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“Give me GDP, or give me death.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dan talks to Governor Gretchen Whitmer about
0:26
Speaker 1: how Michigan is responding to this pandemic. But first, we're
0:30
Speaker 1: going to talk about the $ 2 trillion coronavirus relief bill
0:33
Speaker 1: that just passed the Senate, why Donald Trump seems ready
0:35
Speaker 1: and willing to let the virus kill more Americans, and
0:38
Speaker 1: why his approval rating is inching up anyway. What a
0:42
Speaker 1: hellish summary of what we are going to be talking
0:45
Speaker 1: about today, Dan.
0:46
Speaker 3: It was nice of you to say inching up instead
0:49
Speaker 3: of skyrocketing.
0:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I thought I would give us a win there.
0:55
Speaker 1: Few quick housekeeping notes. On this week's Pod Save the World,
0:58
Speaker 1: former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice unloads on what
1:02
Speaker 1: she calls Trump's criminally negligent coronavirus response. On this week's
1:06
Speaker 1: Keep It, you can catch something different, an interview with
1:09
Speaker 1: the one and only Jane Fonda about her activism in
1:12
Speaker 1: the fight to combat climate change. And if you're not
1:15
Speaker 1: listening to America Dissected, you are really missing out. Epidemiologist Dr.
1:20
Speaker 1: Abdul El-Saeed answers all your questions about the coronavirus. You
1:24
Speaker 1: can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
1:26
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts. Finally, if you are looking for
1:30
Speaker 1: a way to help those in need, Crooked's Coronavirus Relief
1:34
Speaker 1: Fund spreads your donation equally to groups providing critical support
1:39
Speaker 1: to food banks, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, seniors, kids who
1:43
Speaker 1: depend on school lunches, and others. So if you can,
1:47
Speaker 1: please donate at crooked.com slash coronavirus. All right, Dan, here's
1:53
Speaker 1: where we are. Today, we learned that last week, a
1:57
Speaker 1: record 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, breaking the
2:02
Speaker 1: previous weekly record of 695,000 set in 1982. And last night,
2:09
Speaker 1: by a vote of 96 to zero, the Senate passed
2:12
Speaker 1: a $ 2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, the largest emergency economic
2:16
Speaker 1: package ever. in United States history. So what's in it?
2:20
Speaker 1: Here's a few highlights that Democrats fought for over the
2:23
Speaker 1: last week and got included in the package. 13 weeks
2:27
Speaker 1: of unemployment insurance that equates to 100% of wages for
2:32
Speaker 1: the average American, including part-time self-employed freelance gig workers. Direct
2:39
Speaker 1: cash payments of $ 1, 200 per individual and $ 500 per child.
2:44
Speaker 1: if your household makes under $ 150, 000, $ 150 billion for hospitals
2:50
Speaker 1: and healthcare workers, $ 150 billion for state and local governments,
2:54
Speaker 1: $ 350 billion in loans for small businesses that don't have
2:58
Speaker 1: to be paid back if the small businesses keep all
3:00
Speaker 1: their employees throughout the crisis, and more oversight over a
3:04
Speaker 1: $ 500 billion loan program for bigger businesses that that restricts
3:08
Speaker 1: CEO pay, stock buybacks, and assistance to companies controlled by
3:12
Speaker 1: Trump or his family, because that's something that we have
3:15
Speaker 1: to do with this administration.
3:17
Speaker 3: His blood relatives, not his.
3:20
Speaker 1: Right, his blood relatives. Yeah, no, Kushner still could be
3:23
Speaker 1: making some money here. So, Dan, those were some of
3:25
Speaker 1: the highlights. Did I miss any others? And what were
3:28
Speaker 1: some of the lowlights, in your opinion?
3:31
Speaker 3: Well, I think We'll talk about this a little bit later,
3:33
Speaker 3: but one of the other highlights is money to help
3:36
Speaker 3: states switch to mail ballots and other electoral changes they'll
3:40
Speaker 3: have to make to deal with conducting election, potentially when
3:44
Speaker 3: much of the country is quarantined. The low light is
3:48
Speaker 3: this is the biggest piece of stimulus in American history,
3:52
Speaker 3: and it is probably– and this is not the fault
3:54
Speaker 3: of the Democrats– woefully insufficient to the problem that we have.
3:58
Speaker 3: Even Governor Cuomo said– that this was not enough money
4:03
Speaker 3: for New York. And we should expect that other states
4:08
Speaker 3: and other municipalities are going to be in a situation
4:10
Speaker 3: that while maybe not as intense as New York, we hope,
4:12
Speaker 3: but much worse than they're currently in. And so this
4:14
Speaker 3: is only the beginning of the process. Steve Mnookin said
4:18
Speaker 3: at the wonderful White House briefing yesterday that this was
4:21
Speaker 3: enough for three months. And it's probably not enough for
4:24
Speaker 3: three months. And it's not going to be enough for
4:25
Speaker 3: a lot of people who have lost their jobs. But
4:28
Speaker 3: it is something. And it's a start and the question
4:31
Speaker 3: would be what, if anything comes next.
4:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:34
Speaker 1: I think the big question is like if, if Congress
4:38
Speaker 1: can do this on a regular basis, which we're going
4:41
Speaker 1: to talk about, there's there's certainly no guarantee that they
4:45
Speaker 1: will be able to do this. You could see a
4:47
Speaker 1: package like this every couple of months maybe helping us
4:51
Speaker 1: through this, but waking up to those unemployment numbers, those
4:56
Speaker 1: unemployment claims, I mean, you know, You and I were
4:59
Speaker 1: there at the beginning of the Obama administration when we'd
5:01
Speaker 1: see these claims jump every single week and be sickened
5:04
Speaker 1: by it. And 3 million in one week? It's like
5:09
Speaker 1: so far beyond anything anyone ever experienced in this country.
5:14
Speaker 1: We're talking Great Depression. We're talking the economic crisis of 2009.
5:20
Speaker 1: It's just insane. It's insane.
5:23
Speaker 3: I mean, it is. And I think we should expect
5:25
Speaker 3: that the actual number is much bigger than 3 million.
5:29
Speaker 3: Just anecdotally, you were hearing that the UI, the unemployment
5:33
Speaker 3: insurance claim systems, which are state-based, are not set up
5:38
Speaker 3: to handle this level of surge. You see a lot
5:41
Speaker 3: of anecdotal reporting about people who have been trying to
5:46
Speaker 3: file online, trying to make calls who can't get through.
5:48
Speaker 3: There's at least some number of people who were laid
5:51
Speaker 3: off in this period, who have not yet had the
5:53
Speaker 3: ability to access, have either not filed or not yet,
5:56
Speaker 3: who have tried and failed to file. And there are
5:58
Speaker 3: a lot of businesses who can hold on for a
6:00
Speaker 3: few weeks and are trying to do the best thing
6:02
Speaker 3: they possibly can for their employees. But if something doesn't
6:06
Speaker 3: change quickly or they don't get additional help, they're going
6:08
Speaker 3: to eventually have to lay off more employees. You're seeing
6:11
Speaker 3: months of the great recession of 2009 compressed into a
6:15
Speaker 3: period of just a few days. And it I mean,
6:18
Speaker 3: it is stunning, and we should be very eyes wide
6:21
Speaker 3: open about the level of economic pain, not just the country,
6:25
Speaker 3: but individual families are going to face.
6:29
Speaker 1: So last Saturday, I believe, after one round of bipartisan negotiations,
6:36
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell basically kicked out all the Democrats and wrote
6:39
Speaker 1: a bill on his own with a bunch of lobbyists.
6:42
Speaker 1: And this is basically what Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi
6:46
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Democrats did. pushing back on
6:49
Speaker 1: and trying to change all week. And of course, I
6:51
Speaker 1: read sort of all of the things they got into
6:55
Speaker 1: the final version of the bill. That being said, do
6:58
Speaker 1: you think this was the best that Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi,
7:01
Speaker 1: and the Democrats in Congress could have done?
7:04
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of argument going around from
7:08
Speaker 3: a lot of folks on Twitter and on the left
7:10
Speaker 3: that Democrats made a fundamental mistake by the House not
7:14
Speaker 3: passing a bill first so that we would be operating
7:18
Speaker 3: off of a Democratic bill as opposed to operating off
7:22
Speaker 3: of a bill drafted primarily by McConnell, but with the
7:27
Speaker 3: inclusion of Democratic priorities like checks to people, like that
7:31
Speaker 3: was in the original bill. I think that there can
7:34
Speaker 3: be a good faith discussion about that, but I'm just
7:36
Speaker 3: not sure how that was possible given the House was
7:40
Speaker 3: out that Trump has not spoken to Pelosi in months
7:46
Speaker 3: now since impeachment. McConnell was always going to write his bill.
7:50
Speaker 3: And rightly or wrongly, members in both parties generally don't
7:53
Speaker 3: want to vote for a trillion-dollar bill that's not going
7:55
Speaker 3: to become law, let alone a $ 2 trillion bill. And so,
7:59
Speaker 3: of course, this bill could be better. But I think
8:01
Speaker 3: we should give credit where credit's due. And Schumer and
8:04
Speaker 3: the Senate Democrats hung together, and they forced major changes
8:08
Speaker 3: in the bill to make it much more favorable to
8:11
Speaker 3: working people and put real restrictions on literally a half
8:16
Speaker 3: a trillion dollar corporate slush fund controlled by Donald Trump's
8:20
Speaker 3: finance chair and the producer of Suicide Squad. So that
8:23
Speaker 3: seemed like a good thing to change.
8:25
Speaker 2: So they made it much better.
8:26
Speaker 3: And Nancy Pelosi helped them make it much better by
8:28
Speaker 3: putting forward her own bill, which gave Schumer additional leverage
8:32
Speaker 3: in the negotiation. So they did it like, this is
8:35
Speaker 3: not the bill we would write. This is not a
8:36
Speaker 3: bill that would happen with a Democratic House, Democratic Senate,
8:38
Speaker 3: and a Democratic president. but it is better than it
8:41
Speaker 3: could have been. And for all the shit that people
8:43
Speaker 3: give our congressional leaders, they should get credit for making
8:45
Speaker 3: this bill much better.
8:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's been a lot of focus on
8:50
Speaker 1: the direct cash payments, partly because no one expected Republicans
8:54
Speaker 1: to embrace direct cash payments. But to me, and I've
8:57
Speaker 1: heard some Democrats like Brian Schott say this, the real
9:03
Speaker 1: win in the bill is what they did for unemployment insurance.
9:07
Speaker 1: So by, first of all, extending it to 13 weeks,
9:10
Speaker 1: which is good, but also by making the unemployment insurance
9:15
Speaker 1: and the benefits you get from unemployment insurance cover for
9:18
Speaker 1: at least the average American all of your salary. It
9:23
Speaker 1: means that people who get laid off at least for
9:27
Speaker 1: the next 13 weeks, and again, this all depends on
9:30
Speaker 1: whether we can extend this, that a good amount of
9:32
Speaker 1: people will be making the same amount they made on
9:36
Speaker 1: their job. because they both extended unemployment insurance, added to it,
9:41
Speaker 1: and added basically $ 600 per week on top of everyone's
9:47
Speaker 1: unemployment insurance that they get. Now, we know that this
9:51
Speaker 1: is a win because the bill almost didn't pass last
9:54
Speaker 1: night because Lindsey Graham, Rick Scott, Ben Sasse... and I
10:01
Speaker 1: think there was a fourth, I can't remember, Republican senators
10:04
Speaker 1: said that the bill was too generous to people who
10:08
Speaker 1: were unemployed. And that because some people would be making
10:13
Speaker 1: what they made on their jobs or even a little
10:15
Speaker 1: bit more because they just added $ 600 on top of
10:17
Speaker 1: everyone's salary, Unemployment benefits, so a few people on the
10:23
Speaker 1: lower ends of the spectrum, lower income people, are actually
10:25
Speaker 1: going to make even a little bit more, a tiny
10:28
Speaker 1: bit more than they made at work, that somehow this
10:30
Speaker 1: is going to incentivize employers to lay people off and
10:36
Speaker 1: that it's too generous. That's what Republicans were upset about
10:39
Speaker 1: last night.
10:39
Speaker 3: Well, that wasn't even their actual argument because they would
10:42
Speaker 3: never care about incentives to companies to lay people off
10:45
Speaker 3: because they passed a tax bill that helped encourage them
10:47
Speaker 3: to– It's not lay people off and ship those jobs overseas.
10:51
Speaker 3: What they were worried about is lazy nurses. This was
10:54
Speaker 3: Lindsey Graham's example. Lazy nurses who would quit their jobs
10:58
Speaker 3: in order to get access to slightly more generous unemployment insurance. Now,
11:03
Speaker 3: we didn't need this example to prove that Lindsey Graham
11:05
Speaker 3: was an absolute moron, but you can't get unemployment insurance
11:10
Speaker 3: if you quit your job, or in most cases, if
11:12
Speaker 3: you're fired for cause, you get unemployment insurance if you
11:14
Speaker 3: are laid off. And so- And the other, and I
11:18
Speaker 3: think one other thing I would say that Democrats did
11:19
Speaker 3: that was very important here is that they included, they
11:22
Speaker 3: also expanded UI to include freelancers, gig workers, the self-employed
11:27
Speaker 3: to help people like that who make up a larger
11:29
Speaker 3: and larger part of our economy than they did back
11:31
Speaker 3: in 2008, 2009.
11:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was very important. So now that we've passed
11:38
Speaker 1: this one, what was missing from this bill? And we'll
11:41
Speaker 1: talk about vote by mail sort of at the end here,
11:43
Speaker 1: but aside from vote by mail, what else was missing
11:47
Speaker 1: in this bill that you could see in the next bill?
11:50
Speaker 1: And do you think there will be a next bill?
11:52
Speaker 1: What do you think the chances of that are?
11:53
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, we're going to need more money. We're
11:56
Speaker 3: going to need more money for people. We're going to
11:57
Speaker 3: need more money for small businesses. We're going to need
12:00
Speaker 3: more money for hospitals. We're going to need more money
12:02
Speaker 3: to help, uh, homeowners and renters and people with student loans, because,
12:08
Speaker 3: you know, like in California, Governor Newsom has gotten all
12:11
Speaker 3: the banks, uh, as of yesterday at least, except Bank
12:14
Speaker 3: of America to agree to a 90-day moratorium on mortgage payments.
12:19
Speaker 3: And that is very helpful in the moment, but those
12:22
Speaker 3: debts accrue over time. We need to have some measures
12:25
Speaker 3: in this bill, like some student loan forgiveness or some
12:27
Speaker 3: other loan forgiveness that will help people get out.
12:29
Speaker 2: Of the hole.
12:30
Speaker 3: Because when the economy turns back on, to use Trump's phrase,
12:35
Speaker 3: you need people to be able to have money to
12:37
Speaker 3: spend in the economy. You need them to be able
12:39
Speaker 3: to buy goods and services as opposed to just paying
12:43
Speaker 3: off debts they accrued during the crisis. And so we
12:47
Speaker 3: need that in there. And so the question is, will
12:50
Speaker 3: there be another bill? And I mean, God, I hope so,
12:54
Speaker 3: because people are going to need it. And the expectations
12:57
Speaker 3: are like, I don't think this was enough. I think
12:59
Speaker 3: this was the most the Democrats possibly could have gotten
13:01
Speaker 3: in a situation where Donald Trump is president and Mitch
13:03
Speaker 3: McConnell was leader of the Senate. But we need much,
13:07
Speaker 3: much more. And we know from 2009 that that The
13:12
Speaker 3: political will and enthusiasm for bills that spend a lot
13:17
Speaker 3: of money that add to the deficit diminishes with every
13:21
Speaker 3: passing bill. And we barely got this one through. So
13:23
Speaker 3: we will have to see what it looks like. But
13:27
Speaker 3: I remain very nervous about what comes next. And just
13:31
Speaker 3: like in 2009, a lot of people can be left
13:33
Speaker 3: holding the bag because Congress does one thing and then
13:36
Speaker 3: can't come together on future things. And we don't even
13:39
Speaker 3: know when Congress is going to be able to come
13:42
Speaker 3: back safely and legislate.
13:46
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell said they wouldn't be back until April 20th,
13:49
Speaker 1: at least. I do wonder if there's more hope for
13:53
Speaker 1: another bill for the very annoying... political reason that Donald
13:59
Speaker 1: Trump is president and not Barack Obama. And so Mitch
14:02
Speaker 1: McConnell and the Republicans in Congress have more of an
14:05
Speaker 1: incentive to try to help the economy, thinking that it
14:08
Speaker 1: will help Donald Trump win re-election. And so they'll come
14:12
Speaker 1: back and do another bill.
14:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And from a pure,
14:16
Speaker 3: raw politics point of view, Trump and McConnell, who's trying
14:20
Speaker 3: to hold the Senate, need the economy to improve much
14:23
Speaker 3: more than anyone else. And so that gives them some
14:25
Speaker 3: incentive to act. I mean, the fact that Republicans who
14:28
Speaker 3: have been screaming about the deficit, who hate stimulus, who
14:31
Speaker 3: screamed about stimulus when Obama was president, who refused, refused
14:37
Speaker 3: every single member of the House voted against helping Americans
14:42
Speaker 3: get out of the financial crisis once Barack Obama became president.
14:45
Speaker 3: The fact that they passed a $ 2 trillion stimulus is unbelievable.
14:48
Speaker 3: And they would have never, ever passed a similar bill
14:52
Speaker 3: of Democrats or president. And that is the fundamental difference
14:54
Speaker 3: between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans are saving themselves and Democrats
14:59
Speaker 3: are saving the economy.
15:02
Speaker 1: So the other big thing that many Democrats, including us,
15:05
Speaker 1: tried to get into the bill was funding and provisions
15:07
Speaker 1: that would give every American access to a mail-in ballot
15:10
Speaker 1: for November's election. so that people don't have to choose
15:13
Speaker 1: between voting and living. So unfortunately, the bill only has
15:20
Speaker 1: $ 400 million for voter protections, which is more than the
15:23
Speaker 1: $ 140 million Republicans wanted, but less than the couple of
15:26
Speaker 1: billion dollars that we actually need to make this happen.
15:29
Speaker 1: And there are no provisions in the bill that mandate
15:31
Speaker 1: states offer mail-in ballots to everyone. So that kind of sucks.
15:36
Speaker 1: What do we do about this now? How do we
15:38
Speaker 1: get this done?
15:39
Speaker 3: Well, I think there are a couple of things that
15:40
Speaker 3: can happen. I mean, the big issue here is Republicans'
15:47
Speaker 3: opposition to people voting, right? Even though it runs against
15:51
Speaker 3: their political interests because if we are in the middle
15:55
Speaker 3: of a situation where the coronavirus is still present in
15:58
Speaker 3: the fall, which Anthony Fauci predicted on TV last night
16:02
Speaker 3: was a very likely scenario, the people who will most
16:04
Speaker 3: likely stay home are the people in the vulnerable group
16:07
Speaker 3: who are disproportionately Republican voters. But To give some perspective here,
16:11
Speaker 3: what the Democrats in the House wanted was $ 4 billion
16:14
Speaker 3: plus mandating the idea that every state would put vote
16:18
Speaker 3: by mail in place as a standard practice. Republicans objected
16:23
Speaker 3: to that because of their reflexive hatred of democracy. So
16:28
Speaker 3: I think what we have to do is push for
16:31
Speaker 3: the House to pass that bill as a standalone bill,
16:33
Speaker 3: send it to the Senate, have the Senate Democrats at
16:36
Speaker 3: least make the case for it and push for it.
16:39
Speaker 3: We should look for additional funding in a phase four
16:42
Speaker 3: bill if one were to come. And then at the
16:44
Speaker 3: state level, voters should be pushing for their state legislatures
16:49
Speaker 3: and their governors to do this because they do not
16:51
Speaker 3: need the federal government to do it. We don't need
16:53
Speaker 3: federal legislation. It helps to have money.
16:55
Speaker 2: From the federal government.
16:56
Speaker 3: And the language in this bill about how you use
16:59
Speaker 3: that money was very favorable to vote by mail. But
17:02
Speaker 3: we have to get started on this right now because
17:04
Speaker 3: it's an incredibly complicated endeavor for states who don't normally
17:07
Speaker 3: do it. For example, California sends out its ballot in
17:10
Speaker 3: dozens of languages. That is something you need. It's not
17:15
Speaker 3: just stuffing envelopes. There's a lot of logistics and complications
17:19
Speaker 3: to do it. Obviously, we're not operating under ideal scenarios
17:22
Speaker 3: where people can't go to work, but we need to
17:25
Speaker 3: get going now. There are some key states in there
17:27
Speaker 3: where we can make some real progress, including Pennsylvania, where
17:30
Speaker 3: we have a Democratic governor. If you are in a
17:31
Speaker 3: state that does not have vote by mail, reaching out
17:34
Speaker 3: to your governor and your state legislators to push for
17:36
Speaker 3: them to either adopt vote by mail or switch from
17:40
Speaker 3: excuse absentee balloting where you need a specific reason why
17:43
Speaker 3: you can't go to the polls to no excuse vote
17:45
Speaker 3: by mail like a lot of states have, that would
17:47
Speaker 3: be a huge step in the right direction. So there's
17:49
Speaker 3: a federal approach and a state approach. Yeah.
17:52
Speaker 1: And I saw some people asking, well, why do we
17:55
Speaker 1: have to do this right now? This bill is all
17:57
Speaker 1: about immediate relief and that's important. Let's get that done.
18:00
Speaker 1: We can worry about this later. And what I don't
18:03
Speaker 1: think a lot of people realize what you just pointed
18:05
Speaker 1: out is it has to start now because there are
18:08
Speaker 1: so many different obstacles in the way of states doing this,
18:13
Speaker 1: that if we hit September or October and coronavirus is
18:18
Speaker 1: still here, like Fauci predicted, it probably will be too
18:21
Speaker 1: late for a lot of states to switch to vote
18:24
Speaker 1: by mail at that point. It has to actually start
18:26
Speaker 1: happening right now. And so I think if there is,
18:30
Speaker 1: a phase four, what they're calling it, a phase four bill,
18:33
Speaker 1: another stimulus bill, we have to push really, not just
18:37
Speaker 1: push really hard. I think Democrats have to demand that
18:40
Speaker 1: vote by mail is in the next stimulus bill and
18:42
Speaker 1: make that a condition of supporting the bill. I just
18:44
Speaker 1: don't see any other way around it.
18:46
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, like Democrats have a lot of leverage
18:48
Speaker 3: here for the political incentives of McConnell and Trump we
18:50
Speaker 3: talked about, and this is something that we should use
18:52
Speaker 3: it for.
18:54
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:54
Speaker 1: For all the like, you know, every once in a
18:56
Speaker 1: while we get the scary question from people like, What
19:00
Speaker 1: happens if Trump loses the election but doesn't leave office? And,
19:03
Speaker 1: you know, there's all these crazy scenarios. It's like the
19:05
Speaker 1: more likely scenario is in a pandemic, we get to
19:09
Speaker 1: November and a whole bunch of people can't go out
19:12
Speaker 1: and vote. And we just saw what happened in the
19:14
Speaker 1: last primary with, you know, Mike DeWine in Ohio pushing
19:17
Speaker 1: the election off and the courts telling him not to.
19:20
Speaker 1: And there was all this. I mean, it can get really,
19:22
Speaker 1: really ugly on an international election. And The only way
19:26
Speaker 1: to ensure that doesn't happen and the only way to
19:28
Speaker 1: protect our election in November is vote by mail. I
19:31
Speaker 1: do think like along with, you know, fighting the virus
19:34
Speaker 1: itself and helping fix the economy, it is like the
19:38
Speaker 1: top priority. It should be the top priority for the
19:40
Speaker 1: government to ensure the sanctity of voting in November. All right, Dan,
19:53
Speaker 1: you have named this section Give Me GDP or Give
19:56
Speaker 1: Me Death.
19:57
Speaker 3: I stole that from someone on Twitter. So whoever actually
20:01
Speaker 3: tweeted that.
20:02
Speaker 1: No one knows that. Take credit.
20:04
Speaker 3: Look, there has to be one bastion.
20:06
Speaker 2: We're straight shooters.
20:08
Speaker 3: We have to be straight shooters, yes. I only want
20:09
Speaker 3: to be respected by one side, but I want to
20:12
Speaker 3: be a straight shooter.
20:14
Speaker 1: So we talked about this a little on Monday's episode
20:16
Speaker 1: after Trump tweeted, we cannot let the cure be worse
20:19
Speaker 1: than the problem itself. He has now doubled and tripled
20:22
Speaker 1: down on the argument that in just a few weeks
20:24
Speaker 1: we should end the orders to shelter in place, stay
20:26
Speaker 1: at home, and socially distance because He believes that ending
20:30
Speaker 1: those orders will get the economy moving again. And to him,
20:34
Speaker 1: that's more important than slowing the spread of a pandemic
20:36
Speaker 1: that has already killed nearly a thousand Americans of all ages,
20:40
Speaker 1: some with no underlying medical conditions at all. Here's public
20:45
Speaker 1: health expert Donald Trump explaining his new timeline.
20:49
Speaker 4: I'd love to have it open by Easter. Okay, I
20:52
Speaker 4: would love to have it open by Easter. I will
20:54
Speaker 4: tell you that right now. I would love to have that.
20:57
Speaker 4: It's such an important day for other reasons, but I'll
21:00
Speaker 4: make it an important day for this too. I would
21:02
Speaker 4: love to have the country opened up and just raring
21:07
Speaker 4: to go by Easter.
21:09
Speaker 1: That's April 12th. So we will watch and see what happens.
21:13
Speaker 5: I'm going to toss it back to my cohort.
21:15
Speaker 4: Bill.
21:16
Speaker 2: Thank you, Harris.
21:17
Speaker 3: That would be a great American resurrection two and a
21:20
Speaker 3: half plus weeks from now.
21:22
Speaker 1: So, Dan, this seems like one of those situations where
21:25
Speaker 1: the president is able to show that he's both a
21:29
Speaker 1: malevolent sociopath and a complete fucking moron. What do you
21:38
Speaker 1: think about his latest turn here?
21:40
Speaker 3: I am laughing now because you made a joke. But
21:45
Speaker 3: over the last few days, I have not been this
21:49
Speaker 3: angry about anything since, frankly, Paul Ryan last opened his mouth.
21:55
Speaker 2: This is such.
21:56
Speaker 1: And that seems quaint compared to this.
21:58
Speaker 2: I know.
21:58
Speaker 3: Imagine when Paul Ryan was something to be worth being
22:01
Speaker 3: angry about. I mean, he is on the board of
22:04
Speaker 3: Fox News, so he's primarily responsible for us being in
22:08
Speaker 3: this situation in every way, shape, or form. So we
22:12
Speaker 3: can talk about that later, but you are not off
22:14
Speaker 3: the hook, Paul Ryan. I mean, it is probably the
22:21
Speaker 3: most dangerous thing that a president has proposed doing in
22:27
Speaker 3: a century. Yeah. Because it's not like we should be clear.
22:32
Speaker 3: Donald Trump did not turn the economy off and he
22:34
Speaker 3: can't be the one who turns it back on.
22:37
Speaker 5: Right.
22:37
Speaker 3: People are not working in New York, in California, all
22:40
Speaker 3: across the country because governors, mayors, and employers have shut
22:44
Speaker 3: work down to follow the advice of public health experts.
22:48
Speaker 3: But Donald Trump framing this as a choice between the
22:51
Speaker 3: economy and health is going to get people killed because
22:54
Speaker 3: this is giving people permission to stop the social distancing,
23:00
Speaker 3: to go out, to facilitate the spread of the disease.
23:04
Speaker 3: It's not just that he's talking about it. It's that
23:06
Speaker 3: in doing so, he is minimizing the dangers by comparing
23:10
Speaker 3: it to the flu. I don't know how many times
23:12
Speaker 3: we have to do this, but this is not the flu.
23:14
Speaker 3: It is more contagious than the flu. It is much
23:17
Speaker 3: more deadly than the flu. It lives on surfaces for days.
23:20
Speaker 3: It is so much more dangerous. And people will die.
23:25
Speaker 3: And it's not just the people. And you may say, well,
23:27
Speaker 3: I'm a young, healthy person. And yes, some young, healthy
23:29
Speaker 3: people are getting it. Some young, healthy people who get
23:31
Speaker 3: it are dying. but the odds of that may be small,
23:35
Speaker 3: but it's every person who goes to the hospital means
23:38
Speaker 3: it's someone else who needs medical care may not get it. Right.
23:42
Speaker 3: When what is happening in Italy is because of the virus,
23:46
Speaker 3: but it's also because they have the medical system is
23:49
Speaker 3: basically collapsed and people can't get the care they need.
23:52
Speaker 3: And when you hear it, it's like Donald Trump is
23:55
Speaker 3: living on another fucking planet from what is going on.
23:59
Speaker 3: And it's, I mean, I, like I'm so angry about
24:05
Speaker 3: it that I can't even get up the, I can't
24:07
Speaker 3: even make my, it's like silent rage. I can't even
24:10
Speaker 3: make myself yell about it because it's just so, I mean,
24:14
Speaker 3: I guess it shouldn't be shocking, but it's so shockingly
24:16
Speaker 3: dangerous and irresponsible that the president of the United States
24:19
Speaker 3: will say this and that many people will enable that
24:24
Speaker 3: argument either by supporting it or by framing it as
24:26
Speaker 3: an actual thing. It's like your choice is, look both
24:29
Speaker 3: ways before you cross the street or run out into
24:31
Speaker 3: oncoming traffic. Those are not two sides of the same coin.
24:36
Speaker 3: One keeps you safe and one gets you killed.
24:41
Speaker 1: I had to say when he tweeted that Sunday night,
24:45
Speaker 1: I felt both enraged and terrified. And also, and I
24:49
Speaker 1: think I said to you guys, I knew it was coming.
24:52
Speaker 1: I knew this is where he was going to go
24:54
Speaker 1: because he, he has no patience and, Um, he has
24:59
Speaker 1: no intelligence. Um, and the reason I said it's, it's
25:03
Speaker 1: not just about him being, it's not just about Donald
25:05
Speaker 1: Trump and, you know, his Republican goon friends in right-wing media,
25:12
Speaker 1: you know, Lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, uh, suggested
25:16
Speaker 1: on Fox that there are a lot of grandparents out
25:18
Speaker 1: there like him who would be willing to sacrifice their
25:20
Speaker 1: lives in exchange for quote, keeping the America that all
25:24
Speaker 1: America loves alive for their kids and grandkids and Glenn
25:28
Speaker 1: Beck said, I'd rather have my children stay home and
25:30
Speaker 1: have all of us who are over 50 go in
25:32
Speaker 1: and keep this economy working and working. Even if we
25:35
Speaker 1: all get sick, I'd rather die than kill the country.
25:38
Speaker 1: And it's not just the right-wing media goons. It's CEOs
25:43
Speaker 1: and the Chamber of Commerce and people like that and
25:45
Speaker 1: Trump's here saying. And in all of these people's minds, they... it's,
25:51
Speaker 1: it's so ridiculously fucking stupid to think that somehow if
25:56
Speaker 1: you quote unquote, turn the economy on, if you had
25:59
Speaker 1: the power to do that and just let the virus
26:01
Speaker 1: one run wild, what would happen is the economy would
26:05
Speaker 1: come back and then, uh, just some old people would
26:09
Speaker 1: die just like the flu. And like, none of that
26:13
Speaker 1: is true. None of it is true. First of all,
26:16
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, like Young people with no underlying
26:20
Speaker 1: conditions are getting very sick and going to the hospital
26:22
Speaker 1: and needing ventilators to live. That's happening all over the place.
26:26
Speaker 1: Look at the statistics in New York City. All of
26:30
Speaker 1: the epidemiologists from Fauci to everyone else think that, you know,
26:33
Speaker 1: if we let the virus run wild, over half the
26:37
Speaker 1: population would be infected. Half of Americans be infected. And
26:42
Speaker 1: so with a death rate of about 1%, which.
26:47
Speaker 1: We're lucky if it's 1%. It could be more. We
26:50
Speaker 1: don't know yet. 1.7 million Americans could die. And the flu,
26:55
Speaker 1: by the way, kills 37,000 people per year. And car crashes,
26:59
Speaker 1: which Donald Trump also compared this to, kill 37,000 people
27:03
Speaker 1: a year. Compare that to fucking 1.7 million Americans dead.
27:07
Speaker 1: You think you're going to have a roaring economy with 1.7
27:11
Speaker 1: million Americans dead? The health care system completely overwhelmed. so
27:15
Speaker 1: that if you don't have coronavirus and you need to
27:17
Speaker 1: go to the hospital and need to go to the doctor,
27:19
Speaker 1: you can't. This is also nothing to say of like
27:22
Speaker 1: all the people who, despite what Donald Trump says, will
27:25
Speaker 1: still socially distance and socially isolate and won't go to work.
27:29
Speaker 1: Like what he doesn't fucking get is we can only
27:31
Speaker 1: get through this thing together, right? Like if there are
27:36
Speaker 1: a bunch of people in hospitals because they're sick with coronavirus,
27:39
Speaker 1: that affects us all. If there are a bunch of
27:41
Speaker 1: our fellow Americans too sick to go to work, That
27:44
Speaker 1: affects us all. That affects the economy. There is no
27:48
Speaker 1: choice between fixing the economy and fixing the virus. It
27:52
Speaker 1: is the same fucking thing. You cannot fix the economy
27:56
Speaker 1: by letting the virus run wild and opening up all
27:59
Speaker 1: of these governments. You cannot do it.
28:02
Speaker 3: The choice here is not health or the economy. The
28:04
Speaker 3: choice is saving lives and a very painful and hopefully
28:10
Speaker 3: short economic disruption or... exponentially more Americans die in a longer,
28:17
Speaker 3: much more painful economic crisis.
28:19
Speaker 2: Those are the choices.
28:22
Speaker 3: And every reporter, pundit, cable host, chyron that puts at
28:26
Speaker 3: health versus the economy is facilitating an argument that will
28:31
Speaker 3: get people killed because that is not the choice. No
28:33
Speaker 3: one believes that this choice, no one is calling for
28:35
Speaker 3: this other than Trump and a bunch of fucking yahoos
28:39
Speaker 3: on the far right of the Republican party. If Glenn
28:41
Speaker 3: Beck is so willing to sacrifice his life to help
28:44
Speaker 3: the country, get out of his mother's fucking basement and
28:46
Speaker 3: go volunteer in a hospital. If you're willing to put
28:49
Speaker 3: yourself at risk, do.
28:52
Speaker 2: Something real. This is all bullshit.
28:55
Speaker 3: And it is dangerous bullshit. And we should also be clear.
28:58
Speaker 3: Trump is like, people want to go back to work.
29:00
Speaker 3: Of course they want to go back to work. People
29:02
Speaker 3: want to go back to normal life in America. I
29:04
Speaker 3: would like to leave my house. We would all like
29:06
Speaker 3: to be able to go to the store without treating
29:08
Speaker 3: it like being in a scene from the movie Contagion.
29:12
Speaker 2: We want to go back to normal life.
29:13
Speaker 3: That is not what we are in right now. What
29:16
Speaker 3: Trump is arguing for is not to let workers go
29:20
Speaker 3: back to work. What Trump is arguing for is to
29:23
Speaker 3: allow employers to force employees to work at the risk
29:28
Speaker 3: of their own health and the health of their loved
29:30
Speaker 3: ones in the middle of a recession. We are in
29:32
Speaker 3: the middle of one of the worst recessions. This could
29:35
Speaker 3: potentially be one of the worst recessions in history. And
29:37
Speaker 3: what are you going to do if you're a worker
29:40
Speaker 3: and you're lucky enough to still have a job and
29:43
Speaker 3: your employer says, we're opening the office back up. Come
29:47
Speaker 3: on in. Yeah, I have my parents living in my house.
29:49
Speaker 3: I have a child with asthma. What is your choice?
29:54
Speaker 2: Lose the job.
29:54
Speaker 3: You may not be able to get another one in
29:56
Speaker 3: this economy or go to work and put your life
29:58
Speaker 3: at risk. This is about helping employers. It's not about
30:02
Speaker 3: helping workers.
30:03
Speaker 2: It is so dangerous.
30:06
Speaker 3: The whole thing is so dangerously irresponsible. Trump should not
30:12
Speaker 3: shock us at this point, but this actually shocks me
30:16
Speaker 3: because it is so fucking bananas. It is so dangerous.
30:21
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to happen. It seems pretty
30:24
Speaker 3: hard that Trump could rescind the CDC guidelines as Deaths
30:30
Speaker 3: are going up exponentially. Like you said, we were near 1,000
30:33
Speaker 3: deaths today. By the time this comes out, we will
30:35
Speaker 3: certainly be over that. We're going to see a giant skyrocketing,
30:39
Speaker 3: the number of cases in California, because you have nearly 50,000
30:42
Speaker 3: pending tests. And how you do that, and we see
30:46
Speaker 3: this spreading across the country. Louisiana, this is not California,
30:50
Speaker 3: New York. Louisiana is having a real problem with this. Obviously, Michigan,
30:54
Speaker 3: and I want to talk to Governor Wittner about this,
30:55
Speaker 3: are having a big problem with this. It is spreading
30:57
Speaker 3: across the country. And so there may be some places
30:59
Speaker 3: where it is not bad yet, but where it could
31:02
Speaker 3: very easily become bad in part because people travel, right?
31:07
Speaker 3: That is the problem with, like, you keep comparing, like,
31:11
Speaker 3: we keep comparing our model to, you know, what's happening
31:15
Speaker 3: in New York and where New York is on the
31:16
Speaker 3: curve or California is on the curve to where China
31:20
Speaker 3: and South Korea are.
31:21
Speaker 2: But those are.
31:21
Speaker 3: Countries where you can control your borders to keep people out.
31:25
Speaker 3: if California does everything right and we turn it on
31:27
Speaker 3: in the rest of the country, people from the states
31:29
Speaker 3: who have now been exposed because of governors like the
31:32
Speaker 3: governor of Mississippi are being dangerously irresponsible are going to
31:34
Speaker 3: come to California and infect people, right? And like, it's just,
31:39
Speaker 3: I'm so, it's just, it's so, it is so stupid
31:42
Speaker 3: that it's, it makes me angry we have to talk
31:45
Speaker 3: about it.
31:46
Speaker 1: Well, and the reason it's so dangerous too is because
31:52
Speaker 1: of course there are millions and millions of people in
31:55
Speaker 1: this country, especially in areas where the virus hasn't hit yet,
31:59
Speaker 1: who are thinking, of course I want to go back
32:01
Speaker 1: to work.
32:02
Speaker 2: I'm scared.
32:03
Speaker 1: I don't know where my next paycheck is going to
32:04
Speaker 1: come from. And now we all have to stay home
32:08
Speaker 1: because of this virus that I haven't seen affect my family,
32:11
Speaker 1: my life, my community. And, you know, if Donald Trump
32:15
Speaker 1: wants us to go back to work and thinks we
32:16
Speaker 1: should go back to work, I want to, people want
32:18
Speaker 1: to believe that that's the case. I want to believe
32:21
Speaker 1: that that's the case, you know? Um, but like he is,
32:25
Speaker 1: he's just like the fact that he is doing this and,
32:29
Speaker 1: and sort of feeding those desires. Like, I'm not going
32:32
Speaker 1: to be surprised if a bunch of polls come out
32:35
Speaker 1: and a bunch of people are going to say, yeah, no,
32:36
Speaker 1: we believe Donald Trump. We want to go back to
32:38
Speaker 1: work because we want to fix the economy. Like it's just,
32:42
Speaker 1: he's the president of the United States and people look
32:44
Speaker 1: to the federal government for guidance and for, to set
32:48
Speaker 1: an example. And if what he's going to do now is, um,
32:54
Speaker 1: like you were sort of alluding to this. So like,
32:56
Speaker 1: let's say he, you know, Donald Trump says, okay, I
32:58
Speaker 1: want to open everything back up now. So then you
33:01
Speaker 1: get a bunch of governors like our governor, Gavin Newsom,
33:04
Speaker 1: governor Cuomo, other good democratic governors. And by the way,
33:07
Speaker 1: a bunch of Republican governors, Mike, all the good.
33:10
Speaker 3: Yes.
33:10
Speaker 5: Yeah.
33:11
Speaker 4: Right.
33:11
Speaker 1: They're all on board here. So now you have a
33:13
Speaker 1: bunch of governors who are going to say, no, we're
33:15
Speaker 1: going to keep things. We're going to keep things closed.
33:17
Speaker 1: We're going to keep everyone sheltered in place. And then
33:20
Speaker 1: you're going to have Trump start to say, These Democratic
33:23
Speaker 1: governors and Republican governors, because he doesn't care who he attacks,
33:27
Speaker 1: are out to get me. They're out to get you.
33:29
Speaker 1: They don't care about you and your job and your
33:31
Speaker 1: future and all these, we're going to listen to all
33:34
Speaker 1: these scientists and these liberals and the lame, you know,
33:37
Speaker 1: he tweeted yesterday, hold on, the lamestream media is the
33:43
Speaker 1: dominant force in trying to get me to keep our
33:45
Speaker 1: country closed as long as possible in the hope that
33:47
Speaker 1: it will be detrimental to my election success. The real
33:50
Speaker 1: people want to get back to work ASAP. we will
33:52
Speaker 1: be stronger than ever before. So this is now going
33:55
Speaker 1: to be the coming battle. And part of me wonders if, like,
33:59
Speaker 1: Trump knows that he can't open everything back up again,
34:02
Speaker 1: but he just needs to sort of set the terms
34:05
Speaker 1: of the political fight right now so that he's seen
34:08
Speaker 1: as fighting on behalf of most Americans against the liberal
34:12
Speaker 1: elites and the scientists who are all worried about everyone's health.
34:17
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot to that.
34:18
Speaker 3: Like, I don't, I think that is... I think he
34:21
Speaker 3: thinks he probably can and should open the economy. But
34:24
Speaker 3: we were having this discussion both in text and on
34:28
Speaker 3: Twitter this morning about how you think about Trump's strategy.
34:33
Speaker 3: And you have to separate the effect of what he
34:37
Speaker 3: does from why he does things. I think he does
34:39
Speaker 3: this because CNN has reporting on this that mainly he
34:42
Speaker 3: is so sick of being in the fucking White House.
34:44
Speaker 3: He can't go to Mar-a-Lago. He can't golf. He can't
34:46
Speaker 3: do the rallies. He can't get the sustenance.
34:48
Speaker 1: Poor guy.
34:49
Speaker 3: I know. It's hard. Look, we should not diminish the
34:54
Speaker 3: victimhood of Donald Trump in this. He had that very
34:58
Speaker 3: painful test that one time we keep hearing about. Someone
35:01
Speaker 3: stuck something up his nose. And so let's not erase
35:06
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's pain from this. But I think he's just
35:10
Speaker 3: reacting viscerally because that's what he does. But the effect
35:13
Speaker 3: of it is he is the one pushing to get
35:15
Speaker 3: the economy back to work. And he just– Donald Trump
35:19
Speaker 3: doesn't need to win arguments. He just needs arguments. And
35:21
Speaker 3: the argument he wants to have when the economy– if
35:24
Speaker 3: the economy is in a really bad place in November
35:27
Speaker 3: is that it's not his fault. It's these other people's fault. Now,
35:31
Speaker 3: we can debate later whether that is an effective argument,
35:34
Speaker 3: but I think that is potentially the result of this.
35:37
Speaker 3: But the problem is that this social distancing, responding, preventing
35:44
Speaker 3: the spread of this depends on social pressure. You need
35:50
Speaker 3: people to feel like even if they maybe are not
35:55
Speaker 3: as worried about it themselves or feel like it's less serious,
35:58
Speaker 3: that they won't do things like go play basketball at
36:02
Speaker 3: Venice Beach or go to Spring Break or Congress because
36:05
Speaker 3: there's social pressure to do so. And when you have
36:08
Speaker 3: the person with the largest megaphone in the country undermining
36:10
Speaker 3: that collective effort, it's very damaging because maybe we don't
36:15
Speaker 3: end up like governors are not going to lift the
36:17
Speaker 3: shelter in place orders and employers because they don't want
36:20
Speaker 3: to be legally liable. A lot of them may not
36:22
Speaker 3: open for business, but the people who do the things
36:26
Speaker 3: like gather in public will are more likely to do that.
36:30
Speaker 3: If the president makes implies that it is okay.
36:33
Speaker 1: It's also not a fucking political winner to do this.
36:37
Speaker 1: As of all people, Lindsey Graham pointed out the other day,
36:41
Speaker 1: he said, um, there's an Atlantic piece that said Graham
36:44
Speaker 1: disagrees with Trump about this. And he told the Atlantic quote,
36:49
Speaker 1: should Trump repudiate public health experts advice and take steps
36:52
Speaker 1: that cause infections to spike? He would quote own the fallout.
36:55
Speaker 1: Graham said, quote, any increase in the mortality rate would
36:58
Speaker 1: be a huge problem for him. The biggest political risk
37:01
Speaker 1: any president takes is deviating from sound advice. The economy
37:04
Speaker 1: can recover once a person is dead. That's it. So
37:09
Speaker 1: it's interesting that Graham is trying to sort of, appeal
37:12
Speaker 1: to even Trump's base political instincts here to try to
37:15
Speaker 1: tell him why this is so fucking stupid.
37:17
Speaker 3: I mean, Lindsey Graham is one of the worst people
37:20
Speaker 3: in American politics, but he does have an ability to
37:24
Speaker 3: speak Trump's language on the things he wants Trump to do.
37:28
Speaker 3: Like the morning after Trump tweeted the turn the economy
37:30
Speaker 3: back on thing you talked about, he said, one of
37:34
Speaker 3: the most brilliant, you know, something I'm paraphrasing here, but
37:37
Speaker 3: you can imagine this in Lindsey Graham's voice, which is
37:40
Speaker 3: Frank Underwood on helium. But he tweeted that Trump's decision
37:46
Speaker 3: to stop travel from China was one of the most
37:49
Speaker 3: brilliant decisions ever. And if he were to turn the
37:51
Speaker 3: economy back on too soon, he would undermine his great decision,
37:54
Speaker 3: which is a pretty clever way to get Trump to
37:57
Speaker 3: do what you want to do.
37:58
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what the way out of this
38:01
Speaker 1: is or could be. Because obviously, you can have a
38:05
Speaker 1: rational debate about how fast do we sort of open
38:10
Speaker 1: up various sectors of the economy, lift the social distancing guidelines,
38:14
Speaker 1: lift the mass, the shelter in place orders. When do
38:18
Speaker 1: you do it? Like how much risk do you take?
38:21
Speaker 1: How do you help? How do you protect people at
38:24
Speaker 1: the same time as allowing the economy to continue knowing
38:27
Speaker 1: that a recession and potentially a depression really does exact
38:32
Speaker 1: an incredible amount of pain on the population, um, just
38:37
Speaker 1: like the virus does. And so what is the way
38:40
Speaker 1: out of this?
38:41
Speaker 3: I mean, we're having a false choice about this because
38:45
Speaker 3: the option is not everyone suffers economic devastation or we
38:53
Speaker 3: kill a lot of people from the virus, right? The
38:55
Speaker 3: other option is we keep these measures in place, we
38:57
Speaker 3: flatten the curve, we slow the spread, and the federal
39:00
Speaker 3: government of one of the richest countries in the world
39:03
Speaker 3: at a time of basically zero interest rates spends money
39:07
Speaker 3: to keep companies, families, and individuals afloat. We don't have
39:13
Speaker 3: to choose here, but there's such a poverty of imagination
39:17
Speaker 3: in how we think about this that it creates this choice. No,
39:20
Speaker 3: the government could do exponentially more than it did in
39:24
Speaker 3: this bill, and it can do it for an unlimited
39:26
Speaker 3: amount of time. We'll have to pay some form of
39:30
Speaker 3: the bill later, but if you keep people afloat, it'll
39:35
Speaker 3: make it easier to bounce back both economically and fiscally
39:40
Speaker 3: when this comes back. Because if you leave with people
39:42
Speaker 3: in such a gigantic– if we come out of this
39:44
Speaker 3: with everyone in a gigantic economic hole– like in 2008,
39:48
Speaker 3: because people's central asset, their house, the value of it
39:52
Speaker 3: was devastated. If they come out of this, it'll hurt
39:56
Speaker 3: for sure, but you can make it hurt less both
40:00
Speaker 3: on a macro and microeconomic level.
40:03
Speaker 1: I also think the original sin of the Trump administration
40:08
Speaker 1: and the government's response to this pandemic was the failure
40:13
Speaker 1: of testing. The failure to have tests, the failure to
40:16
Speaker 1: get the test to work. And I think on the
40:19
Speaker 1: flip side, the ultimate solution to this could be ramping
40:23
Speaker 1: up testing on a nationwide scale that is very quick
40:27
Speaker 1: and very reliable. And so, you know, this was in
40:31
Speaker 1: the Guardian yesterday. They said this is what's happening in
40:34
Speaker 1: the UK. Mass home testing for coronavirus antibodies will be
40:38
Speaker 1: available in the UK within days, which will quickly let
40:41
Speaker 1: people find out if they've already had the virus. Most importantly,
40:44
Speaker 1: healthcare workers will be able to learn if they've had
40:46
Speaker 1: the virus and are therefore immune, allowing them to go
40:49
Speaker 1: back to work. Also, millions of 15-minute coronavirus tests are
40:53
Speaker 1: set to be available for Amazon delivery in the UK
40:56
Speaker 1: very soon. So if you combine the social distancing measures
41:01
Speaker 1: that we're currently using right now with widely available mass
41:06
Speaker 1: testing that can happen very quickly, What you can start
41:10
Speaker 1: doing again is finding out where in the country the
41:15
Speaker 1: outbreaks are, locking those places down, opening up other parts
41:20
Speaker 1: of the economy so people can go back to work.
41:21
Speaker 1: And you can start sort of working backwards and then
41:24
Speaker 1: once again start tracing where the virus is and knowing,
41:27
Speaker 1: of course, who's had it, who's immune, who can help
41:30
Speaker 1: contribute to the economy, who can't, who's vulnerable, who needs
41:33
Speaker 1: to be protected. And it's basically like, I think someone
41:35
Speaker 1: in the Atlantic made this metaphor, it's like whack-a-mole.
41:39
Speaker 3: Right.
41:39
Speaker 1: Where it still takes a long time and there's a
41:42
Speaker 1: lot of people who are going to be sick and
41:43
Speaker 1: we're going to have a very bad recession. But at
41:45
Speaker 1: the very least, if you start monitoring who has the
41:48
Speaker 1: virus and where and you have a reliable testing system
41:51
Speaker 1: that you can figure out how to start opening up
41:54
Speaker 1: parts of the economy again over the next, you know,
41:57
Speaker 1: four or five, six, seven months. And I think Ron
41:59
Speaker 1: Klain also had a really smart piece in The Washington
42:03
Speaker 1: Post last night that the question is not when to
42:06
Speaker 1: open up everything again, but how. And so you could
42:09
Speaker 1: see a scenario where like people go back to work,
42:12
Speaker 1: but maybe, you know, in an office you have desks
42:15
Speaker 1: that are very far apart, or maybe we start having
42:17
Speaker 1: sporting events again in months time, but there's no audiences
42:21
Speaker 1: at first. Right. And so there are things you can
42:23
Speaker 1: do that are sort of in between sort of letting
42:26
Speaker 1: the virus run wild and a complete shutdown that we
42:30
Speaker 1: can start to engage in at least once the worst
42:32
Speaker 1: of this has passed.
42:34
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that it's worth– I
42:36
Speaker 3: think that's all true. And one of the things that
42:37
Speaker 3: is– I think it's worth reminding people that it's also
42:40
Speaker 3: part of the danger of Trump's approach is the reason
42:45
Speaker 3: you hit– you have such a– you go to such
42:47
Speaker 3: massive social distancing and shelter in place is to flatten
42:51
Speaker 3: the curve and to slow the rate of infection. The
42:53
Speaker 3: reason you do that is so that the hospitals do
42:56
Speaker 3: not become overwhelmed because once they become overwhelmed, then people
43:00
Speaker 3: who could be saved will die. Right, because they can't
43:03
Speaker 3: get access.
43:03
Speaker 1: Which is where we're headed now.
43:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we are in a number of places. And
43:07
Speaker 3: what you have to do in that time is surge
43:10
Speaker 3: hospital capacity, surge and distribute the personal protective equipment like
43:16
Speaker 3: masks that healthcare professionals need. And you have to surge ventilators,
43:21
Speaker 3: hospital beds, et cetera. And the problem we have is
43:25
Speaker 3: we've been doing this for, I don't think we're, I
43:27
Speaker 3: think we're on day like 12 or something of the
43:30
Speaker 3: national guidance. Trump and his administration have absolutely shit the
43:35
Speaker 3: bed on what they're supposed to do to help people prepare.
43:38
Speaker 3: They've refused to use the Defense Production Act to get
43:42
Speaker 3: ventilators and respirators where people need. Some states and cities
43:44
Speaker 3: are already at capacity. They have not done enough to
43:47
Speaker 3: help cities and states where it has not hit yet
43:51
Speaker 3: prepare for it to come. We're in New York and California,
43:56
Speaker 3: where it is currently the hottest. We are fighting from behind.
43:59
Speaker 3: And Cuomo and Newsom, I think, have done as much
44:01
Speaker 3: as they possibly can and have been true leaders in
44:04
Speaker 3: trying to get people ready. But we know it's going
44:05
Speaker 3: to be elsewhere. So why aren't we turning sports arenas
44:09
Speaker 3: or convention centers into hospitals, right, to a surge capacity?
44:13
Speaker 3: And that is ultimately what people have to realize is
44:16
Speaker 3: that every person who gets sick makes it more likely
44:18
Speaker 3: that someone else will die because they may have to
44:20
Speaker 3: go to the hospital and use a hospital bed that
44:22
Speaker 3: someone else won't get.
44:23
Speaker 1: Yep.
44:25
Speaker 3: All right.
44:26
Speaker 1: We talked about Trump's poll numbers a bit on Monday,
44:28
Speaker 1: but I do want to get your thoughts on this.
44:31
Speaker 1: The 538 average shows Trump at his highest approval rating
44:33
Speaker 1: since his first few months in office, though it's still
44:36
Speaker 1: relatively low at 44.6%. The uptick has been driven entirely
44:40
Speaker 1: by approval of his response to the coronavirus crisis, and
44:44
Speaker 1: it's been driven specifically by independents and Democrats. What in
44:49
Speaker 1: the ever-living fuck is going on?
44:53
Speaker 3: I mean, it is... When you are people in our situation,
44:59
Speaker 3: probably in the situation of a lot of our listeners,
45:00
Speaker 3: who maybe live in areas where the coronavirus, that are
45:05
Speaker 3: hot zones, where life is fundamentally changed in ways you've
45:09
Speaker 3: never possibly imagined, where you know people who have the virus,
45:13
Speaker 3: you know people who are medical professionals are being forced
45:15
Speaker 3: to use one-time use masks five and six times at
45:19
Speaker 3: their own risk, like, And you watch every one of
45:22
Speaker 3: those fucking briefings. You read every story. You've cited nine
45:25
Speaker 3: Atlantic stories since we've been here.
45:27
Speaker 2: We are fucking deep in this, right?
45:30
Speaker 3: And we know we can recite to anyone who asks
45:33
Speaker 3: all of Trump's list of monumental fuck-ups that made this
45:37
Speaker 3: situation so much worse. You see these numbers and you're like,
45:41
Speaker 3: what the fuck is happening in America? What planet are
45:44
Speaker 3: people on? But then I think it's worth stepping back.
45:47
Speaker 3: Because I do think one thing that political pundits, elites. Democrats,
45:54
Speaker 3: I think maybe to a greater extent, don't do enough
45:56
Speaker 3: is put themselves in the shoes of people who don't
45:58
Speaker 3: follow the news as closely as we do. And so
46:01
Speaker 3: you're just a person now who's probably working from home
46:05
Speaker 3: with children who are home from school with no childcare,
46:08
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to keep your family safe,
46:10
Speaker 3: how to go to the store without catching a potentially
46:12
Speaker 3: deadly virus. And you're following the news, but you're watching
46:15
Speaker 3: a few minutes of the nightly news. You're scrolling through
46:18
Speaker 3: Facebook and you're just seeing video of Trump say, we
46:23
Speaker 3: sent this many masks, we sent this many ventilators, we're
46:26
Speaker 3: going to have this many tests by next week. He's
46:28
Speaker 3: surrounded by credible seeming public officials like Dr. Fauci, who
46:35
Speaker 3: is obviously credible, but he's up there doing things that
46:38
Speaker 3: normal presidents do in normal times. Even some of the
46:41
Speaker 3: words sound like the things normal presidents would say in crisis.
46:45
Speaker 3: You think, well, they seem to be doing the best
46:47
Speaker 3: they can. People are giving him the benefit of the doubt.
46:52
Speaker 3: And I think then the question is, what does that
46:54
Speaker 3: mean for November? And I think that's a very fair question. Now,
46:59
Speaker 3: I think it is, you know, I don't want to
47:01
Speaker 3: make predictions, but I think it is unlikely that the
47:04
Speaker 3: Democrats who approve of Trump right in this moment, in
47:07
Speaker 3: this moment of national crisis, or approve of his approach
47:13
Speaker 3: to this national crisis, are people who are going to
47:14
Speaker 3: vote for Trump in November, right? Like, these are not
47:18
Speaker 3: available voters to him. So, We should worry about this greatly,
47:22
Speaker 3: but we should not panic about it. The independents, I think,
47:24
Speaker 3: are very much worth watching because the gain is among
47:28
Speaker 3: independents who have disapproved of him almost every day of
47:32
Speaker 3: his presidency. And it's worth knowing whether this is ethereal
47:36
Speaker 3: or something real. So we're going to have to track that.
47:41
Speaker 3: And so I think we should have a conversation about
47:44
Speaker 3: what we can and should do about this and what
47:46
Speaker 3: we can and should worry about it.
47:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:49
Speaker 1: There's a few other things too. I mean, you know,
47:51
Speaker 1: just for some comparisons, like this is a moment of
47:54
Speaker 1: national crisis. There tend to be a moment of national crises,
47:58
Speaker 1: sort of rally around the flag, rally around the leader effects.
48:04
Speaker 1: That happened certainly with Bush after 9-11. Of course, after 9-11,
48:07
Speaker 1: Bush's approval hit what, like 80%? Higher, higher.
48:11
Speaker 3: I think he got to the 90s.
48:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
48:14
Speaker 3: Right.
48:14
Speaker 1: So, and If you look now around the world, the
48:18
Speaker 1: approval ratings of foreign leaders everywhere have jumped, and they
48:22
Speaker 1: have jumped far more than Donald Trump's approval rating. The
48:25
Speaker 1: approval rating of governors in the United States have jumped
48:28
Speaker 1: far more than Trump's approval rating. And so, you know,
48:32
Speaker 1: some of this is natural, just people wanting to, you know,
48:37
Speaker 1: rally around a leader who, like you said, is on
48:40
Speaker 1: TV every day telling us everything's going to be okay
48:42
Speaker 1: and And again, I think the misinformation is having an
48:45
Speaker 1: effect as well. I'm sure, like you said, there's a
48:47
Speaker 1: lot of people who are in communities that haven't been
48:50
Speaker 1: affected yet by the virus. And I say yet because
48:53
Speaker 1: no community, no matter how rural or ex-urban or whatever,
48:56
Speaker 1: is going to be able to hide from this. Those
48:59
Speaker 1: people are thinking of the virus partly because of Donald Trump,
49:03
Speaker 1: partly because of their own experience, as something that happens
49:05
Speaker 1: to older people and something that is just like the fluke.
49:08
Speaker 1: And I think that has stuck with a lot of people.
49:11
Speaker 1: And if you think that, then when you see Trump
49:13
Speaker 1: on TV saying, yeah, we're sending the ventilators, we're sending this,
49:15
Speaker 1: we're doing this, you think, okay, well, he's actually, yeah,
49:18
Speaker 1: I don't like him. I don't think he's a great person. president.
49:20
Speaker 1: I haven't thought he's a great president, but he's actually
49:22
Speaker 1: handling this better than I thought. That's probably what happens
49:25
Speaker 1: if you're one of those people who's not paying much
49:26
Speaker 1: attention to the news. But I do think some of
49:29
Speaker 1: this has to do with as you pointed out, Trump's
49:32
Speaker 1: communication strategy, which clearly seems to be working so far.
49:35
Speaker 1: There was a New York Times story yesterday that said
49:37
Speaker 1: Trump's daily briefings have attracted an average audience of 8.5
49:41
Speaker 1: million on cable news, which is roughly the viewership of
49:45
Speaker 1: the Bachelor season finale. And it was a pretty shitty
49:48
Speaker 1: season finale.
49:52
Speaker 3: I'm glad you could shoehorn that take in to our
49:55
Speaker 3: pandemic pod.
49:56
Speaker 1: I had to insert some whiteness there.
50:01
Speaker 3: We should very clearly note that while Trump's public health
50:06
Speaker 3: response has been an epic disaster, his public relations response
50:09
Speaker 3: has been thus far quite successful. Now, a couple of
50:12
Speaker 3: things that are worth noting, which is there is no
50:16
Speaker 3: communication strategy that solves the problem of a pandemic and
50:21
Speaker 3: a global recession. I remember in 2010, Obama's approval ratings
50:27
Speaker 3: had fallen. Now, they had fallen to a level that
50:30
Speaker 3: Donald Trump would sell two of his children for, but
50:33
Speaker 3: they had fallen. There was a lot of hand-wringing in
50:36
Speaker 3: Washington about what had happened. The New York Times, I think,
50:42
Speaker 3: was writing a story about Obama's economic message. What is
50:47
Speaker 3: he not saying? Why isn't he selling the economy better?
50:51
Speaker 3: I remember our friend David Axelrod saying, you can't spin
50:56
Speaker 3: double-digit unemployment, right? Like the reality, communications and messaging is
51:03
Speaker 3: incredibly important to political success, but it happens on the
51:06
Speaker 3: margins compared to the driving force of reality and what
51:09
Speaker 3: people feel in their daily lives. And so, you know,
51:13
Speaker 3: the question is going to, if this continues on the
51:15
Speaker 3: trajectory that it's on, no amount of press conferences, no
51:17
Speaker 3: amount of tweets are going to be able to convince
51:19
Speaker 3: people that it is going well. And we are not
51:23
Speaker 3: yet At that point, we'll see where we are in
51:26
Speaker 3: a few weeks. And I think the question for Democrats is,
51:30
Speaker 3: how do we think about successfully communicating in this environment? Yeah.
51:36
Speaker 1: And there is some evidence that, you know, views of
51:40
Speaker 1: this are changing a bit. Navigator Research is doing a
51:44
Speaker 1: daily tracking poll, and they found in today's poll, more
51:48
Speaker 1: Americans now believe that Trump is not doing enough in
51:50
Speaker 1: his response to the crisis than getting it right. And
51:53
Speaker 1: there's a nine-point swing from earlier this week. And his
51:57
Speaker 1: approval in handling the crisis is down four from their
52:00
Speaker 1: earlier poll. So you're maybe starting to see some movement.
52:03
Speaker 1: To your question about what Democrats should do, there was
52:06
Speaker 1: a very effective ad released this week from Unite the Country,
52:10
Speaker 1: which is a super PAC supporting Joe Biden. So let's
52:14
Speaker 1: take a listen to that.
52:15
Speaker 6: Crisis comes to every presidency. We don't blame them for that.
52:20
Speaker 6: What matters is how they handle it. Donald Trump didn't
52:24
Speaker 6: create the coronavirus, but he is the one who called hoax,
52:29
Speaker 6: who eliminated the pandemic response team and who let the
52:33
Speaker 6: virus spread unchecked across America. Crisis comes to every president.
52:39
Speaker 6: This one failed. Unite the countries responsible for the content
52:43
Speaker 6: of this advertising.
52:44
Speaker 1: So, yeah. So what do you think of that ad
52:46
Speaker 1: and what do you think sort of the best messages
52:48
Speaker 1: from Democrats in general?
52:50
Speaker 3: Well, I think that is an excellent ad. And there
52:54
Speaker 3: is a tendency whenever Trump or the Republicans do well
52:57
Speaker 3: to yell at the Democrats for why they aren't doing better.
52:59
Speaker 3: And let's stipulate that as a party, we can always
53:04
Speaker 3: have a tighter message. We can deliver it better. There
53:06
Speaker 3: can be more ads, et cetera. But I think we
53:09
Speaker 3: have to have a fair-minded conversation about this, which is
53:14
Speaker 3: it is impossible to compete with a president– with a
53:18
Speaker 3: bully pulpit in the middle of a national crisis. Like,
53:21
Speaker 3: it cannot be done.
53:22
Speaker 1: That's always been true.
53:23
Speaker 2: That is true before Trump.
53:24
Speaker 3: It's especially true in a Trump media environment that is
53:27
Speaker 3: fueled by Facebook and cable news. Like, but it was
53:30
Speaker 3: always been true. And yes, Democrats could do somewhat better,
53:33
Speaker 3: but look, Biden, like, has been out there. I mean,
53:37
Speaker 3: he even, like, he brought out the biggest gun in
53:39
Speaker 3: the arsenal, which is a op-ed on crooked.com. But he did,
53:44
Speaker 3: he's been, you know, he's been.
53:45
Speaker 2: Blanketing the airwaves.
53:47
Speaker 3: Right. And ultimately, the problem we Democrats have is what
53:51
Speaker 3: viewers are seeing is Trump and then Democratic governors, like
53:55
Speaker 3: particularly Cuomo and Newsom, who are in a stylistic and
54:00
Speaker 3: substantive contrast to Trump are devastating to him. But they're
54:03
Speaker 3: not making an argument against him because they know he's
54:05
Speaker 3: a lunatic who will stop sending ventilators to their state
54:07
Speaker 3: if they criticize him. So they're often praising Trump. So
54:11
Speaker 3: they see Trump praising himself. They see Democrats praising Trump.
54:14
Speaker 3: And I do not think Cuomo and Newsom should change
54:16
Speaker 3: their approach. Like we just have to get through it.
54:20
Speaker 3: And the way I think– and as we point out,
54:23
Speaker 3: there are ads. We always yell about ads. But the
54:26
Speaker 3: Biden Super PAC has ads. Biden, his campaign has some
54:29
Speaker 3: digital videos. Pacronim has ads. Priorities has ads. American Bridge.
54:33
Speaker 3: There are ads out there. The Democratic Super PAC community
54:36
Speaker 3: is stepping up, which is very impressive actually in a
54:38
Speaker 3: time where fundraising has frozen. So as people who yell
54:42
Speaker 3: about this all the time, we should give credit. And
54:43
Speaker 3: if there are people listening who have– money and want
54:47
Speaker 3: to contribute to the effort, those groups are groups that
54:51
Speaker 3: I just mentioned who are the ones who are going
54:53
Speaker 3: to lead the charge here. And if you can support them,
54:55
Speaker 3: that's great. I think the way to think about this
54:59
Speaker 3: is we are not going to persuade voters to definitely
55:03
Speaker 3: vote against Trump right now. But what we can do
55:07
Speaker 3: is inform them of information that serve as valuable data
55:11
Speaker 3: points and create a context for that decision later. And
55:14
Speaker 3: so We are not going to persuade voters to decide
55:18
Speaker 3: to definitely not vote for Trump now among our persuadable
55:22
Speaker 3: voter universe, but we can use this.
55:24
Speaker 2: Moment of hyper engaged.
55:28
Speaker 3: Media consumption to inform them about information that will create
55:32
Speaker 3: a context for them to decide to vote against Trump
55:34
Speaker 3: in the fall. And in that sense, like one of
55:37
Speaker 3: the arguments about Trump is the cost of his chaotic leadership.
55:40
Speaker 3: And here we are seeing that cost in lives and
55:42
Speaker 3: deaths and jobs.
55:44
Speaker 5: Right?
55:44
Speaker 3: That was a much harder argument to make when the
55:47
Speaker 3: economy was roaring and things seemed to be stable in
55:51
Speaker 3: this country. So I think the way to measure success
55:55
Speaker 3: for Democrats is not what is Trump's approval right now?
55:58
Speaker 3: What is the approval of his handing on the coronavirus?
56:00
Speaker 3: Because that's ultimately not going to matter. We should be
56:02
Speaker 3: looking at in polling, what do people know the key
56:07
Speaker 3: pieces of evidence that he fucked this up, that he
56:10
Speaker 3: fired the global pandemic response unit, that he caught funding
56:14
Speaker 3: for CDC, that he opposed expanding and expediting testing, that
56:20
Speaker 3: he is.
56:20
Speaker 1: Ignoring- Downplayed the severity of the crisis.
56:23
Speaker 3: Downplayed the severity of the crisis and led the consequences
56:25
Speaker 3: of that. And so like, are people learning that information?
56:28
Speaker 3: Are Democrats successfully informing voters of those things? And that
56:32
Speaker 3: will make it easier to make the case in the fall.
56:36
Speaker 3: And so this is not a moment to win the election.
56:38
Speaker 3: This is a moment to inform people of very valuable
56:40
Speaker 3: information on a life or death situation.
56:44
Speaker 1: And remember, before this crisis happened, we were talking about
56:49
Speaker 1: how there's plenty of research out there from a lot
56:52
Speaker 1: of groups that we knew on the Democratic side that
56:55
Speaker 1: basically came to the conclusion that the most effective argument
56:58
Speaker 1: against Trump is that he's been an ineffective president, that
57:01
Speaker 1: he just hasn't gotten the job done. He hasn't fixed
57:03
Speaker 1: health care costs. He hasn't fixed the wage problem. He
57:06
Speaker 1: just hasn't done any of the things that he came
57:09
Speaker 1: to office saying he would do. And he hasn't fixed
57:10
Speaker 1: any of the big problems in the country. And that's
57:13
Speaker 1: especially effective among former Trump voters, independents, swing voters. And
57:19
Speaker 1: now with this crisis, we have the most immediate, urgent
57:24
Speaker 1: example of him being an effective president. And I think
57:26
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why that Unite the Country
57:29
Speaker 1: ad that we just played was so powerful, because it
57:31
Speaker 1: starts by saying Trump didn't cause the coronavirus. Trump didn't
57:36
Speaker 1: create the coronavirus. So it's like we're not blaming him
57:40
Speaker 1: for the entire thing. What we're blaming him for is
57:42
Speaker 1: the response, which has been like criminally negligent, woefully inadequate,
57:49
Speaker 1: causing a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, death,
57:52
Speaker 1: job loss. Like, and so I think by almost giving
57:55
Speaker 1: him that at the beginning of that ad, like, you know, Trump,
57:57
Speaker 1: Trump didn't, uh, Trump didn't cause the virus, but Trump's
58:01
Speaker 1: response to it has been fucking abysmal. That to me
58:05
Speaker 1: is a, it fits with what we already knew people
58:08
Speaker 1: think about Trump. which is I just don't know if
58:12
Speaker 1: he's getting the job done. Because like you said, his
58:15
Speaker 1: leadership is too chaotic. He's tweeting all the time. He
58:19
Speaker 1: only cares about himself and his own political future. And
58:23
Speaker 1: he's always getting in fights with people. And he makes
58:25
Speaker 1: everything political. And he's just not fixing the problems at hand.
58:28
Speaker 1: We know people already thought that about Trump. And now
58:31
Speaker 1: we have to make sure people understand that his response
58:33
Speaker 1: to this crisis is the perfect example of that.
58:36
Speaker 3: That's right, that there is a cost to the chaos.
58:39
Speaker 4: Right?
58:39
Speaker 3: And here's what the cost is. And I think it
58:42
Speaker 3: is incredibly important. I said one other ad that I
58:45
Speaker 3: think is worth citing is Pacronym has this very effective,
58:49
Speaker 3: I think, digital ad that uses Tucker Carlson criticizing Trump's response.
58:54
Speaker 3: Because it's easy in our very partisan, polarized environment to
58:59
Speaker 3: dismiss even nonpartisan media figures as people who are inherently anti-Trump.
59:06
Speaker 3: But when you have Tucker Carlson... Trump's favorite white now.
59:10
Speaker 3: criticizing him, that can be very compelling. Back when we
59:14
Speaker 3: were allowed to congregate with people and we did live shows,
59:17
Speaker 3: every time we would get a question, it's like, I'm
59:19
Speaker 3: going to Thanksgiving. What do I say to.
59:20
Speaker 2: My Trump-loving uncle?
59:21
Speaker 3: And The thing I would like, and that's a very
59:25
Speaker 3: hard thing, but if like this Packer name ad with
59:28
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson showing Tucker Carlson criticized Trump is the sort
59:31
Speaker 3: of thing that can be persuasive to people who are
59:36
Speaker 3: skeptical of Biden or Democrats, but open to Trump, right?
59:41
Speaker 3: Even Tucker Carlson says he did a shitty job.
59:44
Speaker 1: That's right. Okay. Well, when we come back, we will
59:47
Speaker 1: have Dan's interview with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.
59:59
Speaker 3: I'm now joined by the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: Governor Whitmer, thanks for hopping on Zoom with me.
1:00:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, happy to be here.
1:00:05
Speaker 3: Well, Governor, I wanted to start by getting an update
1:00:08
Speaker 3: of what is happening on the ground in Michigan as
1:00:10
Speaker 3: you're dealing with the coronavirus.
1:00:12
Speaker 5: So in Michigan, we are, I think, you know, just
1:00:15
Speaker 5: behind New York in terms of seeing this exponential rise
1:00:19
Speaker 5: in cases. We went from zero cases just over two
1:00:23
Speaker 5: weeks ago to now we have 2,800, over 2,800 cases.
1:00:26
Speaker 5: 60 deaths. We've got hospitals that are already at capacity,
1:00:32
Speaker 5: and we know we're still on the upward trajectory. We
1:00:36
Speaker 5: have too few masks, too few gloves, gowns, all of
1:00:40
Speaker 5: the PPE that everyone's looking for. But we're really at
1:00:44
Speaker 5: a critical stage very quickly, and I know we're a
1:00:47
Speaker 5: hot spot.
1:00:48
Speaker 3: How have your interactions with the Trump administration been about
1:00:51
Speaker 3: getting the necessary resources and supplies you need?
1:00:55
Speaker 5: Well, you know, early on, we had a meeting with
1:00:59
Speaker 5: all of the governors and the president and the vice president.
1:01:03
Speaker 5: And the message was, you know, the national stockpile is
1:01:07
Speaker 5: not equipped to handle what we have coming and you
1:01:11
Speaker 5: should start working on your own. And I think that
1:01:13
Speaker 5: was the moment for me that it really became how
1:01:18
Speaker 5: clear and how serious this was and how we had
1:01:21
Speaker 5: to mobilize outside of the federal government to to try
1:01:24
Speaker 5: to start getting what we need. We've been contracting and
1:01:29
Speaker 5: even in some of those contracts, they've been upended because
1:01:32
Speaker 5: they've been redirected to the federal government. So to say
1:01:35
Speaker 5: it's frustrating is putting it lightly. It's scary because people
1:01:41
Speaker 5: are fighting for their lives right now. And we have
1:01:46
Speaker 5: not given as a nation, the seriousness and the planning
1:01:50
Speaker 5: that should have gone into this situation. And now all
1:01:54
Speaker 5: the states are behind the eight ball and you see
1:01:57
Speaker 5: governors across the country stepping up to lead and to
1:02:00
Speaker 5: be the aggressive policymakers that really should be a national
1:02:05
Speaker 5: strategy coming out of Washington.
1:02:07
Speaker 3: Do you think it's possible for Michigan and the rest
1:02:10
Speaker 3: of the country to get the ventilators and equipment it
1:02:12
Speaker 3: needs without the president more forcefully invoking the Defense Production Act?
1:02:16
Speaker 2: I don't.
1:02:17
Speaker 5: And it pains me to say that because there are
1:02:20
Speaker 5: going to be a lot of people in in states,
1:02:23
Speaker 5: in every state in this nation, we're going to require
1:02:26
Speaker 5: a ventilator and won't get one. And that's just simply
1:02:30
Speaker 5: a part of the math that we have right now
1:02:33
Speaker 5: as a country. If the president decides to use the
1:02:39
Speaker 5: Defense Production Act and start really ramping up on ventilators,
1:02:43
Speaker 5: it's still going to be too late for many, but
1:02:45
Speaker 5: we can meet the needs of a lot of people,
1:02:49
Speaker 5: but it has to get started. And that's why I
1:02:53
Speaker 5: think the situation is so desperate. We're looking for old
1:02:55
Speaker 5: ventilators that have been retired and trying to, you know,
1:02:59
Speaker 5: clean them up and to fix parts that we can
1:03:03
Speaker 5: get them back into production. I mean, even with that,
1:03:07
Speaker 5: we are going to be far, far under, you know,
1:03:11
Speaker 5: unable to meet the needs of the people that are
1:03:13
Speaker 5: going to need them.
1:03:14
Speaker 3: Are there other specific things other than the Defense Production
1:03:17
Speaker 3: Act that you're calling on the administration to do to
1:03:19
Speaker 3: help the people in Michigan and around the country?
1:03:22
Speaker 5: Well, we need a national strategy. This patchwork of states
1:03:25
Speaker 5: having policies, depending on who the governor is, creates a
1:03:30
Speaker 5: very porous situation, which will prolong the time that the
1:03:34
Speaker 5: pandemic is ravaging our country. It'll mean more people will die.
1:03:39
Speaker 5: It'll mean a longer, hard time on our economy. And
1:03:43
Speaker 5: that's why I really think that a national strategy at
1:03:46
Speaker 5: using all of the powers of the federal government to
1:03:48
Speaker 5: meet the needs of people in every state is absolutely
1:03:53
Speaker 5: essential to get through this.
1:03:55
Speaker 3: And so I take it that you would not be
1:03:59
Speaker 3: on board with the president relaxing the standards and reopening
1:04:02
Speaker 3: the economy, quote unquote, reopening the economy in at least
1:04:06
Speaker 3: parts of the country by Easter?
1:04:09
Speaker 5: I think part of the reason that we have the
1:04:11
Speaker 5: spread that we do as a state, but also as
1:04:15
Speaker 5: a country, is because there have been inconsistent messages coming
1:04:18
Speaker 5: out of the federal government for months. questioning whether or
1:04:22
Speaker 5: not this was a real serious issue that we're confronting,
1:04:26
Speaker 5: making light of it, hyperbole and half-truths. And so now
1:04:30
Speaker 5: people don't take this with the seriousness that they must.
1:04:35
Speaker 5: The thought that we could be all back to normal
1:04:38
Speaker 5: and just flip a switch and everything will be as
1:04:40
Speaker 5: we knew it is not supported by the science. And
1:04:43
Speaker 5: that's why, as people are asking me, is that real?
1:04:45
Speaker 5: I say, I'm going to take my advice from the
1:04:49
Speaker 5: epidemiologists and the scientists that have informed every decision I've made,
1:04:53
Speaker 5: because we don't want to emulate other countries that just
1:04:58
Speaker 5: went right back to life as normal and saw another spike.
1:05:00
Speaker 5: It just endangers too many people and it prolongs the
1:05:04
Speaker 5: pain on our economy. So I'm going to take my
1:05:06
Speaker 5: advice and I'm going to make my decisions based on
1:05:08
Speaker 5: the best scientists out there, not on the political remarks
1:05:12
Speaker 5: of anyone else.
1:05:13
Speaker 3: Do you have a sense of the timeline that you're
1:05:15
Speaker 3: looking at in Michigan in terms of your stay-at-home order?
1:05:19
Speaker 5: So it is effective through April 13th. I know that
1:05:24
Speaker 5: there's a possibility I might have to lengthen it. I'm
1:05:28
Speaker 5: going to make those decisions as we get closer, as
1:05:30
Speaker 5: we have more data. One of the fundamental problems I
1:05:33
Speaker 5: think we're going to have as a country in determining
1:05:37
Speaker 5: when we've hit the apex and when we're leveling off
1:05:40
Speaker 5: and when we can start to think about ramping some
1:05:43
Speaker 5: things back up in the economy is is testing. We
1:05:46
Speaker 5: have to be able to do robust testing so that
1:05:48
Speaker 5: we know who has had it, who has it needs
1:05:51
Speaker 5: to be isolated. So we have data to make informed decisions.
1:05:56
Speaker 5: We do not have enough tests right now. We do
1:05:58
Speaker 5: not have enough swabs to conduct those tests right now.
1:06:01
Speaker 5: We do not have enough of the reagents to preserve
1:06:04
Speaker 5: the swabs so that we can do those tests. And
1:06:07
Speaker 5: so each of these pieces is really critical to our
1:06:10
Speaker 5: ability to determine the how long a stay-home order should last,
1:06:15
Speaker 5: when we can safely start to rev up our economy again,
1:06:20
Speaker 5: when it's okay to send our kids back to school.
1:06:23
Speaker 5: So we need data, and it's all driven by those tests.
1:06:26
Speaker 5: And that's what we really need more than anything right
1:06:28
Speaker 5: now from the federal government.
1:06:30
Speaker 3: And are you getting any message on when you might
1:06:32
Speaker 3: see more tests and more swabs and more reagent?
1:06:35
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot more. There are There are companies
1:06:39
Speaker 5: that have come online with tests that have been validated
1:06:43
Speaker 5: and can be used. That's good news. But if we
1:06:46
Speaker 5: don't have the swabs to do them, it doesn't do
1:06:48
Speaker 5: me a whole lot of good. And so I've asked
1:06:51
Speaker 5: for 200,000 swabs from the national stockpile. I was until
1:06:57
Speaker 5: yesterday when I finally got on the phone with the
1:06:58
Speaker 5: vice president that I got acknowledgement that the request has
1:07:02
Speaker 5: been received. I still don't know if it'll be granted
1:07:04
Speaker 5: and how much of it will be coming and when.
1:07:07
Speaker 5: But that's a continual source of stress in the system.
1:07:12
Speaker 3: I mean, obvious as we sit here, stopping the spread
1:07:14
Speaker 3: of the virus and dealing with those affected is most important.
1:07:18
Speaker 3: But this entire experience is having a dramatic impact on
1:07:21
Speaker 3: the economy. And I wanted to get your reaction to
1:07:24
Speaker 3: the stimulus bill or the economic rescue package that passed
1:07:28
Speaker 3: the Senate last night and is passing the House today.
1:07:29
Speaker 3: Is it going to be enough to help the people
1:07:32
Speaker 3: of Michigan in the coming months? And what would you
1:07:34
Speaker 3: like to see in a future piece of legislation?
1:07:37
Speaker 5: Well, I think that we have to be very mindful.
1:07:39
Speaker 5: There are a lot of people that are out of work.
1:07:41
Speaker 5: There are a lot of small businesses that are going
1:07:43
Speaker 5: to struggle. There are a lot of children who aren't
1:07:46
Speaker 5: in school getting the education that they need. We are
1:07:49
Speaker 5: going to have incredible needs. And as states, we can't
1:07:53
Speaker 5: run deficits. We have to have balanced budgets. And so
1:07:57
Speaker 5: the financial needs of our states to just provide the
1:08:02
Speaker 5: basics and to help people in the recovery are going
1:08:05
Speaker 5: to be astronomical. And that's where I think the nation's governors,
1:08:08
Speaker 5: Republican and Democratic alike, are working together to make sure
1:08:13
Speaker 5: that the feds understand how immense this is going to
1:08:18
Speaker 5: be and how important this is as we even think
1:08:20
Speaker 5: about next steps beyond the current crisis we're confronting.
1:08:24
Speaker 3: Another looming issue, which is addressed somewhat in the bill,
1:08:27
Speaker 3: but more work seems to be done, is how you
1:08:30
Speaker 3: plan for and administer elections in the middle of pandemic,
1:08:33
Speaker 3: particularly if this is still going on in November.
1:08:36
Speaker 2: How are you thinking about that?
1:08:37
Speaker 3: And is Michigan prepared to move to vote by mail
1:08:40
Speaker 3: in time for the election?
1:08:42
Speaker 5: Well, in 2018, we swept all of the executive offices.
1:08:49
Speaker 5: So we've got a fantastic Secretary of State who is
1:08:52
Speaker 5: an incredible advocate for vote at home. This is something
1:08:58
Speaker 5: that I think now more than ever is an important.
1:09:01
Speaker 5: And so we are working together to fashion a strategy
1:09:06
Speaker 5: to ensure that our election can be conducted, that everyone
1:09:09
Speaker 5: will have an opportunity to vote, that it is secure,
1:09:12
Speaker 5: and that it is on time. Because I think that
1:09:15
Speaker 5: if this country can go through a civil war and
1:09:17
Speaker 5: have an election, We can get through this and have
1:09:19
Speaker 5: one and count on it and know that it is
1:09:22
Speaker 5: valid and that we don't deviate from these core principles
1:09:26
Speaker 5: of our democracy.
1:09:28
Speaker 3: Governor, before I let you go, I just want to
1:09:29
Speaker 3: ask one final question because I know you have a
1:09:32
Speaker 3: lot on your plate today. What would your message be
1:09:36
Speaker 3: to the people of Michigan and around the country as
1:09:39
Speaker 3: they are dealing with competing messages about the severity and
1:09:45
Speaker 3: danger of this virus and are and are afraid for
1:09:47
Speaker 3: their health and their financial and economic well-being?
1:09:51
Speaker 5: Well, it's a hard time. We've been through tough times.
1:09:54
Speaker 5: And what we know is that tough times don't last,
1:09:57
Speaker 5: but tough people do. We're up to this challenge, but
1:10:00
Speaker 5: every single one of us has to do our part.
1:10:03
Speaker 5: Even in the darkest days, there are sources of inspiration.
1:10:07
Speaker 5: If everyone does their part, if you stay informed and
1:10:10
Speaker 5: you stay home, we are going to get through this
1:10:14
Speaker 5: and we'll minimize how many people get sick because of it,
1:10:18
Speaker 5: and how long this impacts our economy. We got this.
1:10:22
Speaker 5: We have got one another. We've got to all do
1:10:24
Speaker 5: our part to get through it.
1:10:26
Speaker 3: Governor Whitmer, thank you so much. Good luck with everything
1:10:30
Speaker 3: you're doing. And please stay safe out there.
1:10:33
Speaker 5: Thanks, Dan. You too.
1:10:39
Speaker 1: Thanks to Governor Whitmer for joining us today.
1:10:41
Speaker 3: And Dan?
1:10:44
Speaker 1: It was great talking to you for an hour here
1:10:46
Speaker 1: in social isolation. And have a good weekend at home.
1:10:53
Speaker 1: And we'll talk to you guys on Monday.
1:10:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone stay safe out there.
1:10:57
Speaker 1: Bye, guys.
1:10:58
Speaker 2: Bye.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
1:11:08
Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
1:11:15
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1:11:22
Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
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Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
1:11:28
Speaker 1: every week.