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"How To Win A Culture War." · Pod Save America

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Democrats look for a way to win
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the culture wars. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action is
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: here to talk about the historic settlement that Sandy Hook
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: families reached with a gun manufacturer. And we unravel the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: latest right-wing red string in a new segment we're calling
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: No Truths and a Lie. You know, I'm telling you.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: But first, don't miss this week's America Dissected, where Abdul
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: is joined by our friend Heather McGee to talk about
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: her fantastic book, The Sum of Us, and how race
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: has affected the pandemic. And check out What A Day
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: this week to hear the team break down news around
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: restrictive voting laws in Texas and the ongoing tensions between
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Russia and Ukraine. New episodes of America Dissected drop every Tuesday,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and you can listen to What A Day every Monday
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: through Friday at 5 a.m. Eastern. All right, let's get
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: to the news. Democrats need a new midterm strategy or
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: we're fucked, is the message being delivered by the party
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: committee in charge of holding the House. In a week
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: where Gallup found that voter satisfaction with the country's direction
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: is at a 40-year low, and Representative Kathleen Rice became
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the 30th House Democrat to announce her retirement, Politico obtained
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: internal polling and focus group research from the Democratic Congressional
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Campaign Committee that shows Republicans ahead by four points in
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: swing districts. with battleground voters calling Democrats, quote, preachy, judgmental,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and focused on culture wars. The latest casualties of these
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: culture wars were three lefty members of the San Francisco
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: school board, who were recalled on Tuesday night by around
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: 75% of voters in one of the bluest cities in America.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Democratic Mayor London Breed, who supported the recall, gave a
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: press conference about the results on Wednesday.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: What is my focus is the children, first and foremost.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: And whoever is selected will focus on trying to turn
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: the school district around, focus specifically on public schools and
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: enrollment and some of the challenges that exist there.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about what happened in San Francisco
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: in a bit, but let's start with the national picture.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: What's your take on that DCCC research? Are Democrats losing
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the culture war? And how are we defining culture war?
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Well, John, I wouldn't say we're winning, however we define it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I think that's pretty clear.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think we're winning any of the wars right now.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: There is no war we are winning. I will say
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I will give Sean Patrick Maloney and the DWC some
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: credit because there is a tendency for the chairs of
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: these House and Senate committees to do a lot of
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: happy talk to their members. That is definitely not his vibe.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: He's very– No, no one is going to accuse him
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: of happy talk.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, he is very appropriately adopting a– he's looking up,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: seeing the sky falling, adopting a chicken little approach. I
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: think that's good.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Insidery press question here, but do you think that the
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: DTRIP is who leaked the documents to Politico? Do you
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: think this was like intentional to sound the alarm?
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Probably. I would say that the tone and tenor of
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: the DCCC presentations and the record number of House retirements
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: may be connected, if you will. So– But that's still–
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I think it's still the right thing to do.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: You got to laugh. What else are we going to do?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: We have to laugh.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: That's right. I mean we could cry. That is an option.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't be as fun to listen to.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: The term culture war in this case is something that
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: I could talk about for 12 straight hours. I will
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: not do that for our audience and our aging bladders.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: But I think what I– and this probably really undermines
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: your prompt here. But I think we should stop using
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: the term culture war. It doesn't really mean anything. It
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: creates– It furthers, I think, incorrect impressions of how politics work.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: In one sense, culture war means anything that is not
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: an economic issue, right? And so it creates this world
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: where there are these issues that have emotional appeal, you know,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: civil rights, reproductive rights, abortion, cancel culture, all of these things.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: And then there are issues with intellectual appeal, right? Policy issues, right?
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Minimum wage, where it's like.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: That's not how politics works, right? It's not, there are not,
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: every issue should be handled in an emotional appeal, should
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: be handled as a way of talking about identity. And
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: it also, I think, creates this impression among Democrats that,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: and this has been sort of how the political conversation
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: has happened for a long time, is cultural issues are
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: good for Republicans. Economic issues are good for Democrats. And
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: that is, there is some history to that being true,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: but it's much, much more complicated. That creates this over
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: simplistic thing where it's like, Republicans want to talk about this.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: We're going to change the subject and talk about the
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: things we want, but we're going to do it in
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: a way that is incorrect and doesn't actually further a
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: larger narrative. And so in this case, what I say
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: is we're not losing the culture war. We're losing the
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: information war. Republicans are more successfully branding Democrats than Democrats
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: are branding Republicans. And that matters a lot in the
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: House where for the vast majority of the electorate, It
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: is a generic member of Congress. It's a D or
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: an R who they're sending to Washington. They don't know
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: a lot about that person. And never will. There isn't
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: enough money to spend to truly educate them like you
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: would in a presidential race or even a Senate race.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Second is what I think should be most concerning to
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Democrats is we have all these problems, whether it's defund
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: police or being on the wrong side of COVID issues
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: or school closures or cancel culture, critical race theory in
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: all of these races. And there has been very little
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: money spent in ads. This is all happening through the
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: organic media ecosystem. Sometimes you get in a situation where
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: it's like Republicans have all this extra money. They spent
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: 5x what we spent to create this impression. Now, this
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: is the impression people are generally getting from just watching
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: the news, talking to people, and being on Facebook or
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: other social media outlets. And that, I think, is very alarming.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: And I think we've got to sort of figure out
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: out that piece of it, how that's happening, what we
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: can do about it, than just sort of picking what
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: issues we're going to talk about.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I do agree that culture war isn't really helpful and
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: that it's too broad and has been used for decades
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: and the issues that sort of make up the culture
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: war change with each election. So it's sort of hard
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: to keep track of. I think in this election, or
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: at least in this polling, in this research, it's defined
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: as the debate over whether to defund the police, immigration issues,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: particularly defining Democrats as open borders, critical race theory, right?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: So these are the issues that have sort of been
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: coming up over the last year or so. Basically what
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the polling says is Republicans are ahead by four in
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: just a generic ballot in the swing districts. And then
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: when you present voters with Republican attacks on defunding the police, immigration,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: and at least those two are the ones we know about,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: the generic ballot goes to plus 14 for Republicans when
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: there's no Democratic response. When Democrats respond, when you present
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: voters then with a Democratic response that says ex-Democratic candidate
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: does support funding the police... and doesn't support open borders,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: then it goes from a plus 14 back to plus six.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I'm laughing because in the story, it's like, but when
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Democrats rebut the attacks, it blunts them by going to
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: two points worse than the original generic ballot.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, I would just note that plus six is about
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: what the generic ballot advantage the Democrats had in 2018
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: when we won 40 House seats.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so not good.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Not good at all.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to push you on the, like, Democrats
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: are losing the information war, not the culture war thing.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: What do you think the source of voter anger towards
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Democrats is? Like, if these voters, again, there was polling
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: and then there were focus groups. You do both to
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: get an accurate picture. And in the focus groups, they
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: were calling Democrats preachy, judgmental. They think that we're too
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: focused on the culture wars.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, what a kick in the ass that is.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Like, how much of this do you think is Republicans
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: being successful at framing these issues? Republicans having a larger
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: megaphone with right wing media? And how much do you
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: think is just voters being upset with the party in
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: power for a number of problems that they're facing in
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: their own lives?
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is a pretty complicated thing, I think,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: to untangle. I think it is fair to say that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: the general shitty political environment, which includes inflation, the pandemic,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: supply chain, general just malaise, right? I mean, the Gallup
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: right track, wrong track number is at a 40-year high.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Democrats are in charge. So even if there was nothing
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: about defund the police or any of these, quote unquote,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: culture issues, Democrats would be in a huge heaping load
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: of trouble. The But I think because Republicans were the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: party in power in 2020 and were very successful in
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: communicating this Democratic brand, socialism, defund the police, et cetera,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: in that election as well when we should have had
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: the political wind at our back. So it's like they're
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: definitely pushing on an open door because people are mad
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: at the party in power and maybe more willing to
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: believe certain things about the party in power because they're
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: mad at it. But I don't want to use that
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: to– there's something bigger and more problematic here than just
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: it's a midterm election. We're in charge. The party in
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: charge usually loses a midterm election.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. I think that bigger issue at play here
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: is still the pandemic. And I don't necessarily mean specific
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: COVID restrictions. There's been a lot of debate about restrictions.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: We've talked about that. I think it's just like over
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the last couple of years, people's lives have been upended.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: They've lost friends and family to COVID. They've had to
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: do their jobs, raise their kids in some Cases teach
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: their kids from their homes. Gas costs too much. Groceries
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: cost too much. Rent costs too much. People are worried
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: about crime. Things are out of stock. Places are short-staffed.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: It's hard to go to restaurants. Hard to go have fun. Like,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think that most voters, at least from research
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I've seen, most voters don't necessarily blame Democrats for these problems,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: but they do expect Democrats to understand these problems, to
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: focus on these problems, to... fight as hard as they
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: can to fix these problems. And so if that's what
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: you're seeing in your life, if those are your worries
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and your concerns, and then you turn on the news
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: or start scrolling through the news and you see arguments
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and debates about a host of other things that we
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: often talk about, then you're going to feel like there's
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: a disconnect between what you're worried about and what the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: people you elected are actually doing. Does that make sense?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: It does. But I think two parts about this. One
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: is they're seeing these– like the fact that they turn
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: on the news, they open social media and they see
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: these other things that are not what Joe Biden is
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: doing to stop inflation.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Or what is the information ecosystem problem, right? They're hearing
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: about critical race theory or are Democrats too woke or
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: the stuff in San Francisco that we'll talk about in
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: a little bit. The polling is very clear. It's not
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: that they blame Joe Biden necessarily for inflation, although they
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: do A plurality of voters think that inflation is being
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: caused by increased government spending under Joe Biden's presidency. But
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: they don't necessarily blame him. The bigger thing is they
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: think he's not focused on it enough. But problem is,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: it's very hard for him to communicate to the public
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: that he's focused on it because when he talks about inflation,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: no one tweets about it. No one covers it. It
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: doesn't get any traction. If you want to substitute cultural
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: issue for issues that generate emotional response, issues that generate
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: emotional response are what has currency. in this media ecosystem.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: It's what's always driven cable. It's what drives social media.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: It's what trends on Facebook and Twitter, et cetera. And
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: that is just a very, we have not yet figured
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: out a way to talk about the things that we
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: want to talk about in that way, right? Conflict drives it.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Where is the conflict in Joe Biden trying to unclog
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: the ports, right? Like how does that, like, yes, people
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: will write stories about it. There may even be a
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: segment on the news, but that doesn't have any sort
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: of virality or traction. And that is part of the
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: you know, what is, that's one of the blockers that
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: is preventing us from addressing that situation organically, at least.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Well, the other problem is people don't form their opinions
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: about what the Democrats quote unquote are up to purely
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: by figuring out what Joe Biden is saying every day, right?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: People see the democratic party as Joe Biden, as the
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: members of Congress, progressive pundits on television, people on Twitter, right?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Like the universe of what constitutes the Democrats to most
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: voters is, A whole bunch of people that go beyond
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden. And unless all those people are talking about
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the economy and fighting to fix the economy and get
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: people's lives back to normal and get schools open and
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: solve inflation and solve gas prices and all that kind
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: of stuff. Unless people are talking about that every single
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: day and everyone is talking about all the time and
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: everyone is talking about why. the solutions are being blocked
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: by Republicans in Congress, then you really don't have the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: frame that's going to help Democrats make their best case.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, just when you think about the, like, we
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: sort of have to widen the aperture about how we
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: understand how persuasion is done in politics. So defund the
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: police is believed to be, according to this report, one
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: of the biggest political problems for Democrats. A couple of
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: important points here. One, the vast majority of Democrats, if
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: not every Democrat running for Congress, and certainly in a
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: vulnerable district, does not support defund the police. They have
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: said on multiple occasions, you ask them how their day is,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: they say they don't support it, right? It is, they
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: do not. It is a fake, as a Democratic, it
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: is not a position of the Democratic Party. It's not
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: a position of our congressional leaders, our congressional members, our president,
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: party platform, anything else. And then Quinnipiac has a poll
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: out earlier this week where they asked people the most
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: urgent issue affecting Americans. And crime came in at, I think, 7%,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: which is four times less urgent than inflation.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Though higher than crime has been in years. Yeah, it's
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: definitely- Usually crime doesn't come up at all.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: It's definitely, crime is up, concerns about it are up. Also,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of, when you, this poll did not, at
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: least I didn't see in the cross-step, let you know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: but in general, like concern about crime has gone up
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: and we shouldn't, we've talked about this many times, but
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: I guess you have to deal with that. But it
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: is also, there's a motivated reasoning part where it's up
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: largely with Republicans, even if they live in places where
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: crime is not up or up by certainly less than
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: it may be in other places. But it is the,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: it is not just that people are concerned about crime.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Democrats want to defund the police. Therefore I'm against Democrats.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: It is that being for defund the police is, is
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: a signifier about who Democrats are, who they're fighting for,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: who they're not fighting for, who they represent. And that
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: is sort of the emotional identity version of politics that
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Republicans have been waging pretty relentlessly on Democrats for decades,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: but particularly in the last five years where we have
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: been talking about Trump for good reason, and it is
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: a strategy that worked. We won in 2018 and 2020
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: doing that, but we haven't been talking about Republicans. And
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: so now Republicans is a little more of a generic
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Republicans separate and apart from Trump is a little more
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: generic than Democrats separate and apart from Joe Biden.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Does the San Francisco school board race count as a
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: battle in this larger culture war? What was that all about?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: As someone who lives in the Bay Area?
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: This is going to come as a shocker to you,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: but the issue is slightly more complicated than Twitter and
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: cable news would have you believe. Clara Jeffrey of Mother Jones,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: who lives here in the Bay Area, has a great
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: explainer of what's going on. And it's important to understand
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: that frustrations about the schools in San Francisco have been
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: bubbling for a long period of time. They blew up
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: in the pandemic for a couple of reasons. And a
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: whole host of things happened. One, schools were closed in
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: San Francisco longer than they were in most parts of
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: the country. That was of great frustration to parents, even
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: though San Francisco was one of sort of a model
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: of how you deal with the pandemic. There was high
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: vaccination rate, high masking rate, low cases when they were
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: surging elsewhere. And a real tolerance for those measures and
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: a sort of a sense of community about it. The
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: problem was not just that schools were closed. It was
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: that it was pretty clear that the San Francisco schools
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: were doing two things incorrectly. One, they seemed to have
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: no actual plan to reopen them. And they certainly weren't
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: willing to be transparent about what that plan was. And
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: they really fumbled the ball in terms of helping parents
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: and students with remote learning. In terms of access to technology,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: it just seemed very poorly run, incompetent, if you will.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Then you add on a couple of other sort of
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: unique things that have happened here. One is something that
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: most people have heard about was a effort among the
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: school board to change the names of a bunch of
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: schools for reasons to address the sort of the historical
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: significance of them, including changing a school named after Abraham
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Lincoln and Dianne Feinstein, which was.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Seen- Abraham Lincoln.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Obviously absurd. Huge backlash in the bluest city in America
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: to that. It became a laughing stock. Then there was
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: a much more like sort of unique, complicated issue involving
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: what I think is a well-meaning effort to increase the diversity,
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: particularly among black and brown students at the city's most
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: academically rigorous and desirable public schools, the ones you apply to,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: where the population was overwhelmingly white and Asian American. How
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: that was handled was viewed by many people as poor communication,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: poor execution, huge backlash to that, like a very well-organized
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: alumni network for those schools, parents whose kids have been
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: working up until high school to be able to apply
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: to get in those schools. Combine all of those things together, including,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, a lawsuit from one of these school members
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: trying to sue the school system for $ 87 million because
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: they got a a non-punitive censure, a whole bunch of
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: stuff all added together. And in this piece, I encourage
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: everyone who's interested to read by Claire Jeffrey. She concludes
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: that it's incompetence more as a backlash to wokeness or
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: COVID restrictions. And I think that is correct. I think
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: if you just had the Abraham Lincoln situation, there would
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: be a huge backlash to it, but it wouldn't have
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: led to this overwhelming recall. And so this is just,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: like all things, more complicated. Now, This is being weaponized,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: of course, to fit into a pre-existing narrative about a
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: backlash to progressive overreach around the country. And it's obviously
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: more complicated than that. But that doesn't mean it's not
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: how it will be used on the national political scale.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I second your recommendation for everyone to go read Clara
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey's piece in Mother Jones. It is fantastic. It is
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: a great bit of reporting. I was surprised, and you
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: just said this too, that the conclusion after this piece
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: was that this was merely incompetence on behalf of the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: school board, when all of the decisions they made seemed
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: actually not necessarily driven by incompetence, but a very intentional
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: ideology here about these school members. I mean, like, you
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: mentioned the... So they wanted to abolish merit-based admissions at
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: the city's magnet high school, right? And like you said, obviously...
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: the intent here was good because there's not nearly enough
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: black and Latino children at these schools. But the population
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: of the school is overwhelmingly Asian students. And like you said,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: these Asian students have been trying, you know, working hard
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to try to get into this school because it's merit-based,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: it's based on GPA for many years. And then they
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: held like a private meeting and just abolished the admissions process.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And then as a result, like the you know, turnout
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: among Asian parents was like through the roof in this,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: in this election to recall these school board members. And, um,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: also like on remote learning, one of the school board members, again,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: famously dismissed remote learning as, as quote, just a different
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: kind of experience, no better and no worse than in-person schooling.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: They spent all this time trying to rename the schools,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: including schools named after Abraham Lincoln and, like while they
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: didn't have a plan to open the schools. So again, it's,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: it's not just a question of incompetence. It's, but it's
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: a question of, I think like, what is the priority
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: of a school board at a time when you are
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: a parent who cannot send your kid to school everywhere
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: else in the country? Most other places in the country
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: have sent their kids to school or have figured out
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: a way to open up their schools. San Francisco doesn't
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: open up until the fall of 2021 and, And all
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: that time while they're closed, they're doing things like trying
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: to rename schools that are named after Abraham Lincoln because
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: that's somehow awful enough that that warrants the attention of
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: the school board that hasn't figured out how to open
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the schools to kids of all races, particularly black and
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: brown kids who are suffering because they haven't learned for
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: a year. I mean, it's like fucking nuts. They also,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: they spent $ 800, 000 to cover up a 1930s mural at
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: a high school that shows George Washington standing over black
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: and native people who were being subjugated, even though the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: entire point of the mural had been to critique racism
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: and colonialism. Like, I just... It makes me so angry because, like,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the actions of this school board, you're right, they're going
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to be weaponized by Republicans all over the country, but...
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: progressives not just democrats but progressives all over the country
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: should stand up and say like this is not what
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: we believe this is bullshit it's that's what they did
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: yeah i mean that's the point i think london breed
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: the mayor the democratic mayor got behind this effort something
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: like you know 75 percent of voters in san francisco
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: a multi-racial economically diverse coalition of people came together to
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: vote these school board members out but like these school
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: board members seem to be driven by a very specific
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: ideology that led them to focus on things like renaming
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: schools and covering up murals instead of keeping schools open
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: for some of the city's neediest children.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is a little, I think, to be
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: specific about what I believe Clara's conclusion is, is primarily incompetence.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I think her point is, is that had it been
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: a better run organization that also had this ideology, you
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: probably wouldn't be in this historic recall situation. But it's like,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: how do you separate, in this case, focusing on the
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: wrong things as an example of ideological blindness versus incompetence?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: One of the examples is that the school board meetings
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: would last like six hours. And the first five and
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: a half hours would be on this sort of marginalia
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: about school naming, these other smaller issues that aren't even ideological,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: but just so far removed from the absolute existential concern
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: of the parents, which is how do we get these
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: fucking schools open? And like, is that incompetence? Is that
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: ideological blindness? That's hard. That's hard to say. I think
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the main point here is it's more complicated than anything else.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: And it's actually a sign that the overwhelming majority of
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Democrats do not ascribe to this out of the mainstream idea.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: views on Abraham Lincoln or murals, that that is this
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: tiny little fragment of– this is the bluest city in
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: the country. And they just toss these people out with
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: 70 plus percent of the vote. And so that sort
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: of says that that's the mainstream of the Democratic Party,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: that even the most liberal, most left part of the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Democratic Party is not on board with this shit, right?
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: And what's happening is this tiny fraction is being weaponized
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: against Democrats, painting with this broad brush to say, this
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: is what most Democrats don't look like or act like
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: when it's exact. I think the results of the recall
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: prove the opposite of that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: The reason I'm bringing this up is, look, you're not
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: going to find San Francisco school boards, school boards like
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: San Francisco in most cities across the country. They're a
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: unique case for sure. But what we were just talking
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: about before with the DTRIP polling and research, like the danger,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I think the core danger for Democrats heading into the
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: midterms is the country is still going through the collective
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: trauma of the pandemic. That is economic. That is social.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Their health. There's a host of problems that have come
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: from that. And every single person in the Democratic Party,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: everyone who talks about Democratic politics, everyone who's an advocate
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: for Democratic politics, needs to all look like we are
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: focusing on fixing those problems every single day because little
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: shit like this, we know, will get blown up by
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Fox News and the right and also will reach people,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: will upset people who are not just Republicans, but like
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: and not just centrists, but in San Francisco's case, Democratic voters.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, this is I mean, this brings us
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: back to the information disadvantaged Democrats have, which is whether
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: it's a group of activists who support defund the police
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: and then the Republicans lifting that up and then using
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: their their much larger megaphone to tell everyone that's what
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Democrats believed. to lift up a minority of a school
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: board in a city in California and treat that as
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: a set of positions held by the vast majority of Democrats,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: we could do the same thing. I mean, we can
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: talk about book bans. You have all across the country,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: you have something that is just as far out of
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: the mainstream, even probably more further out of the mainstream,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: banning books, right? Something that Americans associate with Nazi Germany
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: happening all across the country. That's something that our friends
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: at Data for Progress did a poll which showed seven
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: in 10 voters oppose, including majorities of independents, Democrats, and Republicans.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: 64% of Republicans against voters against banning Republican politicians, banning
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: books in schools.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: So if you want to call that a cultural issue,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: an identity issue, whatever, that is something we could use
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: to hammer Republicans with. This is, I think, the larger
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: lesson of all of this is there's a learned helplessness
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: from Democrats when it comes to the quote unquote culture war.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: which is Republicans have this power to do it, we don't.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: We have just as many, and we in fact have
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: more opportunities to do that. And a culture war issue
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: is the ability, is picking something to use it to
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: show that your opponents, the Republican Party, your specific opponent,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: is outside of the mainstream of American thought. You're part
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: of this radicalized minority, right? Canceling Abraham Lincoln, you're a radical.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: But banning books, you're a radical. And in fact, we
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: have the majority positions on the culture issues almost across
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: the board. And there's a big looming one that is
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: going to perhaps manifest itself this summer when the Supreme
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Court rules on Roe v. Wade, a position that has
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: huge bipartisan majorities in this country putting Republicans on their side.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: The anti-LGBTQ laws in Florida that don't, quote unquote, don't
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: say gay law. Another example, something that Democrats could use
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: if we wanted to and had the megaphone to do
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: it to show that the Republicans are so far out
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: of the mainstream of American thought. That is an available
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: set of options to us if we choose to use it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Just so people know this, by the way, in Florida,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: they want to, again, this is legislation that is moving
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: through the legislature. DeSantis supports it. They want to ban
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: teachers from even acknowledging that a student's gay parents exist.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: That is how extreme. So I think this is To
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: come back to the DCCC memo strategy advice, they are
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: basically telling candidates that they have to forcefully confront what
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: they call the GOP's alarmingly potent culture war attacks on
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: defunding the police or immigration by reiterating their support for
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: police or denying support for open borders. What do you
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: think of that advice? Because I think there's a few
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: options if you're a Democratic candidate when these attacks come.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Number one is to completely ignore the attacks and just
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: talk about what you want to talk about. The DCCC
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: is saying don't do that. The DCCC is saying forcefully
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: rebut them by saying, you know, I don't support defunding
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: the police or I don't support open borders. The third
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: option is like trying to change the debate to your favorable,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: more favorable set of issues. And the other is, I think,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: what you were just talking about, which is reframing the
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: cultural issue so that Republicans are the ones who own
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the extreme positions. So, like, instead of talking about open borders, like,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: you can talk about how Republican politicians want to deport
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: dreamers at a time when our economy is suffering from
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: a labor shortage that is affecting everyone. Or, you know,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: like you were just saying, instead of talking about critical
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: race theory, talk about how Republicans in D.C. want to
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: go into your kid's classroom and ban books that students
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: have been reading for decades. Decades. And then, of course,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: we talked about the, you know, mentioning the Florida law,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: mentioning the fact that the Supreme Court... could be said
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape. There
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: are so many positions Republicans have taken on many of
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: these cultural, social, and racial issues that are so extreme
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: and so outside of the mainstream that Democrats should start
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: talking about them more and start making that a big issue.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: What do you think about with all of those options,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: if you're a Democratic candidate, which ones you pursue?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: It's a little column A. a little from column B.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Like it's not, like we sort of sometimes create these
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: binary choices. The one thing you can't do is ignore them.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: I remember in 2018 seeing some internal Democratic polling about
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the attacks on socialism that Republicans were using, particularly after
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Alexander Ocasio-Cortez was elected and they were sort of trying
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: to weaponize the squad against Democrats and Trump was calling
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: everyone a socialist. And this polling showed that voters believed
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: the socialist attacks until Democrats said, I'm a capitalist or
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I'm not a socialist, and then they went back. And
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: this is sort of the weakness and strength of the
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: fact that people do not trust politicians right now, which
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: is because they don't trust politicians, they're willing to believe
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: almost anything about them. But because they don't trust politicians,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: they're also easily disabused of notions, attacks being spread by
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: other politicians. And so I think it is pretty clear
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: you have to say, We saw this in the New
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: Mexico special, which I think the DCCC cites as a
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: model for how you do this, where the Democratic candidate
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: won in part by taking on the police attacks head
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: on and then pivoting. So I think you have to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: respond and pivot. And I think it is a story
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: about Republicans being radical out of the mainstream in the
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: thrall of this radical minority. And that can include issues
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: around abortion. It can include around LGBTQ rights. It can
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: include the sanctioning of political violence, spreading vaccines is a
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: huge one where you have a large majority of adults
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: in this country who are vaccinated. And then a Republican
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: party that has been, that I think you can very
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: successfully and credibly brand as anti-vax. It can include economic
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: issues where they're on the wrong side. And so it's
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: a story about them and who they're fighting for. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: it's not you. And it doesn't have to be kitchen
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: table or cultural. It can be, it's, you have to
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: weave them together.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there's another turn there that sort of
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: moves it onto a more fertile territory for us as well,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: which is like, what's the truth about this? The truth
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: about this is that Republicans are doing this because they
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: think it's a, they think it's political issues that will
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: help them win an election. They don't care about you.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: They don't care about your fucking, uh, like making sure
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: that your kids can go to school again. They want
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to cut public education and, Like we put up a
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: policy that would help families with child care. They voted
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: it down. They obstructed it. They wouldn't even let it
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: come for a vote. They they don't want to fund
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: universal pre-K like Joe Biden. The Democrats have proposed they
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: want to block universal pre-K. The idea that they they're
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: the ones who care about children and parents. When we
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: have seen over the last year that they have blocked
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: all of these votes, that they have voted against anything
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: that would actually help children, it's preposterous. And so I
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: do think calling out the bullshit, right, is that this
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: is a game that Republicans are playing so that they
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: can recapture the majority and then they can keep their jobs.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: They actually don't care that much about you because if
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: they did, they wouldn't have voted against all of this shit.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: But we got to make the argument.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and people got to hear it, right? Those are
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: two separate but quite related parts of politics.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, when we come back, I'll talk to Moms Demand
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Action founder Shannon Watts about the Sandy Hook family settlement
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: with gun manufacturer Remington. This week, the families of nine
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Sandy Hook shooting victims settled a $ 73 million lawsuit with Remington.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: the gun manufacturer that created the AR-15 style rifle that
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: was used to murder 20 children and six adults in
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: the Newtown, Connecticut school. This is believed to be the
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: biggest payout in history by a gun manufacturer in a
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: mass shooting case. And here to talk to us about
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: how this could lead to more progress on stopping gun violence,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the founder of Moms Demand Action, Shannon Watts. Welcome back, Shannon.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: How big of a deal is this settlement?
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: It is a huge deal. And I think we should
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: first at the top, talk about the bravery of these
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: nine Sandy Hook families. I mean, they're all incredibly brave,
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: but because of this lawsuit, so much may change on
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: this issue. And these families fought, even when they were
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: told they couldn't win, they went against settlement suggestions, knowing
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: that they really wanted the information that would, would change.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: the trajectory of this issue. And they had to talk
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: about this tragedy over and over again for a decade
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: just to get some accountability and some justice. And as E.J.
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: Dionne said in an op-ed today, the nation owes them
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: an incalculable debt.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, we really do. Can you help people understand why
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: this lawsuit succeeded where others like it usually failed?
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, if you step back and you look at
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: how industries are regulated, right, from cars to tobacco, most
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: consumer products, even opioid manufacturers, they have been held accountable.
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: And that accountability, that legal accountability drives innovation. It helps
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: create new safety features, for example, responsible sales and marketing practices.
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: And the goal of those lawsuits are saving lives. And
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: that's how we make sure there is accountability and people
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: are kept safe. But the gun lobby learned by watching
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: these other special interests have to fight these lawsuits. And
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: they knew that was an Achilles heel. They knew that
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: would drain their financial resources. So in 2005, they convinced
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: Congress to grant them special protection for It's called the
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It's also referred
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: to as PLACA. And it shields the firearms industry, unlike
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: any other industry, from nearly all civil liability for any
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: dangers their products pose. So Congress gave them this shield,
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: but this settlement shows the shield is not impenetrable. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: the reason for that is because lawyers were able to
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: find a weakness in Plaka. It was able to go
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: after this gun manufacturer, Remington, based on how they marketed
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: guns to people. Now, I don't know if you've ever
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: seen the ads, but they say things like, consider your
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: man card reissued. And the case that these lawyers were
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: able to make in these families is that a gun
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: manufacturer knowingly marketed these guns to troubled young men, resulting
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: in tragedy.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: And is the reason... that the lawyers were able to
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: exploit this loophole in the immunity that gun manufacturers enjoy
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: because the state of Connecticut had a specific law about marketing?
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Was this a state law that helped them?
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: Well, certainly the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld that PLACA doesn't
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: immunize the gun industry against lawsuits that they claim violated
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: state law. but also the U.S. Supreme Court declined to
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: take up the appeal. And that was really a landmark
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: moment that allowed this case to go forward and also
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: may pave the way for similar cases across the country.
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: Right now, there are survivors of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: who are working on a similar suit. The Mexican government
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: is suing gun manufacturers for marketing guns to drug cartels.
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: Some are even saying that maybe we will find out
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: that the gun lobby has been purposefully marketing guns to
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: white supremacists or insurrectionists. So, you know, this is a
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: really important decision. Um, and, and certainly the Supreme court's
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: decision was, was a precedent for that, but it could
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: allow survivor claims going forward against any reckless actors in
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: the gun industry to proceed.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Is there, um, potentially a legislative strategy, a state-based legislative
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: strategy going forward so that this strategy can be replicable
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: going forward?
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: Yes, that is something Moms Demand Action and Students Demand
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: Action volunteers have been working on. Something really important happened
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: last summer. The New York legislature enacted legislation, it was
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: signed into law by the governor, that makes it clear
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: that gun companies that engage in any kind of dangerous
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: conduct are and create essentially a public nuisance in New
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: York can be sued. So it really goes out of
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: its way to undo PLACA in the state of New York.
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: The bill requires all gun companies who do business in
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: the state to put some safeguards in place that prevent
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: their guns from ending up in the hands of anyone
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: who shouldn't have them. So that basically subjects anyone who
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: fails to do that to civil liability. And then we
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: are working with lawmakers in states like New Jersey and California.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: They're also considering similar legislation. Both governors Murphy and Newsom
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: have signaled that they are supportive. And, and so we
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: can really extrapolate, I think what happened in Connecticut all
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: across the country is And certainly, wherever you live, you
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: should be encouraging your lawmakers to enact similar common sense measures.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: I've heard people say a case like this might cause
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: the insurers and banks who keep gun manufacturers afloat to
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: rethink their business relationships with them. What do you think
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: about that?
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, and we're.
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: Also seeing that that may happen. And insurance plays a
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: huge role in gun manufacturers' ability to operate with impunity.
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: And they agreed that there was some kind of culpability.
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: That's why this settlement happened. They clearly didn't want to
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: go forward. And in addition to insurers, we also think
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: the FTC has a role to play, right? They should
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: be investigating fair and unfair and deceptive marketing practices. And
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: so we have called on them to do exactly that.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: Smith & Wesson has used similar advertising tactics like Remington.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: And so- Again, we will certainly be looking at this lawsuit,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: as will many organizations and lawyers and insurers, to make
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: sure that we can open wider any fissures that have
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: been created and exploit those to make sure manufacturers are
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: held accountable.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: It seems like this will be yet another Congress, infuriatingly,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: that does nothing about gun violence, thanks to Senate Republicans
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: and two Senate Democrats. Is there anything else President Biden...
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: could be doing through executive action that he hasn't done yet? Well, yes.
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: I mean, obviously, you know, PLACA offers significant undue protections
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: all across the gun manufacturing industry. And what we have
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: seen is that there are gun lobby backed politicians in Congress,
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: mainly in the Senate, who have essentially let the gun
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: industry regulate itself. And that has in turn just had
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: such devastating impacts on communities all across this country. So yes,
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: Congress needs to repeal PLACA. It needs to do everything
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: it can to hold the gun industry accountable. Why it's
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: not treated like any other manufacturer in this country is bizarre.
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: And so that needs to be rectified. In terms of
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: this administration, look, there are not many issues that are
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: getting through the Senate. Certainly gun safety is one of
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: those issues, but there are many. The Biden-Harris administration has
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: done more on this issue than really any other administration
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: in the history of America because of executive action. You know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: we can talk about ghost guns and the money they've
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: unlocked for community violence intervention programs. I mean, they're doing
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: a lot on this. What we have to do is
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: demand that that the U.S. Senate does its job. And
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: our motto is always, do the right thing and we'll
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: have your back, do the wrong thing and we'll have
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: your job. And that needs to be the case in
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: the Senate. We need everyone to use their voices and
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: their votes on this issue. And I am very confident
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: we are going to eventually undo this protection for the
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: gun lobby.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Are there any executive actions, though, that you're looking at
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and folks who work in organizations like yours and saying,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: you know, the Biden administration hasn't done that yet, but
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: they could probably take that action. It would make a difference.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: I know that some folks are a little frustrated that
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: the action that they took earlier on ghost guns hasn't
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: yet been completed. I know that folks are upset that
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: there's still not an ATF director. Are there any other
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: exact actions that you're looking for?
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: Well, none of that is for a lack of trying, right?
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: So sometimes this takes more than a year. And the
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: Biden-Harris administration has signaled to us, this is absolutely a priority.
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: There is more work to be done and there's more
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: work that they're going to do. We're certainly going to
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: hold them accountable. We have the largest grassroots movement in
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: the country of volunteers who show up and do that
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: every single day. And again, the executive actions they've taken
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: so far are life-saving and they do make a difference
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: and there's more work to be done and we're confident.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: That's going to happen.
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: But it does seem like the main impediment is Congress.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: And so Need more Democratic senators.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Specifically the Senate.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Well, so what's the local and state strategy
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: right now? Where are you seeing progress? And where could
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: people stop bad laws from passing if we pay attention?
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because of this,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: all of these, this bottleneck in the U.S. Senate, we
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: have gone hyper local, right? So the work that we're
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: doing every single day is in school boards and in
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: city councils and in state houses. And it absolutely makes
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: a difference. If you look at a lot of social movements,
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: the work starts on the ground and it eventually points
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: the right president and the right Supreme Court in the
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: right direction. And so every single day our volunteers wake
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: up and they're either working to stop bad policy or
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: they're supporting good policy. I'm really proud to say that
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: over the last six years, we have a 90% track
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: record of stopping the NRA's bad bills year after.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Year, right?
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: Those are things like arming teachers, forcing guns onto college campuses,
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: expanding standard ground, something called permitless carry, which is now
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: passed in 21 states in this country. And so that work,
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: playing defense, takes a huge amount of time, but it's
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: paying off. But we're also playing offense. You know, we
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: now have background checks in 21 states on all gun sales.
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: We've disarmed domestic abusers in 29 states. We've passed laws
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: that close something called the Charleston loophole and passed red
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: flag laws now in about two dozen states. So these
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: laws are being passed. They are lifesaving. They work. The
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: data shows they work. We need them at a federal level.
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: We're all only as safe as the closest state with
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: the weakest gun laws. But also city councils are doing
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: innovative things. In San Jose, California, they just passed a
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: fine that needs to be paid by gun owners in
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: order to pay for All of the first responders and
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: the different tactics that go into saving lives. I mean,
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: it's billions of dollars in this country. In school boards,
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: we're passing policies that require secure storage notification be sent
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: home to families. Who are most school shooters? They're students
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: who have easy access to guns in their homes. So
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: all of this work makes difference. I always say it's
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: relentless incrementalism that leads to revolutions. And I think because
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: we haven't had that cathartic moment in Congress yet, people
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: think nothing's being done, but really nothing could be further
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: from the truth.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: We're coming up on the fourth anniversary of the Parkland shooting,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: which obviously galvanized a lot of young people to get involved.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: What would you say to a young person today who
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: wants to get involved, who wants to help, who wants
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: to do whatever they can to stop gun violence, but
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: looks at the last several years and just feels this
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: sense of frustration and disappointment?
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: You know, I understand the frustration, but I also have
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: been alive long enough now to understand this is the
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: way the system is set up. It is not set
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: up for overnight wholesale change. I wish it were, but
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: we have to operate within the current system. And that
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: is to be relentlessly working on this issue day after
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: day to show up at every single gun bill hearing,
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: to create relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: to grow in numbers and to never back down. That
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: is what it takes in a democracy. And I am
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: so thrilled that Students Demand Action really became a force
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: within our movement and our organization after the Parkland tragedy.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: The Students Demand Action volunteers that we have registered over 100,000
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: new voters in the last electoral cycle. And I think
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: it's so exciting to watch the way that they advocate
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: and that they're activists. I mean, it's completely different than
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: I do it as a 51-year-old mom of five, right?
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: The way they use technology and the technology they use
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: and the things they care about are different. And that's
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: so important. It's so crucial to have that new energy
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: injected into activism. And they're going to play such an
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: important role in this upcoming midterm election. And certainly if
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: anyone wants to join Students Demand Action, they should text
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: the word students to 64433. And whether you're in high
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: school or your college age, we will plug you in
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: right away and get you involved in your community.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Shannon Watts, thank you so much for joining us and
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: thank you for all the great work you're doing.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Alright, before we go, you know how you're scrolling through
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: the news or watching TV and you catch the tail
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: end of what you're pretty sure is some... batshit crazy
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: right-wing conspiracy theory, but you just don't have the time
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: or energy to look up why it's wrong? We've got
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: you covered in a new segment we're calling No Truths
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: and a Lie. The premise is simple. One of us
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: will set up a story that's been getting traction in
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: right-wing media, and the other will call bullshit. I'll begin. Dan,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: you may have caught a recent Tucker Carlson segment titled,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Let Them Have Crack Pipes. If not, here's a clip.
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: Joe Biden's latest idea is to pay black people to
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: smoke more crack. Going forward, the administration will send at
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: least $ 30 million in tax money to nonprofits and local
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: governments so they can purchase, quote, safe smoking kits and supplies.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: According to HHS, these kits will contain Joe Biden-approved pipes
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: that will allow beneficiaries of the equity agenda to smoke
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: crack cocaine as well as crystal meth. With this new program,
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: Joe Biden will finally close the crack gap.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz later tweeted, Biden crime policy, crack pipes for all,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: what could go wrong? And Marsha Blackburn threatened to shut
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: down the federal government if she didn't receive assurance from
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the Biden administration that they wouldn't use crack. the $ 30
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: million grant program to fund the distribution of crackpipes to
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: drug users as part of its plan to advance, quote,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: racial equity. Dan, what the hell is this one all about?
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Well, I got to say, I knew I was in
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: for something when I woke up the other morning and
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: I opened up Twitter and I saw that crackpipe was trending.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: And it was trending with, you know how they tweet
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: the other topics underneath it? Joe Biden was trending with crackpipes.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden crackpipe, not something you think you'd see.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: That's not, probably was not on the communications calendar in
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: the White House press office for this week. Let me,
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: this is incredibly complex, but let me try to explain it.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: But let me begin with the most important premise. It's
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: not true.
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden is not paying people to smoke crack. There
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: are not Joe Biden approved crack pipes. Let me explain
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: what they are talking about. So this all began.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: They don't have like little White House logos on them
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: or little like Biden campaign logos.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: They have little, they have aviators, right?
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: They have aviators, of course. Sorry.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: Please.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Anywho, so.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: What this refers to is within the American Rescue Plan,
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: there was a $ 30 million grant program administered by the
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Department of Health and Human Services to deal with the
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: public and private health impacts of drug use. And as
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: part of this grant program, organizations can apply for grant money.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: And to do so, they have to put forward a
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: harm reduction plan, how they're going to address the public
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: health implications of drug use. And this can include all
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: sorts of things. drug testing kits, disease kits, the money
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: to help for vaccinations for hepatitis, a disease that is
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: spread through shared needles. It can include money for the
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: medication that can save people's lives when they're overdosing. Whole
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: host of things. Because in addition to, you know, drug
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: use obviously has a huge impact on our overall public
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: health system, our communities, not just the drug users themselves.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: One of the items that is allowed under this grant
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: program is something called a safe smoking kit. That can
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: include everything from disinfectants to the sort of equipment that
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: makes it safer for people who are going to use
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: drugs anyway, not just for themselves, but for the people
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: around them. The term safe smoking kit, not specific to
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: this program, there's no mention of this in this program,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: but more broadly includes glass pipes to be used that
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: would give people the opportunity to do so safely. But
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: in this case, both the Department of Health and Human
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Services and the White House have said that no money
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: from this program would be go to use for pipes.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: So everything that Tucker Carlson said to you is not true.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: Your taxpayer dollars are not going to pipes. No one's
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: being sent crack pipes. No one's being paid to smoke crack.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: They're taking a program designed to reduce the public health
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: harm of drug use and turning it into something much
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: more nefarious and pretty racist. And so once again, this
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: is Not true. No one is being paid for crackpipes.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: No one's being sent crackpipes. Tucker Carlson, believe it or not,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: is lying to you.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I can rest easier tonight. Dan, you're up.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Okay. John, it is now your turn to go down
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: the red pill rabbit hole. I know you're a big
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Fox fan. I know you never miss an episode of
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: The Five. So I have no doubt that you caught
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: a recent story headlined, Clinton Campaign Paid to Infiltrate Trump Tower.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: White House servers to link Trump to Russia. Now, this
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: is a bit of an understatement, but Fox is pretty
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: excited about this supposed smoking gun in the fake controversy
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: called Spygate. Let's take a listen.
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: It appears to be the biggest election and presidential spying
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: scandal in the history of this great country.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: This is far worse than Watergate.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Durham's documents show that Hillary Clinton hired people who hacked
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: into Trump's home and office computers.
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: This isn't a conspiracy theory. His claims were true. Democrats
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: were spying on Donald Trump, not just as a candidate,
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: but as president of the United States in the White House,
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: as well as in his own home.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Sounds bad, Dan.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: So, John, help us understand this. Is this a crime
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: worse than Watergate? I.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: I it's yes. Yes it is.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Done.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: Segment over.
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: No.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Okay. So to understand this, we have to, we have
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: to go back down the fucking, uh, Spygate rabbit hole. Uh,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: I'll try to do it very quickly.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: John Durham. Remember John Durham? He is a special counsel
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: who was appointed by former attorney general Bill Barr to
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: investigate the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: Already.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: That sounds ridiculous, but you've, So be it. John Durham's
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: been doing this for three years now, and he has
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: brought just two indictments, one against a random mid-level FBI
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: attorney who pled guilty to altering an email used to
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: maintain a FISA wiretap on Carter Page. Remember Carter Page?
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: That was fun. And a second indictment against Michael Sussman,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: a partner at the DNC Clinton campaign law firm Perkins Coie,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: who has pled not guilty to making a false statement
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: to the FBI. It was an unrelated court filing to
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: this indictment that set off the latest shit show. In
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: the court filing, Durham basically includes a small note that
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: says this. There was some tech firm in Virginia and
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Georgia Tech researchers who had lawful access
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: to government internet data as part of a contract dating
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: back to the Obama administration to be on the lookout
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: for possible foreign cyber attacks. They didn't have access to
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: the contents of the government's Internet traffic or any communication,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: just IP addresses. Turns out they found what they thought
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: was some suspicious activity between Trump organization servers and a
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Russian bank and the existence of Russian made smartphones near
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: the White House. Ooh, sounds scary. So they wrote up
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: what they found. They gave it to their boss. He
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: gave it to this Perkins Coie lawyer, Michael Sussman, and
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: Sussman gave it to the FBI and CIA. who looked
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: into it and ultimately decided that none of the information
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: was all that suspicious. Here's the best part. The data
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: they shared with the FBI and CIA about the existence
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: of Russian-made smartphones near the White House, that was from
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: the Obama era, shortly after Russians hacked the White House
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: in 2015. So, just to be clear... No payment from
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: the Clinton campaign to any tech company, no hacking, no infiltrating,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: no reading emails, no reading text messages, just a tech
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: firm that was monitoring government traffic as far back as
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: the Obama era for suspicious foreign activity that found what
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: they thought was suspicious foreign activity, passed that report on
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: to law enforcement through an intermediary who happened to work
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: for the Democrats. That's it. No other indictments. Nothing else
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: going on. No one else was implicated. Just people looking
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: at DNS server traffic, thinking that maybe something was up.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: But oh, by the way, part of that was something
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: was up near the White House when Obama was in it,
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: not Trump, even though Trump was supposed to be the
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: one who was spied on.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: I have to say I'm disappointed in all these people
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: at Fox. Such normal, normally such straight shooters, fact-oriented journalists
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: would get this so wrong. Do you think, was that
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: an accident?
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure it's an accident. I'm sure it's just
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: they have a lack of knowledge in how DNS server
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: traffic works, and no one briefed them properly on that.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: And when someone corrects the record, I'm sure they'll all
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: go in the air and they'll say, oh, we were
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: wrong about this.
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, any minute. They're probably apologizing as we speak.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: I will say, having had to go down this rabbit hole, Durham,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: John Durham, clearly in his filing is like, you can
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: tell he was maybe trying to whip up some of
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: this right-wing media frenzy. Because he, no, basically his contention
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: is that these people were looking for nefarious information about
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Now, again, maybe they were, maybe they weren't.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: But all that happened is they wrote up a fucking report,
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: sent it to the law enforcement. Law enforcement was like, okay,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: we looked into it. Nothing is here. Which is a
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: far cry from Hillary Clinton paying a tech company to
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: hack into Trump's computer, which is literally what they've been
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: saying on Fox News. Un-fucking-believable. All right, last one. This
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: is about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and it also involves
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson, once again, who has not only compared Trudeau
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: to a Stalinist dictator because of his response to the
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: anti-vax trucker protests, he's now suggesting that Trudeau is actually
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro. Here's a clip.
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: People have talked for quite some time now that Justin Trudeau,
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: the Prime minister of Canada to our north, is actually
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: the son of a famous dictator. And frankly, it appears
• 59:15
  Speaker 6: to be true. Did Margaret Trudeau bear the love child
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: of Fidel Castro and does he now run Canada? And
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: of course the answer is for sure.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: One person who feels particularly strongly about this conspiracy theory
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: is our own John Lovett, who's joining us in studio
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: to talk more about it. Lovett!
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Let's do some debunking.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: It's outlandish, all right? These Canadian truckers are spreading this nonsense,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: the free folk north of the wall. They're aided by
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson, but let's be clear, all right? The professionals
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: have looked into this. I took the microphone off the
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: stand for this, by the way.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: The professionals have looked into this.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Don't worry. No, Fidel Castro is not Canadian Prime Minister
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Trudeau's father, says the AP. The Times says, the New
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: York Times, misinformation has been a key weapon wielded by
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Canada's protest movement and critics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: have returned to one simmering falsehood that Mr. Trudeau is
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: the love child of the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: Snopes calls it false. It's absurd. Everybody basically draws the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: same conclusion. Margaret Trudeau traveled to Cuba, but it was
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: years after. It was 1976. Little Justin was there. So no,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Castro is not the father. There's no evidence and there's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: no time in which where Margaret Trudeau and Fidel Castro
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: can be found together during the The window in which
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau had to be conceived, which is, once you
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: dive deep, between March 16th and April 22nd, 1971.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Because the Trudeaus got married and had a brief honeymoon
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: and ended up back in Canada by March 8th. And
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: then they were in Canada. Castro was in Cuba doing
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: communist things down there. And so everyone resolves that this
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: is debunked. It's not possible. There's one problem.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: Uh-oh.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Look.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Look. Oh, no.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: This may not be true. It may not be likely.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: It's also silly because, Dan, OK, let's say Justin Trudeau
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: is the love child of Fidel Castro. These right wingers
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: are acting like communism is like genetically inherited.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't actually matter.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: There's no such thing as an illegitimate child as far
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: as I'm concerned in the year 2022. However, the one
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: thing it has not been is. debunked it is not
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: debunked and I will tell you why yes I am
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: now fully nuts and I just want to shout out
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: medium shout out reddit for.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: Your help oh my god couple key points what happens couple.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Key points Maggie Trudeau couple key points Maggie and Pete
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Trudeau love to fuck maybe one another definitely others Ted Kennedy,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: for example.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: But we are not here.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Dan and John, we are not here to slut shame.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Margaret and Pierre Trudeau.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: They lived.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: They laughed.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: They loved. Second point. Unrelated people can look alike. But
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau, his bone structure looks like it is desperate
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: to overthrow Batista.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, they look so alike. It is uncanny. But all,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: Google it.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: But all of this is circumstantial. This is circumstantial. And
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: I am willing to call this story debunked when the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: lamestream media debunks the following issue. None of these people,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: not your friends at Snopes, Dan. Not your friends at
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the AP, John, have dealt with what I will call
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: from here forth the second honeymoon theory. Because none of
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: these people, they all say, oh, they couldn't have been together.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: They were in Canada. He was in Cuba.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Here's the problem.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: On the 13th of April, 1971, the Ottawa Journal ran
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: this story by UPI, Trudeau's Privacy Respected. Bridgetown, Barbados. Prime
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Minister Trudeau and his wife left here Monday by chartered
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: plane on a quick side trip to an unidentified nearby island.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: They arrived Thursday on a brief second honeymoon and have
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: reportedly been staying at a private residence on the island's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: posh west coast. It goes on. Here's the problem. If
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: you want to debunk this story, you have to debunk
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the fact that the Trudeaus just happened to go on
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: a second honeymoon on for a week around Cuba while
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: visiting one undisclosed location during the one month in which
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau, who later grew up to look like Fidelito.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: Can I ask you one question?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, please do.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: If I understand everything you just said, are you calling
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: on Justin Trudeau to take a DNA test?
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: That is obviously.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Not the first time. Not the first time. I have
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: learned my lesson. I have learned my lesson.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: And I will remind the both of you that no
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: one on this podcast told someone or anyone or even
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: suggested a deal. We just are asking questions. We're just
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: asking questions. But.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: How do you feel about the moon landing?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: That happened.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: That probably.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think Stanley Kubrick did that.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think he would have done that.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: The point is... They took a week-long second honeymoon in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: the Caribbean. And until the AP or those nerds at
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Snopes tackle that, this shit is not debunked. It's not debunked.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: It's not debunked.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: Find out where Castro was during that second honeymoon.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where was Castro? Follow the money. Cui bono.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: The answer is right in the middle of the bed.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Big spoon is the answer.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Did this go too far? I don't know. That's all
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: the time we have for today.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Uchara Grande.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you to Shannon Watts and thank you to John
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: Lovett for helping us debunk and then re-bunk a conspiracy theory.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's true.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not even saying it's likely.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: It's re-bunked.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: That shit's re-bunked.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Re-bunked.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: If this was the last Pots of America we ever
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: get to do, it's been a blast, people.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: Have a good one, everyone.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: Bye everyone.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Our producer is Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: slash crooked media.