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“The Do Something Democrats.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Tommy Vitor here. I'm hosting a new podcast
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: called World Corrupt with my friend Roger Bennett from the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Men in Blazers podcast. Soccer is a game that is
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: often called the world's most important, least important thing. Yet
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: November's World Cup will force fans to confront and grapple
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: with the complexities of the tournament. It was awarded via
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: corruption and built with atrocious labor practices that have left
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: reported 6,500 migrant workers dead. Each week on World Corrupt,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Roger and I will explore what it means to be
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a fan and responsible citizen of the world while watching
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the world's most popular sporting event. New episodes of World
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Corrupt drop each Saturday in the Pod Save the World feed.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: On the pod today, we'll talk about the articles of
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: impeachment the House is about to vote on, the trade
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: deal that the House is also about to vote on,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and all the latest polls and developments in the Democratic primary.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Then you'll hear Dan's interview with New York Times technology
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: reporter Mike Isaac about Facebook and Uber. Two quick housekeeping notes.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: The fourth episode of Pod Save America on the ground
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: in Iowa is out. Tommy takes you behind the scenes
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: as the campaigns prepare for one of the biggest nights
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: in of the primary season and will consider proposals to
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: change the caucuses. It's great. It's fantastic. I finished this
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: episode last night and I was actually sad that we're
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: going to have to wait until mid to late January
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: for the final episode of the series.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: It's really great.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Also, please donate to Fair Fight. We are only $ 300, 000
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  Speaker 2: on the ground fighting voter suppression in 20 battleground states.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: everyone should know I just saw Stacey Abrams the other
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: night and she told a big room full of people
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• 2:00
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• 2:07
  Speaker 2: slash fair fight to chip.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: In that was sort of a humble brag on your part.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: It was but it was really nice that she said
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: that and she told all these people to donate and
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: she's like all the Pod Save America listeners have been
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: really ponying up and it's been really great to see
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: everyone donate so Really, it's a humble brag on behalf
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: of all of our listeners.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: However you want to square the circle for yourself, that's fine.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I would also be remiss.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I'm a big deal.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you are a big deal, which is a real
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: merch opportunity t-shirt. I would be remiss in the conversation
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: around Fair Fight if I didn't mention, and this will
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: be my Christmas present to you, John, this will be
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the last time in the calendar year 2019 that I
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: pitch my book, but on Trumping America out February 18th,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: I will donate a portion of the proceeds of any
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: and all books, hardcover, ebook, audio book to Fair Fight,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: which when we have those numbers, we will dump them
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: into the jelly bean jar that signifies math at the
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Kirkian Media Headquarters. And like I have motivation here. I
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: worked really hard on this book and I want people
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: to read it. But also I am in a competitive
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: battle with my publisher who has told me approximately 1,000
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: times that I will not pre-sell as many books as
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I sold last time because second books are harder, which
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: makes no sense to me. But as of right now,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: he's kind of right. And it's going to be very
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: hard for me to admit I was wrong. So I'm
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: counting on people to help me win this small internal
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: battle that has outsized importance in my life.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say you were in
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: a competition with Don Jr. and Triggered.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Well, if there are any.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I guess Crooked Media should buy up 100,000 of your
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: books then.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: You know, here's the thing. They put that little dagger
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: by the bulk purchases on the New York Times list,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: and I would not... I don't want that dagger. That
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: dagger is for suckers.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: It means you're a fucking loser.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: All right, Dan. It's all happening. Today, the House Judiciary
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Committee is voting to approve two articles of impeachment against
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: articles say that by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden, quote,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: President Trump abused the powers of the presidency by ignoring
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and injuring national security and other vital national interests to
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: foreign power in corrupting democratic elections. Sounds bad. On obstruction,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the article reads as follows. In the history of the republic,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: no president has ever ordered the complete defiance of of
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: an impeachment inquiry. The history of the Republic, Dan, not
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Andrew Johnson, not Bill Clinton, not Richard Nixon, not even
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Nixon has obstructed Congress as much as Trump has. So
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: just to start off there, you know, there had been
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: speculation that the articles of impeachment may include a bribery
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: charge and an obstruction charge related to the Mueller investigation.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Are the two articles that Democrats ultimately chose the right ones?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Are they broad enough to fully capture Trump's corruption? What
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: do you think?
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Well, look, I think we can fly spec this to
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: death and say, why is it worded this way? Why
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: isn't the word bribery included or extortion or Mueller or
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: whatever crimes Trump committed between waking up this morning and
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: us eating breakfast on the West Coast? But I do
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: think it's worth taking a step back and appreciating the
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: fact that for a long time, those of us on
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: this podcast, a lot of activists out there were pretty
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: skeptical that the Democrats would have either the willingness or
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: the ability to execute on impeaching President Trump, to make
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the public case, conduct the hearings, lay out the evidence,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: and marshal the votes to do it. And that is
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: what they are doing. And so I think it's important.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: There can be good-faced arguments about legal from fake attorneys
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: on Twitter about what was the right thing. Even real attorneys,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: I guess.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Some real ones, too.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which would be the right and wrong thing to
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: do here. But the Democrats in the House who were
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: elected last year did what they were supposed to do,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: did what we wanted them to do. And we don't
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: need to be part of the never good enough brigade
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: complaining about this. I think we should be happy about
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the result. Not happy on the side of the country.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: We should be I think, happy that the Democrats did
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: the right thing with some pretty tough political wins. Because,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: and we'll talk a little bit about this as we
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: go forward, but this is not an easy decision within
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: the caucuses, even if it seems on the substance and
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: the most obvious decision in terms of constitutionality, legal responsibility,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: et cetera. But it wasn't easy and they're doing the
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: right thing and they have executed to this point pretty
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: close to flawlessly, I think.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, obviously we have been calling for
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the Democrats to take up impeachment for some time. Um,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: you know, I was pushing it even before the, uh,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the Ukraine scheme. And as someone who.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Once again, another humble brag, it's quite a day for you.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if it's a humble brag because.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Who look where we are right now.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: No, I'm actually putting myself out there as, you know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: but what I was about to say is as someone
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: who was proposing that, like having gone through the last
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: three weeks, uh, I don't know that more articles of
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: impeachment would have any kind of practical effect on anything,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to tell you the truth. I know that it would
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: satisfy a crew of people who believe that we should
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: have them. I, of course, believe that Trump has committed
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: more impeachable offenses and more crimes than are outlined in
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the articles. But I just don't know what it would do, right? Like, we...
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I keep thinking we have to work back from the
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: final outcome here, which is that Trump is going to
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: be acquitted in the Senate.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: He's going to be. There's no like at this point,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know if any Republicans will cross over. But
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: at most, you know, I think I saw some Democratic senator.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I think it was Richard Blumenthal was on MSNBC last
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: night and was like, you know, I could guess maybe
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: five to 10 Republicans would cross over and vote. I mean,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: that is wildly optimistic to me. Godspeed if they do.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: I'd love that. But I don't know. So, you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I just don't know what it does. Right. Except say
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: then then you have to go into like why you
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: have to get back into the Mueller report, get into
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: that whole thing. If you add the emoluments, you have
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: to do that. I mean, there's just if bribery, there's
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: going to be issues with that. Like, I think that
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the reason that Pelosi did this is she's trying to
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: figure out how many votes she could get. And I
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: think she would rather get more Democrats on board voting
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: for impeachment than have more articles and fewer Democrats. It
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: seems to me the political effect of having more Democrats
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: is greater than the political effect of having more articles,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: because I think the ultimate goal here is to sort
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: of move public opinion or at least lay out the
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: case to the public about Trump's corruption and criminality. And
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I think we've seen over the last couple of weeks
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: how difficult that is. Like you said, Adam Schiff pulled
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: off a nearly flawless set of hearings and it didn't
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: really move public opinion anywhere. Um, and so, and in fact,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: you know, public opinion on this spiked in support of
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: impeachment when the news broke about Ukraine and they first
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: announced an inquiry, it was up around 50%. It's now
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: at like, you know, 47% support, 44%, uh, oppose. So
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: it's narrowed a little bit, but it's pretty stable. Um, And,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: you know, Democrats are all for it, Republicans are all
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: against it, independents are split. And that's where we are,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and that's where the country is. And I don't know
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: what three or four or five more weeks of hearings
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: on another topic, going back to Mueller or other charges,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: is actually going to do. I don't know how that
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: breaks through. And I think it's a consequence of the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: information environment you're in. I mean, you said this on
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Twitter the other day, that you thought that there was
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: some people were being a bit naive about the information
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: environment that this is taking place in. What did you
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: mean by that?
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Well, what I meant by that is ultimately what Democrats
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: are still relying on is to tell their message to
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: the media and then have the media tell the message
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: to voters. And it presumes a level of fairness in
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: the media. It presumes a level of fairness within the
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: algorithms of Facebook, which carries the news to people. It
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: presumes It has a sort of naivete about how the
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: other side weaponizes information to their benefit, right? And I
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: think you see this in the fact that there is
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: currently no substantial outside game of super PACs or party
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: committees or anything else who is trying to drive the
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: information that is unveiled in this hearing and put it
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: in front of the voters who are most persuadable. You
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: have the American Action Network, which is a Republican super PAC,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: which is spending a lot of money in what I
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: think is primarily traditional television advertising in a bunch of
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: the districts that Trump won that now have Democrats. And
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: I think that has some value. But ultimately, the only–
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: and I think this is not just about impeachment. It's
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: about every element of Democratic Party communications. We have what
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: I call a last mile problem. We spend all this
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: time thinking about what the message is. and all this
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: time thinking about which reporters to tell that message to.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: And we spent almost no time thinking about how to
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: get the message from the politician's mouth or from the
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: hearing room into the mind of the voters we care
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: most about. And a truly sophisticated, well-funded effort here would
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: have been taking the moments in the hearing, the key
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: pieces of information, and spending real money, targeted voters in
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: those swing districts, or nationally, if it was an effort
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: designed to take down Trump, to drive the information home,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: to cut through the noise, because the media doesn't have
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: the reach or the capacity to tell the specific story
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: with the repetition and volume that is needed to break
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: through the noise in our media environment generally, not even
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: counting the fact that Trump is throwing up distractions left
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: and right.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because... even though Schiff's hearings were flawless, and even though,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: you know, pizzazz aside, I would say that the media
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: has covered impeachment, you know, better than I expected. Let's
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: give them that. Even when they cover it well, they
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: still do, you know, Democrats have laid out all this evidence,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Republicans say it's not true, you know, and you still
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: end up with this, one side is saying this, one
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: side is saying the other thing. The whole thing is
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: devolving into a partisan brawl, right? Like, it's just, And
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's any one reporter's fault. It's a
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: systemic issue with the way the media covers politics that
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Republicans have figured out how to game. And for some reason,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Democrats cannot.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: It's not even possible.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: It is not possible.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: All the cultural, financial incentives of media in the Facebook
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: age push in the wrong direction. But even if every single.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Article or TV segment written or done about this was
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: fucking flawless, right? Did not devolve into both sides bullshit,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: just was here are the facts, was explicitly called Trump
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: out when he was lying or Jim Jordan out when
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: they were lying, laid out the facts. Even then, it
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: would not be sufficient because the reach of traditional objective
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: mainstream journalism in The digital age is not sufficient to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: get to people, right? What matters is what is showing
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: up in their social media feeds. What matters is the
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: tilt of the direction on Facebook, primarily, but also Twitter, Instagram,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the other things. And that requires something more than depending
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: on the New York Times do it. Daily Wire and
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: all these other right-wing sites have been weaponizing information for
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: a long time. Democrats have been unwilling and unable to
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: think about information in Think about how we weaponize information,
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: not in a negative way, but how we get it
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: to people. And that is still, like, this is a
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: broader conversation about how the presidential campaign is going to
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: be conducted, about just the state of American democracy. But
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: I think what is happening in this impeachment inquiry is
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: an example of missed opportunities on the Democrat behalf in
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: an increased risk profile because the Republicans have the money
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: and the willingness to do things Democrats will not. Yep.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So in terms of the Democratic support in the House,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: a few members of Congress and staff told The Washington
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Post that up to six or even more Democrats might
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: vote against impeachment. Apparently, there's a group of 10 who've
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: been talking about censure instead of impeachment. That includes Josh Gottheimer,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: New Jersey, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Anthony Brindisi of New
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: York and Ben McAdams of Utah. Dan, what are the
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: possible reasons for doing this?
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: This infuriates me because, look, if a Democratic member does
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: not want to vote for impeachment, that is their call.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I think they are wrong. I think they are wrong
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: on the substance. They are wrong on morality. And I
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: think they're ultimately wrong on the politics. But that is
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: their call. But what infuriates me about this censure conversation
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: is it is a idea specifically designed by a small
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: handful of Democrats to fuck over their colleagues. They know
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: impeachment is going to pass. they know there is zero
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: chance of censure. There is zero Republicans who are going
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: to support censure. Zero. It is not a viable alternative
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: to impeachment. But by floating it, they get to position
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: themselves as more reasonable than their colleagues. And the problem
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: is a lot of their colleagues who are doing the
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: right thing, the brave thing, are also in very Republican districts.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: But now- I think that's important too, because I think
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you hear oh, this is all about the frontline Democrats.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: They're not courageous enough. There are a ton of Democrats
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: in Trump districts who've already said that they're going to
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: vote for impeachment or who are going to end up
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: voting for impeachment. And it is an incredibly hard vote
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and good for them for doing that. And it is
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: not all of them. It's just a handful here.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: This is one of those examples that speaks to something
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: we've talked about before, which is that centrism is an identity,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: not an ideology. And so this is that set of
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Democrats led by Josh Gottheimer, who was the leader of
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: this wing of democratic politics, where your goal is not
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: to adopt a set of moderate policies because you believe
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: sincerely that those moderate policies are better than progressive policies.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: You're constantly trying to position yourself off of the polar
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: ends of both parties, regardless of how right or left
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: it is at any one moment. I think it's a
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: pretty gross, disloyal tactic to sort of polish your own
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: apple at the expense of your colleagues. And I think
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: it's really shitty.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, this is not about being
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: ideologically moderate, right? There's nothing about impeachment that has to
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: do with ideology one way or the other. This isn't
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: like saying you're against Medicare for all or that you
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: hate the deficits or whatever. This is about the president
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: of the United States saying, I get to bully foreign
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: countries into destroying my political opponents. I get to bully
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: foreign countries into rigging elections. And when I get caught,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I get to ignore Congress and I get to ignore
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the law. And like, if you're worried that you can't
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: do a better job than Sean Hannity of explaining that
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: to your constituents, then you will never be an effective
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: leader for people. You won't. And like, look, if Trump,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: if Trump does this again and he succeeds and he
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: gets worse and you didn't try to stop it, you
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: are going to have to live with that for the
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: rest of your life. If you are a Democratic member
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: of Congress and you just don't think he did it,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: if you looked at all that evidence and you just
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: think he's innocent, that he didn't actually call for an
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: investigation of his political opponent, that he didn't actually just
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: ignore an equal branch of government and just said, fuck
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: you to the separation of powers and decided that he's
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: above the law. If you didn't think that's true, then yeah,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: that's fine. Vote for it. But like, I know Josh Gottheimer.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I worked with Josh Gottheimer. He was a staffer on
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: the Kerry campaign. he fucking knows Trump did it. He's
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: not doing this, you know, like, and maybe, you know, look,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: maybe they'll all end up voting for impeachment. Great. Wonderful.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: But that makes it worse.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: That actually makes it worse.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. Like, I, I know, I know,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: know that Josh knows that, that Donald Trump did this
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: and is guilty of it. I know it. I know it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: And it's just like to play, to play these games,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: it's like, it's, you're afraid. And I, and look, I
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: get the fear. I don't quite get the fear in
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Godhammer's district because it's not super conservative. It's on the line. Like,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: if you're Kendra Horn, right? A new member elected from
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Oklahoma in a very, very, very conservative district. I get it.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: I get she must go home and have all these
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Trump voters who she needs to win. She only won
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: because a bunch of Trump voters voted for her. And
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: she needs these Trump voters to win and they're furious
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: at her. And I get how hard that must be.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: But again, it's like, that's the job. And basically what
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you're saying is, you know, Fox News is scary and
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: they have control over my constituents. And so I just
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: can't do anything about it. And I'm just going to
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: have to wait and, you know, be able to maybe
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: compromise once in a while and get a little thing
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: here and a little thing there. And that's that.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I think that's, I think that's pretty tough.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: We can get off this topic in a second, but
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: it really has gotten under my skin today. But It
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: just stands in stark contrast to the group of... There
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: is obviously a group of Democratic members of Congress who
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: rode a wave into office, and they are in districts
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: that under no normal circumstance a Democrat should have. Kendra
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Horn is your perfect example of that. And it's going
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: to be a huge fight, even under the most ideal
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: political circumstances, to hold on to those districts for time.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: In 2010, we were trying to pass the Affordable Care Act.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: There was a huge group of people like that because
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: the Democrats had had won a huge house wave in
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: 2006 and then an even bigger house wave in 2008
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: and had just huge members of people who were in
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: these deeply red districts. And many of them were faced
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: with this choice. Do you vote for the Affordable Care Act?
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Which they all agreed with was the right thing to do.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: But it would come at great political risk and in
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: some cases be almost certain to eliminate whatever chances they
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: had of keeping their district. And there was a whole
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: group of them who Did the right vote. And the
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: reasons they told Barack Obama they did was because you
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: come here to do the right thing. Let the political
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: chips fall where they may. People like Tom Perriello and
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Betsy Markey and a whole bunch of other ones who
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: lost their seats. And they're people that Barack Obama just
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: has so much respect and affection for because they did that.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: This is one of those moments, right, where you know
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: there is political risk in your position just by getting
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: out of bed in the morning. So are you going
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: to do the right thing or the wrong thing?
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's like, I get it. No one came
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: to Congress because they wanted to take this vote. But
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: we didn't do this. We weren't the ones who fucking
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: bullied a foreign government into trying to destroy our political opponent.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump did this. And now you have to respond
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: to it. That's the truth. So one thing we know
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: is that, you know, even if there's a few defections,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Democrats will have the votes to impeach. So let's talk
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: about what the Senate trial might look like. Mitch McConnell
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: said it won't start until mid-January at the earliest. And
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: there are now reports that McConnell wants to keep the
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: trial short and, quote, drama-free and may even not allow
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: witnesses on either side to testify. Trump, on the other hand,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: wants to mount a full defense, the White House says,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: and that includes witnesses like Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Adam Schiff,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the whistleblower, the deep state, you know, probably Barack Obama,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Michelle Obama, right, the whole fucking gang. So he wants
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: all the crazy right-wing conspiracy theories on display in a trial.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: McConnell doesn't seem, at least at this stage, to want that,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: and other Senate Republicans outside of the Lindsey Graham crazy
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: squad seem to feel the same way. Why do you
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: think that is?
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Well, if there is a question about witnesses, you are
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: raising the possibility that Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, a bunch
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: of other people who know a lot of information will
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: be forced to testify. And that is... great risk. There's
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: a whole set of facts on the table. They have
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: been delivered by a whole set of witnesses, but the
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Republicans are savvy enough to know that the president's chief
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: of staff or the president's disgruntled and very mustachioed former
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: national security advisor would be blockbuster witnesses. The amount of
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: attention that would get if they don't perjure themselves, they
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: will say things that are very damaging to the president,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: not necessarily things that I think would cause the Republicans
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: to remove him from office because they are the Republicans
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: and that's who they are and they're immune to facts
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: and crime. But it would, I think, it would put
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: the Republican senators who are up for re-election, like Cory
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Gardner and Susan Collins and Martha McSally, to name a few,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: in a very uncomfortable position.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, they're scared. They're
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: scared of more evidence and testimony coming out because they
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: know he did it. That's why they don't... Apparently, I
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: think Politico reported that Mitch McConnell said in a closed-door
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: meeting with Senate Republicans that calling witnesses would be mutually
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: assured destruction. So that, yeah, they would call, you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden and all this, and the whistleblower and all
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: this kind of shit. But then, like you said, if
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Bolton or Mulvaney or anyone else had to testify... it
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: would look really bad for Trump. So I think, you know,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: it's funny about all this stuff. You know, Brian Boitler
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: was talking about the timeline because he was saying, you know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: we should have a longer timeline on impeachment instead of
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: a shorter one. And he said, it's not actually possible
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that Pelosi's impeachment timeline is good for Democrats and also
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: good for Trump. Someone's wrong. I don't know that I
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: agree with that because I think the problem for both
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: sides is the politics are unknown, you know? And I
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: think from Mitch McConnell's perspective, it's like, you know, this
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: could be good for us if it drags on and
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: people get sick of it and see just a bunch
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: of fighting in Washington and everything. But it also could
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: be bad for us if a lot of evidence comes out.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And so I'm not willing to take that gamble. And
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: I think the Democrats are worried about taking the gamble
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: for a long impeachment as well. I think the reason
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: that both sides might end up agreeing to sort of
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the same short trial is precisely because the politics of
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: impeachment are so unknown.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: I think we also have thought about the end. politics
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: of impeachment in the wrong way. The election day 2020 is,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I recognize it's 11 months from now, but in the
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: time amounts of the Trump era, it's a thousand years, right?
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: We point out all the time that it was just
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: about two and a half months ago that Trump used
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: a Sharpie to alter a weather map.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Remember we were going to buy Greenland?
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, we were going to buy Greenland. I totally forgot
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: about that. We were just looking at that really interesting
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: morning consult Yes. Data visualization about what stories broke through.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: And I really kind of forgot the government shut down
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: for six weeks. I mean, we've podcasted a lot about
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: that and it had fallen out of my brain.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: And so there's just so many stories that don't break
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: through or that people forget about. And I agree. I
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: think that the most likely outcome for impeachment is that
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: it's not going to have a significant effect either way
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: by the time we get to November.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Well, I have a slightly different view, which is the
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: politics have already played out in the favor of Democrats,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: which is the period of time where Trump would have
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: had the best ability to strengthen his political position heading
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: into 2020 would have been the fall and winter of 2019,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: where Democrats would have been dominating the news, fighting over
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Medicare for all, transparency, everything else, having these debates that
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: would get a ton of attention and would spark divisions
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: within the party. And Trump had the opportunity, theoretically at least,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: to be presidential, to tout the economic strength under his watch,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: talk about accomplishments, just be a president above a very
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: messy democratic process. That was the exact period of time
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: in which Barack Obama went from an approval rating of
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: around 40 to 49 between Labor Day and Christmas of 2011.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: And Trump is going to get to Christmas with the
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: same ratings had all along. So there is a massive
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: opportunity cost for Trump that came out of both the
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: fact that he committed crimes that led to his impeachment
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: and his reaction to that impeachment. And so that like
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: the politics have already played out in favor of Democrats.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Well, speaking of that, I mean, since we know the
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: outcome in advance will be acquittal, how should Democrats prosecute
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: the case in the Senate? Um, And what should the
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: party in general do to sort of shape the most
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: favorable coverage and favorable politics possible, knowing that he will
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: be acquitted, he will claim victory, the media will say
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: it has riled up his base and got them excited,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: just like they did after the Kavanaugh hearings. Did Democrats
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: make a mistake doing this? Are the politics bad? I mean,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: we all know what the headlines are going to be
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: after the Senate trial. We've known this for a year,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: and I've talked about it for a year. It's the
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: same as what was going to happen when we knew
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the Mueller report was going to come out, when Mueller
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: was going to testify, like when Kavanaugh ended up being confirmed. Like,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: you just know in advance how the media is going
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: to treat this. So now that we know this in advance,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: what do you think Democrats can do to sort of
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: maximize the... sort of the coverage here.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Well, it's going to depend a little bit on what
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: sort of trial McConnell allows, right? If he were to
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: allow something resembling a real trial, then I think the
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: key is to find blockbuster witnesses like Bolton and Mulvaney
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: and others. But if that is not an option, or
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I guess under both scenarios, I think the primary political
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: imperatives are twofold. One, conduct yourself with the seriousness of
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: purpose that Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler have done. Don't
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: get dragged into all the Lindsey Graham bullshit. Be serious.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Respect the gravity of the moment. I think that's important.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Second is this moment is even more about holding accountable
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: the vulnerable incumbent Republican senators for their acquiescence to a
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: wave of criminality and corruption, right? So we should use
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the opportunity both in the media, in paid media, on
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: the ground with our candidates to hold Susan Collins accountable
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: for her potential acquittal of Trump. Hold Martha McSally accountable
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: for potential acquittal of Trump, Cory Gardner, and all the rest.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And so I think this is not entirely about, once
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: we get to the Senate, Trump's reelection or defeat. It's
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: about how can we help ensure that voters know about
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: what the incumbent Republican senators did at this moment in time.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I would also say that as you're, just from a
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: messaging standpoint, I think the Democrats should make sure that
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: they make the argument that this matters to people and
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: why this matters to people, right? Because I think one
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: of the ways that I do agree with people who
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: say this should be made bigger is that, and I
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: don't know necessarily that we need more articles for this,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: but I think you should make the argument that this
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: is part of a pattern. And it's not just about
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: some foreign policy thing in Ukraine, which seems very distant
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: to a lot of people, but you have to make
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: it about why what Trump did was so dangerous and
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: why it is part of a pattern. You know, I,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: I saw this, um, this, this barely made the news
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: this week, but, uh, on Wednesday, I believe, uh, the
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: president had to pay a court order $ 2 million in
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: damages because he used money from his charity foundation for
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: personal and political purposes. Sound familiar, right? This is like
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: what he's getting impeached over to personal and political purposes, uh, uh,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: doing something for personal and political purposes. Um, And he
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: was forced to shut down his charity and he actually
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: is not allowed to operate another charity ever again in
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: New York without supervision. Like, this would be, could you imagine,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: could you imagine if that story came out about Joe
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Biden or Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: what would be happening right now? And like, I don't
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: think you need to add a bunch of articles of
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: impeachment to make this case. I just think that when the,
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: whoever the House managers are, who are the prosecutors in
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: the Senate trial, should talk about all of the other
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: corruption and all of the other criminality in Trump's orbit
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: to make the point that this isn't just some one-off.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: This is part of a larger pattern, and this man
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: is unfit for office and has violated his oath for
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: a host of reasons. And you don't need extra articles
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: to say that. You just need to say it. You
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: need to make the case.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: It's the pattern of bad behavior strategy.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. I also think, and a couple people have made
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: this point, It's sort of time for the activism to
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: start kicking up here. We've done very, very well with
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: marches and rallies and town halls, whether it's the Women's March,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: whether it was to protect the ACA, all kinds of things.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: There's been very little activism around impeachment. I would encourage
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: everyone to go to impeach.org. There's going to be rallies
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: all over the country. the night before the final House
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: vote on impeachment. We don't have a date yet, but
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you can go to the website and sign up and
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: see where there's a rally near you. There's a ton
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: of organizations that are behind this from MoveOn to Stand
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Up America, a whole bunch of great organizations and Divisible.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, I do think that we need
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to show a little public pressure here to show that
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: this is important because otherwise it's just going to seem
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: like an inside Washington thing. And I think it needs
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to I think there needs to be a sort of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: groundswell here to show how much it matters. Yeah.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: And to the extent, like if you have a Republican
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: member of Congress or you live in a state with
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: a Republican senator, call them and let them know your feelings.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: And if you are in a district or a state
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: with a Democrat who's doing the right thing, call them
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: and thank them because that helps too.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because the other side is calling all the time,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: all of these offices saying that they hate impeachment and
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: these Congress people, they're human. When they get reports from
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: their staff that calls against impeachment are like eight to
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: one against impeachment versus for impeachment, that's going to make
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a difference. And so the calls really do matter.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: And the RNC is spending money on a vendor that
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: calls up Republican voters and was basically with an auto
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: call that says, press one to be connected to your
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: member of Congress to explain you know, to vent your
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: frustration at impeachment or whatever else. And they are spending,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: they're astroturfing this. And we don't have a similar effort,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: nor should we, but we do have the grassroots activism
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: to push back on that. So it's important.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, we got to move on because on the same
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: day that Democrats announced the articles of impeachment, they also
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: announced a deal with Donald Trump on a new trade
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada known as the USMCA.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: The trade deal improves on NAFTA, the North American Free
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Trade Agreement. In the negotiations, Democrats won big concessions on
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: stronger labor and environmental protections, and they got rid of
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: a provision that was seen as a giveaway to the
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: drug companies. So Democrats are claiming victory, but Trump is
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: already saying that he negotiated the biggest and best trade
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: agreement in the history of the world, which has led
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: some people, some people on this podcast even, to wonder, uh,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: why did Democrats give him this win? Dan, what do
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: you think?
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Well, I have very, very strong views on this. You do.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Um, but I will make what I think is the
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: best case for why the Democrats did this. And I
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: will stipulate that while some Democrats, a lot of Democrats
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: in the house are more moderate on trade than a
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: lot of our base. And some of us, uh, This
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: is not a case of Nancy Pelosi being a quote-unquote
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: corporate shill, right? I think the dispute here is about politics,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: and I think it's a good faith disagreement. But the
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: argument that I think has led the House Democrats to
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: do this is they promised that they would be able to, quote,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: walk and chew gum when it came to investigating and
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: impeaching Trump. They could legislate and investigate. And this is
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: something that this is a accomplishment that their members who
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: support this can take home to many of whom are
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: in swing and red districts to say, yes, we impeached Trump.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: We thought it was the right thing to do, but
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: it wasn't the only thing we did. We also approved
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: this trade deal that would do X, Y, and Z.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: That's one. Two, the AFL-CIO and Labor were for this.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: And they're obviously a very important constituent of the Democratic Party.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: And it's pretty hard to buck them. And the third
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: is there was a the substance of the deal met
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: the test the Democrats put forward, right? They had a
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: set of things they demanded, and somehow the Republicans' search
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: for the Trump administration got to that point. And so
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: that's why they did it. I still think this was
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: a pretty large, unforced political error, but we can talk
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Sure. So why don't you talk about that? Talk about
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: why you think that it was still a bad idea.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I think even if the substance of this deal
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: is fine, it is not as good a deal as
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: a potential Democratic president would negotiate 18 months from now, right?
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: If you had President Warren or Sanders or Biden or Buttigieg,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: wherever they fall on the ideological spectrum, they would negotiate
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: a better deal for workers than Trump would. This is
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: the best deal or a sufficient deal that Trump can negotiate,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: but it's not the same thing as a deal with Democrats.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: would negotiate.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Do you think there would be even stronger labor protections,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: even stronger environmental protections?
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: And even though it is, and Pelosi said this too,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: and it's just true, there are much stronger labor environmental
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: protections than we currently have in NAFTA. I think that
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: they're similar to basically what the Obama administration had negotiated
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: in a different trade agreement in a different part of
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: the world, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but it's sort of in
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: line with some of the stuff that we got in that.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: But the Overton window on Democratic trade policy has moved
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: to the left since then.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: That is true. That is true. Yep.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: And so that's one. Two is we know from our
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: own crooked media polling that one of the most devastating
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: arguments against Trump is that he ran as someone who
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: was going to fix NAFTA, and he has since then
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: worked with Pharma and Wall Street to pass a NAFTA 2.0
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: that is– that puts corporations over workers. That is a
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: devastating argument. The other problem Trump has is that there
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: is a very effective argument that Democrats have that all
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: of his tweeting is fighting with everyone, um, has costs.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: And the cost is the only single thing he has
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: accomplished legislatively is the most ineffective and unpopular tax cut
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: in American history. And we have, by agreeing to this,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: we have given him a win. We've nullified one of
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: our most important arguments. We have given him a win,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: and it is a win that will help him, specifically
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the three states that he absolutely
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: has to win to get to 270. And so for
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: all of those reasons, I don't think this is decisive.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying Democrats are going to lose from this.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: I think in doing this, we've made it easier for
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump to be reelected. And we should not do
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: those things. That's my bold political strategy, is that things
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: that help Donald Trump win Wisconsin should not be on
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: our to-do list.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: It's pretty simple. I mean, look, I think I would
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: say on balance, it was I think I agree with
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: you that it's a bad idea. But I've been going
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: back and forth on this because I'm trying to think
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: of the alternative here. So the alternative would have been
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: for Pelosi to say, I guess she could have said
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: from the outset, we're just not negotiating with you on
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: this trade agreement at all. So then Donald Trump goes
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to Wisconsin and Michigan and and Pennsylvania and all those
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: other states during the election. And he says, I have
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: the best trade agreement ever. It is a substantively. good
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: trade agreement um not like he talks like that but
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: uh it's a great trade it's a great trade agreement
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: and it would be bringing back jobs to your state
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: right now but nancy pelosi and the democrats because they
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: don't like me have said absolutely not they're not going
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: to work on this with me at all you send
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: me a Republican Congress, you send me back to the
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: White House, I'll pass this trade agreement and all these
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: jobs will come back. There's also the risk that if
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: the AFL-CIO decided to play along or endorse this trade agreement,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: then we would have been really fucked because then there's
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Trump plus the biggest union in the country saying the
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: trade agreement's good and the Democrats saying they don't want
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: to play ball and that that wouldn't have been good.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: And now the question is the attack that you just read,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: which you wrote for our poll, And which is quite devastating.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: You know, in the end, the pharma provision comes out,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: the sort of like pro-Wall Street provisions come out. So
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: it's not as much of it. It's not as accurate
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: an attack. Now, I guess you could say the pharma
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: provision only came out because Democrats negotiated and pressured for
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: it to come out. And so if Democrats never played
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: ball in the first place, then you would have had
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: a worse trade agreement with a bunch of giveaways to
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: pharma that Democrats could have just campaigned against and railed
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: against for the next year. Which is why I keep
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: going back and forth on this. I guess I can
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: kind of see it both ways, but I think Trump
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: would have... Trump's now going to say, I negotiated the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: best trade deal in history and vote for me and
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: aren't I great. If we had not played ball, he
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: would have said, I negotiated the best trade deal in
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: history and it could be reality right now if only
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: the Democrats would agree with me.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: But here's the thing. I agree that this is a
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: difficult path to get to, but he... already has a
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: list of a gazillion things that are almost entirely bullshit
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: that he will say Democrats refuse to do. He has
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: almost nothing he can say that he did. He has
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: zero bipartisan accomplishments until now. We gave him a bipartisan
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: accomplishment that is of, I think, questionable substantive value, especially
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: compared to what could be achieved with a Democratic president,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: which we like to believe is very possible right around
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: the corner here. And it is a bipartisan accomplishment that
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: is not some esoteric change to the calculation of pension
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: funds or something like that. It is something that allows
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: him to therefore weaponize the information in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: It specifically helps Wisconsin dairy farmers. Another attack we tested,
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: which was also particularly devastating to Trump, was the effects
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: of his trade policies on Wisconsin dairy farmers. And the
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: substantive benefits of this. If this was a thing where
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: it was like– this was a fix for ACA or
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: something where the substantive benefits were going to kick in
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: and help everyone tomorrow, yeah, then I think you have
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: to do the right thing. But trade is a– it's
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: a slow process for these trade agreements to be ratified
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: and then all of the benefits to accrue. We know
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: this because Obama passed some trade agreements and we would
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: want to do press events on them and– Well, this is.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Why I think this is another reason I think in
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: the end it might not matter that much at all.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, the federal government's own estimate is that this
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: this trade agreement would create one hundred and seventy six
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: thousand jobs after six years. The economy created two hundred
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: sixty sixty two hundred and sixty six thousand jobs last month.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: So it is like very, very small effect here. I
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: don't know that it'll be a big deal either way. Look,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: a bunch of members, Democrats and swing districts wanted this.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: for themselves because they campaigned on saying, I'm going to
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: hold Trump accountable and I'm also going to get things
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: done in Washington. And voting to impeach Trump is holding
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: him accountable and voting for a trade agreement is getting
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: stuff done. And there's a lot of reports that these
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Democrats would have voted for this anyway, whether Pelosi decided
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: to play ball and negotiate or not. And she would
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: have just lost a bunch of Democrats potentially. So I
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: think you can see from the perspective of the House
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Democrat in a tough red district why they would do this.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: it is clearly not helpful on the presidential level, as
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: you point out. I do think that the Democratic nominee
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: or the Democratic candidates can be free to be against it.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: And I think Democrats in Congress and on the presidential
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: campaign trail can go say, yeah, we helped get a
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: better trade agreement, but this guy's fucking up the economy
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: or endangering the economy with his awful trade war. You know,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: like I think right now, now that this has already happened,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I think what Democrats really have to do is almost
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: double down on their attacks on him on the trade war,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: particularly because now they've helped pass this trade agreement. And
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I think you can probably do both there. Yes.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Last point on this, which is I understand the political
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: logic that these members in swing districts or red districts
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: want an accomplishment to take home. The only thing I
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: will say is history is relatively clear that the driving,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the primary question in whether they're going to get to
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: return office or not is not their own record, it
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: is the strength of the Democrats at the top of
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: the ticket. If we have a strong Democratic nominee who wins,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: many of these people will get to return. If Trump wins,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: the close races almost always tend to tip in the
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: direction of the party that wins the White House. That's
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: what happened in 12. That's what happened in 8. That's
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: what happened in 16. And so things that help Trump
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: hurt you, even if you're in a Trump district.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Yep, I would definitely agree with that. All right, let's
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: talk about the state of the primary. FiveThirtyEight has the
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: national polling average at Biden 26, Bernie 17, Warren 15,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Pete 9.5. Iowa has Pete in first, Biden in second,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Sanders in third, Warren in fourth. In New Hampshire, it's
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Pete in first, Bernie second, Biden third, Warren fourth. Nevada
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: and South Carolina are Biden first, Bernie second. And the
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: same goes for California and Texas, two big, big Super
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Tuesday states. So what do you make of all this, Dan?
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Pete's got leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, small leads,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: but leads, bigger lead in Iowa. But when you get
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: beyond those two, those first two states, everywhere else, the
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: other two first primary states and the rest of the
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Super Tuesday map looks like it's Biden in first and
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Bernie in second. What do you think? Is this, is,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: does it, When you really step back, does it look
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: more like potentially a two-person race here or what?
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know that it's a two-person race, but I
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: think it's fair to say that Biden is in an
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: extremely strong position right now. Now, underperforming in Iowa and
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: New Hampshire could change that position. We just don't know.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: But Biden's dominating lead with African-American voters and his strength
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: in all parts of the country makes him the favorite
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: for the nomination. And I think Bernie Sanders is, as
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: of this moment in time, very clearly the candidate not
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: named Joe Biden with the best chance of winning the nomination.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: He is strong in all of the early primary states.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: He is the candidate, I think, who at least even
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: though everyone is trailing Biden significantly with African-American voters, Bernie
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: Sanders has high name ID and more support than the
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: rest of the candidates. He's in second place with that group.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: in South Carolina and nationally. He does very well with
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Latino voters, according to the limited amount of polling we have.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And so he has a broad-based coalition that gives him
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: the chance to gain strength that could be applied nationally
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: with early state wins. And so I think he is
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: strengthened by running a very good campaign, having an incredibly
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: consistent message, I think, being just exuding the nebulous characteristic
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: of authenticity, but he's like Bernie is Bernie and you've
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: never seen anything different. And I think that can be
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: quite appealing to a lot of people. But he has
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: also been drafting off of the attention on Elizabeth Warren, right?
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: Bernie is actually in the position that Warren was a
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: few months ago, right? Remember when we talked about how
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: Warren was getting strength in these polls and The Biden
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: campaign and Kamala Harris' campaign were attacking each other. The
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris campaign and the Bernie Sanders campaign were attacking
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: each other, and Biden and Bernie were attacking each other.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: We were sort of saying, I don't understand why everyone
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: is not attacking Elizabeth Warren, or at least drawing contrast
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: with her because she was the person gaining strength. All
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: of the attention on Warren has allowed Bernie Sanders to
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: strengthen without the glare of the spotlight. It is possible
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: with the debate coming that that could change, but we
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: will see.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, so now, you know,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Biden's– you know, been front runner. And so he's had
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: attacks leveled at him. Uh, and now Warren was, you know,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: front runner and she had attacks leveled at her that, that,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: that clearly hurt a bit. Um, Pete Buttigieg is, uh,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: you know, front runner in Iowa right now. And he's
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: plenty of attacks on him that we'll talk about in
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: a bit. Um, I wonder if Bernie has benefited from
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: the fact that he hasn't been in the top spot yet,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: but he's been sort of hovering at the second spot
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: or the third spot. And so no one has an
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: incentive to, to actually go after him yet. And I
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: also think he's benefiting from the media has sort of
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: underestimated him. I mean, the Bernie campaign complains about this
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: all the time, but I think they have a lot
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: to complain about, actually. I think it's legitimate. You see
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: headlines all the time that's like, Biden in first and
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Warren slips to third, and they just literally don't mention
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: that Bernie Sanders is in second. And I think there's
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: some truth to the fact that the I don't know
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: why exactly the press doesn't take him as seriously as
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: a potential nominee, but I think.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: It's helping his campaign a bit.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the Bernie Sanders campaign is right that
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: they are being ignored for some set of reasons. I
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: think they are wrong to be telling the press to
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: cover him more. Like what they are doing is working.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: He doesn't need attention to raise money. He has a
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: massive online fundraising base that gives him money regardless of
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: what the press says about him. So just like keep
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: your head down, draft off the attention on Buttigieg and
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Warren and the others, and just keep doing what you're
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: doing because it's working. Like press attention is not, if
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: you're Bernie Sanders, it's not a necessary component to success.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Well, uh, one more thing on Biden here. Uh, Before
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: we go on. So Ryan Lizza reported in Politico this
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: week that the former vice president has been, quote, signaling
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: to aides that he would serve only a single term
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: if he's elected, though he's unlikely to actually make a
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: public one term pledge. His campaign then went on the
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: record to deny this rumor, saying this isn't a conversation
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: our campaign is having and not something Biden is thinking about.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: In October, though, when the Associated Press asked Biden this
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: question directly, he said, quote, Watch me and you'll see.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean I would run a second term. I'm
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: not going to make that judgment at this moment. What's
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: going on here? Do you think this would be a
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: good idea, bad idea? Is it crazy? Is it not?
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: I would be very surprised if this is something that
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Biden did, just knowing him as we do over the years.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I would be surprised by it. I don't know whether
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: it's a good idea or a bad idea. I know
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: that in 2008, we saw polling on this because there
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: was a lot of rumors or discussion that John McCain
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: might consider this path, that he would say he was
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: going to be a one-term president, which is sort of
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: amazing given how much younger he was then than the candidate.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Any of these people?
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: Exactly, yeah.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Trump, Sanders, Biden.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he would basically be in Pete Buttigieg's generational cohort
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: in this race. He would be the one with the
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: OK Boomer memes. But that polling showed it was eight.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: terrible idea. Voters hated it. It was a sign of
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: like persuaded, like voters who oppose a candidate or were
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: considering the candidate thought it was a sign of tremendous weakness.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: Voters who supported the candidate thought it was a, that
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: you would be basically handing over political power. Why would
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: you put us, why would you give up the benefits
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: of incumbency? I don't know whether that dynamic has changed.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: It is possible it has because just a lot has
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: changed in the Trump era and a lot of Biden's
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: political appeal to a lot of people is a return
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: to normalcy, right? Which I'm not saying is possible, but
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: people want that, right? And so it could work to,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: you know, a message that said, look, I didn't want
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: to run. I was retired. If I was going to run,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: I was going to run in 2016. And tragedies in
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: my life prevented that. But I felt compelled to do
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: this because this is the most important election in history.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: And if we don't defeat Trump, then we're going to
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: go past the point of no return as a country.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: And so I'm going to run, I'm going to come
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: in for four years, I'm going to appoint a young,
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: exciting member of the next generation, like a Stacey Abrams
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: or a Kamala Harris or someone like that, who can
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: take over after four years. But I'm going to get elected,
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: I'm going to spend those four years not trying to
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: get reelected or thinking about polls and fundraising, but just
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: doing the right thing to fix all the things Trump did. Like,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: I'd be interested to see that play itself out in
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: some political research. So who knows?
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can see, look, you can see the argument
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: against it, which is what you said. It's like, talk
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: about hanging a lantern on your problems, you know? I'm
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: really old and that's why I'm not going to run
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: for a second term. Sort of highlights it. But I
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: can see the argument in favor. I mean, like imagine
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: if tomorrow, and some people were saying not just the
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: vice president, but the whole cabinet, if Joe Biden announces
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Stacey Abrams is going to be his running mate, And
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: he announces some potential cabinet members, and they're all members
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: of sort of the young progressive generation of the Democratic Party.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: He said, this is the team. I'm going to be
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: basically a caretaker president. We're going to try to elect
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: as many Democrats as possible in 2020. And what I'm
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: going to do with the Democratic majority the first couple
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: of years is I'm going to pass a couple of
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: really big pieces of legislation, which even Democratic presidents who
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: serve two terms usually pass the most legislation in the
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: first term anyway, because they end up losing seats in
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: the midterms. And the second term is tougher, right? Because
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: they have divided government. And so you start going to that.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, does that unite the party a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: little bit more? Does that sort of help him with
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: progressives and young people a little bit more? Do people
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: start getting more excited to see that ticket, to see
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: that potential cabinet?
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: You know, it's one of those things, like you said,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: it could just be a bunch of crazy consultants sitting
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: in a room dreaming up ideas that are actually horrible
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: when you pull them, which happens a lot. But I
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: don't know that that would be the that would be
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: the argument for it. Yeah. And and what you get
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: from that from electing Joe Biden then is still, you know,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: the significant or potentially significant number of people out there
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: who think he is who see him for some reason
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: as a more electable Democrat.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: I think it was Alex Seitzwald on Twitter who said that.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: If you say brokered convention and one term pledge three times,
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: it summons a giant Aaron Sorkin, which I think, which
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: is like this, like this is a, this is the
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: problem of West Wing plot lines becoming political strategy.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Yep. That is, that is, that is the, the most,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: the very obvious problem there. I do think the Biden
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: campaign position, which is, yeah, maybe he's thinking about it, wink, wink,
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: but he's never going to say it out loud. I
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: don't know what that gets you.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: That is a decision to live in the worst of
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: all worlds.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Right. If you're going to go bold, go bold, man.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Go do it and take it for a spin, but
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: don't just live in this world of anonymous quotes to
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: fucking Ryan Lizza. I don't think that's helping.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: Well, to be fair, that was an anonymous quote about
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: the position. The on the record quote is that this
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: is not under consideration. And I'm sure it's under consideration
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: by some people.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: But It's indicative of another problem with the Biden campaign
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: is he's got a close group of aides who's going
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: on the record and saying things. And then he's got
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: a bunch of like, you know, a whole bunch of
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: really helpful advisors that are going and saying very un-fucking-helpful
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: things to Ryan Liz and to other journalists pretending that
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: they speak for the Biden campaign. So not helpful when
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: you're on a campaign like that. I'll tell you that.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: That is for sure.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: All right. Finally, let's talk about Mayor Pete. Last episode,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: we talked about him. calling on his old consulting firm
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: McKinsey to release him from his NDA so he could
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: talk about his clients. Uh, now they have, and it
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: turns out that in his two and a half years there,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: he worked for nine clients, including a Canadian supermarket chain,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: the department of defense, the U S postal service, and
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: a blue cross blue shield of Michigan, where he says
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: he spent three months as part of a team analyzing
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: overhead expenditures like rent utilities and travel costs. I, I
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: literally just fell asleep reading that sentence. Um, Because of
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: this work, some folks on the left are blaming him
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: for the insurance company laying off 10% of its workforce
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: two years after Pete finished his consulting gig with them
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: and are now calling him soulless, heartless, and Pete Romney.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man. What do you think of this one?
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I think voters should know who his clients were,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: and he should talk about them, just as I think
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: voters should know who Elizabeth Warren's consulting clients were, or
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: who other people... More information is better for voters to
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: make what is a very tough and important decision about
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: who takes on Trump. I think generally what the decisions
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: that humans make at the age of 24, what they
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: do with their lives, where they're going to work, should
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: be discounted in some way. They're not irrelevant, but people
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: change over time. And the problem for Pete is decisions
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: he made when he was 24 were 13 years ago.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: So it's one thing if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: or Joe Biden or even Kamala Harris and others had–
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: they had gone into the private sector or worked on
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: Wall Street or something for a few years when they
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: were 24 and then dedicated the rest of their life
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: to public service. It is a data point that they
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: chose to work on Wall Street at some point, but
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: it has to be taken in the larger context of
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: all the life decisions they've made. And– Pete's decision does stand,
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: you know, for someone who has modeled himself publicly on
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Barack Obama and sort of specifically pitched himself as Barack
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Obama 2.0, which I find to be a particularly bold decision.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: But that does stand in stark contrast to Barack Obama's
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: decision to go be a community organizer on the south
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: side of Chicago at a similar point in his life.
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: McKinsey is a very specific life choice.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. Look, I just want people to be
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: sort of specific and honest in their descriptions of candidates.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: That's all. You're right. If you want to say there's
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: some people who chose this after college and Pete decided
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: to choose McKinsey, you all know what McKinsey is. He
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: also chose to go serve in Afghanistan. He chose to
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: serve as mayor of his town. Say that. Like you said,
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: McKinsey is a data point for who Pete is. You
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: can look at the clients he worked on, stuff like that.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Going from that to calling him Pete Romney, like, let's
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: just be clear about what Mitt Romney did at Bain
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Capital since we, like, all look back at it and
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: talk about it a lot these days. Mitt Romney made
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: decisions to buy companies, lay off their workers, outsource their jobs,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: extract a bunch of profit, and then let them go bankrupt.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: He was a corporate raider. That's what he did at
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Bain Capital. That's why we talked about it. We didn't
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: talk about Mitt Romney at Bain because Barack Obama was
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: running against someone who worked in the private sector. We
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: weren't mad that Mitt Romney went and made money and
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: worked at a consulting firm, we wanted to highlight the
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: fact that he was a fucking corporate raider who just
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: outsourced jobs and caused bankruptcies everywhere he went.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: And that life experience informed the specific economic policies that
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: he put forward that were incredibly pro-corporation.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: Which, by the way, were probably at the end of
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: the day even more devastating to his candidacy than his
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: work at Bain. I think people misremember this. Probably the
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: worst political decision that Mitt Romney made was not necessarily
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: his years at Bain. It was picking fucking Paul Ryan
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: as his running mate, the author of a budget that
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: decimated Medicare and screwed people over. That's what voters were
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: really pissed about.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: And proposing a tax cut that would raise taxes on
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: the middle class to give giant tax cuts to people
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: like Mitt Romney, who made tens of millions of dollars
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: being corporate raiders.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, I get that you and I have
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: been there on primary campaigns- when you just we look
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: back now at some of the things that our campaign
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: said about hillary clinton that hillary clinton said about us
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: and it's like oh god i can't believe we went
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: that far that seemed a little silly at the time
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: and i and i think that is where this campaign
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: is is sort of going and look both campaigns pete
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: budaj's campaign and elizabeth warren's campaign and everyone else's campaign
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: sanders whatever else they're free to make you make whatever
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: attacks you want to make like fine but Just from
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: your own political standpoint, and I should say this to
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: supporters of these campaigns mainly, because the campaigns themselves, I think,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: are acting pretty... I think they're acting much nicer to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: each other even than we did with Hillary Clinton campaign
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: right now. So I should just say that. But the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: supporters of the campaign on Twitter, which is unfortunately a
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: bigger deal now than it ever was before, I would
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: just say, like, think about whether you are helping or
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: hurting your candidate by the attacks you make on other
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: candidates and other campaigns. Because... There is plenty to criticize
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Pete Buttigieg about. But the idea that a three-month stint
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: at Blue Cross Blue Shield, where you're creating spreadsheets about
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: overhead travel costs, led to the company laying off 10%
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: of its workforce two years later after you left. I mean,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: no one's going to believe that. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: No one is going to believe that.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: There is, I think, an interesting component to this. I
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: think the Pete Romney nickname is relatively absurd. But what
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: is interesting, I think, and the thing that would make
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: me nervous in the Buttigieg campaign is turning this into
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: an argument against Pete's electability. Even if the argument is
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: on its face absurd, that somehow because he did this,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: he can't win Michigan, as Rashida Tlaib said, like Romney
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: couldn't win Michigan. I think that is just an illogical point.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: But Pete A lot of Pete's recent success, which I
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: think has plateaued nationally at least, is based on the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: idea that he is more electable than Sanders and Warren.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: And that is an incredibly specious case.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Incredibly. I've always thought this.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: It is based in this very theoretical idea that has
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: been true historically, that has been famously put forward by
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: our friend David Oxelrod, which is voters want the remedy,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: not the replica. And Pete Buttigieg, by... as Axe would say,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: based on his intellect and his age and his decision
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: to join the military, et cetera, makes him a strong
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: contrast to Trump, or a big contrast to Trump. So
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: he's very different. But ultimately, he has no history of
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: winning the votes you need to win, right? He's the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: mayor of a small college town in Indiana.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: And look, I think, you know, when Axe says this too, it's,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: I think... everyone has their contrast with Donald Trump in
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: the Democratic field and why they're the opposite of Donald
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Trump or the most opposite of Donald Trump. I think
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Pete's argument is temperamentally, right? He's the most opposite of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. But look, I think this brings up, the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: electability thing brings up an interesting point, which is I
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: think none of the four frontrunners right now, Biden, Bernie, Warren,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: or Pete, have an electability case to be made that's
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: based in I've won votes in some red or purple
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: state and that's why I should be president. which is
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: very interesting. And so all of their cases for electability
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: are going to be different. And this has been my
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: point on electability the whole time because we've had this
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: debate where either people say electability is good and right
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: or electability is bad and fake. And the truth is,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: electability is just, it's hard to know what makes someone
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: electable or not. That's the problem with electability is that
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: it's vague. But because voters care so much about who's
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: going to be the candidate that can beat Donald Trump,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: It is your job as a candidate in the campaign
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: to make your own case on electability and to say
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: why you're the best person to take on Donald Trump.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: That is an important argument to make, and it's going
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: to be different for different candidates. And you're right. I
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: don't think Pete's case can't be, I'm going to win
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: the Midwest, because you're right, he won a small college.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: That is his case.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: That is his case, right.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Well, at the LJ, he started to make a different case,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: which is, imagine someone like me on the stage next
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: to Donald Trump. I am so temperamentally different from this man.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: you know, and that's his case. I think Elizabeth Warren's case,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: which she is actually making today is, you know, she said,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: I'm building a grassroots movement of Democrats, independents and Republicans
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: united in the belief that we can clean up the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: corruption in D.C. That's our path to beat Donald Trump.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: We'll beat the most corrupt president in history by campaigning
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: on the most aggressive anti-corruption platform since Watergate. That is
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: like one of the first times I've heard Elizabeth Warren
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: make an electability argument. She's saying you want to put
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: the least corrupt person or the person who's fighting corruption
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: the most on stage next to the guy who's the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: most corrupt president we've ever had for the best contrast.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: That's an electability case. It's a good case, you know?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: And so I think as we're getting closer to Iowa
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: and New Hampshire in these primaries, you're going to hear
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: people trying to make the case of why they're the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: best person to be on that stage next to Trump
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: and why politically they're the ones who can beat him.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right. The reason we give me cause for
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: concern if I was in Mayor Pete's campaign is his strength...
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: thus far, is from this cohort of very politically engaged
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: college-educated whites who thus far in this campaign have been
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: incredibly electability sensitive, right? They all flocked to Kamala Harris when.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: It's- Fickle. Fickle group.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: Flocked to Kamala Harris for a brief moment, ran away quickly,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: went to Warren. We were like two New York Times
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: articles about Elizabeth Warren's electability concerns over Medicare for All,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: which I think are also specious. And they all flocked
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: to Mayor Pete. And so like Bernie and Biden, to
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: go back to them, have sustained this because their bases
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: are broad, their coalitions are broader and therefore less susceptible
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: to this sort of movement. And so Pete has to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: watch his electability flank, if you will, much as some
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: of these other candidates have had to do.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Okay. When we come back, we'll have
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: Dan's interview with the New York Times' Mike Isaac.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: Now pleased to be joined by New York Times technology
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: reporter and the author of Super Pumped, The Battle for Uber,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: Mike Isaac. Mike, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for having me.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: Before we get to the story of Uber, which remains
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: in the news seemingly every day, I want to talk
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: to you about another company that you cover very closely, Facebook.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: You reported, I think it was a few weeks ago maybe,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: that Facebook was... considering possibly changing their very controversial ad
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: policy where they would say they would not fact-check ads
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: from politicians. And I wanted to ask, one, if you
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: had any update on whether that is still in consideration.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: So, you know, to recap their whole, they're in this, like,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: and I think, you know, it's Facebook, but all the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: internet companies are in this, like, What do we do
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: on how we handle politicians doing digital advertising? You know,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: what are we going to fact check them or not?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: And Facebook in particular has been interesting because Zuckerberg, this
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: comes pretty much straight from Zuckerberg. He believes that they
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: should not be fact checking them.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: So that's they have not. And he's pretty much not
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: going to budge on on that.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: So if. If Trump or Warren or whoever.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: Wants to run a misleading or blatantly false ad, they're
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: able to do that. But this has been contentious inside
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: because the employees themselves at Facebook are like, well, we're
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: not cool with this, right? We've been building systems to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: kind of deal with misinformation for a while. And the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: fact that Facebook is probably the most finely tuned ad
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: targeting machine in history is makes misinformation that much easier
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: to spread. So the latest I've heard is they are
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: sort of mulling, well, you know, we're not going to
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: change the fact-checking policy, but we might deal with limiting
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: the audience size, right? So instead of down to like
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: 100 people talking to 100 people, maybe they bump it
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: up to 1,000 people or something. So Some limits on it,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: but still not willing to really go super far.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: So the change would be on the capacity to micro-target?
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's correct.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the biggest bones of
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: contention inside of the company right now.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: And you say this comes directly from Zuckerberg himself.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: What is driving this?
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: Because I sort of see, like he gave this speech
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: at Georgetown University where he sort of laid out this
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: policy and defended it, which was controversial for a host
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: of reasons, including the idea that he started Facebook. Facebook
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: to oppose the Iraq war, which Aaron Sorkin and others
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: would disagree with.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: Well, that was crazy. I don't know why he said that.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: I mean, clearly it's not true, right?
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: But also in that, he made defensive free speech be
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: the argument for not fact-checking. But there is this inherent
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: contradiction in Facebook wrapping itself around freedom of speech, which
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: is There's all sorts of content that they decide that
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: they won't take down, but they will penalize and show
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: to fewer people within the algorithm. So what's the underlying,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: Zuckerberg's underlying motivation to the extent you can figure it
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: out and how they square the circle on these free
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: speech contradictions?
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think there's a lot going on. For one,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: it's probably letting them off the hook, and I have
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: to watch this when we rewrite stories, to say they
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: are completely free speech and really sort of stand for
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: it completely because... you know, they do take down stuff
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: across the world every day and depending on which country
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: they're in and, you know, the laws in certain countries
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: does require them to do that, but then also make
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: a lot of kind of arbitrary decisions and there's whispers of,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe governments lean on them in some places
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: where they kind of quietly take stuff down. So I
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: don't think it's, for the credit they get and sometimes
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: the press gives them for being like free speech warriors,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's wholly true. Right. And but the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: other part of this is I think for a very
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: long time, they just they had policies that weren't really
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: put to the test in any meaningful way.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: And so now they're in this position where, well, maybe,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: you know, we've uncovered like how easily misinformation spreads and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: now we have to sort of grapple with what we
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: are and aren't allowing on here.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: We don't want to be in that position.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: They, they don't like, they, they kind of want to
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: kick that can down the road and are actually in
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: a weird place now where they want, um, they're inviting.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: Regulation to have guidelines around this.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: Like it's all, but saying, or actually I think Zuckerberg
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: is actually saying we, we want to be regulated in
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: at least some ways. So, um, that would help them
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: a little bit, but like, you know, they also have
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: a lot of double standards on how they treat it, right?
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: So these disinformation campaigns from bad foreign actors, they sort
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: of well publicize their takedowns, whether it's like Iran or
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: China or Russia. But, you know, you probably saw recently
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: the Daily Wire thing where, you know, they basically have
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: a astroturfing campaign where a lot of like fake accounts
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: are pushing people to the Daily Wire's Facebook page, which
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: is clearly against their rules. But Facebook is sort of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: making up reasons why they're allowing it, right? Which I
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: think is probably, you know, total BS. But so, like,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: I think they're figuring out these policies in real time
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: and don't really have good answers around a lot of
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: this stuff. And this is sort of putting more pressure
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: on them to figure it out. But I don't know
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: what that's going to even look like.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: The Daily Wire thing is sort of an example of how,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know whether it's Facebook's strategy has changed or
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: the perception of its strategy has changed, which is a
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: lot of progressives, myself included, believes that if instead of
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: Daily Wire, it was running these astros, and Daily Wire
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: being Ben Shapiro's site, for those who assiduously avoid that,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: you may listen to us. He is a person in
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: the world. But like, if instead of Ben Shapiro doing that,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: it was Crooked Media and Pod Save America, a lot
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: of progressives believe that Facebook would take that down and
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: put out a press release about it.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: So there is this view that Facebook is becoming, from
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: a policy perspective, less of a, like the way we
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: used to think about Silicon Valley and more of a
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: traditional huge company that views its best interest lying in
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: Republican control of Washington, right?
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: Do you think there's anything to that?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: So look, I think Zuckerberg in particular, and this is
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: from people like around him, is is very like he
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: has liberal views that he pretty much espouses, you know, privately,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: but sometimes in public. But I think he's just hypersensitive to.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: D.C.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: Thinking that they're just this liberal network that are going
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: to sort of enforce their their point of view in
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: the world. And so almost like overcorrects by catering to
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: conservatives a lot of the time. And so I The
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: Ben Shapiro thing is kind of like perfect example of that.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: And he has denied on the record, you know, in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: interviews I've done in the past saying that we sort
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: of cater to conservatives. But I really do think that
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: the folks in the policy team in D.C. have kind
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: of laid out the situation being like, look, the state
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: of play is conservatives have attacked Facebook. with like a
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: knowingly bad faith argument that they're being censored on social networks,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: which there's no proof of, right?
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: But it seems to be working.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: So we have to like essentially go out of our
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: way not to give them ammo to make us look
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: like we're censoring a lot of these networks.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: And so I don't think it's, I think.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: The, I'd be very curious to see what the next
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: test case is around AstroTurfing or or just sort of
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: really like completely blatant misuse of the site and which
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: which Side of the aisle that belongs to and what
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: Facebook's does in that situation But it almost is like
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: the worst case scenario for them to have like a
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: very prominent Conservative website doing this and and then have
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: to act on it and then not act right.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: The The perception of the policy team in Washington is
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: that it's largely Republican, led by Joel Kaplan, who worked
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: for George W. Bush and famously sat behind Brett Kavanaugh
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: at his hearings, understanding that they are longtime personal friends.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: The woman whose name I can't remember who's always quoted
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: about why certain ads go up or down is.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: Katie Harbaugh?
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, who is a former aide to Rudy Giuliani, among
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: other people. And I'd like, I know that's, I know
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: a lot of people work in the policy world and
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: they're not only Republican, but it does feel like a
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: little bit like the leadership is. And then you have
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: this situation where Facebook sponsors the Federalist Society dinner celebrating
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: Brett Kavanaugh. Now, every company in Washington throws its money
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: around both ways. I'm sure that we can find, if
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: it was, it may not be social acceptable anymore, but
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: Facebook to sponsor some sort of progressive dinner. But there's
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: also just this case of, you know, Sideshow Bob stepping
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: on the rakes here, where, like, there had already been
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: this huge controversy internally, as I understand it, about Joel
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: Kaplan being at that hearing with Brett Kavanaugh. So how does, like,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: how does something like that happen in what is theoretically
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: an incredibly successful, well-run company? Because they did back off, right?
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: I think they removed themselves from that. That's right.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: So it's really funny you said the Sideshow Bob thing,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: because a Facebook employee was telling me that's an internal
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: example that they frequently use just sort of when they're
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: grumbling to themselves. But the Kavanaugh stuff has been very
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: interesting because if you remember back during the confirmation hearing,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously there was a lot going on, but
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: that was probably one of the most contentious periods of
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: internal strife for this company in the 15 years it's
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: been around. Like people were viscerally upset and just sort
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: of like saying, look, it looks like we're endorsing someone
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: who who a lot of women inside of the company
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: and men like just believed was lying or at least,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: you know, didn't believe his version of of what happened.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: And so that came up again. And I think what
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: happened and I don't know how widely this got reported,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: but what I heard was Facebook tried to make the
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: distinction that they were They were sending money for the
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: Federalist Society, but not for Brett Kavanaugh, even though he
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: was like, what, the keynote speaker or whatever that night,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: which is kind of.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 5: A hard needle to thread.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 4: But but I think the. the perception, at least by
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: employees internally, it sort of kicked things up over again.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: And there's still a real hangover around that moment in time.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: And I think this is actually a story I've always
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: kind of wanted to write, but have been too lazy
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: to do it. But there's like a very wide gap
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: between how people in Menlo Park, how employees in Facebook
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: out in California sort of, um, perceive how they should act,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: how the company should behave, and then maybe a kind
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: of resentment from the folks in D.C. who are saying, essentially,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: you don't get how our world works, right? And to
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: your point, like, you sort of have to play nice
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: with everyone if you're going to operate in this environment
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: or else we're just going to be screwed or we're
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: going to be just on the outs with one party
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: and we can't have that.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: I think there's a real connection in a lot of
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: ways between what Facebook's going through now, what Uber has
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: gone through, and in at least some way, the Silicon
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: Valley culture that leads to both of them. And like,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: I cannot recommend your book enough. It is a, it's
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: an amazing read. It's just, it's like the reporting details
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: you have are amazing. It tells a really compelling story.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: And it, but I think it also tells a broader
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: story about business in Silicon Valley in particular. And so
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: I want to at least start with how different is
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: Uber today from Uber in the Travis era?
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, totally.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: I think I'm glad you got that out of it
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: because it's an Uber book, but I like to say
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: it's not really just about Uber, right? I think it's
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: about what a lot of tech companies are going through
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: at this particular.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: Moment in time.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: But back in the Travis Kalanick era, it was just
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: sort of marked by you know, bad behavior and a
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: sort of, um, disregard for how women were treated internally
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: and how just employees registered complaints and, um, uh, reckless
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: sort of, um, disregard for rules in general, right.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 5: Whether it was inside or outside of the company.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: And, um, And so now, look, they have they brought
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: in this like professional CEO. He's kind of like they
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: call him the dad of Silicon Valley, kind of boring,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: kind of like, you know, he was a CFO for
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: a very long time under Barry Diller at IAC and
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: went to run Expedia. So I think boring is probably
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: like fine, I guess, you know, and there they have
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: so much PTSD around being in the news for you know,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: a year straight and if not longer around how bad
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: Uber was, I think employees are kind of scared to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: act in the same ways that they might have like
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: five or 10 years ago. So that has changed, but
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: now they're in like this weird, it's weird. There's like
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: a meme going around of like, maybe some of them
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: miss the fire that this crazy founder had, or like maybe,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: you know, if you bring in a professional CEO, you
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: don't have that same attractiveness or spark that some companies need.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: So it's weird. It's almost like they forgot what happened.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: Is that at all tied to up until the tipping
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: point where the Delete Uber campaign and all the stories
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: about workplace harassment of women and all that stuff came out,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: even as Uber was known as a bad culture, it
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: was known as a bad culture, but phenomenal success, maybe
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: one of the most successful stories in Silicon Valley since
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: Google or Facebook. Yep. this huge company, this massive valuation
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: that was going to mint a gazillion billionaires. And now
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: the much anticipated IPO happened. The public markets have been
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: particularly cruel to Uber. Is there a connection between how
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: Uber viewed itself, right? Where they were grow at all costs.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: It was the gold standard of where to work in
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: Silicon Valley in terms of like they were beating out
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: Facebook and Google for a top engineering talent. People were
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: leaving wherever they were if they could get a chance
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: to get some of those RSUs at Uber. But now
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: it feels very different. And that even though it's by
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: any definition still a growing, if not profitable company, the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: perception is very different, right? It's a cautionary tale of
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: Silicon Valley.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: Excess, I think. I think that's right.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of different things going on
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: right now that Uber kind of marked the change of
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: how people view what is a successful tech company, right?
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: I mean, you've seen, and this is not a novel thought,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: just the idea of profitability is now.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 5: Important to people again.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: It's weird to say that, but I mean, I think
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: for the past 20 years, this story has been very.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: Founders of companies have been very successful in telling Wall
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: Street and telling investors, look, you don't have to worry
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: about profits. You know, you just have to worry about
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: growth and getting more bodies and vehicles or eyeballs and
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: sites or whatever. And and a few companies have proved
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: that was a correct, you know.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: Methodology. Facebook, once it finally turned on its advertising, now
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 5: sort of mints money. Google as well.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, their ad machine is just sort of nonstop
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: sort of growing. But I think, look, I think software,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: pure software-based advertising businesses are really different than, you know,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: ride-sharing where you have to spend enormous amounts of money
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: to to make it in a market and, and, and
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 4: when your product is largely like a commodity, right? Like you,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: you probably have very little brand loyalty to an Uber
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: versus a Lyft versus a whatever ride sharing service in
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: any country. And, and there's no loyalty on the driver's
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: side either. It, it makes it hard to create what's
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: called like this network effect in the industry where like
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: once you get big enough, more people keep joining it
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: and it kind of like the success snowball. So I
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: think there's a lot working against Uber right now in
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: terms of how people view its success, how the street
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: views its success, how people thought they were going to
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: become millionaires because the stock was going to soar. But
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: a lot of that value was captured before the company
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: ever went to the public markets, right? Like, you know,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: I remember when they were saying, this is a $ 120
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 4: billion company, you know, and we're going to blow this
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: IPO out of the water. And now I think we're
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: just crashing back down to earth.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: The.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: Uber is, I think, the most extreme example of, even
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: more extreme than WeWork, I guess, but one of the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: most extreme examples of the growth at all costs mentality
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: that has driven Silicon Valley since forever, I guess, where
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: the idea is because profitability is not important, all that
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: matters is what is your year over year or quarter
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: over quarter growth? And that obviously in the case of Facebook,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: it led to a whole bunch of things that ended
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: up being loopholes that could then be exploited in the
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: context of the election. In Uber, that led to all
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: the problems in the culture and who was rewarded for
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: what behavior and what was ignored and what was penalized.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: But as you said, I took your book to be
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: a lesson, be about Silicon Valley more broadly. Do you
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: see any introspection in tech more broadly about this view
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: of that growth is the most important thing. Even short-term
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: growth is more important than long-term success.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, it was really funny as someone
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: like warned me, they're like, you wrote the book as
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: a cautionary tale, but hopefully you didn't write it as
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: like an instruction.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 5: Manual for a lot of people. Right.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: And I don't know, I think I've, I sort of
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: flipped back and forth. Like on the one hand, Travis
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: and a lot of the people at the top are billionaires, right?
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: Or have made, like, very large amounts of money. And
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: Travis is still accepted in polite society. He attends the
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: Met Gala. He's building another company right now and getting
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: people to work for him. So, like, I don't know
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: exactly what penalties he's paid. And perhaps that is a
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 4: lesson in itself.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: On the other hand, I do think.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: Particularly young would-be technologists, would-be founders, people who find it
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: attractive to start a company and go into tech and
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: not be disillusioned by it are approaching it less with
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: the idea that I want to join the next Google
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: or Facebook or whatever and more I want to build
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: an ethical tech company, right? Like I want to do
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: this right and the whole reason I'm interested in technology
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: is because I do believe it can help the world
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: and we should And I think that's that's hopeful.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 5: Right. Like, I think that's a nice thing.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: Do you think that is a more sincere view? You
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: think people sincerely believe that that it's a reaction to
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: because every company, whether you are right. you know, Facebook
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 3: or you're some very esoteric SaaS company, you have a
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 3: change the world recruiting pitch, right? An investor pitch. But
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: do you think that there's been a change? Maybe it's
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: generational with millennials and Gen Z that people or a
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: reaction to what's happening in tech that there are people
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: trying to do this right now?
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I do.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: I totally take your point. I do think like people
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 4: who are building the next Juicero or like fucking pizza
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: robot think they're changing the world. But I also think
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: people kind of rationalize their worldview to suit their lifestyle.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 5: A lot of the time, right? Like I'm getting loaded.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: So I kind of have to say I'm changing the
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: world or whatever, but I do think, I think something
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: is tapped into how young people are entering the space
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: and how, um, I mean, look at how, how, um,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: even employees inside of Google now or like the younger
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: generations of folks inside, I think, Google, Facebook, Amazon are
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 4: pushing back in really meaningful ways that management is not
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: used to or not prepared for.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: And I feel like that that feels different.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: That was for a while it was, OK, Zuckerberg or
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: Larry Page or whoever kind of knows best. And I'm
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: drinking the Kool-Aid because I feel like we're doing the
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 4: right thing. And fearless leader knows all. And I think
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: they don't necessarily give the benefit of the doubt anymore,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: or at least there's a growing number of people who
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: don't give the benefit.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: Of the doubt. One more question. California passed AB5, a
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: bill which would force Uber, Lyft, DoorDash to categorize most
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: of their gig workers as employees, therefore giving them access
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: to a whole set of different benefits and job security.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: How big a threat does Uber view this to its business?
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I really think it's existential, right? You can
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: credit whether you... support the model or don't support the model.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 4: I think Uber popularized, even though it had existed for
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 4: a while, and how riders work, how nail salons work, whoever,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: like Uber made popular the idea of a contract gig
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: worker and a zillion different Ubers for X have popped
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: up in the meantime. And it's now, whether you like
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: it or not, a form of employment or non-employment that
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: is very present and now being used to inspire all
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: these other companies. I think it's existential to all these businesses,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: particularly because you know, the whole business model of Uber
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: is shoving as many costs as possible off onto the
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: people that drive for them, right? So they're liable for
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: their own health insurance. They're liable for dealing with their
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: car and, you know, repairs over time. They don't have
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of worker protections that for many years were
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 4: fought to sort of put into place. And you can argue,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 4: the interesting thing about this though is there, I've talked
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 4: to just as many people who are angry about not
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 4: having those protections versus people who are like, look, I
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: don't want to be an employee and I actually do
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: prefer this model. So it's not as clean to me
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: as one or both sides might make it. But I
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 4: still think it's the form of work is here and
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 4: we're going to continue going through permutations to figure out
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 4: what it should look like ultimately, whether they change it
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: to add more protections.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: It does feel like this is about to at least
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: in California, become an epic battle because these companies are
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: putting together what I think is about a $ 100 million
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: effort to put an initiative on the ballot in 2020
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: to try to overturn this law. You have Ubers just
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: asserting the law didn't apply to them, which was... Very
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: Trumpian in my view.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: That's like, this is a funny thing that that strategy
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: seems to be adopted by a lot more folks now, right?
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 5: Like even Warner Brothers the other day.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: I saw that.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 5: Did you see that?
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: Yes. It was just there like, no, we don't care.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 4: And we're, you know, we don't care how we, you know,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: portray women journalists. We're just going to do it.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 5: It's a weird strategy that seems to be working. Yeah.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: Which is a broader, a broader conversation about the state
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: of American media. Mike Isaac, thank you so much for
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: joining us on Pod Save America. Please check out his book,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: Super Pumped. The Battle for Uber. It is a phenomenal read.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 5: Well, thanks for having me.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: It would make a great holiday gift for everyone.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 5: I was going to say perfect for the tree. That's right. Excellent.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 3: Mike, thanks so much.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me, man.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Mike Isaac for joining us today. And we'll
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: see you next week.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone. Bye.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.