I was storyboarding an ad right now,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: especially because what's top of mind for me, I think
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: understandably you as well, I would guess.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Is.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Mobilizing people, is mobilizing our base to actually be yelling
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: bloody murder at all of these anti-voter decisions that are
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: coming out of these states and now most recently today
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: out of the Supreme Court. And the fact that people
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: are not as hot and bothered, right? That we don't
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: have the number of people that we had sharing messages,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: sharing outrage, sharing action around count every vote that we
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: had immediately after the election. And then voters decided, voters decided, right?
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: That was like our narrative move. It was GOTV messaging.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: It was count every vote. And then it was voters decided.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: And that was all very, very deliberate. the fact that
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: we don't have more people up in arms screaming bloody
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: murder about what's happening and sort of recognizing the danger, danger, danger, danger.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And of course, you know, your listeners are like, what are.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: You talking about?
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: All of us are up in arms. And so I
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: don't mean you, I mean your cousins and your Facebook
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: friends and people you went to high school with and
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: so on and so forth. I mean, the fact that
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: this is not like, ah, outrage every day, every headline,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: every moment, That is really, really scary to me. And
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: I think that the way that we pull on those
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: dual heartstrings is to say, for example, and I'm just
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: making this up on the spot, but the freedom you feel,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: the play basketball with your friends, hang out on the
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: porch and have beers, hug your grandchild, cash your stimulus check,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: pay off that bill, the freedom you feel, the 4th
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: of July fireworks, the hanging out on the beach, that
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: freedom you feel, the say what you want, express your voice,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: cast your vote, pick the leaders who will represent you
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: and deliver that freedom you feel. That's what they want
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: to take away from you. And so it's both the
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: like joy, accomplishment and achievement. And yeah, it's the loss aversion.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Well, and per usual, when you and I get together,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: we have solved all the party's problems. We have all
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: the messages and answers anyone needs. 2022 is in the bag.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. It has been
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: fun as always.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, former President Trump joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: at the U.S.-Mexico border where Abbott plans to take care
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: of Trump's unfinished business and build the wall. The pair
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: used the event to tout Trump's handling of the border.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: criticize Biden's border policies, which Abbott called disastrous, an unusual
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: and eerily familiar Trumpian form, stoke fears about migrants entering
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the country. Take a listen. The people coming across the
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: border are cartels and gangs and smugglers and human traffickers.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Joining me now to help us make sense of it
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: all and discuss the Biden administration efforts to unwind Trump's
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: immigration legacy is NBC and MSNBC correspondent and author of
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Separated Inside an American Tragedy, Jacob Soboroff. Jacob, welcome to
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: the pod.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Dan, thanks for having me. Longtime fan of the pod.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Well, it's great to have you here. We've been trying
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: to get this done for a long time, so we're
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: excited about it. Let's start with Trump and Abbott's visit
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: to the border yesterday. Trump said a lot of things
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: while he was there. According to his account and Abbott's account,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: somehow the border went from one of the most secure
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: places in the world to some sort of dystopian hellscape
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: just in the six months of the Biden administration. Help
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: us separate fact from fiction about what is really going
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: on at the border right now.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: Well, What I can tell you is what's not going
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: on at the border, because I can tell you what
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: I've seen based on my own experience. And when you
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: talk about a dystopian hellscape, the thing that comes to
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: mind for me is what I saw with my own eyes,
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: the separation of 5,500 children deliberately by Donald Trump and
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: his administration as a matter of deterrence in order to
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: scare people away from coming to this country. Physicians for
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Human Rights called it torture. They won a Nobel Peace Prize.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: The American Academy of Pediatrics called it government-sanctioned child abuse.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: And that is a policy that was uniquely Trump It
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: had never been done before. It has not been done since.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: And that really, I think, is what Donald Trump, Stephen Miller,
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: and their allies, Mark Morgan, Chad Wolf, who were all
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: down there with him this week, want to return to,
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: if not explicitly family separations. And I write about in
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: the book that he did want to return to family
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: separations after They put that policy into place and then
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: had to pull it back because of the outrage. Other
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: restrictive policies that hurt people in order to prevent them
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: from coming to the United States. And the bottom line
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: is whatever it is they want to do, no matter
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: how hard they want to damage people, it never works.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: It didn't work during the Clinton. I mean, deterrence has
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: been the policy de facto of the U.S. government for decades.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: It didn't work. during the Clinton administration, didn't work under
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: the Bush administration, didn't work under the Obama administration. And
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump did probably the most heinous thing to migrants
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: crossing the Southwest border in the history of the United
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: States and ripping them apart deliberately, children and parents, and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: still people are coming. And so what happened after? Basically,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: it was like a greatest hits medley for them, a
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: wishlist to return to, you know, basically what the Biden
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: administration has tried to move away from.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, It was a very surreal event because as
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: you point out, they were Chad Wolf, Morgan, these former
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: members of government doing what was sort of an official
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: government visit with an actual sitting governor is unusual. Have
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: you ever seen anything like that before?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: No. And I was an advanced guy before I was
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: a journalist. I was an advanced guy to Mike Bloomberg
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: when I was in college. And those I mean, it
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: was very clear to me just looking at the images,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: even down to the name placards that were on the desk.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: They wanted this to look like a presidential visit. It
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: was kind of sad, honestly, in my opinion. If you
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: ask me, it was like they were longing for a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: time when they were the ones and they were the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: ones only who could have that cruel posture towards migrants.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: And they almost were pretending that it was it was
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: still their turn, their responsibility. And obviously, Governor Abbott is
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: the sitting governor and he's tried to complete this border wall. Um, which,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: you know, Republicans and Democrats along the Southwest border will
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: tell you, um, it's not necessary to control migration into
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: the United States.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: It was bizarre.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. What did you think when
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: you saw it? To me, it just struck me as
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: former politicians, including Chad Wolf, who in the book, you'll
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: see that he very explicitly was one of the first
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: people to propose the separation policy to the Trump administration.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: It was like they were getting the band back together.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: They were sad that they weren't able to do all
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: these things that they had done before. Um, And it
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: was almost like cosplay in a weird way.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was hard in my mind to separate
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: those images from the reports that Governor Kristi Noem of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, a very public and presidential aspirant in 2024,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: if Trump doesn't run, I assume, sent the South Dakota
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: National Guard down to the border, but it was paid
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: for by a rich Republican donor. And it's just like
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: we sort of have private armies and former presidents. It
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: is this very strange alternative reality where Republicans have sort of,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: not that there aren't very incredibly serious issues, but they've
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: created an alternative version of what's happening and then gone
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: about trying to solve that problem in sort of very
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: real and dangerous ways. You know, Biden made President Biden
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: made undoing a lot of Trump's immigration policies and border
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: policy specifically a big part of his campaign agenda. You know,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: based on your reporting, where has he succeeded and what
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: more work does he need to do to meet those promises?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: Well, look, the truth of the matter is, I think
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: that they have a really long way to go, but
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: they've come in, according to advocates, with the right messaging,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: the right rhetoric. It's been lofty. They say they want
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: to create a fair, safe, humane, orderly immigration system. And
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: they really do want a departure from these decades of
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: deterrence based approach. The approach that says, if we scare people,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: if we tell them don't come, and every president has
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: done that in the modern history of the United States, um,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: that they won't. And we know that that doesn't work.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: So I think what the Biden administration is trying to do,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: and for sure, the Obama administration, as you know, um,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: attempted to tackle the root causes of migration. President Biden
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: himself is VP, um, sort of spearheaded that effort. And
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: I think that they're trying to sort of supercharge that,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: take that and make that the guiding force for the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Biden administration, the Biden-Harris administration. But it's not easy. It's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: not easy because these facilities that Donald Trump was able
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: to put children in along the border were there before.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, the McAllen Border Patrol processing station was stood
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: up where the cages were during the Obama administration. The
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: ICE family detention centers were open during the Obama administration.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, these are institutional systemic issues that you cannot
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: undo like this. And in fact, the only reason Donald
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Trump was able to separate children so easily is because
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: the apparatus, the infrastructure of punishment in our immigration system
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: existed in that way for a long time endorsed by
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: Republicans and Democrats. So if the Biden administration is successful
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: in undoing all of that, um, I think it would
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: be a significant departure. They've already tried to get more
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: families out of detention. They're trying not to hold people
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: as long when they come into the United States. They're
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: trying to get children out of those border patrol stations
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: and into health and human services as fast as possible.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: But this is not a, I don't think it's a
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: months long project. I don't even think it's a one
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: term project. If they're gonna do what they say they're
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: going to do, it's gonna take a very long time.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: And it's not only the root cause, it's not only
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: addressing poverty, malnutrition, starvation, climate change, persecution. It's also changing
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: the approach to how migrants are dealt with when they
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: come to seek asylum at the southwest border, because if
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: they don't change it, and Secretary Mayorkas has said to
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: me directly, face-to-face, he would like a different approach. He
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't want to lock up families. He doesn't want kids
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: languishing over the 72-hour limit. If they don't do that,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: there'll be another increase in migration at some point, and
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: you're going to see this all play out again The
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: same thing we saw several times during the Obama administration,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: what we saw during the Trump administration, and what we
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: saw here at the beginning of this administration as well.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: You cover the immigration advocacy community very closely. What are
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: some of the things that they want the administration to
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: do right now that they've not yet done or not
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: yet been able to do for some assorted reasons?
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. Title 42, I think, Sounds confusing when
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: you hear it. It's like, what is that? But that's
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: the number one agenda item for immigration advocates at the moment.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: What Title 42 is, is a Trump administration CDC policy, supposedly,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: that bars migrants from coming into the country based on,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: you know, the idea it'll protect the US from COVID. Doctors,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: as an aside, say it's just not true and not necessary.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: And the Biden administration kept it in place for the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: most part. They let in unaccompanied children, which the Trump
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: administration wasn't doing. They've started to let in some families,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: but all single adults are immediately expelled when they get
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: to the border. Many families are immediately expelled when they
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: get to the border. And what that is resulting in
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: is another form of family separation. Families are sending children
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: ahead of mom and dad because the kids have an
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: opportunity to get into the United States. And it is
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: putting people, if you ask organizations like Human Rights First,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: who documents this stuff almost on a daily basis, into
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: extremely dangerous conditions. When the public health professionals would tell you,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: we actually don't need this as a public health imperative.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: It's really more about politics at this point. And that's
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: sort of a, you know, it's not even a secret anymore,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: I guess is what I'm trying to say, at the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: White House level. They're gearing up to try to undo
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: this policy, but it's not happening fast enough.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Why do you think it's moving more slow? I know
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of the administration, we I talked to
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Daryl Lind, who was reporting on what was happening on
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: the border, and one of the biggest issues was COVID.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: It made everything harder about how many people you could
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: put in a facility. That's right. It was causing them
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: to be in some of these satellite facilities that were
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: even worse condition than the permanent facilities. Is that still
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: an issue that's slowing things down? Is it the simple
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: fact that government just takes longer than it should? Are
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: there issues still– one of the things we experienced in
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: the Obama administration was even when you had a shift
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: in policy at the top, getting the line officers, the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: operators to do that? What are the challenges they're dealing
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: with here?
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Well, Title 42 is separate and distinct, I think, from
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: capacity issues in health and human services. And I'm glad
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: you brought that up because I think nobody wants these
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: children to be in, once they get to the custody
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: of HHS, which is where advocates want them to be,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: Nobody wants them to be in what are called emergency
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: intake sites, like the one at Fort Bliss, for instance.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: There were these horrific reports in court documents that came
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: out just over the last couple of weeks about kids
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: having suicidal ideations and other really terrible stuff because of
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: the conditions there, because of the scale, because of the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: types of personnel that are there. They're not licensed facilities.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: And those licensed facilities, to your point, have limited capacity
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: because of COVID. They can't put kids side by side
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: in beds, almost like in a dormitory style setting.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: And that's real.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: That's very real. And I was actually on a press
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: call with Secretary Becerra the other day where they said
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: they're trying to wind down those emergency sites that are
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: less personal, that advocates say are more dangerous to children,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: and move to a licensed bed. type model. It's not
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: as relevant with Title 42 on the border. The idea
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: that COVID is running rampant is just obviously not the case.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: You see the president and the vice president and everybody
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: going around the country not wearing masks anymore. I'm sure
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: you and I, when we go out into the public,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: are not wearing masks anymore. unless it's a situation where
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: you need to. And so when it comes to that,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: Title 42 on the border, I don't think COVID is
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: an excuse at this point. That's what doctors are saying.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: Don't take my word for it. Take the professional's word
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: for it. But when it comes to how we're going
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: to house kids, I do think that it's still an
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: impediment because obviously kids aren't vaccinated.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of blowback among some of the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: immigration advocacy community over the statements about don't come that
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: were made during the vice president's trip to Central America.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: At the same time, you know, there was a report
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: in Slate yesterday that said the president is working to
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: make America's asylum system more humane while preventing anyone from
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: reaching it. Can you help sort of unpack sort of
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: both the imperative behind why, you know, people are delivering
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: this don't come message, what they're trying to say, and
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: the challenges with the asylum system right now?
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: To be honest with you, I think don't come, based
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: on my reporting and based on my observations, is a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: fruitless message. It just doesn't work. I mean, you might
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: remember the interview that President Obama did with George Stephanopoulos,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: where he very famously said, these kids should not come, right?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: And it circulated on social media, I think, during the
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: Trump administration saying, look, this is not a new message.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Trump sent the strongest don't come message possible. We will
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: rip you away from your children and leave you with
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: personal and lifelong trauma that you will never be able
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: to undo and will have to endure for as long
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: as you walk this earth.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: And people still came.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: The numbers at the end of his administration were as
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: high as they had been in the modern era. They
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: went down with COVID and now they're back up. And
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: that's another thing that I'd like to sort of do
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: a reality check on is that everybody's talking about how
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: the numbers today are as high as they've been in
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: 20 years. They're not much different from the numbers at
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: the peak of the Trump administration. And the only reason
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: those numbers went down were not.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: Because of the cruelty.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: They were because of COVID. They were because people stayed home.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: People had no other option but to stay home. Now
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: they have no other option but to leave the desperate
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: circumstances that they are in. So Vice President Harris can
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: say don't come. Donald Trump can say don't come with
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: extreme cruelty. President Obama can say don't come. It does
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: not work. It has never worked. And asylum, you know,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: so the other part of this is protected under international
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: law and is an international right that people have. And
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: so you can say don't come all you want, but
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: you're basically asking people not to exercise their right to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: step foot into the United States and say, look, I'm
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: seeking a refuge, basically. I'm seeking safety and security from
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: any number of issues. And I just don't think those
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: two things are compatible. The don't come message with, we're
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: the United States of America. We are a place that
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: represents safety, security, and a better life. And we will
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: protect you once you make it to our, not our shores,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: but the Southwest border.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, in my time in the White House, there
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: was no issue that I found more challenging to deal with.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: And that's for all the reasons you say, right? You
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: can send a message, you can do these things. The
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: laws are so complicated and confusing, you end up with
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: these unaccompanied children with not an obvious solution to do
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: with them in a way that is safe and healthy.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: And you have, in some cases, the wrong agency in
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: charge of it. But I think part of the challenge
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: and the interpretation of the don't come message, and there's
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: obviously some real issues that have to be dealt with
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: with the asylum process itself in the transition from Trump
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: to Biden and the transition from COVID to theoretically post-COVID world,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: but is also, isn't some of the message, there are
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: other ways to exercise your right to asylum than going
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: on this very, very dangerous journey that involves, in many cases, trafficking.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, some of the stories that you have written
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: and others have talked about that have happened to children
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: and women on these paths are just absolutely horrifying.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: The Central American Minors Program, which is the official name
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: of basically the way to apply to get to the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: United States from your home country was literally dismantled by
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: the Trump administration. It was stood up when you guys
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: were around. And now the Biden administration is trying to
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: bring it back and scale it up. But the scale
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: of people who are able to actually go through that
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: process and come here pales in comparison to the amount
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: of people that show up on the Southwest border. And
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: you're right. I guess the question is, how do you
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: prevent people from having to go on this dangerous journey?
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: One of the most dangerous journeys on planet Earth President
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Trump called it a walk in Central Park or like
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: a walk in Central Park. I never heard something more
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: ridiculous in the first place. How do you do it?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: And I don't think that there is an answer at
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: this point. And that's part of the challenge of this.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: One of the things that happens during every administration as
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: well is that they start leaning on Mexico and leaning
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: on the Central American countries to prevent people from coming here.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: And I guess the question that I have is for
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: the Biden administration, for anyone else that wants to reform this,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: What part of having Mexico— outsourcing enforcement, I guess, is sort
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: of the shorthand. What part of outsourcing enforcement, telling people
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: to turn around and just wait it out in your
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: home country, is building a fairer, safer, humane system? You know,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: just because we don't do the deporting or expelling doesn't
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: mean that Mexico doing it is not equally as harmful
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: to some of these families. And, you know, you just
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: can't tell families who— I went to Chiquimula and Zacapa when
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: I was reporting the book in Guatemala, the dry corridor—
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: where people's livelihoods are literally drying up because of climate change,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: climate variability, things like El Nino. They're not able to
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: make money from other crops that they can go work
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: on in the fields. There's no supplemental nutrition. And what
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: happens then is you're either faced with a situation where
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: you're going to stay at home or you're going to
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: leave for survival. And that's what I found over and
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: over again when I went to sort of those rural
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: communities is that people didn't have any choice. There is
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: not a single person that I met when I was there.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: I heard the vice president say this too, who will
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: tell you, yeah, I want to leave. I definitely want
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: to leave. And I want to take that journey across
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: Mexico in order to make my way to the United States.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: It just doesn't happen. Almost nobody will tell you that.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: But when faced with that choice, that is what they do.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: And so until, you know, they will use the language
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: about capacity, Secretary Mayorkas, the vice president, until they can
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: figure out a way to build capacity and actually have
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: these systems work in country in order to get people
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: to apply capacity and leave by airplane in order to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: come here, rather than take the journey, you're going to
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: still see the same thing. And this is why I'm
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: a journalist and not a policymaker. I actually don't know
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: what that looks like. But it is perhaps, I think,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: the greatest challenge in creating the system that they say
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: that they want to create.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: In the context of trying to unwind the Trump immigration policies,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: One of the absolute highest priorities is trying to reunite
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: the children who are separated with their families. You reported
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: yesterday that lawyers and outreach workers have found the parents
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: of 23 more migrant children. That brings the number of
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: separated children to 368. What are the prospects for reuniting
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: the remaining children and what sort of efforts are underway
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: to do that?
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: I think it's sort of a zero fail, to use
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: the title of Carol Linick's book, project for this administration.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: I think that they're not going to stop. At least
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: that's what they tell me until they're able to track
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: down and find each and every one of them. It's
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: actually higher than the 368. The 368 is just those
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: who they have not been able to reach yet. They
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: can't find them. They literally can't find them because of
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: how horrible the record keeping was during the Trump administration.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: There's over a thousand families who are still separated, many
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: of them parents that were deported right after they were
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: taken from their kids. So they've been separated for years,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: three years, many in this, you know, at this point,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: maybe some of them maybe for four years. And so
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: you've got, and I've embedded with some of these folks,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: you've got people going door-to-door in the United States looking
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: for families who they cannot track down. You've got families
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: in Central America. There are NGOs like Justice in Motion,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: Kids in Need of Defense, the Women's Refugee Commission, Al-Otro Lotto,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: Seneca Family of Agencies. And the president said this too,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: that they're sleuths, they're detectives. They have to go and
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: basically go through every piece of data that they can find.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: It was....
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: It was purposely done this way, I should say, and
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: we should say it over and over again by the
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: Trump administration. And it's why I wonder, actually, I mean,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: there's the reunification piece of this, and then there's the
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: accountability piece of this. And my question is, President Biden
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: said as a candidate, he believed this policy was criminal.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: He told Jeff Bennett, my colleague, that the thorough, thorough
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: investigation was gonna happen from the Justice Department about criminality
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: of this policy. I believe that the US government can entirely,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: working with these NGO partners, find and track down and
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: reunite these families and hopefully give them permanent status in
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: the United States. That's something that hasn't been guaranteed yet.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: The other question I have is what happens to the
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: people we were talking about earlier? What happens to Chad Wolf,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: Kirstjen Nielsen, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, President Trump himself? I
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: read about this in the new afterword of the paperback.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: They had a meeting in the White House Situation Room
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: where they did a show of hands vote called for
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: by Stephen Miller to move forward with separations. Think about
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: the things when you guys were in office that the
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: Situation Room was used for, most famously, you know, going
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: after Osama bin Laden. The idea that these guys were
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: sitting there and saying, hold up your hand, it's un-American
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: if we don't move forward with family separations. They knew
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: full well exactly what the consequences would be because they
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: were warned by HHS, they were warned by people in ICE.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: They were warned by people in DHS all across the
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: board and they did it anyway. So will they reunite
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: the families? I think if this administration says, does what
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: they say they're going to do, yeah, they will. Do
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: I think that it's happening soon enough? No, there is
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: no soon enough for, for, for, trying to heal these
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: families that went through what they went through. But the
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: next step is, will there be justice? And right now,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: I see no signs of that. And there's been no evidence,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: including Secretary Mayorkas in our conversations, has said reunifications are first,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: if accountability, that will come next.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: That's a lot to think about. Jacob, thanks so much
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: for joining us. Check out his book, Separated, which is
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: now out in paperback.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: Dan, thanks.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Nat and Jacob. Lovett and Tommy will be
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: back with a special July 4th episode out Monday morning. Bye, everyone.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:19:47
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• 1:19:51
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• 1:19:54
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• 1:19:57
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• 1:20:02
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• 1:20:07
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• 1:20:10
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