Latest / Pod Save America / "Cold War, Hot Mic."

Transcript

"Cold War, Hot Mic." · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Vladimir Putin inches closer
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to a war in Ukraine that could have global repercussions.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is here to talk
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: about the Biden administration's new strategy for 2022. And we
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: assess our level of concern over the latest headlines about
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: creeping authoritarianism in a new segment we're calling Democracy Doomscroll.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: But first, some news.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Some news.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: We're going back on tour.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: We're hitting the road.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow. No, just kidding.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: The only wave you'll see is our hands. Because we're
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: hitting the road.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is going back on tour this spring.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: The first shows start in April. Love It or Leave
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It is going on tour.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Both.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Our listener pre-sale is happening now through Thursday before tickets
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: go on sale to the general public.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Don't wait for that. Do the pre-sale with the code
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: CROOKED or you may run into some trouble.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: The pre-sale code is CROOKED. For the full list of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: dates and for more information, visit crooked.com slash events. Also,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: we tweeted this, but more cities to come.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: More cities to come.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: If your city's not on there, more cities to come.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: We've still got a whole fall to go.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: We want to hit as many cities that we had
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: to cancel in 2020 as we can. So if you
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: were in a 2020 city that got canceled, we know.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Remember debating that? Remember debating in March of 2020?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I still think we should have.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I should have had it.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Should have gone to Seattle.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Tommy. Honestly, Fauci over here. Probably would have just gotten rid.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: Of COVID early and just had those natural immunity.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, no. Here comes Aaron Rodgers.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Here comes to play the Steve Bannon theme song.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Do you watch the games.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Over the weekend?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Ronan and I actually told this to a White House
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: press secretary, Jen Psaki, but Ronan and I tried to
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: get an outdoor, uh, uh, meal on Sunday. And we
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: went to a neighborhood restaurant that is also apparently some
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: sort of sports establishment. And they said, sorry, we're not
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: seating outside because of the big game. And Ronan said,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: what kind of game?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I did too.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't know.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: I was like, what are we looking at here? Um, Google, uh,
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Jimmy Garoppolo and maybe you'll become a Niners fan.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: What was that supposed to mean?
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: He's super hot.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, you just say that.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: That's why you Google image me. Jimmy G. There's a
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: lot of Jimmy G Googling happening in my house over
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: the weekend.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's who that was. Got it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: You're welcome.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Speaking of all that, let's get to the news. Which
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: this week will be dominated by the escalating conflict.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: There's no joke, but we're going to cut this.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Garoppolo is hot right into Russia-Ukraine. That's the segue.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Speaking of invading a hostile territory.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Sorry.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Cut it. Cut it. No, just really cut it. We
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: should start again.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Leave it in. Leave whatever just happened in. It might
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: have gotten cut. Savannah Guthrie does transitions like this in
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: her sleep.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I know she does. That's why she's on the Today
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Show and we're just fucking doing a podcast. Yeah, we
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: sit alone in a room by ourselves. That's the difference
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: between us and Savannah Guthrie.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: We don't know how to go to Ukraine from fashion
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: tips for spring on a budget, you know?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. It is being
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: dominated this week by the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: President Biden said at last week's news conference that if
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin invades the former Soviet state, he would increase
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the U.S. troop presence in bordering European countries like Poland
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and Romania, which are also NATO members. Sure enough, the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: New York Times reports that Pentagon officials have presented Biden
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: with an option to send 1,000 to 5,000 troops to
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: tenfold if things deteriorate. State Department has also ordered all
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: family members of U.S. embassy employees to leave Ukraine immediately
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and authorized some employees to depart as well. Here's Pentagon
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: spokesman John Kirby at Monday's briefing.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: Secretary Austin has placed a range of units in the
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: United States on a heightened preparedness to deploy. which increases
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: our readiness to provide forces if NATO should activate the NRF.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: The number of forces that the Secretary has placed on
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: heightened alert comes up to about 8,500 personnel.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Tommy, for people who have not been paying close attention
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: to this news because maybe they were watching football all weekend,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: why does Vladimir Putin have his sights set on Ukraine?
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: And why are the U.S. and our NATO allies so concerned?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I'm asking for our audience and for me.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I know, but I want to hear if Tommy knows.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: You can take those one at a time. John Kirby,
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: I went to Haiti with John Kirby back in 2010.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: He slept on the floor of an embassy after the
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: earthquake and tried to help.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool. Any more names you want to drop?
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: Alyssa Mastromonaco was there. We all hung out, ate MREs
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: and did stuff. Anyway, okay, so I don't know why
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: Putin has his eyes set on Crimea, but I can
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: offer you guys some theories. Is that interesting?
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, and just some, like, historic context? What if
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: no one paid attention to Crimea in 2014? You have
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to go way back.
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: The long view is that Putin gave the speech in 2005,
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: where he called the breakup of the Soviet Union a catastrophe,
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: the greatest catastrophe of the century or some sort of
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: hyperbolic thing like that. And he also said that the
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: net effect of the breakup was that Russian citizens were
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: no longer living in Russian territory. And everyone interprets that
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: as him thinking essentially that these former Soviet republics are
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: still Russian- He wants to kind of bring them back
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: into the fold. He's been jonesing for some reunification for
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: a long time. There's a bunch of people in Ukraine
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: who speak Russian, who sort of feel some affinity for Russia.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: He wants to bring Ukraine's orientation back towards Russia. He
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: wants it to be a buffer between Russia and Europe
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: and give him some sort of space between, you know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: Russia and NATO. That's one theory. The sort of associated
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: theory is there's been all these protest movements lately in Belarus,
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: in Kazakhstan. that are right on the border of Russia.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Those are- Also former Soviet states.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Those are Russia's... Putin's very close with those leaders.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Some would call them his stooges. And a protest movement
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: in Ukraine, like the ones we just saw in Kazakhstan
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: and Belarus, is what set off the invasion of Crimea
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: in 2014 because at the time a pro-Russian leader of
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Ukraine was jettisoned by the protesters and then Putin rolled
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: in the tanks. So A lot of people think he's
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: desperately afraid of these color revolutions, doesn't want them to spread,
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: doesn't want them to oust him. He's an authoritarian. Associated
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: with that, people think that maybe NATO expansion went too far.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: Over time, the alliance grew. It pushed further east. It
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: got onto Putin's doorstep. He views that as a threat.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: that NATO expansion is to blame for what's happening, but
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's sort of part of the mix.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And Ukraine is not a NATO state, but in the past,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: there had been some... Thought that maybe it would be
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: at some point.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: The Bush administration nominated Georgia, the country, and Ukraine for
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: NATO membership in 2008. They have to fill out what's
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: called a NATO action plan. They have a membership action plan.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: They have not finished that yet. And it's not predestined
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: that it would happen. But it's sort of a worst
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: case scenario for Ukraine right now because they were nominated
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: to join NATO, but they don't have its protection. So
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: they're sort of like in this NATO limbo. didn't mean that,
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: but yeah, you get it. And then the last thing
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: is like politics, right? Putin wants to wring some concessions
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: out of the West by flexing. Uh, he likes to
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: distract from domestic problems by lashing out abroad. So, you know,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: that's another piece of the puzzle. I don't know what
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: the answer is. It's not good. There's a hundred thousand
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: troops on the border.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: So why, why are the U S and NATO, our
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: NATO allies so concerned? Why don't they just say, Oh, well,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: if he wants to take Ukraine, he takes Ukraine.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: You know, because there's sort of a.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Uh, we, believe in democracy. We believe in countries should
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: choose their own leaders, that you should not just be
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: able to invade a country at whim. There's a bit
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: of hypocrisy there given the Iraq war and some of
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: the past, but that's sort of the principle we're standing
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: up for.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Is there a fear or how much of a fear
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: is there that it's not just former Soviet state's that
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: are under threat here, but NATO allies like Poland, Romania,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: other Eastern European countries, is that something people are concerned
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: about as well?
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, if you're Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, you're
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: kind of right on the border there. This is probably
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: making you quite nervous. If you're a member of NATO,
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: you have something called Article 5. There's the Article 5 Treaty,
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: which says an attack upon one member is an attack
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: upon all. So the rest of the NATO alliance... has
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: that obligation to come to your defense. So you're feeling
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: a little more secure, but it's still unnerving.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: What does the potential of sending troops to countries that
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: aren't Ukraine meant to do to dissuade action in Ukraine?
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: Do you want to get into the sort of Biden responses?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: That's a piece of the puzzle. So the point Biden's
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: trying to make here, like, so when he says send
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: one to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, I don't
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: like this little tenfold response. Anecdote that can increase tenfold
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: is getting slipped in there.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I used the quote from the New York Times at
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the end of the sentence. I almost didn't even put
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it in. Then I was like, well, that's just a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: sort of a clause that we're just as an aside here.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: At the end of a sentence. Hey, we might increase
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that number tenfold if things deteriorate.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Right. It's a lot.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of people.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: What they're trying to say there is, okay, Vlad, you
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: don't like... NATO on your doorstep. You feel threatened by
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: NATO military hardware, by the growth of NATO, by its
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: expansion eastward. OK, you invade Ukraine. You're going to get
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: exactly what you don't want. You're going to get more U.S.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: and NATO military hardware in these countries right along your border.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: So the idea is like kind of tell him that
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: he's going to create the opposite effect of what he's
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: hoping for by pushing NATO back. Like the Russian demands
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: are they want NATO to pledge to halt further eastward
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: expansion and they want them to pledge to not admit Ukraine.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: There's some more sort of specific things like removing NATO
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: military hardware from in certain Eastern European states. But what
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: Biden is trying to say here is you're gonna get
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: the opposite of what you want in your negotiating demands
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: if you invade Ukraine.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about Biden actions now that could potentially
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: deter Russian action. If Putin does invade, what do we
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: know about the various options that the Biden administration is considering?
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: What have they said about sanctions? What have they said
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: about potential military options?
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound like, you know, It
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: doesn't sound like a direct U.S. military response is on
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: the table, but they have been very vocal in saying
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: that if Russia invades, the U.S. will basically arm and
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: support a Ukrainian insurgency.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of scary.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: It's surprising to me to hear them just saying that
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: out loud. The thing that has not worked well for
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: us in the past. Well, we've been on the receiving end.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: The thing that's sort of striking in their coverage is
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: I do think that like there's this kind of.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about Syria.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: There's a bias towards assuming that because authoritarians have kind
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: of a strong grip over policymaking, that they have some
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: kind of inherent strategic acumen, that they're somehow, because they're
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: in control, that they're very smart and sophisticated in what
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: they're trying to do. But there's also another side of this,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: which is that there's a lot of ways in which
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin is striking out because he's weak, right? Because,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, and that stretching yourself thin, invading another country,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: as we have learned quite recently, it may seem very
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: masculine- You know, it may seem like a lot of
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: very tough and bellicose, but doesn't redound to the benefit
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: of your country.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know you could make that argument. You can
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: make the argument that, you know, his his guy in
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: Belarus looks weakened. His guy in Kazakhstan looks weakened, that
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: he's now stretching himself even more thin by sending hundreds
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: of thousands of troops to the border of Ukraine, that
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: their primary exports are commodities like fossil fuels and that
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: they're looking down the road and seeing a challenging economic environment.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: And so they lash out and do things like this. to,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: you know, sort of distract from at home. I mean, you,
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: you could, you could spin this either way. Um, I
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: think in the near term, it's just sort of an
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: incredibly scary destabilizing, uh, potential action to come down the pike. And,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: you know, on top of, you know, this insurgency arming
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: that we talked about that Biden is saying he will
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: do if they invade, uh, they're talking about economic sanctions.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: They're talking about banning certain kinds of technologies like semiconductors
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: and these other microchips and other things. So like pretty
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: serious disruptions, um, to just sort of like the global
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: flow of commerce and goods.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, I'm trying to think
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of from the perspective of your average American who's reading
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the news thinking as they tend to do, what does
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: this mean for me? What could this mean? You know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: what could this change? It sounds like the Biden administration
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: has so far ruled out like sending U.S. troops to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: fight alongside Ukrainians, but not arming Ukrainians potentially if there's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: an invasion. If we went ahead with sanctions, economic sanctions
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: as an option, it seems like the effect of those
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: sanctions would not just be limited to economic fallout in Russia,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: but they could have an impact on the entire global
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: economy and the US economy as well. I know that Europe,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: for example, imports 40% of their natural gas from Russia.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Okay. So on the energy, yes. Specific on the energy point,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: that is a very serious concern. It depends on what
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: the global impact will be. Who knows? Depends on what
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: the sanctions are. It depends on how far reaching they are.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: It depends on the response. In terms of More narrowly, yeah,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: a lot of Europe's really dependent on Russian natural gas.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: A lot of it transits through Ukraine. And there's a
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: real concern that as a weapon of war, they could
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: decide to essentially cut off the export of natural gas.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I guess the point I'm trying to make is it
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like of all the options that Biden has
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to respond, none of them are without potential cost.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: To the U.S.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: No, none of them are good.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: This is not like a free like, oh, we'll just
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: send in some help here and that'll be fine and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: we don't have to worry about anything. whether it's military,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: whether it's economic sanctions, there's all of them come with
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: a potential cost directly to the United States.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's incredibly destabilizing. Energy prices could spike. I mean,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: remember back in 2014, that Malaysian Airlines flight was shot
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: down over Ukraine by accident, by separatists, and not by accident,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I don't know. But like, certainly they were not part
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: of the war ever, right? It was an innocent passenger
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: flight and a bunch of innocent people were killed. Like
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: horrible things can happen. when there's suddenly an even more
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: active war zone. But the truth is the Ukrainians have
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: been in like a low-grade state of conflict with Russia
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: since 2014.
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, part of the reason I bring that up
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: is because, you know, turning to the politics of all this,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: many Republican politicians are unsurprisingly using the crisis to attack
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Biden for showing what they call weakness towards Russia and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: other countries. Nikki Haley's tweet summed up the argument, quote,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: He was weak when the Taliban took Afghanistan. He's once
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: again showing weakness as Russia looks to take Ukraine. And
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: if he continues to be weak, there's no telling what
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: China will do with Taiwan. Meanwhile, some of the MAGA
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: extremists like Congressman Paul Gosar and Thomas Massey are saying
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that America first means that the United States should just
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: let Russia do whatever it wants with Ukraine. Democratic Congressman
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Tom Malinowski tweeted that his office is actually getting calls
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: from Tucker Carlson viewers who are, quote, upset that we're
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: not siding with Russia's, quote, reasonable positions. towards Ukraine. First
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: of all, let's start with the weakness attack. Do you
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: think attacking Biden for weakness on foreign policy is an
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: effective argument, guys?
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: I worry that those attacks do work. I mean, it
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: doesn't matter how hypocritical you are. So I'm like Pompeo's
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: out there. attacking Biden. I almost gave you a Mike
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Pompeo quote.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley summed it up better, but I wanted to
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: give you the Mike Pompeo quote.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: It's just amazing. It's like, hey, Mike, maybe if your
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: boss hadn't been so busy trying to extort the new
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: president of Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden, you could
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: have done a better job preparing for this outcome. But yeah, no,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, I do think that these arguments work. You
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: always hear neocons saying like, we can't withdraw from Iraq
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: because it will show weakness to Iran. The concepts of
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: strong and weak are easy to explain. more complicated story
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: is more complicated to explain. So yeah, I'm, I'm worried.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's, I think there are people
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: like Nikki Haley and others that see an opportunity in
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: attacking Joe Biden. And then there are people on the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: right that are actually a little bit more pro Putin
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: than they are anti Biden right now that they're a
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: little bit more pro authoritarian than they are willing to
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: kind of use this to kind of tell a story.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: But I do think a lot of, I think a
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: lot of the in politics in the press, I think
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: storytelling about foreign policy is, and like narratives around foreign
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: policy kind of take over and become more important than
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: what's actually in our interest, what's actually going on on
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: the ground. You know, this idea that, oh, because domestically
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: there's a Republicans telling a story that weaves Afghanistan, which
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: is a completely different situation with Ukraine, which is completely
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: different situation than Taiwan, which is yet another different situation
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: as just sort of a place to talk about weakness.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: And as if the idea that like, the U.S. doesn't
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: have distinct sets of interests in those places. And then
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: over time, the best thing we can do for our
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: country is what's in our interest in each of these situations. That, oh, therefore,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: in order to avoid a display of weakness, we must
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: remain in Afghanistan forever. And that somehow makes us a better,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: more stable ally for a place like Taiwan, I think
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: is like kind of absurd.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: The Russians fought a long, bloody war in Afghanistan, lost
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: and got driven out, and it nearly bled them to death,
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: bled them dry. I don't think they think we would
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: have been smart to stay in Afghanistan any longer. It's
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: like such a stupid, specious Washington argument.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Well, it's the tell in all of these arguments about weakness.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: You're right. It can be effective because it's a very simple, simplistic,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: almost stupid kind of attack, right? And that there is
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: chaos in the world, and if you cannot fix the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: chaos single-handedly, you are weak. And in order to try
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: to fix the chaos, you must use military might, and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: then you are strong. that is sort of the binary
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: thought process there. And it's just ridiculous because along with
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: all of these attacks about Biden being weak, very few
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of these Republicans, at least in Russia, have ideas or
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: proposals of what he should do, right? Like some of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: them are saying, slap the sanctions on them right now,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: even though that sort of defeats the purpose of deterrence.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: But then if they do invade and then we impose sanctions,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: like what else do the Republicans want us to do?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Do they want Joe Biden to send in troops to Ukraine?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Some Republicans clearly don't.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: I think what's what's sort of frustrating about this is
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: you will have people with a straight face say Putin's
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: invading Ukraine because you were the Biden looked weak in
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Afghanistan and they'll blame America for, you know, Vladimir Putin
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: doing something he's wanted to do. We know for a
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: long time. But if you try to raise the question
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: of like, OK, are there things the West has done
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: that have exacerbated the problem? Like NATO expansion, they accuse
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: you of blaming America. And it just leads to a
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: very stupid, very stilted conversation about these matters. And then
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: the most cynical thing that you're seeing are the people,
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: a lot of Republicans, even some Ukrainian officials, criticizing the
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: State Department for getting the families of state department officials
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: out of ukraine.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: They saw elissa ferret former trump official tweeting about tweeting
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah who's normally like not a fire-breathing person but it's
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: like hey did you guys all forget what happened in
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: afghanistan this summer when a bunch of americans got trapped
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: there did we not fight about the security of diplomats
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: in benghazi for like the better part of a decade
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: why don't we not fucking politicize this why don't we
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: tell the kids and spouses of diplomats to get out
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: as soon as possible so that they're.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Safe well this is a this again, this is the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: danger in responding to charges of weakness because if you
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: respond to these phony charges of weakness by showing strength
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: or what they consider strength, that's how escalation starts and
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: things get, you know, like if you feel like you
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: always need to respond to a charge of weakness with, well,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I'm now going to show you that I'm tough, that's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: when we, that's when wars start.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: But just these, these arguments are so powerful. Like if
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: you look back, it fights over the Panama canal and
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: whether or not the U S would give back control
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: of the Panama canal, the Panama, I like drove American
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: politics in the, in the Carter administration and like Dem,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Reagan demagoguers at the white house, or these me very simple, powerful, uh,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: arguments you can make and like drives us to do
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: crazy things.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: That's how we end up in really bad conflicts.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: But it is also because I think the people, the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Republicans criticizing this kind of stuff who aren't in power, they,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: they know that no one is going to make them
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: follow their ideas to their logical conclusions. Like, okay, you don't,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you think it sends the wrong signal that we want
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: to get people out, especially young people, if they're going
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to be in danger.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Then you want to defend those places. Do you want
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to send in troops? Do you want those troops to
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: be there in case of some sort of a conflict?
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Do you want those troops to fight Russian troops? Do
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: you want to have a war with Russia?
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: And just like what value does like a spouse of
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: a diplomat like what, what, how is that sending a
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: signal about anything? It's getting like the Russians just got
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: the spouses of their diplomats out like two or three
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: weeks ago.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: It's acknowledging the reality of the situation. Yeah.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: It's dangerous.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: But I do wonder and love it. You mentioned it
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: about this sort of divide among Republicans where there are
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: some like your Tucker Carlson's and your Paul Gosar's who
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: are basically like, we are isolationists, you know, America first
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to us means America does not get involved anywhere else.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: We have no business. Um, in ukraine or from tucker
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you get more like putin's totally reasonable.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah there's like a mix.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Of pro-putinism and traditional isolationism which has always been a
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: wing of the republican.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Right i think i think you have like you say
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: that you have like you have neocons you have paleocons
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: and then you have fashcons right and there's like there's
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: like really is like three groups now and you have
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the the neocons that want to like they want to
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: defend uh democracy they want to uh uh they want
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: american foreign policy to be more bellicose they want to
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: kind of be as aggressive as humanly possible. You have isolationists.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: And then I think you do have right-wingers led by
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: people like Tucker Carlson, who's, I think, in Hungary as
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: we speak, who have absorbed a lot of kind of
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: pro-authoritarian and pro-Putin propaganda about he is this vanguard, a
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: defense of conservative values, of traditional values. It's, you know,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: part and parcel of him being anti-gay. It's part of
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: traditional gender roles and all the rest.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sort of like a white authoritarian... religious amalgamation that
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: he likes in people like Putin or Viktor Orban or others.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean, you know, Tucker is trying to claim,
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Tucker does this sort of whataboutism, false equivalency thing where
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: he says, if China controlled the government of Mexico, we'd
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: be upset by that. It's like, yes, of course. But
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: saying that Ukraine has the right to join NATO if
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: they want is not the same as saying they're controlled
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: by NATO. Far, far, far from it.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know this for sure because we haven't seen
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: enough polling on it yet, but if I were to bet,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I would bet that the Republican base would be more
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: with Tucker and the Paul Gosar position than it would
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: be with the warmongers.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I think most Americans are in the isolationist camp.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, me too.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Well, which is why all the conversation that we've had
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and you guys have on Positively the World about the blob,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like the blob does not actually represent... most popular opinion
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in this country.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: No, the blob is very much of the mindset that
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: we have to be strong and getting a Afghanistan show
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: that we are weak. And how dare you talk about
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: NATO expansion as a problem, right? That, that is a
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: very DC thing. And I think Trump really, um, hastened the, the,
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: you know, sentiment of the Republican party into the sort
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: of like push them into the isolationist corner where Tucker
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: is anyway.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Where he comes down is going to be interesting as well.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I know he was interviewed by Sean Hannity over the weekend,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and he spent most of the time hitting Biden on
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the minor incursion remark from the press conference, saying like, oh,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: he invited them in, he gave them the green light,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: which of course, smart Trump, right? He's going to do that.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: But then he also said, they're talking about sanctions. If
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you want to stop these guys, you have to talk
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: about more than sanctions, which does make him a little
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: different than the Tucker Carlson view. And I wonder how
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: he'll come down on this.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's... He has to be against anything
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: that Biden will do because he's going to call anything
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Biden does a failure.
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: Right. Yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: He'll try to split the salami like he did in Afghanistan,
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: which is say, I negotiated us getting out of Afghanistan.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: So I was right and it was right to get out.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: But I would have taken all the equipment and it
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: was bad to leave the equipment and we were humiliated
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: in how we do it. I think what he'll probably
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: say about Ukraine was Obama gave them blankets and non-lethal aid.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I gave them the Javelin anti-tank missile. So I was
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: tough on Ukraine, even though you guys impeached me over
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: all this stuff. Biden's just weak generally, and Putin wouldn't
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: have done this to me, yada, yada, yada.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And he didn't in the years that I was there. Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: And that might work.
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Oof. Fun times ahead on that one. When we come back,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Lovett grills Jen Psaki with a tone that would make
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Peter Doocy blush.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: It's been one year since President Joe Biden was inaugurated,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: and the classic gift to mark a one-year anniversary is,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: of course, an unyielding river of shit. Joining us now,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: she is the White House press secretary and friend of
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the pod, Jen Psaki. Jen, welcome back.
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: Thank you. That was quite an introduction.
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: I don't know how to follow that now, but now
• 25:31
  Speaker 7: you're going to ask me a question about the river
• 25:33
  Speaker 7: of shit.
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: Bleep, bleep, bleep, you just raised.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I was creating a space so that you didn't have
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge it. So how was President Biden's come down
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: after the two-hour press conference? And how soon into the
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: two-hour press conference did the Post-it that said, what are
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Republicans for, fall off?
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: Well, I will say that I think the big takeaway, hopefully,
• 25:59
  Speaker 7: after the dust settled from the press conference and the
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: record-breaking nature of it, was that he's ready to draw
• 26:05
  Speaker 7: some contrast with the Republicans and make clear what we're
• 26:09
  Speaker 7: for and what our plan is and how we're going
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: to make people's lives better and how they have no plan.
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: The cupboard is bare, as some might say.
• 26:15
  Speaker 7: So he did make that point several times, but it
• 26:18
  Speaker 7: was a two hour press conference.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Did he accidentally take an Adderall that Don Jr. left behind?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Like what about about like 90 minutes in? Were you
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: surprised by how long it was going?
• 26:30
  Speaker 7: I was in the back and I was thinking, do
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: I cut this off? He seems to be having a
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: good time.
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: He's calling on nearly everyone in the room. So yes,
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: I did have that go through my mind.
• 26:41
  Speaker 7: But what I see here every day, which is so
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: funny because there's been so much focus on when will
• 26:46
  Speaker 7: you have a press conference and we need a formal
• 26:49
  Speaker 7: press conference, which I don't think people in their homes
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: are really thinking about every single day, but He takes
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: questions nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I
• 26:58
  Speaker 7: remember the first or second time I traveled with him,
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: he did three avails on the trip.
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: And I thought, am I going to be fired? But
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: he enjoys that back and forth. And I think what
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: people saw was some of that for a long time.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: So I want to talk about the kinds of questions
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: he gets, the kind of questions you get. I watched
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: your briefing today, and I have to come back to
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: this Ducey kid. So here's my question. He always puts
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: out a gotcha question. Like today, he basically asked two.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: One was, does President Biden think parents should be under
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: the boot of nameless bureaucrats when it comes to their
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: children's education? And the other was, does President Biden think
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: crime is good? You do not fall for any of
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: this bait, to your credit, though I think someone much
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: worse at your job would also not fall for these questions.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Are you worried that he's not adjusting? that there's not
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: a new strategy to try to catch you in some
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: kind of a gotcha question?
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: You know, I am not here to work for Peter
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: Doocy or Fox.
• 28:01
  Speaker 7: But I will say that, you know, if you look
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: at how it's portrayed and how my answers are portrayed,
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: even when I say, no, we don't think crime is good.
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: And here's all the things we've done, including the thing
• 28:14
  Speaker 7: that makes I think makes Republicans crazy, just anecdotally by
• 28:18
  Speaker 7: the hate hate tweets I get on Twitter when I
• 28:21
  Speaker 7: say this, is that they voted against funding for local
• 28:24
  Speaker 7: cops programs because of the American Rescue Plan. Also that
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: Biden has supported $ 300 billion more in funding. And at
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: the same time, he also thinks we need police reform.
• 28:35
  Speaker 7: It's like they don't know what to do with that.
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: But every time we say that, it makes them crazy.
• 28:41
  Speaker 7: You know, I think it speaks to if you look
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: at Fox on a daily basis. I mean, do you
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: remember the four boxes that you had that we had
• 28:47
  Speaker 7: on all the TVs?
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: Which is on my TV right now. So right now,
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: just to give you a sense. So CNN, Pentagon, as
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: many as 8500 U.S. troops on heightened alert.
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: OK, true. Same on MSNBC. CNBC is doing their own
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: thing about the markets.
• 29:01
  Speaker 7: And then on Fox is Jeanine Pirro talking about soft
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: on crime consequences.
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: I mean, what, what does that even mean?
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: Um, so there's an alternate universe on some, uh, coverage.
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: What's scary about it is a lot of people watch
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: that and they, they think that the president isn't doing
• 29:19
  Speaker 7: anything to address people's safety in New York.
• 29:22
  Speaker 6: And that couldn't be farther than the truth or other places.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: There's, um, I was thinking about this during that press conference.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about it during your briefings, which is
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: there is this distinction, right? Trump could go out there
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: and he can just take credit for anything good, cast
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: blame for anything bad. But the big difference is Trump
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: cares most about media that wants him to succeed. And
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I think Democrats, we care most about media that doesn't
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: really care if we succeed or fail, but is sort
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: of biased towards negativity, negativity for Democrats, negativity for Republicans.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: The president talked in that press conference about hitting the road.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I think implicit in that is that it's kind of
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: hard to get the message out through the normal challenges,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: channels available to you. How are you thinking about that
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: now as we head into 2022?
• 30:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so true, everything you said. Look, I think there's
• 30:11
  Speaker 7: a reality of this. There's like a passion for panic.
• 30:14
  Speaker 7: I don't even know what to call it out there.
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: And you look at some of the things. Are there
• 30:19
  Speaker 7: challenges and things that have not gone well? Yes, I
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: will acknowledge that. I'm not suggesting otherwise, but there are
• 30:25
  Speaker 7: things like nothing on the shelves. You cannot find anything
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: on the shelves. when statistically 88% or 89% of shelves are.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Stocked, right?
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: So that's a little.
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: You know, there are things like that, that there's always
• 30:38
  Speaker 7: a little element of panic that people.
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: Are looking for. Or, you know, nobody's vaccinated. It's a disaster.
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: Nobody will get vaccinated. 87% of the country has gotten
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: at least one dose. A lot of those people don't
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: like the president or.
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: Me or you or, you know, anyone we know.
• 30:54
  Speaker 7: So those are some, there's a pursuit of that, which
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: is a reality that is challenging, but we're not going
• 30:59
  Speaker 7: to solve on our own.
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: So what we're trying to.
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: Do is really Think about how to get the president.
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: You engage, of course, the White House press corps is
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: hugely important.
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: It's not that.
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: But figure out how to get him outside of the
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: box of Washington, right? It's interesting when you have him engaging.
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: And this is not only for him. This is what's
• 31:20
  Speaker 7: true of our former boss, former President Obama as well
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: and others. And you get them out in a town
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: hall meeting, right? Or you get them out and they
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: have a conversation at a grocery store or at an
• 31:31
  Speaker 7: ice cream shop. conversation is more likely about things that
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: are actually impacting people's lives. The same as of local
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: media interviews, local media is still one of the most
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: trusted sources of information. There's also, and it's so funny
• 31:44
  Speaker 7: because I remember when we did some of this, it
• 31:46
  Speaker 7: was so controversial. Like we weren't, you know, back in
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: the Obama days where we were just like not respecting
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: the sanctity of the presidency, where doing something.
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: Like a podcast or pod save America, right.
• 31:59
  Speaker 7: Or doing engagements with digital figures with something so, so
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: outlandish and kind of out of the ordinary, but also
• 32:07
  Speaker 7: let's be real, more people listening, more people viewing, more
• 32:10
  Speaker 7: people consuming that information about what's actually happening in their
• 32:14
  Speaker 7: lives than is necessarily in every cable Chiron every day.
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: And so it's, it's trying to, you know, move outside
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: of that and get him out in the country more,
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: which again, we're not the first White House to think
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: about that and talk about that, but it's.
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: Something he loves.
• 32:32
  Speaker 7: He lights up. I think he could spend every day
• 32:35
  Speaker 7: on the road if that was possible in his schedule.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: I remember there was a selfie stick fiasco, and then
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: there was also a YouTuber, and there was a bathtub
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: filled with glitter. It was so controversial. It was a
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: big deal at the time. It was a big deal
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: at the time. But Yeah, you have to.
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: Do all of it. I mean, that's the thing.
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: And also our job is not our jobs here is
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: to to reach the American public. It's not to do
• 32:59
  Speaker 7: it through specific forums and you have to do it
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: through lots of forums.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: So obviously there's this there's this bias towards controversy, this
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: bias towards negativity in the press. But on the other hand,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: it does seem as though a lot of our listeners,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I think, feel pretty discouraged right now. They see some
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: dismal polling. They're waiting on tests in the mail during
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: this Omicron wave. They see two Democrats stalling the president's agenda.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: They see foreign policy crises. And they're worried because not
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: because they think Joe Biden is magical, but because they
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: believed you. They believed us when we said that democracy
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: depends on President Biden and Democrats delivering. What do you
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: say to those listeners?
• 33:38
  Speaker 7: I mean, I say a couple of things. We feel
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: your frustration and understand it. And Um, and I, we
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: sit in it too sometimes, right? We're frustrated that voting
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: rights didn't get passed. I mean, how has that even popped?
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: Why would anyone be opposed to protecting voting? It doesn't
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: even make sense, right? You have these 16 Republican senators
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: who have supported it in the past and now all
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: of a sudden they don't. I mean, Mitch McConnell wrote
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: about it in his book. He was so proud of
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: his support for voting rights, right? So some of it
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: also doesn't make sense.
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: I don't know. I'm not saying that's the only.
• 34:08
  Speaker 7: Driver of it, but it's like, it feels like, uh,
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: how could anyone oppose these things that seem so common sense.
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: What I would say is that things are going to
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: get better. And on COVID, which we know is the
• 34:21
  Speaker 7: root frustration for everybody, for good reason. You know, if
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: you look at it and you're a scientist, there's that.
• 34:27
  Speaker 7: But also just as a human being, you want to
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: go out to restaurants, you want to go to concerts,
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: you want to not wear a mask everywhere. Everybody's sick
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: and tired of this.
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: I am with you. We are all with you.
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: And the good news, if we can just look for
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: a little bit of good news, is that we're seeing
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: peaks of Omicron in lots of parts of the country,
• 34:46
  Speaker 7: not everywhere.
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: And it's starting to come down.
• 34:49
  Speaker 7: Also, in this period of time, as much as we
• 34:52
  Speaker 7: know we should have done more on tests earlier, we
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: are going to be at a point, and we're almost there,
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: where people should be able to get tests in their pharmacies.
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: They should be able to get reimbursed for them. They
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: can order tests online. They can go to testing centers.
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: And they should be more available. Same with masks. We
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: also just ordered a massive supply of antivirals, which is
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: this pill that is a game changer. And it's going
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: to take some time to get a huge enough dose available,
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: but we're going to have all these ways.
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: Of treating it.
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: So we're not going to live like this forever. And
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: I think, and we think, and the polls, I think
• 35:24
  Speaker 7: show us that this is a huge driver of people's psychology, right?
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: I'm the child of therapists. So maybe I'm going to
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: go there for a second, but it impacts your mental health, right?
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: Even if you feel like, oh, I don't, it's not,
• 35:35
  Speaker 7: it's impacting everybody. And that's a reality too. I'd also say, and,
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: you know, um, you and I've lived through this too.
• 35:43
  Speaker 7: And the, the many uses of the, uh, the, uh,
• 35:46
  Speaker 7: arc of more, I'm going to butcher this, this thing.
• 35:49
  Speaker 7: You know what I'm trying to say?
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: The moral, moral arc or the universe, it's long.
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: It bends towards justice, right?
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: You're the speech writer. So I'm going to just tap.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Into your, it's like a long time ago.
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: Um, it's a phone a friend, but That's also true, right?
• 36:04
  Speaker 7: And we can't, I mean, voting rights is such a
• 36:06
  Speaker 7: good example. This is not now that we just give up.
• 36:09
  Speaker 7: This is now when we figure out what's next and
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: what the next path is. The last thing I would
• 36:13
  Speaker 7: say is it is frustrating. We can't get our agenda.
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: Past all of it.
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: We've gotten a lot past, even with the majority. The
• 36:21
  Speaker 7: majority is so narrow and we knew that would be
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: a challenge from the beginning, but this in some ways
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: is a tough, I mean, in many ways, it's a
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: really tough experience, right? Because We feel like we have Democrats.
• 36:32
  Speaker 7: Why can't we push this through?
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: And because we.
• 36:34
  Speaker 7: Need every single one of them. That's how Congress was designed,
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: how that branch of government was designed. So this should
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: also be a motivational tool for having more people that
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: we can lean on as another thing. So I guess
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: I'm an optimist by nature, but it's going to get better.
• 36:51
  Speaker 7: It's freezing cold here, and we're still fighting a pandemic.
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: And meat is still too expensive in the grocery store.
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: But we're moving in a better direction. And I think
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: that often, hopefully, will be the driver of people feeling
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: like there's good days ahead.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think about how much just the different,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: the middle of last year, just passed a massive relief bill.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: It was before Delta. And we were heading into this
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: fight over Build Back Better. The only question was how
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: big it would be. And I think there was some assumption,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I think it was something shared by a lot of
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: people that There's a version that will get Manchin and
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Sinema to yes. And we don't know what that version is,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: but we have to negotiate and push and make our
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: put our best foot forward. And at the end of
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: the day, they will come to a yes on something.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And right now, we still haven't gotten that. Yes. Today,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: there was a meeting on an electoral count act reform.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: There's been some question about about what exactly Joe Manchin
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: is for in terms of the chunk that he would
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: get behind. Yeah. what happens now? A big chunk. Do
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: we now just say to Joe Manchin, like, you write
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: the fucking bill. What happens?
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: I wouldn't say that myself exactly in those words, as
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: much as I had my statement from a few weeks ago.
• 38:08
  Speaker 7: I think a lot of this is, you know, you
• 38:10
  Speaker 7: heard the president say last week in the press conference
• 38:14
  Speaker 7: that he doesn't want to be the legislator in chief, right?
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: And he doesn't.
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: And what that means is, He's not going to spend
• 38:20
  Speaker 7: his time behind closed doors for hours at end in
• 38:23
  Speaker 7: the Oval Office meeting and negotiating with senators. They legislate themselves.
• 38:29
  Speaker 7: That's what the branch of government does. We have a
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: very experienced legislative staff. They'll work with them when they
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: need to. So ultimately, it's never going to be a
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: bill that's just by one senator, whether it's Joe Manchin
• 38:39
  Speaker 7: or not. But they will have to work out what
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: they can get agreement on. Now, here's the good news.
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: I'm just going to go to the place of light.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Every now and then.
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: For you is there's agreement about some basic overarching themes, right?
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: That we have to do something on climate.
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: Agreed, right?
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: We had a historic investment in there, you know? There's
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: agreement on cutting the cost of child care, universal pre-K.
• 39:05
  Speaker 7: That's a hugely important part of that. Not that we
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: would be satisfied with that alone, but creating universal pre-K
• 39:10
  Speaker 7: program would be a historic thing to happen, even on
• 39:14
  Speaker 7: its own. And there's agreement about negotiating the price of
• 39:17
  Speaker 7: prescription drugs. There's more beyond that that there's lots of
• 39:21
  Speaker 7: support for and there'll be discussion about. But there are
• 39:25
  Speaker 7: some key components that across the board and for raising
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: taxes on the highest income.
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: So that's a good baseline. Right. Something beyond that, something
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: about that.
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: But they have to figure out what we have 50
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: votes for and then we have to get across the
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: finish line.
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: But we're we're working on that. We're not giving up.
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: We're still working on it.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, like you, I know from our time working
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: for President Obama that the state of the union isn't
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: just a deadline for the public. It's an internal deadline too.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: It's a kind of, and especially in a midterm election,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: this is one of, if not the last chance for
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: a president to have an audience of the entire country
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to make a case. Is there, is there some sense
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: that that is a deadline for getting, uh, uh, pieces
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: of build back better through the Senate, or at least
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: to have a plan or something, something we could say like,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: this is what our, this is what we'll be bragging
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: about when we start traveling the country this summer.
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: You know, I think we.
• 40:20
  Speaker 7: See it more as kind of a kickoff than an end, right?
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: I'm not saying we're not going to talk about Build
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: Back Better and the components between now and then. There'll
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: be lots of conversation about it. But the thing about
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: the State of the Union, that even with all of
• 40:34
  Speaker 7: the changing dynamics of media and how people consume information...
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: is it's one of the only times every year that,
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: as you said, people are listening to the president. So
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: it's kind of laying out to the public where you are,
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: but also where are you.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: Going from here?
• 40:50
  Speaker 7: Kind of who are we and what are we fighting for?
• 40:52
  Speaker 7: And you're giving direction to your party and to Congress
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: as well. So I don't think we look at it
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: as a deadline or the end of anything, right?
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: We'll see. There's obviously a lot that needs to.
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: Happen in terms of funding the government over the next
• 41:07
  Speaker 7: several weeks. Also, There's this bill you see got very
• 41:10
  Speaker 7: poorly named, but the most important thing about it is
• 41:13
  Speaker 7: got a lot of funding for chips for cars to
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: make them less expensive.
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: Those are a lot of things that will happen.
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: And we're going to see what's possible in these conversations.
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: But I wouldn't we don't think of it as a
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: as a deadline or the end. We think of it
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: as kind of like a launch. So, yeah, people will
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: hear like where we go from here.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: So I want to ask about Ukraine in part because
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: I do think that like this has been a year
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: defined by crises and. the press and Republicans laying them
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: at the feet of President Biden and then the Biden
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: administration demonstrating agency where possible, whether it's around inflation or COVID,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: foreign policy crisis. A lot of people see reports about
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: a potential invasion. It looks frightening. It looks dangerous. But
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: a lot of times the press skips a step about
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: why it's important, what it means for the U.S., why
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: this is of such great interest to our foreign policy.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes.
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: Thank you for asking that question. Look, I think.
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: That we are not talking about sending U.S. troops to
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: the border of Ukraine and Russia. So it's not as
• 42:17
  Speaker 7: people think about our engagement in a war like they
• 42:20
  Speaker 7: would in other scenarios. And that's an important thing for
• 42:23
  Speaker 7: people to understand. But to your point, there is a
• 42:26
  Speaker 7: basic values proposition here, right? And the president has talked
• 42:30
  Speaker 7: a lot about democracies versus autocracies.
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: There also is a value.
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: That the United States has long been a subscriber and advocate,
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: a leader on, that you can't just go and invade
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: and take another country's territory, right? That's not how it
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: should work. And so the challenge here, which is honestly
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: challenging to communicate, is that we know that President Putin
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: and the Russians are going to make a decision about
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: which which path, which choose your own adventure they're going
• 42:57
  Speaker 7: to take.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: And that what we can do is lay out what
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: the consequences will be. But the reason we've been so
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: strongly out there on this is because this is about
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: sending a clear message with partners around the world about
• 43:14
  Speaker 7: who we are and what we should stand for. And
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: we don't stand for other countries invading other countries. one
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: country invading other countries or trying to steal their territory.
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: And we don't stand for what they've also been doing,
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: which is pushing what we call false flag operations, where
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: they are spreading misinformation to lay the predicate for them to.
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: Do exactly that.
• 43:34
  Speaker 7: So it is about something bigger than that, even though
• 43:37
  Speaker 7: we know that it's really ultimately up to President Putin
• 43:40
  Speaker 7: to decide what step he takes.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: I started by referring to a certain kind of river, obviously,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: as a joke, but also like presidents are expected to
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: have agency over all things in the press to the,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: in the public. And when a presidency is confronted by
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: so many big crises at once, an economic crisis, a
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: COVID foreign policy crises, uh, a crisis in our democracy, um, we,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: there is an expectation, especially on the part of the
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: press that this, that any problem is a problem the
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: president owns and any, and any, uh, uh, And any
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: failure to make things better is something they're responsible for. Obviously,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: that's not always true. And you have to push back
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and say, here's where our power is. Here's where it isn't.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Here's what the Fed can do about inflation. Here's what
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: the president can do. But then there's a risk in
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: that of seeming like an observer, of seeming like a
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: passenger to events. How do you think about that? How
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: do you make sure you're conveying, like, here's where the
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: actual authority is, right? This isn't an all, we don't
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: have a dictator. Here's where it isn't without seeming like
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: you're kind of giving into events.
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: Right. Or without over explaining. I mean, you and I
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: both know there's.
• 44:42
  Speaker 7: Nothing, any elected official I've ever worked for, and maybe
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: this is an endearing quality that they have.
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: They want to explain everything. Right.
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: Which, you know, I admire, but you know, there's also
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: a reality that the pace is never going to be
• 44:55
  Speaker 7: the pace that is going to meet the demands of
• 44:58
  Speaker 7: the press corps, but also meet the demand and sometimes
• 45:01
  Speaker 7: of the public.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: If you look at inflation and You know, the Federal Reserve,
• 45:05
  Speaker 7: as you mentioned, it's under their purview. They're predicting it's
• 45:08
  Speaker 7: going to moderate this year. That's a good thing. They
• 45:10
  Speaker 7: have tools they can use. They're independent. They do their
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: own thing. We don't control that.
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: Right. There are things and it's kind of the thing that's.
• 45:19
  Speaker 7: Been, I think, frustrating or maybe we could all do
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: better at, including how people cover this, is when we
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: talk about inflation, what do we mean?
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: We're talking about how costs impact inflation. people, the public, right?
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: It's not all because of one issue. There are lots
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: of different issues that impact. So this is where I
• 45:38
  Speaker 7: get into the explaining, but I'm going to do a
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: very shorthand version of.
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: This as an example. The supply chain, right? One issue,
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: big issue.
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: We never talked about this for years. Now it's become
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: such a big issue, which the supply chain is overall.
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: Good because overall it lowers our costs.
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: But COVID has a huge impact because if a manufacturing
• 45:56
  Speaker 7: place shuts down in Malaysia or China and they're not
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: making a piece of a pencil, then we're not going
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: to get those pencils, right? And also people are buying
• 46:03
  Speaker 7: tons of goods. So we've had to do a lot
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: to ease that.
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: That's working. That's moving in a better direction. That's good.
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: That is why we're getting shelves stocked and why things
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: are getting better. But there are two other big issues.
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: One is the competition.
• 46:19
  Speaker 7: So meat is my favorite example of this. If you're
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: going to go make chili because it's cold here, although
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: you live in a warm climate, so maybe you're making hamburgers.
• 46:27
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: It's freezing here. It's almost 60.
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: Oh, my God.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: Stop.
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: I'm sad right now. I'm wearing Uggs and under my desk.
• 46:36
  Speaker 7: That is about meat companies taking advantage of people thinking
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: prices are higher and raising their prices.
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: That is a different issue, right? And then the third
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: thing is cars.
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: And that accounts for about one third of inflationary pressures.
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: And it's expensive to buy a car these days, right?
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: But that's because we don't have enough manufacturing chips. in
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: the country, which is something we have to solve longer
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: term and why we got to pass this bill.
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: So we have more chips so we can sell more cars,
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: meaning it's kind of.
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: Complicated in some ways to explain, but the more we
• 47:10
  Speaker 7: can tell people, okay, cars, they're expensive. Here's because of
• 47:13
  Speaker 7: what competition they're taking advantage of this. And there are
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: some bad actors that are taking advantage of everybody thinking
• 47:19
  Speaker 7: prices are high.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: They're terrible.
• 47:21
  Speaker 7: And some of it is inflationary pressure, but you know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 7: that's a challenge and that doesn't always fit into a
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: tweet or kind of a, a short, I don't know,
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: 30 second soundbite, which is part of the challenge.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: How annoying was that pushback from economists on the on
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: it may be going too far to talk about competition
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: when it comes to high prices?
• 47:41
  Speaker 7: I'm like, no, there's there are some days where you
• 47:46
  Speaker 7: just think that's not Don't die on that hill. So
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: I think that was not advice I took, I'll just say.
• 47:55
  Speaker 7: I think the meat example is one people can completely
• 47:57
  Speaker 7: relate to, right?
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: Because you know, if you do grocery shopping for your.
• 48:02
  Speaker 7: Family, for your couple, whatever your life, your roommates, you
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: know that they're more expensive.
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: And this is why.
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: It's not because of some mysterious inflationary thing out there.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Last question. End of the day, what are you streaming
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: to fall asleep?
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: Can I also ask you for recommendations too? Oh, streaming
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: to fall asleep.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Or to stay awake. Whatever you're using streaming to do,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: that's good. That's allowed.
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: So I watched Dope Sick on Hulu over Christmas. It's
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: very good. It's a little dark. I couldn't sleep some nights.
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: It's not helping me sleep.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Just to chill out?
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: Was not helping me sleep.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, fair.
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: I also.
• 48:49
  Speaker 7: just finished Emily in Paris. And I also, I love fair.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: I also love, um, I've been watching queer. I, I
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: need a little like shows that I cry every clear
• 49:01
  Speaker 7: eye episode.
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: Which I don't know what that says about me. I
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: just love like the journey that they're on.
• 49:05
  Speaker 7: Um, but you know, I've also watched a lot of
• 49:07
  Speaker 7: football lately, which surprises me a little bit, but, um, it's,
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: it's a good sports as an exciting escape and I'll
• 49:13
  Speaker 7: be watching like everything in the Olympics.
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: What about you? What are you streaming now? I need recommendations.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Yesterday. Uh, it was Sunday afternoon and Ronan and I
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: went to, um, eat lunch at a restaurant outside. And
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: when we got there, they said, I'm sorry, we're not
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: doing any outside seating right now because of the game. Uh,
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: the big game is on and Ronan said, what kind
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: of game? Which I thought was very... We don't know.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: We don't know about the games. I'm in a drag
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: race place. That's what's happening. We're watching season after season
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: of Drag Race. I have caught up to season 14,
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: which is currently airing. We're about to finish.
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: 14 seasons. Now, this is the kind of thing I need.
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Listen, here's what I would say. I would say you can...
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: I would recommend starting with season three and just cruise three, four, five, six, seven.
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: That is.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: just a murderer's row of, of drag race seasons. Then
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about all stars. If you get to that point,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: we can talk about all stars, but I don't, I
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: would not recommend all stars until you've gotten into the
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: kind of the heart of the original. You know what
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: Well, I have a lot of streaming to do.
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: The good news is that it's 20 degrees here and
• 50:21
  Speaker 7: I have two small children, so I can stream things.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: That's great. And I like the idea.
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: I take my homework seriously.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I think exposing kids to, to queer culture as early
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: as possible is, is very important. So as long as
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: they're in the vicinity, if they can hear it, that'd
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: be very exciting too.
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: Okay, done.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Jen Psaki, everybody, thank you so much for coming on.
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, there have obviously been quite
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: a few headlines lately that don't instill a lot of
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: confidence about the future of democracy. But which story should
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: you really worry about? Which one should you sort of
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: worry about And which ones can you safely avoid clicking altogether?
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: We will help you figure it all out in a
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: new segment we're calling Democracy Doom Scroll. I'll tee up
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: the headline and the three of us will rate it
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: on the following scale. One, keep scrolling. Two, wouldn't lose
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: sleep over it. Three, would lose sleep over it. Four,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: experiment with a new drug. Five, have you considered Canada?
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Have you considered? Just consider it.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: You guys ready?
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Sure. All right. First headline is from USA Today, and
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: it reads, Newt Gingrich, January 6th committee, investigators may face jail.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: That's right. During a Fox News interview on Sunday, the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: former speaker and presidential candidate actually said that if Republicans
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: take control of Congress in the midterms, the members of
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: the January 6th Select Committee could face jail time. Take
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: a listen.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: You're going to have a Republican majority in the House
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: and a Republican majority in the Senate. And all these
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: people who've been so tough and so mean and so
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document,
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: every conversation, every tweet, every email. And I think when
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: come crashing down and the wolves are going to find
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: out that they're now sheep. And they're the ones who are,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: in fact, going to, I think, face a real risk
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: of jail for the kind of laws they're breaking.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: Newt thinks you need to subpoena tweets. Feels like there's
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: a faster way.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: To get at those. I didn't think about that part.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: You know, happy 30th anniversary to Newt Gingrich launching a
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: campaign to become Speaker of the House in 1994. It
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: is 30 years ago. Bill Clinton wins. And now we're
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: in the, this is the cycle. This is when he
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: was getting ready for the cycle.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: Would they win 54 House seats, nine Senate seats?
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: And I was thinking as I saw Newt, I was like, wow,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: he really did usher in this horrible era. He really did.
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Credit to Newt.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I think you can pinpoint it.
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: You can pinpoint it with Newt.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: Remember when he was sitting on a couch with Nancy
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: Pelosi talking about climate change, I believe?
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Lots of change since 2005. Those were the days. It's wild.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Climate change, the Voting Rights Act was passed unanimously, immigration
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: reform was bipartisan.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: He was an almost successful presidential candidate in 2012.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's because he wasn't crazy enough.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: I'm not losing sleep over this.
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: No.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: Because I'm not an investigator on the Hill.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Adam Schiff, we might bump you up to Woodloo sleepover. Yeah,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: you might go to three.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, I do think it's clear that they view
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: politics as just about reprisal and punishing the guys who
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: went after you. Trump says it all the time, too.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: This doesn't surprise me at all.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, the only reason I
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do a keep scrolling is because, look, it's never
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: good when a prominent person in one party is saying
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: that people in the other party could probably face jail time.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's good, but like what he's
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: saying there is just like, yeah. So if they take control,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: they're going to subpoena all the people on the committee,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: which I'm sure if the people on the committee get
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: that subpoena, they will comply. Cause that's usually what people
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: do who aren't like right wing crazies. And then they'll
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: comply and then that'll be it. Then they won't go
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: to jail.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't leave loose sleep over new sucking. I would
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: lose sleep and have, or the fact that it would
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: probably be a huge applause line for, And if I
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: were Adam Schiff, I would experiment with a new drug,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: and that drug would be just ground chuck. This was
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: sort of adjacent.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: To a lot of the rhetoric you saw out of
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: the insane anti-vax lollapalooza over the weekend in Washington, D.C.,
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: where there were just constant speeches about punishing, locking up
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: their enemies.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: That would have been a good story to do for this.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: That one I would have maybe given that one experiment
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: with a new drug.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Right, well, you'd have Robert F. Kennedy.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: You'd have Robert F.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: Kennedy Jr. saying, at least in World War II, you
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: could hide like Anne Frank, apparently not knowing how that ended.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Didn't read the end of the book. Didn't finish the book.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: JFK Jr. must be turning over in his bed, seeing
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: what his nephew is up to.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: And then you had other guys, other speakers.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Because he's alive.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: Other speakers talking about executing their enemies, including the press.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: So yeah, there's a real scary... streak.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: In these that was that was that was worse than
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the gingrich thing.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: It's not you can't just they're just they're not talking
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: about just being anti-vaccine and not having vaccine mandates they
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: want to punish the people who believe in those.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Things and it's a lot of people and uh there
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: are a lot of people that trump is going to
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: want their votes so yeah good luck everybody.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: The second headline is from politico read the never issued
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: trump order that would have seized voting machines by the
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: way happy 15th to politico i know they were celebrating
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: themselves over the weekend.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: So many times.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: So much celebration.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: So funny to have like six big pieces by Politico
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: about Politico about how great Politico was.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: You know what? As we approach our five-year anniversary, Crooked,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: I support anything you do to blow out an anniversary.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Shame on the two of you for going after a
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: fellow journalist. I can't even continue it. I can't even
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: continue it.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: So here's the story, by the way. It was a
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: good story. Politico does good reporting. Sometimes. Apparently, the January
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: 6th committee has obtained a never-released draft executive order that
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: and appoint a special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: a move that could have kept Trump in power until
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: at least mid-February. Seize voting machines. It's not clear who
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: wrote it, but Politico notes that it's consistent with proposals
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: that Sidney Powell made to Trump after the election... The
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: memo also included references to two classified documents, which meant
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: the author had access to that information. Sounds like a doozy.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's Canada. That's a full-on... That's what happens in
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: places like Egypt where they declare a state of emergency
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: and the military takes to the streets and clears out
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: the protesters, and then you're in a dictatorship.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Didn't happen. It didn't happen. I'm going to say, just
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: for the purposes of our conversation, I'm going to say... Uh,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: might lose sleep over it. Might experiment with a new drug.
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: Which one?
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, well, let's work on finding a new drug. Come
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: up with a list of new drugs. We'll see what,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: we'll see what's on there. Um, what was I going
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: to say?
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: Something for restless legs.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Um, hydroxychloroquine. Uh, the, the, uh, what was it? Oh, um,
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: here's what I was going to say.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Are you on one now?
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not. It's 4.30. Hey, it's 2 a.m. somewhere.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: What I was going to say is only that it
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: reads like the ramblings of a very bad lawyer because
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: you send that to the defense department. I think that
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: the memo represents a grave crisis and a sure consider
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Canada situation, but the actual memo itself kind of points
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: to the intersection of the evil and the incompetence that
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: went into this whole damn operation because it's like, okay,
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: I don't have people that can do that. I'm the
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: secretary of defense. I work at the Pentagon. I'm going
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: to have to do what it's like. The idea of
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: this defense secretary acting on this crazy memo is probably
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: a reason it's a draft and not something that happened.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: That's no cause for comfort, but I'm just, just taking
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the other side.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I understand. I mean, I think I'm somewhere
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: between experimenting with a new drug in Canada. Maybe I'm
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: going to experiment with a new drug in Canada. Because
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: I think, like, the reason it didn't happen, the reason
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: nothing worse happened, is because the Trump administration was staffed with, like,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: a bunch of really crazy Trump loyalists and some just, like,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: regular people. Right. Like, yeah, we don't have to. They're
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: not heroes, whatever.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing. They're not heroes.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: And there were enough people like, for example, Mike Pence
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: deciding not to try to overturn the election. Right. Mike
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Pence isn't a hero, but we caught a break there.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: So there are enough people that would prevent that prevented
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Trump from doing the unthinkable. The next Trump administration, if
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: there is one, you could imagine being staffed with just
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: the fucking crazies. Yeah, pure crazy. Defense Department, State Department,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: AG's office, all of them. And someone writes that memo
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: and he actually does it next time. Well, that's the mission.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: That's the worry.
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: That's like the bin and mission right now is just
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: to purge all the normals.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: You might say it like this.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: Election officials, et cetera.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: The Trump administration went from people who thought Mike Pence
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: was a bad hang to people who thought he was
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: a good hang. You know what I mean?
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, I do. That's a good joke.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Wow. That's it. We're done with that one. We can't
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: improve upon that.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: It's pretty good.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: The last headline is from CNN, and it reads, DeSantis'
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: proposed election police force alarms voting rights advocates. I don't
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: know why I think that's funny. It's just like, oh,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: does it?
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, no shit, really?
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Like, what year are we? DeSantis' proposed election police force.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: So the story is about how the Florida governor has
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: asked the Florida legislature for $ 5. 7 million to create a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: new Office of Election Crimes and Security, a 52-member team
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: including 20 police officers that would report to DeSantis himself
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: and have the power to, quote, investigate, detect, apprehend, and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: arrest anyone for an alleged violation of election laws. How
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: fun is that? Great idea, right? What do you guys think?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: I can see it going either way. Here's my thinking.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, I'm of two minds. On the one hand,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: I think to myself, hey, this is all shadowboxing. There
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: is no massive electoral fraud problem in any part of
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: this country. And if you want to go ahead and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: create a police force designed to go after the incredibly
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: rare event of election fraud, that's a better use of
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: their kind of political capital than what they're doing to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: restrict the right to vote, right? Like if that's what
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: you think is a way to assuage the kind of
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: Trump wing of your base, Ron DeSantis, on your epic
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: quest to become the next Trump, OK, like I'm not
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: as I'm not as worried about that as I am
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: about other things. But then I also obviously I worry
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: about what happens if these kinds of forces are stacked
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: with the kinds of people that'd be very interested in
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: getting assigned a right wing anti-voting task force. And I
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: worry what those people would do with authority. And I
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: worry what it would be if it's taken to its
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: logical extreme. That's all. You know, what are these people
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: doing all day?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: 20 cops, like 30 investigators kind of.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 30 people who've had who are experienced, use that
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: term loosely, in election law. And then 20 police officers.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: There's like 20 million people in Florida.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, also, you read through
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: the story and towards the end of the story, it
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: notes that every police officer in Florida or anywhere else
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: at this point already has the authority to investigate and prosecute.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: It's a task force, right? Let's focus on that.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is something to, you know, burnish DeSantis' credibility
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: with the base even more. He wants to run for president,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: so it's a complete stunt. Now, is it a good
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: thing to have, like you said, 52 extra people in
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Florida paid by the state whose job it is to
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: just sit every day and make up fucking election fraud? No,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: that's not a good thing. But is he like, is
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: this like Ron DeSantis raising an army to go arrest voters?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Like, and I will say one of the one of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: the thing I'll say, too, is I think the reason
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: for it to be really trash is the reason for
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: it to be concerning is one thing that we have
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: seen is because of the kind of vim and vigor
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: with which these people have embraced, like misinformation, that there
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: are some, you know, grand schemes against grand voters, fraud
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: schemes going on across the country is what inevitably happens
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: is somebody who is on parole, person of color screws up.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: they get the fucking book thrown at them. They're people
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: that are rotting in jail because they made a mistake
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: and voted in violation of a rule they didn't understand.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, they're targeted and pointed as
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: an example of the wretched voter fraud that stole the election.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And then you have these, this basically, this group of,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: this task force led by the governor kind of looking,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: for example, people that they can make examples of. And
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: that is really worrying too.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the thing that's so awful in Florida is,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: you know, in 2018, you have like, 65% of the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: state voting to approve an amendment that would have restored
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: voting rights to one and a half million Floridians, something
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: like that, who had had felony convictions and who completed
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: their terms. And then DeSantis basically puts all these, these
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: hurdles in place. You have to pay off all these fines. They,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: they create this Kafka system where you can't even figure
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: out how much you owe. And they basically just completely
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: blocked the will of the people and left these folks
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: fully disenfranchised. Like that to me, It's an absolute travesty
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: of justice and is the thing that would be, that's
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: my move to Canada in terms of Florida.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Well, as you said, you know what else would have
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: re-enfranchised all those formerly incarcerated Americans in Florida and everywhere else?
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: The Freedom to Vote Act.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, or beating Ron DeSantis.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Or beating Ron DeSantis. I'm going to give it, I'm
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: going to experiment with a new drug.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say wouldn't lose sleep over it, but
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I got.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: My eye on it. We got our eye on it.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: We got to keep an eye on it.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Watching it. And look, if you are concerned about any
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: of these stories, The best thing you can do, if
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: you want to experiment with a new drug, that's on you.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I would stay here and not really go to Canada.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: And I would go to votesaveamerica.com and see how you
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: can help win elections in 2022 because that's how you're
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: actually going to stop all these.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Things from happening. You can do both. You do some
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: ayahuasca and then you start rolling cause and you're like, hi,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: is Marjorie Smith there? Are you aware that they're all horses?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: All of our opponents are horses now. Here's a question
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: I know the answer to. Did you read Matthew McConaughey's book?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: I did not. I missed it.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure there's a story in there of him
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: taking ayahuasca, going on like a spiritual journey, walking up
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: a mountain, walking down and then climbing into a cage
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: with like a tiger or a mountain lion and just
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: hanging out and like feeling their energy.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me at all.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: Seems like a good time.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me at all. I'm surprised. I can't
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: believe the guy didn't run for governor. That's the only surprise.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: This close.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: I wonder what kept him.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: He's got a great hair guy.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: Well, he's got a great life.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Matthew McConaughey. Went to a great hair guy. I don't
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: know who that hair guy was, but a good hair guy.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: Wait, like barber or something else?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: Nope. Yeah, no, no, no. Harder.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: Are you talking like Elon Musk PayPal era to Elon Musk?
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: You bet I am.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 6: Okay, I get it.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: I know this is sounding like the very end of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the pod, but before we actually hit the end of
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: the pod.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: All kinds of shit.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: We have a clip that you all need to hear
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: that maybe you all have heard at this point. You're
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: listening to it sometime on Tuesday.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: 100% chance they've heard it.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: But if not, here it is. Hopefully you got through
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: the Ukraine. This is Joe Biden. at the end of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: a uh... press availability on monday afternoon uh... and and uh...
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: the question you hear shouted at him comes from one
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: peter do see a fox news political that's.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: A great asset more inflation.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Stupid son of a bitch so peter doozy asked him
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: i don't know if you're at the beginning peter doozy
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: did ask him as a resident is the inflation of
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: political liability And Joe Biden standing up there looking like
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: he was giving prepared remarks into the microphone.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it keeps being described as a hot mic. I mean,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: normally that is like a lav that, you know, Billy
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: Bush left on and walked to the bathroom or something
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: like he was speaking directly.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: You're in a hot mic right now, Tommy.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm I'm I'm hot micing right now because I'm
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: speaking into the mic that is on.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: It's funny because I asked Jen if. if uh ducie
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: needed to adjust his strategy because he's always asking these
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: gotcha questions and nobody takes the bait and um i
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: guess the i really all he needed was patience yeah.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: And there's some people there's there's a lot of reactions
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: to this shockingly this is one of those easy things
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: where everyone will have a take and it'll probably be
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: on cable news for several days on fox news two
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: weeks because they love to be about themselves is there
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: a better way to speak to the needs of americans
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: concerned about inflation sure oh no was this a serious
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: question about inflation No. Everyone wins here. Joe Biden vents.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: We all get to laugh. Peter Doocy gets more airtime.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, Peter Doocy was pretty inflated after that.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. Peter Doocy went from 6 p.m.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: to midnight. Oh, my God.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, wow.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 6: Sorry.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: Is that a Get Him the Greek reference?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: To take the criticism seriously just for a second that
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: this was somehow Biden belittling people's concerns about inflation, that's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: not what it was. That's not what his answer was.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: If it was a hot mic moment where he was like,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: fucking inflation, who cares? That's one thing. What he said was, like,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: what he said was, inflation, yeah, that's a real asset.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Which is him basically saying, like, yeah, inflation's up. Like,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: that's a real political fucking benefit for me. Of course
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: it's not a benefit. It's bad. It's bad for everyone. Like,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: he's recognizing the problem of inflation.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: No, the argument being made by actual normal politicians Biden fan,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Josh Barrow, is like, you don't want to give Fox
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: or conservatives any material to make it seem like you
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: don't care about the thing or being flippant about the
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: thing that they care about the most.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think it should be in Biden's prepared remarks
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: next time.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: Do you think it was?
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to argue for that, but like, come on.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Once in a while, I think a lot of our
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: problems would have been solved earlier if somebody had been
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: calling Peter Doocy a son of a bitch a little
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: bit more frequently all along the way.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: Peter Doocy, I've never met him. He might be a
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: nice person. He just, he, he looks like the legacy
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: admissions bad guy in a college movie.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: You know, you know, and you know, because you see
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: that in the mirror every fucking day. Oh yeah. Tommy,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: what is that like? No, it's funny. You guys are
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: playing the same frat.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Because you were interviewing Jen today and we were talking
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: about Ukraine. I watched Jen's briefing today and I watched
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Peter and I was like, God bless Jen because I
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: do not know how she handles these questions every day
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: without throwing the podium.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: They're awesome.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Like his questions.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: It is, they're crazy. They're awesome questions. They're so, they're like,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: this is what I said to Jen about them, it's like,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: they're like, they're such, they're so transparently ganja questions, they're like,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: so Joe Biden, He thinks crime doesn't matter, right? Yes
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: or no.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: So are you telling parents that they can never, ever
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: take a mask off their child? Ever?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Do you think school bureaucrats should have a boot on
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: the neck of parents?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: So when you walk in the briefing room, the press
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: secretary goes up to the podium. There's a bunch of
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: seats on the side for the low-level press schmucks like
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: I was to sit. I sat through a year, year
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: and a half of those things. First of all, you
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: get reporters reading physical copies of the paper in your face, right?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: No one's listening.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: It's a real bar scene in Star Wars.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: People are asking the question that was just asked, so
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: they get a shot of themselves on camera asking the question.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: It's mostly an exercise in keeping your cool, which is
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: actually why Jen is exceptionally good at it 99.99% of
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: the time, because she is.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: You know, a light touch in terms of just like
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: the conservative media. Deucey's on like the good end of that.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: They got Newsmax in there. They got OAN in there.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Like I was looking at some of the RT people,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: the questions that Biden was getting at the end of
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: that press conference when they started calling on all the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: right wing media people. I'm like, I'm trying to imagine
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: all the crooked media hosts sitting in a Trump presser.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: And everyone getting a question.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, if Trump is reelected, we're getting into that briefing.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: We are getting into that. January 6th.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we owe him some questions after
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: what they all did to Biden.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Newsmax guy is like, sir, can you draw
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: a clock for me? It was like that level of insulting.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: I want to see Rhodes ask a question. I want
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: to see Ira ask a question. Aaron. I want the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: whole crew. I want the whole crew asking questions.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: Ira would get pretty spicy.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. I think it would be good.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: That's what we're looking for. That's the only silver lining.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: If there's ever a Republican administration again, which of course
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: there will be.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: I just like the idea. It's like it's Aida sitting
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: next to Jim Acosta and be like, you better defend me.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: We're what I'm about to do. Why are you such
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: a bitch? We're on the same team.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: Defend me.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: You're a little fucking bitch.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: Aida fires off like three tweets about pegging. Yeah. Follow
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: up on that.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: All right. I think we've reached the end of the
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: podcast now.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Jen Psaki for joining us today. After
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: you braved Peter Doocy, you braved John Lovett. We appreciate that.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: You know who's glad he said no to this invite
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: for today?
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: Ron Klain. Ron was like, hard no.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Ron Klain had a scheduling mix-up, like Stacey Abrams in
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: the Biden speech. All right, everyone. We'll talk to you later.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Sedlin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.