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Transcript

“How Mark Zucked America.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitorio.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: What's so funny?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: You said a different inflection. I liked it. It's an evening.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: It's how I sound in the evening.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Welcome to our... It's an evening recording, though you're getting
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: this first thing Tuesday morning.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Hopefully.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you're listening right away.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Monday night.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Monday night.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's Pod Save America Raw.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, this is nice. Just me and my island boys.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: You guys up on your TikTok trends now? Okay, never mind. No,
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I am not.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Facebook employees say Facebook is dangerous. A
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone report suggests that the January 6th insurrection was
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: an inside job.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: You might say Facebook had a no-bones day. Okay. That's
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: a TikTok trend.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: That one's actually very funny.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And Andrew Yang stopped by Crooked HQ to chat with
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Lovett about his new third party, Forward.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Speaking of a violent insurrection, how'd that conversation go?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It was good. I asked him some hard questions. We
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: had a good conversation.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: When I saw him in the lobby, I said, Lovett's
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: going to gut you like a fish, and he didn't
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: really laugh.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: He didn't laugh, and it was like, I did go
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: pretty hard at him about You should listen to the conversation,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: because what I said to him is like, all right,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: you have goals for ranked choice voting. We think that's great,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: but we don't want you to do anything that makes
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: electing Donald Trump an easier thing to do.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And he said yes? I don't, look, who knows what
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the future holds. Well, I'll listen to the interview. Listen
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to the interview. You all listen to the interview, too.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: All right, two quick notes before we start. If you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: haven't already, check out the first episode of my series, Offline,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: where I chat with New Yorker staff writer Gia Tolentino
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: about how the internet has turned life into an endless performance.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: why that makes politics hard and virtue signaling easy, and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: what being online during the pandemic has done to our
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: collective psyche.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Fantastic initial episode, John.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Tommy. Thanks, John.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: I was joking that by episode 85, What if the
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: show just reverses on John and he goes down the
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: dark rabbit hole and becomes a super crazy online person?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Like somebody who starts listening to Steve Mena's podcast kind
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of as a lark and then realizes you can't listen
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to a podcast ironically?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Turned around hard on you, Tommy.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: You see that?
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: You never know which way the wind's going to blow. Yeah, wow.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I feel that's wonderful.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Love it as Q.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say I'll be Q in
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a couple episodes. New episodes drop every Sunday right here
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: on the Pod Save America feed. And in other exciting
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: pod news, what a day. is celebrating its two-year anniversary
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: all week long. Two years for What A Day.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. How about that?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Congratulations to host Gideon Resnick, Priyanka Arabindi, Travelle Anderson, Josie
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Duffy Rice, and the entire team at What A Day
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: for reaching this incredible milestone. New episodes of What A
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Day drop every weekday at 5 a.m.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Eastern. I think it's a hit.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: It's a hit. You should listen wherever you get your podcasts.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: It's like secession for podcasts.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Man, you guys aren't very giving today. I need more
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: of a.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Yes and out of you. All right. We're trying to
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: get out of the promos.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I have to say, Tommy, you keep pronouncing it secession
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and it's succession. Secession is like what happens in the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Union when the South wants to secede.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It's about succeeding the Elder Roy.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I thought I would correct you here on the podcast.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take your recommendation.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I'm going to put it in my draw.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: That's something that I say.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Because of an accent that I can't quite pinpoint, so.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, dude. You got him.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Anyway, what a wind-up. Let's get to the news.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: If you woke up to a shitload of stories about
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Facebook this week, it's because whistleblower Francis Haugen went beyond
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal to provide a consortium of more
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: than a dozen news organizations, thousands of pages of internal
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: conversations and research.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I like that they created a Slack thread for all
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: the journalists, and even they were uncomfortable with the idea
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: of being a consortium, and so they said, I guess
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: we're a consortium now.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. These are documents that also form the basis of
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a series of disclosures she filed with the Securities and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Exchange Commission, the testimony she gave Congress, and the testimony
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: she delivered on Monday to the UK's Parliament. The headline
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: from all of this, unsurprisingly, is that Facebook is bad.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: It's bad.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: The company's own research says that, and plenty of the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: company's own employees say it on internal message boards all
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the time, apparently. Beyond that, it can be tough to
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: follow the details of all these stories, but the gist
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: is that the algorithms designed by Facebook push people towards
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: more radicalizing and polarizing content, that the problem is even
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: worse in other countries, that Mark Zuckerberg both lies and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: lives in fear of being accused of liberal bias, and
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: that the company didn't do nearly enough to stop the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: January 6th insurrection that was largely organized on its platform.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I want to dive into all the specifics, but what
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: do you guys think about how this information was released?
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Did you find it difficult to process all these stories, Tommy?
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: So credit first, I was initially quite impressed with the rollout.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: That series of Wall Street Journal stories were thorough.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: They were spaced out well. They were devastating.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: And then the really brilliant move was convincing 60 Minutes
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: to do a big exclusive where the only character they
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: really had dangled in front of them was naming the
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: whistleblower and Who then repeated all the stuff from the
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: Wall Street Journal stories and they got a second bite
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: of the apple. Today was too much, man.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: My understanding is that there were 68 stories.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: The consortium got out of control.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: 68 stories posted today, all embargoed for like 7 a.m.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: Eastern or whatever. on like eight different topics. I was
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: just awash with Facebook news. I could not follow all
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: of it.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And I do think that a fair amount of it
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: was overlapping both with Wall Street Journal reporting from the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: past couple of weeks and from other stories that came
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: out today. It didn't feel like there was like the
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: same division of labor that happened with some other kind
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: of consortiums, like what was formed around Snowden's leaks and
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: some of the other ones we've seen in the past. Yeah.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is just like the political staffer in me talking,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: but No one has been driving a message about Facebook
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: here based on these documents. And so it definitely served
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the needs and the way that many journalists want to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: do their jobs, which is great. And I'm glad that
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: good for them, for so many of them, for writing
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: fantastic stories. And they did a great job. But if
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the goal of Francis Haugen is to deliver a single
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: message or even a couple big messages about Facebook, I worry,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to try to do that here
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in this segment, but I do worry that it's going
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: to be hard for your average reader to understand exactly
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: what was going on there and what she was trying
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to say.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also think that there is enough in
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: what we learned today that had it been spaced out
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: over the next couple of days or weeks, it might
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: have had a more lasting impact. We'll see.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: There's a very funny graph in Ben Smith's story about
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: the sort of like media piece of it all and
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: how it all came together, where the various journalists in
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: this Slack group.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Room, whatever. What the fuck do you call a Slack thing?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Slack channel?
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Slack group.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: We're arguing over what to call it and they didn't
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: want to call it the Facebook files because that was
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: the Wall Street Journal branding. So the Times started fighting
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: with that and then Casey Newton, who's a very funny,
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: very smart tech reporter... uh said they should call it
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: the leftovers that is awesome and self-aware and very funny that.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Was really funny however i will say if you don't
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: want the wall street journal to have a cool name
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: all to themselves everyone should have just called it the
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: facebook files.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Right it would have taken the branding away from the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: wall street this is.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: The not the most important piece of this.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Just some some political.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Uh and i also love to that of course the
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: new york times which lives to pretend as though they
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: My eyes rolled so hard. No other journalist in the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: world were like, we're going to go with our story
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: first because some of it was based on reporting we
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: had gathered previously.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, they broke the embargo. Mike Isaac was the one
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: arguing us using that branding. He's like super fun.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: He wrote Super Pumped, that great Uber book that everyone loved.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, fantastic.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Anyway, but I loved the little chippy back and forth
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: among journalists.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: No way that's going to work without them fighting.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I loved it.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Before we get into some of the details, any other
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: big takeaways, overall broad takeaways that you guys got from
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: these stories?
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I think two. Um, which is actually, it's just complimentary
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: to what we already learned from the wall street journal
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: one to a shocking degree. Facebook has basically total clarity
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: into the problems that they're causing. Uh, and, and two,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: just how much internal debate and strife there is within Facebook,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: acknowledging how bad it is in real time and desperate
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: for the company to do more though. Um, we were
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: talking about this before we recorded, but there is a
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: little bit of like, there's a lot of complaining from
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: people about what Facebook isn't doing. And they all work
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: at Facebook. And there's a little bit of like, if
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: these guys don't clean up their acts before my stock vests,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I swear to God, I'm out of here.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Tommy?
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Three takeaways.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: One, as bad as we think Facebook is here in
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: the US, it's exponentially worse abroad. And we'll talk about
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: that more later. Two, there's just like, there's so many
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: instances of Mark Zuckerberg specifically prioritizing financial considerations over safety
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: and the quality of discourse and the quality of the
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: product too. It's just like, rarely do you have someone
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: so nailed dead to rights on that. And then just three,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: and I think this is sort of the core of
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: what we'll talk about for most of the conversation today
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: is that politics in the fear of being called biased
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: drives so much of what they do. And I think
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: it's important to remember a little history here because I
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: remember this happening in real time because I was living
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: in San Francisco at the time. In 2016, Gizmodo wrote
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: a story quoting a former Facebook staffer that alleged that
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: the trending topics page was biased against conservative outlets and stories.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: And that supercharged this coordinated effort by Republicans and people
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: on the Hill to say that Facebook was biased. And
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: it was incredibly successful. And remember when Zuckerberg invited Glenn
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Beck and a bunch of conservatives to Menlo Park, right?
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: That meeting, you could tell Zuckerberg thought it worked because
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Glenn Beck walked out of it and said a bunch
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: of really nice things about Facebook. He said that they
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: were behaving appropriately, that they were humble, open, and they listened.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: And so Mark kept doing these dinners with Trump, Tucker Carlson,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: Brent Boesel, Ben Shapiro, and then like Joel Kaplan, this
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: prominent Republican, rose to power. And so the result is
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: all these political considerations that make no sense when you
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: really dig into them, like Breitbart being called news, Politico,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: The Washington Post, Axios, Reuters being called liberal. It's an
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: organization that is scared to death of being called politically biased,
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: and they're willing to have a platform that is full
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: of misinformation and incitement and outright garbage if they're not
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: called liberals.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I think that tech executives are the easiest mark for— Totally.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Pun intended, John.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: There you go. Thank you. I think they are the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: easiest mark for ref-working. Because they all believe that technology
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: is beyond politics and that Democrats and Republicans aren't always right.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And we can solve our political problems through technology. And
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: so when you accuse them of being biased towards one
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: side or the other, they take it very seriously. Also,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it's who Mark brought in, right? Sheryl Sandberg, you know,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: he brought in a bunch of, like, Republicans or, at best,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: centrist Democrats to help run Facebook, at least on the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: political side.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think it's not just that
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: they think what they're doing is outside of politics. It's
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that it's more important than politics. And politics in the
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: sweep of history is a distraction from the great work
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: they're doing to build this kind of utopia. The other
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: piece of it, so I think you're right. They're terrified
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: of being called liberal, especially because a lot of their,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: they view their staff as being liberal.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Right. Yes.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: But the other piece of this.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And they may have liberal social and cultural values. Yeah.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: They're cosmopolitan conservatives. A lot of these people is what
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: they are. They are pro-gay in some ways. They are pro-equality,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: but when push comes to shove, they have conservative leanings.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: But when I talked to Shira Frankel, who wrote that
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: book about Facebook, my question to her was when Mark
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: gave up on this idea of a libertarian paradise, which
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: is where he was not that long ago. Like when
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: he talked to Kara Swisher, he was like, I think
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Holocaust denial is okay because people should see it. And
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I asked them like, what replaces the larger ethic about
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: how Facebook governs speech if it's not going to be
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: libertarian anymore, and she couldn't say. And in one of
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the pieces, I thought this was important, right? This is
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: what a Facebook team member said. They said, in multiple cases,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: the final judgment about whether a prominent post violates a
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: certain written policy are made by senior executives, sometimes Mark Zuckerberg.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: If our decisions are intended to be an application of
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: a written policy, then it is unclear why executives would
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: be consulted. And so what happens is there's a fear
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: of being called liberal. There's no organizing value or principle.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And so then Everything becomes ad hoc. Everything becomes a debate.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Everything becomes about appearances. And you end up with a
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: situation where whitelisted propagandists are allowed to spread information. Sectarian
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: strife spreads in India and around the world. And there's
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: no governing principle to prevent it.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I will say, you know, Lovett, you said a couple
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: minutes ago that the stories prove that Facebook really does
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: know exactly what the problems are. I thought that they
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: also proved that Facebook knows how to solve them or
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: at least make them better. You know, one of their
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: defenses that you hear all the time from Facebook is
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: we're working hard to solve all these problems, but we'll
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: never be able to solve all of them because these
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: are problems that have to do with human nature. And
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: we're just a neutral platform and we can't restrict free speech.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So these are the same problems that you see in
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: humanity anyway, and we're just Facebook. But that's clearly not
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: what's going on here. Facebook has plenty of tools to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: fight extremism, and we know that because they have used
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: some of them on certain occasions, but they refuse to
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: use them all the time or more. So I thought
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: some of the most damning revelations were about, to that point,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Facebook's algorithms pushing people towards extremism. NBC ran a story
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: about how the company created a fictitious user named Carol
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Smith who described herself as a politically conservative mom from
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: North Carolina within two days. Facebook was recommending that she
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: join QAnon groups.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Here's the weirdest part. She was arrested at the Capitol.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, she's on the short list
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: for Trump's veep in 2024.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Congrats, Carol. Yours was better.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Carol's going to be on the short list.
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: Yours was better.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Yours was fun.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: What was that movie, Carol?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: What? What was that movie, Carol, about? A lesbian story
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: involving Cate Blanchett.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: They didn't attack the Capitol.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I don't remember it then.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: What did you guys think of that story? A Facebook
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: spokesperson said, it's the perfect example of research that helped
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: inform their decision to remove QAnon from its platform.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, thanks.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Which is so typical of so many of their responses.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I really appreciated that in some internal conversation, someone
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: at Facebook said, I'm sick of Mark answering a question
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that wasn't asked, which is what they do over and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: over and over again. They were so slow on QAnon.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: And I was thinking about how they call it. They
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: move fast and break things. They are now a government bureaucracy.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: They move incredibly slowly, incredibly fecklessly around these problems. Because, yeah,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, by the time they removed QAnon, it had
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: festered into this giant conspiracy theory, maybe one of the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: biggest ever. It has rendered families like, yeah, we talk
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: about it in political terms. I know people in my
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: life who have had to have divorces and now they
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: are co-parenting with QAnon people. It is a fucking nightmare.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And they allowed it to fester for so long. Yeah.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: And same with anti-vax content.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is why that this the problem with
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Facebook is not about freedom of speech, because it's not
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: about your right to say you like QAnon or your
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: right to say, I don't want to get vaccinated. The
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: issue is that Facebook's algorithm is recommending radical content to
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: people who otherwise wouldn't have seen it.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: That's a problem.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: That is core to the DNA of the product. It's
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: radicalizing people.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Why recommend anyone join any political group at all? Let
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: people search for their own political groups. If they're interested
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and people with like-minded, like, go search for the political group.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Because they're like, oh, well, this is how we got
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: rid of QAnon. Okay. But I'm betting that the algorithm
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: is going to continue to push people to join more
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: extremist groups, other extremist groups that may not be QAnon.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And then you're back to playing whack-a-mole all the time.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Just there's a more fundamental design flaw here, which is
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that the algorithm continues to push people towards polarizing, radicalizing
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: content or to join groups like that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this Daniel Dennett is a philosopher and he
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: talks about something called an intuition pump. And when an
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: intuition pump is when you use an analogy in a
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: way that hides the truth, that makes the truth less obvious.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And I think all the time Facebook tries to use
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: these intuition pumps, which is in some ways what they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: want us to think about. Facebook is like kind of
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: an inert bulletin board for society, right? It's no different
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: than a cork board hanging in a coffee shop somewhere
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: where people put things up and other people see them, right?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: But it's, of course, become this sophisticated operation for delivering
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: information to people. An incredibly sophisticated machine, an intelligent machine
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: with agency for delivering information to people. And the one
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: thing we learned from this is right after the election,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: they figure it out how they can just literally adjust
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the dial and all of a sudden far less misinformation
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: is and negative content being spread, and far more accurate
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: and reliable information is being shared.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: And the reason is nefarious, because the longer they keep
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: you on the site, the more money they make. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: so you have people searching for like wellness or essential oils,
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: then all of a sudden they're pulled into like plandemic
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: and anti-vaccine content and all this right-wing sort of QAnon
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: or QAnon-adjacent content. It's a problem you see happening across
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: the spectrum.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And it is a problem of reach. You know, Jeff
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Horowitz of the Wall Street Journal, who, love it, you
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: talked to and wrote the initial round of stories.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: I talked to that guy.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Tommy talked to him.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: You guys both talked to so many Facebook people, now
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I forget.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: I was with the headband guy before it was a thing.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: That's right, you were. I'm sorry. Anyway, so Jeff was
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: tweeting the other day that researchers, including... Join my leftovers,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Chuck Todd.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: You know? That's what I'm saying.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Researchers.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: How's that for a consortium?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: You got your consortium right here, Chuck Todd. Person Tommy's
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: addressing this at. What were we saying, Sean? Minding his
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: own business, living his life.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: You guys good?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I guess so.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So Jeff was tweeting the other day that researchers, including
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Facebook researchers, their own researchers, have noted that Facebook can
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: reduce the spread of misinformation, hate speech, radicalizing content by
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: restricting the reshare button and reducing the spread of viral content.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: There's a VP of Facebook who's the 10th longest serving
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: employee in the company said that they could reduce most
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: public integrity problems just by moderately reducing virality. Like that
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: is what we're talking about here. It is the sharing.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It is the reach of the information. It's where it's
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: getting spread that is causing most of the problems here.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And the reason that Mark will not dial back on
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that is because that is where you get the engagement from.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: You know, drug dealers rely on repeat customers. Uh, Adrienne
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: LaFrance wrote, I think a really good piece.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I think one of the best pieces of all the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: ones today, for sure. Yeah.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: In the Atlantic that kind of runs through, I think
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: the kind of overarching issues talks a lot about what
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: people are saying internally. And the point she makes at
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: the end of the piece is Facebook knows that people
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: who are isolated recently widowed or divorce say, or geographically
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: distanced from loved ones are disproportionately at risk of being
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: exposed to harmful content on the platform. It knows that
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: repeat offenders are disproportionately responsible for spreading information. And it
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: knows that 3% of Facebook's users in the United States
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: are super consumers of conspiracy theories, accounting for 37% of
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: known consumption of misinformation on the platform. And I know
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: there's been this analogy about the tobacco companies, but it
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: really reminds me of that. You see domestically Facebook desperately
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: trying to keep a hold of the kind of the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: aging population that is addicted to its product, especially the
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: kind of chain smokers of Facebook while looking for market
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: share in the rest of the world because they know
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: that we are starting to come down on them for
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: the harm they are doing to people. And we are
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: trying to keep our kids off of their fucking platform
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and they don't know what to do.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Tommy, I know you guys have covered this on Pod
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Save the World, but why do Facebook's problems seem even
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: worse in other countries? The New York Times big story
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: from the latest tranche of documents was all about India,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: which is the company's largest market.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: John, thanks for the nod to the more intellectual offering
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: that Crooked Media has for listeners out there.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: So the most important stat I saw was that only
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: 13% of Facebook misinformation moderation staff hours are devoted to non-U.S. countries.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: But 90% of Facebook users are outside of the United States.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: So what that tells you is they don't give a
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: fuck about you if you live outside the United States.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Again, not a problem you can't solve. You're just not
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: spending as much resources outside the United States as you're
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: spending here. And it's better here, even though it still
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: sucks here.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, I do think there's a question of like,
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: at what point do they reach a scale where they
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: actually can't have a handle on these things? Because India alone,
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: 300 million Facebook users, 400 million people on WhatsApp, you
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: have 22 languages spoken in a country and then systems
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: that can't monitor all of them. You don't have like
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: either real people doing content moderation, your AI isn't working.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And so, Like, again, if you can't handle it, if
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: you can't have all those people do it, then you
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: shut it down.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Exactly. It's on them. It's on them.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It's on governments to regulate.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Well, that's asking a lot to some of these governments
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: that are in like, you know.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Well, only in the digital, only in digital space are
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: you allowed to build something too big to be safe, right?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: You're not allowed to build a, you're not allowed to
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: say like, look, my hospital treats a lot of people. Unfortunately,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: it is too big and several of the wings will
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: fall down on you. But that's the price of having
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: a hospital this big. You're not allowed to do that.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: If you have a department store, you're not allowed to
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: have some poisonous stuff inside of your supermarket because there's
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: just too much food coming in. But only in digital
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: space still do we allow that.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: But also like, there's also a piece of this just
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: sort of lack of cultural understanding. So in a place
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: like Burma, where Facebook was, has been, there's lots of
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: research on how it was used to spread hate speech
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: that led to, you know, a genocide against the Rohingya.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: A lot of people in Burma didn't have internet access
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: until they got Facebook. And then Facebook was basically their
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: only access to the internet. So your digital literacy is
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: obviously going to be pretty fresh. So if you see
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Something on someone's Facebook page that says something like horribly
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: violent or incitement or, you know, this Muslim group raped
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: this person. People are more inclined to believe it because
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: they just don't have that kind of bullshit antibody built
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: up that we all have living in the U.S. But
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: it sounds like Menlo Park has zero. interest in understanding
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: that context.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Well, we talked about, uh, Carol's journey, right? Carol, the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Christian conservative from North Carolina, they created an account in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: India that wasn't, that didn't even identify as a certain
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: political persuasion, just a random fake account. And within just
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, that account was inundated with hate speech, misinformation,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and celebrations of violence. Uh, the user who was running
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the account said they saw more dead bodies, uh, in,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in that couple of weeks than they had in their
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: entire life.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: And again, no one is blaming Facebook or saying that
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: Facebook is the reason there are tensions between Hindus and
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Muslims in India, that that predates Facebook. But it is
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: certainly the case that when there's sectarian tension, Facebook can
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: be a dangerously.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Powerful tool on the fire.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Well, like, So often I think Facebook's, I think, core
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: defense is something along the lines of, we are the
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: new public square for humanity. Humanity is flawed. Those flaws
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: manifest on Facebook. We are not responsible for that. We
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: are a place where everyone can gather. But that is.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, that's what I was just saying.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: All the people and all the Facebook employees themselves and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: all these message boards are being like, we are not neutral.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: This platform is not neutral.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Well, not only is it not neutral... The fact that
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: you are well aware that people come to your platform
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: as they're not macroeconomic nodes, but actual human beings with
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: flaws and biases should lead you to be cautious in
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the tools you give them to spread misinformation and hate
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: on the internet. It's not an excuse for letting people
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: be terrible to each other in a way that leads
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: to violence. It's a responsibility you have.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: But again, it's not just the tools that they're giving them.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: The company itself and the algorithms themselves are actually pushing
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: people towards more radicalizing content.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: And knowingly so.
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, like this guy, Boz, who's now the chief
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: technology officer, who was the deputy who's been there forever,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: he wrote this memo that he's kind of walked away
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: from or just said was sort of performative or meant
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: to sort of create a conversation. But he literally wrote,
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: tools and we still connect people. They are like It's
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: a religious focus on connection. And it's all like sort
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: of embedded in this like naive tech utopia bullshit that
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: we've been listening to for years and years and years.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: And like one of the reasons I'm now so cynical
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: about Bitcoin and NFTs and all these things people talk
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: about to be the same people who became millionaires and
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: billionaires off of those tools and technologies are now telling
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: us it's going to save the world in this new context.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't fucking believe you. Maybe it will,
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: but I don't think you know what you're talking about.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Boz or Sam Altman or, like, all these people in
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Silicon Valley?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm more specifically worried about the fact that, like,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Facebook's about to do this rebrand. Maybe it's called Meta.com
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: with redirects to the Chan Zuckerberg initiative. But what I.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: That's some breaking news right here on this.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't crack that. Twitter cracked that. But what I
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: worry about is a company, like, you know, I think
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: of like a company like IBM that totally changed its
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: entire business model, but there were some like core cultural
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: values about how they did what they did that like
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: carried over when they stopped becoming a home computer brand
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: for Americans. And like, I think of what Facebook's culture is.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: And it makes me extremely nervous to imagine this group
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: of people with this ethos in charge of more and
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: more pieces of like the way in which we get
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: information or interact with now the physical world.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I don't think like, again, like we all know a
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: lot of people work at Facebook.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: They're good people. They're well-meaning. They're like, you know, they've
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: worked in democratic politics, Republican politics. I just think like
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: now they're part of this massive thing that has created
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: all these systems and this inertia.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: And you get dug in and you get defensive.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: And it's like, I don't, I don't know who will
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: pull the breaker here or, you know, like make everybody,
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: I hope this series of reports Leads a lot of
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: people to be like, oh, shit, I just learned a
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: lot of stuff I didn't know. Like, that's how I
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: felt when the Snowden disclosures came out. My reaction to
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: most of them, like, holy shit, I didn't know the U.S.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Government was doing this.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: I'm hoping that Facebook internally has a similar reaction. It's like, oh, God,
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: I did not realize there was this much harm happening.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Or maybe you're not. Maybe if you work at Facebook
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: right now and you just did find out about all
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: this and you don't do anything differently, maybe you're not
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: as good of a person as you thought you were.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Well, there was this debate today about the earnings came out,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the quarterly earnings, and it was great for Facebook. I
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: don't even know all the numbers. I don't give a shit.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: But anyway, great. And some reporters are like, oh, this
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: proves that the company is not in crisis, stuff like that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I do think that I wonder if all of these
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: stories will have the effect of both making current employees
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: think twice about working there for the long haul. And
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it will have an effect on Facebook's
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: recruiting efforts in the future to try to, like, get
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the best engineers and the best employees to work for them.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: And I realize that that could be very naive because
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: people like money and they want to work at a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: place where they make a lot of money.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: But I don't know.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who went to these companies
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: because in their minds they thought they were helping change
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the world or doing something good or blah, blah.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Blah, blah. Or at the very least, they didn't think
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: that they were actively kind of running society at its
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: very core.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Look, I think there are people that will take money
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: to work for tobacco companies or people take money to
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: kind of, you know, sell OxyContin in West Virginia. But,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a tax these companies ultimately have to
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: pay to get good people.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: One reporter sort of tweeted that, you know, Facebook's stock
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: price going up after hours after their earnings report suggested
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: that the company wasn't in crisis. I think that is
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: sort of undercut by the fact that they reported Q3 earnings,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: which end September 30th. So none of the current period
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: of turmoil was reflected in those earnings. They also made $ 28. 2
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: billion last quarter. Yeah, it's a money-printing machine, but I agree.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: I think the biggest problem is going to be recruiting.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: People are now embarrassed to say they work there.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Tommy, you mentioned this earlier, but the Wall Street Journal
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: ran a story about how employees... with Zuckerberg and leadership
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: over allegations that content rules aren't enforced for Breitbart and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: other right-wing publishers for fear of public blowback, which sort
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: of gets to the point where the political, the concerns
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: about bias at the top levels of Facebook, including Zuckerberg,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: are pretty crazy. There was a Diamond and Silk example,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: of course. A Facebook staffer said that there should be
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: no punishment for a false post from Diamond and Silk
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: because they noted that the publisher, quote, has not hesitated
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: going public about their concerns around alleged anti-conservative bias on Facebook.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Imagine being scared of that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: It's just, it's pathetic. It's completely pathetic. These are bad
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: faith attacks.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: They work.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: They coordinate them.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: You know, you have Congress, you know, putting out studies,
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: like John Kyle's office put out a study in 2018
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: about bias on Facebook.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: There's hearings.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: You have like lunatics like Louie Gohmert barking at your
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: boss and there's some open hearings.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: So yeah, of course you get risk averse.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: It works. I'll also say one other thing too, which
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: is my experience of, I think a lot of wealthier
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: tech people, wealthier L.A. people, too, to be honest. They
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: fucking hate the left. They hate the left. They hate
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: the left just as much as they hate the right.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: These are not liberals. These are not Democrats. As you said,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: at best, they're centrists. Some of them are Republicans. And
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: so they share the right wing's antagonism towards the left
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: wing of the Democratic Party.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: They agree with it.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Last thing worth mentioning before we move on is that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: several stories pointed out how Facebook didn't do enough to
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: stop the January 6th insurrection that was mostly organized on
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: its platform. The company rolled back measures it had taken
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: before the election to stop the spread of content that
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: promoted violence and misinformation. Facebook's response, of course, is that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: they banned the Stop the Steal groups from the platform
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and that the responsibility for violence lies with Trump and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: others who incited it. What do you guys think of
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that response?
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: There's nothing Facebook likes doing more than shutting a barn
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: door after the horses are gone. Do they have any
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: horses left at Facebook? I mean, we are going to
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: find out that, I am sure that the kind of
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: protests that turned into a riot about masks and vaccine
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: in New York will have been fomented on Facebook. There
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: was a story in the Washington Post today about a
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Montana town ripped apart because of a pro-insurrection protest and
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: anti-COVID safety measures protests taking place there. Those, of course,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: were organized on Facebook. It is a platform for misinformation.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: They allow it to get big enough and to turn
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: into such a strong community, and they're like, now it's
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: a problem.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And let people find each other. Encourage people to find
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: each other.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Crowd-building.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a pretty important part of January 6th.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Group polarization.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: That's what they try to do. Speaking of January 6th,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Two Stop the Steal organizers who were being interviewed by
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: House Select Committee investigators spoke anonymously to journalist Hunter Walker
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: for a Rolling Stone piece that published Sunday night where
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: they revealed that rally organizers participated in dozens of planning
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: meetings with members of Congress and the White House. This
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: included Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Representatives Lauren Boebert,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, and Paul Gosar.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Paul Gosar, who they said, quote, dangled the possibility of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: a blanket pardon in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: them to plan the protests. One organizer actually told Walker, quote,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: our impression was that it was a done deal, that
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: he'd spoken to the president about the blanket pardon in
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the Oval. The Select Committee is also looking into the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: January 6th money trail to determine whether any election law
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: violations or financial crimes took place. And the entire House,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: all Democrats and nine Republicans, just voted to refer Tommy's
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: favorite podcast host, Steve Bannon, for prosecution after he defied
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: a subpoena to testify. What did you think of that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone story? It set Twitter ablaze, as they say,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: on Sunday evening.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Was it blazing?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, Twitter was hot.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Believe us.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: If you didn't see it, it was hopping.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Too hot for TV.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: The pardon piece was new to me.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was interesting. I'd like to hear that under oath-y,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: a little under oath action.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Also, I want to know what the unrelated investigation is.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: That was an interesting twist to that.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: We knew that members of Congress were involved in the
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: January 6th planning because the main organizer, this guy Ali Alexander,
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: said he formulated a strategy with Gosar, Mo Brooks, and
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: Andy Biggs on a live stream that has since been
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: stricken from the record. There was also sort of an
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: article in the Washington Post article about this outside war
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: room at the Willard Hotel that kind of folded into this.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: And that's where my friend, my mentor, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: Bernie Kerik and that crew was doing the kind of
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: outside game where they're trying to pressure Pence into overturning
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: the election. The interesting thing to me in that story
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: is we now know that the Trump campaign reimbursed Bernie
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: Kerik $ 55, 000 for renting those rooms. So these things were
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: directly tied. And we also know that Trump was like
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: pressuring Pence one minute, alone in the Oval Office and
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: then calling into the little Willard war room the next
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: to get the outside game going. So it was directly
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: coordinated with the White House.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: So there was this debate as to whether or not
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: what this does constitute like coordinating or certainly inciting the insurrection,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: but coordinating and planning the insurrection. I think on the
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: one hand, I think that's actually not proven. But also
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: on the other hand, I think what you takeaway from
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: these stories is it doesn't really matter. Because what I
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: see in this is like more examples of like, it's
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: stochastic fascism. It's the equivalent of the Al Qaeda Inspire
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: magazine telling people that they should launch random attacks without
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: ever explicitly saying in any of these things, commit an
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: act of violence, break into the Capitol. Throughout Trump's words,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: and we saw it actually in some of the Facebook stories,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: and then in some of these stories, this idea of
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: wild as a word to describe the protests, I don't
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: know what that means other than frightening, scary, not simply speech,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: but no one ever explicitly comes out and says it.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And I was really, what I was struck by in
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: seeing those, many of those members of Congress, both inciting
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: those people to violence and then kind of, kind of
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: have like a smug look on their face when they're
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: kind of holed up in the Capitol is this was
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: the wrong amount of violence for them. Like no violence
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: or far more violence would have served their purposes, but unfortunately,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: It was just a few people dead and not enough
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: to overturn the election.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: That didn't Goldilocks it for you?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Well, this is going to be the most pretentious thing
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I say.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: I will be the judge of that.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: So there's this James Thurber quote.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Which is that, I told you. You
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: quoted a philosopher earlier.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I told you. This is worse.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Something pump.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: It's an intuition pump, Daniel Dennett.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: It's an Eric Smith album about a bulletin board or something.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: It's that two.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Two martinis is too many, but three martinis is not enough. And, like,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: a small insurrection is too much violence, but a grand
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: insurrection that takes place at capitals across the country that
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: was to the level they would have loved is not enough.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I just... John, your thoughts?
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: What the fuck? You know what? Put it in the comments.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Put it in the comments. Let John know. Heteronormative bullying.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I love James Thurber. Why are you guys making fun
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of him?
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It's not about James Thurber. But you're Gordon Wood.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Go.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I just think you alluded to the debate that's going
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: on here, which I think is important. I think we
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: have to separate two different things here. Let's pretend that
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: not a single person entered the Capitol, not a single rioter.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: What you would have had then was a series of
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: organized rallies organized organized with the White House and members
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: of Congress to pressure members of Congress to vote to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: overturn the election.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: So even if you never had any violence or anyone
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: breaking into the Capitol, that enough is a bunch of
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: members of Congress and the president, United States and his
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: staff trying to overturn a free and fair election. It's
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: bad enough.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: And like you're saying, it's not illegal. I mean, is
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: that I don't know.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: What are we talking?
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm just saying, like, whatever it is. I mean,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: we are at the point now where it is something
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: that it should be taken to the voters of this
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: country to make sure that we never elect these people
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: or Donald Trump again, is what I'm saying. Now we
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: have to find out, in all of that planning, was
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: there also explicit planning about a violent insurrection, about people
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: coming into the Capitol, causing violence, all the things that
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: we saw actually happen on January 6th? On that, we
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: don't know yet, but that's part of what the investigation
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: should uncover. I saw a lot of people saying, oh,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: all these members of Congress should be expelled. Like, yeah,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: of course they should. But it takes two thirds majorities
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: to expel members of Congress. So that's never going to happen.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: The one thing I'm a little worried about is everyone
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: getting all Mueller investigation here. Like, let's not set the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: standards of success for this investigation at like expelling every
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Republican we don't like for come from Congress because it's
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: not going to happen.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I think success looks like.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: Transparency and understanding and hopefully an associated political impact.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Yes. That's a lot to ask for these days.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: I do think, look, if you could prove that someone said, hey,
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: if someone texted, like, let's go fuck up the Capitol
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: and break in and maybe hurt some people or steal
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: those election certificates.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. That's a crime.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: And if a member of Congress was involved with that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and has proven to be involved in that, then right.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It's even fucking worse.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: And I would say, like, we don't we haven't seen
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: that evidence yet. It, it's not as far fetched as
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: you want it to be. I mean, there was that, uh, um,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: those protesters that were allowed to enter a state house
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: and they found the footage that showed a fucking member
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: of the assembly or the state Senate opening the door
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: and letting them in. So Oregon, Oregon, or yeah, Oregon, Washington.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I think it was Oregon, but the, um, and we
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: do know that like there has been rumors and sort
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: of questions about the coordination with, from people like Gosar,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: from people like Bobber, from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: With some of the insurrectionists, and we haven't gotten to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: the bottom of it yet, and we don't know the
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: answer yet.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: You guys want to know the Bannon response to all this?
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Not really.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: I do.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, sure, yeah. So Bannon is going like full on.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Special correspondent. Special Bannon correspondent, Tommy Vitor.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Full on wild conspiracy.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: So on the show yesterday or today or whenever it was,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: he had a guy on from an outlet called Revolver
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: News on his podcast. And this guy wrote an article
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: that's so insanely long that I actually read it, but
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: I will just briefly summarize it for you.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: But the gist.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: Is that they have these videos of this one guy
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: going up to people and being like, hey, let's go,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: let's get into the Capitol, let's break in. And what
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: they are suggesting is that this guy was actually one
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: of several FBI informants.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: And that this was a government job. They called it
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: a failed intelligence operation. And one of the guests on
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Bannon's show even suggested the FBI planted the pipe bomb.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: So I know this is crazy, but Bannon's like, this
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: is what he's spinning. And he told all his listeners
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: to say, You need to push this story to everyone
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: you know. You need to share it on social media,
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: go to their website, blah, blah, blah. So like this
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: is what's coming on Tucker, like this was an FBI
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: setup of Trump.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: There's also another thing to separate, which is the planning
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and what happened before the insurrection and then what happened
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: during the insurrection. And here's something that we know for sure.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Is that while it was happening, while there was a
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: violent insurrection at the Capitol, while people were breaking and
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: trying to find members of Congress to cause them harm,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump saw it unfold and was like, fuck yeah.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: He loved it. And again, he didn't do anything to
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: stop it. Mark Meadows didn't do anything to stop it.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: The White House staff didn't do anything to stop it.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: But like.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Republican members of Congress, some of them now they pretend
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that didn't happen, but they were pleading with Donald Trump
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: like Kevin McCarthy to stop it from happening. And they
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: didn't stop it from happening. So like whatever, again, whatever
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the planning was beforehand during the insurrection, the president did
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: not try to stop it.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: And it is, he loved it. His only problem with
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: it to this day is that it didn't work, which
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: tells me for Donald Trump, the right amount of insurrection
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: is either none or a fucking ton more. I do.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I will think about the martinis because you're right. Once
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: you get to three martinis, it's not enough.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: How many do you want? Like six?
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Well, once you get to three, you might as well
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: have six. Yeah, exactly.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: You're going to feel bad either way.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Now you're getting it.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I'm getting it.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Once you hit your late thirties, you sniff a martini.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Well, you should have started. As soon as you hit
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: the martini, that for me, I was like, oh yeah, now.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: We're talking about drinks. Can somebody please, by the way,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: source this to me? Because I'm really afraid it's going
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: to turn out that it's like actually was Albert Einstein
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: from Brainy Quote who said two martinis is too many.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Before we leave this topic, I think, Tommy, you wanted
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you had something fun for us.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Well, you again, the listeners will be the judge of that.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: So one interesting one important source for the recent details
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: about the Trump coup attempt is Bob Woodward's most recent book.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: And that got me thinking about how every Bob Woodward
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: book has three core elements. One, juicy insider details. Two,
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: a sort of an omniscient voice that makes it impossible
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: to verify said details. Three, a histrionic title.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: You bet.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: The most recent of which was Peril.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Did he also do Fury or was that Michael Wolff?
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: According to my extensive research of Bob Woodward's Wikipedia page summary,
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: not the full thing, He has written 21 books on U.S.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Politics or current events. Holy shit. So today.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I can't even get through 21 tweets.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you guys to play a little game.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: I'm going with all the president's melodrama. Sure.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: All the president's verbs.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: One of those.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. Tell us the game first.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, cool.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you three book titles. Two are
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: real Woodward books. One is not. Okay.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Are you ready?
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. Love it.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: I saw Google.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. I was looking. I wasn't Googling. I
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: didn't know what the quiz was going to be. I
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: saw his screen. He started Googling. I was looking up
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: the name. Is this a fucking quiz show? I was
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: looking up the name. Is this his quiz show? I
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: was looking up the name because you're antagonizing a Jewish contestant.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: I was looking up the name of his Belushi book
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: because a lot of people view the Belushi book as
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: an example of him kind of having these sort of
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: like unverifiable narratives. Anyway, go on.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Two true, one false. Is that what it is?
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Two true, one false. I'll give you a pass for that.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Here we go.
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: Ready?
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Shadow. Maestro. Undaunted.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Undaunted. Oh, Maestro is definitely real. I don't know if it's...
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I think Shadow's fake.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Undaunted is the title of a memoir by John Brennan.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: That's what I knew that. That's why I knew that.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: The War Within.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: The Choice. In Trump Time.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: In Trump Time?
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: I know that... I think that's the fake one. The
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: War Within.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: The Choice. In Trump Time.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I've never heard In Trump Time.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: In Trump Time?
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that can't be right.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: It's not even grammatical.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: In Trump time, A Journal of America's Plague Fear is
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: a book by Peter Navarro.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Ready?
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. Bush at War. That's real.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Worthy Fights.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Not sure.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: The Secret Man.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Ooh.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Worthy Fights sounds not... I don't think that's a good
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: enough title. He's good at titles. He's a marketing man
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: first and foremost, that Bob Woodward.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: What was the last two?
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Bush at War.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: That's real. Worthy Fights. The Secret Man.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I think Worthy Fights is fake.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go with.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Worthy Fights, too.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: Worthy Fights by Leon Panetta, a memoir of leadership and
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: war and peace.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Generic for our man, Bob. The Brethren.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Known and Unknown.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: The Final Days.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, those are good. Oh, man.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: They all sound like, those are all good. They sound like.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Known and Unknown is his book about the Rumsfeld years.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: And I think that, I know the last one was
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: the Woodward, so I think it's the first one.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: So, which one do you think is it?
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Brethren.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll do that too. You think Brethren is fake?
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, same, same, same.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Sorry, the Brethren is his book about the Supreme Court.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: Known and unknown is Donald Rumsfeld's memoir.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's his own memoir.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Last one.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Fear, duty, rage.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: Duty. Duty.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Duty's fake.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Duty, Memoirs of a Secretary of War by Bob Gates.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: You see what I did here? I did.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I made the case.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Other people in the blob.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: As I was doing the game, I was.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Going to mock Woodward's title, and then I realized all
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: political book titles are kind of douchey.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: So here we are. That was great.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: That was fun.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Now stay tuned for an interview on Forward.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: With Andrew Yang. When we come back.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Perfect. All right. He is a former Democratic candidate for
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: president and mayor of New York. He just announced he
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: is leaving the Democratic Party to form a new third
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: party called the Forward Party. Andrew Yang, thanks for being here. John,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: thanks for having me.
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: I think the last time I saw you, there was
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: an in-person podcast in Boston, Mass.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, on stage.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: That was great. And you had a great conversation with
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Tommy during the primaries as well. So I want you
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: to know that over the past few days, I have
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: consumed an enormous amount of Yang content. The book, the interviews,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: the podcasts. And I went in extremely skeptical. And I
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: came out extremely skeptical. But I was really reminded of
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: why I like you so much, which is I think
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: you talk about issues like a human being. You make
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: hard problems accessible to people and you help people think
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: about broader solutions to structural problems in interesting ways. And two,
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: I think you have a natural optimism and curiosity and
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: joy in how you campaigned that was really exciting to
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, especially people that weren't paying attention
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: to politics before.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: That is what.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Excites me about you as a figure. You talk about
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: watching the insurrection unfold with horror. You say democracy is
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: hanging by a thread across the country right now. Trump
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: is leading an effort to put in place people and
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: rules to try to overturn the next election. At the
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: same time, studies show that Democrats and independents get their
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: news from a wide variety of sources, some liberal, some mainstream,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: while Republicans have become concentrated in this bubble around Fox
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: News and some of its satellites. I view this as
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: an existential crisis. How does the forward party help stem
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: the impact of this authoritarian drift specifically in the Republican Party?
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: Well, thank you for digging into Yang content. Part of
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: me is like, I feel bad for you. So first,
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: let me say that I share people's concern about what
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: is coming. I saw, for example, the recent Bill Maher
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: video saying, look, we should take the demise of democracy
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: in 24 is a real possibility. I think that is
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: where we are, truly. And the question in my mind is,
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: what do we do about it? And the answer that
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: I've been suggesting to people is before our eyes in
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: the great state of Alaska, where if you look at
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: the Republican senators who voted to impeach Donald Trump, there
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: aren't many of them, but there was only one who
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: was also up for reelection in 2022. Now, it turns
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: out if you're a Republican senator and you decide to
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: go against Trump, you're like, oh, maybe voters will forget
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: about it over the next several years. But that's not
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: the case for Senator Murkowski. She's up for reelection essentially immediately.
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: And the reason why she voted to impeach Trump, I'm sure,
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: was because she thought it was the right thing to do.
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: But I'm going to suggest it was also largely because
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: Alaska has changed its process as of just last year,
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: where instead of going through– partisan primary where she'd answer
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: to only the 10 to 20% most extreme Republican voters
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: in Alaska, it goes straight to the general public. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: so she can go to 50.1% of the voters and say, look,
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: I did what I thought was right. I'm an independent voice.
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: I represented you for years to the best of my ability.
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: And now she has a fighting chance. So if you're
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: concerned about the potential disintegration of our democracy, which I
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: believe we should be, I'm going to suggest that if
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: you had a critical mass of, let's call them moderate
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: Republican senators who were able to vote on principle and
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: what they all thought was the right thing as opposed
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: to what their party is dictating, then that could be
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: the difference. And so that's what we should be racing
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: to accomplish as quickly as possible. We should be trying
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: to liberate, let's call it six or eight or 10
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: senators to have freedom to vote on principle like Senator
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: Murkowski does by virtue of the process change they just
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: implemented in Alaska.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: You talk a lot about ranked choice voting. I think
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: that's great. You talk about open primaries. I'm a little
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: bit more skeptical about the value of open primaries, in
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: part because there are some form of open primaries right
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: now in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Rhode Island, West Virginia, Alabama, Michigan, Montana, Vermont, Arkansas, Minnesota,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: North Dakota, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Missouri, Texas.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: You also have top two primaries in Washington and California.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of states have gone for open primaries, but
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: it turns out that some of these underlying structural and
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: cultural issues around polarization are not solved by open primaries.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: There's something deeper going on. And when you talk about
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: making these kinds of changes, I'm all for them. But
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: I worry it's a little bit like walking through a
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: house that's on fire and saying, here's where we should
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: have had smoke detectors. Here's where we needed a better egress.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Here's where these stairs should have had better lighting. That's great.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: But we're in an emergency right now. And what I
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: see is a authoritarian Republican Party on the rise. and
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: a democratic party that needs to be infused, not just
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: with the current bevy of partisans, of septuagenarian senators, but
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: the new and engaged young people that you can help
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: bring into that movement right now to save this country
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: so that we have the opportunity to put in place
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: some of these changes.
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: Well, I wish, too, that we were talking about making
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: these reforms before the House was on fire. But one
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: of the dynamics that you just pointed out, which I
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: also completely agree with, is that polarization is as high
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: as it's ever been and it's rising, in large part
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: because different Americans are getting their information from very different places,
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: and in large part because of the collapse of institutional
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: trust in certain communities. And I talk about this in
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: the book, which you clearly have read through, but the
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: trust and relationship in media varies widely between parties, where
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: 69% of Democrats trust the media, only 15% of Republicans do.
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: So the question is, how do you try to break
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: up this polarization, us versus them dynamic in as fast
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: a time period as you can? And if you're concerned
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: about the rise of authoritarianism, because let's say one major
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: party has succumbed to bad leadership, one of the things
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: you should be trying to do is make the system
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: more multipolar as quickly as possible so that there are
• 50:31
  Speaker 6: actually more institutional safeguards in place. Because those safeguards don't
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: exist anymore. as much in a two-party system. It's one
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: reason why, for example, John Adams and our founding fathers
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: would see our two-party system as uniquely fragile and vulnerable.
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: So again, I wish I was running around trying to
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: help immunize a system that didn't have a disease that
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: was this advanced. But I'm going to suggest that this
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: is still the best approach in conjunction with with what
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: you're describing. Like if someone says, look, Andrew, Team Dem,
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: let's go defeat Republicans. I say, have at it. Let's
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: do it.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's do it is different than have
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: at it.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: Or have at it.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Let's do it or have at it.
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: Well, now as an independent, it's a bit more have
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: at it than let's do it. That's the problem though.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: That's the problem.
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: But I'm going to be endorsing candidates who are going
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: to be running as Democrats, as Republicans, as independents. And
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: I believe that the hinge group that our entire Democratic
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: project rests on is independents and moderate Republicans. And the
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: problem right now is that a lot of this group
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: is subject to the leadership of the party, which is
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: likely to be Donald Trump. So what you have to
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: do is try and create a dynamic where that group
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: of people that's embodied by figures like Senator Lisa Murkowski
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: have a fighting chance to be free of political incentives
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: that are making it so that they cannot actually vote
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: independently on principles.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Well, one way to make them be free of those
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: incentives is by shifting the incentives by showing them that
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: there's less value in the politics of Donald Trump. And
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: the way you do that is by defeating Donald Trump's
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: movements at the ballot box. I don't care what kind
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: of changes you make. If being endorsed by Donald Trump
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: is how you win primaries and win elections, it doesn't
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: matter what you do. It doesn't matter how many ballot
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: measures you put out there. It doesn't matter how many
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: open primaries you have. I mean, I come back to
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: this problem, which is I am all for these long-term solutions.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: I'm all for doing them as quickly as humanly possible.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: But I don't think any of that will matter if
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: in the next two years we have a Republican Congress
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: and a potentially Donald Trump as a candidate who works
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: with that Republican Congress to overturn the election. We will
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: never have ranked choice voting. They're installing people in Michigan
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: that don't believe that Democratic votes should really count at
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: the end of the day. I mean, how do we...
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: If you want to achieve some of these solutions... You
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: should be getting behind Democrats to defeat as many Republicans
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: as possible. And inside of the Democratic tent, becoming a
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: leader who helps make these solutions part of the Democratic agenda.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Because by the way, people like Elizabeth Warren, a bunch
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: of different Democrats, they're all for ranked choice voting. I'm
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: for ranked choice voting. Ranked choice voting, you just lost
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: a primary with ranked choice voting. And I'm still a fan. Yeah.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: And still a fan. And still a fan.
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: Well, again, I wanted to focus on Alaska because it's
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: a red state. And let's say that Andrew Yang, Democrat,
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: showed up in Alaska and was like, hey, like, you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: let's change the process. We all know that would be
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: a nonstarter. But the people of Alaska independently adopted both
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: open primaries and ranked choice voting in an environment that
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: will make all of the difference. So if you are
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: able to do the same thing in, let's call it Utah. Missouri,
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: like different places that would actually, again, unlock this critical
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: mass of legislators, that could be the project. And if
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: you try and undertake that project from a partisan stance
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: from day one, it never gets off the ground. I mean,
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: if you look at what we have to do right now,
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: the action has to be in red states as much
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: as any place else, particularly in a polarized environment like
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: the one we're in.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: You know, like if you if you just chalk up
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: to the fact that, look, at this point, you know,
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: there's the blue camp, there's the red camp. The tension
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: is just going to go up and up and up. Like,
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: how can we actually change that dynamic? And you cannot
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: change that dynamic if you're just running around, in my opinion,
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: to blue states and making a case for reforms in
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: those environments. You have to take the reforms to red
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: states and purple states. And you're much more likely to
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: be able to actually accomplish that if you don't seem
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: like you're an appendage to one party or another.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: So that's actually something you also talk about. You talk
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: about what happens when people would find out you were
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: running as a Democrat and that people kind of shut down.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: That, you know, you talk basically, you know, people are
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: interested in your ideas, but they've been kind of they've
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: whether it's through talk radio because they're truck drivers and
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: they've been listening to talk radio all day or they've
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: been listening to Fox News or Facebook. When they hear
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: somebody's a Democrat, they're just not interested anymore. And yet
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: over the last couple of years, we've seen Medicaid expansion
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: pass in Idaho and And Utah, we've seen minimum wage
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: increases passing in red states. We've seen weed legalization. Florida
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: voted 60 to 40 in a year where they rejected
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: two Democratic statewide candidates. They voted by 60-40 to re-enfranchise
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: people who had been convicted of crimes. How do you
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: think about the delta between progressive policies, and I think
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of policies you would support, and progressive candidates?
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: This is the point, and I'm so glad that you're
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: hitting it. So all politics at this point is tribal.
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: And if you go to a Republican conservative truck driver
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: or diner employee in a part of the country and
• 55:43
  Speaker 6: you just say, hey, what do you think about drug prices?
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: Too high?
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: They'd be like, oh, heck yes.
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: Like, hey, do you want to make these changes and
• 55:48
  Speaker 6: make sure that drug companies can't be raking the American
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: people of the coals?
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: They say, heck yes.
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: Then if you say, hey, how do you feel about
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: socialized medicine? They'll say, heck no. It's just because they're
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: coded for certain things. And so if you present the
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: same proposal around, let's say, weed legalization or whatever it
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: happens to be, it turns out that a majority of
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: Americans are for it. A majority of Americans are for
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: trying to address the ravages of climate change. The problem
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: right now is that we're being presented those things in
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: these coded terms along tribalized lines. The correlation between my
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: policy desires and my political self-identification is only 0.25. If
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: you present the same policy.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: In neutral language.
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: in a new way, you have a much better chance
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: of having someone not shut down because there's a name like,
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: you know, a letter next to your name where they're
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: like coded to say, oh, like, you know, I don't
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: trust you. You look down on me, whatever the phenomenon is.
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: So that's the distinction we have to draw as quickly
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: as possible is to try and get to goals. and
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: reduce the tribal lines that right now are false. Because
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: it turns out that the majority of us agree on
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: most things if you sit down with them individually. And
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: that's one of the great learnings I took away. The
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: problem now is that you have two tribes. And so
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: if you say, hey, I'm a member of this tribe,
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: you're going to shut down that conversation for, let's call it,
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: you know, 40, 45% of the country.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: But this is why I'm frustrated with you. Okay. You're
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: the guy to help break that down. But instead of... So...
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I hope to be the guy to break that down.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Let's say, let's hope there's a Fox News. It is
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: inuring tens of millions of people to policies they would
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: otherwise like. There is a democratic bubble that is far
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: more porous that involves CNN and the New York Times
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: and ABC and NBC and Pod Save America and Rachel Maddow.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: But there are these millions of people that right now
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: are getting their news sources that tells them the democratic
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: brand is toxic. And you saw that as a real problem.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: And instead of saying, I want to figure out how
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: to bring my people that are less engaged into this
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: tent and how to change this Democratic tent, I'm going
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: to take my bongo home. I got to start a
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: new thing.
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: What I'm going to do is I'm going to go
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: to Americans where they are watching Fox News. and say, hey,
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: here are some ideas. And now you're not going to
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: be immediately defensive and negative about them because I am
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: no longer the enemy, essentially. And that's the way we
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: can open it up. That's the way also we can
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: send a message to people that it isn't just a win-lose,
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: zero-sum dynamic, us versus them. And that if you actually
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: try and get someone to examine the substance of an idea,
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: let's call it universal basic income, then you can open
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: them up to it. But it's much more achievable if
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: you're not trying to play again, this like blue team,
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: red team dynamic in the same way.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: But, you know, you keep coming back to this tribal
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: blue team, red team, but I think you also recognize,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: because I think you're, you know, you've seen the numbers
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: and I think you're intellectually honest about this. You recognize
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: that these teams are not equally divided or equally tribal.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: There is far more intellectual curiosity and honesty in the
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: kind of structures of the Democratic Party. It's far more
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: fact based. It is far more ecumenical in the way
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: it gets its information than this cordoned off 40 of
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: the country inside of the Republican bubble, right?
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: Oh, I'm not someone, and this is something that I
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: feel bad about. I'm not someone who sees the issues
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: as symmetrical.
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: Let's put it that way. They're very asymmetrical issues.
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: And when I talk about the vulnerability of one party's
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: succumbing to authoritarianism and then there being no safeguards, you know,
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: I'm clearly referring to one side. So I see these
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: issues as not being equivalent 100%.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: So one question that came up a lot when I
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: asked people what to ask you was, Andrew Yang is
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: a math guy. Doesn't he know the math of electoral
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: systems versus parliamentary systems? Doesn't he understand the math that
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: you can't, that you need to make changes to make
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: a third party possible and that until you make those changes,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: a third party is is ultimately just going to take
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: away votes from one of the two parties that will
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: win in some kind of a first-past-the-post system. What's your
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: reaction to that?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: I say that what we need to do is first
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 6: shift to a process that will allow different points of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 6: view to emerge. Right now, 62% of Americans do want
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: there to be some more dynamism in our process. If
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: you look at any other industry, it continues to evolve
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: and advance, but our politics does not. So If there's
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: someone listening to this who's concerned about the spoiler effect,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: let's adopt ranked choice voting as quickly and broadly as
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: we can. It would allow people to actually vote their preferences.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: It would enable, in many cases, more consensus building, coalition
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: building candidates who I'm going to suggest are more likely
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: to be women candidates who right now, in my view,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 6: get short shrift in the current plurality voting system. So
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 6: if you're concerned about this dynamic, let's change it. Why
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: are we insisting on an archaic process that is distorting
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 6: our results? If the Republican Party had ranked choice voting
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: in 2016, Trump probably does not win.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Why not be an advocate for ranked choice voting as
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: a leader of the Democratic Party? You were until two
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: weeks ago a leader of the Democratic Party.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 6: Because if I'm an advocate for ranked choice voting as
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 6: a leader of the Democratic Party, then there's 40 to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 6: 50 percent of the country that will just say, oh,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 6: ranked choice voting is a Democratic thing and it's a dud. Again,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: we have to get this done in red states to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: have any meaningful effect. In Alaska, I'm heartened to say,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: you know, it was homegrown. If you actually look at
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: the support for some of these reforms... It's actually quite
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: high among Republicans because Republicans have a general anti-institutionalist bent.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: So if you say, look, stick it to the man, like,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: you know, have rank choice voting and open primary so
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: that different parties can emerge like, yeah. And I want
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: to be the champion of that. I think that this
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: is one of the antidotes to a dynamic that otherwise
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: threatens to destroy us. Like I take the threat as
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: seriously as anybody else. I just think that there is
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: another approach that we can undertake simultaneously that will give
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: us a better chance at avoiding utter disaster in the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: next several years.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: And so as like a, you talk, talk a little
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: bit about what makes it a party versus just kind
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: of a political organization, because my understanding based on what
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: you've said about this is at first, certainly you're going
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: to be just endorsing Democrats and Republicans. It's almost like
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: a kind of, um, You know, like when like, you know,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: the League of Conservation Voters endorses somebody like are you
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: going to for the most part at first, you're going
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: to be getting behind Democrats and Republicans. Yes.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 6: And again, I do want to stress that people are
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: listening to this. I'm assuming you're a Democrat, that a
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 6: lot of the action has to be trying to get
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 6: reasonable Republicans and independents elected. And so if Andrew Yang
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: and the forward party can help make that happen, that
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: could be the difference, which, by the way, you could
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: not do as a Democrat, because if you're a Democrat
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: and you endorse a Republican candidate, then they just run
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: the other direction. But if you're the forward party and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: people see you as an independent actor and there are
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: some Republicans that want to work with us, then that
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: could be the difference. I can't wait to get into
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: some of these red states and activate voters for candidates
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: that will help preserve democracy. But we're going to be
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: endorsing Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. We're talking to multiple candidates.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: I'm really excited about some of the candidates that we're
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: going to get behind. I do want to emphasize, too,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: that the Forward Party is an inclusive, popular movement where
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: you can be a registered Democrat and be for these reforms.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 6: You can be a registered Republican and be for these reforms.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: I'm getting incoming support from people of every political background,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 6: which makes me feel like we're doing the right thing
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: and we're on the right track.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Look, I am glad you're out there advocating for these changes.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: What I, my worry, my concern, and by the way,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: like I, I, I knew going into this that I
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: was going to sound like basically like Nancy Pelosi's like
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: chief defender. Like I am sitting here as a defender
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: of the democratic party now because I give a fuck
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: about the democratic party. I want to make sure we
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: have the opportunity to make some real positive changes for
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: people and stave off authoritarianism in the next couple of years.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: And my worry is the second that what you're doing
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: right now goes from an effort to make some changes
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: that are really positive for our democracy to the potential
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: of hurting our ability to make sure Democrats keep the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: House and the Senate and win the presidency in 2024.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: I share the same concerns. I'm going to do everything
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: I can to be productive. And that there are people,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: you know, it's like I get it. People have been
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: burnt in various ways. I'm focused on what we can
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: do in different environments to move things in a better direction.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: And one thing I do want to suggest to folks, too,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 6: and this is part of what I'm about, 75 million
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 6: Americans voted for Donald Trump. Are there people among that
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 6: 75 million who hold very, very terrible, objectionable, racist beliefs?
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 6: Is that true of 75 million Americans? I do not
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 6: believe it is. I have family members who voted for Trump.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 6: There are a lot of people that are just responding
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: to the– tribal values-based appeal, you know, that's like just
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 6: pulling out certain notes and strings. So what we have
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: to do is try and give some of those 75
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 6: million people like a place to channel their energies differently.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: There are a lot of Americans who are really pissed
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 6: off and upset about how things are going, including on
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: the left, I know. Yeah. And so you look up
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: and like the anger is getting expressed in this very
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: dark zero-sum way because of the current dynamic. Like we
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 6: have to try and give people some of the 75
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 6: million like a place to go. And it's not going
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: to be Team D. You know what I mean? You know,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: it's like that's... Well, that's not true, right?
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: There are people who switched from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, right?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they voted.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: And I don't want to oversimplify that and say that
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: that does not happen. But the zero-sum game, we can
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: all sense that the polarization is getting worse, not better.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 6: And all of our incentives are driving us in that direction,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: you know, from the political incentives to the media incentives to,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: of course, the social media incentives. I mean, like, you know,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 6: the more up in arms you are, you know, the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 6: more power it generates.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: So you wrote the book in 2020. When I was
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: reading the list of the kind of pillars of maybe
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: you should run through them. Can you run through a
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: little bit the list of the kind of pillars of
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: the forward party, the policy pillars you outline in the book? No, sure.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 6: So the first is open primaries and ranked votes voting,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: which I see as the structural reform that can help
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: both break us free of this polarization, but also get
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: real goals across the finish line. And there was a
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: Republican senator who said to me the other day, something
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: that we really should take very, very seriously. She said,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 6: we get rewarded more for keeping an issue around than
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: resolving it, which is like if we reach across the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: aisle and compromise, we're probably going to get a beating
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: and some of us are going to lose our jobs. Um,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: whereas if we just keep the issue around, then we
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: can raise money around it. We can get votes around it. Uh,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: and so our political incentives are just to not do it.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: And the thing I thought of when she said this
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 6: to me was Marco Rubio and immigration reform, uh, a
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 6: few years ago where he's like, let's do this bipartisan thing.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: And then he got shouted down and then all of
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: a sudden it's like.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Let's not do that.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: I was just kidding.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 6: So, uh, so that, that's something that we need to
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 6: try and change. And I think open primaries and ranked
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: choice voting is the way, because again, right now, 83%
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 6: of our legislator is answer to the 10 to 20%
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: most extreme voters in their district and not the general public.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 6: And if you change that, that could be the game changer.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: And on reforming democracy, I mean, right now there's this
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Manchin-Klobuchar bill that was about, you know, stopping, you know,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: certain aspects of the way in which Trump is trying
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: to overturn the election, expanding voting, getting rid of partisan gerrymandering,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: something actually would do a lot about this polarization, right?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: Because gerrymandering leads to these kind of more extreme districts.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: and even included voter ID, which is a compromise to
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: kind of get Republicans on board, and they couldn't. Right now,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: the coalition in the Congress in favor of voting rights
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: and democracy reform runs from Joe Manchin to AOC, but
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: includes zero Republicans.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 6: I do believe that at least some of the Republican
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: senators would have an interest in it. But you're not
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: surprised to know that I'm very much for those reforms
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: and those protections and they could be the difference. And
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: I am also for getting rid of the filibuster, which,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 6: you know, is something they made.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Up a number of years ago.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 6: Honestly, like I was around a senator who was talking
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 6: about the filibuster and And I just had this sinking feeling.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: I was like, you know, where she was making the
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: case that, you know, it's an important part of institutional integrity.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, no.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: That was cinema, right? That was cinema. Because you've talked
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: about this. You've talked about this. She was sort of
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: defending it in private near you, right?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: Yes. Cool.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Very cool.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: And it gave me that sinking feeling it did.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: So, you know.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Did you scream or anything? I would have been unable
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: to contain myself. If I'm in a private room with
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Kirsten Sinema and she's defending the filibuster, I will just go, no.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: I will share with you that someone else had a
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 6: reaction such that I did not need to. So it
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: was expressed.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: It was voiced.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: And then so the next pillar, right, is human-centered capitalism.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Yes. We have the wrong measurements.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 6: We're 28th in the world in terms of infant mortality,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: access to clean drinking water, life expectancy, the basics, really.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 6: And the fact that we're disintegrating on that level, I think,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: is driving a lot of the frustration. Our leaders aren't
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: really held accountable for our way of life. They're being
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: held accountable by scoring political points and you know, getting
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 6: on cable news and having a good hit. I mean,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 6: this stuff's a disaster. Like, the only thing that should
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 6: matter is just how we and our families are doing.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, on human-centered capitalism and UBI, which we
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: already discussed, like, right now, there is this effort to do,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: expand healthcare, make sure Medicare covers things like dentistry, family
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: and medical leave. I think that's a big part of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: human-centered capitalism, letting people take time off. Like, you're describing
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: the democratic agenda to a large extent. Again, I'm sitting
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: here like I'm a like Chuck Schumer, but I want
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: to push you on this. I want to push you
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: on this because I think sometimes it's, it's fun to say,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: you know, we don't need the duopoly is the problem.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: But then when you outline some of these, these ideas,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: I think, well, they fit very well within the democratic
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: mainstream right now.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: I am a fan of just about everything I've seen
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 6: in the reconciliation package. And I want very, very big
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: changes to be possible in the United States of America.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 6: And I believe that this is a path to help
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: get us there. But you've read my book, so you
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: know I'm for universal health care, universal basic income, improving
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 6: these measurements that we're talking about right now. The vision
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: and goals are the same. I have a different sense
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 6: of how to get there. And part of the insight
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 6: I gained really is that, again, we're not really having
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 6: policy disagreements, it turns out. We're just being tribalized and
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: having these these contests, you know, and these are contests
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: that eventually are going to lead us nowhere, lead us
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: to very nasty direction.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but we are having a policy debate. It just
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: happens to have to take place inside the Republican Party,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: because right now we have one fact-based governing institution, which
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: is very flawed and run by a bunch of octogenarians
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: who do not know how the internet works. And we
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: have a political party, a Republican party, a campaigning institution
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: that has no interest in governing once it runs. But
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: we do have, we're in the middle of a ferocious
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: policy debate. Joe Manchin is trying to strip out climate
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: change protections.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: Democrat.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: Democrat, absolutely. Kyrsten Sinema doesn't want to cut taxes for corporations.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: This is the problem in many ways. So you have
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party that's very, very big tent because it's necessity.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: But part of this is that you have zero.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 6: Republican senators willing to play ball on any of these things.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 6: And one approach to be like, hey, that party, terrible,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: no interest in governing. And I understand those criticisms because
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 6: they literally didn't even have a platform during their last convention.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's kind of bizarre. So the question is,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 6: which of these problems do you want to try and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: solve for? And if you were to have, let's say,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 6: just like a few Republican senators who are willing to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: play ball on certain issues, then Maybe Joe Manchin and
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 6: Kyrsten Sinema's point of view isn't quite as elevated.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: Completely agree.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 6: And so you can look at that and say, like,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 6: what approach are we going to take? And my my
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 6: approach is going to be, look, the Republican Party should
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: not be this monolith the way it is like we
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: need to try and. make it so that there are
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: some subset of reasonable people, and people listening to this
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: could think that subset's very, very low, and I get it.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 6: But if you have even that very, very low subset
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: stand up and say, you know what? I'm on board
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: with some democracy protections and reform. I'm on board with
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: this or that. That's actually, in many ways, the key variable,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: the missing piece right now.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: I think that's totally right. And you talked about the filibuster.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: One thing that's very frustrating is if Sinema and Manchin
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: just said, we're open to get rid of the filibuster,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: suddenly a bunch of Republicans might play ball because something
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: would pass anyway. And so might as well try to
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: make it better. You know, you quote Arboea's recline extensively
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: in the book to the point where I hope you
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: maybe like sent him something. I sent him a thank you.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: I sent him like, you know, the manuscript. But one
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: of the takeaways from that book is actually sometimes bipartisanship
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: has been at its best in this country's history when
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: there was actually one majority party Because.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 5: They knew something was going to pass.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: Because they knew something was going to go pass, which
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: brings me back to thinking, wow, if you really want
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: to see some bipartisanship, either get rid of the filibuster
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: so they know we can pass things with 50 votes
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: or help build this Democratic majority. What I come down
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: to at the end of this when I read this
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: list of pillars is, my God, I think Joe Biden
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: is the perfect candidate for the forward party. I mean,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: this is a guy whose whole entire life is built
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: around grace. He almost lost the primary because he was
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: being too nice about Republicans. All he does is talk
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: about how they're friends. He wished they would have an epiphany.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: His career is built on loss and trying to overcome
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: that by reaching out to people. I mean, don't, I
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: guess what I come down to over and over again
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: is polarization is more fun to talk about than, you know,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: saying that, that being on the outside saying, uh, we
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: need to take on these two parties and leading a movement.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: That's more fun than the kind of the work of
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: being inside of a movement. And I think, and I'm
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: getting to the, but this is the big, but someone
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: who runs for, and I, and I'm going to ask
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: this cause I'm going to, I'm being honest. This is
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: seriously my, my concern here.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: Someone who runs for president as a long shot, then
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: turns around and runs for mayor of New York, then
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: drops out of the Democratic Party to start a political party.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: What I worry about is that as someone that is
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: more interested in leading a failed movement than being a
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: mere participant in a successful movement. What is your reaction
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: to that?
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 6: When I was running for president, one of the most
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: popular questions I would get from journalists was, are you serious?
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: And I was a very marginal candidate when I was
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: getting this question. So if you say, uh, no, then
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 6: clearly you're ridiculous. And you know, like that's bad. Um,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 6: if you say yes, then you seem like you're not
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: lucid and that's not good. Um, so, uh, so I
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 6: would say things like there are multiple versions of victory, uh,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 6: which was accurate in my mind. If you say like, Hey,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 6: how did Andrew Yang's presidential campaign go? Uh, trust me
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 6: when I say that I was not sitting at home
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: brokenhearted that I was not president of the United States.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: You know, that, that wasn't like, like, like I felt, well,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: you were up late writing.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: I felt I was up late writing.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 6: But I, I felt very, cause I was trying to
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: unpack what had just happened to me because I had
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: done zero reflection on the trail, uh, because I was
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 6: too busy trying to, you know, like stay alive. Um,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 6: And so my goal was to try and advance our
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: understanding of what was happening to us economically, advance universal
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 6: basic income, which now two-thirds of Americans are for in
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: some version. And I found that to be very, very successful.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: I ran for mayor of New York City simply because
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 6: I wanted to help. And you understand the chronology is
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 6: that I wrote this book in 2020 prior.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: To deciding to run. I probably would have done some
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 5: things differently if I knew I was going to run.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: And now my goal is to try and strengthen and
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 6: modernize and upgrade the mechanics of our democracy as quickly
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: as possible in a way that will create better incentives
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 6: for a critical mass of legislators to represent the public
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: interest and not the partisan interest. Now, when you say
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 6: that it's more fun, I mean, trust me when I
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: say that I'm not sure that doing something uh, in
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 6: this direction is what someone would consider, you know, like the,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 6: the most, uh, carefree, like, you know, like think that
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 6: what could do with what's time. I mean, uh, I'm,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 6: I'm driven by a mission to help my country as
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 6: best I can. Um, I understand if some people may
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 6: have concerns about my approach, um, what I'd ask of
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: them is to, uh, extend me a little bit of
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: the benefit of the doubt and maybe some grace and
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 6: tolerance and say, okay, like, listening to Yang, he doesn't
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 6: seem malignant.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: This is a great slogan too.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 5: Not malignant.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 6: I have a point of view that I think is
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: based upon my coming to grips with this tough reality.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 6: When I was researching my book and reading Ezra and
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 6: Lawrence Lessig and uh, Catherine Gale and, and other people.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: And then I was synthesizing and I had to come
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 6: to grips with, do I think this is working? Do
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: I think this is going to work? What would make
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 6: it work? And I felt like I owed myself like
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: an honest answer. And when I was writing this book,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: I had no idea what I was going to find necessarily.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: Like it wasn't like, I didn't go into this book
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 6: thinking like, you know what we're going to need, but
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 6: like after I went through it and I said, wait
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: a minute, we're being set up to turn on each other,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 6: to fail, to, to become more and more angry and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: frustrated and despondent. We're heading towards political violence. Like what's
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 6: a genuine solution or approach that could work? And I
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: believe that shifting to open primaries and ranked choice voting
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 6: in a critical mass of red, purple, and blue states.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: Is a solution.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: And then the question is, okay, how can you advance
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: that in the time we have in states that aren't
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 6: in one camp or another? And the forward party is
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 6: my honest choice. best approach to trying to solve the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 6: problem that we can see is growing more serious by
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 6: the day?
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I will say I genuinely respect the way you
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: approach these problems. I actually support a lot of the
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: goals you have here. And my hope, and I will
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: beseech you, that ultimately you recognize that there is value
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: in being part of the coalition that has the best
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: chance of achieving these things together rather than leading the
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: one that I think is a far longer shot. But
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: I genuinely do appreciate the goals you're trying to achieve.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: I just hope it does not come at the expense
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: of the effort to defeat authoritarianism, to defeat this right-wing
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: movement by electing Democrats across the country. Well, thank you, John.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 6: And I share the goal of making sure our democracy
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 6: stands the test of time. And the goal I have
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 6: is trying to make our system more genuinely resistant to authoritarianism.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: And this didn't come up in our interview. And I
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 6: know some people are going to say like, well, this
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: is too much too soon. But if you look around
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: the world, UK, five political parties, Germany, seven political parties, Sweden,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 6: eight political parties, Netherlands, 18 political parties. And that type
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 6: of system is much more resistant to authoritarianism because if
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 6: you have one party succumb to terrible leadership, then you
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 6: have six other parties, whatever it is.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: It's also a parliamentary system.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: It is a parliamentary system, but we can accomplish some
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: of the same goals just by having open primaries and
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 6: ranked choice voting that, again, just improve the incentives of
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 6: even the same leader. Like right now, our incentives are
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 6: to reward unreasonableness. And then we look up aghast when
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: people are unreasonable. Like if you change the incentives so
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: that it rewards people for trying to do the right
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 6: thing as opposed to punishing them, then more people will
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: do the right thing. And we need people to do
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 6: the right thing from from. Right now I'm going to
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 6: say both camps or both sides, but we need people
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: to do the right thing in part because they don't
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: have this stance where this other side is my mortal
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 6: enemy and I will take even very, very flawed leadership
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 6: as superior to the other guys or gals. That's actually
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 6: a recipe for authoritarianism over time and I would love
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 6: to prevent that.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: Andrew Yang, thanks for being here. The book is Forward.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you. It's good to see you.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: Good to see you too.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Andrew Yang for joining us today. Thanks for
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Tommy for letting us play that game called deep, deep something.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: All the president's melodrama.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: Just, just tweeted us.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: No, or don't.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: John, you're hosting a whole series about getting offline. How's
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: that going?
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: No, that's not Tommy. That's not what the series is about.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: The series is about how to.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: Live online better than we already are, knowing.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: That we all can. But Gia did it by getting offline.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: But then did you hear her? She said she got
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: stuck back on. She's now a Twitter looker.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: She reads 150 books a year.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: She goes online and she sort of looks at the tweets.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: 150 books a year.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: I read her saying that on Twitter once. So many books.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: Is there music? There should be music now.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: There should be music. Fear. Duty.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: Duty. I hope the music is Island Boys.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Are you still laughing at duty?
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: I'm laughing at duty.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: Duty, that's very.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: Bob Woodward.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: Is this funny? Is this something?
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: Is this something?
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Bob.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: TBD, John. It's coming out on Tuesday. That's all I
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: know about this. Bye, guys.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse and
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as videos at youtube.com
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: slash crooked media.