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"Kook-ing With Gas." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, America hits the debt limit and Republicans
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: prepare to take hostages. The best committee assignments go to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the House's biggest MAGA freaks. And they're all ready to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: investigate Joe Biden's garage. Then the Bulwark's Sarah Longwell joins
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to talk about what's on voters' minds. And later, we'll
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: find out if Democrats are coming to take your gas
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: stove in a new segment called I'm About to Mythbust.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Olivia Martinez, our producer, for coming up with
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that title. But first, the Crooked Store episode. has decided
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: at long last to update our Friend of the Pod merch.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: They got that Yes We Dan stuff out of the way.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Now there's more room for updated Friend of the Pod merch.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Not true.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It's on a deep discount right now. I saw it
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: last night.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It's on a deep discount.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: You can get a hoodie for like half price right now.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: That's exciting. I might go order one myself. The new
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and improved pieces include classic t-shirts, crew necks, and hats
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in fresh new colors. There's even some camo so you
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: can blend in with the forest and or your uncles
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: who like hunting. I believe Lovett was wearing a camo
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Friend of the Pod hat just the other day. He
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: looked fantastic. Anyway, it's all available now at crooked.com slash store.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. As of today,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the United States has hit the debt limit, which means
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that the federal government cannot borrow any more money to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: pay the bills we've already racked up until Congress authorizes
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: it to do so. As it's done in the past,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the Treasury Department said it can take, quote, extraordinary measures,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to keep paying our bills until sometime in June when
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the U.S. would be forced to start skipping debt payments,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: precipitating a global economic crisis unlike any we've seen in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: our lifetimes. President Biden and Democrats in Congress would like
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to avoid such a crisis by simply authorizing the Treasury
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to pay our bills, while Republicans refuse to do so
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: unless they get massive spending cuts that would have to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Happy Thursday, Dan.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: They said this day would never come.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So for people who haven't lived through or paid attention
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to one of these debt limit standoffs, can you explain
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: why Congress periodically lights a giant fuse under the economy
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and waits to put it out until the last possible second?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Well, John, it begins.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Just one of many metaphors we're going to use. The
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: great thing about a debt ceiling crisis is there's just
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of metaphors for you to use. There's
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: hostage taking. There's lighting a fuse. There's There's holding a
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: gun to the economy. Just endless metaphors to use. All
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of them very cliche.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: The ceiling itself is a metaphor, if you will.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: It all begins, John, with the founders. Who made a
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: series of ill-informed decisions based on recency bias that were
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: then compounded by 250 years of dysfunction and incompetence from
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Republicans that have brought us to this moment now. Where
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the entire global economy depends on Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: and Lauren Boebert.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: USA. USA.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, how deep do you want to go here?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Should we explain what the debt ceiling is, what it means?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Is that the right way?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go 60-second Vox Explainer route.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I have never done anything in 60 seconds. Short version.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: The United States runs at a deficit. We spend more
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: money than we bring in. That has been true all
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: but four years since 1970. And therefore, in order to
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: pay our bills, we have to borrow money. In the
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: beginning of this country, Congress had to approve every time
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the U.S. Treasury borrowed money to pay its bills. They
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: found that cumbersome because even back then, they didn't like working.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So in World War I, they passed a bill to
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: grant the Treasury Secretary authority to borrow money up until
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: a certain number. When they hit that number, they had
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: to come back for more authorities. And so we have
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: now hit that number. We have borrowed as much money.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: It means that now we cannot borrow any more money
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: without Congress passing a bill. And that has led over
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: the course of time to Congress having to pass the
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: debt limit. They've passed it many, many times in the past.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: They passed it as recently as a year and a
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: half ago. And it is usually a very pro forma
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: thing that happens. But now it has become imbued with
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: all sorts of drama because– our politics are driven by
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: radical NAGA extremists.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And the key thing to remember here, if you remember
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: nothing else, is that Congress has already authorized this spending.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So it is not, by lifting the debt ceiling, you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: are not granting the United States government the authority to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: spend more money because that money has already been spent.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: All you're doing Is saying, okay, the United States can
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: pay the debts it has already incurred, which is why
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is stupid.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, all the money has been spent. Not lifting the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: debt limit will not reduce spending. It will not reduce
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: the deficit. It will not reduce the debt. In fact,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: it will make those things worse, which we can talk
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: about in a minute. It is a completely fake, stupid thing.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: If you want to reduce spending, you negotiate through the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: budget process because Congress passes a budget once in a while.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that authorizes spending. And so if you don't like how
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: much we're spending, that's where you negotiate in the budget
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: process that happens once a year that could possibly lead
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to a government shutdown, which is also stupid. But at
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: least that is the area that you negotiate if you
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: want to reduce spending. The debt limit is just saying, oh,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: there's this artificial thing out there that Congress has put
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in place that if we breach it, could cause economic catastrophe,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and now we're going to use that as leverage to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: get what we want, is what the Republicans are saying.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And why would breaching the debt limit and defaulting on
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: our debts cause economic chaos? Because I don't think it
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: is obvious.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: U.S. bonds, what we sell to finance our debt, is
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: the bedrock of the global financial system. It is seen
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: as the most secure, safest investment that anyone can make.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Countries buy it. Markets buy it. And if one day
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the United States was unable to pay the interest on
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: those bonds, then it would set off a cataclysmic chain
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: reaction across the world. Bond markets would sink. Stock markets
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: would sink. Businesses wouldn't know what to invest in. It
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: would likely cause a global recession, a US recession, cause
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the unemployment rate to go up. And then here at home,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: we don't know If we could pay people their Social
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Security checks, if Medicare could pay health care bills, if
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: veterans would get their benefits checks in the mail, if
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: we would be able to deploy FEMA in the case
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: of a hurricane, anything and everything is on the table.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: It would undo not just the economic growth we've had
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: since the pandemic, but everything since 2008. And honestly, most
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: economists think it would make certainly a 2008 financial crisis
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: look like a blip and would be something akin, if
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: not worse, to what happened in the Great Depression. So bad.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Very bad.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't sound great. Doesn't sound great. And the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: key thing here to understand is that global financial stability
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: depends on faith that the U.S. will pay its bills
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: since we are the global reserve currency and U.S. treasury
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: debt is the safest investment in the world. And when
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that faith is eroded, the whole thing collapses. So, for example,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the last time we went through the most serious time
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in our lifetime that we went through one of these crises,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: debt ceiling crisis. You and I were in the White House,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: this was 2011. And because Congress got very, very close
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to not lifting the debt ceiling in time, didn't breach
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the debt ceiling, but it got really close. The stock
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: market plunged and did not recover for half a year.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Interest rates and mortgage rates rose. Consumer confidence plunged. We
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: lost our credit rating. And so there was a whole
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: bunch of economic damage, higher costs for folks, bigger deficits
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that the government had to run as a cost of
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: all of this. So there was all of this economic pain,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: and that wasn't even breaching the debt limit. So it
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: is in a sense about our ability to pay our bills,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: but it's also about the world's belief that we will
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: pay our bills and that we have a functioning government
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that can pay the debt that we incur. And if
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that belief... If people don't really believe that, then chaos
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: could ensue. So that's why even getting close to it
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: is a fucking problem.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: But John, didn't you just say that we hit it today?
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Yes. So we hit it today. We hit it today.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And then Janet Yellen came out, the Treasury Secretary, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: she said, well, the Treasury can take extraordinary measures to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: keep us from defaulting on the debt. So what are
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: extraordinary measures, Dan?
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I was hoping you were going to explain that because
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: that's what it said in the script.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I can. Go for it.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: They're called extraordinary measures, but they've become quite ordinary because
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: now every time there's a debt ceiling crisis, a treasury
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: secretary comes out and takes extraordinary measures. Basically, it's just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: shifting money around in a bunch of different accounts in
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the government to make sure that they pay. And they
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: take investments out. There's certain investments the government makes that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: they sort of take out so they can do... It's
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: like accounting tricks, basically, that they can... do for the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: next several months to sort of avoid hitting the real
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: debt limit.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: In the 1980s, when we had a very, very brief
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: debt limit fight, Reagan's Treasury Secretary took money out of
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: the Social Security Trust Fund, which was actually illegal. And
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: so since then, Congress passed a law which gave the
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary, a list of legal things they could do.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It really involves playing around with investments and pension funds
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: that you then make.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Whole on the back end.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: So it's like it doesn't– no one in the immediate
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: term is going to feel any impact from that. So
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: in that sense, it's sort of an accounting trick. But
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: you are going to have to at the end pay
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: for what you did. It cost the US money to
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: do this over the long term, which is another reason
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: why it's so stupid that we are in this place.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for all these people who are doing this so
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: they can lower the deficit, this will only increase our deficits,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: just the brinkmanship itself. And you were talking about how
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the Treasury can move the money around. So usually the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Treasury Department has $ 600 to $ 700 billion on its balance
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: sheet that it can use to pay our bills. Even
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: back in 2021, when we got close to the debt limit,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: there were days when they had almost a zero. So
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that's how shaky it can get here. Goldman Sachs says
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: that even if we get close to this and there's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: brinkmanship and we get close to debt limit, it could
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: kill the equivalent of one tenth of America's economic activity.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Estimates from Third Way, which is a centrist think tank,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: says that it could cost three million jobs at one
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty thousand dollars to the cost of a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: typical 30 year mortgage and increase the debt by eight
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty billion dollars. So good job. Good job
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: controlling the debt. So Republicans haven't agreed on exactly what
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: kind of budget cuts they want, but everyone from the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: MAGA freaks to the Republicans sitting in Biden districts have
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: said they refuse to lift the debt ceiling on its
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: own with just a clean debt ceiling raise. So they're
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: not going to, they don't want to do that. The
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: White House and Democrats in Congress say they'll only negotiate
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: potential cuts after the debt ceiling is raised because they
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: don't want to negotiate around the debt ceiling. Why is
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that their position? And do you think it's tenable?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It's important to understand that prior to 2011, the debt
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: limit was always for show. There was sort of an
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: unwritten agreement that the party out of power would not
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: vote for the debt limit, but they would make sure
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: it passed if enough votes were needed. And so we
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: avoided all the economic damage you've talked. Certainly not just
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: breaching the debt limit, but coming close enough that it
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: does damage the economy. That changed in 2011 when the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Tea Party Republicans came in. They realized that their economic
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: agenda of these steep, steep spending cuts in things like
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: education and health care repealing the ACA, cutting Social Security
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: and Medicare, were so unpopular, they could not enact them
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: through the normal course of business. They couldn't win political
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: power on that agenda. They couldn't have the House, the Senate,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: and the White House to do it. So they just
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: tried to shortcut it, which was to take the debt
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: limit and say, if you don't give us our unpopular agenda,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: then we're going to blow up the economy. And they
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: forced President Obama to the table where he didn't do
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: 99% of what they wanted, but there was some spending cuts,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: some of them certainly were not great. And after that,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: the president said, I am never doing that again. I
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: cannot let these people take the US economy hostage who
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: try to put in place this Republican extremist agenda that
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the country does not want. It had rejected in election
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: after election after election. So in 2013, the next time
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a debt ceiling battle came, he said, we're not going
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: to negotiate over it. You're going to pass a clean
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: debt ceiling. That's on you. That's your job. You're in
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: charge of the house. If you have a meeting, I'm
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: not going. If you send an offer, I'm sending it back.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: And he stared them down and he won. And that
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: has been the democratic position since then, because if you
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: give in a little, these folks are going to try
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: to use it for everything. First it's spending cuts and
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: it's Medicare cuts and it's national abortion ban. Then it's
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: banning books, all the things Republicans want to do. They
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: can't do normally. They'll use the debt ceiling to do.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: And so that's why it's so important to stand strong
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: in this place.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: You don't pay ransom to hostage takers or they'll be
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: incentivized to take more hostages. Um, The challenge is.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Do you know what that is? Another metaphor.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: The metaphor. What happens if they're willing to shoot the hostage,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: even knowing that they may get hurt in the process? Which, again,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, this is the house that
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: we've got. And then the other thing that the Democrats
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: will have to deal with and the White House will
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: have to deal with is, what happens if Joe Manchin
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: is willing to pay the ransom? What happens if the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Problem Solvers Caucus... is willing to pay the ransom. And
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: by that meaning, at least negotiate around some cuts. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that's going to be the real challenge for the White
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: House and a lot of Democrats in the coming months.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: House Republicans reportedly plan to vote on a bill that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: would tell the Treasury Department what to do if the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: debt limit is breached. Very helpful. According to the Washington Post,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the plan is almost certain to call on Treasury to
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: keep making interest payments on the debt and may stipulate
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: that the Treasury Department should continue making payments on Social Security, Medicare,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and veterans benefits. as well as funding the military. Could
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: this work? Who wouldn't get paid in this scenario?
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Seems unlikely to work. And I know that because it's
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: a Republican economic plan. There's no precedent for this. We
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: do not know. But to be very clear, what they
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: are saying is whatever money the federal government has, because
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: it's important to understand that even in this period of
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: extraordinary measures, money still comes into the federal government. People
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: are still paying taxes. There are other programs that provide
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: revenue to the government. The Republicans are saying, take that money.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Every dollar you get and your first priority when you
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: get that dollar is to pay off foreign governments that
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: hold U.S. debt, most prominently the Chinese. So we're going
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: to pay the Chinese first. Then whatever money we have left,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: we might sprinkle it around the American people. And it
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: seems unlikely that there's enough money to do that and
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: pay Social Security and pay Medicare and pay the military.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And so it runs into some real substantive accounting challenges,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: let alone the fact that it may probably is not
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: legal in any way, shape or form.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Also, back to my point about it, this depends on
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: faith in the ability of the U.S. to pay its debts.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: If the world realizes that the U.S. is, yes, paying
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: interest on their debt still, but by the way, isn't
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: cutting social security checks or paying the military, like, that's
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: going to cause everything to unravel as well. People aren't
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: going to buy our bonds. No one's going to buy
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the bonds because everyone's going to know that that's next.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: All right. So what are some possible solutions here that
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: don't involve hiding all of our money under mattresses?
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Option one, Republicans do their fucking job. Yeah, that's it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Pass the bill. And that can happen in two ways. One,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy just puts a bill on the floor and
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: he doesn't have to vote for it. He doesn't have
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to lobby for it. 95% of Republicans don't have to
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: vote for it. You just have to put the bill
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: on the floor and Take all the Democrats plus a
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: small handful of Republicans and you're there. Kevin McCarthy is
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: unwilling to do that. And he may be unwilling to
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: do it because he essentially promised the Freedom Caucus he
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: would not do that in exchange for the speakership, is
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: there could be a discharge petition. And a discharge petition
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: is when 218 members of Congress sign a petition saying,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: bring this bill to the floor. And if you get
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: that number of signatures, then a bill can go to
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: the floor directly. It doesn't have to go through the
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Freedom Caucus stacked rules committee or the Freedom Caucus adjacent committee.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: House leadership. You can just go right to the floor.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You get a vote. You get 100% of Democrats, 5%
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of Republicans. You're done. That takes time and it requires
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a specific bill. We don't have a lot of time.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: We don't have a specific bill yet. So that's a problem.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other reason it's a problem is you
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: need to file the discharge petition basically now because it's
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: supposed to sit in committee for a certain number of days,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: legislative days before it comes up for the vote. And
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: if you did it now, that would get us to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: mid-May and And Janet Yellen said we have basically until mid-June.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So right now, you'd need to find 218 people in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the House of Representatives to sign on to the discharge position.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: You'd get all the Democrats, but you'd still need four
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: or five Republicans. And even so-called moderate Republicans like Don
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Bacon of Nebraska are saying they're not willing to sign
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: on to a clean debt limit hike right now. By
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the way, you'd also need 60 votes in the Senate
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: for that. which we don't have right now. We don't
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: have 10 Republicans right now for the clean hike. So
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the clock is really ticking on the discharge petition option,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: at least as of right now.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Other options include, and these are, I would say, much
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: more challenging options. One option would be minting the trillion
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: dollar coin. And so let me explain that for a second.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Because you're going to hear a.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Lot about this. I got a text from my brother
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: about this over the weekend. He said, I've been looking
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: at this debt limit thing, and I've been going really
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: deep on this. He's like, what about the coin? Sounds
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: like the coin is an okay idea.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: We're going to hear a lot about the coin.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was back in 2011.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So at one point in time, Congress granted the U.S.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary the sole authority to mint platinum coins of
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: any denomination. Now, I haven't dug into legislative history here,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: but I'm pretty positive this was a bill that pushed
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: by lobbyists for the platinum industry to get more like
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: platinum silver dollars in circulation. But because of that very
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: broadly written bill, theoretically, Janet Yellen could mint one coin,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: assign it $ 1 trillion in value, deposit in the bank,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: and pay all of our bills. Now, that would solve
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the immediate threat of default. It would have some real
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: downstream economic issues that we'd have to deal with. And obviously,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: this would have to go through the courts. The other
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: sort of extreme option here is the president can simply
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: direct the treasury secretary to just pay the bills regardless
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: of the debt limit. And there are arguments. A lot
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: of lawyers believe that the debt limit is unconstitutional. It
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: violates the 14th Amendment, which speaks to the sanctity of
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: US debt payments and debt obligations. Others believe that it
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: is in great conflict with Social Security Act and other
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: laws that deal with entitlement programs, where we owe these people,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: we have to pay these people. That then, of course,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: would go to this very fair-minded Supreme Court we have
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: that would have to make a decision. And just doing
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: those things that are on fragile footing, I would say,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: would rattle the markets in tremendous ways because they wouldn't
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: know how to react because one day we're paying our
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: debt limits and then you're one Trump-appointed judge in Texas
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: away from default. And I think that would also cause
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: a lot– I would say a fair amount of uncertainty– Yeah.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Again, it goes back to the question, would you buy
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a U.S. Treasury bond if Joe Biden's in court trying
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to figure out if he could just, you know, use
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the 14th Amendment to lift the debt limit?
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: You think the... I wouldn't. I don't think I'd buy one.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: You think the full faith and credit of the United
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: States being... up to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar's alarming.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Think about it when it becomes the pillow talk between
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Ginny and Clarence Thomas. We haven't done much better there either.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Any other options? I have one more.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Let me hear yours.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Well, Davos' biggest celebrity, Joe Manchin, has been given interviews
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: from Davos, which is where a West Virginia conservative goes
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to hang out and be of the people. I think
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: he was talking to Maria Bartiromo. Again, the typical interview
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you do when you're at Davos with the people. And
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: he's starting to say, like, yeah, I do think we
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: should consider, you know, at least because we should obviously
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: lift the debt ceiling. We shouldn't play around with the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: full faith and credit of the United States. But we
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: should at least use this moment to recognize that our
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: debt is out of control and form some kind of committee.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: So you can see some kind of committee solution there.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: come out of this. And I've heard a few people
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: talk about the Trust Act, which is like bipartisan legislation
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, which basically says that you form a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: rescue committee for each trust fund in the United States,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the Social Security trust fund, the Medicare trust fund. And
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: then you basically have the committees come up with solutions
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: for to make those funds solvent. And then all it
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: basically does is it's like fast tracks the legislation to
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the floor so that it can get a vote, but
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: nothing else. It doesn't require anything. It doesn't instill any
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: kind of automatic cuts. It's basically just a committee. Now,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: if that gets like Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney, who's
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a sponsor of this bill and people like that on board,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that's great. But I wonder if in the House that
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't run into the same problems for Kevin McCarthy that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a clean hike would run into, because I don't think
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: that's going to satisfy Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and the Freedom Caucus. But I could see that being
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: one end game here.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: There is a history here, which is in 2010, when
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: the Democrats had 59 senators and were in the process
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: of freaking out about the upcoming 2010 elections. The Senate
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Democrats tried to hold President Obama hostage over the debt
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: limit and demanded the creation of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. In 2010,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: we did the commission play, and lifting the debt limit
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: was going to be contingent upon a vote on the
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Simpson-Bowles Debt Commission, which had no teeth. That commission met.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: It filled hours of time on Morning Joe, but obviously
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: came to no conclusion and forced no spending plan. Then
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: in 2011, the Republicans specifically rejected a commission with no
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: teeth for one that had to have teeth. And so
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: all the spending cut deal around 2011 that we deeply
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: regret came at the end of a bipartisan commission that
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: could come up with no plan because Republicans and Democrats
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: obviously can't agree on these things because they want to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: cut Social Security. We don't. then these forced mandatory cuts
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: wouldn't play. So I think that would be the blockage
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: here is that they've been down the pure commission path
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: and it hasn't gotten what they want. So that would
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: make it harder for McCarthy.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you something. Back in 2010 when the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Simpson-Bowles Commission was created, what if someone were to tell
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: you that over a decade later you'd be talking about
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Simpson-Bowles with me on a podcast?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I would have put the odds of that at exponentially
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: higher than the Simpson-Bowles Commission accomplishing its goals. I didn't
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: even know what a podcast was at that time, and
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: I would have bet on the podcast.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: A real throwback. The Simpson-Bowles Commission. Anyway, I think everything
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: will be fine. Maybe put the money under your mattress.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's... Look, it was scary
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: being in the White House dealing with this in 2011,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and that was with the Tea Party, which today looks
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: much saner than the Republicans who currently control the House.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So that's all I'll say about that. It is something
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to definitely be concerned about. Of all the stories we
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: talk about on this podcast, I do think breaching the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: debt limit, while it sounds boring and in the weeds,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: is something that we should be alarmed about.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in 2013, it almost killed me.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It literally gave you a stroke.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, not literally, but close enough.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, close enough. Close enough. Lest anyone think that cooler
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Republican heads may prevail on this. Look no further than
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the committee assignments Kevin McCarthy handed out to some of
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the most batshit MAGA House members. Jim Jordan will chair
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee. Anti-vax election denier Mark Green will chair
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Homeland Security. And the House Oversight Committee, which handles most investigations,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: will include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: coup plotter Scott Perry. The White House had something to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: say about this. Here's Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at her
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: briefing yesterday.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: On some of these key committees, it appears that House
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Republicans have handed over the keys to the most extreme
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: MAGA members of the Republican caucus. This is what we're
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: seeing from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. These are
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: members who have promoted violent rhetoric and dangerous conspiracy theories.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: And so Republican leaders should explain.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: They should have to explain. Not us.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: They should have to explain why allowing these individuals to
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: serve on these committees and come clean with the American
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: people about the secret agreements, the secret deals that were
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: made with these extreme MAGA extremists that are currently in
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: the House.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: So unusual for the White House to comment on House
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: committee assignments. Why do you think they did?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Because it's unusual to appoint a bunch of media grifting
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: knuckleheads to be in charge of important legislative committees.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it might be politically beneficial
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: for the White House?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, in a situation where any House that has
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: no ability, or in this case, even interest in enacting laws,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: the way they get attention, the way the country comes
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: to know them is through committee hearings, particularly investigative committee hearings.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: So if you put a bunch of people who are
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: avatars for the exact Republicans who got their asses kicked
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: in 2022, you're giving a gift to the White House.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So every time Like the documents, right? We're going to
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: talk about the documents in a second. The Republicans are
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: going to hold all these oversight hearings on it. The
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: press will cover the shit out of these oversight hearings
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: because they want to be– one, they desperately need cable
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: ratings like never before. And they want to be balanced
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: because they gave so much coverage at the January 6th hearings.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: And when the Americans turn on the TV, they're going
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: to see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and Paul
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Gosar saying insane stuff. This gives the White House an
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: amazing opportunity to dismiss what the Republicans are doing as
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: being a clown show. You put clowns on the dais,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: it's going to look like a circus.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: You don't think they'll comport themselves well?
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: You know, look, I don't want to be dismissive of
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: the chance they'll comport themselves well and take their jobs
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: very seriously, but it seems unlikely to me.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Like, you know, maybe if she doesn't mention Jewish space lasers,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: maybe that's a win.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe if they don't invite Nick Fuentes to sit in
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: the front row.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. No white nationalists at the hearing. That's a win. Yeah, no,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I think the White House is pretty excited about this.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Politico reported that they were texting each other digital high
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: fives over this, which maybe... What's a digital high five?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Is that like an open hand emoji, do you think?
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, just high five each other.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: They're sitting right next to each other.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: They're in an office, right?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Digital high fives. Okay, so one of the issues... these
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: yahoos in the House have promised to investigate is how
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: classified documents from the Obama administration ended up in President
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Biden's home and office. Around 20 documents have now reportedly
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: been recovered so far. Some mark top secret. At least
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: one marked the highest classification level, TSSCI, which stands for
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information. And since we've got nothing
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: to do but wait for the new special counsel to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: complete his investigation, the media is filling time by speculating
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: about the political fallout With some help from all the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: usual suspects leading to headlines like this one from NBC News,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Democratic allies grow frustrated with White House response to Biden's
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: classified documents. Love when Democratic allies unburden themselves to reporters.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It's just my favorite thing. My favorite thing that happens. Dan,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: what could the White House have done differently? And what
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: should they be doing now?
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Develop time travel. Gone back to early 2017. and not
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: put the documents in the office, in the garage. And
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I said, like, obviously we're kidding here, but I'm trying
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: to make the point that 99% of the legal challenges
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: and political problems they have are from that mistake. What
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: has been said and done since then has compounded some
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: of it, but ultimately that's the problem. Once you have
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: put a classified document in the wrong place at the
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: exact same time that the former president of the United
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: States is involved in his own classified, and you're most
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: likely rival for the presidency in is in his own
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: classified document investigation, being investigated by a special counsel appointed
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: by your attorney general, you are almost certainly going to
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: end up right here, which is in the middle of
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a controversy that the press and the Republicans can use
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: false equivalents to amp up and have their own special
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: counsel investigation. Almost nothing in between then and now would
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: have averted that outcome, if that makes sense.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the main criticism that I've seen
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: is They started off by telling us there were documents
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in the office. Why didn't they tell us then that
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: there were also documents in the residence, that there were other,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you know, why didn't, why did this information continue to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: dribble out over the course of a week or so?
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And the Washington Post had some great, had a great
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: story on this, very deeply reported. And it does seem like,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: so the lawyer finds the first set of documents, does
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do and immediately notifies the The
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Biden officials immediately notify the Department of Justice, again, which
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to do. And the Department of Justice says
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to the Biden lawyers, all right, you guys chill out.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: We are now running this investigation because it's the Department
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of Justice and that's what's proper to do. And once
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice started running the investigation, the Biden
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: people said, thought to themselves, we can't really speak publicly
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: about this because we don't want to interfere with or
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: be seen as influencing in any way the independent DOJ's investigation.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And so we are not going to say anything about
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: this until DOJ completes the investigation and says something on
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: their own. Now, what DOJ then decided was, we're going
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to now appoint a special counsel on all of this,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and that we're going to, you know, go at our
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: own pace. So you can imagine, I know because you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: were the White House communications director, a situation where A
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: lot of the comms people in the White House were
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: sitting there saying, like, why can't we give more information
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: out to the press? Why can't we be transparent about this?
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: And the lawyers are saying, we don't want to get
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: crossways with the ongoing investigation that's being conducted by the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Justice Department, which is supposed to be independent, which we're
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: not supposed to be influencing in any way.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Essentially, as a legal and political strategy, the White House
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: made a bet that if they cooperated as fully as
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: they could, were the opposite of what Trump was, did
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: everything right, showed the Department of Justice they wanted to
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: get to the bottom of this. Because I believe they
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: legitimately did.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: That this would not come to light before the Justice
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Department had decided there was nothing to investigate and no
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: crime had been committed. So- You would have it one day,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: they would say, Biden had these documents. We've looked at it.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: It's fine. And they would avoid a special counsel because
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: a special counsel comes with a lot of downstream impacts
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: of other things they can investigate in, sort of restarts
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: the clock at zero again for much of the work
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: was already done. Then there's a new person in charge.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: That was their bet. That bet did not pay off.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I understand why they made that bet. And to the
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: extent there was a mistake from a public relations perspective,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: and this is a case, as you said, of legal
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: approach trumping politics and messaging, is when CBS News got
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the story about that one document at the Biden Penn Center,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: they responded to that. And the decision, according to this
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Washington Post story, which was, I think, very well done
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: and very helpful in understanding all this, was we're only
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: going to react to what is public. We're not going
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: to potentially anger the Department of Justice by putting out
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: information they have not put out. So they put out
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: a statement that did not fully disclose all the information.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Then they did the same thing again when we found
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: out about the garage document. Then had to then react
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: when that next document came out. And that is always
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: in the crisis communications 101 is tell the story on
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: your terms and tell it all at once. And so
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: now you're in the sort of drip, drip, drip, which
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: has eroded some credibility with the press, which is looking
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: for a reason to go after Biden. I understand why
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: they made that decision. We can't go back in time
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: and fix it, but that is sort of where they're at.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: You can tell they've already changed approach some because Bob Bauer,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: who is the president's personal attorney, who you and I
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: know very well, we work with for years. It's the
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: best in the business. How they conference call with reporters
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: on Saturday, I believe it was to help explain the
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: whole chain of custody, the events, the approach. And then
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: this Washington Post story was clearly informed by people who
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: were trying to get the full story out.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: The last line of the Washington Post story, um, notes
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that the Biden office where they originally found the first
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: document remains uncleared. And I was like, what? So they
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: haven't finished checking that one? I'm sure that from President
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Biden to his political team to his communications team, they
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: are quite annoyed with the pace and style of the
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Justice Department investigation into this, because I'm sure they would
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: like nothing more than for them to check all of
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the places that the classified documents could be as fast
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: as possible and finish this investigation as fast as possible.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Like no one likes this dragging out, you know, they're,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: they're not, they're not cheering this on.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. I would imagine they are not.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: So it's like, I thought that Matt Miller, who we
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: both know who has worked at the white house and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the justice department had, had a good quote in that
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Washington post story. He said, oftentimes when you're doing something
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that from the outside doesn't appear to make sense, it's
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: not because you don't know what you're doing. It's because
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you face some choices people don't understand. Or, and I
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: would add that sometimes people aren't allowed to understand because
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: you're not allowed to talk about them, which puts you
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: in a shitty political position. But, you know, you have
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: to be like, all right, well, we're following guidelines, we're
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: following the law, and that's what we're doing.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Every person who talks about, writes about, tweets about the
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: White House should write that quote down and put it
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: on the mirror because that explains so much of all
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: these situations. You're like, These people are very smart. We
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: know them. Why did they do this? That's the answer.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: They're making this decision because there's a whole bunch of
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: other competing equities that we do not know about, cannot
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: know about, could be, in this case, a legal situation.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: It can often be national security situations, legislative situations. Well done, Matt.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect explanation of what working in the White
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: House is like and why people like us who talk
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: about it have to be very open-minded about why it's
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: more complicated than we think.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Fun times. Fun times.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: What a great A-block.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What a great A block. All right. When we
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: come back, I will talk to Sarah Longwell from The
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Bulwark about what's on voters' minds. Joining us today is
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: publisher of The Bulwark, founder of the Republican Accountability Project,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: host of the excellent Focus Group podcast, Never Trump extraordinaire,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Sarah Longwell.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: be here in person.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: You were kind enough to help analyze one of our
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: wilderness focus groups this season. You conducted countless focus groups
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: yourself in the run up to the midterms. Did anything
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: surprise you about the results?
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, the results were still better than I
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: expected in terms of every swing state election denier going
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: down with the exception of, I guess, Ron Johnson.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: And so but I will say. And you may recall
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: this from our conversation. One of the things that I
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: was saying over and over and over again about the
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: swing voters was, look, a lot of the people who
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: voted for Biden and voted against Trump who are but
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: had voted for for Trump the first time, they are
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: sort of center right in their orientation. They wanted to
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: vote for a Republican, but they didn't want to vote
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: for the Republican that they had in the offing in
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: their state. So, you know, you'd hear from them.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: You know, I'd really like to vote for Republican, but
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: I'm not voting for Blake Masters or I'm not voting
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: for Dr.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Oz.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, I was certainly and I remember
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: arguing on a CNN panel about Don Balduck. And I
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: was like, they're not going to go for Balduck. Like,
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: I sort of knew that that was out. But I
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: guess I was and we were one of the biggest
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: outside spenders against Carrie Lake. But I was really worried
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: about that race. I really thought Carrie Lake was going
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: to pull that one out. So I guess I was
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: still pleasantly surprised. But I think that I did see
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: in swing voters there was not an appetite for these
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: extreme candidates.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Do you think the explanation for all the midterms is
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: as simple as, like, Republicans nominated too many MAGA freaks?
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Or was there anything else at play? Like, how much
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: do you think abortion mattered? How much do you think
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: democracy mattered? Which I know is sort of a hard
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: thing to define, but.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so the way that I try to... Because there
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: was after... In the aftermath of the elections, there was
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: a lot of reporters who were trying to, like, pull
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: them apart. Like, was it democracy? Was it abortion? And
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: it was actually... It was all of it, right?
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: So.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: The Venn diagram of somebody who was really extreme on
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: abortion and who was like a big election denier and
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: super MAGA was basically a circle. Right. So like they
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: were the same people. And what you would hear from
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: the voters over and over again was just that they
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: were nuts. And they would often say. Look, in the
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: same breath, they would say, well, you know, Blake Masters
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: is crazy. His position on abortion is crazy. He's an
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: election denier and he really likes the Unabomber. You know,
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: like it was just like it all came together to
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: form this picture of just an extreme candidate that they
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: weren't comfortable voting for. And the Democrats had sort of done,
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: whether it was incumbency in the case of Kelly or
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: with some of the nominees who were just either vanilla enough,
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: just like, you know, not so extreme on their own.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: that the swing voters just, they saw the MAGA ones
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: as the extreme.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: So Republicans win the House by about two points nationally.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: What do you think the typical swing voter in a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: swing district who cast their ballot for a Republican House
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: candidate expects from a GOP House? What do you think
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: they thought they were voting for?
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Well, in a swing district, because I'll tell you what's
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: interesting is that, right, there are these different sections of
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: the voters, right? There are a bunch of Republicans, let's
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: call them maybe Trumpers, and a lot of them wanted
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: to tackle inflation, right? They had economic issues on their minds.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: They think Biden's a disaster and, you know, the supply
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: chain and COVID, like that's what they cared about. But
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: there is this other, the always Trumpers, or even some
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: mix of people where they do want the Hunter Biden investigation.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Right, of course. And so the thing is- That's why
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: they signed up.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: That's right. You know, I was just doing a focus group.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: It was just, I was walking around here in LA
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: and I was listening to one of the groups and
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: it was just two-time Trump voters. And the moderator was
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: asking about the House fight over the speakership. And they
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: were saying, half the group was like, yes, they should
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: be fighting over this. Like, I want them to take
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: a stand. And it's important to understand that for, like,
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: the crazy side, I don't even want to say that
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: there's a crazy side and a non-crazy side, but for
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: the craziest side, there is a base of voters who
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: wants that chaos and who wants the investigations. But the
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: swing voters in a swing district, they cared about the
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: economic issues. And they cared about a check on Biden
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: to some degree, but not in the, like, Hunter Biden
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: laptop sense.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Do you think the speaker's race antics or McCarthy handing
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: over the keys to the House to like Marjorie Taylor
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Greene and Paul Gosar, do you think that has broken
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: through to voters in any real way or is it
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: all just noise at this point?
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: No, it's all noise. Yeah, I mean, so again, I
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: was listening to this group and like they kind of
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: knew that there was sort of chaos and people, they
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: either interpreted it as like, stupid inside the beltway stuff
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: that they didn't care about. Or they were glad somebody
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: put up a fight against the rhinos. But, you know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: I think that when it comes to voters on the
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: inside the beltway stuff, one of the stories I always
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: tell is remember the day that the New York Times
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: had Kevin McCarthy dead to rights when he said that
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: he lied, like he said he wanted Trump To resign.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: And then and then he came when they said that
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: he came out and lied. He put out a statement
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: and said, I never said that. And then they released
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: the tape on him.
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: And D.C. just goes up in flames. We're all talking
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: about it. We can't believe it. McCarthy people are asking me,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: is McCarthy toast? I had a focus group that night.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: What do you guys think about what happened with McCarthy?
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: And it's just like blank stares, you know, like nobody's listening.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: No one cares. So, no, the internecine fights. Now, when
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: it comes to like the debt ceiling fight, though, you know,
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: when it has an impact and they can't govern and
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: when things are getting shut down, parks, whatever, then it
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: will matter. But I don't think this stuff is, yeah,
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: hitting voters.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Well, so you said you've conducted some focus groups since
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the midterms. What's on voters' minds since the midterms?
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: So it's been really fascinating to watch. two-time Trump voters
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: start to not break with Trump, but start to look
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: for alternatives to Trump.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Two-time Trump voters.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Two-time Trump. So the 2016, 2020 folks, they, and it
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: all comes down to electability. It's like, these guys are
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: tired of losing. And it's interesting because there's like a
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: tacit admission that Donald Trump lost. He lost in 20,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: you know, and for a lot of them, I mean,
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: I've done focus groups upon focus groups where always more
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: than half the groups think that the election was stolen,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: but they're still tired of losing. Like after 22, like
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: the main thing that has changed is they want a winner.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: And so even during the January 6th committee, I was
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: starting to see more and more people. And there were
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: two things happening at once. One, they were being reminded
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: of how much baggage Donald Trump has, just like how
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: much weight he is to carry for them. And the
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: other was Ron DeSantis was starting to have his boomlet.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: And so they were starting to say, you know, I
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: just really think we should look for somebody else, somebody
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: with less baggage. Ron DeSantis is pretty cool. I've been
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: seeing a lot of him. He seems great. And since
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: the 22, that has like really accelerated. They want somebody
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: who can win. Ron DeSantis is the name that comes
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: up with a bullet every single time without being asked.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: And people just think that he has, they call him
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Trump not on steroids was my favorite one that somebody said.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: But it's generally like Trump with a brain, Trump without
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: the baggage, you know, somebody like Trump, but who, you know,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: swing voters might like. And so this question of electability
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: and wanting to win just has started to loom so
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: large for them since 22.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: How much do you think Ron DeSantis is like a
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: blank canvas for these voters where they're just sort of
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: pinning all their hopes and dreams on a candidate who
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: can win versus like how much do they actually know
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: about DeSantis just because they consume a lot of right-wing media.
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's a little more than blank canvas, but their
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: relationship to him is very shallow, right? So what they
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: have seen of him is he is on, like I
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: see him on YouTube, like yelling at teenagers in masks
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: or like yelling at Disney or like yelling at local reporters.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: And they think this guy's a fighter and this guy
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: is like Trump. But, you know, without all the tweeting.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: And the other thing that's so interesting about DeSantis is
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: the way Florida has become the like Mecca of just
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: in the imaginations of Republicans. Florida is where all the
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: great things happened. It's where everything stayed open during COVID.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: It's where wokeism goes to die. It's where the culture
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: wars are being won by their side. And so, and
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: it's funny, you hear people talk about it and I
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: went and looked it up because I was so struck
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: by how many people were talking about him winning it
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: by 20 points. Like it was this, because people do
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: still think of Florida as a swing state, but like
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: Jeb Bush, I think won it by 11 points and
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: then by 13 points like these. He won those governor.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: But but, you know, the first Ron DeSantis race was close.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: And so people have thought about it as a swing state.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: And so when they see DeSantis just like crushing and dominating,
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: that's what they want to happen nationally right now. But
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: they don't know that much really about Ron DeSantis.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Do you think DeSantis runs for sure?
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: I have not thought he runs for sure. So part
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: of it, though, is that we're in this really weird.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: So Donald Trump announces so early. And these guys who
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: are governors, whether if you're Yunkin, if you're DeSantis, you
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: have a legislative session, like a really important one. You
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: couldn't even begin to do it until May. And so
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: I guess I'm sort of watching to see if the
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: way that it shapes up is that, like, then there's
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: people who don't have anything going on right now, like
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: Nikki Haley or Mike Pence. So like, do they get in?
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo. Yeah, right.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: Do they get in early? And is there kind of
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: like a, A primary that happens that kind of kicks
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: off with a group of people and everyone sees how
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: Trump does and it shakes out and the investigations happen.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: And then they sort of wait for the heavy hitters
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: to come in and Ron DeSantis gets in. I don't
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: think it's a sure thing that he does. You know,
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: he is young. I just I'm always struck by the
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: fact that he's a he's a he's like 44 years old.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: It's so weird to me.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: He does not have to run head to head against
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump. And you can hear voters grapple with this
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: in the groups like, I don't know how he'll do
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: what he's with Trump. And it's also it's like unclear.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: Does Trump even debate or treat things like a normal primary? Yeah,
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: it's just such a risk. But I do think the
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: donor community and the the the if you're around DeSantis,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: if I was watching these focus groups. you couldn't stop
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: me from running. Like it's just so many voters start saying,
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: you know who I love?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm wondering.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: You know who I love is this guy.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And like, even if you, I mean, first of all,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: any politician has to have a huge ego to be
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: a politician. And, but even if you're like on the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: lower end of that scale, you hear that many voters
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: talking about you and people in the party start telling you,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, look, I was with Obama in the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Senate when he was like, I'm not going to run
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: in 2008. And then like, Harry Reid talks to him
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of other senators talk to him and
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: he goes on the book tour and he sees the crowd.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: And it becomes something that's hard to push away.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: It does. My only question, if you talk to sort
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: of reporters from down in Florida or people who know
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: Ron DeSantis, one thing they'll tell you, though, is that
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: he's very surly and he's not like a great politician.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: And so I guess my, if I'm him, the question is,
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: how self-aware am I? Do I think I am a
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: good enough politician to step onto the stage and meet
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: now the very high expectations that people have put on me.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: And if he thinks yes, he'll do it. If he's worried,
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: he might wait four more years until Donald Trump's not there.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Do any other Republican candidates come up in focus groups
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: besides DeSantis and Trump from Republicans?
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they do. You know, it's funny how often it
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: is either women or there are very, very few candidates
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: of color, right? So it's like Tim Scott, Nikki Haley,
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: Christine Noem. And I think it's because all the white
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: old men kind of run together in people's heads. And
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: so there are other people that get brought up. I'll
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: tell you who they do not want at all is
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: Mike Pence. I mean, you should hear, it's so funny
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: that Mike, I get so many reporters calling me being like, well,
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Mike Pence really thinks they're Elaine. And I was like, well,
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: I don't, I've met almost no voters who, they make
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: an audible groaning noise when.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: You bring him up. You know, a segment of them
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to hang him.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: Right. This is what I always say to people. I'm like,
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: if you're Mike Pence, can you go to a Trump
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: rally without security?
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: No, you can't. Therefore, like, I don't know how you're
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: going to get the votes to win a nomination in
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Republican primary.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: That's right. You know, one of the focus groups. So
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: here's one of the things that was interesting is I
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: was getting so many people saying they wanted somebody other
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: than Trump to run that we basically convened two groups
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: of people where Trump had for with people who had
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: Trump is very high favorables. Because what we all know
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: about the primary is that it comes down to whatever
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: Trump's plurality is.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: You get a fractured field. This is what we saw
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: happen in in 16. Like, do are there 20 percent
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: of the parties at 30 percent of the party that
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: are always favorables? Trumpers. And so I convened two groups
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: of the of the of people who have really high favorability.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: They're like Trump or die. But when you ask about
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: DeSantis and some of the others, what's clear is that
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: they don't know that much about them at all.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Right. Like Trump's like it's early.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: He's running on name ID.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: Like their attachment to Trump is similarly shallow in some ways.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: Like I sort of call them Trump or die because
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: that's what we were looking for. But even with them
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: they just, Trump's the only one they've ever seen fight.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: But if somebody else proves to them that they can
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: fight in that same sort of ridiculous way, they could
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: be interested.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Well, then this is something I've been thinking about. How
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: would you advise a Ron DeSantis or another Republican candidate
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: like that to run against Donald Trump? Because my first
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: instinct was like, you got to throw a punch, right?
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: And especially if Trump throws a punch at you, you
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: got to throw a punch back. But then I thought
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: about like, how high his favorability has to be even
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: among voters who are looking for someone else besides Trump.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: And so I wonder if it's a situation where you
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: really have to tread carefully because if you start throwing
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: punches at Trump, then you're hitting a guy that your
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: potential voters might like.
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, uh, I, I think that a lot
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: of it is, um, You got to say you love Trump.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: You got to say we owe so much to Trump.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: You got to pay homage to Trump.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Greatest president we've ever had.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: But the thing about, and this is, voters are starting
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: to get a whiff of this. You know, Biden, when
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: people talk about Biden, his age is like the number
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: one thing that people cite about why he shouldn't run
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: again or why Republicans talk about him being seen now.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: Trump's only four years younger than he is. And I
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: think that there is a way to sort of gold
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: watch Donald Trump to be like, old man, you were
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: the best. And, you know, we just, we love you
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: so much, but we, ah, it's, it's time. It's time
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: to hang it up or like, you know, and, and
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: I think we used to.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Do the five decades of service for John McCain as
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: just a way to sort of like, that's right. Like politely,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: but not, but pretty forcefully talk about his age.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Give him so many awards for all the great ways
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: he's made America great. And, but say, and we really
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: need someone who can win. We need a next generation of,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: Because that, I mean, the electability piece, I just couldn't be,
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: sometimes with groups, you know, you just, things are very muddled.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: Like this just is like as clear a signal as
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: I've heard where people are like, I want someone who
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: can win. I want someone that swing voters don't hate.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: And they just think Trump, people are too out on him.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I noticed in the news today that Trump is planning
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: now on getting back on Twitter. They're already like workshopping
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: his potential first tweet. I don't know what the whole
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: truth social thing is lately. But do you think that
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: that him being back on Twitter, back on Facebook, if
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: they let him back on Facebook, do you think that
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: helps or hurts him in a Republican primary?
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: I think it hurts.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it hurts him in the general general. Yeah.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: Look, one of the things that strikes me about DeSantis,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: and this is why it's hard to tell exactly how
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: good of a politician he is, but one thing, because
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: he doesn't weigh in on lots of stuff. Like one
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: of DeSantis' actually, I think, things that I'm starting to
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: notice about him is his strategic silence choices are awfully good.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump doesn't do any of that. And he's under
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: all these investigations. Look, I think it depends on how
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: the media reacts to him. We're so deep in Trump now.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: That all the things that we used to believe were true, right,
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: where people would kind of set the news cycle by
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump's tweets. Is that still true? I wonder how
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: many people come to a Trump rally as he starts
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: to hold his rallies. Like, are they as big as
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: they used to be? Can he still fill a stadium?
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to that. I'm not saying
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: he definitely can't. But look, the bloom is off the road.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: You can't be new twice. And so I don't know
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: how triumphant this return will be. And also, how mad
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: are we getting? Remember, he used to like these tweets
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: and like my head would explode all the time. Are
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: we still exploding over Donald Trump or are we laughing
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: at Donald Trump now?
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I also think something happened even in 2020
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: at his rallies versus 2016 that a lot of people
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: commented on, which is like 2016, he had a message, right?
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: It was like an anti-establishment populist message, plenty of racism
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and xenophobia in there. But it was also like this
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: me against the establishment thing. By 2020, he's out there
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and he's so fucking online that he's mentioning controversies on
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: the stump that no one, but like 5% of the
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: people who really closely follow politics and right wing politics
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: understand what he's saying. Naming the FBI characters and the,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, no one knows that shit. And I was like,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: this guy, he just doesn't have the, I noticed it
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: in 20. And so I think now four years later,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: he's way off in the deep end. Yeah.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, you always had to sort of live in
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: the Fox news cinematic universe, uh, in order to like
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: completely understand, uh, what's going on. But, It's not that, actually.
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: I think that one of the things that also comes
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: through with voters, even if they agree with him, yes,
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: something happened with the election and nothing was fair and
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: Democrats cheat, they are tired of talking about that. They
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: want to talk about Joe Biden. They want to talk
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: about all the Democrats' failed policies. And if Donald Trump
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: continues to hold rallies where he talks about the 2020
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: election being stolen, Kellyanne Conway had this sort of silly
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: piece in the New York Times recently, but there was
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: one line that I thought was was good. And it
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: was like, the voters don't want to channel your grievances,
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump. They want you to channel their grievances. And
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: that is correct.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: No, yeah. It can't just be about him anymore. I mean,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: it's always been about him. Sure. But he has at
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: least been able to fool people into thinking like, yeah,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: your enemies are my enemies and I'm going to fight
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: them on behalf of you.
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: But you just said something, too, that I think about
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: the establishment, which is, you The the the triangle of
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump as they
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: worked that speakership fight. That is the MAGA establishment right now.
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: Everybody kept saying like the 20 people were the were
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: the hardcore MAGA caucus. And I was like, no, the
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: 200 are the MAGA establishment. Like so many of the people,
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: the Kevin McCarthy people are the people who voted not
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: to certify the election, who say that the election was stolen.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: They fell in line with Donald Trump. The idea that
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: that was the chaos caucus versus some kind of governing
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: wing or moderates was an insane frame.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: I don't call them moderates anymore. I'm calling them like
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the House members who are sitting in Biden districts. It's
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: like the closest I can get.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, there are some moderate people. There are some
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: governing people, but there's not a wing.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: No, there's no wing anymore. All right. Joe Biden. So
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: can't do anything about his age. He can do very
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: little about the macroeconomic conditions. What do you think? he
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: can do and the White House can do over the
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: next two years to maximize his chances of winning in 24,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: since it seems like all indications that he's running and
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like he's going to have a primary challenger.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: I suppose that could change, but it doesn't seem like it.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: If you were advising him on how to keep the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Republican-leaning voters he won in 2020 in the fold, what
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: would you tell him?
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: You know, it used to be that Joe Biden... The
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: idea of Joe Biden was was running because he was
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: the only one that could beat Donald Trump. I don't
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: think that's true anymore. And I think that just about
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: any Republican who's not named Donald Trump will beat Joe Biden.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I am, you know, Tim, our friend Tim Miller, has
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: the story about how he knew Jeb was going to
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: lose when there some polling came back. And the number
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: one thing people didn't like about Jeb Bush was his
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: last name was Bush. And Tim knew then because you
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: can't change that your last name is Bush. And like
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: you just said, Biden can't change how old he is.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: And he's that number is only going up. I mean,
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: I look, I am I'm a Joe Biden stan. I
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: think Joe Biden saved America. I think that he did.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: He pulled Democrats together. He got everybody to do this
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: amazing thing where they dropped out and endorse him. Like
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: he he he is great.
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: And and.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: And then the fact that I'm saying that, if you
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: told me that, you know, eight or nine years ago,
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: I think, but like, he was the only person that
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: could beat Trump. And he's another person who deserves all
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: the awards. And he should also say early and soon that,
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: you know, he's done his part and it's time for
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: somebody else to take over who is not Kamala Harris,
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: in my opinion. And the Democrats, my big concern is that,
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, because if you ask like what my advice
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: would be, it's like, you can't make this, like he
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: could say he's running and six months from now still
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: decide not to run. He could do that. I don't
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: think just because he says he is now automatically means
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: that he definitely is. But he can wait too long.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: He can wait too long and then there's nobody else
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: that can step in.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I think that the White House thinks, and I understand
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: why they do, that there's a waiting in the wings issue,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: which is like, we talked about when we were talking
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: about the wilderness, when we were doing the wilderness focus groups,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I remember you saying that like in a lot of
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: focus groups, Democrats didn't have a bench, weren't talking about
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: other candidates on the bench. That's right. And I noticed that, too.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: I will say after the midterms, there's a number of
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: candidates who won in purple state Democratic candidates that I think, like,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: maybe not in 24, but in 28, I look around,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I see a lot of great young Democrats. But I
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: do wonder... And I have some of the same fears
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: about Biden and I have some of the same beliefs
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: about him, too. I think he saved America. I love
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the man. I think he's like very, very kind. I
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: think he's been a good president. But like the age
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: thing is a concern. But then I look around and never,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I talk to people about this like, well,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: then who else, who else, who else can do it?
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, in 24, I don't know.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, that SNL skit was pretty dead on. I agree, though,
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: about the bench. And I don't know. Look, I think
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: if Ron DeSantis as a second term governor can get
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: through his legislative session and then announce. So can Gretchen Whitmer,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: as far as I'm concerned, like maybe Josh Shapiro can't.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: And look, I don't know the Democrats as well as
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: you guys do. So you've probably spent time with Jared
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: Polis and a bunch of these other people. But I
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: would say that the bench has been growing and because
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: of the poor performance in 22, there are just more
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: people to look at. And, you know, there's Mitch Landrieu
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: still hanging. Some of my moderate centrists are still kicking
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: around that I think could, but it would take Biden.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: Biden would have to do it himself. Like he would
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: have to make the affirmative choice. I don't think like
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: Gavin Newsom can decide to primary him randomly or something.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think that's it. And I mean, I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: do think having done Some focus groups, not nearly as
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: many as you. But it was like, you ask people,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: do you want Joe Biden to run again? All these
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: were Biden voters. None of them wanted Joe Biden to
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: run again. I couldn't find one. Then you ask them
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: about Trump. They all can't stand Trump. Even the few
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Trump voters were like, I don't want him to run again.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: And then I made them pick. Oh, so vote if
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: it was Trump-Biden again. And you do get more people
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: who are like, Biden. So I think in that matchup,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: you can get why Biden... thinks that he's the one
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: who can beat him. But if it's anyone other than Trump,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: I see how it's a challenge.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: Oh, I mean, I just think if you've got some
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: energetic 68-year-old, you know, like just anybody under the age
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: of 70, it's going to provide a really stark contrast.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: And it's going to be difficult.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'll be right there fighting for Joe Biden,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: but it's going to be more of an uphill challenge
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: than if it's Donald Trump, I think. Yeah. Sarah Longwell,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining Pod Save America and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: come back soon. Yeah.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: All right. Before we go, you may have heard that
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Democrats and Joe Biden are coming for your gas stoves.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: And we have decided to explore whether this is true
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: in a new segment that we're calling. I'm about to
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: myth bust named by our feelers producer, Olivia Martinez, who
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: is here to take us through this game.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: Hello, thank you for having me and thank you for
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: being okay with calling it that. John and Dan, what
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: have you heard about gas stoves this week? Just give
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: us the quick summary.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: That I better hang on to mine as tightly as
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: possible because Joe Biden's coming to get it, probably with
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: his 87,000 IRS agents.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: You can't see it from the way this camera's positioned,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: but I'm currently chained to mine.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: That sounds about right. Let's take a listen to a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: mashup Chris Hayes tweeted this week. White House is now
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: attempting to ban all gas ovens.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: Safety. Safety?
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: And your family dinner is about to get a lot
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: less tasty.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: America is not going to stand for this. There's not
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: a stove like this one could be banned soon.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Nobody's going to tell me I can't cook with gas.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: Texas Congressman Ronnie Jackson writing in part, quote, I'll never
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: White House come from my stove, they could pry it
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: from my cold, dead hands.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Strong feelings. Strong feelings.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 6: Cold dead hands. Were you all that outraged?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: I was more confused than anything.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: So let's talk about what actually happened.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: So this all started earlier in January when a government
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 6: official at the Consumer Product and Safety Commission gave an
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 6: interview in Bloomberg where he talked about how they're considering
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: a ban on gas stoves because there's a hidden hazard.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 6: And he went on to talk about how they're considering
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: any option because they want to make sure we just
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: have things that are safe in our homes. He was
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: prompted by recent studies that found that gas stoves actually
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 6: emit some pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and methane. And
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: those do pose some serious health risks for Americans. For example,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 6: they really increase asthma rates among children and dementia in
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: older Americans. So let's pause there. Did you have any
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: idea that gas stoves were that dangerous?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Zero idea.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, me neither.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would have guessed that they contribute something
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: to global warming because gas. Yeah. But I had no
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: idea about the health effects.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, me neither. Dan, did you know?
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: After a minute, I had not thought about it. And
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: then when someone explained to me that you're going to
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: burn methane in your house when you cook, yeah, that
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: kind of makes sense when you think about it.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's kind of terrifying. So the CPSC followed up
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 6: to clarify that they're only looking to make gas stoves
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 6: safer because And two days later, they added a statement saying,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: to be clear, we're not looking to ban gas stoves
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I also think that I think I heard this. that
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: even if they did, it would be a ban on
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: new gas stoves. Yeah. So anyone who has a gas stove,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: they were never even floating the possibility that if you
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: currently have a gas stove, you can no longer have
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: that stove.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they literally can never go in your house and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 6: take your gas stove. No one is suggesting that. They're
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 6: just letting us know that these are dangerous and maybe
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: we can consider other options.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, if we're going to your home, we're going to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: take your gun. Yeah, exactly. Obviously.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the gas stove is bottom of the list.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Much heavier to take out of there.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah. And I can't tell why the CPSC like gave
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: this interview to Bloomberg. I can't tell why they made
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: this news. That does feel like the biggest unforced error here.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: Like that was a mistake, I think. But I am curious.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think that was on the White House message calendar. Yeah.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: It didn't make a lot of sense to me.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Send out the Consumer Product Safety Commission to just float
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: a ban on the gas stove.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: No one needed to do that that day. But I'm wondering,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: when's the last time you heard about what the Consumer
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: Product and Safety Commission was up to? How do you
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 6: think this was caught by so many conservatives?
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I, as a parent of two children, I'm deeply
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: aware of everything the CPSC recalls because you get notifications
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: for those things.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, there are people who watch it a
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: lot and pay attention to it. Those are generally people
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: who want to keep dangerous products away from their children.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: There's also obviously a group of people who troll the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: government for ways to find fake outrage to drive clicks
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: in cable ratings, which I think probably how this one
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: came out.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: And it's usually the flavor of this is usually the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: government's coming to take something fundamentally American away from you.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 6: Oh, and we're going to get into that. But first
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: I want to talk about the outrage. Republicans, of course,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: went into a frenzy over this. And I know both
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 6: of you were pretty plugged in to what they were saying.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: So I want to quiz you on some of the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: ways they spoke out this week.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Are you ready?
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: Quiz. Pop quiz, if you will.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 6: Pop quiz. Which of these was not done by Republican
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 6: trolls this week? A. Did Republicans tape themselves to a
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 6: gas stove in protest? B. Did Republicans run all the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: burners and sit in their houses inhaling the gas to
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 6: prove a point? Or C, did Republicans start selling don't
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: tread on me aprons with gas stoves to fundraise?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: I know that the last one happened. I'm going to
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: say that they didn't turn on the stoves and inhale
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: all the fumes.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: They did turn on the stoves and inhale all the fumes.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: I think it was the first.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: Trick question.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: All of those happened this week.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Wait, they really inhaled the fumes? They really inhaled the fumes.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Who did that?
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: It was Nick Adams, right?
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: Some troll. Yeah.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: Dan, you are plugged in.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: Wow. I am fucking riding a seven-week, two takes at
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: a fake losing streak, so I've been training like Rocky
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: over here.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I will say this. The don't tread on me thing,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: I think DeSantis rolled that out. Yeah. And just a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: fun fact, 92% of all stoves in Florida are electric
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: and not gas. So it is not even a red state,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: real American phenomenon. It is a Blue coastal ultra-lib thing. Yeah.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: That's why we have gas.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 6: Who tweeted, imagine a world where all tortillas are heated
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: in the microwave. We must take a stand against this insanity.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 6: I will be joining my colleagues this week to introduce
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: legislation that stops this stove war from happening. Do you
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: know who tweeted that?
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Feels very Ted Cruz.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say that as well.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: Representative Mike Garcia, who I truly have never heard of.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: He's the one who kept beating Christy Smith.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the one walking around with the– never mind.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Let's make a Christy Smith joke, but I won't.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Next one.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 6: Who went on InfoWars to say literally everyone prefers a
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: gas stove and that regulating gas stoves are, quote, part
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: of the globalist agenda for the Green New Deal and
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 6: the most dangerous thing for our entire planet and all
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: of humanity?
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 6: Who went on info?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: To say that? Who's like an InfoWars guest?
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: Steve Bannon?
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: Close.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 6: It's an obvious one. It is a representative.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 6: Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: God damn it. Our new oversight committee member.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: And one more for you. Finally, which Republican tweeted, the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 6: federal government has no business telling American families how to
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 6: cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: We cook on. Oh, that's Joe Manchin.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a trick question.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: It was a Republican. Davos Joe.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it was Joe Manchin. Side note, do you think
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 6: you can have a gas stove on a houseboat?
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: I do not think you can.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know a lot about houseboats.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Where does the gas line run? Unless you just have
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: a little tank, maybe a gas tank.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's a gas stove on the super yachts
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: below deck, so I don't know how that applies in
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: this situation here.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: It also feels a little dangerous to have a gas
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: tank on a boat. Exactly.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: John, how do you think the boat moves?
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: It's not just wind, my friend.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: Dan's plugging gas right now.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: It's not a sailboat. It's not a sailboat.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: It wasn't just Republicans who freaked out. Kind of everyone
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: got involved in this. Alison Roman, the controversial chef, tweeted,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: I have an induction oven. I have an induction stove
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 6: by choice. Ask me anything. Just as a small side,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: please humor me. I'm deeply curious. Do either of you
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 6: know why Alison Roman is controversial?
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we do know. Something happened. Yeah, we were here
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: When I'm going to revisit it, let it be known
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: that we know.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: All right, cool. I feel like Lovett was involved somehow.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that makes sense. Democratic representative Ruben Gallego tweeted, hot take,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: keep the gas stove and get rid of the air fryer.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: Only urban elitists use air fryers. Do either of you
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 6: have air fryers?
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: No. Really?
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: I have an Instapot that converts to an air fryer.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: That's more elitist, yeah.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Cooking good food quickly is not elitist. It's practical.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 6: And Gallego's wife responded to that tweet saying, we have
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: an air fryer, which you'd know if you did the cooking.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, airing their dirty laundry. And finally, my favorite tweet
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 6: was by comedian Rob Delaney, who tweeted, you can have
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 6: my gas when you pry it from my cold, dead ass.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 6: So let's bring it back and answer the question that
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 6: we started with. Is Joe Biden trying to take your
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 6: gas stove?
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like it.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 6: Doesn't sound like it.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: He's not.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 6: He's not. And it made me remember some like other
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 6: controversies we've seen like this recently. I remember last year
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 6: conservatives being really upset about liberals ruining hamburgers and Joe
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 6: Biden being called the Hamburglar. Why do you think they
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: latch on to outrages like this?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: You know, because it speaks to a fundamental fear the
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: American people have. The government is going to be too
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: big and too scary and take away things that are
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: valuable to them.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: Conservatism and republicanism is grievance politics and it is about
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: fear of change, trying to make change seem scary. And
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: so that is liberal elites want to take your hamburgers away,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: they want to take your guns away, they want to
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: change your way of life. And Outrage has two purposes. One,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: when you represent a declining share of the American population,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: you need to keep your shrinking base at a fever
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: pitch at all times. And in this media environment driven
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: by cable and Facebook, outrage is the coin of the realm.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: It is what drives traffic. It's what causes liberals to react.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: And so there is a marriage between Republican politicians who
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: want an angry base and right-wing media figures who want
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: to use outrage to get filthy rich.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 6: Absolutely. I have a twist at the ending of all this,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: but I'm curious if there's anything either of you want
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 6: to say about this myth that we haven't covered yet.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: I think we've nailed it.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: Sweet.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 6: Dan, nothing else you saw in your extensive research?
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 6: All right. Well, the twist is that the Inflation Reduction
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: Act actually includes rebates for households switching from gas to
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: electric stoves. So not only is Joe Biden not taking
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: your gas stove He's trying to pay you money for
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: buying electric stove. People that turn in their gas stoves
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 6: and upgrade to an electric one will earn a rebate
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: of $ 840 cash back.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, when you try to give back your stove, they
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: will inject you with a microchip.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 6: And that's how COVID started.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: They will force you to read Beloved.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: Deep cut. Deep cut from 21.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: And I just want to end by saying, Republicans and
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: all politicians, please don't take away our right to choose
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: how to cook our dinners.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Olivia. Thank you for helping us bust that myth.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: And thank you to Sarah Longwell for joining us. Everyone
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: have a great weekend and we will talk to you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: next week.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.