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Is Trump Really Up 10? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Love It is off today, but we do have a
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: great interview for you all a little later with our
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: old friend and White House colleague, Cal Penn.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Love it's atoning. Love it is atoning. Did you get
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a call? What's that? Did you get a call? Repent?
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: No.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: He has a lot to repent. Yeah, voicemail, yeah. Oh
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: my god.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: On today's show... We got a big week in politics, Tommy.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden will become the first president in a century
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: to join a picket line when he visits Detroit in
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: support of the UAW. On Wednesday, the second Republican debate
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: is here in California. On Thursday, House Republicans will hold
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: their first Biden impeachment hearing. And on Saturday, there's a
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: high probability that they'll shut down the federal government. But
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: first at the center of all these events, per usual,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: is Donald Trump. He'll be skipping the debate again and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: instead will also speak to auto workers in Detroit. He's
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: pressuring House Republicans to impeach Biden and demanded again on
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Truth Social this weekend that they shut down the government
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: unless they can somehow force the Justice Department to drop
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: their cases against him, which they can't. Just a few
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: other notable posts from Trump in the last 72 hours.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: He suggested that America's top general, outgoing chairman of the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, deserves to be executed. He called
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: on all Senate Democrats to resign because New Jersey Senator
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Bob Menendez was indicted. He promised that if he wins,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: he'll order investigations into media outlets like NBC that have
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: criticized him. And then he held a rally in South Carolina.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: He was really on one.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: He's having a good time out there. Let's listen.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: The beauty was when I came here, everyone thought Bush
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: was going to win. And then they took a poll
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: and they found out Trump was up by about 50 points.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Everyone said, what's going on right here? They thought Bush
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: because Bush supposedly was a military person.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: He was a military.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: He got us into the... He got us into the
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Middle East. How did that work out, right? But they
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: all thought that Bush might win. Jeb. Remember Jeb? But
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: you have a better chance of being struck by lightning
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: than hitting a whale with your boat. But on the
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: other hand, their windmills are causing whales to die in
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: numbers never seen before. The windmills are driving them crazy.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: They're driving the whales, I think, a little batty.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that Jeb did rock. Jeb did a rock. Yeah.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And the windmills are driving the whales a little batty.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Those are the headlines from the South Carolina rally. The
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: whale thing, it's like a big right-wing lie now.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Is it? I didn't even know there was a backstory
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to it.
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: There's been an increased number of whale deaths over the
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: last seven years. And a bunch of people are trying
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: to say it's because of offshore wind farms, but there's
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: no evidence of that. Most of the dead whales were
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: hit by boats or caught in nets or something, but.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: Why not blame windmills if you're Donald Trump? The man
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: is deteriorating, Tommy.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: He's really.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: The Jeb thing is now the set... Remember we played
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a couple weeks ago, I think, the clip where he
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: confused Obama and Biden and Hillary. He had them all
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: mixed up. Now he's got Jeb and George W.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Mixed up.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: It's sad to see him like this. It's sad to
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: see him like this. So, you know, and then there's
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: his truths. He's... saying that Milley should have been executed.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: In another time, he would have been executed for treason.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And he was saying this because Mark Milley called the
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Chinese government after January 6th to let them know that
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: everything was okay.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: He was just trying to prevent a war. Trying to
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: prevent a war. Right.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, he said on the NBC thing,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I say upfront, openly, and proudly that when I win
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the presidency, they and others of the lamestream media will
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: They are a true threat to democracy, and they should
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: pay a big price for what they've done.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: You know, there have been many times in my life
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: where I did want to punish Comcast. It was not
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: often for MSNBC, though.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, somehow none of this is leading the news,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: and we are at a moment right now where Trump's
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: political standing is arguably stronger than ever. What do you
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: think is going on? Should Democrats and Biden be focusing
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: more on Trump? What's the best way to respond to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: all this lunacy that I just mentioned?
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: It's just like all our new problems are the old ones, right?
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: I mean, obviously they're like unacceptable and scary and in
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: normal times blockbuster news, but I think kind of par
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: for the course in the modern Republican Party.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You see Paul Gosar.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: Said, quote, in a better society, quizzlings like the strange
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: sodomy promoting General Milley would be hung.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: This is members of Congress tweeting things like this.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: That was in his taxpayer-funded newsletter to constituents, Paul Gosar.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And of course, that did come after, of course, Trump's truth.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: So just in case no one was sure if any
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: lunatics would take their cues from Trump's.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Post, that's happened. We got one. We got one dentist
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: out in Arizona.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: I think if you're the Biden campaign, it would be
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: a good time to have your military surrogates talking to
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: press about a disrespect to Milley in the military. The
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: other thing in that Milley piece is that General Milley
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: talks about an event he did with Trump and wounded
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: veterans where Trump said, basically, no one wants to see
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: people who were grievously wounded.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Like that, you know, keep them away from me in
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the future.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: That came out at the time, I think, but hearing
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: it come from Milley is, again, shocking all over.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: But I do think we.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: Learned in 2016 and 2020 that chasing the Trump outrage
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: of the day is not a message, it's not an
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: effective message. And I think that's even harder now for
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: Biden as president. So he's got this dual track job, right?
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: Like you got to do the things you have to do.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: You have to solve inflation, keep the government open, deal
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: with climate change, whatever. But also I think fold what
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: Trump is saying into a broader narrative about the extremism
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: of the Republican Party that also includes our next topic,
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: which is this government shutdown that will probably happen.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I think that it is time for Joe Biden and
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party to start painting a very clear vision
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: of what a second Trump term could look like and
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I think that has to include the threats of extremism
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: and violence the Trump is Once again voicing you're totally
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: right that like outrage of the day Trump says something crazy,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: whatever It's fun to he's confusing Jeb and talking about
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: fucking whales, right? That's all fun Yeah, but like New
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: York Times had a story today to over the weekend
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Trump supporters are threatening the lives and families of the
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: judges overseeing the cases the prosecutors and are now requiring
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: around-the-clock protection. The FBI has created a special unit just
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: to deal with the increased threats, increased by 300% against
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: FBI agents. The Grand Jury in Atlanta, they were doxxed.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: We've talked about this a couple months ago when it happened,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: but there was the guy charged with storming the Capitol
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: who was then arrested with two guns and 400 rounds
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: of ammo trying to get to Obama's house because Trump
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: fucking re-truthed a post that supposedly had Obama's home address.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: So I do think that, like, we've talked about this before,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Biden has to walk this line. He can't comment on
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the prosecutions, right? And all that kind of stuff. But
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I know he's going to, he's supposed to give a speech,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I think, in Arizona about democracy somewhat soon, Biden is.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And I do think he has to paint a picture
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: of what Trump wants to do in a second term, right?
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Which is clear out the federal bureaucracy, have all loyalists there,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: make the Justice Department not independent at all, order prosecutions
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: of all his enemies.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: It's pretty scary. It is scary. And, you know, Leah,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: when you say it like that, it's not good.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think we're not doing enough, you know,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: and I get when you poll and it's like, we
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: got to talk about the economy and people worry about inflation.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm always on that, for sure. But.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of scary shit that Trump wants to do.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And he's basically promising retribution and revenge. And he's going
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: to have nothing to lose if he wins again.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I hear you. And I agree with you on some level.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: The sort of political strategist part of my brain sometimes
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: thinks everyone watched January 6th happen and everyone has memory
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: hold it. None of the things he's tweeting or truthing
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: or posting or saying at these speeches is going to
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: impact people.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: More than that.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: So I wonder how effective it will be as a
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: political argument. But I do think there is, I mean,
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: clearly the White House has settled on the kind of
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: ultra mega extremism narrative as being the thing they're running against.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's good.
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: And it certainly encompasses the actual overt threats to people's
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: lives and security that you're referencing, but also the extreme
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: policy views, shutting down the government, six week abortion bans,
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: all the things they're trying to do.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And, you know, it's a little complicated, but it's important.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The memory holds. issue is a real problem.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And I just go back to, you know, I was
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: worried that the argument about democracy would work in 2022.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: And then the January 6th hearings happened. They were prime time.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And Joe Biden made a lot of speeches about democracy.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And you know what?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: That did have an effect, not because it convinced people
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: who weren't convinced before, but it reminded people of how
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: scary it was. And I think reminding people about Trump
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: and what he's going to do and what could happen,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and not just that he's saying bad things, but that
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: it will lead to actions that could tangibly impact our lives,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I think is going to be really important. So the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: rest of the Republican field will debate on Wednesday. They're
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: all polling further behind Trump than ever before, both nationally
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: and in the early states. Ron DeSantis has probably lost
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: the most ground. with candidates like Nikki Haley and Vivek
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Ramaswamy nipping at his heels in some polls, but none
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: of them are even close to Trump at this point. Tommy,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: you're heading up to the debate on Wednesday.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I'm excited. What are you going to be watching for there?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: What are you going to be doing up there?
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: I've always wanted to go to the Reagan Library. I've
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: heard there's an exhibit, there's an Oval Office up there. No,
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: we're going to go see what kind of crowds they got,
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: maybe talk to some supporters.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I get to go into the spin room, I hope.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe some of the candidates will be in there, get
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to talk to them. You're going to talk to your
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: friend Jeff Rowe? That would be interesting. Maybe Jason Miller
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: from the Trump campaign?
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: Well, look, sometimes in the one-on-one general election debates, usually
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: it's surrogates that go into the spin room. In the
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: primary debates, sometimes the candidates go in.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. But who knows? I mean, Vivek is so thirsty.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that guy will go in.
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: But it will be fun to tell people unironically that
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: I'm from the crooked media. I think that's something I'm
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: looking forward to. I think as anyone with eyeballs knows,
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: my face screams Republican. And I want to see if
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: I can infiltrate, you know, get them to tell me
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: their secrets. I want to see what Gavin Newsom's up to.
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: He's apparently going to be up there.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I hear he's got a debate set with Ron DeSantis
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: for November 30th, live on Fox.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: In Georgia, right? I didn't know it was in Georgia. Yeah,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I guess. I think that's what they were talking about. Yeah.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Ask him about that. You're going to have to have
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a question ready for Vivek because you're right. He's thirsty
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: and he'll talk to anyone and might think that you're
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: a Republican. So that's pretty good.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, odds are.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: But, you know, look, I think in terms of strategy,
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: all these candidates who are debating, which is folks not
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: named Trump, need to decide, are we trying to win?
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: Or are we trying to get a job in Trump's cabinet?
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: And it's not clear to me where everybody stands on
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: this question. If you're trying to win, you're going to
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: have to run against Donald Trump and make an argument
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: against him that peels away voters. For a long time,
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: I thought that was an electability argument. Some of the
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: polls you referenced earlier that shows him doing better head
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: to head against Biden is going to make that electability
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: argument very hard. Maybe they missed their window. But I mean,
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: these guys, these other candidates aren't really trying. They're running
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: against each other, not against Trump.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: It is hard for me to get myself to believe
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: that this debate matters at all.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: It doesn't.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Because I do think the window is, I mean, look,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: so if you're, take a couple of the candidates, right?
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: If you're Nikki Haley, you can probably still make an
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: electability case against Trump because she's got a bunch of polls.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: The NBC poll shows her doing better than any other
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: candidate against Joe Biden. She's in a couple of polls
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: like that now. She could probably make that case. She's
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: got some donor money coming in. She's got some donor money.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: She had a little momentum if I were her. But again,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: if she doesn't spend the whole time making a case
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: against Donald Trump, forget it, you know?
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Well, then you ask yourself, is she going for VP
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: or Secretary of State?
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Because they're both great jobs.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Best of luck to you.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I wonder if she's screwed herself on that because now
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: she's criticized Trump just enough that she might have pissed
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: him off. I don't know what you do if you're
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis because he can't make the electability argument anymore.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: He's cratered in a lot of polls. Like, I don't
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: know what he does in this debate.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: He's at the point where you start to wonder if
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: he's going to be told by people around him, advisors, donors, friends,
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: that he's harming himself by staying in and that he
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: might need to drop out and refocus on Florida and
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: think about running again.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Some other time.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think we could get pretty close to that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: If I were Chris Christie, like, look, I don't think
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Chris Christie's going anywhere in this primary.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: He's doing his thing. But I would turn every single.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Answer into an opportunity to make the case why Donald
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Trump is, you know, horrible for the country, a threat
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: to democracy. And not only that case, I'd go after
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: the other people on that stage for not saying that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: What else does he got to lose? He's not winning
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: at this point. And he didn't take all those opportunities
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: in the last debate.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Did you see the Wall Street Journal article? editorial gave
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: them all an argument to use about Donald Trump. A
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: couple of days ago, they had an editorial that said,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: why is Mr. Trump afraid to confront other Republicans without
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: the aid of a teleprompter? Is he worried he'd look
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: his age at 77 next to younger candidates?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That's good. I like that.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, Trump was so enthused about skipping the
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: first and second debate that he's now going to skip
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: the third. So I don't know that they're doing a
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: good job baiting him into these things.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, they just, the name of the game here
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: is like, someone's got to get attention for themselves. If
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: they go up there And they just talk about how
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: bad Joe Biden is and how bad the Democrats are
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: and take a glancing shot at Trump about like, you know,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: adding to the debt or this or that. Like, it's
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: just not it's not going to work.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: And they're all going to get drawn into the news
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: of the day. They're going to get pulled into conversations
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: about the government shutdown and things that might not necessarily
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: create the headlines they want.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So it'll be tough. It'll be fun to see how
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: pissed Mike Pence gets at. Forgot about Mike Pence. Yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: so did a lot of people. Yeah, who else is
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: going to be up there?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott's telling people that it's important to start drawing
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: contrast with the other candidates. So maybe Tim Scott's learned
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: that he's going to have to get a little feisty.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Girlfriend in the spin room. That's what I would do
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: if I were him. He just pulls off a sheet
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: and is like, ta-da.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Just a Zoom. All right. Well, have fun up there.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm excited to go.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: You can also join us live in the Discord. Sign
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: up to be a friend of the pod. You can
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: sign up at crooked.com slash friends. We'll be having live reaction.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And then right after the debate, Lovett and Dan and
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: I will be right here in studio and we'll be
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: recording the pod right after the debate. And then we'll
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: talk to you and find out what you're seeing up
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: at the debate.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: I'll call in from the Vakes tour bus or whatever.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: So Trump's opponents, as we said, have been trying to
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: argue that they're more electable against Joe Biden. But unfortunately
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: for them and us, the polls are telling a different story.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: The averages show that a Trump and Biden rematch would
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: basically be tied if the election were held today, though
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: there is a new Washington Post-ABC poll that has Trump
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: leading Biden by 52 to 42. Now, even the Post's
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: own story about the poll strongly suggests it's an outlier.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I actually have never seen a major media outlet be
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: that honest in their write-up that their own poll is
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: an outlier.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: It's pretty unusual.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: But there's also a new NBC News poll that also
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: came out the same day as the Post poll that
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: shows the race tied at 46-46, which is still pretty
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: close for comfort. I've seen a lot of good arguments
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: that the Post poll is an outlier.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I believe them.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But I've also heard from a lot of people who
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: are pretty freaked out. I'm sure you have too. What
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: are your thoughts on this poll and the NBC poll?
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: I mean, the kind of obvious and condescending point is
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: that no one should worry about any poll over a
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: year from.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: An election, right?
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: But like, you know, we all do worry about the
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: trajectory and what it means about political standing.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And I do think.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: That the outlier arguments that were convincing to me were
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: that I don't think any other poll has shown Trump
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: winning by that wide of a margin.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And getting over 50%.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Two elections have shown he hasn't gotten. Even the election
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: he actually won in 2016, he didn't break 47%.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: And the other piece of it was the poll at
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: Trump leading Biden with young voters by 20 points. And
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: I'm certainly, you know, we've talked about it on the show.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: There's been great write-ups by, you know, Nate Cohn at
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: the New York Times about challenges Biden is having with
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: young voters.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: But I've never seen Trump winning by 20 points. Have you?
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: No. No, no.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's clear it's an outlier. And I
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: also think it's it is a good argument that polls
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: a year from the election, especially polls when there's a
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: heated Republican primary going on and there's an incumbent president
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: who's had middling approval ratings, to say the least, are
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: not going to be very predictive.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: That said, we know this is going to be a
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: close election. Like, yes, Trump's not going to win by 10.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Biden's not going to win by 10. It's going to
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: be close. And it's going to be within the margin
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: in a lot of these swing states right now. There's
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: some arguments that I don't.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Necessarily love when polls like this come out.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: One argument is, you know, people try to unskew them, right?
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Or they say that, like, it's the media trying to
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: make a close race, something like that. And there's all this, like,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: conspiracy around it. I don't love that. I don't love the, oh,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: they all told us all the polls were wrong in
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: 2022 and it said there were red wave coming. The
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: polls were not wrong, not that wrong in 2022. In fact,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: they were more accurate in 2022 than in any election
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: since 1998. The punditry was off in 2022. Got a
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: little ahead of itself talking about the red wave, but
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: the polls were pretty good.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: Well, ABC had a really bad Wisconsin poll.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: ABC had, yeah. Which is, again, one huge outlier. One outlier,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: one outlet. It's interesting that it's the same one.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, we should also point out that
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: a lot of Republicans don't seem to believe this poll.
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: So it's not just a bunch of liberals unskewing the polls. Also,
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: you know, look, there's margin of error on.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: survey data.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: And it could be plus or minus four points for
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: both the Biden number and the Trump margin. So that
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: could result in an outcome like this. I wonder what
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: you thought about this, though. Dan Pfeiffer was hard on
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: ABC for releasing the poll and then criticizing it. And
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: I didn't agree with that. Because imagine a scenario where
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: ABC and The Post do a poll. It's really favorable
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: for Trump. They don't trust the data. So they don't
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: release it. And that somehow leaks. That, to me, leads
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: to the kind of conspiracy theory mega fever dream stuff.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then they're getting subpoenaed by Jim Jordan and hauled
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: before Congress like they're fucking Twitter or something.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: For suppressing the votes. No, I don't... Look, I mean,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Dan's not here to defend himself, but I didn't... We'll
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: see what he.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Says on the Thursday pod. But I didn't quite agree
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: with that either. Or he said publish it, but then
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: stand by it. I think they're standing by it. They're
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: just saying... Like, here are our results. We're standing by them.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: But by the way, they're not in line with most
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: of the other polls and most of the media outlets,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: which I think is a responsible thing to do.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was responsible, too.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: I think part of Dan's critique was they called it
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: an outlier. But I think the last ABC Washington Post
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: survey had Trump up six. So it was not that
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: much of an outlier, which, frankly, is more cause for concern.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there could be something interesting in the methodology there, right?
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: You pointed out, I guess that Wisconsin poll was not 2022,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that was 2020, right?
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, correct. Because that was Biden up by like a
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: million points in Wisconsin. So there is.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Something a little goofy about the ABC Washington Post polls,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: even though they're rated an A pollster, but the A
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: pollsters have problems, right? I do think it's interesting. I
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: wonder what you think about, so all these national polls
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: are really tight. I think the RealClearPolitics average, which also
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: isn't perfect, has Trump up 1.8 on average. The state polls,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: especially swing state polls, are so far better for Biden
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: than the national polls, which is interesting. There was a
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: CNN poll of New Hampshire last week that has Biden
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: up 52-40 on Trump in New Hampshire. Biden won New
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Hampshire by seven points in 2020, so that would be
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: a better result for Biden. And that's obviously a state
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: where a lot of people pay close attention, especially because
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: there's a primary going on. So I do wonder why
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: the state polls are somewhat better.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was very surprising.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: You'd expect New Hampshire to be hearing a lot of
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: anti-Biden messages right now, and for that maybe to do
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: a number on its approval rating. I just think the
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: last thing people need to understand is you don't do
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: a poll, get the data back, and the results are
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: the results. Every pollster weights it in certain ways based
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: on what they think the actual electorate will look like
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: at the time of the election. So that's how you
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: see a large variance.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: The one thing I wonder about with New Hampshire and
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the electorate there is it is more college educated than
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: the nation as a whole. It's whiter than the nation
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: as a whole. And we know that college educated white
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: voters are giving Democrats and Joe Biden much bigger margins
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: than ever before. And they are turning out. much more
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: than ever before. That's why we're doing so well in
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of these special elections, which just happen to
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: be in areas where there are a lot of college-educated
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: white voters disproportionately. And I noticed this from the NBC
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: poll write-up, which is, it says, a greater share of
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Republican voters than Democratic voters have high interest in the
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: upcoming election, while key parts of the Democratic base, younger voters,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Black voters, and Latino voters, have lower interest than at
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: this same point in past election cycles. So even if
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: you have the Washington Post is an outlier and some
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of these other polls.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: You could start to see.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: A pattern where sort of lower interest voters, people who
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: aren't consuming the news as much, which tend to be younger,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: disproportionately black and Latino, are either not participating in polls,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: are less interested in the election, are less enthusiastic about
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden. And either way, it does seem like this
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: is a group of voters that you're really going to
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: want to focus on if you're the Biden campaign leader.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: To make sure that they are engaged in turn.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: I was just wondering, why do a bunch of national
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: polls this far out? Why not just do a bunch
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: of state-based stuff?
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: If I was running a media organization with enough money
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: to do a really high-quality poll, I would absolutely start
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: doing state polls.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I would not waste my money on a state poll.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I would need a bunch of data out of Texas
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and California. I would love to.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I was looking before we did this, and I was like,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: there hasn't been a high-quality Georgia poll yet. in a long,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: long time, Arizona. There was a couple Pennsylvania and Michigan ones, again,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: where Biden was actually winning in those polls a couple
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: weeks ago. So, you know, I'd love to see more
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: state polls. In the NBC polls, 60% of Democrats said
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that they want someone else to run. Democratic Congressman Dean
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Phillips from Minnesota just said in an interview this week
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that he's still thinking about mounting a primary challenge against
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Good idea, bad idea, doesn't really matter?
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I pay a lot of attention to politics. I don't
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: know who Dean Phillips is. Three-term congressman Dean Phillips from Minnesota?
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Is he here? Couldn't pick him out of one. Yeah,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm less worried about this one.
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: If it were some well-known governor or, you know, a
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: senator or someone like a name ID to primary Biden,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: that might make me worried, right? The example you always
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: hear is about Ted Kennedy, his primary challenge to Jimmy
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: Carter in 1980. The context there was, though, that, you know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: the bottom had fallen out for Jimmy Carter and I
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: think pre, before Kennedy decided to run, he was beating
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: Carter like two to one in polls. And then they
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: went through this brutal primary. Carter beat Kennedy and Kennedy didn't,
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: he didn't really, it was acrimonious all the way to
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: the convention. And Kennedy gave this famous speech and kind
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: of ripped the party apart. And so I think a
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: lot of Biden staff worked for Carter. They're very sensitive
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: to this. But Dean Phillips ain't Ted Kennedy.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: You know, like- I've thought about this a lot because
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't want it to appear that we
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: think like, oh, everyone get in line behind Joe Biden.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It's going to be easy. And he's obviously the strongest
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: candidate and he's going to win. But like, we're all scared. Right.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: We're pretty anxious about this. But like, here's here's the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: reality of the situation. Biden has had plenty of people
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: tell him to step aside. You know, one of his
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: favorite columnists, David Ignatius in The Washington Post, was doing
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: it right.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: That one probably cut deep. He has had no shortage
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of people telling him to step aside. He has refused.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Plenty of Democrats could have launched a primary campaign against
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: him over the last year. They have all refused. And
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: if any of them decided to change their minds, right?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro of tomorrow, they just
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: woke up and decided they wanted to challenge Biden. They'd
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: have four months to put together a presidential campaign, raise money,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: hire staff, get on TV, get well-known, and then somehow
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: make an argument to anxious Democrats that actually they are
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: the best candidate to beat Donald Trump instead of a
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: sitting Democratic president who is the only person who beat
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: him last time.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: It's just like you can have your anxieties over the
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Biden situation, but then you have to go to, all right,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: what's the alternative?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: And I think the alternative requires someone with a chance
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: of winning running against Biden in a primary. And no
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: one has decided to do that. And listen, yeah, to
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: your point, I am just as worried about some of
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: the polling you talked about sort of under the hood
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: in this NBC poll and the ABC one, some of
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: the concerns about age Some of the frustration about the economy,
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: despite the fact that there's all these economic indicators that
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: make us think that the economy is actually getting better,
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: but people aren't feeling it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot to be worried about. But Dean
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Phillips is not on my list.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And you just like I said, you really have to
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: play it out in your head. Like it's it's either,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: you know, Joe Biden on his primary stage. with Gavin
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Newsom and Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer and Raphael Warnock
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: or whoever you have up there. And they're all debating
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: and fighting it over the next three months, four months
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: before we get to South Carolina or Biden steps aside.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And now you're picturing Kamala Harris up on stage with
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Newsom and Shapiro and all of these same people that
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I just mentioned. And, like, really think if that's going
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: to make you sleep easier. And then also, like, none
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: of these people want to do it. Someone's got to
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: step up and run, you know?
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm very much in the camp of, I don't know,
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: I worry. I don't think primaries are bad. I sometimes
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: think a vigorous debate about policy and getting our message
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: out all over the place can be a good thing.
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: Sometimes it pulls a bunch of candidates to the far
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: left or to the far right and hurts in the
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: general election. Generally, I think you can deal with that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: And candidates all end up tacking back to the middle
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: and whatever. It's a 50-50 country. That's how these races
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: end up. If there were some sort of Democratic primary happening,
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: maybe it would help Joe Biden emerge stronger if.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: He defeated them.
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: However, we still are at this point where whether or
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: not pundits and donors and voters want an alternative, someone
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: has to step up and run.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: And if someone stepped up a year ago, it would
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: be a different story. Again, it's really hard to do that.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: four months out from the first primary.
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: And your message would likely just be, I like almost
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: everything that Biden has done.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Substantively, I just think he's too old. Maybe that's a
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: potent message.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: But someone.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Again, no one's done it except our boy, Dean Phillips,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: who we could not recognize.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Not sure that's a real person.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the impending government shutdown since our last show.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Here are some words used to describe Kevin McCarthy's leadership
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: of the House Republicans. Chaos, a total shitshow, dysfunctional, and
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: can't count. Those were all quotes from different Republican members
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: of Congress. And here's a few more.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: This is not conservative Republicanism. This is stupidity.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: It's a clown show.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: You keep running lunatics, you're going to be in this position.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: There are one or two, like Congressman Goetz, who I
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: think is frankly deranged.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: That last one was, of course, the pioneer of government shutdowns,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Newt Gingrich. Matt Gaetz. Matt Goetz. Congressman Goetz. That's so insulting.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Deranged Matt Goetz. I like that.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So the White House is using some of this criticism
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: in a new memo. They're starting to warn people about
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: the real world consequences of a shutdown, which, again, seems
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: more and more likely with each passing day. How do
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: you think Biden and the Democrats can win this fight
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: or at the very least make sure that Republicans get
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: the blame that they deserve?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think Republicans are doing a very good
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: job of making sure they get the blame they deserve
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: in terms of the shutdown. There's also just the other fact.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: That Biden and McCarthy cut a spending deal around the
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: debt ceiling and then McCarthy's just completely violated it. And
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: that's the reason we're in this problem. So I do
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: think the White House is doing the right things. They're
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: highlighting all the quotes from Republicans criticizing Republican handling in
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: the House. They're highlighting programs that would get cut or
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: get stopped if there was a government shutdown.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And the ways people would get harmed.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: I think the bigger risk for Biden, though, is less
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: the short-term shutdown debate than just the long-term harm to
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: the economy. Because if there's a long UAW strike, if
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: there's a government shutdown, these people in Congress, they're arsonists.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, Matt Gaetz, they want to shut down the
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: government and hurt the economy to hurt Joe Biden long-term
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: to help Donald Trump.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: That's their plan.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: And that, what you just said, is probably the best
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: argument for Biden and the Democrats to make now explicitly,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: which I think they're doing. The White House and a
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: lot of Democratic surrogates today are out there talking about
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: how 7 million women and children who rely on food
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: assistance could be turned away at a grocery store pretty
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: soon if the government shut down because they depend on
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: food assistance. People in the military could go without paychecks.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: There'd be a lot of air travel delays and cancellations.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: There wouldn't be food inspections.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Disaster relief would suffer. You were talking about border security
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: last week.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Trying to cut that and some of the spending bills.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy said that today because Donald Trump, again, is
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: saying like, if you don't get everything you want, they
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: should shut it down. Kevin McCarthy's like, well, I think
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: our military should get paid and that our border patrol
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: agents should get paid because.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: They wouldn't, Kevin.
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: So you and I were talking about this last week,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: but did you see Data for Progress did some polling
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: on this, like they tested the most effective messages around
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a shutdown? Sure enough, this is what the White House
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: was using, but the most effective messages are messages about
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: how this would hurt our economy, like you just said,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: all the things that I just mentioned that would be
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: real world effects on people, and also saying that this
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: kind of extremism and petty politics is exactly why people
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: hate Washington, because there's a bunch of fucking arsonists in
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the Congress, like you just said. And then the least
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: effective are arguments about how They're holding the government hostage
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to defund the Trump prosecutions and impeach Joe Biden.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: People actually don't give a shit about that. That makes sense.
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't give a shit about that either if I
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: were just trying to live my life. I also think
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: you can tie it all back to Trump because he.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Is the maestro here.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: He's like the offensive coordinator, like truthing out the next
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: play to the base, to McCarthy, to everybody saying.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: You know, shut it down. Yeah.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: They care about themselves. They care about their own political
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: futures and they don't give a shit about you. And
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: people are going to be hurt as a result just
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: because they're playing games.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Finally, Joe Biden's weaponized Justice Department is at it again
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: with yet another politicized indictment of the Democratic chair of
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: the Foreign Relations Committee. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: been accused of bribery and corruption, specifically abusing his power
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: to influence arms sales to Egypt and The FBI searched
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the senator's home and found $ 100, 000 worth of gold bars
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and $ 480, 000 in cash that was stuffed in envelopes and
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: jacket pockets. They also got text, phone calls, shell company payments,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: lots of evidence in this indictment. Multiple Democrats in New
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Jersey and elsewhere have called on Menendez to resign. But
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: at a press conference Monday, he said he's not going anywhere.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet. But
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly
• 31:50
  Speaker 6: believe that when all the facts are presented, not only
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: will I be exonerated, but I still will be the
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: New Jersey's senior senator. Now this may seem old-fashioned, but
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: on the income that I have lawfully derived over those
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: 30 years.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Tommy, is that what you do? Do you just take
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: money every once in a while out of your savings account?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: It's just cash, stuff it in envelopes, stuff it in
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: your jacket pockets, and then also buy some gold? You
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: got some gold under your bed?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: The gold bars. It's really amazing.
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: Then he Googled price kilo gold. I should just say,
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: I want to say at the top, full disclosure, I
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: thought Bob Menendez was a terrible United States senator for
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: a long time. Before this indictment, before the previous indictment.
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: He was indicted in 2015 for similar things, for using
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: his office. to help out donors and friends, but I
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: think he's- Hung jury, so he escaped that one. Yeah,
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: and frankly, that was a much harder case to prosecute,
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: I think, because he had a preexisting relationship. This one
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: is going to be trouble for him. But look, Menendez
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: thinks that another decade or four of sanctions on Cuba
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: will change the government there. I think that's stupid. He
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: was opposed to the Iran deal. So he's just sort
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: of hawkish, and I think he's bad on policy, but
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: I just want to get that out of the way
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: and get it off my chest. But yeah, I mean,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: he is in big trouble here.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: It seems.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend folks read the full indictment.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Read the indictment, or if you don't want to read
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: the 39-page indictment, the New York Times has some great
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: stories about it.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: The details are shocking. It's very blatant. It's multiple parts.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: It's multiple parts.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: It's Menendez and his wife and a businessman that they
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: knew that has a lot of business in Egypt. So
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: it was like, Menendez taking all these actions and pressuring
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: all these people as part of his role on the
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then just getting money.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so there's a couple different parts. First of all,
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: he used his position as U.S. Senator and the chairman
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help push for U.S.
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: assistance to Egypt. This was at a time when there
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: were a lot of real serious human rights considerations happening.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: When it came to Egypt.
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: Egypt is the second biggest recipient of military aid from
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: the US after Israel. I think they get about a
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: billion dollars a year in foreign military financing funds. And
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: Menendez could put a hold on that funding if he
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: wanted or help push it through if he did not.
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: So the allegation is that he got money to help
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: push that money through. He also allegedly did favors to
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: help a business associated with one of the individuals who
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: was bribing him.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Basically, that guy had a.
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: Monopoly on The export of halal meats to Egypt from
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: the U.S. And he pushed Biden to nominate a U.S.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: attorney in New Jersey that Menendez felt he could control
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: to prevent some of his buddies from getting prosecuted.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: So there are really fucking mobster stuff.
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: Real mob stuff, multiple strands, super brazen. And a lot
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: of this seemingly was going through his girlfriend's now wife.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And who was texting about it. She was sending a
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: lot of texts that were not helpful.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: So outside of New Jersey, so you get a lot
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: of New Jersey Democrats have called on him to resign.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Phil Murphy, the governor, a lot of the congressional delegation,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of like county chairs and stuff like that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Outside of New Jersey, we got John Fetterman was the
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: first senator to call on him to resign. Sherrod Brown
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: just called on him today. Why haven't more Democrats, do
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: you think, called on him to resign?
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And should they? I'm surprised by this, too.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, you are we're all deserve the presumption
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: of innocence until proven guilty. But you don't deserve to
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: be a U.S.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Senator.
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: You don't deserve to be the chair of a committee.
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: And again, you know, Menendez, he ghost wrote a letter
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: for the Egyptians that was then sent to his colleagues
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: about the need to push for a military aid. Menendez
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: had a private meeting with some Egyptian official. And then
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: one of these businessmen that was allegedly bribing him bought
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: 22 one ounce gold bars.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: They had serial numbers on them. One was then found
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: at his house.
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: These guys were renting cars or purchasing cars for Menendez's wife. And,
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: you know, after the feds approached Menendez, he wrote his
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: wife a check for $ 23, 000. She then wrote a check
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: back to one of the guys who allegedly has been
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: bribing him all this time. And the memo section said
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: personal loans. So It seems like they got him dead
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: to rights. There's all these evidence that Menendez knows he
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: was busted and is trying to sort of clean up
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: after himself. And so I guess my question is whether
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: they're just worried that Menendez is vindictive enough to basically
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: screw over the whole Democratic Party to do something that
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: might take away the Democratic majority. Like, I'm not sure
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: what they think he's threatening that would, you know, lead
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: them to treat him with kid gloves here.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Look, I.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: I get that if someone is indicted who you serve with, right,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: that if the indictment is vague, right, you want, like,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: let the legal process, you don't want to set a
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: rule that every indictment automatically disqualifies you, right, because prosecutors
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: can get things wrong, people can be innocent, like you said,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: there's a presumption of innocence. You read this indictment, you
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: read the stories, you read what they already have as evidence, again,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: you know, let the legal process go forward, but, like,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have to be fucking a Democratic senator from
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: New Jersey anymore.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: No.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Andy Kim, who's one of the Democratic members of Congress,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: has already announced that he's going to run against Menendez
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: in the primary. Menendez is up, by the way, in 2024.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: That's important context. There may be other Democratic members of
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Congress who run in that race as well.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: We'll see what happens. I bet it gets pretty crowded.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And look, I guess from the Biden administration's perspective, I
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: sort of get it because if Joe Biden's standard for
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: both the Trump prosecution and And now the prosecution of
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: his own son is going to be like, it's my
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Justice Department. I'm going to let the process play out.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say anything like I get that
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: right now. Obviously, Joe Biden should not endorse Obama for reelection.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: But for the other senators, like, come on.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I know. I don't get it.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's a lot of people called
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: on Al Franken to resign just based on some news stories.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Right. There's no indictment. I don't know if it's a
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: collegial thing. I don't know if they're friends.
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: I don't know if these are, you know, a bunch
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: of people who are too used to being in these jobs.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It's weird.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: But again, Menendez did a favor for someone, tried to
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: interfere in the prosecution of one of these.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Guys who was bribing him.
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: Menendez then called the guy from his Senate office who
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: he just helped out. And then they had a celebratory
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: dinner a few days later and a champagne toast and
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: they took photos of it.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: This is how brazen it was.
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: And the other element of this is, this isn't just
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: like Bob Menendez helping out a corrupt businessman in New Jersey.
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: He's providing information to the government of Egypt about foreign
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: military sales from the United States. He passed along to
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: his girlfriend information about the number of American employees and
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: locally based Egyptian employees at the U.S. embassy in Cairo.
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: I don't know why you would do that. That's a very,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: it's weird information to want.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if it was like to get them
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to get so that they could lobby them.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: I don't know if it's lobbying them. I don't know
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: if it's looking for people to extract intelligence from.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: It's very strange. It was a shocking piece of this
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: puzzle to me.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And of course, it goes without saying that the Republican
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: likely nominee has been charged with 91 felony counts. And
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: part of our argument against him is like, hey, no
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: one is above the fucking law. And this guy's got
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: a bunch of criminal charges. And again, Donald Trump enjoys
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: the presumption of innocence as well. But Donald Trump should absolutely.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: not be serving as president again and should not hold
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: any public office again. And we, what I would like
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: to see is, um, I'd love for Dana Perino to
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: who is moderating the debate on Wednesday, to ask these
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Republican candidates what they think about Bob Menendez. Yeah, I'm
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: sure everybody's practicing that answer right now. Yeah, they're all
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: going to say that, yeah, of course, Bob Menendez should resign,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: but Donald Trump, he's okay.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, what Menendez will say is, look, I
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: was just doing what any U.S. senator does.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: You know, you lobby for businesses in your state, you
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: help out constituents, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know,
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: normally constituents don't lease your wife a Mercedes for 60 grand.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: No, that's like you do some constituent services, you get
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: some gold bars. That's always what happens.
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: It's just, you know, the guy's in a privileged position.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: He has access to a lot of information. He will
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: no longer be chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: He's already stepped down from that role. But I don't look,
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: I don't get why some Democrat didn't primary.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Him a long time ago. You know who's defending him? Who?
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: George Santos. Okay, good.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: George Santos said he shouldn't resign. We should tell you
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: everything he needs to know. Okay, before we go to break,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: quick housekeeping note. This week is apparently Band Book Week
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: because that's where we are as a country right now.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: It's a good reminder to go to votesaveamerica.com where you
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: can find all kinds of ways to help fight book
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: bans across the country. And we also have some fun
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: merch in the Crooked store. There's a Free the Books merch.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: There's Are You Afraid of the Books t-shirts that are
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: well-timed for Halloween. And there are kids' tees and onesies
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: that say, Read Me a Band Book. Check it all
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: out at crooked.com/.store. When we come back, Tommy talks to
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: our friend and former White House colleague, Cal Penn, about
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: the tentative deal to end the writer's strike, youth outreach
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: in the 2024 campaign, and much more.
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: Our guest today is an actor. He's a former White
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: House staffer during the Obama administration.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, he's my good friend, Cal Penn. It's
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: great to see you.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Good to see you, man. How are you?
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: I'm great. I, um, I saw a bunch of Iowa
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: folks over the weekend, which made me think of you
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: because you weren't based in Iowa, but you might as
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: well have been given the number of times the Obama
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: campaign asked you to go there to, uh, to turn
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: out the vote, to travel around the state, to talk
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: about climate.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: What else were you doing? A million things.
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: Mostly youth outreach with, uh, with team Iowa. Um, and
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: then a little bit of arts policy committee work, but that,
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: that was, uh, man, it feels like so long ago,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: but also 50 years into the future, just in terms
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: of the, the wholesomeness and the lack of vitriol.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I know. I know.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a different time, but you know what?
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: The best part that, uh, I was able to come
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: out there because of that was the last time the
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: screenwriters went on strike. So I wasn't able to shoot
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: a TV show house, which is why I was able
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: to join the campaign.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right. Well, we're going to talk about strikes
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: in a minute.
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: Uh, Let's talk about it right now because we booked
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: this interview a few weeks ago because we were thinking
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: it would be important to check in on the ongoing
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: strikes in Hollywood. On Sunday night, there was some good
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: news about a potential breakthrough in the negotiations between the
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: Writers Guild and the studios. I've not seen all the details.
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure that a lot of folks have outside
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: of the bargaining committee. But it sounds like the writers
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: got more compensation for streaming content, some rules around a
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: baseline for the number of writers in a room. some
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: sort of protections when it comes to artificial intelligence.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: So that's great.
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: In the coming days, the writers will vote on whether
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: or not to accept that deal. But the WGA leadership
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: is excited about it, which is telling. So fingers crossed there.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: But there is another actually considerably larger union representing actors
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: and TV and radio artists that is still on strike.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: I don't believe those negotiations have been happening recently, but
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: I want to check in with you on that. So
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: This is the SAG-AFTRA union. What are they hoping to
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: get out of the strike? What are the demands they're
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: looking for?
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: So in some senses, I'm full disclosure, I'm a member
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: of both unions, but I've been a SAG-AFTRA member for
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: two decades. I think both unions wanted things that are
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: pretty common in labor disputes, wanting to make sure that
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: wages for workers reflect everything from inflation to a fair
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: reflection of profits if the industry was particularly profitable. But
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: then one of the newer pieces is related to AI
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: in both unions. And I know your listeners probably know
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: a lot about this, but the kind of thing that
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: I would underscore, you hear this happening a lot with
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: discussions about labor in general, but it's kind of a
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: decision point and a point of reflection within the industry
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: that predominantly in television, because what you used to have was,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: you would have things called residuals. So for writers and actors,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: it's money that you would get every time something airs
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: on television, for example. And a lot of that structure
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: is really archaic because it was set up when everything
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: was on these big four networks. And so if your show,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: the Nielsen rating said 24 million people watched it last night,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: the ad space, Ford would spend a ton on your show.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: And so Essentially, that's how they could track what was
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: fair in terms of compensation. Since almost everything is streaming now,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: those algorithms are proprietary, understandably, by these platforms. But because
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: they're hiding who's watching how much, and even though ads
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: are part of, you can get Hulu, for example, with ads,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: there isn't a good way for labor to kind of
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: track what's fairly owed to us. So that's a big
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: point of contention that I think you're hearing a lot about.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: And then AI is, is, you know, kind of the
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: other piece of it.
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: You know, this morning we were texting back and forth
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: and you were telling me how you just, you checked
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: in on some of your old, uh, residuals.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: You were looking up the.
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: Very Harold and Kumar 3d Christmas check, which, uh, how
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: much was that again? I, it was, I, I shit
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: you not, uh, $ 4 and 20 cents.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Come on. How is that possible?
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It's, you know, those movies and, and you know, that's actually, it's,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: it's a good segue. First of all, it seemed like
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: a joke, right? I, you and I had spoken and
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: I just logged onto the app to make sure that I,
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: that my memory was correct. And I wasn't somehow making
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: a ton of money off of residuals from that, that movie.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: But that movie, man, we, we signed onto it in 2004, right?
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: It was, obviously very competitive, really long audition process. But
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: I had done a movie called Van Wilder with Ryan Reynolds.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: That was the only real big thing that I had done.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: John Cho, who plays Harold, had heard of American Pie
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: and I think a couple other things. But basically, they
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: offer us this deal and they're like, look, take it
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: or leave it. It's X amount of money. What I
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: would tell you is it was a decent sort of
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: middle class salary was what that reflection was, which is
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: wonderful when you're just starting out. And it was a
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: three picture option, which is also very common. And so,
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: you know, nobody was making tons of money. And there
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: also weren't things in the contract that are common called
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: box office bumps or bumps. So meaning if your movie makes,
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: you know, $ 20 million, you get a check for however
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: much you get it. So we didn't have any of
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: that stuff. So the movie comes out and actually it
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: tanked at the box office. Everybody forgets this. It tanked initially.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: And then it did really bonkers numbers on DVD and
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: I guess now streaming. But we didn't get a share
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: of that, right? We didn't get a proportional share of
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: that because we had sort of signed this three-picture option.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: And that was the fair contract that we'd signed, right?
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: I knew exactly what I was signing. The hope there,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: which turned out to be true, was if your movie
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: does well, it'll hopefully launch your career and you're fairly
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: compensated down the line. But what's kind of crazy when
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I talk to friends about this, You see that, okay,
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: on DVD, that first movie initially made $ 50 million. And
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: everyone's like, dude, so you got a sweet check, right?
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I'm like, no, not really. My salary for that movie
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: lasted me a couple of months after agent manager commissions
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: and taxes, which just to be clear, is fantastic for
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: an actor. I just want to make clear that I'm
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: not whining about this. That's the dream. The dream is
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: to put a roof over your head. pay your rent
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: from your acting. But I think when, you know, obviously
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: Ingest sent you the 420 screenshot, although it's accurate. But
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: one of the real things that I think when you
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: see an industry like this get restructured in this way,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: you know, for Screen Actors Guild, as an actor, you
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: have to make $ 26, 500 a year minimum to qualify for
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: your health insurance. And more than 80% of our union
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: members don't make that money.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Acting.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: And so they're, you know, they either don't have health insurance,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: or they have to get it through other means. So
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: when you're when you're hearing about things, I totally understand
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: why celebrities and people like myself are kind of becoming
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: the face of this on TV. But the reality is
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: the vast majority of our union brothers and sisters are
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: working class folks working their hearts out for a dream
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: that they have. They're working very, very hard. And they
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: don't often you know, the difference between a $ 4 And
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: 20 cent residuals check could literally be the difference between
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: whether they hit that cap for their health insurance or not.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: No, I think that's such an important point because look,
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: even when I met you back in 2007, I remember
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: all of us being like, whoa, that guy's a movie star.
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: There's another one on the way.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: There's a third one. Like he must be loaded.
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: I wonder if he came out here on a private
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: jet and you're like, I have a one bedroom.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Kind of that I can kind of afford.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: You guys came out to LA and you saw me
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: driving my mom's car and you're like, oh, okay.
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: But I think the title of actor gets flattened, right?
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: And you think of Tom Cruise and you think of
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: Penelope Cruz, all the Cruises, and you think that everyone
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: with the title of actor is rich, but I think
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: it's important to understand that you can be wildly successful
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: in the industry. You can be a part of a
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: three-part franchise that made, what, a quarter of a billion dollars,
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: but a lot of the actors don't receive anything near
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: what they deserve for that work.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point too, man. I think the
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: focus of these disputes should obviously be on the majority
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: of of members who are, um, or working in middle-class folks. But, um,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: but the point you raise is a good one. Like if,
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: if you made somebody that kind of money, there's nothing
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: wrong with wanting what you're fairly entitled to, you know?
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, so Cal the, the, the AI
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: part of.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: These negotiations is so fascinating and complicated. It's hard for
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: me to wrap my head around what the technology is new.
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: It's also evolving so quickly, but What are the general
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: principles that you think, we could say artists writ large,
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, writers, actors, whomever you want to fold into this,
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: should ask for to be protected from what we know
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: about AI?
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think, like you said, the Writers Guild
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: hasn't released the fine print yet because I think they're
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: still mulling it over. But my presumption is that they
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: got some guarantees that AI wouldn't be used, meaning no
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: inputs of work that was written by writers uh, human
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: writers can go into this algorithm to spit out something
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: that would, that would make us obsolete. I think from the,
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: from the acting perspective, we already have, you know, you
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: do a TV show, a movie commercial with special effects
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: and you're already your face, your body, your voice is
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: being scanned. And in some of the early Netflix language,
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: you know, there was stuff in there that allowed them
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: to use modifications of your voice without your consent, without
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: additional compensation. So the fear there, which is not far-fetched
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: at all, especially if the precedent of these companies means anything,
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: is that you don't want to participate in these scans
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: and then find out that someone's making a movie with
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: your name, likeness, voice, all of that stuff that they
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: have and that they own without your say and without
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: any additional compensation. And it's really not far-fetched. It happens already.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: And it's in these contracts already. So I think having
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: those protections in there is really critical for both the
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: actors and the writers. Yeah.
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, I know someone like, I think Sarah Silverman,
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: for example, is suing some of these companies and saying basically, Hey,
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: somebody uploaded a bunch of my books, a bunch of
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: my jokes. They scraped my identity essentially. And now they're
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: plagiarizing that to recreate stuff in my own voice. Like,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: of course that doesn't seem fair.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: No, it's not fair.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: And also, you know, let's just be clear. Like the,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I know there's a lot of bad blood right now
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: because there's a double strike, but The executives and the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: folks who run these companies, as much as I look
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: forward to working with them again, they're not writers. They're
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: not creative talent. To basically underscore, you need that human element,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: or at least you want to have that human element.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: Audiences have said time and again, they like the idea
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: of the human element remaining. I remember if you look
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: back to when TV started, people said radio is going
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: to die. When DVD came out, people aren't going to
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: go to the theater. People still love being together. They
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: love seeing plays. They like going for those big blockbuster movies.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: So I think hanging on to that culturally is something
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: that's relevant, but really pushing those companies on making sure
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: that they do the right thing is important. The other
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: thing that I think makes sense to bring up is
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: these are unique challenges right now for actors and writers,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: but there are things that are going to affect other
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: labor unions and other industries. You're already seeing it come
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: up in conversations about lawyers, for example. Obviously, they're not unionized.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: So their power is not sort of what it is
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: in a singular union. I can't believe that Andrew Yang
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: was the only dude talking about UBI a couple of
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: years ago. But the idea that the technology has changed
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: that quickly and that people's jobs are at risk in
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: a very real way is like, look, we're going to
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: have to start talking about what that means down the line,
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: because not all of these professions have unions that are
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: strong enough and concentrated enough. So it begs the larger
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: question of what kind of world do.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: We want to live in?
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's an important point as part of these
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: negotiations generally. I mean, I'm sure you can put in
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: near-term language to, I think, sort of mitigate some of
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: the risk from AI. But I think what you'll hear
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: from people on the executive side, people who, you know,
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: friends of mine who are writers, friends who are showrunners,
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: is that a lot of people believe that, you know,
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: it's impossible to stop technological progress, that, you know, these
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: new tools will get incorporated into the writing process, the
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: show creation process. in some way, and that, you know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: fighting it is to some extent a losing battle. And
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: the question becomes.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Just like, how much can you mitigate that risk, right?
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was an older New York Times article from May,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: sort of when the writer started out about AI, and
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: it mentioned in there, you know, their unions generally had
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: not been successful in fighting technological changes. So if what
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: we assume is in the Writers Guild contract is in
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: fact in their It's obviously a huge win for writers
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: and talent, but also arguably a huge win for any
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: working professional whose job is impacted by any technological change.
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: And that's kind of the generational question to ask ourselves.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: I also would argue that asking for fair regulation, compensation,
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: and a framework doesn't mean that you're against the technology, right?
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: There are obviously uses for all of these technologies that
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: could benefit Just the idea that it's a zero-sum game
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: to me is very silly. Going back to that question
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: of what does it mean for the sake of humanity
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: that we actually put checks and balances on these things,
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's impossible. I think it's impossible if
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: you have a bunch of 63-year-olds running the Senate who
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: don't understand how their life– 63.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Isn't that the average? Those are the young people.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. Exactly.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: But in the House, for example, Don Beyer is doing
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: a master's in AI. So like we need more people
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: like that who are willing to kind of go in
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: and study up on this stuff.
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, some intellectually curious people. Also, look, I don't think
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: people are good at making predictions. I've been reading the
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk book, which is hagiography in a
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: lot of ways. But I was reading about how one
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: of the mistakes he made at Tesla is they automated
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: as many things as they could in their assembly line,
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: built it. And then realized that a lot of the
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: automation they had created actually was slowing things down, that
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: people were faster and better at it and more cost efficient.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: So they de-automated, ripped out.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: A bunch of machines and threw them out of the
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: back and hired people. So, you know, I think even
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: guys like Elon get this stuff wrong. So, Cal, you know,
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: in addition to being an actor and a writer, you
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: worked in politics for a long time. And as we
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: were saying at the top, you've done a ton of
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: work reaching out to young voters, trying to get them
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: fired up to care, to realize, you know, that this matters.
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: When you're talking to, say, 18 to 30-year-olds about things
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: that are on their minds, what they want to see
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: in a leader, what are you hearing these days?
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: I'm hearing that I'm old. I'm like the old guy.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: I can't remember who it was, but there was a
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: college student at one of the guest lectures I did
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: who was on the walk back to the car or whatever.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: He was like, hey, I noticed you were saying my
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: generation needs to have a lot more patience. I'm like, yeah,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: you know, we live in a vibrant democracy. There are
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: checks and balances. The shit doesn't happen as quickly as
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: sending like a nasty tweet, which obviously feels very good,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: but doesn't necessarily accomplish anything. So I just think like,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: you know, your generation needs to understand analog a little bit.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: And he goes, so just out of curiosity, like, so
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: I get.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: It, right?
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: You grew up in an analog world and you're young
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: enough to know how digital stuff works. I grew up
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: in this and he pulls out his phone. He's like,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: this is my whole reality.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Like ever since I was born, I could get all
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: the information I wanted immediately on my phone. And it's
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: always going to be like that. So why am I
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: the one who should have patience instead of the other
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: way around? I was like, okay, fuck, fine, fine. I
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: feel old, right? I feel old that you're right. But
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I think to answer your question, Tommy, that interaction then
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: kind of made me feel like Yeah, the system should
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: adapt a little more. Obviously, it's still three branches of government,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: vibrant democracy. We need to hang on to that. But
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: the idea that change should happen a lot quicker is
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: something that I find myself talking about a lot, especially
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: with something like, so for example, the IRA, right? Inflation
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Reduction Act has this insane, insane climate stuff in there
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: that we would have killed for in the Obama administration.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: And I remember- having youth climate meetings and young people
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: who would protest outside the gates of the White House
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: while we were having fucking meetings on climate because they
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: just wanted to push the president that much harder to
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: do that much more. And it's now, what, 12 years
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: later after some of those meetings and now they're getting
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: it and they're getting more than what they had asked
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: for in the IRA under Biden. But those people who
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: were 18 at the time are no longer considered part
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: of the youth vote bloc, right? And the kids who
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: are young are, for obvious reasons, not feeling any sense
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: of reward for work that they're putting in to climate.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: So this idea that like, you know, a lot of
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: the stuff we realize it works because we're feeling good
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: about the work that we put in and seeing the
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: results of that work. And my worry is that you've
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: got this bold climate action and people aren't celebrating it
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: the way that they should. Like this stuff really is
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: happening because of all the I interviewed the president when
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: I was guest hosting the Daily Show a couple of
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: months ago and I asked him that question. you know,
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: what led to all this aggressive climate stuff? And he said,
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: it's young people. It was two decades of youth advocacy
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: on climate that created the political space for him to
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: act on that. And so I just think like, you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: I I get that we live in sort of a
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: cynical world, but to, to not focus on the things
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: that we've won is such a mistake. And I think
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: it lets the other.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Side win a lot.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, climate's the hardest one.
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: Cause I think that the younger you are, the more
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: of a stake you have in the future of the
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: planet personally. I mean, look, I now have a, 10
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: month old daughter. So I feel an enormous sense of
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: responsibility to her, but also the things that have happened,
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: as you note in the IRA are monumental, but the
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: implementation of that law is taking some time, probably longer
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: than we all want. And the impact is really about
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: mitigating the effects of climate change rather than stopping it
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: or reversing it yet. So I, so I both, I
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: hear you and that people should be proud of how
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: much Their work in blood, sweat and tears and fighting
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: for climate policy have moved the needle. But also I
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: get why people are frustrated about the lack of additional progress.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: I mean is that the number one thing you're hearing
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: though when you're talking to young voters about what they
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: want out of a president or what they want to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: see Biden do?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: I mean I think– look, I think I'm hearing the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: same thing that everybody else is hearing, which is like
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: I think people think generally maybe an audience like yours–
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: the president's doing a good job. They wish he would
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: do more, which is pretty standard for, for a left-leaning block.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: I think the stuff that, that I'm hearing that they
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: care a lot about understandably is, you know, how we're,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: how we're treating migrants. A lot of that is on
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: the state level and places like, or even city level
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: places like New York city where I live. Um, but
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: I think they're, they're hoping that there's a little more
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: federal action on things like that. Climate's a big one job.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: A lot of, a lot of it's the same stuff
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: that keeps coming up jobs, cost of education, um, You know,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: those are all things that I'm still hearing. So none
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: of it is from the, like, I'm washing my hands
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: of it. I will say the part that's a little
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: harder to push back on, and I'll bring this back
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: to the strike because this has come up so much,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: especially with young writers and younger actors. People have taken
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: notice of the fact that most of these studio heads
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: and people who have forced the labor unions into a
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: strike are big democratic donors themselves, right? These are people
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: who love to use social media to talk about equity
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: But when it comes time to actually paying their teams
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: and their artists and their labor, they don't want.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: To do it.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: They went and hired, the AMPTP hired this woman named
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Molly Levinson in DC, who's this PR powerhouse who the
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: US Women's National Team hired for pay equity. And she
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: did a wonderful job with them, right? Yeah. And it
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: was really shocking that she and her team would then
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: go and take a client that wanted to break labor union.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of young people are recognizing
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: that even on the supposed left, you have this hierarchy
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: that's more based on money and power than it is
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: on the equity that these people supposedly talk about or
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: tweet about. And that it seems like at the root cause,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: it's just, well, with enough money and greed at stake,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: we'll say or do anything to keep people down. You're
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: talking about a generation that is increasingly in more debt.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: you know, the housing market right now at least isn't
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: perfect for them. You have a lot of people living
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: at home, not that there's anything wrong with that, but
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: the idea that it's less of a choice to live
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: at home to save money and more of a necessity.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: So I think the thing that does worry me is
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: not that we're somehow outraged that, oh, look at these
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: Republicans doing this shit. Like, of course you expect that.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: But the idea that people in your own party are
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: doing it is something that is really unsettling, I think,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: to me and to a lot of young people I
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: talk to.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I'm sure Biden tried to take this massive
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: step to wipe away student debt and it was blocked
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: by the courts.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: And I think that just must be unbelievably.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: Frustrating for someone who maybe counted on that check as
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: going towards rent in the future or paying down some
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: other credit card bill.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Or whatever else.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: Another piece of this that I hear about that I
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: worry about is kind of cultural. Like in the, let's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: say the 60s through fairly recently, being liberal, being progressive
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: felt countercultural.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: It was anti-war, anti-establishment.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: And I think that was that manifested in activism, voting patterns, music, movies, right, art.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: And today there seems to be this strand of young
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: conservatives or young men mostly who feel put upon by progressives.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: They feel they talk about being canceled. They're really focused
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: on that all the time or told, you know, feel
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: like they're being told what they can think or say.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: And that's how Trump has become counter-cultural or anti-establishment, despite
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: the fact that he was the president of the United States,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: because he's the one kind of raging about that piece
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: of the status quo. Have you encountered that kind of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: young voter at your events? Are there arguments that have
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: worked for you to kind of reach them, kind of
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: like the barstool sports kind of Republican generation?
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: I got to say, I just got to give a
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: shout out to where it's due. The barstool bros love
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: the Harold and Kumar movies. So So we do have
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: some commonality.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: They're great movies.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: I'm confused by this, to be honest. Like, you know,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know. To me, I see that and like, oh,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: what are you aggrieved about? To me, the conversation comes
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: up a lot with me in the realm of comedy.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: So I'll hear from people, you know, you just, I
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: can't make jokes the way I used to. You know,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: do you think you could make another Harold and Kumar
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: movie today? You probably couldn't. You'd probably get canceled. this sucks.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: I was going to go into this career, but I
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: can't do it because you just can't say the thing
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: you used to be able to say. And I'm sort
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: of like, well, bro, what's the word that you wanted
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: to say that you couldn't say?
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, say it.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Say the word.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Go ahead. Go ahead.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: What are you worried about?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Say the word.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: Are you worried that you're going to get supposedly, quote unquote, canceled?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: Or are you recognizing that the free market is going
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: to take care of something that they no longer like?
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: And I think there's a big difference there, right? Like,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: If we're pretending that the only reason that you used
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: to be able to say and do anything you wanted
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: and people would tolerate it is because it was the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: right thing and that was freedom, I think we're confusing
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: that with the fact that, especially in the comedy space,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: my job is to make people laugh. I don't want
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: to make jokes that I made 20 years ago. That
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: shit's boring to me. I want to continue to build
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: on an audience and a marketplace that's demanding us to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: be better and better and more dynamic. So that's always
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: been my approach to this, and it confuses me a
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: little bit when I'm here when I hear what you
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: sort of outlined. But then I kind of get it, right?
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: If you've always had this immense privilege and have never
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: felt what it feels like to have to kind of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: account for what equity actually is, meaning that everybody has
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: to work really hard to get a seat at the table,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: nothing is promised or owed to you. I think that
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: if a shift like that is happening culturally, you know,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: I'm a little empathetic to what that might be like
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: for somebody.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: It is weird.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: In the comedy space, it is often the most successful, rich,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: famous comedians who are complaining about being canceled all the time.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: You seem to be doing fine. Joe Rogan or Dave
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: Chappelle or whoever it is.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: Also, make the jokes you want to make. I'll defend
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: until the day I die the right of somebody to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: say and do whatever they want to do. The consequence
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: of that is that we live in 2023 and the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: audience might be demanding more and might've loved your old
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: shit and might not like that. You're making jokes about
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: something that they don't feel the need to litigate even
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: through comedy. Cause it's just a dumb joke to them.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: It goes back to feeling like we're getting older, right?
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: It's like, I'm the old man now sometimes. So I
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: just need to account for that.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well just, uh, stay funny comedians. That's all you
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: need to do.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: Well, listen, Cal, thanks so much for helping us understand, uh,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: what's going on with these strikes in Hollywood. Hopefully, uh, the,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: the SAG strike will be, resolved soon in a favorable way.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 5: And the WGA leadership will like this plan and they'll
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: vote on it. And folks will get to go back
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: to work. Because I know you're all eager to go
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: back to work. And it's been really hard on the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: people who have been picketing every day and not getting paid.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: And so, but listen, buddy, great to talk to you.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Nice to talk to you.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk soon.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Thanks again to Cal for joining us today. And we
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: will talk to you guys after the debate on the
• 1:07:24
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• 1:07:29
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