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“High crimes and weather map misdemeanors.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On the pod today, we're going to talk about new
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: developments on impeachment, Next week's special election in North Carolina
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and this week's marathon climate change forum with the Democratic
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: presidential candidates. We were also supposed to talk to Adi
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Barkin today, but he had to go back to the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: hospital for some breathing issues. It's been a really tough
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: week for Adi, but he's been incredibly brave. And the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: good news is that he'll be home soon and will
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: be with us on Monday's pod to talk about two things.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The first, his video series Uncovered, where he interviews the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Democratic presidential candidates about health care. You can check that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: out on our website at crooked.com slash beahero. And he's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: going to talk to us about his new book, Eyes
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: to the Wind, which you should absolutely order. You can
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: go to Adi's Twitter feed, at Adi Barkin, and order
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: it there. Or you can go right to his website, beaherofund.com.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: If you go to the website, you can order it
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: right there. The book comes out on Tuesday the 10th,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: next Tuesday. I read it a few months ago, Dan,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and it is... It's fantastic. Like, I expected a book
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: about political activism, because that's always what we talk to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Artie about, and it is about political activism, and it's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: very inspiring in that way. But it's also a book about,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: you know, what it means to really live in the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: face of death. And it is, you know, I cried
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: through the book. I also laughed. It's beautifully written. It's poignant.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's an incredible, incredible book.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I'm very much looking forward to reading it. Adi is
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: always so inspiring to us and to so many other people.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Like you, I encourage everyone to get it.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just a fantastic writer, and it's definitely worth
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: checking out. Also, check out this week's episode of Pod
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Save the World, where Tommy and Ben talk about all
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the recent Brexit madness, the protests in Hong Kong, North
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Korea's missile tests, General Mattis' refusal to criticize presidents not
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: named Obama, and Donald Trump's very special message for the
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: people of Poland. Finally, Lovett has announced the guest for
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: his Radio City Lovett or Leave It show next Friday,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: September 13th. Lovett will be joined on stage by Stacey Abrams,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Wyatt Sinek, Dulce Sloan, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and Desus and Mero.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: If you're in New York, you will not want to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: miss it. That is a star-studded lineup. Go to crooked.com
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: slash events and get your tickets. All right, let's get
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to the news. It appears as though the president may
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: have piled up a few more impeachable offenses last week, um,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: He's using your tax dollars to build his wall, to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: help his businesses. He's falsifying weather maps with Sharpies. We're
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: all going to get to all of this in a
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: little bit. But first, we wanted to talk about the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: latest developments in the impeachment inquiry that is now taking
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: place in the House of Representatives.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Is it, John? Is it taking place?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: You know, in court filings, it says that it's an
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: official inquiry case. That's what Jerry Nadler's telling us, who's
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. That's what some
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: other Democrats are saying. So apparently, we're in an impeachment inquiry.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Since the beginning of August recess, more than 30 Democrats
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: have come out in favor of the inquiry, bringing the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: number of House Democrats who support impeachment to 137, which
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: is now more than half the House Democratic caucus. But Dan,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the question is, are we any closer to the House
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: voting on articles of impeachment than we were at the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: beginning of the summer.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: John, I don't know. Does anyone know?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: This is a very strange situation we're in, which is
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the Judiciary Committee says it is conducting an impeachment inquiry.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: The Speaker of the House doesn't seem to agree with
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: that fact or acknowledge that fact, and it is being
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: mentioned in court filings, but not really in public anywhere else.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: And So, yes, I think we are 30 more members. So, Tech,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: to answer your direct question, I guess we are 30
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: more members is a lot of members. It moves us closer.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: And it is not just a bunch of people in
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: blue districts. It's people from some of these tougher districts,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: some of the newer members. It sort of spans the
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: ideological spectrum. And if the process here is, which I
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: think we should talk about whether this is a good
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: process or not, but is do the investigation– kind of,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: sort of, kind of, sort of under the cover of darkness,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: and then use the fruits of that investigation to write
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: impeachment articles at some point later this year. And I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: guess we will know more as some of these court
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: cases that are preventing the committee from getting access to
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: things like the underlying grand jury materials from the Mueller
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: investigation and access to noted obstruction of justice enabler Don McGahn.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: to get him to testify, maybe that will serve as
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the basis for it. But it's very, I think, odd
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: to go down the path of a major constitutional action
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: like impeachment, but sort of amble down that path as
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: opposed to storm down it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like a compromise that will not really
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: help anyone. Because you're still technically an impeachment, but you're
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: not getting the benefits of conducting a very public impeachment,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a set of impeachment hearings, which would attract media attention,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: which is in a world where the Senate's going to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: exonerate Donald Trump, the point of conducting, or at least
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a big point of conducting impeachment hearings is to focus
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the public's attention on the president's crimes and abuses of power.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: That is the whole reason that we've been for this.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: aside from the fact that it is simply the right
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: thing to do, because if this president isn't impeached, what
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: is worthy of impeachment? But yeah, so I mean, as
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, the timetable here, and part of this is,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you know, there's democratic strategy. And then part of it
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: is that the timetable is being at least partially dictated
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: by these legal fights, you know, chief among them, the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: legal fight to force Mueller's key witness, former White House
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: counsel Don McGahn, as you were just saying, to testify
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: about Trump's obstruction of justice. And we learned this week
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that the court fight over that won't be resolved at
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: least until the end of October, though Nadler said that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: his committee could make its decision about whether to recommend
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: articles of impeachment before the House winds down in mid-December
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and everyone goes home for the holidays. So, I mean,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that's an odd timeline, too, because you know, say the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: McGahn thing is resolved at the end of October or
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: early November, and then what, he testifies sometime in November,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: earliest hopefully, and then you have a couple weeks to
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: turn around articles of impeachment in the middle of December,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly, you know, people come back and now
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: it's January of 2020, we're in an election year, the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Iowa caucuses are early February, like, what's going on here?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I think in some of the original conversations
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: we had about this, the idea was you should We
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: were having this conversation three months ago. They should get
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: going so that you could deal with impeachment. You could
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: have the hearings. You could have the vote and get
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: all of it done before the Democratic presidential primary really
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: kicks off. And I think that's still basically the right timing,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: but I think it would be an epic strategic error
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: to vote on something like impeachment and then go on
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: vacation for two weeks.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: You think? Yeah.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's, and I'm like, oftentimes we say like Congress
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: is on vacation, but they're really home, right? That's actually,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: you kind of want to vote on it and go
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: home and meet with your constituents and talk to them
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: about it and sell your decision to the public. But
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: that Christmas break is for Congress, like for a lot
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: of people, you know, it's a dead period, right? Where
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: there's Christmas, there's New Year's, there's not an ability to,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: you know, people aren't having town halls on December 27th
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: to sell, to explain why they impeached President Trump. So
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: I would actually think, you should roll it over into
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the next year. And I think there's a second added
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: strategic benefit of that, which is I think you want
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump to deliver his last State of the Union
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: before re-election as a recently impeached president.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because that would be all the coverage of the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: State of the Union. And he'd also flip the fuck out.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it prevents him from having sort of a credible
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: general election-y message about working together, whether that would ever
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: be credible from Trump or not is an open question.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: But it just hangs over enforces a big moment for
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: him to be also about the crimes he committed as
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: opposed to the bullshit proposals he's going to blab about.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, I do think, you know, to go back to,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we said there's, obviously there's a legal strategy or there's,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: there's sort of legal issues that are dictating the timeline here,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: but there's also a, you know, a strategy or a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: political strategy on behalf of the Democrats. And I sort
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of think they're caught in a catch 22 here. Like it's,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: There's this New York Times story a couple of weeks
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: ago about how all of these moderate Democrats, or at
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: least Democrats who find themselves in more conservative districts, are
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: not there yet on impeachment. And they say, you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: they're getting some pressure from constituents. They were getting some
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: pressure in town halls over during the August recess. But,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you know, they're all saying, I haven't heard enough evidence
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: yet to put me there. And the problem is, you're
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: not going to get these people on board if no
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: one is making a constant persuasive public case for impeachment,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: but there's not enough people who want to make that case.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And so everyone's afraid of talking about impeachment, and because
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: they're afraid of talking about impeachment and they don't talk
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: about it that much, Of course, all of these members
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: who aren't there yet aren't going to ever get there.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: People have to step up at some point and make
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: a consistent daily case and start connecting the dots between
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: all of these different impeachable offenses, crimes, abuses of power
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: that the president is committing so that there's a drumbeat,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: so that they can move the debate, so that they
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: can get more of the members on board to vote
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: for it. Otherwise, we're just sort of ambling through this.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: We used to say in the White House a lot
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: that no decision is worse than a bad decision. And
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I think that's a little bit where the Democrats are here.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: We don't know whether impeachment is going to end up
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: being good politics or bad politics, but I do know
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: that the current path they are on is the worst
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: of both worlds. It is, you're going to get whatever
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: downsides may exist from doing impeachment, giving your Republican opponents
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: ability to say Democrats are impeaching Trump, and none of
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the upside of yanking the microphone from Trump's hand and
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: having a nationally televised trial of Trump's crimes and corruption.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: And so we're sort of, we're like in a world of,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: it almost feels like they're trying to check the impeachment box. Like, look,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: stop bothering us about it. We're doing this thing. And
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: then for the people who don't want us to do it,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: you can just tell them we're not doing it. And
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: it just doesn't work that way. Pick a side, pick
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: a position, defend your position, and do it proudly. And
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: that's not what's happening right now. That could change. They're
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: coming back on Monday. And so we should- uh, see
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: where we are a week from now, but the early
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: signs are concerning to me, I would say the least.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: But again, like, you know, I see impeachment proceedings as
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a frame in which to fit all of these daily
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: outrages by the president that we have seen pile up
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks that, you know, if
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: they're not in sort of set in one frame, they
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: just kind of, you know, they come and they go right.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: And they sort of just like disappear. But I think, like,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: ask yourself if, you know, over the last month, right, like,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: has the political environment felt better for Democrats when we've
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: been focused on Donald Trump and all the crazy, horrible
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: shit he's been doing? Or was it better when, you know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Democrats were arguing with each other in the last primary
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: debate on stage or when we were having debates about,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you know, a border funding bill or the squad or
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff? Like, like, You just this
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: has felt like a better political environment over the last
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks because we have been focused on Donald
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Trump and all the crazy shit he's done. And that's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: what impeachment hearings would provide. And they would provide that
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: at a critical time as people are starting to pay
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: attention to, you know, the Democratic primary and the presidential race. And,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I just it's to me, it's just a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it's not just the morally right thing to do, but
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: it's sort of an opportunity we're missing here.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But just hopefully, right. But that's not what we're doing
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: right now, which we need to do it.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So one other development on this front, it was reported
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: this week that the Judiciary Committee is going to be
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: holding hearings into the president's alleged involvement in a scheme
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to make hush money payments to women who say they
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: had affairs with him, a crime that Trump's former attorney,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Michael Cohen, is currently in jail for. Dan, what's the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: significance of this development? And is it a good move
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: politically for the Democrats to do this?
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Very good move. We've always thought it was very important
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: that anything that was in the neighborhood of an impeachment
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: inquiry or the quasi-impeachment inquiry we're currently in be more
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: broad-based than just the Mueller report. And the Constitution refers
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: to high crimes and misdemeanors. And this is a crime.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: This is not just like resistance Twitter saying what Trump
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: is doing is a crime. This is a crime for
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: which If Trump were not president of the United States,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: he would have been indicted and possibly in jail for it.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: He broke the law. He broke the law in the
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: service of becoming president, and that is something that the
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Judiciary Committee should look at. It also helps greatly because
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: it is a crime committed before he got into office.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: His ability to use executive privilege to prevent people from
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: testifying is limited to zero. So Michael Cohen is an option.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: David Pecker from American Media Incorporated, National Enquirer. who was
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: involved in this. These are people who could be subpoenaed
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: in Trump. There's nothing Trump can do about it to
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: stop them. And so I think it's very smart and
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: I'm glad they're doing it. Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Again, I will say the, I mean, this only works
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: as an investigate. It's great that they're doing this, but
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: this only works as an investigation. If at the end
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: of this investigation that the house Democrats are conducting into
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: this impeachment is an option or impeachment happens, right? Because this,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: like you just said, this is a crime that the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: president committed. We know that because, um, His former lawyer
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: is in jail for it. And there's mountains of evidence
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump directed his former lawyer to commit this crime,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: which makes it a crime for him as well. But
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: unless Democrats are willing to say, yeah, we're going to
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: do this investigation and we're going to televise these hearings
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: about this. But then, you know, if if it's true
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that all the evidence that the SDNY that SDNY collected
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: is true, then, you know, impeachment is going to be
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: an option here. But they have to leave that open. Otherwise,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: why are we doing this hearing? Now, in the meantime,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the president's corruption and lawlessness continues apace. This week, the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: administration was forced to defend a travel schedule that sent
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Vice President Mike Pence hours out of his way so
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he could stay at a Trump-owned property during an official
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: visit to Ireland. Pence had meetings in Dublin, but stayed
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the country at a Trump
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: golf course in Doonbeg. Pence chief of staff Mark Short
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: said the president suggested he stay in Doonbeg, where Pence
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: apparently has distant family. Like it's an ancestral home for
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the Pences, apparently. Later, the White House said that Trump
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: never told Pence to stay there. Dan, what do you
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: think about this one? How unusual is all of this
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: for the vice president to stay across a country, across
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the country of Ireland from where he was having official meetings?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Well, John, I don't know if you've talked to the staff,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: but for our San Jose show, we're going to stay
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: in Seattle. It makes zero sense. And it is part
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: of a massive corruption scheme that has been going on
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: where Republican politicians, Republican political committees, Republican campaigns, lobbyists, foreign
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: governments funnel money into Trump's pockets via his hotels. And
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I think we understand this is not just It's not
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: just like Mike Pence is going to get a room.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: When the vice president goes, all of the staff who
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: travel with the vice president have to go, which includes
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the Secret Service. It includes the military staff who have
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: to staff the vice president. It includes the vice president's staff,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: the press people, the advanced people, the foreign policy people.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: It includes the White House communications. They're going to fill
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: up an entire wing of this Trump golf club paid
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: for with taxpayer dollars, which will make Trump's family richer.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: It is massive money. corruption that is happening right before
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: our eyes.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and they often have to just rent out,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: for security reasons, floors and floors of these hotels, even
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: if they're empty rooms. I mean, it is a lot
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of money that the Trump organization got because Mike Pence
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: decided to pick that location at Trump's suggestion, and it
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: is your money. It is tax dollars that are now
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: making Donald Trump richer. He gets to be rich from
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: his job as the president of the United States. It's
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about here. The president of the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: United States is getting richer personally because of his public
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: office and your tax dollars are going towards that. That's
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: what's happening. Plain and simple. Never happened before. Never happened
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: before with any other president, Republican or Democrat. And look,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: this isn't just like something to yell about and complain about.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: We tested this message about Donald Trump personally profiting from
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: his public office in our poll in Wisconsin. a state
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: where the same poll came out and he had a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: pretty good approval rating in that poll, and yet this
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: message about Donald Trump was one of the most effective
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: messages against Donald Trump that we tested. And so it
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: seems like Democrats should talk about this quite a bit,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: don't you think?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is a very tangible, easy-to-understand example
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: of corruption that's happening in Trump's Washington, that he is
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: abusing his office to enrich himself.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: People can see that. It's a believable thing about Trump.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: But it's a thing that, like, Mike Pence being America's
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: worst bag man made it so that this one got attention.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: But this is happening 24-7. Every time Trump vacations at
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: his hotels, this happens. Every time the Department of whatever
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: hosts a party at one of Trump's hotels, he is
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: getting rich off of it in his taxpayer dollars. It
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: just happens. Like, this one's getting more attention because it
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: crossed a level of incredible absurdity. And so it's getting attention,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: but it's an opportunity to take this and use it
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: to drill this message home in the minds of voters.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: The Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr, the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: nation's chief law enforcement officer, paid $ 30, 000 out of his
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: own pocket to host a party at the Trump Hotel,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to host a holiday party. Picked the Trump Hotel. I
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: wonder why he picked the Trump Hotel. So the the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: attorney general has just paid the president $ 30, 000 at his
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: private company. Like, no one sees the problem there? What
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the fuck?
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And Republican, the RNC hosts all of their events at
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the Trump Hotel. over the last five years, it's been
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: like $ 20 million that Republican campaigns and committees have spent
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: at the Trump Hotel. So that is, so you're taking
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: money from the Treasury, from taxpayers and putting it in
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Trump's pocket, but also all the people who are writing checks,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: whether it's, or they're donating $ 5 online or whatever else
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: to help elect Trump and defeat Democrats are also having
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: that money ripped off and put in Trump's pocket. Like
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: he is, he is getting richer coming and going off
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: of this whole corruption scheme. And I hope that if
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: and when we transition from a zombie impeachment inquiry into
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: a real one, this will be a huge part of
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: it because under an impeachment inquiry, there are emails within
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: this White House about this decision, right? We want to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: see what those emails say. Trump obviously told Pence to
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: do this, but there could be contemporaneous emails or notes
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: that tell us that, and we will only get that
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: information in the context of an actual impeachment inquiry, not
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: through the general traditional oversight where they'll just assert executive privilege.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: The courts will, it'll be bottled up in the courts
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: forever and we won't find out. So this is yet
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: another argument for impeachment. And I hope that the, this,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the Trump hotel based corruption scheme is a big part
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: of said impeachment inquiry.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, this is just, this is like such
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a softball for Democrats, you know, like in Democratic candidates too,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you go out there, especially, you know, if the economy
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: starts softening, It's like, oh, how have you done under
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Trump's presidency? Trump has done great. Trump's gotten richer off
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: your tax dollars. But how have you done? Have your
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: wages gone up? Are you still paying too much for
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: health care? Are you working two or three jobs? Because
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Trump's doing great. He actually used this office to make
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: himself and his family richer. And you paid for it.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I'm new to politics, Dan,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but it seems like that's a pretty effective message.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't hurt to try it. I'll say that. All right.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the special election that will be held
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District next week.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Are we going to gloss over the other crime Trump
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: committed yesterday?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I forgot. Yeah. Let's back this train up because we
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: have one more scandal to talk about here. So here's
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: what we're dealing with in the United States this week.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: We're The president of the United States decided to spread
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: false information about a hurricane and say that Hurricane Dorian
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: could potentially affect the state of Alabama when that was
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: never the case. Official models never really had Alabama in
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: its path. So did the president say, oh, you know what?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Mistake on my part. I'm sorry about that. I messed up. No, no,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: he didn't. He didn't, Dan. He has basically been tweeting
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: about it for the last several days. And then yesterday
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: at the White House in the Oval Office, where presidents
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: do the nation's business, the president sat there on camera,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: held up the National Weather Forecast map, which had the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: path of the hurricane. And on the path of the hurricane, someone...
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: took a Sharpie and extended the path of the hurricane
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: so that it covered Alabama and so that the president
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: could say that he was right all along. And that
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: happens to be illegal to falsify a national government weather report. And,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the president's still yelling about it this morning
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. That's the USA this week, Dan. That's the presidency.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: I definitely think taking a Sharpie to a weather map
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: is more in the misdemeanors and the high crimes part
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: of the Constitution.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: But it would be like Exhibit A in a 25th
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Amendment proceeding because just think about what is the conversation
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: that's happening? Trump is getting ready to go out to
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: do this hurricane briefing thing in the Oval Office and
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: someone shows him the map that he's going to show
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: and he looks at it and realizes that Alabama is
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: not on that map. And so you have two options
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: at that point. One is take a Sharpie and doodle
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: on the map to make it look like you were right.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: The other one would be don't bring a map. And
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: he opted for the former, and no one on his
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: staff could tell him that that was a bad idea.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: It's also an important piece of evidence here because now
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: there is the who drew it. Who wrote on the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: map is a big question that no one will answer.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Trump only uses a Sharpie. Like that's how he signs notes.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: It's how he does things, which is also sort of
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: funny because a Sharpie is like an adult crayon. So
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: it sort of makes sense that it is Trump's pain
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: of choice.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I just, you know, Pete Buttigieg was asked about this
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: on CNN today. And, you know, I saw like headlines
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: that he said, you know, I feel sad for the president.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I really pity him. And, you know, my first reaction
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: when I just saw the headlines was, I mean, come on,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I don't have to feel sad for him. Let's actually
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: make fun of him here. This is a joke. But
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I listened to Mary-Pete's full answer, and it's a really
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: good answer. You should check it out, because it really
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: is like, we can laugh about it, but it's also,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: it is quite sad and disturbing that someone who is
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: so deranged, I mean, he has serious problems. We know this,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: of course, but taking out, with all that's going on
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: in the country right now, everything that's happening, a hurricane
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that has already caused deaths that is still threatening the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: East Coast, all the other shit that's going on. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: this is what he's fucking focused on. You know, I mean,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: it goes back to, you know, I talked to Axelrod
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: about this this week, you know, Axelrod's theory of the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: case here on Trump, which is there's an exhaustion factor.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And whether you think Trump's done a good job or
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: a bad job, whether you're Republican, Democrat, Independent, at some
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: point you wake up and think like, With all the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: problems we're facing in the country right now, do we
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: need to deal with this shit every day? Don't we
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: want to have someone who at least will focus on
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the problems we're facing and not be fucking taking out
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Sharpies and drawing on a map? Also seems like an
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: effective message.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: If you think, like we've worked in White Houses and you,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: there's a lot to do. These are busy jobs. And
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: so over the last like 72 hours, think of the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: amount of, of time and energy that has been wasted
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: by the White House staff, the administration, the people whose
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: actual jobs it is to help prepare the parts of
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: the country where the hurricane is actually going. Think of
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: all the time and energy they have spent retconning his stupidity, right?
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: The White House press secretary is tweeting out like old
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: water maps that are like weeks old that show Alabama
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: possibly in the path. I mean, it is just like
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: there are real things to do and everything is about
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: trying to make Trump's idiocy seem less idiotic, which isn't
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: a possible task. They are pushing a boulder up Idiot Hill, essentially.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it also steals attention. I mean, we're all
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: talking about it. Reporters are talking about it. Everyone's been
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: talking about it over the last couple of days. It
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: steals attention from other issues, other abuses of power. There's
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: an AP report out yesterday about how all of these
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: children that were separated from their parents by the Trump
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: administration have... emotional and mental trauma that may last a lifetime.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a heartbreaking story to read it. This
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: was only like one of many cruel moves the Trump
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: administration has made on immigration over the last several weeks,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: including kicking sick migrants out of the country, people who
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: were asked to come here by U.S. doctors to participate
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in medical trials. And as a result of their participation,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the doctors were able to find cures or, you know,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: for various diseases. And then they get a letter from
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the United States government saying you have three days to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: leave the country because, by the way, we don't want
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to have immigrants here anymore who aren't American citizens, even
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: if they're here, to be in medical trials that we
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: asked them to come do. That was something that happened
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: this week, too. Just goes right away because all of us,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: every single fucking day, have to be focused on Donald
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Trump's latest bullshit antics. It's crazy.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Or Donald Trump stealing money from military daycare centers to
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: pay for all his work that we don't need?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one. That's one, too.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Which, to tie this in a bow, is the argument
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: for an impeachment inquiry. Because we're just living in this
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: cheesecake factory menu worth of crimes, and you need some
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: way to organize it that makes sense. And an impeachment inquiry...
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: would be the opportunity to do that. You could like
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: segment it out where you should probably do it over
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: a long period of time. Like we're going to do
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: like X days, like three hearings over a week on
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: obstruction of justice. And we're going to do three hearings
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: a week on emoluments and corruption via the Trump hotels.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: We're going to do three days a week on unconstitutional
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: uses of executive authority and do it that way. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: tell every the order it's going to be in, how
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: it's going to work, preview it, do it like a,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: essentially like a crime novel and present it to American
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: people that way, space out your high profile witnesses. And
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I think it has the opportunity to be quite powerful.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And again, and make sure that it's not just
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: focused on Trump's wrongdoing, but the impacts of Trump's wrongdoing
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: on and abuses of power on everyday people. Again, we
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: always have to keep connecting those dots that this isn't
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: just about Trump breaking the law and abusing his power.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It's the effects that that has on the country, on
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: our security, on people's lives, and all of that. And
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I think that that's almost just as important here.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the special election that will be held
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District next week on Tuesday,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: September 10th. This is essentially a do-over of the 2018
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: election for this seat that was ordered by state officials
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: after it was revealed that Republican Mark Harris, who was
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: initially ahead of Democrat Dan McCready by what appeared to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: be 905 votes, had hired a political operative who stole ballots.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: It is a batshit crazy story that you can hear
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: more about on our August podcast. Crooked miniseries, Rigging North Carolina,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: hosted by Shaniqua McClendon, our political director and a North
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Carolina native. So check that out for the full story
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: of what happened. But anyway, fast forward. Now, Dan McCready
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and his new challenger, Trump-loving state Senator Dan Bishop, are
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: neck and neck in the polls ahead of this special
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: election on Tuesday. And President Donald Trump will be holding
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a rally in North Carolina right before election night. Dan,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: what's your take on this race? How close is this thing?
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: It seems very close. The polling that has leaked out
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: shows it essentially tied, which is good news for the
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Democrats in the sense that this is a district that
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Trump won by nearly 12 percent in 2016. So it
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: is very winnable. And that is a positive sign for Democrats.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: We will see how this ends up. Polling in special
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: elections is always iffy, to say the least. But the
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: fact that it's competitive, I think, is something that is
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: at this point worrisome to Republicans, which is why they've
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: been pouring money into this district like there was no tomorrow.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, it looks like
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: that Dan McCready outraised his Republican opponent. But when you,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: as is often the case, when you factor in outside money,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Republicans and Republican groups have just been pouring money into
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: this race. It's an extremely expensive special election. And so
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I do think and I think they said something like,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: you know, two thirds of all the outside money is
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: in favor of the Republican opponent. So that's not great.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And they're doing that. I would say they want to
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: win the seat. They would like one more vote that
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: gets them one vote closer to taking the House back
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: at some point in the future. But what is driving
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: the Republican investment in this race is there are all
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: these Republicans who are thinking of retiring. We've had a
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: bunch over the last few days, but there are a
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: whole bunch who are sitting out there who the leadership
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: is very worried may retire because serving in the minority
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: with a criminal doofus as president is not an enjoyable
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: way to serve your country in the minds of a
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: lot of these Republicans. And if the Democrat were to
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: win this race, the fear is this will push a
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: lot of Republicans over the line because it would be
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: a sign that it's going to be a very tough
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: 2020 for the House. I don't know that it actually
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: will mean that, but typically the impact of these specials
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: is as much in the sort of emotional well-being of
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the caucus that comes up short. than it is as
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: an actual predictor of what's gonna come in American politics.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously this race matters sort
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: of beyond just the additional seat in the House. It's
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a test of, you know, has the energy and enthusiasm
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: from 2018 continued? Even though in 2018, you know, McCready
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: was down by about 900 votes. You know, it's a
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: question of that. It's in a pivotal state for 2020,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: because North Carolina will be competitive in the presidential race.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: It also there, you know, Tom Tillis, the senator from
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, Republican senator, is up for reelection and is
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: one of the potentially flippable seats for Democrats. So, you know,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: it'll be a test there. I also think it's a
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: test of sort of both sides dueling messages ahead of 2020.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of the outside money that's been
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: pouring into this race on the Republican side has been
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: doing everything the Republicans and Trump have said they're going
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: to do when it comes to taking on Democrats in 2020,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: which is call them socialists, call them radicals, all of
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: their xenophobia on anti-immigrant stuff. You know, they've got ads
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: there with, you know, the squad's faces on them, everything
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: they're going to throw at the sort of Democratic candidates
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: in 2020, they're trying to test here. And McCready, who
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: is a more moderate Democrat, he's a has been focused
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: sort of exclusively on a health care message. He's not
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: for Medicare for all, but he's been talking about, you know,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: sort of protecting the Affordable Care Act. So it is
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: sort of a test of messages, too. Do you think
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: that's fair?
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think both messages and then also turnout strategies
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: and models for the state of North Carolina in 2020,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: like there's a lot to learn from the special election.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: So I think that's very important. And that's true regardless
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: of the result, but you'll learn a lot from it.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: And to go back to the point that Trump is coming,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: in some ways that can help because it's a more
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Republican than Democratic district. So drawing attention to it could
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: increase turnout, which should theoretically help the Republican. But there
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: are two ways in which it hurts. One, who knows
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: what Trump could say or do that could cast it
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: in He could still be engaged in his two-front war
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: against the National Weather Service and Deborah Messing. But the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: other reason, the more serious reason as to why I
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: think it's a bad idea is presidential visits suck up
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: all the logistical abilities of campaigns. It's a massive undertaking
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: to put a rally together for a president. And I've
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: never worked on a campaign that would ever want the
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: president to there the night before a house race. You
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: would rather have your team getting ready for GOTV than
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: making sure that you have the right number of red
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: hats behind Trump at the event. And so I do
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: think that is potentially challenging logistical timing for them, because
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: the Democrats will be working their ass off preparing for
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: GOTV on election day, and the Republican staff will be
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: making sure that Trump has a good picture, which is
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: very limited in its value in an election that's going
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: to start 12 hours later.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So what do you think? 60% chance in his rally
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: speech there, he mentions the weather map, and maybe like
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a 30% chance he mentions Debra Messing?
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I would flip it. I think there's a higher percentage
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: he goes after Debra Messing.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, you think so? Yeah, maybe he's still in the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: war against Debra Messing on Monday night.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: It's also like five days from now, so who knows
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: where we'll be on.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: We could be in a dark new place. So you
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: do not have to live in the North Carolina 9th
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to get involved. To learn more about the race, you
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: can go to votesaveamerica.com slash states, and you can go
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: directly to danmacready.com to donate or find ways to volunteer
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: your time. All hands on deck effort here. Let's help
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Dan McCready pull out the win on Tuesday. Okay. Let's
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: talk about the Democratic primary and the 10 candidates who
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: participated Wednesday in a series of CNN town halls on
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the climate crisis, an event that lasted for seven hours, Dan.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Seven hours.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: How many hours of the seven did you watch?
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: So we had it on in the office yesterday. sort
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of in the background during the day yesterday. And Tommy
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and I were kind of, we had it on mute
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and then we would like turn it on once in
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: a while. So we sort of caught parts of it.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And then I went home at like six or seven
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Pacific time. And so I watched a couple of the candidates.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I saw some of Buttigieg, I saw Beto, I saw
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit of Booker. I caught some of Warren's,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: but I caught some of Harris's during the day. I
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: caught some of Biden's too. So I caught a good
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: number of them. What about you?
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: I'm on the East Coast right now, and I had
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: another thing to do last night. So I've done the
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: red zone version of the climate town hall. I think
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I've seen all of the highlights and all of the bloopers,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: but I didn't sit in front of the TV for
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: seven hours.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, so it wasn't the formal climate debate that
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: many activists have pushed for, but I thought that most
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: of the questions and the answers were incredibly thoughtful questions.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and detailed. What did you think? Was this a decent
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: substitute for a climate debate or no?
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think so. I mean, I still think having
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: a climate debate would be better than having no climate debate,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: but I think we should applaud CNN for doing this.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I do too.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Giving seven hours for a substantive climate discussion is a
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: big deal. And I thought the questions were good and
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: they were about solutions that like just the science of
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: climate change was appropriately accepted as fact. And the questions
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: were less about politics as they too often are when
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: climate change comes up in debates. Like how are you
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: going to explain higher utility bills or how are you
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: going to convince this co-worker about this? It was about
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: how are we going to solve the melting of the planet.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: And so I thought that was very good. I think
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: someone who watched the seven hours or however many hours
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: someone watched is better off and knows more about the
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: positions of the candidates than they would in a debate, right?
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Like a town hall is a better format to learn
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: things because it's not, no one's answering in 30 seconds
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: or 90 seconds or whatever absurdly short timeframe is being
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: imposed on them. But the problem is a debate will
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: have more viewers, right? If a debate would probably have
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: 10 million viewers like some of these other debates and
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the viewership of the climate town
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: halls were, but I'm sure it was not 10 million people.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: No. I mean, I think that the weakness of it is...
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: And I just want to say, too, CNN does get
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: a ton of credit for this, and it's not just
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the sheer amount of time they devoted to it, but
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: it was not long ago that CNN and a lot
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: of other news channels were... Every time that someone who
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: was dedicated to climate change was on television, they had
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to have a climate denier to balance it out. And...
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: There was the, like you said, the acceptance of the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: science as sort of the starting point for the CNN
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: town hall. And, you know, they called it climate crisis.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: That was like a big phrase up that was in
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the background the whole time. The thoughtfulness of the questions,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: like we said, it was just it was very, very
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: well done. That said, I think in some ways it
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: made the case for why a climate debate, a formal
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: climate debate would have been better because the most people
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: in this country can't watch anything for seven hours. Everyone's busy.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: We we cover this for a living. This is our job.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: And we didn't watch all seven hours.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: So I do think and we did start to see,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: even though a lot of these candidates running have very
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: similar climate plans and are on the same page. You know,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: we started to see some differences between the candidates that
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I think could have been better elucidated during a debate.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And that would have done. And also it made me think, look,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I know that the DNC's problem here was if you
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: do one debate on climate issues, Then do you have
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: to do one debate on guns? Then do you have
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: to do one debate on this? And I think maybe
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: that's not such a bad idea to do single-issue debates.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I think you learn a lot. I don't know about
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: the ratings, but I think diving into a single issue,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and maybe it's not a single-issue debate. Maybe it's a
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: debate that's just about two issues, and then another debate
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: about another two issues. I don't know. But I think
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: it helps you learn a lot, and I don't think
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: it's anything to be afraid of. And I also think
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: climate is one of those issues that, look, we heard
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the economy come up. We heard transportation come up. We
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: heard the environment come up. We had like all kinds
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: of different issues, you know, climate sort of involves. And
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: so I still think a climate debate would be a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: great idea. But I thought last night was yesterday and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: last night was pretty good.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. We can have both. We can have
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: a climate town hall and a climate debate.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it is a credit to the Sunrise Movement
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and all of the climate activists that that happened last night.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I was reading, we're going to talk about Mike Grunwald's piece,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: but in the piece he noted that in the past,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: climate change has been such an unsexy campaign issue that
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: there has never even been a question about it in
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: a general election debate. I couldn't believe that. In 2012,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: apparently Candy Crowley said she considered including one for, quote,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you climate change people, but decided it would have distracted
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: from the focus on the economy. Like, I didn't even
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: know that. And so to go from that in 2012,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and I think there was one question in the 2016 debates,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: to seven hours on a Wednesday is a testament to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: all of these climate activists pushing really hard for this
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a step in the right
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: direction for sure.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Any reactions to any of the specific candidates? What did
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: you think? How significant are the differences between them two?
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are very real differences in their plans, right?
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: with the important caveat that all of them are so
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: much more aggressive than anything we've talked about in the past, right?
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: So the Overton window has shifted so far in the
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: right direction on what is a appropriate, serious response to
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: climate change. We have finally, sort of in the context
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: of campaign proposals, acknowledged the crisis and demanded that candidates
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: put forth plans commiserate with that crisis. Now they run
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: the gamut from, you know, Joe Biden's plan and Amy
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Klobuchar's plan to Bernie Sanders plan that costs, I think,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: $ 16 trillion. But I would say that the people who
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: had the, I thought did the best last night in
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: the parts that I saw was, I thought Elizabeth Warren
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: did very, very strong. I thought Bernie was a very
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: passionate defense of his plan. I thought in terms of moments,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris saying that she would push to remove the
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: filibuster to pass the Green New Deal was a very
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: notable moment. And I would say one hat tip to
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris' campaign is they are very good at making
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: news at these things. And that was a good piece
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: of news that sort of drove discussion of her debate.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I thought that was smart.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought... I thought Warren's moment that everyone's talking
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: about is worth talking about. You know, she was asked,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you know, there were some of these questions, which is
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: in the flavor of like, well, you know, what are
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: you going to make individual people do? What kind of
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: sacrifices can we all make for this? And, you know,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: they talked about sort of, you know, should the government
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: tell you which light bulbs to use? And, you know,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: instead of just answering it straight on, she sort of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: stops and she like goes right at the context of
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the question, you know, and she said, this is exactly
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: what fossil fuel companies want us to be talking about
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: your light bulbs, uh, your hamburgers, uh, all of this
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. They want to stir up a lot
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: of controversy and that your straws, um, and she's like,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: but we need to remember that even though all of
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: us have a role to play in, um, you know,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: climate change and, and fixing this, uh, It's still three
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: industries we're talking about that contribute over 70% of the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: carbon emissions. And they want us all to be arguing
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: about straws and hamburgers. And they're the ones who are
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: actually contributing the most. And they're the ones who have
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: to contribute to the solution the most. And let's not
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: forget that. And I thought it was just, it's absolutely right.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about the politics of climate
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: change in a bit. But to me, it was an
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: effective example of cutting through the bullshit. of politics to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: talk about what's really going on. And I think anytime
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: a candidate can do that, you know, Beto O'Rourke's been
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: doing that on guns. Elizabeth Warren did that on the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: climate town hall. Sometimes you hear Pete Buttigieg do that
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: by reframing a question. Like it's just a really effective
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: way of breaking through the noise.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: The best politicians call out the game. They don't play
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: the game. And that's what Warren did last night. And
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: it's something that Obama did very well over the years.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And that's the game. Take the issue from the literal
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: survival of the planet to the price of a hamburger.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: And there's a motive, and as Elizabeth Warren put it,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: an economic interest behind the people trying to take the
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: conversation from the serious to the trivial.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What did you think of Biden had a moment
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: there where he was asked by a Bernie Sanders supporter
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: in the audience? about the fact that he was going
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: to a fundraiser afterwards that was being hosted by a
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: fossil fuel executive. Now, Biden seemed confused about that because
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, I didn't I didn't know that
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: we I don't think that's true. So it turns out
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that this guy who had been a Biden advisor for years,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: even before he became vice president, didn't. was a co-founder
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of a company that works on natural gas exporting facilities.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: But the no money from fossil fuel executive pledge that
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: they all signed basically says you're not allowed to take
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: money from any SEC-identified executive for fossil fuel companies. So
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: this guy, Andrew Goldman, is not, in fact, an SEC-identified
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: executive of fossil fuel companies. but he co-founded this natural
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: gas-oriented company. So Biden gets a bit confused on stage
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: about this, says he didn't know that his staff told
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: him this, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then Anderson Cooper
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: later says, actually, you're right, he's not involved in day-to-day
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: operations of this, but of course, he's a founder of
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: a natural gas firm nonetheless. What did you make of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: that whole thing?
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: I think it's sort of impossible to expect a presidential candidate,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: whether it's Vice President Biden or anyone else who's running,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: to know off the top of their head who is
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: hosting their next fundraiser. And so he was caught off.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: He clearly didn't know what was going on. And then
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: once he knew who the person was, he tried to
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: respond to it. It was bad luck in a lot
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: of ways. He got nailed in a gotcha question. I think,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I guess the only thing I would say is It probably, like, yes,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: as I understand it. this does not technically violate the pledge.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: But knowing that this had been a point of controversy
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: for the campaign previously, scheduling this fundraiser the day– whatever
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: it is, the day after or whatever the climate forum
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: was– a risky move and they paid for taking that risk,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like I was trying to walk through it as,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: you know, what it would have been like for us
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: being staffers on a presidential campaign.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: So like the first thing you do is you say, okay,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: we're going to make sure we're going to go through
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: every single donor and make sure that none of the
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: donors are identified by the SEC as fossil fuel executives,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: because that's the pledge we signed. So you get researchers
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: do that. The staff does that. They go through, they
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: do it and it checks out. And on that, the
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign is correct. The guy was not identified by
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the SEC, but then someone, Many people know that there's
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: a fundraiser, that Andrew Goldman is one of the hosts
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: of the fundraiser. They think about him as an old-time
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Biden advisor, which he is. But, you know, then you
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: have the research team sort of look at the host
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: of the fundraiser and be like, let's just make sure,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: let's look at all the connections that everyone has that's
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: hosting the fundraiser since we're doing this tomorrow, since, you know,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: it's potential political exposure for us. And usually when you
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: do that, it comes up, it's pretty easy when you
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Google Andrew Goldman to find out that, yeah, he's this
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: hedge fund guy, but he did have this connection with
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a natural gas company and you just take care of it.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: they did not do that. So that is a little curious.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Campaigns are enterprises where you have too few people doing
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: too much work and things fall through the cracks. And
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: sometimes those things fall through the cracks and nothing ever happens.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: There are no consequences from it. And this is one
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: time where something fell through the cracks and they got nailed.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: The long-term consequences of this, I doubt they're significant, but
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: This was an opportunity for Biden, who has taken criticism
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: for not being progressive enough generally, and specifically on climate change,
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: even though by any previous definition, his plan is quite aggressive.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Just not anywhere near as aggressive as some of the
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: folks on the other end of the spectrum, like Sanders
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: and Warren and Harris and others. But it's a missed opportunity.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: So now instead of saying Biden... make a strong case
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: for why he would be the right person to lead
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: us on climate change. We're talking about this. And I
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: think we should also just like his goal, I think
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: was to make the point that climate change is an
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: international issue. It requires mobilizing the countries of the world
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: together and that he is the person best suited in
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: the field to do that because of the relationships he
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: has and the experience he has. And instead of talking
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: about that, we're talking about this. So it's, there's a
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: measure of bad luck mixed with, um, you know, an
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: error from the campaign.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I also think stepping back from it, it sort
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: of highlights an opportunity that Warren and Sanders both have
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: by sort of swearing off any of these high dollar fundraisers,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: which is sort of the major difference, one major difference
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: between the two of them and most of the other
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: candidates running, because it's not just Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: They also do a lot of these sort of high
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: dollar fundraisers, which are, you know, the usual, it's what
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: happens in campaigns. But as people get more fed up
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: with money and politics and the influence of money and politics,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: people like Warren and Sanders have decided to swear off
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: these fundraisers, which involves, which comes at a risk for
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: them and is not cost-free. But if it's not cost-free
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: on one side, you want to have sort of a
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: political advantage on the other side. And this is the
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: political advantage to be able for both of them to
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: be able to go out there and say, well, we
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: don't have to worry about who we're like, palling around
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: with after a climate debate because we don't hold those
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: kinds of fundraisers. So a few of the candidates, Warren,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Kamala Booker, Bernie, Pete, announced their climate plans in the
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: last week or so. Warren basically adopted Jay Inslee's plan
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: while adding a few provisions of her own. Do you
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: think that was smart of Warren to adopt Inslee's plan?
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I am in awe of how clever it is. It
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: is so fucking smart.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: For the following reasons. One, Jay Inslee, although his campaign
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: did not take off, he successfully branded himself as the
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: climate candidate. Two, he had a really good plan, just
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: praised by most people as being very substantive. And when
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: he got out of the race, all the other candidates
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: praised him for being Mr. Climate with a very good
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: climate plan. Elizabeth Warren, who has enough plans of her
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: own that she can just adopt this, and it makes
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: it very hard for people to critique it. It was
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: just so smart because it comes with this imprimatur of
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: legitimacy from the quote-unquote climate candidate that all the other
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: candidates have praised as the climate candidate. It's just so smart.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very smart. And Jay Inslee has said, too, basically,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: it's an open-source document, and anyone who wants to use
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: it can use it. And I think one of the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: great things about Inslee's campaign, he was still... On the
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: day he announced he was getting out of the race,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I think earlier on that day, he announced... another plank
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: of his climate plan. It's so thorough and detailed, his plan,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: that basically he just kept churning out policy on his
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: climate plan throughout his whole campaign. And so I think
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: it's going to, no matter which Democrat wins, it's going
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: to serve sort of as a blueprint and potentially the
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: gold standard on what the next Democratic president should do
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: on climate change. Now, the question is, will they be
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: able to achieve all that? So we should talk about
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: the politics of climate change. You know, Mike Grunwald over
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: at Politico, who's one of the best climate reporters around,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: published a big story where he argued that climate change
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: could pose a political problem for Democrats. He wrote that
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: even though progressive and moderate voters see climate change as
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: a problem and want it to be a priority, there
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: is a deep divide on how they want to approach
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: it with progressive supporting aggressive plans like the Green New
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Deal and moderate supporting more targeted piecemeal solutions. And meanwhile,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: you've got Trump and the conservative propaganda machine, you know,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: spending all their time telling Americans that Democrats are radical
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: socialists who want to ban cows and planes. What did
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: you think of Grunwald's piece? And do you have any
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: fears in general about the politics of the climate debate
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: for Democrats?
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I saw the headline on Twitter and I almost threw
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: my face laptop across the room. I was like, what
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: a fucking typical Politico headline, which is that that's like
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: not even fair to current Politico. That's like, but what
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: we know, we sort of thought Politico was like, like
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: 10 years ago. And then I clicked on the link, which,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: you know, good for me. And I saw it was
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Grumwald who has more than enough credibility as someone who,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: who is taking climate seriously to, you know, have this,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: you know, to raise this discussion. And, and, He's not wrong.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, yes, I worry about climate. I also worry
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: about healthcare and I worry about Russian interference. I worry
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: about everything, right? That's our motto, worry about everything, panic
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: about nothing. And so, yes, we worry about it. I
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: think a couple of points on that is, one, I
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: worry more about the planet than I worry about the
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: politics of climate change. And so we should be urgent
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: and aggressive in making climate change an issue in this campaign.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Because if we want to do something when we get
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: to office, you have to campaign on it now. You
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: can't run on small-bore solutions and then get to office
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: and support the Green New Deal. That is a political disaster.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: You have to try to change people's minds and convince
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: them in the campaign trail. So I think that where
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: we are right now on the politics of climate could
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: be very different from where we are in November of
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: 2020 if Democrats... aggressively make the argument about why this
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: is urgent and why these are the right solutions. So
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: I'm worried but not panicked, I think would be the
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: way I'm saying it.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, he notes in the piece that
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: he says the most prominent democratic dispute about climate policy
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: is whether it should focus exclusively on climate or whether
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: it should take on broader issues of economic justice, which
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: is what the Green New Deal does. And I've heard
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: some good progressives and good, very smart climate folks say, yeah, well,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: this is like a liberal wish list, right? That's attached
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: to climate policy and the Green New Deal. And if
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: we really think that the climate is an existential threat,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: shouldn't we focus exclusively on climate and carbon pollution and
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: not have a larger plan that also talks about job
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: guarantees and healthcare and all that kind of stuff? And
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I completely disagree with this. And it's not like, look,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I think the Green New Deal is the right thing
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to do, but I also think just from a raw
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: political calculus, it is a smarter way to frame this
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: issue than to talk about it as what do we
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: all have to do and give up and sacrifice to
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: save the planet and eliminate carbon pollution and make sure
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: that we're, you know, we keep warming under two degrees Celsius. Like,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: I think if you only focus on that, basically it
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: is a message to people that, yeah, you know, we
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: have this existential threat to humanity and here's all the
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: things you have to do and give up and sacrifice
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: to fix it. And I don't think that's as powerful
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: a message as, yes, this is an existential threat and yes,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: there's going to be sacrifice and cost involved, but this
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: is also an incredible opportunity to build a more just
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: society and to also bring people along in this who
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: have not been there with us, right? A lot of
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: people in old energy industries are, as we transition, going
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to have to find new jobs. And if we're not
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: willing to take care of those people, if we're not
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: willing to make these people whole and these people who
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: are in these industries whole, then we're not going to
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: be able to build the political coalition necessary to get
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: this done. This is still about politics and persuading people
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: to join us in this effort. And the people who
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: are on the front lines of climate change, the people
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: who are getting devastated by these storms, who are living
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: in coastal areas, people who are working in the coal industry,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: people who are working in the oil industry, Like, we
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: have to be able to say to all these people,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: we can do this together and it can be a
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: win-win for everyone. And that's sort of the theory behind
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: the Green New Deal. And I think it's a politically
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: smart theory.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Someone who chooses a more moderate approach to climate change
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: is going to have 80% of the political liability of
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: the candidate who is for the Green New Deal.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: It's not like, this is not on the level, right? Like,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: This is going to, regardless of what your position is,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: this is going to be about higher utility bills, hamburgers,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: your constitutional right to have a plastic straw, and all
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: this other bullshit, regardless of what your position is. So
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: you might as well go big. You might as well
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: try to push the debate in a bigger, bolder direction,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: because substantively, that's where we have to go. And when
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: you get down to the brass tacks of trying to
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: pass legislation in a Senate with an eliminated filibuster, God willing,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: it may be different. You may only be able to
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: get some portion of it, but if you don't, whatever
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the actual law that passes is going to be somewhere
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: closer to the middle than the law you campaign on.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: So you might as well campaign on the biggest, boldest
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: solution that possible. It's like Biden's plan is 1.5 trillion
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: or something. And Bernie's plan is 16 trillion. Bernie's plan
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: is not 16 times more politically risky than Biden's. It's like, yeah,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: 10% more politically risky than Biden's.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: You also have to paint a picture of the future
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: that is inspiring enough that you can build a movement, right?
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is just basic. If your entire climate
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: message is only about staving off disaster, you're only doing
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: half the work there. Because the truth is, it's not
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: just about staving off disaster. It's about building a new
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: economy for the future that is going to produce high-paying jobs...
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: whether it's retrofitting buildings or solar panel construction or all
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: the other kind of things that we haven't even thought
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: about yet that are going to happen, industries that are
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: going to be created, jobs that are going to be
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: created by transitioning to a clean energy economy. There's a
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: lot of opportunity here for the United States. There's a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: lot of opportunity to create jobs, to create good jobs
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: for people. And by talking about that and making that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: part of your climate plan, you're going to be able
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: to build jobs a bigger coalition. And when you even
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: poll sort of like individual parts of the Green New Deal,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: things like federal job guarantees and training and investing in
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: education and investing in benefits for people and all that
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, they poll quite well because a lot of,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to speak to people's day-to-day concerns
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: about their lives. And I think one of the, I mean,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: we saw this challenge back in 2008 when we were
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: on the Obama campaign, One of the challenges with climate
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: is if you only talk about climate and the environment,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you're going to get some people who are committed to this.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: But if you make it a message about jobs and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the economy as well, it's going to be more popular
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: and you're going to build a bigger coalition and you're
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: going to be able to get it done.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Last thing I'll say on this is think about how
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: far we have come on the politics of climate in
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: just such a short period of time. From, as you
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: pointed out, no questions to a seven-hour town hall to...
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: worrying about even supporting cap and trade to the Green
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: New Deal. And so there's nothing to say that this
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: is not heading in the right direction if we keep
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: pushing it and that the politics can become an unalloyed
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: benefit going forward. But the only way to do that
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: is to keep organizing, keep arguing, keep pushing. And there's
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: no other option. Simply, there is not another option. This
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: is the only planet we have.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the plans are all very radical and
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: But the science right now is pretty fucking radical, too.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: You know? And so you have to have policies and
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: a movement that's commensurate with the size of the challenge
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: right now. And it is an existential challenge. That is
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: just the facts. So we can either face that and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: push as hard as we can for it, or we
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: can accept the present course we're on, which is, you know, devastation.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: And we don't want to do that.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: So... Dark. Dark. Dark.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Don't want to do that. But you know what? I'm
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: hopeful after yesterday. Everyone has a great plan. I mean,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Data for Progress, our friends over there, it's a very progressive,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: very liberal think tank. They rated all of the plans
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: of all the people who were on stage yesterday, with
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the exception of Amy Klobuchar, as either very thorough or thorough.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: So they thought they gave everyone a clean bill of
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: health there. They have great plans. The questions were great.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: The answers were great. And so You know, I'm definitely
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: more hopeful about the about the future around climate after
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: after watching that yesterday. So that's good.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Anything else? Any other stupid fucking controversies we didn't cover?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: No, I just I just checked Twitter and we seemed
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: to know there's some of the same old stupidity has
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: continued to be stupid since we started this podcast. But
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: there's no new stupid that I can find.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: No new stupid. We'll take that as a good sign.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: All right, Dan, I'll talk to you next week, and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: we'll see you later, everyone.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: film and upload these episodes as a video every week.