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"Pardon the Insurrection." · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:02
  Speaker 3: And I'm Ben Rhodes.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Tommy will be out for a little while because, as
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: you may have seen from his posts, on Thursday, he
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and Hannah lost their baby girl at just 24 weeks.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It is an unfathomable tragedy. It is an especially cruel
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: thing to happen to two people who have fought so
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hard to be parents. Emily and I are devastated for
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: our best friends. So it's difficult for me to even
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: talk about. But somehow Tommy found the words to do
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: so in a beautiful Instagram post that honors their daughter.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Because even though he and Hannah are suffering through the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: worst moment of their lives, they want other people who've
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: been through this to know that they don't have to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: be suffering alone. And that says everything about who Hannah
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and Tommy are and why we all love them so much.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I know the two of them have also been incredibly
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: touched and sustained by the outpouring of love and support
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that has come from all of you. And it's reminded
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: all of us that you guys have been the best
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: part about doing these shows for the last five years.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And we feel so grateful and privileged to be part
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of such a kind, generous community who cares so deeply
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: about Tommy wrote in his post that for anyone who
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: wants to help, what would make him and Hannah happiest
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: is if you'd put resources towards helping women and parents
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: who aren't as fortunate. And Emily posted a few organizations
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: on Instagram. The Crooked Media also tweeted out. And a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: huge thank you to everyone who's donated. I know it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: means the world to them. Okay, guys.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Tommy, we love you. Hannah, we love you. We're thinking
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: about you. we won't let Ben replace you.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: It's not allowed.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: As hard as he tries.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: That was the marching orders I got more than anything else.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And, you know, a friend of mine, when they heard
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: the news, sent a note to me and said, you know,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I've never met Tommy, but he's been in my ear
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: for four years and he feels like a friend. And
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I just know that there's a lot of people out
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: there that we have the privilege of talking to who
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: get to feel close to us and we feel that
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: same closeness with you. And so, you know, I think
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the outpouring has been a lot to him, and it's
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: been really heartening.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm just temporarily filling this seat. The
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: only thing I'd add, John and John, is that, you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: first of all, Tommy's a pretty private guy. And so
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: for him to share that message, if you didn't see
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: it on Instagram, was really courageous. And because he was thinking...
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: as he always is about other people. And, um, you know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: one of the things that I, um, you know, I've
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: been thinking about John is that, uh, you know, in
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: our group of friends, like Tommy would be the guy
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: like helping the person out who went through this, uh, quietly, never,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: you know, like, uh, without anybody knowing that he was
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: doing it. Um, he's done that for me over the years.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: He's done that for people in my life. Um, When
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I first moved out to Chicago, he wasn't even there,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: and he was checking in on me even though he'd
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: never met me. So I'm glad to be with you
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: guys here today because it's a reminder that this is
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: a community and a family where we pick each other up.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Tomorrow I'm going to have to sit here and do
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Patsy of the World, but I know Tommy's lifted up
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: by all the people who've reached out, and so I
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: encourage people to do that because I know it helps them,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: the messages of support they get.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And I will say, Tommy's a private person. Hannah's an
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: even more private person. Not on Twitter, but she is
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the kindest and strongest person you'll ever know. And I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: know that all these messages have really meant a lot
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to her right now, too, because she's been going through
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: something that none of us can even imagine. Okay, so
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: we're going to take a few seconds, and then when
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: we come back, we'll have our show. Welcome back. Let's
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: get to the news. And believe it or not, it
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: starts with Donald Trump. Honestly, I didn't even know there
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: was a Trump rally over the weekend at first. And
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I very much wish it wasn't worth covering. But here's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the lead. of the New York Times story about the event,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: which I think sums it up quite well. Quote, Donald J.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Trump said on Saturday that if elected to a new
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: term as president, he would consider pardoning those prosecuted for
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: attacking the United States Capitol on January 6th last year.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: He also called on his supporters to mount large protests
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta and New York if prosecutors in those cities
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: who are investigating him and his businesses took action against him.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip. If I run and if I win.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: We will treat those people from January 6th fairly. We
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal,
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: I hope we are going to have in this country
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C.,
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: and our elections are corrupt.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize until I just listened to the clip
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that he also called for protests in Washington. where last
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: time he called for a protest in Washington, it ended
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: up in a fucking attack on the Capitol. Normal stuff
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: from a normal guy. And just to put the cherry
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: on top of his crazy Sunday, the former president also
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: released a bizarre statement opposing efforts to reform the Electoral
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Count Act, in which he said that Mike Pence had
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: every right to, quote, overturn the election. Lovett, do you
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: find any of this more alarming than Trump's usual alarming behavior,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: or is this just par for the course?
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Let me answer your question with a question, John.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: If someone is driving the wrong way down a highway
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: at 70 miles an hour, is it an escalation when
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: they start hitting people? Does that make sense?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I guess Trump's politics have not shifted. You know, the
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: final escalation was January 6th, right? That was when he
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: reached his, I think, final Pokemon form. And ever since
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: he's sort of been like a traveling insurrection, the fact
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: that he feels, I think, stronger politically... than he does
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: legally is a real indictment to our society. But I
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: think you hear in his voice and you hear in
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: this speech like the places where he's trying to find
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: rooms to maneuver. Like one thing that's in this speech
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: is really interesting is there's some really very clearly worked
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: over legal language that tells you the legal threats are
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: quite serious. And once he doesn't feel totally in control of.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: We relied on major law firms, accounting firms, and other
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: professionals to do this work. And to the best of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: our knowledge, they did it well.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: That's wild. Look at you listening to the whole speech.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I did it.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Not me. I couldn't do it. The whole thing.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I thought, I'm going to listen to the whole thing.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you, C-SPAN, for allowing twice the speed. It's quite
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: energetic at twice the speed. But then he also said,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: murderers and drug dealers are on the streets, but they're
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: going after Trump as long as I'm leading in the polls.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: If I don't run, they will stop. Of course, he
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: can't stop because that's not true. And so, They're kind
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: of feeding off each other. His sense that his political
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: fortunes are more in his control than his legal troubles
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: means he can try to run as a means of
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: generating the kind of backlash and intimidation that he needs.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And of course, he wants massive protests and ideally violence.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: He is a car going the wrong way at 70
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: miles an hour and people get hit. People get hit.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Ben, I couldn't help but think when I was reading this, like,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: how would you react if you read about a former
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: world leader saying all this in another country?
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, he describes the people from January
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: 6th like they're visiting from another country, like they're from
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: January 6th or like they're frozen in time there or something.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that the pardons that he did
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: don't often get enough attention for how completely fucking crazy
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: they were because it started like it was like Sheriff
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Joe and Denise D'Souza and whomever.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: But then it was like.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Flynn and Bannon and political allies, Roger Stone and like
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: cementing those people's indebtedness to him. And, you know, when
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I think about how this would look from, you know,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: from the distance of another country, which we may all
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: have to move to if he's elected, you know, I
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: think sometimes people think of the danger of his autocratic
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: tendencies in the justice system as who he might put away,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: who he might lock up. And I think there's another
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: way of thinking about that threat. It's that by offering
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: this kind of promise of, of immunity, essentially, of erasing
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: the past, erasing past crimes. He is deeply incentivizing people
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: to support his political career. You know, he's tethering people
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: who may be committing crimes right now to him based
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: on the knowledge that he will take care of them.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: And this is something that we've seen in autocratic systems
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: where leaders like to have the kind of absolute loyalty
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: that comes from the leverage of the justice system being
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: wielded on their behalf. I think the other thing is
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: if you look at places, including like Putin's Russia or
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Viktor Orban's Hungary, where Tucker Carlson was just hanging out,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: they often don't take action against, you know, like civil society.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: activists directly, but they so aggressively incite mobs of people
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: to go after those civil society activists, those journalists that
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: I've talked to people, you know, in places like Hungary said, yeah,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: the government didn't come after me, but there were people
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: outside my house. There were people intimidating people in my family, right?
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: And so you see here both him locking in that
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: loyalty from people and really raising the stakes for people
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: to support him with everything they've got because he's their
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: ticket to kind of a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card, literally, and
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: potentially inciting people to do things that he can have
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: some deniability from.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, it's not a direct incitement
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to violence, but if he says the people who violently
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: attack the Capitol and violently attack people in the Capitol
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: on January 6th will get a pardon... And by the way,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: if they come after me, you should have a massive protest. Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: What do you think the protesters are going to think?
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: What do you think they think is going to think? Well,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: if I do something bad, if I'm a little violent,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's going to pardon me. Yeah. Yeah. Donald Trump's president.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: If Donald Trump's president, I can do whatever the fuck
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I want and I'm going to get a pardon.
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: As long as I'm loyal to him.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: For my friends, everything.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: For my enemies, the law. The.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: It's also, the language is very careful. It is very couched.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: He says, if they need, if they deserve it, it's
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: all very, if it's fair, whatever. He gives himself the outs.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: And by the way, one thing that you're going to
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: see happen is this is going to become an issue
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: in any Republican primary. And all of these fucking squishy people,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: if anyone even deigns to run against him, all of
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: a sudden they'll be triangulating with fascism to come up
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: with their more acceptable, serious sort of Zambonide version of
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: pardoning insurrectionists. Like that is the next move. They will all,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: they're already basically there that these are political prisoners.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And, you know, there were consequences almost immediately for this
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: kind of speech. You know, the Georgia DA, Fannie Willis,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: who was investigating Trump in Georgia, this morning asked the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: FBI for a security assessment of the Atlanta courthouse because
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of Trump's remarks, because she expects people to take him
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: up on that. Also, like, it's running through the entire
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Republican Party, right? This is not just Trump. Over the weekend,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: there's a candidate for governor in Michigan, Ryan Kelly, who
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: told prospective poll workers to unplug tabulation machines if they
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: suspect fraud. And then, if that wasn't bad enough, there's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: a state senate candidate who was right next to him
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: at the same event, this guy Mike Detmer, who said,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: we need to be prepared to lock and load, show
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: up armed. These are people running for office.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It's absurd. You don't need to unplug it, you just
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: hold down the power button and you'll probably get a
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: hard reset.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think it's like a step two, like
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: they have to find the plug.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gotten so extreme.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Why do you guys think Trump is making these more overt,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: extreme threats right now? Because we've sort of taken this
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: now from he is a very scary sort of fascist
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: in waiting here trying to become president again, which could
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: be very true. You could also make an argument that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he's doing this out of fear and weakness, fear that
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: these investigations are coming closer to him. And also a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: concern that maybe he doesn't have as tight a grip
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: over the Republican Party as he thought he did. There
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: was another New York Times story about this. There's an
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: AP poll. Forty four percent of Republicans are saying don't
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: run again. NBC poll says 56 percent of Republicans define
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: themselves as themselves as supporters of the Republican Party. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: only 36 percent say they're supporters of Donald Trump. That's
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: way down from what it was in October of 2020,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: including among white Republicans with no college degree, 62% of
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: whom said they were supporters of Trump back in October
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of 2020, and now only 36% of them say they're
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: supporters of Donald Trump. Now they say they're more supporters
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party. There's an echelon poll that showed
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Trump led Ron DeSantis by 40 points in October in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a primary, only 25 points now. Do you guys think
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: there's anything going on here, or is this just coincidence?
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think, look, first of all, you mentioned
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: like he's he's normalizing if crimes are committed on the
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: pathway to him getting back in the White House. He's
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: laying a predicate for the ability to wipe all those clean.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: But I think, you know, what's interesting to me watching
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: this is if he's he's basically waging a permanent culture war.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: you know, to benefit his own politics.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: But if the conversation is about like lockdowns or vaccine mandates, right? Well,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: that's like the field that Ron DeSantis is playing on
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: right now. And Trump needs that cultural war to swirl
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: around him.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: That's interesting.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Like he wants the Republican Party and all those kind
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: of crackpots running for local office and all those local
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: activists who are going to unplug the voting machines to
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: not be focused in the culture war on, again, what
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Ron DeSantis is talking about, He wants him focused on
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: the steal and on the persecution of Trump. And because
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: once the conversation kind of moves to something that he's
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: not directing, then that kind of de facto empowers other
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Republican officials.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: That's a that's a really good point, because I think
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: last couple of times we've been talking about Trump speeches.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: We've been saying that, like, he has sort of an
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: effective message buried in there if he ignores if he
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: could get himself past some of the stop the steal
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: big lie bullshit. But it's a good point that that's
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: actually what separates him from these other Republican candidates.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: And the, the, the closer those polls get, the less
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: he's going to worry about that because the more he's
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: going to be in a primary, not a general. Like
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I think that up until I think what is different
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: about now is he's, I think contemplating a primary and
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: if he's contemplating a primary and stop this deal is
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: a great message. It's an incredibly popular message amongst the
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Republican base. And just having now, once again, watched an
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: entire Trump rally, I will tell you, like, I would
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: say the three biggest areas for applause were around election fraud,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: they're around masking, and they're around trans athletes. Like, those
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: are the places where the audience went crazy the most.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And so I think he feels the feedback is great.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: And you're right, like, He can be the alternative to
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Biden and he likes being an alternative. But so can DeSantis.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: But not on the election.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: His story is very much things were incredible. Now they're
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: bad again.
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And also we're talking about all this as if there's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: some kind of strategy in Trump's mind, which is like
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: giving him a lot of credit. He he is basically
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: his entire life is running in a primary. That's just
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: his instinct. Whether you know, whether he whether someone's telling
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: him to or not, he's always running in a Republican primary.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: And he's always looking for outs, right? Like this is
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: it's you know, why is he he's why is he
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: talking about the prosecutors? Why is it's like he's he's
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: just he's always a guy looking around for exits. He's
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: a criminal. He's just a criminal by nature. He's seeing
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: where he can get out in the event of some
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: kind of a catastrophe.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So a number of Republican politicians actually criticized Trump's statement
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: when asked about it. Republican Governors Larry Hogan of Maryland
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said that Trump shouldn't run again.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham said the comments were inappropriate, as did Susan Collins.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: though Collins then refused to rule out voting for Trump
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in 2024, saying only, it's very unlikely.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: What was more.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Surprising to you guys, Lindsey Graham criticizing Trump or Susan
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Collins refusing to rule out voting for him?
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: She'll do one of those weird things, though, where she'll
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: write in George H.W. Bush or something.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, forever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The Bushes of Candy Bunkport forever.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But she's like, the thing with Susan
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Collins is it's one thing if she's like warding off
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a primary challenge. She just won a fucking six-year term.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: What the hell is she doing?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I think she stinks.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know what?
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: She stinks.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: She stinks.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: She stinks.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be more astute than that.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Should have been easier to be here, I'm just saying.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm saying. Cal Cunningham catches a lot of shit.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Sarah Gideon. Okay.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: He's lucky he only caught shit.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you think Democrats should handle comments
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: like these? Because I, you know, I hear Republican, anytime
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I hear one Republican saying one thing, one of them
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: saying another, they're stumbling. You know, my political sense is
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: always like, okay, this is an issue where we can
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: maybe divide the party.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I think that like at a minimum on this kind
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: of stuff, you know, you want to make Republicans as
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable as possible by posing the question and kind of
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: forcing the question as much as you can. If there's
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: an area where they're squirming, it's clearly a place that
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: they don't want the conversation to be, you know. But,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: you know, like at the end of the day, like
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: you have to assume. that these people are not obviously
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: going to come to their senses and that like, you know,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: you have to act as if you're running against Trump
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: and they're part of that.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about how Democrats need to tell
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a story, not just about Trump and the Republican Party,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: but about our own vision for the country and not
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: just a list of policies. Ben, you wrote a fantastic
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: piece about this for The Atlantic last week where you
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: argue that when it comes to telling our own compelling story,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Trump has wittingly or unwittingly created a trap for the left.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about that trap and why you wrote
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the piece?
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about this a lot in the
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: aftermath of the Virginia election, which seems like it was
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: about 700 years ago. And, you know, what occurred to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: me in kind of stepping back and thinking about where
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: we're at in our politics, where everybody's kind of angry
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: and dispirited and kind of grim faced on our side.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: is the trap is, look, what Trump does is he
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: is just waging one massive identity politics culture war that
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: suits his pathway to autocracy while waging a playbook, you know,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: which we've described at length for how to entrench minority
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: rule of the majority. That's what they're doing. And the
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: policies are part of that, but they're kind of almost
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: incidental to it beyond when they kind of enrich themselves
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: and their supporters. Um, And the trap is that Trump
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: himself confirms a lot of people's worst fears about American
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: identity on the left. And I write in the piece
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: about how like, look, part of the reason we're on
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: the left is that we see the distance between the
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: promise of equality and And the lived reality of racial injustice,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: of special interests, of gender inequities, an all manner of
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: injustices in American society. And the trap is that, you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Trump proving your worst fears about America then leads you
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: in response to want to reckon with some of the
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: worst aspects of American character. And yet, who are the
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: people that we need to essentially save democracy? Because as
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: you guys have pointed out, it's not going to be
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Bob Mueller, you know, no matter how many Mueller time
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: stickers we have. It's not going to be this special
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: committee on January 6th. It's not going to be Tish
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: James in New York. It's not going to be some
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: external legal investigation. It's going to be winning elections.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Or we can't count on it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Let's hold out. Let's put out, let's light a candle.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: We can light a candle to it. Maybe our Fauci candle.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: And so you're talking about, you need to persuade the
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: people in the middle who are not in the 35%
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: who are just gone and locked in some alternative information system.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: And you need to motivate enough younger people to get
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: involved so that you have both the mobilization and the
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: persuasion strategies, right? And to do that, I thought a lot, John,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: about what Barack Obama used to do well, which is
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: he'd talk about progressive change not as something that asked
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: people to reject their core identity. What he would say
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: is that America has all these problems, but we're a
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: great enough country that we're capable of changing. And therefore,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: change was seen not as a repudiation of American identity,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: but an affirmation of it. And I think that actually
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: did create a permission structure for those people in the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: middle to feel like it was patriotic to be a
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: part of a movement for change. And the same thing
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: with younger people to say, America has problems, but it's
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: not like inherently a corrupted enterprise. Because if it is,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: then why is it worth trying to save democracy in
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: the first point?
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Which I think is the most important point, right? I mean,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and Obama, I think, said this most articulately and powerfully
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: in the Selma speech.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Which is like, what's quintessentially American is not airbrushed patriotism
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and chest thumping and all that kind of stuff it's
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the civil rights movement and workers rights and women's rights
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and gay rights and like all of the people throughout
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: history that have tried to bring the country's reality closer
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to its promise and there is something that can be
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: patriotic about that that we can feel good about yeah
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: because it's about the downtrodden and the marginalized in this
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: country who tried to make this country better and if
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: we don't If we can't rally around that story, like
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you said then, why is America worth saving? Why are
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: we doing all of this? And people want that story,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, remember after Trump won, I felt
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: like the two great fears I had were, one, that
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: we would be stuck in this vice grip in trying
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to prove a game is worth playing according to the
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: rules while playing a cheater, right? That like, no, no, no,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: democracy is a great thing to do if you follow
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: the rules. while trying to beat someone who doesn't care
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: about the rules and wondering when do we bend the rules,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: just try to get a leg up. And the other
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: was that cynicism would inevitably take hold because someone so despicable,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: someone I do think who represents like American flaw in
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: human form, when in political office, truly like venal and
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: grasping and despicable and in all the awful things. But
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the other piece of it was that in that cynicism,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: what you would see is the inability of the broad
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: left that runs all the way from Joe Manchin to
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: AOC and further left than that would find ways to
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: stop seeing each other as being on the same team
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: because there's vast differences inside of our movement. You know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: you said this in the piece, which I think is true,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: like the MAGA movement is a community.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: It absolutely is. It's harder for us to build community
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: on our side because we are not a dwindling monoculture
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: trying to retain control. We are a diverse group of
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: people with many disparate interests. But you watch that Trump rally, which, again,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: I did today in full. He's having a blast. The
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: people there are having fun. They view themselves as being
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: part of something fun and exciting. And I remember I
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: did a climate change speech for Hillary Clinton in 2007.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: And I got a call that Bill Clinton had edits
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: on the speech at like two in the morning. I
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: think he was in Vegas, I'm sure, helping out at
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: a hospital.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And, but anyway.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: And getting healthy speaking.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: Volunteering.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: And then so, no, but, and so I got a
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: call from the traveling group with Bill Clinton saying he
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: had these edits on the speech. And I I will
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: vividly remember the feedback on the end of the speech,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: which was all of the kind of language was crossed out.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: And it said, this is going to be an adventure.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: This is going to be a great and fun adventure,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: like defeating climate change and building this renewable energy world.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Like it's going to be a blast. It's basically what
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I was like, this isn't going to be a slog.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Politics doesn't have to be a slog. And, you know,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: you talked about this as well, that like there's a
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: kind of grim and joyless aspect to what politics has become.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: And Nobody wants to become part of a sour and
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: sanctimonious movement. As hard as things are, as awful as
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: our opposition, as feckless and stupid the mainstream media is,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: as much as Trump has allowed to take advantage of
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: so many cracks in our system, and as much as Democrats,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: so many of them are old and annoying and silly
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: and don't seem to have any fight left in them,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: that doesn't change our obligation. That doesn't change what we
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: have to do. And I think finding a way to
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: meet their fun with our own version of fun... whatever
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: that looks like, as bad as things are, I think
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: is the only way.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: The fun thing is in the belonging communities is such
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: an important part of it because the purpose of politics
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: is to bring people along with what you're doing. And
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: there were two Obama anecdotes that stuck in my head
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: as I was writing that piece that I didn't include,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: but one is about what not to do, right? Because
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I think politics has really been about trying to convince
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: people about what's wrong, what's wrong with the Republican Party,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: what's wrong with America. And that's important. But I remember,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: you know, when Obama in 2008 famously said that because
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: of the changes wrought by globalization, some of the white
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: working class had gotten bitter and that bitterness had caused
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: them to cling to their guns or their religion aspects
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: of their identity. It feels like almost an Andine statement now.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: And by the way, it's a true statement. It's one
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: that I agree with. But he recognized it like, I
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: want to bring some of these people along and asking
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: them to accept my analysis about what's wrong with their
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: identity is going to foreclose my capacity to do that.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: And then the other one that was born of tragedy
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: was when he sang Amazing Grace. And it's the worst
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: possible moment of his presidency. Like a white supremacist walked
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: in a Bible study and killed a bunch of people
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: because they're black. And yet out of that, he summoned
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: this kind of joyful moment Um, but what was joyful
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: about it was that we're stronger than these people, you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: we're not scared of these people. We don't shrink from
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: the fight. There's defiance in it, but it's also like,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: this is our community.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: And I think, you know, in the voting rights, that
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: was a pretty joyless fight, you know, that just took place.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And it has to be just not just about how
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: terrible their laws are, but what is so great about
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: what we're trying to do.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Now I can, I can hear the criticism of this conversation.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And part of the reason I can hear it is
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: because I tweeted about your story. And if you want
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to find a place where, where people express their cynicism,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you might want to check out Twitter. And the criticism
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: is like, you know, okay, Barack Obama told a nice story.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: He gave fancy speeches, people like them. Then Donald Trump
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: was elected after, after Barack Obama. And maybe story doesn't
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: really matter so much as, as the systemic injustices in
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: this country and, and the, and the structural inequality, particularly
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: in our democracy, where we have an anti-majoritarian system that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: is stacked against us. I hear all that. I think
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: we dismiss the power of a compelling story at our peril.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: It is not just about trying to bring along people
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: in the middle or bring along people that vote for
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. That is part of it. Most Americans, the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: vast majority of Americans, and particularly American voters, are not
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: political news junkies. Their vote isn't based on tallying up
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the number of issues on which they agree with the candidate.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Message matters, story matters. It is a factor. It is
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: maybe not the biggest factor, but in a country that
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: is as closely divided as this one, Every factor matters.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And this is the one factor, one of the few
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: factors that is entirely within our control. The story that
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: we tell as Democrats, what candidates say, what we all
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: say that is entirely within our control. And there's not
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of things we can shape. And so like,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it really makes a difference. And by the way, we
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: all know Donald Trump's story about America. We can all
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: recite it and it should give us pause that we
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: are more familiar with Donald Trump's story about America than
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: we are Democrats story about America.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And I'll say, you know, if you want to see
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: evidence that the story is the only thing that matters,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's defeat is an example of how story is
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the only thing that matters. Because thankfully, as of this recording,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: the tether between the things people say and the world
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: we actually live in still exists. It's barely there, but
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: it's still connected, right? And as hard as he could,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: as hard as he tried, Trump could not make enough
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Americans believe the story he was telling because it was
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: so disconnected from the reality they were seeing. So I
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: can feel criticism from the left of this conversation as well.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: That also is about, it doesn't matter what you say,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: if you're not actually delivering, cancel the student debt, abso-fucking-lutely,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: deliver on your promises. Democrats have been saying a lot
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: of the same things and telling a lot of stories
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: about the economy for a long time and people have
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: not seen enough change and positive outcomes from those policy
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: promises over a very long time. How many Democrats have
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: said for 30 years, we're going to stop shipping jobs
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: overseas and we're going to do this and we're going
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: to build jobs right here at home, factories, da, da, da, da.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: John Kerry said it in 2004. I would remember it.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: So it's like, yeah, there's a limit to the power
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: of a story that you can tell, but it's incredibly important.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: And the story is not just the speeches you give.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: It's It's everything from the policies you pursue to how
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: you conduct yourself in politics to how you try to
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: build coalitions to what you're saying. Yes. And I think
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: we've also fallen in this trap where we like pivot, right? Well,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: we're going to try to pass some policies now, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: then we're going to go tell a story, and then
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: we're going to go try to do something on democracy.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: And this is not a criticism just of the Biden
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: White House, because this is something that I think has
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: to permeate. If you care about democracy, whether you're a
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: citizen or whether you're a business leader, whether you're someone
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: in media or whether you're in politics, you have to
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: think about what is the larger cause that I'm trying
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: to be a part of, that I'm trying to advance.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: And weirdly- Like, we've been fighting about individual pieces of
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: our agenda while they've just been out there mobilizing around
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: their story. And it's a horrible story. It's the reactionary
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: white supremacist story that has been a vein through American history.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: And we need to beat it with our story as
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: well as everything else that we can do.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: And again, like, I understand the argument that we are
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: facing sort of a rigged system, an anti-majoritarian system right now.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But I'll just say, in Virginia and New Jersey... two
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: states where, that are very diverse, that have been blue
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: for a while now, that where it is very easy
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to vote. In fact, they have passed so many voting
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: rights reforms that it is like really accessible. We lost,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: we lost badly. And Terry McAuliffe, yeah, centrist Clinton person, whatever,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: fairly progressive governor, but also forget about Terry McAuliffe, Phil Murphy,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: very progressive governor in New Jersey, still won 11 points
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: swing against him and Terry McAuliffe lose. So clearly like,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Story and message and candidates, it matters, even within a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: system that can sometimes be unfair.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: And I'll also say, part of what a story is
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: about is helping people imagine the future. And I have
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: to say, I am pretty fucking sick of people talking
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: about how they want to get rid of the Senate,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: how the Senate's unfair.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Abolish the Senate, yeah. Fucking sign me up.
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: Great.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Let me know how you're going to do that. Where
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: are you going to abolish the Senate?
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: We, as a party... to have enough imagination to recognize
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: that there are certain things that aren't immutable just because
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: they've been true for 10 years it is not immutable
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: that the identity politics that have riven the country uh
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: that have meant we have lost whole parts of rural
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: america which means the senate is not just anti-democratic uh
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: but anti-democratic in a way we suddenly don't like uh
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: there's no reason to believe that that is permanent it
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: is not the delta between How people vote on policy
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: questions when they are on the balance in those states
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: and their decision to vote for a Democrat or not
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: is enormous. And that is a hopeful delta. That is
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: a hopeful space. The fact that these policies have a
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: chance in those places but Democrats don't should give you
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: a reason to think about how you can appeal to
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: people in a new way. And I think that starts
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: by looking at what is appealing, not the fucking racism,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: but the sense of community. not the xenophobia and the
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: anti-immigrant bias, but the way that someone like Trump is
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: playing on real human feelings. that those people have and
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: think about how we can win, how we can beat
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: that story for not all those people and not for
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the 30% that will never leave Trump, that will be
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: buried in his fucking pyramid with him, but for the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: people that are just able to be dragged along with
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: that movement because the people around them are all voting
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: for Trump and they're going that way too. There are
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: people that we can get back. There are people that
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: are gonna fall into the Trump orbit that we can
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: keep from falling in to the fascistic, authoritarian, right-wing movement
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: in this country. And we have to do that in
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: a kind of mercenary with the kind of resolve of
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: graveyard shift nurses going into places and meeting with people
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: that we don't agree with on a bunch of stuff
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: to see where we can find places where we start
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: peeling people off. Or authoritarianism.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, and by the way,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in terms of non-voters, they require persuasion too, right? The
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: base strategy versus the persuasion strategy is something that we
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: forget about. Every voter is a persuasion target. Whether they
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: don't vote, and look like Democrats or whether they voted
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Republican in the past. You have to persuade all of them.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And politics in a democracy is fundamentally about a persuasion
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: or else it is not a democracy.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: And I think it's just it just took all the
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: way back to the joy point. Like, you know, interestingly,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: in the early Trump years and it helped that we
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: weren't in a pandemic, you know, people were like, Into
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: having this fight and they wanted to mobilize and they
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: wanted to be out there and they wanted to knock
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: on doors. And I totally understand that.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: People have been worn down.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Even without a pandemic, we grind it down and we
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: want to fix this thing. It's crazy that Joe Manchin,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Kristen Sinema are there. I'm sorry I said their names.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: We could have gotten through a whole episode without it.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: And I said as an avid listener, but like the
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: reality though is you have to tell yourself Hey, look
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: like we're you know, we didn't get everything done on
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: the filibuster this time But we left a big dent
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: behind yeah, and the next time we come for that
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: fucking thing. It's going down Yeah, and like you have
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: to tell yourself like not that like politics sucks and
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: this country is so inherently corrupted and and you can
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: you know have all your correct opinions about why some
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: of those things might be true, but like I the
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: flip side of that is what an opportunity we have
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: to be the people who saved this, you know, enterprise,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: to be the people who prevented America from being its
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: worst self and, and to love its point off in
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the future, there's something we're working towards. There's like a
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: better America. That's an extension of the good things that
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: have happened in this country. Like that should be something
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: that is, is a joyful enterprise and a motivating enterprise.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: And, and I think one small step we can all take,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: especially for those people who are active in, uh, on
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: the social medias is, um, the competition to prove you
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: get how bad things are is not one anyone can win.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: It isn't.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: It isn't. We're all wallowing in it. We get it.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: We're there. It's tough. It's tough. Okay. Well, when we
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: come back, we will talk to one candidate, one Democratic
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: candidate who's running in 22, who's going to try to
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: turn things around.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Very polished.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Very polished. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who's running for governor
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: Here we go.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: Hey, guys.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Hi there.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: I'm so good. How are you?
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: Good.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: Man, I'm excited to do it. Thank you for having me.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: You know, we're on the same Zoom screen, John and I,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: which is an unusual way for us to do this.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: But what's unusual about it is I never see his
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: face in a mirror. You know what I mean? You
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: never see your friend's face in a mirror.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: Is that good or bad that you're saying?
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: It's bad.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: It's not the symmetry I'm used to. It's reversed. It's
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: deeply uncomfortable. It's an uncanny valley thing.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Well, instead, we can look at the attorney general instead
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: of each other.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: We should probably start.
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: I don't know that I'm an upgrade, guys, but.
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: It's great to be with you.
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: I just walked in my house after a long day
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: and I've got four kids and utter chaos here.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: So hopefully it'll be quiet.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: For four kids. Oh, wow. Okay. That is a lot
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of chaos.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: I'm very proud by the way, for all the zooms
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: and the TV and everything I've done in this seat.
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: If you can look over my shoulder, I don't know
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: if you guys could see it. That's a picture of
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: me and president Obama and the oval office. It's always there.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: I was the first guy in PA to endorse him
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: way back.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Were you? I didn't know that. Oh, my God. Look
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: at that.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: Randall told me I was crazy.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: So, well, that's how you knew it was the right move.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: And Ed Randall knows crazy.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: OK, one of the most competitive and important contests of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the 2022 midterms will be the race to succeed Pennsylvania
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Governor Tom Wolfe. a Democrat who is term limited. Republicans
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: have a crowded primary full of some very Trumpy candidates.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: While Democrats have rallied behind the man we're about to
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: speak to, who's supported by Wolf and just earned the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: endorsement of the entire Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Josh,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: welcome to the pod.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: Hey, it's so cool to be with you guys. Thanks
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: for having me.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. So Donald Trump tried pretty hard
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to overturn the results of Pennsylvania's 2020 election. Um, What
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: do you think could have happened if a Republican had
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: been governor instead of Tom Wolf?
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: I think there's no question that if any of the
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: Republicans from the modern day Republican Party, hell, any of
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: the 15 Republicans running against me right now for governor,
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: since the governor here in Pennsylvania is the one that
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: has to certify the election and thus submit the electors forward,
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: there's no question in my mind that they would have
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: heeded the calls of Donald Trump.
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: Look, we were battling Trump.
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: He sued us over 40 times in the election, 20
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: times before a single vote was cast to make it
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: harder for people to vote. And I say this respectfully, guys,
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: they weren't trying to make it harder for people who
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: look like us to vote. They were trying to make
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: it harder for black and brown Pennsylvanians to vote. And
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: then they sued us another 20 times after we had
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: a free and fair, safe and secure election to try
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: and make it so those votes wouldn't be counted. And
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: I know that if I wasn't there as the attorney general,
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: if our governor wasn't there, There's no question that the
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: modern-day Republican Party would have done what they needed to
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: do for the former president instead of our democracy.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: So obviously, if you're governor, you can certify elections that
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: deserve to be certified. What else can you do to
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: protect the right to vote and protect democracy in Pennsylvania
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: as governor, particularly with a Republican legislature that's filled with
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: people who won't even acknowledge that Joe Biden won in 2020?
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: Look, the first appointment I'll make is a pro-democracy Secretary
• 39:53
  Speaker 6: of State, someone who's going to respect the will of
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: the people, someone who's going to certify the election based
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: on the actual votes that were counted, not based on
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: some political pressure. Second, I'm going to veto any attempts
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: to try and undermine vote by mail or make it
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: harder for people to access the ballot box here in Pennsylvania.
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: And third, we're going to actually expand voter access. We
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: want to do things like automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration,
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: early voter registration for young people who are 16 and
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: 17 to get them ready. We're going to do everything
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: in our power to make sure the ballot box is
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: accessible to all legal eligible voters. So I'm going to
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: not only stop the bad stuff from happening, we're going
• 40:36
  Speaker 6: to make a lot of good stuff happen, and I'm
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: going to make sure that our Secretary of State is pro-democracy.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: So you've been talking about these issues during the campaign.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: You've made them central to your campaign. Uh, but there's
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of consultants who say that that's like a
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: bad idea that if you look at the polling, right,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: actually Republicans are more activated around democratic. They, they, they
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: think democracy is more under threat than typical democratic voters
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: that if you, that the most important thing a Democrat
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: can do to protect democracy is win. And if you
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: want to win, you need to focus on the economy
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: to focus on jobs. You need to focus on, uh, uh,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: like kitchen table issues. How do you think about that, uh,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: as part of your campaign?
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: Well, look, guys, I'm not the political expert or pundit
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: that you guys are. And so I'll let you all
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: form whatever conclusions you want. Here's what I know. I'm
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: the twice-selected attorney general here in Pennsylvania. I've won in really,
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: really tough environments. I won when the top of our
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: ticket lost. And I earned more votes in 2020 than
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: any Democrat has ever earned in the history of Pennsylvania.
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: No disrespect, including.
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: the man over my shoulder right there when he was
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: running back in 2008.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time out in the community
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: and I listen to people.
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: Pennsylvanians have a lot to worry about right now, from
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: COVID to their kids' education to the ever-changing economy. They
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: shouldn't have to worry about the instability of our democracy too,
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: and they are. And my point to Pennsylvanians when I
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: talked to them, one of the reasons why The first
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: plan I put out in this campaign was a plan
• 42:08
  Speaker 6: to protect our democracy and voting rights is.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: That's at the foundation of everything else we have to do.
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: The so-called kitchen table issues that you talked about, which
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: are unbelievably important, which we talk about every day, we
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: don't get to fully address those issues unless we have
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: free and fair, safe and secure elections where everybody's voice
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: gets to be heard. You see, the other side, the
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: reason why we're having this battle is the other side
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: is trying to remove people from the conversation, take people
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: away from the table of progress, make sure certain people
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: don't count.
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: And that affects all of those other policy issues.
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: So I would just push back on you respectfully or
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: anybody who says this, you can't ignore our democracy. It
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: is central to making progress on all of these other
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: issues and central to the concerns that I know people
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: feel day in and day out here in the Commonwealth
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: of Pennsylvania.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty disappointed by that answer because nowhere in your
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: litany of issues did you mention that there are currently
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: books in our schools in which boys kiss boys. Um, and, uh,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: there's also, um, comic graphic novels that do reference the
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Holocaust and kids are seeing these things every day and
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: finding out that gay people and history has have happened. Um,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: and what are the steps you'll take as governor of
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania to prevent our children from finding out about gay
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: people and history?
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: Look, I mean, I know you're saying that tongue in cheek,
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: but there's, there's a broader, deeper point here. And that is,
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: And I've done this as Attorney General, I'll do it
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: as Governor, that we've got to make sure that our commonwealth,
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: our laws work for everybody, no matter what you look like,
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: where you come from, who you love, who you pray
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: to or choose not to pray to. And I think
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: we are a stronger community when people are respected. I
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: see this as the AG when we have hate crimes
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: or acts of ethnic intimidation against people based on their
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: faith or based on who they love or whatever the
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: case may be. And the reality is that makes us
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: all less safe. When one person is targeted because of
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: a particular characteristic or belief or whatever the case may be,
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: we have got to push.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: Back on that mentality.
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: We've got to make sure that that is not something
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: that infects our schools or our democracy.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: And we've got to treat people with dignity and respect.
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: That's what I've always tried to do.
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: And that's what I'll certainly continue to do is AG
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: and God willing, his governor.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Doesn't sound like a lot of books are going to
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: catch fire with this guy.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: It does not. No, unfortunately. I totally take your point
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: that you are not a political pundit. That is good advice.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: You should not be a pundit. You should be the candidate.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: But I know that you're obviously trying to run a campaign.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: You're trying to win. It is a very tough election
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: year for Democrats. So was 2021. What's your assessment, or
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: at least your campaign's assessment, of why Democrats lost Virginia
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: and had an 11-point swing against them in New Jersey.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: What lessons do you take from those elections?
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and look, obviously, I'm not the expert on Virginia
• 45:09
  Speaker 6: or New Jersey. I'm here in Pennsylvania, where the results
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: in 2021 in Pennsylvania were not what they were in
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: New Jersey or Virginia.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: But I take your question.
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: I think what is clear from those two races is
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: that The voters that I think some of the pollsters
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: and pundits thought would simply go away when Donald Trump
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: was no longer on the ballot, that assessment, that assumption
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: is just not true. And we saw that play out
• 45:37
  Speaker 6: in Virginia and in New Jersey. But I've never assumed
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: that they wouldn't show up in Pennsylvania. And indeed, part
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: of my ability to win in 2016 when Secretary Clinton
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: lost and outperform Joe Biden in 2020 is by competing
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: in those areas. And by going to rural communities, going
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: to places that, quite candidly, our national party has forgotten
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: about and not spoken to in a way that former
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: President Obama and others have. And so I think that
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: from my perspective, while I saw that play out in
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: Virginia and New Jersey, those voters continue to come out,
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: I assume they're coming out in Pennsylvania. And I'm going
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: to compete hard to continue to earn their votes here
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: in our commonwealth.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: So you're obviously going to get this voter in your
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: travels throughout the state. I'm a cranky Pennsylvania voter who
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: tells you that, you know, even though Joe Biden and
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the Democrats promised a return to normalcy, we're still in
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic, still dealing with restrictions, still
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: dealing with high prices. Democrats still haven't passed most of
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: what they ran on in 2020. Why should I vote Democrat?
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: Look, I would just say from my perspective, I'm running
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: to be your governor. I'm not going to Washington, D.C.
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: And I take my cues from Washington County, Pennsylvania, not Washington, D.C.
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: I'm a proud Pennsylvania. I love that.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: There's a Washington County. It makes the line work.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: Look at that.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Look at that.
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: What a pro.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: What a pro.
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: Uh-huh.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: Pittsburgh, not Paris, right?
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: I've got plans to try and make their lives better.
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: And I will say to them what I've said before.
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: Give me an opportunity to serve you. It's what I've
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: done is Attorney General, making sure that we look out
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: for you. And what I'll do as governor, making sure
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: that we give every single child, no matter what zip
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: code they live in, a quality education. Making sure we've
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: got safe communities all across Pennsylvania. Making sure we have
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: an economy that lifts up all, not just some. And
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: then finally, making sure folks just don't get screwed anymore, right?
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: Too many people in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, they're frustrated because
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: you're getting screwed by some big corporation that's putting profits
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: before people. They're getting screwed by a government that's not
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: looking out for them. Well, what I've done in public
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: service is look out for people, whether it's returning nearly
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: $ 200 million in student debt cancellation to students that got
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: ripped off from Navient or some for-profit college, making sure
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: it's finally seeing survivors who suffered in the shadows of
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: abuse at the hands of predator priests, thousands of them
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: in Pennsylvania. We're making sure that we were able to
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: preserve and protect access to health care for 1.9 million
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: Western Pennsylvanians. I've delivered for people in Pennsylvania. And while
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: I recognize a lot of folks are frustrated about D.C.,
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: I'd say forget D.C., focus on what's happening here in
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: the Commonwealth. Focus on my record of standing up for
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: folks who are getting screwed. And I'll do more of
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: that as governor by helping people who are in need.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Anything you're hearing on the trail that is surprising you
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: or that you feel like is not being covered in
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the national press that's like a real concern for people?
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: You know, if you're interested in sort of those national issues,
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: I'm surprised at the disconnect between the bill Congress was
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: considering on the social investment and the disconnect between the
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: good things that are in there that would help people's
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: lives and them feeling as though not only was it
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: not going to help them, but the money would probably
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: be wasted or go to somebody else, right?
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: And that's not my fight to... battle, of course. That's
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: up for our federal officials to make the case there.
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: But I've been surprised at the disconnect there between sort
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: of what's happening and the efforts that I know are
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: real to try to help people coming out of Washington,
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: but it's just not resonating, which is why I focus
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: on these issues at our state.
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: And why I think folks are sort.
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: Of, I guess you asked like kind of what's the
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: national media missing. You know, I'll drill down maybe a
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: step further because I think this is a really critical point.
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: There is so much attention on Washington, D.C. when it
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: comes to voting rights, when it comes to civil rights,
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: when it comes to reproductive rights.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: I think people are kind of.
• 49:58
  Speaker 6: Waking up to the fact, I hear this every day,
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: the fact that they can't rely on the Supreme Court
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: of the United States anymore to protect our reproductive rights.
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: And the only thing standing in the way of doing
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: away with a woman's right to make a decision over
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: her own body is the veto pen of our next
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: governor or the pen to sign a bill like that
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: Texas abortion ban into law.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: Obviously, I'd veto it.
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: I think they've realized that Washington has failed to deliver.
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: At least a couple of folks in the Washington, D.C.
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: world have failed to deliver on voting rights. And they
• 50:28
  Speaker 6: realize that if they want to be able to have
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: access to the ballot box, it's going to come down
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: to their governor, their secretary of state protecting that right.
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: And so I think a lot of folks are kind
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: of waking up to the fact that these battles are
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: now going to be waged in the states, and Pennsylvania
• 50:43
  Speaker 6: is really the epicenter of that battle. And I think
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: some in the national media, I'm not being critical of
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: the media, but just some kind of missed that point
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: about the important role that the states are going to
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: have to play, and in particular, Pennsylvania.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: You can be critical of the media here as welcome.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: You're visited by some sort of a ghost in the night,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: and you're required to give an answer to this question.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Yikes.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know what he's going to ask you.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: You have to pick one of these three movies that
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: are all based in Pennsylvania, uh, uh, as your favorite, uh,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and face all the political consequences therein.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: The three movies are Rocky.
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: As long as you're not making me choose between our
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: sports teams, I'm happy to choose.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: I'm not aware of what they are.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I'm familiar.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they are. I picture yellow, uh, and some
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: sort of a hockey stick and like a.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Someone yellow and a hockey stick.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: There you go. The point is you have to choose
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: between trading places, Rocky and groundhog.
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: Day, man. They're all really good.
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: By the way, we should go to Punxsutawney sometime. They
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: have a great Punxsutawney diner there, which is they have
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: terrific food.
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: I'd have to go with Rocky. I mean, it's just
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: sort of like the ultimate.
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: I've seen all of them many times.
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to get my kids into them too. It's
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: I mean, come on.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's weird that movie? You kind of
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: have to say it. You have to say Rocky. Groundhog
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Day is one of my top five favorite movies of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: all time. So I might have to say it. But Rocky,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: if you're running for office, you have to say Rocky.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: You always have to say Rocky. You can't not say Rocky.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Even though it doesn't seem like that big a deal
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: to run up those stairs. Don't you think that movie
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: makes it a much bigger deal to run up those
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: stairs than it really is?
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: It's hard to run up those stairs.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: I know, but not like cheer for 15 minutes hard.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: People do it every day for fun now.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: That's not easy, man. Get up there and then do
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: what he did. That's not easy.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: You know, the Rocky statue is there at the art
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: museum as though he's, you know, a real person, not
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: a fictitional character.
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: Rocky's the man.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, it is hard to run at this year.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: It's also going to be hard to run for governor
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, but we, uh, wish you all the best.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Look at that transition out of this.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: That's I'm a pro now. I'm a pro. You know, that's,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to move things along.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: Here's another transition for you.
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: If I may, if you're interested in pitching in and
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: helping our campaign, just text us at 3, 2, 2, 1, 0.
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: We'd love to have your help.
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: We've been proud in this campaign to not only get
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: contributions from every single County in Pennsylvania. but every single
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: state in the nation. And we're really grateful for the
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: broad support. And we're going to keep working hard to
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: protect democracy and move our commonwealth forward.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: That was that for a transition.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: That's right. That is nailed it. We're going to end there.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Josh Shapiro, thank you so much for joining
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America. Best of luck on the trail.
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: Hey, guys, thanks so much for having me. All right.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Before we go, Republicans across the country are censoring libraries
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and banning school books that have LGBTQ or racial themes.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: A Tennessee school board voted 10-0 to remove Mouse, a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. Virginia Governor
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin started a tip line so parents can report.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: inherently divisive practices happening in schools i don't know what
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: the fuck that means and a state legislator in texas
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: put together a list of 850 books that might make
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: students uncomfortable uh love it i believe you have something
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: planned for us on.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: This uh yeah this is all to protect the children
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: which really means protecting the parents of children who themselves
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: do not like to encounter challenging ideas any more than
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: they're interested in countering challenging cuisines uh is that i
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: think that's yeah no i think that's right uh There's
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: a phenomenon that author Gwen Katz dubbed pajamification. It's when
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: a book that touches on a difficult theme in history
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: is scrubbed to provide for a sanitized and less honest version.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: So instead of mouse, kids read John Boyne's The Boy
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: in the Striped Pajamas, a safer version from the point
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: of view of a German boy rather than a Jewish
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: boy who sees the horror firsthand. Because inevitably, if you
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: remove something that teaches history in a way that's difficult,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: you're left with something that is less faithful and less true.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Of course, Being uncomfortable isn't bad, it's good, and we
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: know that these conservatives understand that because the best-selling book
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: of all time is filled with uncomfortable, unpalatable history and characters.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to quiz John and Ben on a
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: little segment we call Banner Bible.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: I'm glad this is the episode I'm on.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: The narrator describes entire groups of people being murdered with
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: the killers directed to not leave anything that breathes.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: That is going to be Bible.
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: That's correct.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Ben, the narrator describes entire groups of people being murdered,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: but the killer is told it's because they are not human.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: That would be Bible.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Nope, that is Mouse. That is the graphic novel Mouse. John,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: two boy rabbits fall in love despite protests and plan
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: to go on a bunny moon after getting married. Is
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: that in the Bible?
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say that's Mouse. Yep, it's from Jill.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Twisses' A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. And
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: we must keep it from the children. Ben, a guy
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: asks the father permission to marry his daughter, but the
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: father disapproves, so he gives the suitor the impossible task
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: of paying with 100 penis foreskins cut from murdered victims
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: in exchange for marrying his daughter.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Wow. Um.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Squid Game?
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: No, it's the Bible. John, a young Vietnamese boy who
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: loves fairy tales uses one to tell his immigrant parents
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: that he's gay.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Not the Bible.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: That's not the Bible.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: It's from The Magic Fish.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Not the Bible. Ben, a man spots an interracial couple
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: sleeping in a tent and gets so upset he stabs
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: them both in the stomach.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think about my Bible there, John. Seems
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: like you've.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: Got to think a little harder. Maybe refresh your... Of
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: the good, refresh your reading of the good book.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like something like that was in the
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: Old Testament.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in Numbers.
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: It's in Numbers.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: These are all, this is all Old Testament.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: That Old Testament God was, you know, it's not easy.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they turned things around in the Old Testament. Yeah, they,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: you know, they, yeah, they, yeah.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Well, until Revelation, the end is pretty rough.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it took a turn again.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, it was a sort of, new writers
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: had been brought on this project, kind of lost the
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: original thrill of it. You know, they tried to keep
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: it going. It's like when Sorkin was replaced on the
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: West Wing.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That is an analogy that no one has ever made.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And that is for no one. That is an analogy
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: everyone hates. Final question. A woman is forced to become
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: a handmaiden to bear children for her mistress's husband.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely the Bible. Oh, is that the Bible? Yes.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: Handmaid's tale?
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: You're both right.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it is. You're both right.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: And you've won the game.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: What do you win?
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: What don't you win?
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: It's the end of the show.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: That's what you all win. You've won the end of
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Bander Bible. Thank you to Josh Shapiro for joining us.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: We should have just given him this quiz. That would
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: have made him pretty nervous. That would have been really helpful.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: He would have definitely fired a few campaign staffers had
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: we given him that quiz.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Very, very on message. Very, very, very on point.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: You know what? Very on message. But it's a good message.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Might be a little dry for our podcast, but the
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: campaign staffer in me thinks that's a good candidate right there.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: That's why that guy won when Hillary Clinton did something else.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: I always wonder when people ban these books, like, wait
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: till they find out what life is like. The books
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: are usually a little bit better.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where you're going to protect people from anything bad
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: or uncomfortable or weird or things that they haven't been
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: familiar with for, what, their whole lives until they go
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: out into society and live it themselves?
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Do we think it's the people that are pushing for
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: these book bans? Do you think it's because it's like, now,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't read a lot of this when I was
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: a kid, but when I discovered literature as an adult,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: that's when it really meant the world to me. These
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: are not, these are, like, they don't want gay kids
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: to read about gay kids because they don't really like
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: gay kids. They don't like gay stuff.
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you to Josh Shapiro for joining.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And Ben, thank you for being here today.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Good to see you.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Glad you're here. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.