Transcript

Dennis, The Menace · Politix

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SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, you're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcasts.
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[music]
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SPEAKER_01: Former Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert died on Monday.
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SPEAKER_01: He's been out of office for about 20 years,
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SPEAKER_01: but the way he is and isn't remembered in politics provides
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SPEAKER_01: a useful jumping off point for some reflection on how the two parties think
0:44
SPEAKER_01: about competitive politics.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Then we'll wonk out over the new bipartisan bill that should make energy cheaper
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SPEAKER_01: for most Americans,
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SPEAKER_01: the unusual coalition behind it,
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SPEAKER_01: and what the support for and opposition to the bill tells us about the use
0:58
SPEAKER_01: and limits of maximalist political activism.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: If you want to hear or watch the whole episode, upgrade to paid at politics.fm.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian Boyler.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm Matthew Glacius.
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SPEAKER_01: You had an interesting tweet yesterday.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, it was less your tweet.
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SPEAKER_01: It was the tweet you were quote tweeting.
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SPEAKER_01: It was from CBS News.
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SPEAKER_01: And it said something to the effect of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert died.
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SPEAKER_01: He's remembered as having been disgraced and jailed for violating banking laws
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SPEAKER_01: after his speakership ended.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: He did.
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SPEAKER_00: He did violate some banking laws.
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SPEAKER_00: So to those who don't know, for all the kids at home.
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SPEAKER_01: No, not the kids.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Not the kids.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: The young adults.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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SPEAKER_00: The young over 18 adults.
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SPEAKER_00: Dennis Hastert was Speaker of the House of Representatives during much of George W.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Bush's presidency.
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SPEAKER_00: He was probably the only effective legislator.
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SPEAKER_00: Among Republican House Speakers of my career,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, he was not like particularly a political hardball brawler type.
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SPEAKER_00: Tom DeLay, who was his like number two, did that.
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SPEAKER_00: But The Bush GOP congresses passed a lot of laws in a way that is alien to
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SPEAKER_00: the Trump congresses.
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SPEAKER_00: They passed a tax cut bill,
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SPEAKER_00: and then they passed a second tax cut bill,
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SPEAKER_00: but they also passed a big Medicare bill.
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SPEAKER_00: Medicare overhaul bill.
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SPEAKER_00: They passed a big education overhaul.
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SPEAKER_00: They did a somewhat significant energy bill.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm not hailing these as all great bills.
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SPEAKER_00: Some of them were mixed bags.
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SPEAKER_00: Some of them were quite pernicious, but they were like doing a lot of stuff in Congress.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Can I interrupt real quick to make a little departure?
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Because I never really thought of it this way,
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SPEAKER_01: but like Democrats controlled the House for basically a bajillion years
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SPEAKER_01: before Gingrich.
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SPEAKER_01: And then so Gingrich comes in and like,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: he has his the effect he's had on American politics has been lasting and negative.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: But like,
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SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't mean like this is like an apology for him,
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SPEAKER_01: but it's not like there was a bunch of oral tradition within his party on how to be
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SPEAKER_01: a.
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SPEAKER_01: Good speaker.
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SPEAKER_01: You know, he was a radical, so I don't think he was going to be one anyway.
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SPEAKER_01: But it's like when Nancy Pelosi passes the torch to Hakeem Jeffries,
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SPEAKER_01: a bunch of knowledge goes with her to him.
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SPEAKER_01: And so you expect some continuity and some strategic similarity between the two.
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SPEAKER_01: But news is kind of reinventing.
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SPEAKER_01: And then it goes straight from Gingrich to Hastert, which as you say, he was fairly normal.
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SPEAKER_01: And I don't know where he picked that up.
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SPEAKER_01: But everyone after Hastert really are the people who've been nuts, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Well, they're in this Gingrich mold.
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SPEAKER_00: And some of that is that DeLay was always considered,
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SPEAKER_00: Tom DeLay was always considered like the real power in the caucus.
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SPEAKER_00: And if you think about the The way Republicans have approached House leadership,
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SPEAKER_00: there's very much a succession from
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SPEAKER_00: Gingrich to Tom DeLay to John Boehner, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And then you have this sort of other tradition,
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SPEAKER_00: I think,
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SPEAKER_00: of Dennis Hastert and Paul Ryan,
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SPEAKER_00: except like Dennis Hastert passed laws and Paul Ryan just tried and failed, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And so you don't have much there.
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SPEAKER_01: I can trace the continuity there.
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SPEAKER_01: And I know that this is really about sexual molestation.
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SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're getting to.
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SPEAKER_01: That's what we're getting to.
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SPEAKER_01: But, you know, Hastert invented, I guess, the Hastert rule.
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_01: And that was like that was a way station on the way to the Boehner rule.
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SPEAKER_01: The Hastert rule was like this like semi-formal Republican understanding that.
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SPEAKER_01: That the Speaker wouldn't move legislation that had less than half of the support
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SPEAKER_01: within the conference of the Republican Party.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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SPEAKER_01: Which is actually like somewhat reasonable.
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SPEAKER_01: Like you don't want to be dividing your party and siding with the smaller half all
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SPEAKER_01: the time as like as like.
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SPEAKER_01: A more informal guide star, I think it makes some sense.
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SPEAKER_01: And picking it at the halfway point is probably why he was able to pass bills.
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SPEAKER_01: But when Boehner becomes Speaker many years after Hastert's gone,
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SPEAKER_01: The Republican conference has become more radical.
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SPEAKER_01: And so he needs to adopt the Boehner rule,
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SPEAKER_01: which is a similar rule,
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SPEAKER_01: but it says I won't move any legislation unless I can move it with just Republicans.
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SPEAKER_01: And that makes legislating impossible.
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SPEAKER_01: Paul Ryan inherits that.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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SPEAKER_01: And and so it's like,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: I don't think Paul Ryan is like a super brilliant guy or a great tactician
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SPEAKER_01: or anything, but he was hobbled in a sense by this trajectory.
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SPEAKER_00: No, this is exactly right.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, the reason these bills passed under Hastert, they were Republican bills, right?
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SPEAKER_00: They were Hastert rule bills.
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SPEAKER_00: The majority of the caucus decided it wanted to do the Medicare reform,
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SPEAKER_00: and that's why it passed.
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SPEAKER_00: Also a bipartisan bill.
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SPEAKER_00: The most right-wing members were not on board for that bill,
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SPEAKER_00: but they got a bunch of frontline and or moderate Democrats to vote for it.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's what got over the hill.
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SPEAKER_00: And then with something like No Child Left
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SPEAKER_00: Behind wound up having overwhelming bipartisan support.
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SPEAKER_00: But the way you got there was by starting out and saying,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, we will move this with half the caucus.
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SPEAKER_00: And Ted Kennedy, if like, that's what it takes.
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SPEAKER_00: And so like more people get on board because once I will talk about this in
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SPEAKER_00: the back half,
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SPEAKER_00: when we talk about permitting reform,
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SPEAKER_00: there's like a tendency for bipartisan bill,
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SPEAKER_00: bipartisan deals to either collapse or to pass with like 90 votes.
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SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00: Because like once it's clear it's going to pass,
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SPEAKER_00: people sort of often want to get in on the bandwagon.
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SPEAKER_00: And anyway,
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SPEAKER_00: the irony of this whole thing is that you can't really say Dennis Hastert was
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SPEAKER_00: the last time we saw a Republican legislative leader behaving in like
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SPEAKER_00: a constructive, normal governance manner because he was also a sex molester, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Of children.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, a child sex predator.
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SPEAKER_00: And the statute of limitations on the underlying sex crimes passed
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SPEAKER_00: before it was revealed in public that he had been molesting boys in his capacity as
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SPEAKER_00: a wrestling coach before he was a member of Congress.
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SPEAKER_00: Because this was long ago.
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SPEAKER_00: But one of the victims had been extorting him for money
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SPEAKER_00: because it would obviously have been politically damaging to his career for
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SPEAKER_00: to come out that he was molesting kids as a wrestling coach.
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SPEAKER_00: And so then in order to pay this kid hush money,
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SPEAKER_00: but he didn't want it to be – it was fairly large sums of money he was paying –
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SPEAKER_00: And he didn't want to make the disclosures.
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SPEAKER_00: I forget what it's called.
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SPEAKER_00: But basically,
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SPEAKER_00: if you do transactions of over $10,000,
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SPEAKER_00: the bank has to flag that to the Treasury Department to just be like,
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SPEAKER_00: something's up here.
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SPEAKER_00: You might want to look into what's going on.
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SPEAKER_00: The main purpose of that is to catch people who are doing tax evasion.
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SPEAKER_00: But- As you know from Al Capone and many other cases,
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SPEAKER_00: tax evasion can be a downstream consequence of various kinds of illegal behavior.
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SPEAKER_00: So Hastert was doing what's called structuring,
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SPEAKER_00: which is a kind of a weird law,
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SPEAKER_00: but it's where you are like deliberately making repeated transactions that are right
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SPEAKER_00: under the reporting threshold in order to evade the reporting threshold.
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SPEAKER_00: This is also how they caught Elliot Spitzer in his...
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SPEAKER_00: Prostitution undertakings.
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SPEAKER_00: So at any rate,
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SPEAKER_00: Dennis Haster wound up going to jail for an extremely ticky-tack financial crime
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SPEAKER_00: of trying to evade,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: federal reporting guidelines,
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SPEAKER_00: which if you hear that's the crime somebody did, you're kind of like, eh, who cares?
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SPEAKER_01: He did spend a year in prison,
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SPEAKER_01: which is almost a full year more than Ken Paxton's buddy spent in prison
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SPEAKER_01: for molesting children.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: The reason he got a relatively harsh penalty for a not so severe crime is that
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SPEAKER_00: the real crime was molesting children while you're a wrestling coach,
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SPEAKER_00: which is a quite serious crime.
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SPEAKER_00: And...
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: I sort of get it from the standpoint of a headline writer thinking
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SPEAKER_00: about libel lawyers and whatever else,
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SPEAKER_00: because since the statute of limitations had expired,
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SPEAKER_00: he was never charged with sexual assault crimes.
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SPEAKER_00: And as a result, he has not been convicted of these crimes.
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SPEAKER_00: And you and I are just saying that he's guilty of them.
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SPEAKER_00: But he was not convicted in a court of law of these crimes.
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SPEAKER_00: But to anyone who is not-
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SPEAKER_01: He didn't die like pounding
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SPEAKER_01: the table maintaining his innocence either.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's guilty.
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SPEAKER_00: Like I'm comfortable saying it.
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SPEAKER_00: If he wants to sue us- He also can't.
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SPEAKER_00: He can't.
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SPEAKER_00: He's dead.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, he's dead.
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SPEAKER_00: If his estate wants to sue us though, right?
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, because it's important for everyone to know,
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SPEAKER_00: truth is an absolute defense to libel claims.
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SPEAKER_00: So if you want to come after somebody for that,
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SPEAKER_00: then you have to litigate the underlying charge,
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SPEAKER_00: which he got away with never having litigated.
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SPEAKER_01: I am pretty civil libertarian on things like statutes of limitations.
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SPEAKER_01: Like there's no statute of limitation for murder, and I think that's right.
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SPEAKER_01: If you point me to a, how old was he when he was caught?
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SPEAKER_01: He must have been in his 70s or late 60s or whatever.
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SPEAKER_01: If you point me to a late 60s man who gets caught for like a,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: getting into a fight when he was in his 20s and really hurting somebody, say.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm basically fine with saying, like, let that guy go.
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SPEAKER_01: He's old.
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SPEAKER_01: Men when they're young are different than men when they're old.
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SPEAKER_01: Like, there's not worth, there's not really pursuing justice to dredge us all up after 40 years.
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SPEAKER_01: But I think that molesting children,
11:47
SPEAKER_01: you might want to have like a lifetime statute of limitations on that kind of crime.
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SPEAKER_01: Just one man's opinion.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I don't have a strong opinion on this.
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SPEAKER_00: I've never really thought about it in detail, what the kind of rationale for this is.
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SPEAKER_01: We both saw Primetime recently,
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SPEAKER_01: and now I'm just imagining Chris Hansen like busting into Dennis Hastert's home.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, it is crazy.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, part of the point of the movie is that there was, of course, this big...
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SPEAKER_00: Uh, national,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, pop culture sensation about people abusing underage children at that time.
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SPEAKER_00: Um, and part of the premise of Chris Hansen's show is that this was being done.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, Hansen's show is this kind of stranger danger narrative, right?
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SPEAKER_00: The idea is like, well,
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SPEAKER_00: on the internet,
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SPEAKER_00: these like predatory men can be entrapping teens into various things.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's what the whole show is about.
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SPEAKER_00: Um,
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SPEAKER_00: Which is interesting, and it seems like Hansen did catch some people.
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SPEAKER_00: But I think that we know that,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: most of this kind of sexual abuse of minors happens in a kind of
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SPEAKER_00: an intimate context,
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SPEAKER_00: that it is either a family member or a trusted family friend,
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SPEAKER_00: or in Hastert's case, an authority figure, you know, who has...
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SPEAKER_00: Reason to be in these kids' lives, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Who isn't some weirdo creep from the internet showing up at the house
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SPEAKER_00: of somebody they've never met before.
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SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
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SPEAKER_00: It's quite a serious problem that does not avail itself of the almost sort
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SPEAKER_00: of There's this kind of feel-good promise of To Catch a Predator,
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SPEAKER_00: that if we put enough decoys out in enough chat rooms,
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SPEAKER_00: we're going to catch all these guys,
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SPEAKER_00: versus the Dennis Hastert reality,
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SPEAKER_00: where it's like there's no way to run a wrestling team other than
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SPEAKER_00: to have adult coaches who are interacting a lot with underage kids.
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SPEAKER_00: Like that's...
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, or like with the priests, it was a similar thing, right?
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SPEAKER_00: It's like you need adults who are not kids' family members to be interacting with them.
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SPEAKER_00: Like, we can't have schools or sports teams or churches or anything else
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SPEAKER_00: in our society function without that.
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SPEAKER_00: But...
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SPEAKER_00: Some of the people who are attracted to those kind of roles in life are attracted
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SPEAKER_00: for nefarious reasons.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think that,
14:30
SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: despite scandals and exposés and various things,
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SPEAKER_00: it's like, it's hard to think about.
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SPEAKER_00: It's hard to contemplate.
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SPEAKER_00: It's hard to process.
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's like actually bad, I think, that
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SPEAKER_00: Aspects of this Hastert situation ended up getting swept under the rug rather
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SPEAKER_00: than becoming the
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SPEAKER_01: subject of a reckoning.
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SPEAKER_00: Seemingly because Democrats on the Hill kind of like Dennis Hastert.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: So I was going to say here.
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SPEAKER_00: He was a better speaker.
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SPEAKER_00: He was a better congressional leader than the other recent contemporary Republicans.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of Democrats acknowledge that about him.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And like seem like they didn't want to be too mean about the fact that like
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SPEAKER_00: a child sex criminal was Republicans party leader for a number
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SPEAKER_00: of years elevated specifically because the other people in leadership had gone down
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SPEAKER_00: in sex camps.
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SPEAKER_01: So I was going to say here at the 15 minute point,
15:34
SPEAKER_01: like all that wind up is to sort of ask why is that did that CBS News post.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Make no mention of what the banking laws he was violating were,
15:45
SPEAKER_01: what the purpose of those violations was.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, CBS News is under questionable new leadership, so that may pertain to it.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: But it's what you said.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: It's that for reasons that may be particular to Hastert,
15:59
SPEAKER_01: but I think are more general,
16:03
SPEAKER_01: when this all came to light, Nancy Pelosi was in charge of the House Democrats.
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SPEAKER_01: And instead of being like, Aha,
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SPEAKER_01: we have a monster who we can use as a stand-in for our political opposition
16:18
SPEAKER_01: and make them answer for him in some way or make them try to sweep it under the rug
16:27
SPEAKER_01: and then we can use that as some sort of political lever to get one over on them
16:34
SPEAKER_01: in front of voters or whatever.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: She was seemingly kind of sad about the situation and let it drop.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: And I
16:45
SPEAKER_01: don't, you know, like you made a comment to me in the office the other day.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: You were like,
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I feel like if Hakeem Jeffries were outed as a child molester,
16:56
SPEAKER_01: that we would be hearing about it for quite some time, right?
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Like we hear about the fact that Nancy Pelosi has a,
17:02
SPEAKER_01: like a well-performing stock portfolio all the time.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: We don't hear about Republicans making a child molester their speaker
17:16
SPEAKER_01: for what was eight years, about eight years, right?
17:20
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
17:23
SPEAKER_01: there's a,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: in one sense, like,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: you could imagine it playing out in a different way
17:29
SPEAKER_01: where Hastert was somewhat unique and nobody knew Hastert.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And so when it comes out, everyone's like, Jesus Christ, like we had no fucking idea, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think probably very few people understood in the Congress
17:45
SPEAKER_01: that there was anything weird with Denny Hastert.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: But on a more zoomed in level,
17:52
SPEAKER_01: the context in which he became Speaker and then the posse
17:57
SPEAKER_01: of people around him made it clear that he was not like,
18:01
SPEAKER_01: you know, Like an old machine politician, but just Republican, right?
18:09
SPEAKER_01: What happened is like Newt Gingrich went really hard after Bill Clinton
18:14
SPEAKER_01: for infidelity while himself being a real horndog.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And it caused Republicans to underperform in the midterms in 1998.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: So Republicans...
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Nix him, they're charging ahead with a Clinton impeachment anyway.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: They try to replace him with Bob Livingston,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: who's like more,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: you know, like,
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Christian-coded right-wing speaker figure who's probably going to,
18:45
SPEAKER_01: you know, continue the Gingrich style of leadership.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Turns out he's having an affair too, right?
18:51
SPEAKER_01: So he'd never actually become a speaker.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: He gets nixed.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: And you have a situation kind of like the one you had with, like,
18:57
SPEAKER_01: who's going to replace Kevin McCarthy,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: where they're scrambling to find somebody to take the job,
19:04
SPEAKER_01: and they settle on Dennis Hastert,
19:06
SPEAKER_01: who's like, you know, the Mike Johnson, I guess, of his day.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: And...
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, even that guy, even that guy.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: He became Speaker because he wasn't tainted by sex scandals.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Supposed, right?
19:22
SPEAKER_00: He was actually guilty of a more serious scandal than either
19:26
SPEAKER_01: of the guys he was bounced into.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: This goes undiscovered, apparently, for the entirety of his speakership.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: His speakership ends after the 2006 Democratic wave,
19:40
SPEAKER_01: which was probably foreordained,
19:43
SPEAKER_01: but came to a head against the backdrop of the Foley campaign.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: Scandal,
19:52
SPEAKER_01: which is another Republican who's like sending X-rated messages to teenage pages for
20:02
SPEAKER_01: a long time.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: And it seems like Hastert knew and didn't do anything.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Because he's a sex crime.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not like the scenario where everything with Hastert was above board
20:17
SPEAKER_01: as far as anyone could see.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: And then many years after he left office,
20:22
SPEAKER_01: this came to light and everyone was shocked and everyone agreed to condemn
20:26
SPEAKER_01: and everyone kind of agreed it would be unfair to tar Republicans with his crimes.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: There's just this whole pattern of conduct ranging from unethical to criminal.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like not really part of the story we tell,
20:46
SPEAKER_01: the Democratic Party tells about Their opposition,
20:50
SPEAKER_01: even really now with Donald Trump in charge of the party.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Like they're they were trying to build something with Epstein for a while.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that will come back.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: But the idea
21:01
SPEAKER_01: that like Republican equals Dennis Hastert equals Jeffrey Epstein is just like not
21:06
SPEAKER_01: really how Democrats.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Well,
21:07
SPEAKER_00: but also the other link in this is that if you go back and understand like how all
21:14
SPEAKER_00: of this came to light.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Hastert was facing allegations
21:21
SPEAKER_00: about that he had misappropriated federal funds for his post.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: He had this like official office as a former speaker,
21:30
SPEAKER_00: a taxpayer funded office of the former speaker.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: And a former business partners of Hastert blew the whistle and said
21:39
SPEAKER_00: that he was inappropriately using these funds to advance his lobbying business.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: At that time, the federal government still did corruption investigations.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And the FBI and the IRS Criminal Investigations Division looked into this.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And what they found was this pattern of suspicious bank withdrawals.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: And so they started looking into that.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And Hastert lied to them when they asked him what was going on with these things
22:14
SPEAKER_00: because he didn't want to say, guys,
22:16
SPEAKER_00: I understand you think that I'm misappropriating taxpayer funds,
22:20
SPEAKER_00: but actually all that's happening is that I'm paying hush money.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Because he could have done it, right?
22:25
SPEAKER_00: If he had said straight away, guys,
22:28
SPEAKER_00: this is a big misunderstanding,
22:30
SPEAKER_00: what's happening is I raped a bunch of kids in the past,
22:34
SPEAKER_00: but the statute of limitations on that has expired.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just embarrassing to me for that information to come out.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: So I've been paying somebody off, uh,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: under the table and he's maybe not paying taxes on the money that I'm paying him,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: but like, you gotta ask him about that.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm not actually breaking any laws.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Like he could have gotten off,
22:58
SPEAKER_00: but instead he lied to federal investigators because he didn't want to own up to
23:03
SPEAKER_00: the sex abuse and Anyway,
23:05
SPEAKER_00: flash forward, I mean,
23:06
SPEAKER_00: there's been this very on-running,
23:08
SPEAKER_00: serious policy controversy about tax enforcement,
23:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:13
SPEAKER_00: in which Democrats keep trying to get the IRS,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: like to get money to the IRS's auditors and the IRS CIDs.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And the main thing Democrats are trying to do
23:25
SPEAKER_00: with this tax enforcement is get wealthy small business owners to pay the taxes
23:30
SPEAKER_00: that they owe.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Because as you and I both know,
23:33
SPEAKER_00: as small business owners,
23:36
SPEAKER_00: it's not that you can legally do whatever you want
23:40
SPEAKER_00: with your small business accounting,
23:42
SPEAKER_00: but that because you're not making disclosures to shareholders the way
23:48
SPEAKER_00: a public company is,
23:50
SPEAKER_00: You just can put fucking anything down on paper and be like,
23:54
SPEAKER_00: that was a business expense.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: And then the question is, will you get audited?
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Whereas if,
24:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what,
24:00
SPEAKER_00: if Apple just writes down insane expenses,
24:05
SPEAKER_00: the business press is going to notice and you could get in some kind of trouble.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not to say big companies don't do tax shenanigans,
24:11
SPEAKER_00: but there's a non-audit enforcement mechanism.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: For small businesses, there really isn't.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Republicans keep,
24:18
SPEAKER_00: because Republicans love it when rich people cheat on their taxes,
24:22
SPEAKER_00: they keep getting rid of all of this kind of white collar crime,
24:26
SPEAKER_00: all of this tax enforcement stuff.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And I've always thought the best political argument about it is to draw attention
24:33
SPEAKER_00: to how many non-financial crimes are in fact exposed through
24:39
SPEAKER_00: the tax enforcement mechanism.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And like Dennis Hastert raping kids is, It's like a great illustration of that.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Republicans are currently, I mean,
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much this has to do with IRS enforcement,
24:53
SPEAKER_01: but like they are trying to obstruct a Ron Wyden investigation
24:57
SPEAKER_01: into Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with big banks.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: And like there is,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: you know, it's analogous at least, if not one-to-one with what you're talking about.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Every serious crime becomes ultimately a financial crime.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And and, you know, I don't know which way this this like.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Somebody else sitting in my seat would be like, well,
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Democrats are halfway as corrupt as Republicans,
25:28
SPEAKER_01: and so they don't want they don't really want this stuff to happen.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: But I disagree with that.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that Democrats feel like there's something icky about.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Being like.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: We want to get this law passed,
25:43
SPEAKER_01: but it would be wrong to do it by saying Republicans are trying to cover up
25:46
SPEAKER_01: for sex criminals.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: And if they want to prove they're not,
25:50
SPEAKER_01: vote to enforce tax laws against rich people who include the rich people
25:55
SPEAKER_01: who pay off Yeah.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's two things, you know, because we were saying before, right?
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Was there like specific affection for Dennis Hastert or is this a more general kind
26:06
SPEAKER_00: of dispositional issue?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's both, right?
26:09
SPEAKER_00: It's that the general issue that Democrats have is,
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I think, a real affection for
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Republicans who make legislative deals, right?
26:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, so there was, this is not sex crimes, right?
26:26
SPEAKER_00: But like Ted Stevens was caught up in serious,
26:30
SPEAKER_00: I think, bribery scandals and like lost his seat as a result.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And like Democrats won a critical Alaska Senate seat thanks
26:39
SPEAKER_00: to Ted Stevens being tarred by scandal.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And like the only reason the Affordable Care Act or Dodd-Frank
26:46
SPEAKER_00: or all these other Obama era things happen is that federal prosecutors went hard
26:50
SPEAKER_00: after Ted Stevens.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: But then when he did his farewell speech on the Senate floor,
26:55
SPEAKER_00: like Democrats were all like weepy and sad to see Ted Stevens go.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: And if Susan Collins loses, man, there are going to be so many sad Democrats.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Because again, Stevens was corrupt, but he was a legislator.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, and like Democrats love legislating.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Like this is what they- What they love are Republicans who aren't fully gone, you know?
27:22
SPEAKER_01: They want to believe that in their living future,
27:26
SPEAKER_01: the Republican Party will include more Ted Stevens's and Denny Hastert's minus,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: ideally, the criminal activity, right?
27:33
SPEAKER_01: And fewer wreckers like Ted Cruz.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think it's like so much.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, it is that.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: But it's that- It's that their dream for themselves is to pass laws.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, so like their evaluation of Republicans- Oh yeah, I mean, we're saying the same thing.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, it's just, but in particular is like to cut deals that I think most Democrats-
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Safe space in life.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's very old school.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's like their safe space in life is we have these progressive,
28:07
SPEAKER_00: intense policy demanders on the one hand, right?
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Whoever they are, they want universal child care.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: They want universal health care.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: They want action on climate change, whatever it is.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: So you've got the progressive policy demanders.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got the deal-making Republicans, right?
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Who were like, you know what?
28:25
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: People are struggling with their childcare costs.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: But the deal-making Republicans don't want to do the most left-wing thing.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: And so they ensweep the Democrats to make it happen, right?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Get the stakeholders around the table and get them all aligned.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: So they really appreciate The Ted Stephenses and the Dennis Hasterts of the world
28:52
SPEAKER_00: as just like guys who like to do deals.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Just like when Trump first became president,
29:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:01
SPEAKER_00: I think the authentic view of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi,
29:06
SPEAKER_00: and in some ways especially Pelosi,
29:08
SPEAKER_00: was that this was an amazing opportunity
29:11
SPEAKER_00: because Donald Trump was way less ideological than most Republicans.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: And Donald Trump was a guy who they knew personally from like New York circles
29:23
SPEAKER_00: and being around and doing things.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And they were going to be able to get him to sign bills in a way that,
29:30
SPEAKER_00: you know, Scott Walker or Ted Cruz wouldn't have done.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: it's like, I feel like this instinct serves Katie Hobbs well as governor of Arizona.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: To just kind of like be somebody who likes to hold meetings and try to work stuff out.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: But it's not, it's like not a great idea.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: I think that there's an object permanence problem here where somewhere along the way
29:59
SPEAKER_01: from like Reagan through now,
30:01
SPEAKER_01: The obstructionist contingent of the Republican Party became
30:05
SPEAKER_01: the majority contingent.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And with the Hastert rule, that means that stuff doesn't happen, right?
30:10
SPEAKER_01: And so they tried really hard to do this thing with the Affordable Care Act
30:14
SPEAKER_01: and get Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins at least,
30:17
SPEAKER_01: but ideally a much larger group of Republican senators to cut the deal that solves
30:21
SPEAKER_01: the healthcare problem for America.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: And like- I feel like that should have been the end of the line for that kind of thinking.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: Like you watch what happened with that process,
30:29
SPEAKER_01: how long people like Chuck Grassley strung it out,
30:33
SPEAKER_01: how long,
30:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:35
SPEAKER_01: Olympia Snow played like she might be the 61st vote to at least give it
30:39
SPEAKER_01: a nominal sheen of bipartisanship only to pull the rug way,
30:43
SPEAKER_01: way, way late in the game, right?
30:44
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, if you can't count on her, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_01: To be like the good faith actor who cuts a deal with you.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: You got to be able to think, well,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: like Donald Trump in his heart of hearts might not care about these norms
31:02
SPEAKER_01: and practices and like Republican ideology and blah, blah, blah.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: But he needs the Republican infrastructure to...
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Loot the country, stay out of jail, whatever the case may be.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: And so there's just going to be very few circumstances under which to like,
31:20
SPEAKER_01: maybe he'll be like more reasonable about,
31:23
SPEAKER_01: about legislating, even if he's this highly partisan and highly corrupt figure.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: Like you have to remember that he's got to go to the Congress to get the votes,
31:32
SPEAKER_01: you know, like, and,
31:33
SPEAKER_01: and those people are like grassly,
31:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:37
SPEAKER_01: they're like Cruz and they're not,
31:41
SPEAKER_01: They're not playing the same – like they have to at least be halfway as invested in
31:45
SPEAKER_01: that view of things as you are.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: And like it's asymmetric whether you think of it as like a one-off thing
31:50
SPEAKER_01: about Hastert or as a more general thing, right?
31:53
SPEAKER_01: Like when Biden became president or before he became president,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: there's this famous video that Lindsey Graham, RIP,
32:03
SPEAKER_01: filmed with a Huffington Post reporter – Where he gets all weepy talking
32:07
SPEAKER_01: about how great a guy Joe Biden is and how much his heart breaks from because
32:11
SPEAKER_01: of what happened to Beau Biden.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: And like there's not a nicer guy or a better guy in politics.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: And then Lindsey Graham immediately is like, I'm just going to like throw all that in the trash.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: And like jump on a bunch of nonsense lies about Biden or nonsense exaggerations
32:26
SPEAKER_01: about Biden to turn him into like a criminal leader,
32:30
SPEAKER_01: you know, like and and like that instinct was not there on Hastert.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: But I just don't think it's really there on anybody.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Like I think you could go to a average person in the street like.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Go ask 10 people from Bumblefuck, right?
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, what are your impressions of Jimmy Carter?
32:50
SPEAKER_01: And like, not literally everyone will say he's a loser.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: He sucks.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: His presidency was a failure.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: But like a large number of people,
32:57
SPEAKER_01: including many people who weren't alive for the Carter presidency,
33:00
SPEAKER_01: would just know that that's the consensus wisdom.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm supposed to say as an answer to this question.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And the reason is, like,
33:08
SPEAKER_01: Republicans never stopped talking about Jimmy Carter and his failed presidency
33:12
SPEAKER_01: after it ended.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: And like, we've had George H.W.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Bush.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: We had Trump as a one-term president.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: And like, the instinct was just move on.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, sweep it under the rug, move on.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: On to the next thing.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: And like, this bothers me less as like a, here's how the parties operated in the past thing.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: And more as like, what is happening right now, right?
33:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, in just the past week, Trump is doing a bunch of stuff.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: So we mentioned in the last episode that he's using taxpayer funds
33:43
SPEAKER_01: to bankroll pro-Trump propaganda ads on television.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Now he says,
33:47
SPEAKER_01: because he's caught some smoke for this,
33:49
SPEAKER_01: that he's going to reimburse those funds from his super PAC.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: And I guess we're going to have to Take him at his word because I'm not sure
33:58
SPEAKER_01: that that's going to be public and I'm not sure he's going to turn proof of that
34:02
SPEAKER_01: over to Congress or anything like that.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: But he's like just raiding federal piggy banks left and right to send voters money
34:11
SPEAKER_01: before the election.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: So he's giving Obamacare recipients who have health care dot gov.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Just $500 checks with,
34:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:20
SPEAKER_01: with a letter with his signature on it and how this is like,
34:23
SPEAKER_01: this is to reimburse the failed Obamacare, blah, blah, blah, right?
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And he's giving Medicare recipients $90, right?
34:31
SPEAKER_01: Like, so seniors are getting $90 in the mail.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: And he like joked last night on Monday night about letting Iran nuke Los Angeles
34:39
SPEAKER_01: and San Diego as just like a way to remind people about how
34:43
SPEAKER_01: the war is actually worth it to To stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, that's a small price to pay for us to all remember how good this war is.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
34:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't
34:57
SPEAKER_00: expect- I think he was saying that the incredibly expensive gasoline is
35:01
SPEAKER_00: a small price to pay.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, okay, yes.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, look,
35:04
SPEAKER_00: I want to be, Trump likes using a little free and direct discourse in his speeches.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, let's not, let's not TDS it.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: The reality's bad enough.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, he did say it.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I read it,
35:21
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
35:21
SPEAKER_01: he's trying to make a point about how if,
35:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
35:25
SPEAKER_01: like we will come to realize that this is a small price to pay if they nuke LA
35:30
SPEAKER_01: and San Diego.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: And I thought people were TDSing it,
35:33
SPEAKER_01: but then I listened to it and he's actually being like,
35:35
SPEAKER_01: like, let him take, the joke is.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know,
35:42
SPEAKER_01: it will be a small price for,
35:44
SPEAKER_01: If we lose LA and San Diego to Iranian nukes,
35:47
SPEAKER_01: and then everybody will chill out about diesel prices.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it doesn't really matter.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: You can even just toss that example if you want.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: I think that there's going to be very few Democrats who try to incorporate any
36:04
SPEAKER_01: of this news into the last days of the campaign because A,
36:09
SPEAKER_01: they think they're winning on the campaigns they were running – And B,
36:13
SPEAKER_01: because they think it's kind of like voters don't care about this stuff.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think that the lesson of Carter and of Biden and of – is that they do, you know?
36:23
SPEAKER_01: They do care about this stuff.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: If you commit to being upset about it, you
36:29
SPEAKER_00: can make – Yeah, so, okay.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: So, I agree with you, but I want to, like, press in on that point about if you commit, right?
36:38
SPEAKER_02: I think – because this is where,
36:41
SPEAKER_02: like – To me,
36:42
SPEAKER_00: the Hastert stuff is relevant and illustrative because something that people say all
36:49
SPEAKER_00: the time is that it's important for politicians to be authentic, right?
36:53
SPEAKER_00: That the voters want politicians who are authentic.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: And I sort of agree with that.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And I just sort of think it's also impossible for anyone to be anything other
37:02
SPEAKER_00: than authentic on some level.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: And Democrats are just authentically,
37:08
SPEAKER_00: they care a lot About their little bills, you know, and it's their passion.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: It would be great if Democrats could fake.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Being outraged by this San Diego remark.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: It would be great,
37:27
SPEAKER_00: honestly,
37:27
SPEAKER_00: if Democrats could do a better job of pretending that they are upset about
37:30
SPEAKER_00: the high price of diesel and gasoline.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, because, like, Democrats know, right, that voters are really upset about this.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: But, like,
37:38
SPEAKER_00: you know and I know that, like,
37:41
SPEAKER_00: in their hearts,
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Democrats are kind of these,
37:43
SPEAKER_00: like, mini greens who secretly think that gasoline should be expensive all the time.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And Democrats are really mad.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Like if Trump says something,
37:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:54
SPEAKER_00: when Trump did that gaffe about Puerto Rico being a garbage island,
37:59
SPEAKER_00: or it was a comedian, whatever, Democrats really fucking pounced on that.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Because like, it's not that Democrats are averse to pouncing on a gaffe.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: It's that Democrats are really animated by anti-racism.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: You know?
38:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think they also thought that Trump was going to,
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Erode his gains with Latino- Yeah,
38:21
SPEAKER_00: yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: But I mean,
38:22
SPEAKER_00: their idea of like a eureka moment is that like people are going to see
38:29
SPEAKER_00: that Trump is kind of racist and that's going to be a game changer.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: Whereas they have to go through like 17 lectures from their pollsters
38:38
SPEAKER_00: and their focus groups to be like, people are really fucking concerned about diesel.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Because like Democrats themselves are not that motivated by hostility
38:48
SPEAKER_00: to sex criminals, by hostility to tax evaders, by like insults to blue state cities.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Like these asymmetries that I hear left-wing people talk about all the time,
39:00
SPEAKER_00: like they're quite real.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: It is very true that if a Democrat had like disrespected the salt of the earth,
39:06
SPEAKER_00: people of the heartland,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: that it would be like fucking everywhere and But that's because like Republicans,
39:12
SPEAKER_00: elite level Republicans sincerely are like driven by these insane resentments.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: And it like, it really, really, really amps them up.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: And they don't care that much about like what kind of,
39:29
SPEAKER_00: Laws get passed and Democrats just like really do.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: And like Dennis Hastert was not their favorite person in Congress,
39:37
SPEAKER_00: but he was their favorite person in Republican congressional leadership.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Just like there were all these people who used to want to give Paul Ryan his due
39:47
SPEAKER_00: for like being a serious legislator.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: And then it was when he when he flopped.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: As like a budget guy, suddenly Democrats are like, you know what, this guy fucking sucks.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: But they just didn't want to talk
39:59
SPEAKER_00: about how like his serious ideas were just like really bad for poor people.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: Because like, I don't know, they're like, they're bill passing nerds.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: No, I look like, I don't, I think there's more to it than what you're saying.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't disagree with you.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: But can I give you like,
40:16
SPEAKER_01: just like a on the ground impression from some reporting that I've been doing for
40:21
SPEAKER_01: a project that's in the works?
40:23
SPEAKER_01: I don't actually think that when Trump says stuff like, hey,
40:30
SPEAKER_01: let them nuke LA and San Diego,
40:33
SPEAKER_01: that the people who represent California are like,
40:41
SPEAKER_01: roll their eyes and just want to get back to bill writing or deal making
40:44
SPEAKER_01: or anti-racism, whatever the thing they actually care about is.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: I think that they're really upset.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: I think that The Democrats that I have talked to,
40:54
SPEAKER_01: not about this because I haven't talked to any Democrats.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: It just happened 18 hours ago as we're recording this.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: But just like the way Trump has abused them,
41:03
SPEAKER_01: their states,
41:04
SPEAKER_01: the withholding of the money,
41:06
SPEAKER_01: and like their lack of power to force an end to it or
41:14
SPEAKER_01: to make Trump play nice is really upsetting to them.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: But they're constipated about it.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: In part,
41:21
SPEAKER_01: it's because they don't have majorities,
41:24
SPEAKER_01: but it's in part because
41:29
SPEAKER_01: they don't have the confidence that if they pounded
41:31
SPEAKER_01: the table the way Republicans would,
41:33
SPEAKER_01: if you said something about,
41:35
SPEAKER_01: what's the Republican city,
41:36
SPEAKER_01: like Tallahassee or something like that,
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Birmingham,
41:39
SPEAKER_00: that
41:42
SPEAKER_01: anything would happen,
41:43
SPEAKER_01: that the leadership of the party would get their back,
41:45
SPEAKER_01: that there'd be a process,
41:48
SPEAKER_01: that they could actually make this stick and make Trump or Republicans backtrack.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: They have been led to believe that if we try that,
42:01
SPEAKER_01: it's going to land with a thud because voters just ultimately don't care.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: We need to be disciplined and stick to the lines that we know work or that we think work.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: And so they carry around this like, oh, they're so upset, but they can't.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: They can't marshal the like normal,
42:18
SPEAKER_01: what would scan to people as the authentic thing where,
42:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:22
SPEAKER_01: like just in the same way that if you caught somebody vandalizing your house,
42:27
SPEAKER_01: what would you do?
42:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, like- No, I think that, I think that, like,
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Cause like, I don't think they do.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think this is why like nobody wants to fucking vote for Democrats
42:54
SPEAKER_00: because Democrats don't believe that like arresting
42:57
SPEAKER_00: and punishing criminals is like really good.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: No, I think they do.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: I think they do.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think Angie Nixon had a great line about how I don't want to abolish prisons.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: I want to put Donald Trump in one.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was fun.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: That was, that was, that was a fun line.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: That was great.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: But like, I mean,
43:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm agreeing with you,
43:14
SPEAKER_00: but I also disagree with you because I don't think it's
43:17
SPEAKER_00: that Democrats think voters don't care.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Again, I just- I think that's it.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: I think that's it.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I see every day.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: Every day.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: Some faction or other of Democrat policy entrepreneur, right?
43:37
SPEAKER_00: But think tankers,
43:38
SPEAKER_00: analysts,
43:39
SPEAKER_00: columnists,
43:39
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
43:40
SPEAKER_00: they're coming up with some reason why- What Democrats need
43:44
SPEAKER_00: to do next time they get power in our agenda,
43:47
SPEAKER_00: right, is we need to transform something.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: We need to show people how transformative we can be.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying it's bad faith when Democrats say
43:59
SPEAKER_00: that it would be politically beneficial to have a transformative policy agenda or
44:03
SPEAKER_00: to enact a transformative policy agenda.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: But all of these people saying that stuff can see Josh Shapiro cruising to re-election.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: They can see Josh Stein being popular in North Carolina.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: They can see Katie Hobbs cruising to re-election in Arizona.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: They can see Phil Scott and Kelly Ayotte holding on in red states, right?
44:24
SPEAKER_00: And there's like a mental blockage around acknowledging how popular
44:29
SPEAKER_00: and successful politicians who don't do anything are.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Because like they in their hearts really, really want to do transformative public policy.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: And they're constantly talking themselves into the idea that voters want them
44:45
SPEAKER_00: to do transformative public policy because it's what they want to do.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea of doing a style of politics that is all about scandal mongering,
44:56
SPEAKER_00: shit talking,
44:59
SPEAKER_00: punch back,
45:00
SPEAKER_00: and then like big tent recruiting,
45:02
SPEAKER_00: Where you even get a bunch of fucking candidates who are just like,
45:05
SPEAKER_00: these guys are scumbags who should go to jail.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: And then when you ask them about like policy issues, we'll just be like, yeah, sure, whatever.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like, like whatever's popular here.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's, it's authentically repugnant to Democrats.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's how they talk themselves into this idea.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: There's something to that.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: That like the voters don't want to hear about this because like they can't,
45:30
SPEAKER_00: If you just ask somebody, okay, here's a scenario for you.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Democrats are going to sweep in 2028.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: They're going to win a trifecta.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: And what they're going to do with that trifecta is they're going to be like Bill Clinton, right?
45:45
SPEAKER_00: They're going to do prudent macroeconomic management.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: And they are going to do moderate cultural politics.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: And real wages are going to grow at the fastest pace they've grown since Bill Clinton.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: And the incumbent Democratic president is going to
46:01
SPEAKER_00: the most popular Democrat we've had since Bill Clinton.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: His reelection is going to knock your socks off in a way that Obama's didn't.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: But like Bill Clinton,
46:13
SPEAKER_00: he's not going to have big signature partisan legislation other
46:18
SPEAKER_00: than some budget bills.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, I just think Democrats would be horrified by that prospect.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not what they want.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: I personally would not be horrified by that prospect if I could look forward.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: And see a world where there wasn't going to have to be a lot
46:32
SPEAKER_01: of partisan legislating just to get us to a place where the vision you have
46:37
SPEAKER_01: in mind is possible, right?
46:40
SPEAKER_01: Like starting in the lame duck with the like,
46:42
SPEAKER_01: are Democrats going to want to do the legislating with Susan Collins to do
46:46
SPEAKER_01: a full year budget?
46:48
SPEAKER_01: Or are they going to stage the confrontation with Trump all the way through
46:52
SPEAKER_01: to like 2029 when you're going to need to.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Rebuild much of the government.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: You're going to you're going to need to do a bunch of partisan like excavating
47:00
SPEAKER_01: to figure out what happened.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: You're going to need to put people in jail.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: And like I I think that like a party that had the like we're we're ready
47:10
SPEAKER_01: to monster Dennis Hastert,
47:12
SPEAKER_01: even though he was a good partner as a legislate legislator,
47:16
SPEAKER_01: like a party like that would be capable of.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: Of doing the things that I think are necessary and then maybe flipping back into
47:23
SPEAKER_01: a like and now we can just chill out a bit and and like,
47:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:28
SPEAKER_01: ride into the sunset and Republicans will take 20 years to recover from
47:33
SPEAKER_01: the Trump presidency.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: But like I.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you, like, how much do you think.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: When when governors don't do much.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: But are popular.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: How often are they responding to voters in their states,
47:55
SPEAKER_01: constituents who have complaints about stuff by saying, that's a federal thing.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: We can't really do anything about it, which levers up.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that the most normal gubernatorial success scenario is that you have
48:11
SPEAKER_00: an opposition legislature.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: So you just literally can't.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: Do stuff.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
48:17
SPEAKER_00: you come to the groups on your side and they're like,
48:20
SPEAKER_00: we'd like you to do all this stuff.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, yeah, but I can't actually do any of that stuff.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: And because they're not crazy, they're like, yeah, fair enough.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's true.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Like Katie Hobbs,
48:32
SPEAKER_00: it's not just that Katie Hobbs isn't enacting a transformational progressive agenda.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, she literally couldn't.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: So it's easy for her versus...
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Abigail Spanberger now has the tougher problem of she doesn't want
48:47
SPEAKER_00: to do what Tim Walz did in Minnesota and sign on to all the progressives' bills and
48:53
SPEAKER_00: then become unpopular and lose her majorities.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: But she...
49:00
SPEAKER_00: So she's fighting with her own base and her own constituents and her own supporters.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: And like, it's a tough problem.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: I think there's like no good way to be a democratic governing majority because
49:11
SPEAKER_00: the groups will destroy you if you don't do what they want.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: And the voters will destroy you if you do do what they want.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: Because like fundamentally,
49:19
SPEAKER_00: the core constituency organizations at the root of
49:23
SPEAKER_00: the progressive coalition have like bad,
49:25
SPEAKER_00: unworkable ideas that are dearly, dearly held to them.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: The yen for transformative change,
49:33
SPEAKER_01: it's not something that I think the groups are like incepting into existence
49:40
SPEAKER_01: and it's not something that the people who get elected
49:43
SPEAKER_01: to federal office are inventing.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: They look at the same survey data you do about how miserable everyone
49:51
SPEAKER_01: in America says they are, right?
49:53
SPEAKER_01: And how like they just seem like ready to throw the bums out at the federal level all the time.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: And they conclude from that that like trying to just govern at the federal level
50:08
SPEAKER_01: the way Josh Shapiro governs at the state level is a recipe for like proving
50:16
SPEAKER_01: to those people that you can't fix their problem.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: But like what Democrats did, right,
50:22
SPEAKER_00: when they last held power was like they really,
50:25
SPEAKER_00: really wanted to pass a bill addressing climate change.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: And doing welfare state expansion and some other stuff.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: And they tried and they ran into a lot of roadblocks with Joe Manchin and some other senators.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: And voters were getting more and more and more mad about inflation.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: And eventually they like got to yes and On a bill that they called
50:46
SPEAKER_00: the Inflation Reduction Act and that had been written very carefully to score
50:52
SPEAKER_00: as like slightly inflation reducing.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: But where the main use of the revenue that they raised was to address climate change, right?
51:00
SPEAKER_00: Like they could have said the voters really want big action on inflation.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to not just call the bill the Inflation Reduction Act,
51:08
SPEAKER_00: but we're like at every turn going to say like,
51:10
SPEAKER_00: how do we maximize the inflation reducing impact of this?
51:14
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't do that because they didn't want to,
51:17
SPEAKER_00: because they think climate change is really important, which is fine.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: It's fine to have things that you think are important,
51:23
SPEAKER_00: but I think it's important for every stakeholder in the system to be honest
51:29
SPEAKER_00: with themselves, that it's like Joe Biden was president.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: People were saying that the thing they most wanted action on was inflation.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: But the thing Democrats most wanted to act on was climate change.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: And so they split the difference like 80-20 between what we care about and what
51:47
SPEAKER_00: the voters care about.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: And so it's fine to say,
51:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
51:51
SPEAKER_00: the voters are angry because they are,
51:53
SPEAKER_00: or the voters want to see change or the voters want to shake the system up.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: And like, that's all fine.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: But we're light years from a Democratic Party that would actually laser focus
52:05
SPEAKER_00: on making diesel cheap.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: Cause it's like, it's not what Democrats think.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: To be clear,
52:11
SPEAKER_00: I think- Any more than Democrats primarily want accountability
52:16
SPEAKER_00: for child sex criminals.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: To be clear, I think Democrats making diesel cheap right now would be an idiotic idea,
52:21
SPEAKER_01: not just on- No, not now, but I mean in 2029.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: But like,
52:25
SPEAKER_01: I also think that if you go back to 2022 and you take the,
52:30
SPEAKER_01: how much did the revenue, how much were the revenue raises in that bill?
52:32
SPEAKER_01: Like a trillion-ish dollars, right?
52:35
SPEAKER_01: But over 10 years,
52:37
SPEAKER_01: and you just kind of sprinkle a little bit of deficit reduction,
52:40
SPEAKER_01: extra deficit reduction on top of the inflation,
52:44
SPEAKER_01: that you get inflation down from 9 to 8.7%.
52:50
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't actually make anyone happier, but you did alienate people in your coalition.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Like it would have been a bad idea in that respect as well.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: And like,
52:59
SPEAKER_01: I think Joe Biden basically like took over at a time when like the reopening of
53:05
SPEAKER_01: the global economy created inflation everywhere.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: And he did a basically okay job dealing with it.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: And he was ancient and, and like caught a raw deal.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: Couldn't explain that to people.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: They turfed him out.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, I know.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: I know that's what you think.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
53:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking frustrated progressives
53:28
SPEAKER_00: who want to see Democrats doing a bunch
53:32
SPEAKER_00: of things that they aren't doing to acknowledge how upset you yourselves would be
53:39
SPEAKER_00: if Democrats did less of the stuff the Democrats are doing.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: See, for me, it's not that hard because I don't.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm like a cheap date policy wise.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: No, right.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, yes and no.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I think we should take a break and talk about some policymaking.
53:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: we can talk about how Democrats are finally getting around to completing the part
54:00
SPEAKER_01: of Joe Biden's climate agenda that he didn't get done in time.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: So the money got all taken away.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful how that was sequenced, right?
54:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's probably all for the best.
54:13
SPEAKER_01: All right.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: If you want to hear us nerd out about permitting,
54:16
SPEAKER_01: and I think we'll probably have much spicier things to say about progressives again,
54:22
SPEAKER_01: go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.