Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Gene Sperling - What Biden Got Right & The Fight For Economic Dignity

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Interview Only w/ Gene Sperling - What Biden Got Right & The Fight For Economic Dignity · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: my guest today is a man who's quite literally been
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Speaker 1: in the room where it happens on and off for
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Speaker 1: over three decades of American economic He is the only
2:01
Speaker 1: person to serve as a director of the National Economic
2:03
Speaker 1: Council under two different presidents, Bill Clint and Barack Obama,
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Speaker 1: and most recently served as the White House coordinator for
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Speaker 1: the American Rescue Plan for President Biden. I'll ask him
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Speaker 1: what he did as a child staffer for Jimmy Carter's presidency.
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Speaker 1: So she's worked for every Democratic presidency in my adult lifetime.
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Speaker 1: It is Gene Sperling, and what I have him on
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Speaker 1: today is actually he's got a new gig these days.
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Speaker 1: He's the founder and executive director of what is dubbed
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Speaker 1: the Economic Dignity Lab at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy. Look,
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Speaker 1: Gene is a think tanker who's actually been a practical
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Speaker 1: government's servant as well. Sometimes you get your think tankers
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Speaker 1: who throw out white papers and ideas, and you get
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Speaker 1: your government servants who take those white paper and ideas well.
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Speaker 1: Jean's kind of been on both sides of it and
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Speaker 1: is one of the few people I know that while
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Speaker 1: he's wonky, he also understands campaign politics and that is
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Speaker 1: a unique breed of individual because it's not an easy
3:12
Speaker 1: thing to find. And you know, he's got the quirky
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Speaker 1: sense of humor like I like I do, and like
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Speaker 1: I like. So, mister Sperlin, good to see.
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Speaker 2: You, Thank you, Chack, thanks for having me.
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Speaker 1: In fact, I have to say I didn't know this story.
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Speaker 1: I was asking this. You know, why he's coming to
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Speaker 1: us from California and I'm here going I just think
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Speaker 1: of Gene as a d c's DC guy, and I'm
3:36
Speaker 1: going to make you quickly tell this just the shortened
3:38
Speaker 1: version of the story. You're an Angelino because of a
3:43
Speaker 1: fun little Hollywood meets politics meets real life meets your
3:48
Speaker 1: personal life. Tell us about it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you you know, you could have said I've
3:54
Speaker 2: worked for four presidents, because I had four years where
3:56
Speaker 2: I was a consultant or part time writer for Jed Bartlett,
4:00
Speaker 2: the president on the NBC TV show The West Wing.
4:05
Speaker 2: But yes, the fact I'm coming from you in Santa
4:08
Speaker 2: Monica or that seems to be my main residence right now,
4:13
Speaker 2: does not feel comfortable to me. I grew up in
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Speaker 2: ann Arbor, Michigan. We only came to La twice in
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Speaker 2: my youth, and both times was to watch Michigan lose
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Speaker 2: to Southern cal in the road. And so when people
4:31
Speaker 2: ask me where I'm from, it's ann Arbor. When they
4:34
Speaker 2: ask me where I've worked, it's Washington, d C. So
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Speaker 2: it's very hard for me to kind of acknowledge that
4:40
Speaker 2: I just happened to be here. But the story was
4:44
Speaker 2: is that when I got done with Clinton, I'd gotten
4:47
Speaker 2: to know some of the people on the TV show
4:49
Speaker 2: West Wing. I really dug in. I worked on a
4:52
Speaker 2: really good story and I sent it in and they
4:55
Speaker 2: asked me to do an interview. I went out to
4:58
Speaker 2: LA and it just happened to be Hey, where Aaron
5:02
Speaker 2: Sorkin couldn't meet with me because he had a little
5:05
Speaker 2: legal trouble in an airport. But they set up a
5:11
Speaker 2: meeting for me with all the writers in the commissary.
5:13
Speaker 2: It's very exciting. You walk in. There's guys from Er
5:16
Speaker 2: walking around.
5:17
Speaker 1: Now it is the old The studio commissaries truly are
5:23
Speaker 1: Star Wars bar scenes. You never know who you're gonna
5:25
Speaker 1: run into.
5:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, just going through at the beginning, through the gate,
5:29
Speaker 2: you think of blazing saddles and them crashing through. So
5:33
Speaker 2: I go there. I introduced myself. First person on the
5:37
Speaker 2: left is name Alison Abner. She's just starting her second
5:42
Speaker 2: year writing for the West Wing, and I say hello,
5:45
Speaker 2: and what the heck? We got married. We've been together
5:49
Speaker 2: twenty five years, so I've been you know, I've been
5:54
Speaker 2: a bicoastal you know, spouse, and that means we've probably
6:00
Speaker 2: lived about a third of the time in DC, a
6:03
Speaker 2: third of the time in Santa Monica and a third
6:06
Speaker 2: of the time, including the entire Biden White House, I
6:09
Speaker 2: commuted back and forth every single week, even more than
6:14
Speaker 2: a California member of Congress.
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Speaker 1: Would you are it allows you mess? Uh? You know,
6:22
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if that's a good thing
6:23
Speaker 1: or a bad thing about showing off in a life.
6:26
Speaker 1: If you've hit all these great statuses on airplanes, it
6:30
Speaker 1: means you're never at home.
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Speaker 2: No, you know. For me, what it's about is I
6:36
Speaker 2: work like crazy on planes so that every moment I'm home,
6:42
Speaker 2: I can be with my family. So I'd say the
6:46
Speaker 2: only time this whole thing was unbelievably painful was my
6:51
Speaker 2: third year with President Obama. My wife had gone back
6:55
Speaker 2: to start restarter her TV writing career. My son graduated
6:58
Speaker 2: from high school, and I had about ten months where
7:02
Speaker 2: I was commuting back and forth, and my daughter was
7:05
Speaker 2: like seven or eight, and I used to get in
7:07
Speaker 2: the car and just cry sometimes. But this last time,
7:12
Speaker 2: thanks to zoom and other things I didn't have, you know,
7:15
Speaker 2: you could kind of be half there, half here. And
7:18
Speaker 2: my daughter was sixteen seventeen and eighteen, and everybody knows
7:22
Speaker 2: at sixteen seventeen and eighteen. They're not dying for you
7:25
Speaker 2: to be there in their face every single night. So
7:28
Speaker 2: if that part was okay.
7:30
Speaker 1: Let me I want to dispense with one thing about
7:34
Speaker 1: West Wind. I have been people always assume I love
7:38
Speaker 1: the show, and I always say, you know what, I've
7:39
Speaker 1: never I've never watched a full season, and let me
7:42
Speaker 1: tell you why, gee, and you can tell me and
7:45
Speaker 1: tell me why I'm wrong, because I know you're going
7:48
Speaker 1: to be a defender, and I mean this, It's not
7:50
Speaker 1: as if I've seen quite a few episodes and they're
7:55
Speaker 1: really good and they're really interesting. Don't get me wrong,
7:58
Speaker 1: but I always found him more unrealistic than realistic. And
8:04
Speaker 1: what I always hated was when people say, why can't
8:06
Speaker 1: it be done like it was on West Wing? And
8:08
Speaker 1: I'm like, because west Wing was never you know, and
8:12
Speaker 1: I've had this argument. I've actually I got arguments a
8:15
Speaker 1: wrong word, a strong word, A debate with mister Sorkin
8:20
Speaker 1: where because he did it with Newsroom too, where he's
8:23
Speaker 1: creating a utopia of what could be if you had
8:27
Speaker 1: a year to prepare for every news cycle, for instance
8:30
Speaker 1: in Newsroom, or you had five years of historical context
8:34
Speaker 1: to then figure out how to have done it. So
8:38
Speaker 1: and perhaps I'm like too jaded because I'm old hotline guy.
8:42
Speaker 2: Right, you're too jaded because you're old hotline.
8:45
Speaker 1: I understand that. Tell me make the best case for
8:48
Speaker 1: somebody today of why West Wing actually is emblematic of
8:52
Speaker 1: how governing works well.
8:56
Speaker 2: Listen, It's hard for me to think about the current
8:58
Speaker 2: White House and how it functions well, but I would
9:01
Speaker 2: say that if that for looked at the last couple
9:04
Speaker 2: administrations and the years of Republican administrations before that, I
9:09
Speaker 2: really do feel that there is a core truth in
9:13
Speaker 2: the West Wing, which that the people there who are
9:21
Speaker 2: there are privileged to be there, really are there to
9:25
Speaker 2: do good for the world, but they're in a very
9:28
Speaker 2: highly toxic and political environment. And so I think the
9:32
Speaker 2: way that West Wing is more realistic than some of
9:34
Speaker 2: the other you know, Scandal and other shows out there,
9:38
Speaker 2: is that those shows tend to show people who are
9:41
Speaker 2: only there to self deal to corrupt things. And I
9:47
Speaker 2: think what the West Wing did show was a group
9:50
Speaker 2: of people who were trying to do something idealistic, but
9:56
Speaker 2: they're in a very very political environment. And if you're
9:59
Speaker 2: not political political and you don't deal with those issues
10:03
Speaker 2: you don't do well. I think what makes me sad
10:06
Speaker 2: a little bit is I spent a long time telling
10:10
Speaker 2: people that that's the way white Houses really were. I'm
10:13
Speaker 2: not quite so sure that the West Wing is an
10:16
Speaker 2: accurate perception of the current White House.
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Speaker 1: West Wing or Veep, who portrays staffers best.
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Speaker 2: Well, I liked Veep too because I think Veep. I mean,
10:29
Speaker 2: of course, in Veep, nobody's really a good guy, but
10:33
Speaker 2: it's meant as a satire.
10:35
Speaker 1: It's meant I guess, I mean.
10:39
Speaker 2: It's showing the real conflicts people are dealing with from
10:42
Speaker 2: a kind of cynical point of view. But I still
10:46
Speaker 2: really enjoyed that. I enjoyed the other shows too. I
10:50
Speaker 2: just used to not like when people would kind of
10:54
Speaker 2: think that that was more realistic than the West Wing.
10:58
Speaker 1: Well, I hate when people say politics is like house
11:00
Speaker 1: of cards.
11:01
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, it's stop.
11:03
Speaker 1: Right, Like, I'm like stop, that is not and that
11:06
Speaker 1: would so that's where I always get I you know,
11:10
Speaker 1: I would vacinate that. Then then again, like you know,
11:16
Speaker 1: I can watch a few Good Men two thousand times,
11:18
Speaker 1: and I probably watched it two thousand times, So it's
11:21
Speaker 1: not that I don't love a good. Aaron Sorkin script,
11:24
Speaker 1: that's for sure. I mean, the man is a genius
11:26
Speaker 1: television writer. There's no doubt about it.
11:28
Speaker 2: When it comes to dialogue, all right, whenever I see Aaron,
11:31
Speaker 2: he's he asked me how how my wife Allison is doing?
11:35
Speaker 2: And I say, we're still together. And he says the
11:38
Speaker 2: two lasting things of the West Wing residual checks and
11:42
Speaker 2: gene and Allison's marriage.
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Speaker 1: By the way, right when HBO Max was going to
11:47
Speaker 1: get rid of it, there was like an uproar and
11:49
Speaker 1: it reminded people, so it kept the checks coming, right.
11:53
Speaker 2: It really is. One thing I really will say is
11:56
Speaker 2: the number of people who I've seen actually go into
11:59
Speaker 2: public service. I mean, famously Cody Keenan.
12:02
Speaker 1: Who well, you're right, who watched it in it like
12:05
Speaker 1: inspired them to do it.
12:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think, you know, I don't think
12:09
Speaker 2: it was a TV show for me, but I think
12:12
Speaker 2: you would see, you know, I'd see people huddled around
12:16
Speaker 2: RFK when I was a kid in sixty eight, and
12:20
Speaker 2: you know, I think sometimes you know that perception that
12:23
Speaker 2: that's something positive, that you can do good things, that
12:26
Speaker 2: you don't have to be the candidate to make a difference,
12:29
Speaker 2: and help people's lives or fight for justice. I think
12:32
Speaker 2: it's a positive thing and it's still pretty influential on
12:35
Speaker 2: a lot of college campuses around the country.
12:38
Speaker 1: Right, it has had a lot of staying power. Have
12:43
Speaker 1: you how serious have reboots been thrown around?
12:50
Speaker 2: I think it's more people toying with people. I mean,
12:55
Speaker 2: you know, I stay in touch with Brad Whitford in
12:57
Speaker 2: Delay Hill, and I did run in and I get
13:00
Speaker 2: to see Aaron Sorkin and Martin when we did a
13:05
Speaker 2: twenty fifth anniversary celebration at the White House. But I
13:10
Speaker 2: think there was once where I kind of was like, hey, guys,
13:13
Speaker 2: if this happens and I'm out of government, remember me.
13:16
Speaker 2: And I kind of got the word back. Now we're
13:19
Speaker 2: we're just toying with you, but we'll see.
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Speaker 1: Before I get to what you're working on. Because I think, look,
13:26
Speaker 1: I think and we've been I think we were in
13:28
Speaker 1: a room together not too long ago. I think AI
13:30
Speaker 1: job displacement is going to drive political debates fear of
13:36
Speaker 1: AI job displacement over the next decade. Whether it hits
13:39
Speaker 1: is another story. Right, there's the fear of it and
13:42
Speaker 1: then there's the actual fear is going to drive a
13:45
Speaker 1: lot of political particularly in twenty twenty eight. So I
13:47
Speaker 1: want to get to that. But before we get to that,
13:50
Speaker 1: what's the state of the economy. What do you look
13:52
Speaker 1: at on a week to week basis to give your
13:56
Speaker 1: bit to what touchstones do you look at to determine
14:00
Speaker 1: whether this is a good economy, a bad economy, or
14:04
Speaker 1: a shaky economy.
14:06
Speaker 2: So I think there's moments where you pretty much know
14:09
Speaker 2: what you're looking for. Things are pretty clear, even if
14:13
Speaker 2: you don't know what the exact narrative how it's going
14:16
Speaker 2: to turn out, you know what the narrative is. This
14:19
Speaker 2: is a little bit of a tricky time. I think
14:22
Speaker 2: that what you were looking for after the kind of
14:26
Speaker 2: worst of the post pandemic supply chain shocks and global
14:31
Speaker 2: inflation was you were looking for what everybody called the
14:35
Speaker 2: soft landing, and what that meant was that we would
14:38
Speaker 2: be able to return to more of a normal, stable economy.
14:44
Speaker 2: So the Biden economy had amazing job growth, incredibly low unemployment,
14:49
Speaker 2: but there was also high inflation. And you know, people
14:55
Speaker 2: will fight forever, people like myself will say it was global,
14:59
Speaker 2: it was every where. It didn't wasn't really a factor
15:02
Speaker 2: of Biden policies. But whatever you thought the cause was,
15:06
Speaker 2: people wanted to see that soft landing. So what's interesting
15:12
Speaker 2: is that you've had pretty close to what people hope for.
15:18
Speaker 2: So when you had high inflation, you can remember that
15:23
Speaker 2: Larry Summers famously said, Oh, the only way you're going
15:27
Speaker 2: to bring this down is to have ten percent unemployment
15:31
Speaker 2: or two years of seven and a half percent unemployment
15:34
Speaker 2: or five years of six percent. Well that didn't happen.
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Speaker 2: So the good news was that we've been able to
15:41
Speaker 2: so far avoid a you know, avoid caming inflation inflation
15:50
Speaker 2: only in a Paul Voker sense of well, I was.
15:52
Speaker 1: Just gonna say, let me let let's put a pause
15:54
Speaker 1: before you jump to that part. Doesn't this reinforce not
16:00
Speaker 1: a belief anymore? But is this now a confirmation that
16:04
Speaker 1: this was essentially COVID related, COVID inspired, COVID driven, and
16:12
Speaker 1: because we had the artificial stoppage and then and then
16:16
Speaker 1: suddenly it's sort of like kinking a hose and then
16:18
Speaker 1: I'm kicking it and a surge of product and a
16:21
Speaker 1: surge of money, and a surge of this. You know,
16:23
Speaker 1: as fast as it went up is as fast as
16:25
Speaker 1: it went down. The fact that it didn't take ten
16:30
Speaker 1: percent interest rates and it didn't take ten percent unemployment.
16:35
Speaker 1: Is that now confirmation for you that this was global
16:38
Speaker 1: and ninety five percent COVID?
16:41
Speaker 2: I think for me it is. I think it is
16:43
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. I think it's hard to have,
16:47
Speaker 2: you know, this easy objective conversation because one, there's so
16:50
Speaker 2: much politics involved, and you know, there's such a desire
16:56
Speaker 2: for the current administration to blame the last administration. There's
17:00
Speaker 2: so many people on the Democratic side that are just
17:02
Speaker 2: disappointed that Joe Biden lost and that people ignored people
17:09
Speaker 2: were so unhappy about prices. So there's so much political debate.
17:15
Speaker 2: But you know, I do think that for a lot
17:18
Speaker 2: of people, I cited an article Mark Zandy from Moody's,
17:22
Speaker 2: Peter orzag Our, former O and B director, and others
17:26
Speaker 2: who definitely feel that the fact that this came down
17:32
Speaker 2: without engineering a recession was evidence that this was overall
17:40
Speaker 2: globally inspired, pandemic related supply shot chain that said people
17:48
Speaker 2: will still debate the American rescue plan, and I don't
17:53
Speaker 2: think there's I think politically you'll hear Republicans now say,
17:57
Speaker 2: oh my god, everything that happened you know bad was
18:01
Speaker 2: due to Joe biden American Rescue Plant. That's clearly not true. Clearly,
18:06
Speaker 2: the American Rescue Plan had some very good effects in
18:09
Speaker 2: making US the leader and growth in the G seven, lower,
18:12
Speaker 2: unemployment less scarring long term negative impacts. But people will
18:19
Speaker 2: debate the inflation impact, and I think that the reasonable
18:23
Speaker 2: debate says, hey, maybe it led to inflation here being
18:27
Speaker 2: a point or a point half higher than it would
18:30
Speaker 2: have been, but it had these good parts. And I'd
18:33
Speaker 2: say the people who are most critical would say, no,
18:35
Speaker 2: it's more like three points higher. But I think you
18:39
Speaker 2: and I both know that in twenty twenty two, after
18:42
Speaker 2: Putin invaded Ukraine, you know, inflation almost everywhere in the
18:48
Speaker 2: world was seven eight nine percent, regardless of whether people
18:54
Speaker 2: had done a major fiscal stimulus. And you also saw
18:57
Speaker 2: every head of state did poorly everywhere in the world.
19:02
Speaker 1: Now, that could be an antim.
19:05
Speaker 2: A reincumbent, you know, an incumbent in that setting, but
19:10
Speaker 2: you know, for me, I think it is you know,
19:13
Speaker 2: I think the fact that inflation went up everywhere and
19:15
Speaker 2: the way it came down, you know, it does confirm
19:19
Speaker 2: that this was not fundamentally about fiscal policy. But about
19:23
Speaker 2: the pandemic. But again, to be fair to some of
19:26
Speaker 2: the people who disagree with me, they would say, you know,
19:29
Speaker 2: it's a more nuanced analysis.
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22:27
Speaker 1: from now. In an economics class, that might look at
22:32
Speaker 1: a couple of case studies about what you do in
22:36
Speaker 1: a in an economic crisis. Either one that's directly about
22:41
Speaker 1: the economy, like what we had with the housing crisis
22:44
Speaker 1: and the Great Recession, or something like COVID which sort
22:47
Speaker 1: of impacted the global economy. One of the things that
22:52
Speaker 1: my simple hot take has always been, we had two
22:55
Speaker 1: choices with COVID. We either had inflation or recession, and
23:02
Speaker 1: if we didn't throw money, If we had handled COVID
23:05
Speaker 1: the way we'd handled the housing crisis, which is to
23:10
Speaker 1: be fiscally a bit small sea conservative about how much
23:13
Speaker 1: money we threw at the issue, we probably prevent inflation,
23:18
Speaker 1: but we might have had a massive recession. The less
23:22
Speaker 1: I've always felt is if that COVID, coming just within
23:25
Speaker 1: a decade of the Great Recession, sort of got everybody thinking, hey,
23:30
Speaker 1: we better if we're not sure, throw a little bit
23:32
Speaker 1: more money at it. Let's not underfund, let's overfund. Do
23:37
Speaker 1: you think fifty years from now, That's how we'll look
23:39
Speaker 1: at those two events. And it's sort of when it
23:41
Speaker 1: comes to government intervention, the economic crisis, the Great Recession
23:45
Speaker 1: will always be seen as an example of government not
23:48
Speaker 1: doing enough, and COVID will be seeing as an example
23:52
Speaker 1: of when government does a little too much. I know
23:56
Speaker 1: I'm being very I'm asking for a black and white
23:58
Speaker 1: hot take on something that be incredibly it's generally speaking, I've.
24:03
Speaker 2: Actually written on this exact topic. I wrote in the
24:07
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal a while ago on the lessons learned argument.
24:11
Speaker 2: And I think people will debate this. I think that
24:16
Speaker 2: there's kind of a will be you know. I think
24:19
Speaker 2: some people will make it a more simple argument of
24:24
Speaker 2: you know, but even then there's a question of lessons
24:26
Speaker 2: learned or lessons overlearned. So the lessons over learned argument
24:32
Speaker 2: was one you did too little in the financial crisis.
24:38
Speaker 2: I don't think by the way that was by intent
24:41
Speaker 2: by President Obama as someone there. I just think you
24:44
Speaker 2: couldn't get it, couldn't get to politically.
24:46
Speaker 1: Look by the way in fairness politically it will I mean,
24:50
Speaker 1: you couldn't cross that that number. It had to be under.
24:54
Speaker 2: A true exactly. You know. There was sometimes people think
24:57
Speaker 2: there was just debate, but I do that there was
25:02
Speaker 2: also a sense in two thousand and eight, two thousand
25:06
Speaker 2: and nine that if you were wrong, maybe you could
25:09
Speaker 2: come back and get more. And I think one of
25:12
Speaker 2: the lessons that was learned there was, hey, you may
25:17
Speaker 2: only get one shot, so you might go bigger because
25:23
Speaker 2: you may not get another shot. Two is the insurance policy.
25:30
Speaker 2: Other things might happen, like who would have predicted Putin
25:35
Speaker 2: was going to invade Ukraine. As you remember, in the
25:38
Speaker 2: financial crisis, there was the Greece in eure a financial crisis.
25:42
Speaker 2: So another argument is put a little extra because there
25:46
Speaker 2: might be unknowns that are going to slow you down
25:50
Speaker 2: even more. One lesson I really think we learned well
25:55
Speaker 2: was that when you don't do enough right away, there's
25:58
Speaker 2: a lot of long term suffering that takes place, long
26:02
Speaker 2: term unemployment, young people who couldn't get into the job
26:06
Speaker 2: market for four or five years. Economists actually have a
26:09
Speaker 2: phrase that makes sense. They call it scarring, and it's right.
26:13
Speaker 2: What it means is they didn't These people didn't just
26:16
Speaker 2: suffer for a year or two. Their lifetime earnings were changed.
26:21
Speaker 2: Their rates of divorce and alcoholism and suicide or deaths
26:25
Speaker 2: of despair were changed. So one good lesson learned was
26:30
Speaker 2: that in this financial crisis you had a lot of
26:34
Speaker 2: strength right away and so you didn't get the long
26:36
Speaker 2: term unemployment. We had a policy that actually prevented millions
26:41
Speaker 2: of people from being evicted. So I think on the
26:44
Speaker 2: whole the argument will be that the American Rescue Plan
26:50
Speaker 2: did properly learn the lessons. The counter will be, well,
26:55
Speaker 2: but maybe you overlearned by doing a little bit too much.
26:59
Speaker 2: And that's the people who will argue that the American
27:02
Speaker 2: Rescue Plan, even if it wasn't the cause of all
27:06
Speaker 2: the inflation or even most of inflation, kind of added
27:09
Speaker 2: to it. And that's where I think you will continue
27:12
Speaker 2: to have the debates where people like myself will say,
27:16
Speaker 2: and probably Jared Bernstein would say, and Peter orzagnersay, didn't
27:20
Speaker 2: have that much, but my friend Jason Furman would say,
27:24
Speaker 2: you know, you should have done a bit more. I
27:26
Speaker 2: do think what will happen going forward, Chuck, from now
27:29
Speaker 2: on is that I do think you had an entire
27:32
Speaker 2: generation of people who had never seen significant inflation. And
27:37
Speaker 2: so I'm not.
27:38
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's one hundred percent right. Like I you know,
27:40
Speaker 1: I would sit there and say, I had a memory
27:42
Speaker 1: of my of my parents excited when interest rates got
27:47
Speaker 1: from win from double digits to single digits. So I
27:50
Speaker 1: had at least remembered that era and of the era
27:53
Speaker 1: of the late seventies and early eighties, and it did.
27:56
Speaker 1: I mean, we were one of those working class families
27:59
Speaker 1: that we couldn't afford a house until the interest rates
28:02
Speaker 1: finally got to I think it was just under nine percent,
28:05
Speaker 1: and we could finally get into a house exactly. That
28:09
Speaker 1: was a big deal.
28:11
Speaker 2: Four. When Reagan runs on mourning in America, things really
28:16
Speaker 2: aren't very good inflation.
28:18
Speaker 1: They were better than they were.
28:20
Speaker 2: That's the key it had. People remembered things being bad
28:24
Speaker 2: for so long that when it improved, Reagan got lots
28:29
Speaker 2: of credit. And what hurt President Biden is that even
28:32
Speaker 2: when inflation came down, people still remembered beef and milk
28:38
Speaker 2: and cheese and eggs being lower. And so I do
28:42
Speaker 2: think that even though I don't believe the American Rescue
28:46
Speaker 2: Plan was the cause of most or even the significant
28:51
Speaker 2: amount of the inflation, do I think that next time
28:54
Speaker 2: around people will think about it more, or worry a
28:57
Speaker 2: little bit, or do the balance more. Yes, because they've
29:01
Speaker 2: now lived through a world where they saw President Biden
29:05
Speaker 2: do what you and I would have predicted would have
29:08
Speaker 2: been a winning hand going into twenty four, which was
29:12
Speaker 2: inflation coming down under three percent, record low unemployment, and
29:18
Speaker 2: all of those things were dwarfed by people's unhappiness with
29:24
Speaker 2: everyday prices that they went to the grocery store and
29:28
Speaker 2: saw and that is both a politic that's an economic lesson,
29:32
Speaker 2: but it's also going to be a political lesson for
29:35
Speaker 2: I think a generation.
29:37
Speaker 1: I mean, what the seventies taught me and especially now
29:39
Speaker 1: looking in hindsight, is that inflation is nonpartisan, or inflation
29:43
Speaker 1: is bipartisan, however you want to say it. In this respect,
29:46
Speaker 1: inflation took down three presidents, Right, Richard Nixon loses support
29:52
Speaker 1: among Republicans. People always forget this. If the economy is better,
29:55
Speaker 1: Nixon fights harder and Republicans probably fight on his behalf
29:58
Speaker 1: and maybe, but you know, the bad economy was was
30:02
Speaker 1: a secret sauce in that that made it easier to
30:05
Speaker 1: dump him. Forward. Look at the end of the day, right,
30:09
Speaker 1: you know, whip inflation now that terrible you know slogan
30:13
Speaker 1: he had wi n win Whip inflation Now that didn't work.
30:17
Speaker 1: And then Carter you know, one because of it and
30:19
Speaker 1: then immediately lost because of it. So the point is
30:22
Speaker 1: is that it was a reminder that the American public
30:25
Speaker 1: just focuses on what's in front of them, not what
30:28
Speaker 1: not always what what was, it's what is, and inflation
30:33
Speaker 1: is one of those what is or the other.
30:34
Speaker 2: Thing too is that if you're preventing, if you have
30:39
Speaker 2: greater job growth, lower unemployment, those things are good and important.
30:44
Speaker 2: They don't affect everybody, you know, the inflation does. Now.
30:48
Speaker 2: One thing you and I did know politically was we
30:51
Speaker 2: did know that gas prices have a disproportionate impact on
30:56
Speaker 2: presidential approval.
30:58
Speaker 1: Well that and that also is a scar from the
31:00
Speaker 1: seventies and gas lines and I mean, my those are
31:05
Speaker 1: bright memories for me, right, but I think what.
31:09
Speaker 2: Was learned in twenty three and twenty four was that
31:13
Speaker 2: it's not gas prices per se, it's everyday prices that
31:19
Speaker 2: somebody is confronted with on a week by week basis.
31:23
Speaker 2: And so even though inflation's coming down, even though the
31:27
Speaker 2: job market is good, people are going through the grocery
31:30
Speaker 2: line or the gas line and they're not happy. And
31:35
Speaker 2: that's hitting a much wider number of people. And the
31:38
Speaker 2: other thing that's interesting is, I mean you could say
31:43
Speaker 2: it's American, but you could also say we learned its global.
31:47
Speaker 2: You can't name one incumbent head of state in the
31:52
Speaker 2: post pandemic period that did very well, not a single one.
31:58
Speaker 2: And so you know, I think I think it's an
32:00
Speaker 2: unusual combination of inflation all the strains of the pandemic,
32:07
Speaker 2: but it's kind of you know, one thing you can't
32:10
Speaker 2: do is say if only Joe Biden had done like
32:13
Speaker 2: incumbent x or Y had done. There are no ones.
32:16
Speaker 2: So that again does suggest that the kind of unhappiness
32:22
Speaker 2: of people dealing with everyday price is going higher. And
32:26
Speaker 2: it's what makes things so puzzling about President Trump is
32:30
Speaker 2: that he now has seen all these things happen. He's
32:35
Speaker 2: learned this lesson. He's got the benefit of hindsight, and
32:40
Speaker 2: this is a point people never make, but they need
32:43
Speaker 2: to when he comes in. Not only is inflation a
32:46
Speaker 2: little under three percent, every major forecaster in the country
32:51
Speaker 2: is projecting it's going down to two percent. So I
32:54
Speaker 2: think a lot of people on like the Bien Economic team,
32:57
Speaker 2: are like, boy, bad luck for us. Our soft landing
33:01
Speaker 2: is on its way, and it's going to land because
33:04
Speaker 2: of the hard work we did.
33:06
Speaker 1: With President time in a row that Trump inherit's a
33:08
Speaker 1: healing economy from a democratic president, right.
33:10
Speaker 2: I know. And then he goes out of his way
33:12
Speaker 2: to ignore every political lesson and put tariffs on everyday products.
33:19
Speaker 2: So That's why I've said before. You know, when they
33:21
Speaker 2: say it's the Biden economy, I say, no, it's the
33:24
Speaker 2: self inflicted wound economy. You could have just done nothing
33:28
Speaker 2: and coasted on the Biden economy. You've gone out of
33:31
Speaker 2: your way to keep inflation not just higher, but in
33:35
Speaker 2: a lot of those everyday products. That makes people so unhappy.
33:42
Speaker 1: There is I'm curious your take on whether it is.
33:45
Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't think it's fair that service for
33:49
Speaker 1: the in the Biden white House might be seen as
33:51
Speaker 1: a demerit if you run for president. But what do
33:53
Speaker 1: you make of this issue for Pete Budet?
33:57
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think, yeah, I think it's a
34:01
Speaker 2: long ways to go. And you know, I'm like you,
34:05
Speaker 2: I'm an addict, so I a political you know, I'm
34:08
Speaker 2: as much of a so I follow it. But I
34:15
Speaker 2: think it's a long ways a way. I do think
34:19
Speaker 2: that I do think that that people are you know,
34:25
Speaker 2: I think the debate that happened in the Biden White
34:28
Speaker 2: House and where some of us might have different views,
34:32
Speaker 2: has been greatly exaggerated. It's as if like President Biden
34:36
Speaker 2: didn't care about affordability. Of course he was running, you know,
34:41
Speaker 2: He was the one who did the prescription drugs, you know,
34:46
Speaker 2: bring down prescription drugs and key things. He was the
34:49
Speaker 2: one focusing on lowering electricity and energy prices. Our whole
34:54
Speaker 2: we had a major childcare initiative, which, even as you
34:58
Speaker 2: saw with may Or Mundami, one of the key issues.
35:02
Speaker 2: So I think people are wrong to think there wasn't
35:05
Speaker 2: affordability focus. I think what it really came down to,
35:09
Speaker 2: and maybe where I sometimes had a little bit of
35:11
Speaker 2: a different view, was that I did get my political
35:14
Speaker 2: upbringing with Bill Clinton. And Bill Clinton was known as
35:19
Speaker 2: the feel you're paying guy, and there's truth to that.
35:22
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton told me in my first few months in
35:25
Speaker 2: the White House when I was writing the statements from him,
35:30
Speaker 2: he said, never write a statement that wouldn't seem right
35:34
Speaker 2: to somebody in one of the thirty worst economic counties.
35:40
Speaker 2: That so, in other words, stay connected and touched first.
35:45
Speaker 2: I think what happened with Biden was there was a
35:48
Speaker 2: conflict between that and the saying, hey, if you don't
35:52
Speaker 2: put forward your best foot, nobody would so wrong.
35:55
Speaker 1: It was the wrong lesson learned from Trump. I think
35:58
Speaker 1: there's a there's a there's a it's interesting you say
36:01
Speaker 1: that there's a chunk of Democrats who think, hey, the
36:06
Speaker 1: lesson to learn from Trump is bullshit, like he does.
36:10
Speaker 2: No, I think, you know, look, I'm very I defend
36:14
Speaker 2: a lot of the things we've done, and I realized
36:17
Speaker 2: things are hard choices. I do think we probably could
36:20
Speaker 2: have done a better job of starting by recognizing people's
36:27
Speaker 2: unhappiness and then try to and then connecting, try to
36:32
Speaker 2: explain why we're doing things to do better. But I
36:35
Speaker 2: will say, Chuck that you know, at the time, there
36:39
Speaker 2: were lots of smart political people who were saying, why
36:44
Speaker 2: aren't you guys bragging about record job growth enough? Why
36:47
Speaker 2: aren't you bragging if the president doesn't do that? So
36:51
Speaker 2: I will say, but I will agree that I think
36:55
Speaker 2: we could have maybe focused more on first, you know, connect, Hey,
37:00
Speaker 2: we're not happy prices are up. Explain to people that
37:04
Speaker 2: we're doing everything we can explain why we want to pass.
37:07
Speaker 2: But start more from the basis of a little bit
37:12
Speaker 2: of Clintonian feel your pain. But I don't think that
37:15
Speaker 2: should be confused with the idea that Joe Biden wasn't
37:20
Speaker 2: out there fighting for a child tax credit, which gave
37:23
Speaker 2: people a few thousand dollars more in their pocket, fighting
37:26
Speaker 2: for lower healthcare costs. I think criticisms of like, you know,
37:32
Speaker 2: I think people who want to show their new and
37:35
Speaker 2: change oriented are going to probably pick some holes at
37:40
Speaker 2: Biden alum in the primaries. That's kind of basic politics.
37:45
Speaker 2: But I think in the end people will have a
37:47
Speaker 2: time chance to say what they could do and what
37:51
Speaker 2: they could and the truth was, Joe Biden had the
37:55
Speaker 2: tiniest of margins. So like on a Biparson infrastructure bill.
38:00
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine what imagine what your job would have
38:02
Speaker 1: been like had it been a Republican Senate with a
38:05
Speaker 1: Democratic House, which was the most likely scenario before the
38:08
Speaker 1: Georgia Rubbins. No.
38:10
Speaker 2: So we got a lot of good things done, but
38:12
Speaker 2: when those things got done, you couldn't always do them
38:15
Speaker 2: exactly like you want, So you couldn't like necessarily get
38:20
Speaker 2: everything out the door as fast as you wanted or
38:24
Speaker 2: things like that. But you know, again, we've got a
38:28
Speaker 2: lot there's gonna be a lot of primary candidates. They're
38:30
Speaker 2: going to take a lot of shots at each other.
38:33
Speaker 2: I tend to like and know most of the people
38:36
Speaker 2: that people are talking about, So I'm looking at people
38:39
Speaker 2: I basically admire and I'm kind of like sitting back
38:43
Speaker 2: and kind of watching like I'm Chuck Todd, wanting to
38:46
Speaker 2: see who's good, who's effective.
38:48
Speaker 1: Well, the most likely what's the most likely scenario of
38:51
Speaker 1: one of them? When's the presidency? Jean Spurley's going to
38:54
Speaker 1: go work for.
38:56
Speaker 2: I will say that from a family perspective, for me
39:00
Speaker 2: to go out with that would be both you know,
39:03
Speaker 2: from a human perspective, would be arrogant to suggest that
39:07
Speaker 2: you know somebody would want you again, and from a
39:09
Speaker 2: family perspective forecasting that would probably not do well for me.
39:16
Speaker 2: Right now, we're focused on the upsides of not being
39:20
Speaker 2: in the government.
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43:08
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43:12
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Speaker 1: just some sort of anger driven political movement, or is
43:42
Speaker 1: there a chance for somebody to, you know, for this
43:46
Speaker 1: not to end up down that road, Like I think
43:49
Speaker 1: it's we're inevitably going to go there. We're gonna have
43:51
Speaker 1: to have this moment that we end up there. Maybe
43:54
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like the first part of the
43:56
Speaker 1: twentieth century, but there really is sort of almost a
43:58
Speaker 1: revolt against some of these folks here because of the frustrations,
44:03
Speaker 1: and it will be this sort of white collar blue
44:05
Speaker 1: collar a mix. But maybe I'm wrong, and maybe AI
44:12
Speaker 1: is more like what you know, computers in everyday life
44:16
Speaker 1: turned into increased productivity and all boats rows.
44:20
Speaker 2: So you know, I've never been somebody you know who
44:23
Speaker 2: like starts running to a camp, you know, when I see,
44:27
Speaker 2: you know, like with a policy tribe, because I often
44:31
Speaker 2: don't think that it's helpful in finding what's good economic
44:35
Speaker 2: policy or even what's good economic message to think like
44:39
Speaker 2: you have to be in a single camp or the other.
44:42
Speaker 2: So of course I run into people who feel like,
44:45
Speaker 2: oh my god, everything we need does has to sound
44:49
Speaker 2: kind of quote centrist or practical, and then other side
44:53
Speaker 2: who are saying no, every single thing needs to be
44:56
Speaker 2: populist anger, I don't know that the world looks like that.
45:01
Speaker 2: I would say that to me, You've got to do
45:04
Speaker 2: maybe two things together, which is one, you do need
45:08
Speaker 2: to be an optimist about people's lives. You do need
45:12
Speaker 2: to show that you want to see more people meet
45:20
Speaker 2: the American dream, not just tread water, but get ahead
45:24
Speaker 2: and maybe own a house, have a little nest stake
45:27
Speaker 2: for their retirement. You need that optimism and positive view.
45:33
Speaker 2: And I do think that presidents who've done well have
45:38
Speaker 2: done that and so. But on the other hand, I
45:41
Speaker 2: don't think you can hold back when there's clear economic injustice.
45:47
Speaker 2: I don't know that Americans are, you know, have a
45:51
Speaker 2: I'm against you know, business or corporate America. I think
45:56
Speaker 2: they understand that that's where a lot of jobs and
45:58
Speaker 2: growth come. But they are against when they think the
46:02
Speaker 2: system is rigged, or when a bottom line that affects
46:07
Speaker 2: a chosen few is doing is more important than your
46:13
Speaker 2: lives and your struggle. So I think you need to
46:18
Speaker 2: I think what we need is to have a degree
46:21
Speaker 2: of optimism that we are the ones who can be
46:23
Speaker 2: good for the economy. We are the ones that can
46:26
Speaker 2: help you get ahead, and that doesn't mean being down
46:30
Speaker 2: on everybody who's a major job creator. But on the
46:33
Speaker 2: other hand, people don't believe people who believe in markets
46:39
Speaker 2: and capitalism, which I think is most Americans still believe
46:43
Speaker 2: that the ultimate purpose of what they do is not
46:47
Speaker 2: big bonuses for the CEO or just extracting profits for shareholders.
46:53
Speaker 2: They think, as I've written about in my book in
46:57
Speaker 2: the past and now, they think that the ultimate goal,
47:00
Speaker 2: rightly is does it benefit typical people? Does it provide
47:05
Speaker 2: economic dignity? And so when they see people doing things
47:10
Speaker 2: that are just about extracting profits from them, when they
47:15
Speaker 2: see a kind of economic policy that is not geared
47:18
Speaker 2: towards creating more jobs, good jobs, jobs with dignity, jobs
47:23
Speaker 2: with respect, then they're going to be angry. And I
47:26
Speaker 2: think it is okay to tap into that anger. And
47:28
Speaker 2: I think it is okay to say I believe in
47:32
Speaker 2: our American market based system, but the goal of that
47:36
Speaker 2: market based system is ultimately the well being and economic
47:41
Speaker 2: dignity of working families. And if you have a system
47:45
Speaker 2: that is rigged to benefit just the few and not
47:49
Speaker 2: typical American families, then yeah, you should be anger angry
47:53
Speaker 2: about that, and nobody running for president in the Democratic
47:57
Speaker 2: side should be hesitant in pressing that anger. And I
48:02
Speaker 2: won't just I'll take a second just to start on
48:05
Speaker 2: the AI if you want. But it's also a good
48:08
Speaker 2: example of that, you know. I mean, if you listen
48:11
Speaker 2: to people now, you might think, if you're listening to
48:14
Speaker 2: the White House, that well, AI is just going to happen,
48:18
Speaker 2: and maybe it's going to hurt a lot of jobs,
48:20
Speaker 2: and we should preempt states from trying to regulate it
48:26
Speaker 2: in any way, or make sure people have protections of
48:28
Speaker 2: privacy or against abusive surveillance, or to make sure that
48:32
Speaker 2: we're dealing with job dislocation. And the response comes by no, no, no,
48:37
Speaker 2: we have to rush, rush, rush to get more GDP
48:41
Speaker 2: and greater growth. And I think they will lose people
48:44
Speaker 2: because people will ask the question I've said, but what's
48:48
Speaker 2: the ultimate point if why would we have a policy
48:52
Speaker 2: that's not good for jobs, it's not good for the
48:56
Speaker 2: typical family. And I think that it's not maybe the
49:00
Speaker 2: front and center issue now, but I think it will be,
49:04
Speaker 2: and I think it will be part of that bigger picture,
49:06
Speaker 2: which is what is the ultimate goal of our economy,
49:10
Speaker 2: and if people think it's just to have some enormous
49:14
Speaker 2: wealth and five or six AI companies and we'll just
49:19
Speaker 2: deal with the effect on job loss and income loss
49:24
Speaker 2: as an after effect. People are going to be angry.
49:26
Speaker 2: They're going to be rightly angry. And I think people
49:29
Speaker 2: going in twenty eight will do better not to be
49:33
Speaker 2: like they're head in the sand about AI or the
49:37
Speaker 2: good things it could do. But people who are going
49:39
Speaker 2: to say, front and center, my goal is you your job,
49:44
Speaker 2: whether your children can be as well off as you are.
49:47
Speaker 2: And when I'm thinking about AI, I'm thinking that about
49:53
Speaker 2: how we shape it to serve average people. Technology is
49:57
Speaker 2: not destiny. Democracy determines our destiny.
50:04
Speaker 1: Some of the proposals that are out there about AI
50:06
Speaker 1: job displacement remind me of some of the ideas that
50:10
Speaker 1: you guys attempted to implement during sort of the the
50:15
Speaker 1: era of the nineties, the free trade era of the nineties, right,
50:18
Speaker 1: And I remember one of the central promises on NAFTA was,
50:22
Speaker 1: you know, when when if factories went away, there'd be
50:25
Speaker 1: there was always you know, there was going to be
50:26
Speaker 1: money there for retraining and job displacement. And the money
50:30
Speaker 1: was there and there was retraining, but it turned out
50:32
Speaker 1: that didn't take right. There were weren't a lot, There
50:36
Speaker 1: weren't as many people interested in some of the retraining
50:38
Speaker 1: opportunities that were offered. I don't and I'm curious what
50:42
Speaker 1: lessons you take away from that as you think about
50:46
Speaker 1: developing Frank what I assume will potentially be a policy
50:49
Speaker 1: that next a new president may may be influenced by
50:54
Speaker 1: I sort of how to manage this displacement. The displacement's
50:58
Speaker 1: going to happen. And you know, I'm I'm I am
51:01
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a capitalist. You know, I think we
51:04
Speaker 1: just want capitalism with a little bit of guardrails. And
51:07
Speaker 1: in every technology, right, this has been true of the
51:10
Speaker 1: media business, and it's true of really anything. Right, you
51:13
Speaker 1: get a new technology, there's immediately fragmentation. Maybe you get
51:17
Speaker 1: a thousand startups, and then eventually you get consolidation, and
51:20
Speaker 1: then a new technology comes and the cycle can begin
51:22
Speaker 1: all over again. Globalization, in some ways right, the idea
51:26
Speaker 1: of free trade, which of course the upside was there's
51:29
Speaker 1: not a fruit you can't get any any month of
51:32
Speaker 1: the year in America now, which was not true when
51:36
Speaker 1: you and I were growing up. It was not true
51:38
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties. But that's what free trade
51:40
Speaker 1: has done right in many ways, And that's just it's
51:43
Speaker 1: I always use I like to use produce because it's
51:45
Speaker 1: the simplest example of what free trade has meant. Like
51:49
Speaker 1: you realize that you know, you're you get to eat
51:52
Speaker 1: certain fruits year round now and back in the day
51:55
Speaker 1: you couldn't. But there was certainly right that. Arguably, the
51:59
Speaker 1: the seeds of the Trump victories of sixteen and twenty
52:05
Speaker 1: four were planted with the globalization and free trade movement
52:11
Speaker 1: of the nineties. So what policies do you now wish
52:15
Speaker 1: where it implemented better than and what parallels do you
52:20
Speaker 1: see as you think about what AI job displacement and
52:24
Speaker 1: what benefits are necessary to ease that pain.
52:27
Speaker 2: So I guess I would disagree with one of your premises,
52:31
Speaker 2: which was that.
52:32
Speaker 1: I throw a lot in there. So the fact that
52:33
Speaker 1: you only disagree with one premise maybe is a small victory.
52:37
Speaker 2: So, first of all, I think the core issue when
52:41
Speaker 2: you look back on kind of the Clinton agenda was
52:45
Speaker 2: that Bill Clinton came in with the view that you know,
52:49
Speaker 2: there was going to be greater global integration and that
52:52
Speaker 2: we really needed a robust response.
52:56
Speaker 1: And so and by the way, you guys, you know,
52:58
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity in from of you, right, we basically
53:01
Speaker 1: the end of the Cold War. This was the peace divoting.
53:05
Speaker 2: No, And I think that a lot of what he
53:08
Speaker 2: was trying to do was integrate more of the world
53:11
Speaker 2: to avoid some of the issues we're having now with
53:13
Speaker 2: Russia and China. So there was a big foreign policy element.
53:17
Speaker 2: But the vision was that you would have universal health care,
53:22
Speaker 2: there would be a major universal training program for anybody
53:27
Speaker 2: who lost a job for any reason, and then you
53:30
Speaker 2: would also have significant place based investment in places. And
53:35
Speaker 2: I think what happened with President Clinton was they didn't
53:39
Speaker 2: get that. We didn't get healthcare, and then we didn't
53:42
Speaker 2: even get to propose our universal training proposal because we
53:46
Speaker 2: lost the Congress for all six years, both houses. So
53:53
Speaker 2: I don't think that we ever got to test out
53:57
Speaker 2: what that we ever got to test out what truly
54:01
Speaker 2: having a robust safety net would be like, I don't
54:06
Speaker 2: think it ever got to be put in place in
54:09
Speaker 2: the way that it might have if Democrats had controlled
54:13
Speaker 2: both houses for four or six years. So one, I
54:16
Speaker 2: don't think we ever tested two, which is very relevant
54:20
Speaker 2: is that globalization turned out to be much more dramatic
54:24
Speaker 2: than anybody would have thought at the times. And then
54:29
Speaker 2: you had eight years of a Republican administration that wasn't
54:32
Speaker 2: really willing to adjust to that or do anything. So
54:39
Speaker 2: I guess i'd say number one, we still have just
54:44
Speaker 2: huge holes in what I think of as an economic
54:47
Speaker 2: dignity net of making sure people are working or doing
54:51
Speaker 2: their best or living lives of economic dignity even in
54:54
Speaker 2: moments of disruption. And I think what globalization showed is
54:59
Speaker 2: that even the there were lots of benefits to the
55:03
Speaker 2: Internet era. And look, it wasn't just trade agreements, it
55:07
Speaker 2: was the Internet, it was globalization. It was just a
55:10
Speaker 2: smaller world, even though there were benefits to that. You
55:14
Speaker 2: can't have an economy where you say, hey, for sixty
55:19
Speaker 2: or seventy percent of you, this is nice because you're
55:22
Speaker 2: getting lower prices and mode choices, but there's like a
55:26
Speaker 2: portion of you that are watching your community spiral down.
55:29
Speaker 2: You're losing your hopes, your dreams, you're watching your father
55:33
Speaker 2: or grandfather become an alcoholic. And so one of the
55:36
Speaker 2: things that I talked about with economic dignity is you
55:39
Speaker 2: have got to have policies that aren't just good for
55:44
Speaker 2: GDP or don't just lower prices for some people. Generally,
55:49
Speaker 2: you have to have policies where everybody feels they're not
55:53
Speaker 2: being left behind. And you know, I wouldn't put as
55:57
Speaker 2: much blame on anything Bill Clinton did, but I would
56:00
Speaker 2: say that the accumulation of policies over twenty thirty years
56:07
Speaker 2: did not put in place the type of job creation
56:11
Speaker 2: focused protections, checks on abuse of corporate power that were
56:17
Speaker 2: necessary to make sure everyone has economic dignity for all.
56:21
Speaker 2: So where AI becomes relevant is that globalization was a
56:26
Speaker 2: bigger shock than we might the people might have known,
56:31
Speaker 2: and the holes in our safety net or our insurance
56:36
Speaker 2: of economic dignity for all became more painful. I think
56:40
Speaker 2: that's how you should look at AI. I don't think
56:43
Speaker 2: AI is just another technology. I think AI is likely
56:47
Speaker 2: to have a greater impact on job disruption and a
56:50
Speaker 2: greater impact on maybe even the reduction of the amount
56:54
Speaker 2: of jobs in the private sector than we've seen before.
56:59
Speaker 2: And so now is the time to me not to
57:02
Speaker 2: sit back and watch and just say, oh my god,
57:04
Speaker 2: tens of millions of jobs are being lost, or react
57:08
Speaker 2: by just having a UBI program that writes checks to people.
57:12
Speaker 2: Now is the time to start shaping, to make shaping
57:17
Speaker 2: our economy, and to me, I talked about three things
57:19
Speaker 2: and what I wrote as an Economic Dignity Coumpact for AI. One,
57:24
Speaker 2: let's create more dignified jobs where we know we need more,
57:28
Speaker 2: which are helping families with disability, helping people come out
57:33
Speaker 2: of prison, helping people with addiction, helping people coach more
57:36
Speaker 2: people on their healthcare. There may be twenty million missing
57:40
Speaker 2: jobs there that could employ people, have a tighter labor market,
57:45
Speaker 2: and deal with a lot of dislocation. That's number one.
57:49
Speaker 2: We have the power to do that. We also have
57:51
Speaker 2: the power to create tax incentives and subsidies that encourage
57:55
Speaker 2: a company to augment use AI to augment jobs supplosed
58:00
Speaker 2: to displace jobs or to redeploy people. We control our
58:05
Speaker 2: economic policy. We should be doing that now. Secondly, going
58:09
Speaker 2: to the point I talked about, let's create an economic
58:12
Speaker 2: dignity floor for everyone, so that if there is a
58:16
Speaker 2: worse disruption than we thought, unlike what happened in communities
58:20
Speaker 2: and globalization, now we're going to have programs that focus
58:23
Speaker 2: on jobs, on helping people find new jobs, of making
58:27
Speaker 2: sure you still have health insurance. And then the third issue,
58:31
Speaker 2: which is going to be the toughest than the one
58:32
Speaker 2: that hits us, is what are those overall policies that
58:37
Speaker 2: help people move to the next job. I just believe
58:41
Speaker 2: that we are a country where we care about work,
58:43
Speaker 2: we care about contribution, we care about purpose and potential.
58:48
Speaker 2: And what I don't like is that everybody's kind of
58:50
Speaker 2: you know, you've got a White House that's just saying
58:52
Speaker 2: go as fast as you can and geez if it
58:56
Speaker 2: causes lots of disruption, kind of too bad, that that
59:01
Speaker 2: can't be our policy. Our policy going forward must be
59:05
Speaker 2: AI is going to happen. You can't stop it all,
59:09
Speaker 2: but you can have policies that shape to make sure
59:13
Speaker 2: that it is serving the American people. What is the
59:16
Speaker 2: point of an economy having high growth and high productivity
59:21
Speaker 2: growth if it creates unhappiness for a large portion of
59:25
Speaker 2: the economy. That's the focus I want to do in
59:29
Speaker 2: my Economic Dignity lab is to focus on our goal.
59:33
Speaker 2: What is our ultimate goal? Every day? It's not higher
59:36
Speaker 2: GDP and productivity growth that makes people unhappy. It's higher
59:40
Speaker 2: growth and productivity growth that leads to more opportunity, more dignity,
59:46
Speaker 2: more upward mobility for more Americans.
59:49
Speaker 1: You know, Shared Brown's going to love the fact that
59:51
Speaker 1: you use the word dignity so much. The dignity of
59:53
Speaker 1: work myself.
59:56
Speaker 2: I wrote the book twenty twenty. The title is Economic Dignity.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: So I've got here. It is right here, I copyrighting
1:00:04
Speaker 2: the word dignity. Take that, Take that, take that, share it.
1:00:18
Speaker 2: Let me get you out of here on this. When
1:00:23
Speaker 2: is a company too big to regulate? And when is
1:00:27
Speaker 2: when do you fear that a company's becomes bigger than
1:00:30
Speaker 2: a nation state? And what happens there? I mean, like
1:00:33
Speaker 2: I used to think of this as sort of perverted
1:00:35
Speaker 2: Bond James Bond plot.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Lines, and but the fact of the matter is these
1:00:43
Speaker 1: huge companies are bigger than most nation states. And what
1:00:48
Speaker 1: does that mean right that they're they're that that's it
1:00:55
Speaker 1: is different than what we've had. And does our government
1:01:00
Speaker 1: of a responsibility from preventing that or do you let
1:01:03
Speaker 1: capitalism be capitalism?
1:01:05
Speaker 2: Well, again, I think it goes back to the tests
1:01:08
Speaker 2: that we have before. The purpose of structuring our economy
1:01:15
Speaker 2: is not for the companies themselves. It's not for the
1:01:20
Speaker 2: CEOs themselves. It's to have an economy that benefits people's
1:01:26
Speaker 2: lives and gives people more opportunity. So when companies start,
1:01:33
Speaker 2: when companies get so large or integrated that they I
1:01:38
Speaker 2: think there's two things you have to worry about. One,
1:01:41
Speaker 2: when you don't have true competition, you know, I mean
1:01:45
Speaker 2: Adam Smith was not writing about a market economy where
1:01:50
Speaker 2: you know, for big AI or big tech companies controlled everything.
1:01:54
Speaker 2: It was about how to have competition and why competition
1:01:58
Speaker 2: would through some form of process he said invisible hand,
1:02:03
Speaker 2: I'll say a little more notable hand. Make sure that
1:02:08
Speaker 2: it's benefiting everybody. So one when is that working? The
1:02:12
Speaker 2: other way? Now, I know a lot of people aren't
1:02:15
Speaker 2: always happy with everything Lena Khan did, but I'm more
1:02:19
Speaker 2: of a fan of hers, and I think that what
1:02:22
Speaker 2: she did and looking at big Tech and Amazon, was
1:02:25
Speaker 2: to look and say, in reality, are these large companies
1:02:30
Speaker 2: suppressing competition and hurting people or are they actually encouraging it?
1:02:35
Speaker 2: So you should have that test. And then the second
1:02:37
Speaker 2: test is a democracy test. If the size and power
1:02:41
Speaker 2: of companies mean that they are disproportionately determining our policies
1:02:48
Speaker 2: as opposed to our democratic processes based on what's best
1:02:53
Speaker 2: for people. Then I think that's the problem.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: So for me, it's not you know, you've been on
1:02:58
Speaker 1: K Street lately.
1:03:00
Speaker 2: It's not just the size, but what is the impact?
1:03:03
Speaker 2: And I think the reason.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: How do you say that? I would say arguably right
1:03:07
Speaker 1: now that the between there are two industries that are
1:03:10
Speaker 1: over indexed in Washington and they seem to get whatever
1:03:13
Speaker 1: they want because of how much campaign money they give,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: and that is the crypto and AI.
1:03:19
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a lot to be said for that,
1:03:23
Speaker 2: and I think, look, I think there's always been big
1:03:27
Speaker 2: companies who use political contributions and lobbying power to get
1:03:33
Speaker 2: what they want at the benefit at the expense of
1:03:37
Speaker 2: what might be the common good, and that is a
1:03:40
Speaker 2: real problem. I think what's a little more concerning on
1:03:44
Speaker 2: the AI front, though, is the idea that there could
1:03:48
Speaker 2: be four or five or six companies that actually are
1:03:54
Speaker 2: almost determining the structure of the economy, not just benefiting
1:04:00
Speaker 2: their company at the expense of some higher prices for
1:04:03
Speaker 2: other people, which is itself very problematic, but where it
1:04:08
Speaker 2: looks like they're determining policy. And I do see sometimes
1:04:12
Speaker 2: when I look at the White House, you know, I
1:04:15
Speaker 2: do wonder our six or seven companies contributing whispering in
1:04:21
Speaker 2: the ear. Are you seeing companies, you know, whether it's
1:04:25
Speaker 2: crypto or AI or other places, actually part of deals
1:04:32
Speaker 2: that are actually benefiting in a more corrupt way individuals
1:04:37
Speaker 2: associated with the administration. That is very concerning. Now, look,
1:04:42
Speaker 2: some of the heads of these big AI companies have
1:04:45
Speaker 2: notably gone out and said, we need to think about
1:04:49
Speaker 2: what's best for the country. But the fact is that
1:04:53
Speaker 2: when I still look at what's happening every day, it
1:04:56
Speaker 2: looks like rush fast, hygien growth, high wealth, get things
1:05:02
Speaker 2: built as quickly as possible, and those discussions about what's
1:05:07
Speaker 2: best for jobs or people or the economic dignity of
1:05:10
Speaker 2: people is being lost. And my prediction is going to
1:05:14
Speaker 2: what you said at the beginning, is if people don't
1:05:17
Speaker 2: start talking about how to shape AI so that it
1:05:21
Speaker 2: is benefiting everyone, they're going to get a backlash that
1:05:27
Speaker 2: that might be even harsher than is desired.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: So we never do prevent very well so it's.
1:05:34
Speaker 2: Benefiting everyone, and not have this perception that the White
1:05:39
Speaker 2: House listens to five or six major companies and they
1:05:43
Speaker 2: not the American people are determining what the what the
1:05:47
Speaker 2: path of our economic future will be.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: Well, take me back to your time in the Biden
1:05:53
Speaker 1: White House when these AI companies were looking for more
1:05:56
Speaker 1: government assistance to excel rate what they were doing. Did
1:06:03
Speaker 1: you feel like they had a gun to the head, like, well,
1:06:06
Speaker 1: you know, you either help us out here we're going
1:06:08
Speaker 1: with the other guys, or I.
1:06:10
Speaker 2: Can't you know, at this time of that life, I
1:06:13
Speaker 2: wasn't the National Economic consol Director, so I was running
1:06:16
Speaker 2: the American Rescue.
1:06:17
Speaker 1: You didn't really have a good you didn't have a
1:06:18
Speaker 1: good window into that.
1:06:20
Speaker 2: With the air I didn't see as much. But I
1:06:22
Speaker 2: never had the feeling. No, I never had that that feeling.
1:06:27
Speaker 2: And to be quite honest, I think in some ways,
1:06:31
Speaker 2: the Trump White House has invited that, you know. I
1:06:35
Speaker 2: think I don't think that the AI companies would feel like,
1:06:39
Speaker 2: oh my, if you didn't do exactly what Joe Biden wanted,
1:06:44
Speaker 2: he was going to go out and punish you, or
1:06:46
Speaker 2: single you out, or call in the Justice Department, the
1:06:51
Speaker 2: criminal part of the Justice Department on you. I think that,
1:06:57
Speaker 2: you know, I think what you've seen more recently is
1:07:00
Speaker 2: really the most unattractive thing I think I've seen in
1:07:02
Speaker 2: my political life, which is that the most well off
1:07:06
Speaker 2: people and the most well off companies are the first
1:07:11
Speaker 2: ones to take a knee and to and to do
1:07:17
Speaker 2: whatever this administration wants. So as much as I agree
1:07:22
Speaker 2: that we need to be concerned about the lobbying and
1:07:25
Speaker 2: political power of major companies and are determining the path
1:07:31
Speaker 2: on AI, in this situation, it's a little bit like
1:07:35
Speaker 2: the White House kind of invited it, you know, a
1:07:39
Speaker 2: little bit of give money.
1:07:42
Speaker 1: As I said, you know he's not.
1:07:44
Speaker 2: And you'll have influence.
1:07:45
Speaker 1: And if not everybody knows, everybody knows how it works.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: You write a big enough check to the right entity,
1:07:51
Speaker 1: you're going to get a meeting.
1:07:52
Speaker 2: So I just don't think you would have seen that
1:07:55
Speaker 2: kind of behavior, you know, towards the Biden administration, because
1:07:58
Speaker 2: one it wouldn't have been tolerant but too On the
1:08:01
Speaker 2: other hand, we wouldn't have been out there telling American companies,
1:08:07
Speaker 2: you know, do as we say, or or American universities
1:08:12
Speaker 2: or American law firms that you have to get in
1:08:15
Speaker 2: line or there's going to be consequences. They may not
1:08:18
Speaker 2: have liked our climate policy, they may have disagreed with
1:08:21
Speaker 2: some anti trust policy, but the notion of you contribute
1:08:26
Speaker 2: and get in line, or you will face consequences. Was
1:08:30
Speaker 2: just not part of the bid. No Harris administration.
1:08:34
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to get you out of here
1:08:35
Speaker 1: on what I think is the toughest question. I'm gonna
1:08:37
Speaker 1: ask you, Jim Harball. Good feelings are bad feelings when
1:08:43
Speaker 1: you think about Michigan football.
1:08:45
Speaker 2: Good feelings.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: You know, you look at this situation because you know,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: are you do you wish he were still there? Or
1:08:54
Speaker 1: do you feel like, Nope, we got our title and
1:08:56
Speaker 1: I'm glad he left.
1:08:58
Speaker 2: I think that for a while of reasons it made
1:09:01
Speaker 2: sense for him to go. But look, I've been just
1:09:05
Speaker 2: an incredible Michigan football, Michigan basketball, Detroit Lions, Detroit Tigers,
1:09:10
Speaker 2: Detroit Pistons fan for six nice runners.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: It's finally coming together six seven.
1:09:17
Speaker 2: So I've never had a football team in the I've
1:09:20
Speaker 2: never had the Lions in the super Bowl, the Tigers.
1:09:24
Speaker 2: We've had two World Series in my life. So let's
1:09:26
Speaker 2: just say I'm not I'm more like the AI startup
1:09:31
Speaker 2: than Navidia. You know, Navidia is like the Patriot fans.
1:09:35
Speaker 2: They have so much, they have so much. But I
1:09:39
Speaker 2: will say that two thousand that two thousand and three,
1:09:45
Speaker 2: two thousand and four. I mean that NCAA championship game,
1:09:50
Speaker 2: being there with my family at Michigan Ohio State, being
1:09:53
Speaker 2: there at the Rose Bawl when they beat Alabama. I
1:09:56
Speaker 2: think that was kind of like you said, your whole life,
1:09:59
Speaker 2: if we ever won an national championship outright like that,
1:10:02
Speaker 2: I won't ask for anything more. I feel like I
1:10:05
Speaker 2: have to honor that for a few more years.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: And and you you never felt like the ninety seven
1:10:11
Speaker 1: title was just because you split it with Nebraska. It
1:10:14
Speaker 1: never felt perfect.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: It did never feel quite as perfect, though I was
1:10:20
Speaker 2: very happy, and I still to this day. You ready
1:10:22
Speaker 2: for this. When Michigan came for their their ceremony with Bill,
1:10:27
Speaker 2: did you.
1:10:27
Speaker 1: Guys invite them both? By the way, that Clinton the.
1:10:30
Speaker 2: Same day, but they had separate ceremonies. Interesting and the
1:10:35
Speaker 2: and the Bill Clinton and the Michigan one was right
1:10:38
Speaker 2: before a budget meeting, so they gave Bill Clinton a
1:10:41
Speaker 2: hat that he wore, and he came into the budget meeting.
1:10:45
Speaker 2: He was in the cabinet office and the first thing
1:10:47
Speaker 2: he did was fling me the cap. So I still
1:10:50
Speaker 2: have the hat that the ninety seven Michigan football team
1:10:55
Speaker 2: presented to him, and I also had the benefit of
1:11:00
Speaker 2: Jim Harbaugh brought the team to d C during the
1:11:05
Speaker 2: Biden administration. I got invited to go over and be
1:11:09
Speaker 2: the dinner speaker at one of their whole dinners and
1:11:11
Speaker 2: hang out with him and them, and so oh, he
1:11:15
Speaker 2: will always be thankful for Jim Harbaugh for that. You know.
1:11:17
Speaker 1: It's funny about Jim Harbaugh, and I take it you've
1:11:19
Speaker 1: gotten to know him a little bit. A lot of
1:11:21
Speaker 1: people try to pigeonhole his politics. I'm guessing he's like
1:11:25
Speaker 1: most Americans. It's not as predictable as people try to
1:11:28
Speaker 1: make them out to be. He's pretty passionate on some issues,
1:11:30
Speaker 1: like I know, reproductive rights and things like that, and
1:11:34
Speaker 1: so people just assume he's in one place, but he
1:11:36
Speaker 1: seems like he's genuinely like your typical Midwestern independent. There's
1:11:41
Speaker 1: a little bit of you don't quite know where he's
1:11:43
Speaker 1: coming down.
1:11:43
Speaker 2: Well, you know, yes, And it goes to the question
1:11:45
Speaker 2: you asked me before. I think people who sit around
1:11:48
Speaker 2: and think, oh, should we be angry, populist or centrist,
1:11:53
Speaker 2: it's not the right way to think. Think about real
1:11:55
Speaker 2: people what's best for their lives. What's best for their family.
1:11:58
Speaker 2: That's gonna I think, as we said, that's going to
1:12:01
Speaker 2: make for some populist anger, but it's but you should
1:12:04
Speaker 2: think about their lives. And I think, yes, Jim Harbaugh
1:12:07
Speaker 2: is one of those people that's a bit more complicated.
1:12:09
Speaker 2: It's very clear his wife is very pro life and
1:12:13
Speaker 2: he's respected. That is the other hand. The real highlight
1:12:17
Speaker 2: of my you know, one of the highlights of my
1:12:20
Speaker 2: time in the Bide administration was I was speaking to
1:12:24
Speaker 2: the Legal Service Legal services, you know, the people who
1:12:29
Speaker 2: represent the poor, and as they brought, knowing my background,
1:12:35
Speaker 2: they brought Jim Harbaugh on to introduce me. Why because
1:12:39
Speaker 2: Jim Harbaugh has been a huge advocate of legal services
1:12:44
Speaker 2: for the poor and is actually on the National Advisory Board.
1:12:48
Speaker 2: So yeah, he's a little more complicated, and I think
1:12:52
Speaker 2: a lot of Americans are a little more complicated and
1:12:54
Speaker 2: exactly that way.
1:12:56
Speaker 1: So have you become LA's only Chargers fan now, because
1:12:59
Speaker 1: I know there's people are looking for Charger fans in
1:13:01
Speaker 1: LA if they find them.
1:13:03
Speaker 2: Now, I'm a Lions fan. I'm lucky enough to kind
1:13:06
Speaker 2: of know a couple of the owners of the Commanders.
1:13:10
Speaker 2: So I think if I have a second team now
1:13:14
Speaker 2: it's the Commanders, but first team first and always will
1:13:18
Speaker 2: always be the Detroit Lions.
1:13:20
Speaker 1: Well look, it's a you know I. The only good
1:13:22
Speaker 1: news for you living out there in la Is you
1:13:24
Speaker 1: might be able to see Tarik Schooble pitch as a
1:13:26
Speaker 1: Dodger before the season ends, which will really piss you off.
1:13:28
Speaker 2: The only good news for me being out in la
1:13:31
Speaker 2: Is One word weather, second word weather, third word weather.
1:13:37
Speaker 1: Jane, It's always fun to talk with you. Good to
1:13:39
Speaker 1: catch Thanks all right, my friend.
1:13:40
Speaker 2: Bye bye,