Latest / Pod Save America / “Get The Pardon Started.” Live from Oakland!

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“Get The Pardon Started.” Live from Oakland! · Pod Save America

• 0:34
  Speaker 1: What's up, Oakland? Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm Melissa Murray from Strict Scrutiny.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: We have some fantastic guests with us tonight. Technology reporter
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: Mike Isaac from The New York Times is here. We'll
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: also be joined by a couple of Democratic leaders you
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: know pretty well. Your state representative, Buffy Wicks. And your Congresswoman,
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: the legendary Barbara Lee. And we are lucky again to
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: be joined by Melissa Murray of Strict Scrutiny, the best
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: legal podcast on the planet.
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: And I am so happy to be back in Oakland,
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: back home in the town.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: You look good with four rings, so yes.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: That's a sports reference. I've picked it up from the video.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the news.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: The January 6th committee will hold two more hearings this
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: week after some fairly heavy testimony last Thursday that the
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: lead of the New York Times summed up perfectly. Quote,
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: President Donald J. Trump continued pressuring Vice President Mike Pence
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: to go along with the plan to unilaterally overturn his
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: election defeat even after he was told it was illegal. Mr.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Trump's pressure campaign led his supporters to storm the Capitol,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: sending Mr. Pence fleeing for his life as rioters demanded
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: his execution. Not great. So the hearings' two witnesses were
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: former Pence lawyer Greg Jacobs, who testified that Trump was
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: told in advance that his attempted coup was illegal. Go figure.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: And retired federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig, an
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: extremely conservative Bush appointee who advised Pence not to go
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: along with the coup, and warned the rest of us
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: in his testimony that, quote, Donald Trump and his allies
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. So, Melissa,
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: the Times had another piece over the weekend that basically
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: argued federal prosecutors may still have a difficult challenge proving
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: that Trump knew his actions were illegal. What do you
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: think about that? And like, what would the government have
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: to prove here?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: So I think that's right.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: I think it is going to be difficult because you
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: have to remember that Donald Trump is an inveterate and
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: unrepentant liar.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And when you start with that, someone who.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Lies consistently and changes a story repeatedly is when you
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: have to figure out what his state of mind was
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: at any given time, like he's just constantly shifting. You
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: can't really be sure that what you think is a
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: state of mind or what you think evidence is pointing
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: to as a state of mind is actually true in
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: that moment. And they actually have to make out a
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: pretty clear case that he not only knew that he
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: had lost the election, but that he knew that the
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: steps that he was taking and the things that he
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: was doing was with the intent to overthrow a legitimately
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: elected president. And if he's constantly changing his story, constantly shifting,
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: I think that's harder. And some of this is coming
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: closer to that, showing that he did know, but he
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: keeps changing his story. Like, yeah, I told her that
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: I lost to Biden, but then Rudy talked to me
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: and we decided that I hadn't actually lost to Biden.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So he's constantly shifting.
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: And I think that's the problem for federal prosecutors trying
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: to make out a criminal case.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so there was some news that Alyssa Farah, who
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: was their White House communications director, has said, told investigators
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: that Donald Trump turned to her and said, can you
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: believe I lost to this guy right after the results?
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: But I did thought that, you know, John Eastman, who
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: is the Trump lawyer who came up with the whole
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Mike Pence can unilaterally decide who the president is scheme,
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: said in front of Donald Trump, I think this is
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: not legal. And so Trump knowing that it's not legal
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: isn't enough?
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: Well, so first of all, let's just say John Eastman
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: is giving all law professors a really bad name.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: He is the Alan Dershowitz of Jonathan Turley's.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: So specific for people.
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: You had a really good LSAT score, and I know
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: you know what I'm talking about.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: I did, and I do.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: Eastman says, I'm not sure this is legal, but he
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: also goes forward and says that the law dealing with
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: the Electoral College and the reporting of Electoral College results is, in.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: His view, unconstitutional.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: And that might give Donald Trump the view that what
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: he is doing is actually permissible because the underlying law
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: is unconstitutional, which creates another wrinkle for the prosecutors.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: And also, didn't Eastman also say in one of his
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: many attempts to find a winding path to overturn the election, like, Oh, actually,
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Congress has been breaking the Electoral College Act this whole
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: time because technically the debate time is breaking the rules
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: in some small way. He's been sort of finding paths
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: around this. But one question I had about this is, look,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: if there's a vault filled with money at a bank
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: and you have said for months that you believe it's
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: yours despite there being no evidence you've ever had any
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: claim to it, you're still a bank robber. You still
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: broke into the vault and took the money even if
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: no one ever heard you admit that deep down you
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: know it isn't yours.
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: So.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that is correct.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: In case you're getting any ideas.
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: I'm telling you, this whole prosecutor thing is going to
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: work out for you.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: You know, deep down, I believe I would have been
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: an extraordinary lawyer.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I know you would have been. I would have been
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: delighted to teach you. You would have been that guy.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we would have had fun.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: That guy.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: In the best way possible. In the best way possible.
• 6:34
  Speaker 7: But again.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: I think we have a DOJ that's proceeding very deliberately,
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: very cautiously.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: It's headed by a judge, someone who is known for
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: being very deliberate.
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: This would be an unprecedented prosecution of a former president.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: And I think they want to make sure that every
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: T is crossed, every I is dotted, and they're not
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: going to move forward unless they're absolutely sure. And I
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: think a lot's going to have to come out. Like,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: Is there lots in here for other kinds of suits,
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: like civil suits, for example, which we may talk about
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: with Representative Lee?
• 7:10
  Speaker 7: Surely.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: But a criminal case where you have to prove things
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: beyond a reasonable doubt, I think that might give them pause.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: I want a jury made of people from New York
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: and D.C.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: How about Oakland?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Oakland would hang him in an instant.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: We got it. We got it. We got so much
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: stacked against us with the electoral college and the Senate,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: but the one thing we got is that the trials
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: happen in New York and D.C. That rules.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: And Oakland. We can trim this down.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: Love it. I thought one of the more damning and
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: ultimately memeable revelations from Thursday's hearing came from an email
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: that John Eastman sent to Rudy Giuliani, which said, I've
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: decided that I should be on the pardon list if
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: that is still in the works. As someone who's not
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: a lawyer, but a high-achieving LSAT person.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: So embarrassing.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: Does the existence of a coup pardon list seem like
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: that would be a problem for Eastman and Trump?
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: First of all, Eastman, again, speaking to his skills as
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: a lawyer, seems very comfortable discussing his law breaking in text.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: He puts it down in text and tweets. He talks
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: about it all the time. It's pretty damning to be
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: asking for a pardon. Now, they put out this one sentence,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: and that's damning enough. But actually, people have deciphered the
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: blurry text around it. And what comes next is, I
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: know this will taint me, but, which I think is
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: really funny. Yeah, I think he's pretty fucked.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: That's your legal analysis.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: The other thing that's important, right, is that first there's
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: the White House counsel was like, hey, man, you're breaking
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: the law. You should get a criminal defense attorney. This
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: is illegal. What you're discussing is illegal. Stop talking to
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: me about this. It's illegal. And it seems like there
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: were a lot of people on John Eastman's call sheet
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: who were not saying, I love this idea of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: vice president for the first time in history singularly in
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: charge of choosing a president. There's a lot of people
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: on the line who are like, no, this is criminal
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and bananas.
• 9:25
  Speaker 7: Dan?
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, clearly. He knew he was committing a crime. He
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: asked for a pardon. And that's where we are. And
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: he didn't get one. And he did not get one.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: And yet here we are. So the Times also reported
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: that According to his advisors, Trump has been really pissed
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: off watching the hearings because he can't tweet through it.
• 9:45
  Speaker 9: Do not demean Truth Social like that.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: He's truthing his ass off. He's truthing his way through
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: this whole hearing. He's doing truths and re-truths.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: His 12-page rambling statement from last week has not been
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: getting the amplification it deserves. So, after two hours of
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: testimony about how he nearly got his own vice president
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: assassinated because he refused to go along with his coup,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: here's how the 2024 GOP frontrunner responded. at an event
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: on Friday.
• 10:21
  Speaker 10: Mike Pence had a chance to be great. He had
• 10:25
  Speaker 10: a chance to be, frankly, historic. But just like Bill
• 10:30
  Speaker 10: Barr and the rest of these weak people, Mike, and
• 10:35
  Speaker 10: I say it sadly because I like him, but Mike
• 10:38
  Speaker 10: did not have the courage to act.
• 10:42
  Speaker 11: So I said to Mike, if you do this, you
• 10:44
  Speaker 11: could be Thomas Jefferson. And then after it all went down,
• 10:50
  Speaker 11: I looked at him one day and I said, Mike,
• 10:53
  Speaker 11: I hate to say this, but you know Thomas Jefferson.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: For those listening at home, we're watching a Newsmax clip
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: and halfway through Trump basically describing his entire criminal enterprise,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: an ad for a gold coin pops up. You can
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: text Trump to 65532.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: On qualifying orders, there is a disclaimer. So, Dan, Trump
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: also said in the speech that January 6th was a, quote,
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: simple protest that got out of hand. And he promised
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: to pardon the January 6th defendants if he becomes president again.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: What do you make of him responding to these hearings
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: by doubling down? Good legal strategy? Good political strategy?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: What do you think? Well, apparently you can get away
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: with anything if you can sincerely believe it's not a crime.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: So I had no idea. No, look, I.
• 11:48
  Speaker 9: I very much like this question in this clip because
• 11:51
  Speaker 9: it backs up my theory that Trump has lost his fastball.
• 11:57
  Speaker 9: Because if you think about the polling on this, which
• 11:59
  Speaker 9: is 70% of Republicans believe some version of the big lie, right?
• 12:03
  Speaker 9: That Biden's an illegitimate president, there was fraud involved, whatever
• 12:07
  Speaker 9: that is. But only 20% of Republicans support what happened
• 12:12
  Speaker 9: on January 6th. Even fewer of that 20% think those
• 12:16
  Speaker 9: people should get a pardon. So there's actually sort of
• 12:19
  Speaker 9: a shift in Trump, which is in 2016 primarily, but
• 12:24
  Speaker 9: also to a certain extent in 2020, his campaign was
• 12:27
  Speaker 9: a campaign where he was the person fighting on behalf
• 12:30
  Speaker 9: of other people's grievances. But in 2020, in 2024, this
• 12:35
  Speaker 9: is a campaign entirely about his grievances, what happened to him,
• 12:39
  Speaker 9: what people did to him, not what he can do
• 12:40
  Speaker 9: for other people. And it is, you know, I have
• 12:43
  Speaker 9: no idea if it's a good legal strategy or a
• 12:44
  Speaker 9: bad legal strategy. Generally, I imagine admitting to all the
• 12:48
  Speaker 9: crimes you're accused of is bad legal strategy, I assume.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: But it's a terrible political strategy.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to get a take from Melissa. Yeah, we'll see.
• 12:55
  Speaker 9: Melissa, thanks for joining us on Positive America. Your job
• 12:57
  Speaker 9: is to defend the wall and Merrick Garland.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: I'm just spelling out the facts.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I know.
• 13:07
  Speaker 9: So he has picked the least popular part of a
• 13:11
  Speaker 9: very unpopular issue, and it is, I think, if he
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: is going to, I think he is legitimately vulnerable in
• 13:17
  Speaker 9: an actually contest Republican primary, if what he's gonna do
• 13:20
  Speaker 9: is focus on defending the violence in 2020, if he's
• 13:25
  Speaker 9: gonna promise to give pardons to the people who committed
• 13:27
  Speaker 9: that violence, he's gonna make all of the campaign about
• 13:29
  Speaker 9: what happened to him in the past, not.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: What he will do in the future.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: There is absolutely an argument to be made for some
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Republican challenger to Trump in a primary, that Donald Trump
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: served this country well, that Republican will say, But he
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: is obsessed with the past and obsessed with this election,
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: and we need to focus on the future. And thank
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: you for your service, but let's put him in the past.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Because he just keeps going back to 2020 every single
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: chance he gets.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's pretty lucky that Merrick Garland's approach to
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: prosecution is similar to Judge Luddig's approach to finishing a sentence. Yeah.
• 14:07
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think the real argument, not that we're
• 14:10
  Speaker 9: out here to give it Ron DeSantis free advice on
• 14:12
  Speaker 9: how to install his authoritarian state.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he's listening.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Huge.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: He's a big pod fan.
• 14:19
  Speaker 9: But I think the real argument is that Trump's a loser.
• 14:22
  Speaker 9: Couldn't beat Joe Biden, right? Like the entire right wing media.
• 14:25
  Speaker 9: Don't clap for that.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Stop it.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: That's not something to clap for. The problem is they've
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: all conceded the big lie. Like, they all missed their chance, right?
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Because as you pointed out, most Republicans believe the big lie,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: and these Republicans have gone along with it. They missed
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: their chance to call him a loser. They had their
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: chance to say, he lost to this guy fair and square.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: We need somebody that can win. But they haven't been
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: able to do it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, does that, Melissa, what you just heard from Trump,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: does that sort of add to his legal jeopardy?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Or does it not matter at this point?
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: Every time he opens his mouth, he adds to his
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: legal jeopardy.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, the lies, he's lying.
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, again, I think it really comes back to
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: can you pin all of this together to show that
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: not only is there conduct, but there is a state
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: of mind to do something with the intent to commit
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: this crime.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Like, that's what he intends to do. And I think
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: that is harder.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: And I am no Merrick Garland apologist, right? I mean,
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: guy needs to get his suits fitted.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: But.
• 15:31
  Speaker 9: I don't care if he indicts him in a trash
• 15:33
  Speaker 9: bag from Joseph A.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Banks. Do you think the problem is that Merrick Garland
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: is like a hunt-and-peck typist?
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: I think he's... Again, no, I.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: If you had put Sally Yates at the head of DOJ,
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: I think we would have seen a lot more happening.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's a judge. That's what judges do. They're deliberate.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: They're purposefully deliberate.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: We need a DOJ that will do to Trump what
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: that bicycle did to Joe Biden. Just take him out
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: at the knees. Oh, we're not ready to talk about
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: that yet?
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Very ableist.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: To mix the legal with the political, I have wondered
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: what happens if the DOJ indicts Donald Trump and then
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump gets off and what that means politically that
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: like they could not bring the case against him. And
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: then Donald Trump is suddenly running again as like, I'm exonerated.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I'm exonerated.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Hey, you miss all the shots you don't take.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: No, I know. I'm just saying.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Only if you're Boston.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: It's something to consider. Tommy did the right thing by
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: missing this. I just want you to know that I
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: came anyway.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Tommy didn't even want to come.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Couldn't even come. All right.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: So I think one of the most important moments of
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: the hearing on Thursday, or the whole set of hearings,
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: was Luddig's warning at the end that I mentioned earlier,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: which is that Trump and his allies remain a clear
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: and present danger to democracy. I just talked to a
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: senior Democratic strategist the other week who spends a lot
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: of time looking at polls and focus groups, and he said,
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: the good news is a lot more people than he
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: thought are paying attention to these hearings and they're really
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: having an impact on public opinion. But the real challenge
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: is so much of it is a focus on Trump
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: and Trump's crimes and there's not enough focus on all
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: the MAGA Republicans running right now who may try to
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: overturn the next election if it gets close. What do
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: you guys think about that? Is there too much focus
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: on Trump in the past in these hearings? Is that
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: just inevitable?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think?
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Can we just talk about the fact that you just
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: used an anonymous source?
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, no one's going to know who it is.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: It's just, you know, I'd be a nerd.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: All right, Maggie Haberman.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: It's Ginny Thomas. Look, I'm a real journalist. It's Ginny Thomas.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: So she was texting me. I got a few texts
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: that were meant for Mark Meadows.
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: As she does.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, as she does. What do you think, Dan? You
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: just wrote a book about this.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Setting you up here. The.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you for that one person who cheered. We appreciate you.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: That was Holly.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was probably Kyla, my daughter, who's in the audience.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: It's Kyla and Holly.
• 18:13
  Speaker 9: I think the way we have to make this forward
• 18:15
  Speaker 9: looking and it is sort of unfair to ask the
• 18:18
  Speaker 9: hearings to be the people who carry the weight on
• 18:20
  Speaker 9: this because their task is to investigate what happened. And
• 18:23
  Speaker 9: they were trying like it took real time. courage and
• 18:26
  Speaker 9: maybe not great stagecraft to ask Judge Ludig to answer
• 18:29
  Speaker 9: another question at the end. At the end of that hearing,
• 18:33
  Speaker 9: they've been through everything.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: The clock's running out.
• 18:35
  Speaker 9: They're like, can you answer this? We're going to ask
• 18:38
  Speaker 9: you a question that could take a normal person seven
• 18:40
  Speaker 9: minutes to answer. But I think that it falls on
• 18:43
  Speaker 9: all of us to make the case about the danger
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: going forward. And I think the way to make that
• 18:49
  Speaker 9: real is to take it out of 2020 and take
• 18:51
  Speaker 9: it out of Trump and explain to people why this
• 18:56
  Speaker 9: radical extreme minority in this country is trying to take
• 19:00
  Speaker 9: power and what they're going to do with it. Because
• 19:03
  Speaker 9: there is a way to tie together what happened on
• 19:06
  Speaker 9: January 6th, what the Supreme Court's about to do to
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: Roe v. Wade, why we can't pass common sense gun
• 19:12
  Speaker 9: control in this country, why gas prices keep going up
• 19:17
  Speaker 9: and oil companies keep getting giant tax breaks. All of
• 19:19
  Speaker 9: that is tied to the fact that there's a radical
• 19:21
  Speaker 9: extreme minority who is power hungry and do anything to
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: take power in order to put in place their extreme
• 19:28
  Speaker 9: right-wing agenda, book bans, attacking trans kids, all of those things,
• 19:33
  Speaker 9: these deeply unpopular things. And so we have to, you
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: have to, I think, a conversation about how democracy, a
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: political theory and system that we've never perfected or really
• 19:44
  Speaker 9: realized in this country is under danger is esoteric, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 9: we have to bring it into real people's lives and
• 19:49
  Speaker 9: why it matters.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: Love it?
• 19:53
  Speaker 10: No?
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: You agree?
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Ditto.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: I thought about this over the weekend because we saw
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: that the Texas Republican platform came out and They have
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: in the platform that not only that Biden's victory in
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: 2020 is illegitimate, they have in there that homosexuality is
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: an abnormal lifestyle choice. They call for the repeal of
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the GOP platform,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: and that there should be a 2023 referendum on whether
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Texas should secede from the union. So that's the... Now
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: we're clapping for that? That's the Texas Republican platform right now.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: And look, I do think the committee is starting to
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: do this too. Adam Kinzinger gave interviews today where he
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: talked about how he and his family were just sent
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: a death threat that someone wanted to kill he, his wife,
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: and his five-month-old son.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: They're turning on Dan Crenshaw.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Dan Crenshaw, attacked by the Pride Boys the other day.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: The threat of violence is ongoing and real, and I
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: do think that is... It sort of hangs over the hearings,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: but I think it needs to be a little bit
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: more explicit.
• 21:00
  Speaker 9: And there's not some rule that only the people on
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: the January 6th committee can talk about the danger here. Like,
• 21:05
  Speaker 9: every Democrat has a platform to do that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I think one of the problems with the hearings,
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: and this isn't the problem, I think, solely of the committee.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, they have a limited role.
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: But making the case that the so what or the
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: now what to the public. Like, okay, yes, there's a
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: clear and present danger to democracy here.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Now, what do I do about it?
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: And connecting that to the midterms, like, you know, the
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: idea that it's not just voting, but like getting everyone
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: who normally sits these out to vote as well, because
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: you're going to need to get all the secretaries of
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: state because that's part of the plan to overturn the
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: 2024 election. And like really showing people like this is
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: what you need to do. And that part's not coming through.
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: I think everyone gets it. Donald Trump is a criminal
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: and he's surrounded by criminals.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: But so what?
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: Now what?
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: And you know who understands how critical voting is and
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: running for all these offices is? The other side, because
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: they are running for, like, secretary of state, county recorders,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: all these, like... School boards. School boards, right? Republicans are
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: doing that. So, which is a great segue to, again,
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: our pitch always to go to votesaveamerica.com and sign up
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: for Midterm Madness. You can also sign up to be
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: a poll worker with our partner, Power to the Polls.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: But we really need people to sign up for Midterm Madness.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: And again, we want to keep MAGA Republicans not just
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: out of Congress and out of governor's mansions, but state legislatures,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: offices like Attorney General, Secretary of State, County Recorder, all
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: these offices that have something to do with our elections.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: And it's really, really important that we get involved and
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: that we make sure that doesn't happen. So again, votesaveamerica.com
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: slash midtermmadness. And we'll be back with more news in
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: just a bit.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Now it's time for OK Stop. Here's how it works.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: We're going to play a video. We're going to say
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: OK Stop to bust the video's chops. To set up
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: this clip, Rudy Giuliani has just been asked by a
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: reporter to respond to former White House Counsel Eric Hirschman's
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: January 6 testimony that Giuliani himself told Hirschman that Vice
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: President Mike Pence didn't have the authority to block certification
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: of the election results. Let's roll the clip.
• 23:32
  Speaker 12: Eric Hirschman just testified before the once January 6th committee
• 23:37
  Speaker 12: that you told him that Pence did not have the
• 23:40
  Speaker 12: authority to block certification of the election.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Is that true?
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: I shouldn't really talk about that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: When Rudy says I shouldn't really talk about that, What
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: he means is, ask me again after five.
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: If the January 6th committee does nothing more than get
• 24:05
  Speaker 9: Rudy Giuliani to shut up, they've done a national service.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Do you think this shot and this message was on
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: the Andrew Giuliani for governor message calendar? Do you think
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: this was what they were hoping for that day?
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I want to dress my dad up like Danny
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: DeVito from The Penguin.
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: And have him ramble about his crimes for 15 minutes
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: in front of a van. These guys have this stagecraft
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: of like an elementary school.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: Where.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: That's an insult to elementary school.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Where the teachers hate the students.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: I ran out halfway through.
• 24:47
  Speaker 9: Look, they could have campaign signs and they could have
• 24:50
  Speaker 9: a van or they can have both.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I'm just glad they're branching out from Four Seasons.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's... I'm.
• 24:59
  Speaker 12: Asking you about his testimony.
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to comment on his testimony. I'm going
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: to tell you that the committee is a witch hunt.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop. Master pivot.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's subtle. The deaf touch. Moving on a specific
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: credible allegation of breaking of the law to a Newsmax
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: talking point from three years ago.
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: I'm going to tell you that the committee is an
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: extension of Russian collusion. It might as well be Russian collusion, too.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: How dare those.
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: People who accused the President of the United States of
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: Russian collusion were lying about it.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: I was telling the truth.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: The President was telling the truth. You don't think they're
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: lying now?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: What, have they changed it all of a sudden?
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: Shifty shift all of a sudden changed?
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: That is my favorite movie, Russian Collusion 2.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Electric Boogaloo.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: The new hope.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: The search for Putin's gold. The search for Putin's gold.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you something. This is an aside, but I
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: will tell you the moment I was disillusioned as a
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: human being for the rest of my life. I saw
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: an interview. I loved City Slickers when I was a kid.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: And I saw Billy Crystal give an interview where he said,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: this is the rare sequel that's better than the original.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: And I ran to my parents and I said, you
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: won't believe it. City Slickers 2 is the rare sequel
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: that's better than the original.
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: And they're like, uh-huh.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: And that was how it became this.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: A straight line.
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: So, I would say you want to look at the
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: January 6th committee?
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: So were you accusing Eric Hirschman of lying under oath?
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: I'm not accusing Eric Hirschman of anything. I'm not commenting
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: on Eric Hirschman. I am talking about the committee.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And I will not comment on anyone else.
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: I like Andrew I like Eric Hirschman. He's a colleague.
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: He's a friend.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Some of my best friends are Eric Hirschman.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I like Eric Hirschman. He's a colleague and a friend.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: He has this laugh that lights up a room. I
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: can't stop thinking about him, and I don't hate that.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I can't stop thinking about him, and it makes me
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: happy even if nothing happens between us. That's how strong
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: the connection is. That's how good of a colleague and
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: a friend. Maybe it's crazy. Maybe nothing can or would
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: or should ever happen.
• 27:18
  Speaker 9: Look, I hope he doesn't get murdered mysteriously somehow at
• 27:21
  Speaker 9: any point in time.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing about... Here's why I love Eric Hirschman.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: He has my balls in a vice.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: And if I say even one bad word against him,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: he'll turn the crank. Too much?
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to comment on his testimony one way
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: or the other.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't do that.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: And they shouldn't be leaking.
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: If they were a legitimate committee interested in anything else
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: but hanging... President Trump, they wouldn't be leaking information.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop. The leak happened on national television.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: During the hearing, that was the leak.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: They're leaking the Super Bowl these days.
• 28:03
  Speaker 7: They leaked it.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: They leaked it. They leaked it.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Well, it's really funny, right, because he's confusing what he
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: said in a deposition that we haven't seen yet and
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: what Eric Hirschman said on camera on every network.
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 28:16
  Speaker 9: He seems to be accusing the committee of leaking something
• 28:20
  Speaker 9: that he admits to saying under oath, but not realizing
• 28:25
  Speaker 9: because maybe he doesn't have full control of his faculties
• 28:27
  Speaker 9: at this moment because it's a day.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: He just skipped the hearing, though. He was sleeping.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: He was, I don't know.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: It was 10 a.m., so.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Rudy has a saying. It's always 10 a.m. somewhere. It's
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: not funny. The man's in crisis. Shame on all of you.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: That's not our problem with Rudy Giuliani.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: We don't.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: The drinking isn't causing the problems. The problems are causing
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the drinking. Life is a shambles. Is that the end
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: of the clip?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And what a way to end it.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: And that's okay.
• 29:07
  Speaker 6: Stop.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Stop.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: Joining us now is someone that you know very well, Oakland.
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: She has been representing the 13th District of California since 1998.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: She is the highest ranking black woman in the Democratic leadership.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Please join me in welcoming Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So first, let me say I love this outfit.
• 29:56
  Speaker 7: Go Warriors!
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I think we have to get one of these from
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Merrick Garland.
• 30:04
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: So thank you so much for being here because you
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: have had a busy day already.
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: I have had a very busy day. But let me
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: just say something. First of all, I have to say this.
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: Welcome back home to the most progressive 13th congressional district
• 30:20
  Speaker 7: in the country. And I want to.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 30:23
  Speaker 7: And happy Father's Day. Happy Pride Month. Happy Caribbean American
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: Heritage Month. Happy Juneteenth. And congrats to the Warriors. You know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 7: we have to be joyful in this moment. We don't
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: have a lot of that in our lives. So today
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: is a day to celebrate. So thank you, and I'm
• 30:52
  Speaker 7: glad to be home.
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: I am so glad to be home, too, because I
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: lived in Oakland for 12 years before I moved to
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: New York. And one of the things I miss the
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: most about living in the Bay Area, besides the perfect
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: weather and lack of precipitation, is being represented by you,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: having you speak for me.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: So, all right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: So you've been all over the country recently, but you
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: were just in Galveston this morning celebrating Juneteenth.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: And your family is from Galveston, which I don't think
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: I knew. They're from Texas. They have roots in Texas.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: So what does this tradition of Juneteenth mean to you?
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: And what does it mean to have a federal holiday
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: commemorating this important moment in African-American history?
• 31:41
  Speaker 7: Well, Melissa, I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas.
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: But my grandfather was born in Galveston, Texas, and he
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: helped raise me in El Paso. And my great grandmother
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: was born in Galveston enslaved. But I have never been
• 31:59
  Speaker 7: to Galveston until yesterday. And so this for me was
• 32:04
  Speaker 7: quite remarkable because there are many of my ancestors who
• 32:07
  Speaker 7: are buried in Galveston. I've done my genealogy and I
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: know where they are. And we celebrated even in El Paso, Juneteenth,
• 32:17
  Speaker 7: all of my life. And what it was about was
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: freedom and justice. And the people of Galveston, I mean,
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: it was remarkable to be there because the spirit of
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: our ancestors, the spirit of liberation, the spirit of not
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: only recognizing the past but moving forward so we can
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: correct and repair the damage of the past, which means reparations,
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: HR 40, right? That's what it means.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Speak on it.
• 32:48
  Speaker 7: And so we have to fight as Today, Juneteenth, what
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: it means to me is, yes, finally, after 10 years,
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: I mean, we've been working on this legislation for 10 years.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: And Ms.
• 32:59
  Speaker 7: Opal Lee, who I had a chance to meet, who said,
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: let's walk two and a half miles because it was
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: two and a half years before enslaved Africans knew that
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: they were free in Galveston. And so I had a
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: chance to meet her. And she's still she's in her
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: she's probably 95 years old. And she was there when
• 33:18
  Speaker 7: President Biden signed the legislation. But can you imagine? It
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: took 10 years after introducing the legislation just to get
• 33:26
  Speaker 7: it signed as a national holiday. And so now more people,
• 33:30
  Speaker 7: and the meaning now is more people are beginning to
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: understand the history in this country, the real history of
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: African Americans and the struggles and what took place, but
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: also how resilient we are. and how we fought for freedom,
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: and how we're going to continue to fight, how we
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: built this country, how we built it on slave labor,
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: and how these institutions, they owe us a debt that
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: has not been paid. So that's what it means.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: So Juneteenth is a federal holiday, meaning that federal workers
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: get the day off tomorrow on Monday, but only 18
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: states have actually passed the necessary legislation to make Juneteenth
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: a state holiday that would allow state workers to have
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: the day off as well. So many of the states
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: that haven't done this have argued that it's too costly
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: to give workers.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: The day off.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: And then they also say that This is a holiday
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: that no one really knows about anyway.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: What do you say to that?
• 34:46
  Speaker 7: Well, first I say our state has to get with
• 34:49
  Speaker 7: the program also, right? The state of California. Secondly, at
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: least here in California, Shirley Weber and the great people
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: of this state passed the commission to study and develop
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: reparations as it relates to African Americans. So California is
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: the first state to do that. So we're leading the
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: rest of the country and hopefully that'll spur HR 40
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: to help us get that through the house. And so
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: we've got to correct that. And I'm hoping that the
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: state of California and the states that don't have this
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: on the books as a state holiday will do so
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: very quickly.
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: We have been talking a lot about the January 6th hearings,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: which I assume you've been following pretty closely as well.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: I've already been outed as something of a Merrick Garland apologist,
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: which I am not. But let me ask you, do
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: you think the Department of Justice is going to move
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: to indict the former president and those in his inner
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: circle over the events of January 6th?
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: Well, personally, I hope so. But that's my... I hope so.
• 36:03
  Speaker 7: And I believe what is taking place now, and you're
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: beginning to see what actually took place, and the truth
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: is coming out about January 6th, that there's no way
• 36:17
  Speaker 7: that the Department of Justice can't hold these individuals and
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: this mob accountable for the attempted coup. Well, this was
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: almost a violent overthrow of our government, of our democracy.
• 36:35
  Speaker 7: And there's no way I think that they can get
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: away with it. Now, let me just tell you, I'm
• 36:39
  Speaker 7: the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Donald Trump, the
• 36:42
  Speaker 7: Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers. We're doing this with
• 36:53
  Speaker 7: the NAACP, and let me tell you, the Trump crowd
• 36:59
  Speaker 7: tried to get this lawsuit dismissed. So we had an
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: entire day of hearings, right? And the judge several months
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: later said, no way. And this was unprecedented that a
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: case such as this involving a prior president would move forward.
• 37:15
  Speaker 7: So now we're in the discovery period and I'm sharing
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: this because we're dealing with this on a variety of
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: levels to hold them accountable because this can, this is
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: not over this. democracy is very fragile. And I think
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: what we're seeing now and what you're seeing through the
• 37:33
  Speaker 7: January 6th hearings is that we almost lost it. I
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: was sitting there on the floor right there when this
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: took place. And it was terrifying. But we were determined
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: later to come back and make sure that we made
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: sure that the Electoral College was certified so that the
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: president could be sworn in as President Biden and Vice
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: President Kamala Harris. So we were determined to do that,
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: but it was very dicey, it was very dangerous. And
• 38:06
  Speaker 7: this committee, the January 6th committee is showing you even
• 38:12
  Speaker 7: in a more profound way than I ever thought that
• 38:18
  Speaker 7: the Republicans, people who were advising this man were telling him,
• 38:23
  Speaker 7: don't do it, that it was, almost illegal that it
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: was wrong. It was. They're telling him that. But, you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 7: we have to see, and I think the Department of Justice,
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: I wish they'd move a little quicker, much quicker, but.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: That is the most generous way to put it.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:44
  Speaker 7: But they're being very methodical, and I'm not defending them,
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: but you see some have been, you know, charged with
• 38:52
  Speaker 7: treason already and sedition. That's a heavy duty charge. And
• 38:58
  Speaker 7: the Department of Justice did that. And so hopefully they're
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: looking at this very carefully so that when they bring
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: these cases forward, that they're gonna be substantial and they
• 39:11
  Speaker 7: will hold and these people will be held accountable for
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: almost destroying our democracy and violently overthrowing our government.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: So I love the point that you made, sorry.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 39:30
  Speaker 7: What they almost did.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: Still trying still trying I love the idea that criminal
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: liability isn't the only weapon in the arsenal to hold
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: these individuals accountable and I love that you are the
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: lead plaintiff in a civil suit so the law professor
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: in me wants to do a deep dive.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Why a civil suit, right?
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: So what could a civil suit do that a criminal
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: prosecution could not, or how could it complement a criminal
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: prosecution in ways that would be helpful for promoting accountability?
• 40:04
  Speaker 7: Well, a civil suit will also bring forth the culpability
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: of these criminals.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: With a lower standard.
• 40:14
  Speaker 7: With a lower standard.
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 40:16
  Speaker 7: But they would have to.
• 40:21
  Speaker 7: Pay up big time.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: So are you going to bankrupt him?
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: They'd pay up big time in a civil suit.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Are you going to bankrupt him?
• 40:26
  Speaker 7: I hope so. Let's hope so.
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: What if they offered you the opportunity to settle this suit?
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: Would you say, like, hell no, we're doing this?
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: I want this suit to move forward to the court.
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: I want people to hear more of what took place
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: on January 6th. And also who these people are, because
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: it's not only the crowd... that mobbed and almost destroyed
• 40:54
  Speaker 7: our democracy at the Capitol. But we're talking about people
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: and groups all over the country. We're talking about white supremacists.
• 41:02
  Speaker 7: We're talking about domestic terrorists. We're talking about some very,
• 41:07
  Speaker 7: very scary organizations that are still out there. And so
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: I think the civil suits, criminal suits, the January 6th commission,
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: every tool we have in our toolbox has to be
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: activated now because this is a very dangerous moment, but
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: it's a moment that I know will survive and move forward.
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: But everybody here, you all have to help and you
• 41:30
  Speaker 7: all have to push really hard to make sure that
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: your voices are heard and that everyone understands that we're
• 41:38
  Speaker 7: not going to let this go. Some are saying, oh,
• 41:42
  Speaker 7: that was then, this is now. No, no, we have
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: to keep this going. in front of the public until
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: justice is done and until we know it will never
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: happen again.
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: So I read an interview that you did with the
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: 19th where you mentioned that on the morning of January 6th,
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: when you went to work at the Capitol, you decided
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: to put on tennis shoes. Because you had a bad
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: feeling about.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: What was going to happen that day. You didn't know,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: but you had a bad feeling. So one, believe black women.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Stay ready so you don't have to get ready.
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: What was it like being at the Capitol in your
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: sneakers knowing that you were running for your life?
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: Well, first, let me tell you, being black in America
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: requires you to keep your antennas up all of the time. Secondly,
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: I shared with you that my great grandmother was enslaved.
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: And so my antennas and my DNA tells me that
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: I have to be ready all the time. Now, having
• 43:01
  Speaker 7: said that, there had been many security briefings, many security
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: precautions taken. But I was listening and reading some of
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: these right-wing organizations and these blogs. And I knew, let
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: me just share this. I was sitting in the Capitol
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: on 9-11 and had to evacuate. And we were told
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: a plane might be coming in. I had on heels
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: that day. And it was hard running up Pennsylvania Avenue
• 43:32
  Speaker 7: in heels. So I swore that if I ever had
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: any inclination that something would go down, I wasn't going
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: to wear high heels. And so listening to all of
• 43:43
  Speaker 7: what was being put out there by the MAGA people,
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: I said, no, I don't know what's going to happen.
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: I have no idea. But I do have a clue
• 43:55
  Speaker 7: that something's going to go down. So I wore my
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: tennis shoes. And I'm glad I did.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Because.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: So you were reading MAGA blogs?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: I have to read everything. Listening to the press, I
• 44:12
  Speaker 7: kind of have to know what's going on, on all fronts,
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: you know.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're a better man than I.
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: I mean, not that I, I mean, I just have
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: to know. That's why I wore my tennis shoes. Not
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: very few members wore their tennis shoes that day because
• 44:27
  Speaker 7: they didn't.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: They learned.
• 44:29
  Speaker 7: They learned. They learned. So it was very scary. A
• 44:33
  Speaker 7: lot of movement in the Capitol. When I saw the
• 44:36
  Speaker 7: sergeant in arms take Speaker Pelosi out, when the chaplain
• 44:42
  Speaker 7: came up to the podium to pray, when we were
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: told to get our gas, yeah, we have gas masks on,
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: you know, pull out our masks. We may have to
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: put them on or we may have to hit the floor,
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: one or the other. And so you can imagine what's
• 44:57
  Speaker 7: going on. And I'm looking at my cell phone. people
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: telling me what's happening and I'm hearing all this noise
• 45:05
  Speaker 7: out there. And I couldn't figure out if my mask
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: was backwards or forth. So I had to ask somebody,
• 45:11
  Speaker 7: it was Congressman Eric Swalwell and Sherry Boosters. We were
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: all three together on the floor trying to figure out
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: if we were putting our masks on backwards.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: That's a good squad for that.
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: That's good.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah. It was good. So, and we had just a
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: few seconds to get out of there. And then we
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: went to this undisclosed location. But the other scary part
• 45:33
  Speaker 7: that was in the height of COVID and very few
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: Republicans had masks on.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I'm shocked.
• 45:43
  Speaker 7: So I'm like freaking out because it's like, oh, my God,
• 45:47
  Speaker 7: I'm in this close area walking like this. And COVID
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: is everywhere. In fact, several members contracted COVID on that day.
• 45:57
  Speaker 7: And so you can imagine what it's like trying to. survive,
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: fight for your life on a lot of fronts. But
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: that's what we do, and that's kind of the dangers
• 46:09
  Speaker 7: and the risks that we constantly face. But it's worth
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: the risk because we've got to fight for what is right,
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: fight for this democracy, fight for the people, and make
• 46:20
  Speaker 7: sure that we do the job that you send us
• 46:22
  Speaker 7: there to do.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: I'm getting a signal that I'm going to wrap up
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: this black girl magic in a minute. But one last
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: question for you. In September, you testified before a House
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: committee on reproductive rights and justice and threats to reproductive justice.
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: And you testified about your own abortion story. And then
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: there were a lot of discussions from experts. I testified
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: there about threats to reproductive justice as well. What I
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: thought was so interesting about this hearing was how many
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: Republicans talked about the idea that abortion is a form
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: of eugenics, and they were so worried about all of
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: these aborted Black fetuses. Can you explain to me how
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: your Republican colleagues are working to help Black children generally
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: outside of this space?
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: No, I can't, because they are not. When you look
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: at their voting records, they do nothing to help Black children. Zero.
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: And so... You know that, and I'll just share this
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: because I have never talked about this because it was
• 47:30
  Speaker 7: my personal private decision when I was a teenager between
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: me and my mother. And that was the way it was.
• 47:36
  Speaker 7: And the stigma and all of the issues that so
• 47:39
  Speaker 7: many people have around coming out, talking about issues that
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: are very deeply personal. But after Mississippi and after Texas
• 47:48
  Speaker 7: and after all of these laws started getting passed, I
• 47:53
  Speaker 7: took a deep breath and said, look, You've got to
• 47:55
  Speaker 7: stand up and speak out. And so I did and
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: told the story of my mother. I was living in
• 48:02
  Speaker 7: California by then and I got pregnant and I didn't
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: know what to do. And I went to Catholic school.
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: So you can imagine all of the confusion and emotions
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: that I had. But my mother and I talked about
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: it and made the decision that this was the right
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: thing for me to do. And so my first airplane
• 48:18
  Speaker 7: ride actually was from California back to El Paso. My
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: mother had a friend who recently passed away who said
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: that she worked with her and she was a wonderful Latina.
• 48:31
  Speaker 7: She said she knew a doctor in Mexico. Now remind you,
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: abortions were illegal in the United States and in Mexico.
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: And that she would send me to her. First airplane ride.
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: cost $ 200. And I'm still, it's still so clear in
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: my mind. And she took me over late one night,
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: like 1030, 11 o'clock. It was a back alley, really dark,
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: walked in there and it was a dark clinic, but
• 49:00
  Speaker 7: there was some lights overhead and the doctor had on
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: a white coat and the rest is history. But let
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: me tell you, I survived and I was terrified. So
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: many black women didn't. the main cause of death during
• 49:12
  Speaker 7: that period among black women were septic abortions. So I
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: knew I was terrified and I also knew I could
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: be put in jail jail because it was illegal. And
• 49:22
  Speaker 7: so I didn't know coming back across the border if
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: I was going to be arrested. Still, I don't know
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: about the statute of limitations. It's Texas. But I share
• 49:33
  Speaker 7: that because right now I'm so concerned about the criminalization
• 49:38
  Speaker 7: of of people who are going to find a way
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: to make sure they have abortion access. And so this
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: is about reproductive justice, reproductive freedom, and it's about making
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: sure that everyone has their democratic rights over their bodies.
• 50:01
  Speaker 7: We're gonna fight like you will not believe.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: So, Barbara Lee, thank you for speaking for Oakland. Thank
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: you for speaking for the Bay Area. Thank you for fighting.
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: Please give a warm Pod Save America applause to Barbara Lee.
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: All right, it's time for more news.
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: Since we're here in the Bay Area, I thought we
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: would talk about what fresh hell your tech oligarchs have
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: wrought on America. Here to help us do that is
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: New York Times technology correspondent and the author of the
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: best-selling Super Pumped, The Battle for Uber, Mike Isaac. There
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: we go. There's a proper hello.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining.
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: Thanks for doing this.
• 51:03
  Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: So you just wrote about the latest developments around the
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: richest man in the world buying one of the world's
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: most politically influential social media platforms, unfortunately. So for the
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: first time, Elon Musk spoke directly to Twitter's employees during
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: a 90-minute Q & A that you listened to where
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: he said, quote, I want Twitter to contribute to a better,
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: longer-lasting civilization. where we better understand the nature of reality.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: So my first question is, did that line get any laughs?
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: What were your other big takeaways from the call, and
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: do you think Elon Musk wants to close this deal?
• 51:48
  Speaker 8: First, it reminded me of Joshua Tree last summer, so
• 51:52
  Speaker 8: just like, that's kind of, no, I think he, I think,
• 51:57
  Speaker 8: He wanted to close it a few months ago, but
• 52:00
  Speaker 8: like now, Dan and I were talking about this backstage.
• 52:05
  Speaker 8: He literally bought the company at the height of the market,
• 52:10
  Speaker 8: like the worst possible time. The world's best innovator bought
• 52:14
  Speaker 8: at the worst possible time for $ 44 billion. And now
• 52:17
  Speaker 8: he's been doing this thing where he's essentially trying to
• 52:21
  Speaker 8: renegotiate the deal in public, basically, by saying, Twitter hasn't
• 52:24
  Speaker 8: given me enough information, you know, there's all these bots
• 52:27
  Speaker 8: on it, and so I think, like, he would have
• 52:32
  Speaker 8: loved to have bought this company a few months ago,
• 52:34
  Speaker 8: but now it looks like kind of a bad deal.
• 52:37
  Speaker 8: And also, there were a lot of Slack jokes about
• 52:39
  Speaker 8: this guy, who was casting, by the way, from, like,
• 52:42
  Speaker 8: a hotel room from his phone, like, very bootleg mode,
• 52:46
  Speaker 8: and so, yeah, I think Twitter employees are a little skeptical.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like he assuaged their concerns?
• 52:57
  Speaker 8: Someone, there was a Slack comment that said, if you
• 53:01
  Speaker 8: were to take a shot for every question Elon answered
• 53:06
  Speaker 8: throughout this call, you would be totally sober right now.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: Which I thought was totally accurate. Can I ask a
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: question about this? So here's my 30,000 foot view of this,
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: which is that It is not possible for someone who
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: has done what Elon Musk has done to be as
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: stupid as his public persona would seem. It's also not
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: possible for someone to be as smart as Elon Musk
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: thinks Elon Musk is. Sure. So the answer is somewhere
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: in between how he presents and what he's actually capable of.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: In listening to Elon at any point, have you gotten
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: any sense that he has a more sophisticated grasp of
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: what Twitter is beyond this nonsense of it being some
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: kind of a public square?
• 53:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah, no, I mean, to be totally fair, I do
• 53:53
  Speaker 8: think he has been, A, at the right place at
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: the right time in a lot of different moments in history,
• 53:59
  Speaker 8: you know, particularly during the Obama administration and sort of
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: riding Tesla to new highs. And I think he's not
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: a stupid guy. I think a lot of this positioning
• 54:08
  Speaker 8: in public right now is very intentional, especially around the deal.
• 54:12
  Speaker 8: But I think his understanding of policy in general and
• 54:19
  Speaker 8: what he wants to do as far as speech in
• 54:21
  Speaker 8: the public square is like super flattened. It's not at
• 54:25
  Speaker 8: all nuanced. It took Twitter's policy teams like years to
• 54:29
  Speaker 8: come up with, for example, you can't talk about, you
• 54:33
  Speaker 8: can't be pro-Nazism in.
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: Germany, right?
• 54:36
  Speaker 8: That's literally illegal there. So you have to take that
• 54:38
  Speaker 8: off of Twitter. And, you know, he just doesn't really
• 54:42
  Speaker 8: appreciate that. And Twitter is a product used by people
• 54:45
  Speaker 8: all over the world. And I don't know if that's
• 54:47
  Speaker 8: like a feature or a bug, you know, like that
• 54:49
  Speaker 8: part of me thinks He's like, I don't care. I
• 54:53
  Speaker 8: just want all of it out there and only the
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: snowflakes are going to be offended. But I really do
• 54:57
  Speaker 8: think he believes that the more speech, the better in
• 55:01
  Speaker 8: that regard.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: And you do think that he really wants to close
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: this deal and is not just sort of playing around
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: here for it?
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: I think he wants to close it at a lower price. Like,
• 55:11
  Speaker 8: I think he really fucked up on the price.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Like, it's, the.
• 55:15
  Speaker 8: Market is, he paid 44 billion, he signed a contract
• 55:19
  Speaker 8: saying he was going to pay 44 billion dollars Now
• 55:21
  Speaker 8: he's saying, oh, I didn't know, blah, blah, blah, trying
• 55:25
  Speaker 8: to get out of it. So I do think he
• 55:27
  Speaker 8: wanted it at a certain point, but now I think
• 55:30
  Speaker 8: he's trying to more renegotiate it. It's like a.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Guy that bought a condo at the peak of the
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: market and is trying to squeeze out of the inspections.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: No matter how big, how rich these people get, it's
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: the same shit negotiations. It's just Trump arguing about countertops.
• 55:47
  Speaker 8: I had a very different midlife crisis than he did,
• 55:49
  Speaker 8: I think.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: So apparently one employee asked how Elon's political views will
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: affect the company. He said he's a moderate who voted
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: for Democrats in the past, though in the last few
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: weeks he's also said he's leaning towards Ron DeSantis for president. Yeah,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: some DeSantis fans.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Weird.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we get these really pro-DeSantis crowds.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought we were going to get some applause there.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: He also said that he voted for Mayra Flores, a
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: Republican congressional candidate who's used QAnon hashtags and and urge
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: people to buy more guns just a few days after
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: January 6th, so that's cool. Dan, how much do we
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: all have to care about Elon Musk's political views now? Like,
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: is it time for everyone to return their Teslas? What's
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: going on?
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Don't say that.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: I got to get home from this event.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: You see it on Twitter.
• 56:39
  Speaker 9: Look, I think it's safe to say we all probably
• 56:41
  Speaker 9: care way too much about Elon Musk, full stop.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: Like, we spend way too much time talking about him.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Hence us talking about this here.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Because you asked the question, I think there are ways
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: in which we, how we care about it matters a
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: little bit.
• 56:56
  Speaker 9: I think it is not a good thing for the
• 56:58
  Speaker 9: world that one of the world's, that the world's richest man,
• 57:02
  Speaker 9: someone who could outspend every penny the Kochs spent over
• 57:06
  Speaker 9: 40 years in politics without really batting an eye. is
• 57:10
  Speaker 9: thinking of supporting Ron DeSantis for president. That is a problem.
• 57:13
  Speaker 9: We've seen the damage that Peter Thiel has done in
• 57:16
  Speaker 9: American politics. Donald Trump would not be elected without Peter Thiel.
• 57:19
  Speaker 10: J.D.
• 57:20
  Speaker 9: Vance would not be the nominee in Ohio, and he
• 57:22
  Speaker 9: has fueled some of the most dangerous strains in the
• 57:24
  Speaker 9: Republican Party. Elon Musk certainly could do a similar thing.
• 57:26
  Speaker 9: He has the pockets to do it. We're watching his
• 57:29
  Speaker 9: radicalization happen before our eyes, and I think that is alarming.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: In terms of what it means for Twitter, I think.
• 57:39
  Speaker 9: We should just presume that these companies, whether it is
• 57:42
  Speaker 9: Elon Musk or someone else, it's Mark Zuckerberg or someone else,
• 57:46
  Speaker 9: are always going to do the wrong thing. And this
• 57:49
  Speaker 9: idea that the way that we're going to make these
• 57:53
  Speaker 9: platforms work is we're going to have well-meaning billionaire tech
• 57:58
  Speaker 9: moguls in charge of them is like a deeply naive
• 58:00
  Speaker 9: view of the world because ultimately they're responsive to a market.
• 58:04
  Speaker 9: And so if we're going to want Twitter to do
• 58:06
  Speaker 9: the right thing, if we're going to want to combat
• 58:08
  Speaker 9: get Facebook to do the right thing. It's going to
• 58:09
  Speaker 9: require rules and regulations that affect their bottom line if
• 58:13
  Speaker 9: they don't do the right thing. Now, because, as you know,
• 58:21
  Speaker 9: I am an optimist. I'm a silver linings, glass half
• 58:23
  Speaker 9: full kind of guy.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: Famously.
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: Famously.
• 58:25
  Speaker 9: I do concede there is one upside to Elon Musk's
• 58:30
  Speaker 9: new Republican persona.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: It is not a bad thing for the world.
• 58:34
  Speaker 9: That the world's most prominent electric car manufacturer, solar panel
• 58:39
  Speaker 9: distributor is a Republican. I don't want him to have that,
• 58:45
  Speaker 9: but the fact that there is now some Republican out
• 58:47
  Speaker 9: there who actually does not think that electric cars are
• 58:50
  Speaker 9: destroying the world, wind turbines cause cancer or any of
• 58:54
  Speaker 9: those things. If you wanted to find that silver lining
• 58:58
  Speaker 9: in there.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Which you always are looking for.
• 58:59
  Speaker 9: Look, I'm known for that. Every day I wake up,
• 59:01
  Speaker 9: I try to find the positive. And so that would
• 59:04
  Speaker 9: be the positive.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: Dan's watching Star Wars like, they'll never destroy it. It's
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: not possible. It's too small a hole.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: So Elon also said during the call that he wouldn't
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: allow criminal acts to be carried out on the network.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: That's wonderful.
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: He's previously said that under his ownership, Twitter would allow
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: all speech that the First Amendment protects and that he's, quote,
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: against censorship that goes far beyond the law. Melissa, Mike
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: was just talking about this. Is it a good idea
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: to have content moderation policies track the First Amendment?
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: So this is a great question.
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: I feel like to answer it, we just sort of
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: have to get something out of the way that Twitter
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: and Facebook are not the government. They are private entities,
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: and they aren't governed by the First Amendment. So just
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: a PSA from your law professor.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: The whole question of whether.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: the policies to track the First Amendment, I think actually
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: opens up the door to a wide range of speech
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: that I think people who use Twitter would find problematic. Take,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: for example, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: neo-Nazis were marching through Charlottesville saying things like, you know,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: you will not replace us and racist and anti-Semitic things.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: Charlottesville could not stop them because of the First Amendment.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: It was protected by the First Amendment. So imagine opening
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: Twitter and, you know, you have all of these Nazi screeds,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: you have anti-Semitic screeds, you can see beheadings, you can
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: see pornography. All of those things are protected by the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: First Amendment. And so Twitter is not a public square.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: It's a social media platform that has a profit motive.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: And you could imagine that if that kind of content
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: was available, people would leave.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: They don't want to see it. So I don't know that...
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Twitter wants something like that.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: I don't know that it would be a good idea
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: for Twitter just because all of the content would again,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: what the First Amendment allows is actually quite vast and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: probably more alarming than we even recognize.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: So, again, that's sort of the danger of it.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: And I don't even think the Republicans realize that they
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: just want to stop. the limiting of conservative viewpoints. I
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: don't think they realize it's really a Pandora's box.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and every time you listen to Elon give an
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: interview about this, it does not seem like he's thought
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: this out.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: No, what he'll discover is, oh, I'm not the only
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: smart person in the world. There's some other smart people
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: who have been trying to grapple with these very difficult
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: questions this entire time and landed at these very uncomfortable
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: compromises between the balance of allowing people to say what
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: they will and the fact that humans are broken and fallen. Yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: You know, sort of a core problem. And that buying
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: the world's complaint department may not have been the best
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: use of his fucking time.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 9: He's also, he's running a business and no company wants
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 9: to put their ad next to the white supremacist screed.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 9: Like that is ultimately becomes the problem.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: My pillow might. My pillow might.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my pillow. Well, they have Truth Social. Covered, right.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 9: But, I mean, they have these content policies not because
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 9: they care passionately about doing the right thing. You just
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 9: can't sell Coke ads if your Coke ad might run
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 9: next to a KKK.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Tweet or whatever it is. Are you tired of Jews
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: or are you just tired?
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Too soon.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Too soon. Oh, my gosh. All right. I do not
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: want to make this segment only about Elon Musk. So
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: we're going to talk about some of the other tech
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: oligarchs out there. Even if you don't care about their politics, unfortunately,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: they do care about ours. This was a CNET headline
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: from Friday, quote, big tech CEOs push Congress to oppose
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: antitrust legislation. The bill in question is called the American
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: Innovation and Online Choice Act. It would prevent tech platforms
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: from giving preferences to their own products and services. On
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: one side are the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, and Google,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: who hate the bill. They've been at Congress, they've been lobbying,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: they've spent a lot of money trying to defeat this bill.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: On the other side are senators ranging from Amy Klobuchar,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: Cory Booker, and Massey Hirono to Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: and Josh Hawley. Now you don't know what to think.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Who are we supposed to root for here? Love it's
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: going to decide.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: Is it Josh Hawley or is it the Amazon CEO?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: Look, here's the thing. Once in a while, Josh Hawley
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: points his fist in the right direction. A broken fist
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: is right twice a day. This is a very modest bill.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: It's going to bounce Amazon Essentials to page two of
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: the results, and they're throwing up a fit. First of all,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: I do think that there's this problem when we say tech.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: And it includes Apple, Amazon, Google, Metabook, Twitter. These are
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: extraordinarily different companies. If you had a bill that addressed
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: gun manufacturers and factory farmers and truck makers, you'd be like,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: wait a second, these are not one thing. So I
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: do think it's more complicated. It requires some nuance. But fundamentally,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: these are all companies that have very much enjoyed using
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: their bigness to both build platforms and then sell products
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: or push services on their own platforms. And they enjoy that.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: the privileges that come from controlling the pipes and pushing
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: stuff through it, they have these concerns. They've lost, I think,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: the credibility to be listened to. This is an incredibly
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: modest bill that would make some very small changes. And
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: they act like the sky is falling every time. And
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: any time there's even the hint of a potential regulation, it's,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: we're going to lose to China. You're going to destroy
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: American competitiveness. This isn't about the size of our companies.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: This is about us. This is about the great Sino-American
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: conflict to come. If you do this, you're going to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: cut us off at the knees and put us at
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: a disadvantage. We're going to lose the AI fight. We're
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: going to lose every fight. The drones.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: The drones.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: The drones are coming.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Who will think of the drones?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: I think it is important that we kind of as
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: a society, stop taking these kinds of the sky is
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: falling threats seriously. We need Congress to put in place
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: some common sense regulations, yes, against these companies' ability to
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: use their bigness and platform to privilege their own services,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: but also for privacy is another place where we could
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: make some difference. And also just forget privileging their own products,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: like Amazon having basically kind of using the data they
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: collect to destroy their own small business retailers that use
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: the service and to replace their goods with their own goods. Like,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: that is wrong. That shouldn't be allowed. And so, you know,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: we need Congress to do... We need Congress to take
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: these reasonable, very small steps forward. We need to kind
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: of empower agencies and give them the funding they need
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: to actually take on antitrust. And then we need to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: kind of take on the, like, the ridiculous... ideological right-wing
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: judicial philosophy that has allowed these sort of companies to
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: run amok and face no consequences for anti-competitive practices and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: basically kind of made it almost impossible for us to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: regulate these people because they're enamored of this idea that
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: if you can, basically, if it reduces prices for consumers,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: you can't stop it no matter the harm it does,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: no matter the consolidation it causes.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: The silver lining is that this is the first time
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: Josh Hawley has been for choice.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Which is certainly notable.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Don't tell the Missourians.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: Mike, if this is such a modest change to the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: law from this bill, why are they spending so much
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: money and why are tech companies so against it? Is
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: it just they're greedy? Is it that they're worried that
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: it's a slippery slope that will lead to more legislation?
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: What do you think?
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 8: I think First of all, it's funny to hear them
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 8: say in public, for a very long time, Zuckerberg has said,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 8: we want to be regulated. This is something that's great
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 8: for us. And then there's been record amounts each year
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 8: on more sort of backroom lobbying and pushing back against it.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like he wants to be punished, but he's
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: very quick to his safe word.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Which is, no.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 8: But I think one of the big... I'm sorry. It's
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 8: just never leaving my mind, that thought.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: I think one of the big things.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 8: Though, is that they had at least a decade of...
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 8: where they didn't really have to worry about changing any
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 8: of their products, right? There was an FTC that really
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 8: wasn't pursuing, and you could argue, did they know how
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 8: influential some of these companies were gonna be? Did they
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 8: know that, let's say the Instagram acquisition was gonna be
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 8: as giant now in retrospect as, we see and so
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 8: like I think now just even the hint of not
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 8: being able to privilege their own stuff is very scary
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 8: to them and like you know what they like to
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: stand behind is like we want to provide the best
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: the best products right and not just something else because
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: it's a different name but I think I think consumers
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 8: haven't had a choice in the first place for a
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 8: very long time so like just putting that out there
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 8: is something new.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: Well Melissa, we have now an executive branch that's for
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: stronger regulation of these tech companies. We now have a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: bipartisan majority potentially in Congress. What do we know about
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: how the court has looked at these attacks? to, you know,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: regulate tech companies, this court?
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: So the Supreme Court moves pretty slowly with technology. They
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: only recognized cell phones a few years ago.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: So that's the first. And Ginny Thomas led the charge
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: on that. I knew that was going to happen.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: The Ginny Tonic is going to be the refreshing drink
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: of the summer.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: So there was a case a couple of years ago
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: where Justice Kennedy wrote for the court saying that social
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: media platforms were kind of like the space for speech.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: This is where people communicated. And then a few years ago, 2018,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: there was a case called Halleck where Brett Kavanaugh wrote
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: for the majority but made clear that Just because something
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: is a platform, in this case it was a public
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: television station that was actually operated by private entities, the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: fact that it was a platform didn't turn it into
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 5: a public space regulable by.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: The First Amendment.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: So, you know, there's sort of uneven precedents here that
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: point in different directions. Just this month, though, there was
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: an interesting shadow docket case dealing with a law out
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: of Texas, which was about content moderation. And the Fifth
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: Circuit had basically not only allowed the law to be
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: in effect while the constitutionality of it was being litigated,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: they sort of expressed approval of it. This was something
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: that was permissible under the First Amendment. And the court,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: in a shadow docket decision that was a 5-4 decision,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: we only know it was a 5-4 decision, because there's
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: no signed opinion, but there were four noted dissenters, the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: court stayed or enjoined the law from being in effect
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: while its constitutionality was litigated, suggesting that maybe there's some
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: play here and they don't think that a law like this,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: at least while it's being litigated, should go into effect.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: But the lineup was really strange. So Justice Thomas and
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: Justice Alito dissented, as did Justice Gorsuch, but then they
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: were joined by noted conservative Elena Kagan.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: Very interesting.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: Again, no opinion here, so we don't really know what
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: the court thought about this, but they at least wanted
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: the law to be held, to be enjoined while its
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: constitutionality is being litigated.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: Well, it sounds like since both the politics in Congress
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: and the ideological scramble in the court are sort of
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: up for grabs on this, maybe there's room for progress
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: in regulating big tech. I don't know.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: Check your text messages from Ginny.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's, all right, that's what we'll end up with.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: All right, when we come back, Dan will talk to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: your state representative, Buffy Wicks.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Huge news, guys. Huge news.
• 1:11:53
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• 1:12:00
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• 1:12:12
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• 1:12:14
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• 1:12:26
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• 1:12:29
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• 1:12:31
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• 1:12:34
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• 1:12:38
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• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: the organization Register Her, which will help millions of women
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• 1:13:04
  Speaker 9: We're excited to have our old co-worker from the Obama
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 9: White House, our longtime friend and California State Representative, Buffy Wicks.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: Buffy, welcome to the stage. Thank you. This is how
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: we always thought it would.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 7: End, right?
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 13: I was just thinking, the last time I saw you
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 13: was at the stage of the Commonwealth Club when I
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 13: was interviewing you for your book.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 7: That's right.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 9: That was two books and one pandemic ago. Buffy and
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 9: I have known each other for 15 years now. We
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 9: worked together in the Obama campaign, the Obama White House.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 9: She's gone on to much bigger and better things, as
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 9: we can see. But we have you here, and we
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 9: have an audience here in the Fox. but also around
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 9: the country listening to it. California is both a progressive
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 9: laboratory for policy ideas and also the right wing's favorite
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 9: punching bag. So let's talk a little bit about some
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 9: of the issues that are sort of dominating politics in
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 9: California and how they may apply nationally.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: So let's start with crime.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 9: Just a couple weeks ago, there was a recall election
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 9: in San Francisco where the DA was overwhelmingly recalled. That
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 9: was taken by national political pundits as a huge warning
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 9: sign for Democrats in a rebuke to the idea of
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 9: criminal justice reform that really dominated a lot of the party,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 9: particularly since 2020. What is your take on what that
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 9: election says, what's happening here in California, and what lessons
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 9: Democrats should take from it?
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 14: It's a good question.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 13: I mean, I don't think that the recall of Chessa
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 13: was a canary in the coal mine for all Democrats
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 13: around the country. I think a better indicator of where
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 13: we are on the issue is you look at someone
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 13: like Diane Becton, who, thank you, a little woo for
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 13: Diane Becton over there. She's a progressive DA in Contra
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 13: Costa County. She handedly won her reelection. You look at
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 13: someone like Attorney General Rob Bonta, some woos for Rob Bonta.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 13: And I served with Rob when he was in the legislature,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 13: and there are a few people who have run more
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 13: progressive criminal justice reform work than Rob. And he won
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 13: handedly in this election. And, you know, I think his
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 13: message is one I think is important. It is we
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 13: can do the reform work that we need to do
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 13: because we know that there are deep racial inequities within
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 13: our criminal justice system. We know that it is discriminatory.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 13: We know that it hurts brown and black folks more.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 13: But we can also keep our community safe and we
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 13: can do both of these things. And by the way,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 13: our black and brown communities also want to be safe, right?
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 13: And so I think how he talks about this and
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 13: frankly how the governor's talking about it and the work
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 13: that they're doing, I think it's demonstrated in the polls
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 13: that it's what people want. And it means that we
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 13: can have our cake and eat it too. We can
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 13: have reform, but we can also have safety at the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 13: same time.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 9: So another issue here that we talk about all the
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 9: time here in California is Housing and homelessness, which two
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 9: intertwined issues. Housing is incredibly expensive here. You have been
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 9: working on this issue for a long time in the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 9: state legislature. What are we trying to do here in
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 9: California to address that? And how is that potentially a
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 9: model for what the nation can do?
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 14: Do we have how long to answer that question? It's
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 14: a big one. And you look in California, right?
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 13: We are 2.5 to 3.5 million homes shy where we
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 13: need to be, depending on whose data you use. We
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 13: have 100, at any given moment, 163,000 plus or take
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 13: a few unhoused people in our streets in California every
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 13: single night. We have growing encampments. We have rent burden
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 13: that is beyond anything that most people can understand. We
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 13: have people that can't afford their mortgage. It's a massive
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 13: problem here. And you talk to older folks who want
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 13: their kids to come, come back to California after going
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 13: away to college or something and raise their kids here.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 13: They can't afford to live here. You have folks, artists
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 13: who are leaving because they can't afford the cost of
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 13: living here.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 14: The issue is, it's huge.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 13: It's the number one issue that polls amongst voters every
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 13: election cycle, both the housing and the homeless issue. And
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 13: the reality of the matter is we've made it very
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 13: difficult to build housing in California.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 14: Building, that's right.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 13: And building multifamily mixed-income housing is illegal in almost 80%
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 13: of the state of California. So we have to make
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 13: it easier to build housing. We have to subsidize low-income,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 13: very deep, affordable housing here in California. We have to
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 13: build all of the above market rate. We have to
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 13: build housing, but with that also comes investments in public transportation.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 6: So.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: Clearly they've been on the couch, right?
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 14: They're taking Bart now again, post-COVID, hopefully.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: Cheers for post-COVID.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 13: And, you know, we've done a lot of the last
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 13: couple of years, we've done a lot of work in
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 13: the space in the legislature, but we do have to
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 13: make it easier to do. And frankly, there's a lot
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 13: of cities that don't want to build. You know, we
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 13: have to have some real tough conversations with those cities
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 13: and make it easier.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 14: But that is absolutely what we need to do is
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 14: build more housing.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 9: So you have a specific bill that would speed up
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 9: the building of affordable housing on commercial land, but it's
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 9: gotten pushback from trade unions. And you are a former
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 9: union organizer. You're as good a friend to labor as
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 9: there ever has been. Explain how you deal with that
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 9: sort of cross ideological pushback. Because this is not, it's
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 9: not as simple as like rich landlords or rich people
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 9: or nimbyism. It's we have like members of our own
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 9: coalition pushing back against these bills.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 13: The housing issue is the one that I find politically
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 13: the most interesting because it's not just sort of Democrat
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 13: versus Republican, right?
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 14: It's like three dimensional chess.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 13: So, yeah, I have a bill that would basically allow
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 13: more residential housing in commercially zoned areas. And I've been
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 13: working with the Carpenters Union, who they build the majority
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 13: of housing in California to craft a bill that would
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 13: create the strongest workforce protections that we have. The other
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 13: thing in the housing industry is it is notorious for
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 13: wage theft and exploitation of workers. And particularly, they tend
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 13: to be immigrant communities who come in and take these jobs.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 13: So we have to wrap our head around that so
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 13: that we're creating good-paying jobs and helping to create the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 13: middle class while at the same time.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 14: Streamlining the housing.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 13: You know, the bill that you're referring to, AB 2011,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 13: for the housing nerds in the audience, is sponsored by
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 13: the Carpenters Union. As I said, it has support from SEIU, CSEA,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 13: which is the school employees union, the service sectors unions,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 13: and many others. And it's currently opposed by the building
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 13: trades union, as you mentioned. because they have a different
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 13: standard that they want to use for housing production. But
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 13: the difficulty with that issue is that we don't have
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 13: currently the union workforce across the state to build the.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 14: Housing that we need to build.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 13: So what I'm trying to do is thread a needle here,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 13: create the highest standards that we can while still streamlining
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 13: housing so that we can build the union workforce. We
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 13: have an apprenticeship component in the bill that helps to
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 13: build more good union-paying jobs in this industry. And I
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 13: think it's a win-win-win if we can create that workforce
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 13: and streamline the housing.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 14: So that's the goal of the bill.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 9: Any day now, we expect to get the Supreme Court's
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 9: opinion in the Dobbs case, which would, based on the
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 9: leaked opinion, overturn Roe v.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: Wade.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 9: Here in California, you and your colleagues are working very
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 9: hard to push back on that because abortion would become
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 9: a state issue. And there's an effort to, the 13
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 9: bills right now, that would help make California an abortion
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 9: sanctuary state. Can you explain what that means and what's
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 9: going into that work?
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 7: Sure.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 13: And before I get into that, I also want to
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 13: say I have spoken publicly about an abortion that I
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 13: had when I was 25. And I was it was
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 13: after actually the 2004 election cycle because we run different
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 13: teams in the 2004 election cycle. And I was living
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 13: in San Francisco and I was in between jobs and
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 13: staying at a friend's staying on a friend's couch. And
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 13: I had an unplanned pregnancy and I went to Planned Parenthood.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 13: And they welcomed me. And they welcomed me with open arms,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 13: with information, with respect, and frankly, love, and helped me
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 13: make this decision, a decision that for me at that
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 13: time in my life, I was not prepared to have
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 13: a child. I now have two beautiful girls who are
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 13: the light of my life.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 14: They're the cutest.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 13: And, you know, I think about that moment in my
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 13: life and what that meant for me to be able
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 13: to make that decision for myself. And, you know, and
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 13: then I got to go work with you and others
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 13: and I got to help elect the first black president
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 13: and got to work in the White House and come
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 13: back here and I met my husband and I ran
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 13: for office and I got to do all of these
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 13: things because I was able to make that decision. So
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 13: the work that I do in this space is deeply
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 13: personal for me. That was an empowering decision for me.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 13: I want to make sure that my daughters have that
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 13: same choice if they need it. And frankly, all of
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 13: America Thus, we are doing 15 bills here in California
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 13: to really fast track and make sure that California is.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 14: A reproductive freedom state for all in this country.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 13: And so it's, I won't go through every bill I could,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 13: but it's two main buckets. One are the legal protections.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 13: So I have a bill right now that is to
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 13: ensure that no one in California is criminally prosecuted for
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 13: any pregnancy loss.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 14: And there's a lot of applause lines in this, so
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 14: it's going to take a second, which is great. We
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 14: have a sympathetic audience.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 13: But in California, a couple months ago, a woman named
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 13: Adora Perez was just released from prison.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 14: She was there for four years.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 13: She was prosecuted for a crime that doesn't exist in
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 13: California called murder of a fetus.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 14: She had a stillbirth.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 13: And she was criminally prosecuted and was in prison for
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 13: four years in California, was released a couple months ago
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 13: in 2022.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 14: So this still happens here.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 13: So my bill would make sure that that is not
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 13: possible and that someone like Adora could get recourse and
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 13: sue the DA that put her there. But we're also
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 13: working on making sure that privacy is protected so that
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 13: if people have abortions here in California, no matter where
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 13: you're from in this country, if you come here, that
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 13: your privacy can't be violated by other states who want
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 13: to know if you had an abortion here. So there's
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 13: a whole bunch of legal protections also working to make
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 13: sure that if doctors prescribe through telehealth the abortion pill
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 13: to other states, they cannot be criminally prosecuted or extradited.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 13: So there's a whole bucket in that space. And then
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 13: on the infrastructure side, just making sure our providers are prepared.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 13: We expect a 3,000% increase of folks seeking safe and
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 13: legal abortion in California. That's what we're preparing for. Right
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 13: now it's about 46,000 abortions a year. We expect it
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 13: to be about 1.4 million. And so making sure that
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 13: our providers are prepared for that. We are developing a
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 13: fund that's going to be run through the state, but
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 13: it's seeking philanthropic funds to help people who are coming
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 13: from other parts of the country. A website with helpful
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 13: information for those folks that are coming. We're making sure
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 13: our workforce is diverse, that we have a diverse workforce
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 13: to make sure we represent everyone who's seeking abortion care.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 14: We're doing a number of things.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 13: We have a budget ask of about $ 125 million this
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 13: year to make sure that we're prepared for what we
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 13: expect to happen. And this is not something we want
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 13: to do, of course, but it's something we feel morally
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 13: obligated to do to make.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 14: Sure that we are a safe haven for people who.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: Need care here.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 9: So last question for you. You are someone who has
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 9: gone on the journey that we hope so many of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 9: our listeners go on, which you started out, became an activist.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 9: turned politics into a career, became an operative and one
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 9: of the best organizers in the Democratic Party, and then
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 9: you went and ran for office and have stayed in
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 9: the fight this whole time. And so I was wondering
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 9: if you could just maybe give a message to the
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 9: people listening who maybe are feeling a little bit down
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 9: about what's happened in the world or disengaged or that
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 9: it doesn't matter anymore, why it's so important to stay
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 9: in the fight right now.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 14: I mean, I think.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 13: now is the most important time to stay in the fight,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 13: given what's happened in this country. And I was an activist,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 13: and I remember during the first or second Iraq war,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 13: back in 2002, 2003, I was the girl with the
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 13: bullhorn and the multicolored hair and the nose ring and
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 13: shutting down the Bechtel Corporation in downtown San Francisco. And
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 13: I worked for many causes, the labor movement, as you said,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 13: and Howard Dean and Barack Obama and many others.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 14: And I will say, you know, I was struck by
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 14: the work recently.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 13: I did a bill two years ago that would open
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 13: the statute of limitations for those that had been victimized
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 13: by an OBGYN at UCLA who had been sexually assaulting
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 13: women for about 30 years. And there was a class
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 13: action lawsuit because of the bill I did that opened
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 13: up the statute of limitations.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 14: And there were hundreds of women who were able to
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 14: seek recourse.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 13: And while they will never be made whole by that experience,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 13: they feel a little bit better. And it's important to
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 13: remember the work that we do and the impact it
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 13: has on individual people's lives, right? And I just think
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 13: every single person in this room and who's listening has
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 13: the ability to change this country for the better.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 14: And whether you're doing it by giving.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 13: $ 5 a month to your favorite organization, whether you're doing
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 13: it as someone who volunteers 20 hours a week, or
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 13: whether you're someone who's contemplating running for office, you know,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 13: I never thought I would run for office ever. And
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 13: then in the 2016 election, I was pregnant with my
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 13: oldest daughter, and she was due election day. And I
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 13: thought she was going to be born the day we
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 13: elected our first woman president, and it was going to
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 13: be very serendipitous, right? And then Trump happened and she
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 13: was late and so the whole thing like blew up.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 13: But I just got really pissed off at what happened
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 13: in 2016 and decided to run for this seat when
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 13: it opened up. And I do think there are a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 13: lot of women who run when Trump happened, right? And
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 13: that's part of his legacy. is the work that we
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 13: are all doing now to right those wrongs of what
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 13: was there. But I think, honestly, I don't mean to
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 13: be hyperbolic about it, but our country depends on this.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 13: Our country right now is at risk of falling apart.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 13: I mean, honestly, democracy right now is in peril. And
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 13: I hate to sound so like dramatic, but I truly
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 13: believe that. And I think the only way we can
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 13: fix it is if we, all of us, decide that
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 13: we are going to fix it. And so take whatever
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 13: that next leap is. If you're thinking about running for office,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 13: if you're thinking about volunteering more, about donating more, all
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 13: the things that you can do, do it and do
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 13: it now and do it wholeheartedly and think about the
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 13: people's lives who you will impact with that work.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: Buffy Wicks, thank you so much for joining us. Please
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: give it up for Buffy. If you're here, if you're
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: listening at home, you know what we're about. I guess
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: I can sit. We breathe, we sleep politics. Our nutritionists
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: are horrified. Our lungs are shot. No amount of melatonin
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: can fix what's wrong with us. You too probably find
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: yourself sucked into the 24-7 political news cycle. But here's
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: the thing, there's a great big beautiful world out there
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: that has nothing to do with how incredibly slow Judge J.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: Michael Ludwig talks. and whether or not we feel okay
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: about making fun of that. We don't know.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: I think we do.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: Which is why I'm challenging my co-host to a game
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: we're calling Everything But the January 6th Hearings. We want
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: to find out what, if anything, they learned from this
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: week in the news outside of politics, but... But we
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: need someone from the audience who thinks the algorithm from
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 3: on high knows in their hearts they're also open to
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: some sports and science news. So our producer Leo is
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: out there. Would someone like to join us? We're going
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: to split into teams. I can't see Leo. Oh, there
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: he is. He's over there.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 7: Over here.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 3: Leo's going to pick somebody. Somebody out there want to
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: play who feels like they're a well-rounded news consumer. They're
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: going to come around. So Melissa and Dan, if you
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: wouldn't mind moving over here, you're going to be this team.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to call you the, you're going to be
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: a team. I didn't think of team names. Well, I
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: was going to say, cause you're, you're from the Bay area. You're, you're, you're,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: you're so, but, but this other person's probably going to
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: be from the Bay area.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: I was going to say warrior Celtics. Warrior Celtics. Yeah,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: that's great. Warriors versus the Celtics.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: There we go. That's a great setup.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: Has Larry Bird retired or is he still playing? He
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: was a Celtic. Someone's coming around. Come on on stage. Hi,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: what's your name?
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 14: Hi, I'm Kara.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: Kara, where are you from?
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: I am from Oakland.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: We got an Oakland native.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: Kara and John.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: Nice to meet you. Thanks for being here and being
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: on John's team. He'll need the help. He's a He
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: reads what he reads.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: I know nothing.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: I know nothing but the.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: So here's how it works.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: We're going to go back and forth. I'm going to
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: ask you questions about the news, and we'll see who wins.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: All right? You guys ready?
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: I'll start.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: Can we confer?
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a team game.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 7: Talk it through.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: You didn't really explain it well.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: No, I wasn't saying it. It sounded defensive. Yeah, it did.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 10: It did.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: Apology not accepted.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: Edit that out. All right. And everyone can confer. Talk
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: it through.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: All right. Here we go.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: First question for Melissa and Dan. This week, Microsoft retired
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: what web browser?
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 10: Internet Explorer.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 7: Yes, that one.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: But what number?
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 7: Oh.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, come on. They retired all of them.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 7: All of them.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: Internet Explorer 11. I'll give it to you. Okay.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 6: Nice.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: Cara, John, a VHS copy of what beloved 1985 film
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: sold for $ 75, 000?
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 12: 1985.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: Confer in the mics, please, Cara.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 4: Is that too early?
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: You can't just talk. You have to be in there. Cara,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: use your microphone.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 7: It's a podcast. Come on.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: What do you think?
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 6: 1985.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: Ghostbusters.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 7: Can we steal?
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: Back to the Future.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: They stole it.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, we were going to say that.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: They stole it. They stole it.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: We had it.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: We're introducing steals. Melissa, Dan, what foul-mouthed canine was arrested
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 3: in the U.S. Capitol while filming with staffers from The
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: Late Show with Stephen Colbert?
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 4: What was it?
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: Triumph. Yep, Triumph, the incel comic dog.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't miss that. Oh, Triumph, yeah. Oh, oh, oh.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 4: I couldn't hear you.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 3: You couldn't hear me? My God.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 4: No, yeah.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: I don't think I should be louder. Burger Kings in
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 3: Japan have temporarily pivoted to serving their burgers with a
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: side of ramen noodles due to a shortage of what?
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 14: I'm assuming fries.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: Potatoes?
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Potatoes. Petco is opening stores for a whole new
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 3: family of animal customers. Horses, cows, sheeps, pigs, and what?
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: If you say so.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: Go for it.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: Like, Does anyone have a pet llama?
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Llama?
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 7: Alpaca?
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 3: Give us a list again. It's animal customers, horses, cows, sheep, pigs,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: and what?
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 7: Goats.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 5: Goats.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: Goats.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 7: See?
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: Cara, John. What legendary stoner opened an art museum dedicated
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: to preserving and celebrating Chicano art this week? Hey, hey.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: We're going to go with Cheech.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: It's Cheech.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: Nice. All right.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: Okay. Naomi Osaka unfortunately had to pull out of what
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: tennis tournament due to an Achilles tendon injury?
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: Is it French Open time?
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: It's not Wimbledon. Is it French Open now?
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: Shut the fuck up. Excuse me. Say that again.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: Keep yelling.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: They said Wimbledon.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: It's not Wimbledon.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, maybe it is Wimbledon.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: Let's go with Wimbledon. Guys, hey, hey, hey.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 7: Wimbledon, yes.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: I know this is the Bay Area. I know this
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: is the Bay Area. This isn't getting your kids into college.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 3: We don't cheat.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: Wimbledon.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: Wimbledon is correct.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 10: Yes.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: What bankrupt electronics chain turned cryptocurrency platform tweeted from their
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: official account tweets like, who else is high as fuck
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: right now and congrats on the landing of your new
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: giant metal cock Elon?
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 4: Oh, I think I know this. It's RadioShack.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: RadioShack.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: Correct. Melissa, Dan, the internet reeled at a photo of
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: a bleach blonde Ryan Gosling as what classic children's toy?
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 7: Ken.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 12: Yes.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 7: Ken. Ken.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: Ken. I printed one and put it in my locker.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: All right, here we go. What is the name, John
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 3: and Kara, what is the name of Drake's new album?
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: Can we steal?
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 4: Never mind, never mind.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: Never mind?
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 7: Wrong.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: Honestly, never mind? Correct, it's stolen. It goes to Dan.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: So close.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: John, I'll give you a follow-up because that was close enough.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: What country was Montana Governor Greg Gianforte vacationing in while
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: the state suffered catastrophic flooding?
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 11: Italy.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: It's Italy.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 4: I'm going to.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 7: That's political news.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 3: That's sort of politics. That's political news. Half a point.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 3: Severe weather, Melissa, has created a shortage of this popular
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: hot sauce. Oh, it's sriracha.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 7: Sriracha.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: Correct. I.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: You would all be ejected from front. This isn't The
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: Price is Right. This is Jeopardy. Final question. You have
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 3: to get this and you'll probably still lose based on
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: the feeling of it. John and Cara, Beyonce announced the
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: upcoming arrival of her new album on July 29th. What
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: is the name of that album?
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 4: Fuck.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 10: Oh, wow.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 7: Renaissance.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: Renaissance.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 3: I hope you're proud of yourselves, Oakland. The winners of
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 3: the game are everybody on stage. You all lost, except
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 3: for Kara.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: Kara wins.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: Who's the winner. That's the game.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 7: We obviously won. We won.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: And also, you did better.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 7: We did win.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: You did do better.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: Now we're doing steal rules.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 3: We introduced the steal. Melissa introduced the steal.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: It's fair.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 3: You couldn't stop the steal.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 4: But Price is Right rules apply with the.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: Maybe you should have stopped the steal. You think about that?
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: Price is Right rules are in effect. You help them
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 3: a lot. You failed to stop the steal. John, end
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: the show as soon as possible.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: That's our show for tonight.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 4: Thank you to Melissa Murray, Barbara Lee, Buffy Wicks, Mike Isaac.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: Go to votesaveamerica.com.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Oakland.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Oakland.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 4: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 4: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 4: Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 4: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montouf. Our
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 4: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.