Latest / Pod Save America / Pete Buttigieg on the Michigan Primary and Whether You Should Fly on a 737 Max (feat. Mehdi Hasan)

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Pete Buttigieg on the Michigan Primary and Whether You Should Fly on a 737 Max (feat. Mehdi Hasan) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Mehdi Hassan.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Biden and Trump both win big victories
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in the Michigan primary, but Nikki Haley still isn't going
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: away and neither can Is the protest lodged against the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: president by voters who oppose his Gaza policy? We're also
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: going to talk about Biden's new attempts to deal with
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: his main political challenges. And later, Secretary of Transportation Pete
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Buttigieg stops by to help me figure out whether I'll
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: ever fly in a Boeing plane again. But before we
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: jump in, Mehdi, we are so lucky to have you
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: two Wednesdays in a row. Thank you for doing this again.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Excited to talk to you about this very fun, chill
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: election we have coming up. But first, will you tell
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: people about your very exciting news?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to share this news with you, John.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We just launched, so I've launched a media company called Zeteo,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: which is the ancient Greek word for seeking out, seeking
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: out the truth, which is what needs to be done
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: right now. I think you would agree in our current
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: climate of nonstop gaslighting, misinformation, bullshitting. And since I left MSNBC,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I was thinking long and hard about what I want
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: to do next. And I want to do my own thing.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: And I was inspired partly by you guys, by you
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: and Dan and Tommy and the rest of the crew,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Crooked Media. I think you guys came up with the
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: same idea of trying to have our own space, trying
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to get our voices out. Not being restricted by ludicrous
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: media conventions where you can't call a racist a racist,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you can't call a fascist a fascist. We're going to
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: be saying all those words, and I think it's time
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: for people to speak some home truths.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And what's it going to look like? We've got podcasts.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: written video? What do you got?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: It's all singing, all dancing. It's a media company for
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: a reason. It's a subscriber model. It's a paid subscriber model,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: which the left, progressives haven't really kind of owned that space.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: The right has done a lot in that space. So
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: we're going to try and kind of break that mold.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: But yes, there'll be weekly streaming shows, podcasts. It's not
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: just me. It's not the Mehdi Hassan Network a la
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson. It is a group of pretty high profile contributors,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: which we're going to roll out in April. But right now,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: if you go to ZateoNews.com, you can watch the trailer.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: You can see we're promising all sorts of things, including newsletters, essays, videos.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So a lot of work to be done, but I'm
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: delighted to be sharing with you all here because, as
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I say, I'm a big fan of Pod Save and
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the crooked media empire that you guys have built.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: We are big fans of you, and everyone should go
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: check it out. And look. If we can do it,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: if we can start a media company, anyone can do it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: You're going to be way ahead of us. We had
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: no idea what the hell we were doing when we
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: started this thing.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel similar.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: All right, let's start with Michigan. So big question in
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the Democratic primary wasn't whether Joe Biden would win. He
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: did with 81% of the vote. But how many people
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: would vote uncommitted, which was the strategy encouraged by a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: group of activists who are deeply upset with the president's
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Gaza policy? Turns out the answer is about 100,000 people.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: It was about 13% of the vote. The organizers of
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the effort wanted to deny Biden delegates and get at
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: least 10,000 votes. They achieved both of those things. Still,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: 13% voting uncommitted in Michigan is not unusual. 11% voted
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: uncommitted the last time an incumbent Democratic president was on
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the ballot in 2012. And back then, there was no
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: organized protest vote against Barack Obama. But the bottom line
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: is 100,000 people in a must-win swing state, lodged a
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: protest vote against a guy who won that state by
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: just 150,000 votes in 2020. Mehdi, I know you've been
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: talking to a lot of people on the ground in
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Michigan over the last few weeks, including the mayor of Dearborn.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: How are people feeling about last night's result?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I think they're super enthused. And I want to break
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: that down for the listeners of this show, because first
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: of all, You mentioned 150,000 in 2020. John, let's not
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: forget 2016, where Hillary lost by 11,000 votes, if I
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: remember correctly. So that is a super tight state, whether
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: you look at 2020 or 2016. In recent years, the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Democrats have obviously improved their advantages at state level with
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Whitmer and the legislature and the trifecta. But it's going
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: to be a close election in Michigan. And I want
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: to be clear, the people who are voting uncommitted, the
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: mayor of Dearborn, you mentioned, a lot of other state Democrats,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: they're not voting that way because they want the Republicans
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: to win. Well, because they're pro-Trump. I mean, some of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: them are, I'm sure. But the majority are trying to
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: send a message to Joe Biden. It's interesting you mentioned 2012,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: where there was a big uncommitted vote against Obama. And
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, John, it wasn't an organized cause. That makes
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: this much more significant because these people came together for
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: a specific cause and not just Muslims and Arabs, right?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: This is people of color. This is young people. Debbie
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Dingell made this point the other day. This is not
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. It's young people. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I think, I hope, that the White House and the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: president pay attention and listen. I don't know whether they will.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's statement last night upon winning Michigan didn't acknowledge
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: any of the concerns by people on the ground. People
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: do want a ceasefire in Gaza. They are furious and
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: heartbroken over the scenes that are coming out of Gaza,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: which are being paid for by American taxpayers. And so
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: this is their democratic way of sending a message. I mean,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: even people like Beto O'Rourke got on board this campaign.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: This is not some kind of pro-Trump Anti-democratic party message.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: This is a message that is trying to change one
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: specific policy, which most Americans think should be changed So
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I hope that them sending one or two delegates to
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: the convention this this sheer numbers I mean over a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand people Will send a message the way as
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I spoke to someone in the Democratic Party recently said
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: we can win Michigan without these people Do you really
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: want to take that gamble when Donald Trump and democracy
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: are on the ballot in November?
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I'd rather not yeah, so My take on this is,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: first of all, I think that this campaign is the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: way debates are and differences are supposed to be had
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and resolved in the democratic process, right? I think that
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the organizers of this effort, some people are going to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: be lost to Joe Biden over Gaza for good, no
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: matter what happens. But a lot of the organizers of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: this effort said, we're giving Joe Biden a path to winning.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: We're showing him how important this is. And we want
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to be with him in November. But this primary is
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: our chance to lodge a protest vote. I think that's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: what you should do in a democracy. My take on
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the results for last night is that they were not
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: great for anyone. I don't think the protest vote was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: big enough to really scare Biden into changing course on
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Gaza in the kind of significant way that you and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I would like to see and a lot of the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: organizers would. But I also think the protest vote wasn't
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: small enough for the Biden campaign to dismiss it in November.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And you look, there's, there's, you know, uh, stats on
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: both sides of this. Like in 2020, there was an
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: estimated 160,000 votes cast by Muslims in Michigan. Okay. In Hamtramck,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the country's only Muslim majority city, which is in Michigan
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: uncommitted won by nearly 30 points last night, 30 points.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Some of these precincts in Dearborn, nearly 75% voted for uncommitted.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: That obviously a heavy Arab American population in Dearborn. So
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: like that is, that's tough. That's tough for Biden. On
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the other hand, I do think that some, like I expected,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I expected Ann Arbor to be worse for Biden because
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that's where the colleges are. And Ann Arbor, it was,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: you know, 76% Biden, 19% uncommitted. This is a county,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: where the University of Michigan is that Biden lost to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Bernie by five points in 2020. And so I kind
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: of thought that the younger progressive vote would be more
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: uncommitted there. But look, we are headed into an unprecedented
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: rematch of an election that was decided by about 40,000
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: votes across three states.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's the key point, John. It's the margins, right?
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: These margins are tiny. These margins are like, you know,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I always make a joke about some of these margins.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I'm from the brown community. You have more people than
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: that at an Indian wedding than in some of these
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: states where Joe Biden won by like, it's a tiny
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: number of people, 10,000, 20,000. That's just the idea that
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: you would take that gamble when we're being told rightly
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: that democracy is on the ballot. And I think I
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: said this last week with Tommy, but I'll say it again.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Abdullah Hamoud, who is the mayor of Dearborn, made this
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: point very eloquently in a New York Times op-ed and
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: on CNN. He said, look, we get it. Democracy is
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: at stake. We're not questioning the threat Donald Trump poses.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: The question is, why is Joe Biden willing to risk
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: American democracy by not listening to the American public, to
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: his base, and sticking with Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: has screwed over every Democratic president of my lifetime?
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I know. I mean, look, if I saw some,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I think Nate Cohn pointed this out in the New
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: York Times, that if Biden, if in 2020, Biden had
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: lost every single voter in Dearborn, Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the three places in Michigan where Arab Americans make up
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: 30% of the population, he still would have won Michigan.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Arab Americans make up 2% of the population in Michigan.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That's probably a little less in terms of the electorate,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the people who actually vote. But again... Every, I'll say
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: this from now until November a million times, every defection
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is going to matter between now and November.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: If you think it's just Muslims and Arab Americans, when
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I say you, not you, John, but if anyone thinks
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: it's that, that's crazy. I mean, I'm meeting young people,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: people of color all the time. Look at the black
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: pastors in Georgia who said, please, Mr. President, we cannot
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: defend this war to our congregations. We saw that in
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the New York Times a couple of weeks ago. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: by the way, it's only going to get worse. I
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: you know i just want to throw out a stat
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: here just a really important stat for your listeners the
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: london school of tropical hygiene and johns hopkins here in
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the u.s did a study the other week in the
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: new yorker that if the war were to stop tomorrow
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: there's a ceasefire tomorrow morning six and a half thousand
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: palestinians will still die from disease and their health situation.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: If the war continues as is over the next six months,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: another 58,000 Palestinians will die. And if it escalates, as
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu's threatening over Ramadan, then 74,000 Palestinians will die in
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Gaza in the next six months. So the next six
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: months is the six months running up to the election.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: The idea that we're going to have the war behind us,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I wish that were true, but the war may not
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: be behind us, and certainly the deaths won't be behind us.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to give that context.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's such a good point because I
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: think we all do this. Sometimes the conversation about the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: domestic political impact of Biden's Gaza policy is conflated with
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: what people think about the policy itself. And I actually
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: don't know about the political impact at home. We could
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: be right. It could be decisive or it could not.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: But I want him to change course because I don't
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: love our tax dollars going to fund this just massive
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: slaughter in Gaza of thousands and thousands of people that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas or the October
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: 7th attack, let alone the number of people who are
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: going to be displaced and have already been displaced by
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: this conflict. So I do think you can make an
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: argument that Biden needs to change course on Gaza, even
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: if you're not sure about the political impact. But on
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the political impact, again, every defection matters. You mentioned Arab-Americans, Muslims, progressives,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: young people, Black-Americans, Also, Republicans, independents, Trump voters who switched
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to Biden last time, like every defection matters equally. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Biden could end up losing Michigan and Pennsylvania and in
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: some of these swing states with a combination of some
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: young people, some Arab Americans, some independents, some disaffected Democrats
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: who are like, you know, not everyone who voted uncommitted
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: in Michigan is upset about Gaza, right? There's always uncommitted voters.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So people could be lodging a protest against Biden about
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things. So I think it's just, it's
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: incumbent upon, and I think the campaign knows this. I
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: think it's a question of, you know, how their foreign
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: policy intersects with their political strategy here. And they're going
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to figure that out. I also think, by the way,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: just before we, like, Biden doesn't just need the votes
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: from the kinds of people he lost in Michigan. He
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: needs them to volunteer and organize and help him win, right?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Enthusiasm. You can't win an election without enthusiastic supporters and volunteers.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these are your door knockers, right? So, I did
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: find it at least somewhat notable that Congressman Dean Phillips,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: an actual human Democratic challenger to Joe Biden, finished last
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: with just 2.7 percent of the vote, losing to both uncommitted.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and Marianne Williamson, who had dropped out of the race
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: until this morning when her surprising third place finish led
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: her to unsuspend her campaign.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: By the way, I love, it's such an Americanism. I'm
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: from the UK, as you know, like this idea of
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: suspending your campaign. No one ever ends it because of
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: all the financial implications. I know there's some campaign finance
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: legal issues, but I love the idea of you just
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: suspend it. It's suspended. It's unsuspended. It's suspended again. Like
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: it's such flexibility as you run for president.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever seen an unsuspension before.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: No.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: This may be the first.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: You have to go back. I'm sure Pod Save listeners
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: will volunteer that info. Yeah. On Dean Phillips, though, pull
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: one out for Bill Ackman.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. I'm so glad you brought that up.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: His guy, Dean Phillips, was going to win Michigan.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: He did.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: He literally said in an interview he thought that Dean
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Phillips had a chance to win. He came in dead last.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: But the reason I bring this up is because it
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: is interesting to me that for all the concerns about
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's age or Joe Biden's strength as a general
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: election candidate or his ability to beat Trump again, like
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: why do you think no Democrat was willing or able
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to mount a real primary challenge to Joe Biden?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: The simple issue is people tend not to challenge incumbents.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: We know that historically incumbent presidents tend to be reelected,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: first of all. And if they are challenged in primaries,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: they tend not to be reelected, right? People understand this.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: If you challenge an incumbent president, It hurts their chances
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: in general. So most Democrats are loyal and want to win.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Put all the other issues to one side, Gaza, et cetera.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: You want the Democrats to win. You don't challenge the
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: sitting Democratic president, no matter what your concerns are. I
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: would say, number two, people forget this. And I say
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: this to, you know, people say very glibly, well, Biden's
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: lost now. He's lost. Trump's won. You hear a lot
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: of liberals, leftists saying that. I just have to remind
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: people that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump, right? He's done it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: If the only person in the country who's ever beaten
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump in a presidential election, at least under the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: terms of the system, Hillary Biden would with the popular vote,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: is Joe Biden. So if you're going to look around
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: the field and say, who can beat Donald Trump? The
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: only guaranteed person you know who can is the one
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: who's done it before. So to be fair to Joe Biden,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: he does have that under his belt. He did beat
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And I was someone who was very skeptical
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: of Biden in 2020. I was a Bernie guy, and
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: I was worried that Joe Biden wouldn't be able to
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: beat Trump. So I have to be humble and say,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I was unnecessarily negative about Biden in 2020. Obviously, it's
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: a different election, but give the guy a chance in
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: that sense to beat Trump. I think the other issue
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: is because he never came in and said, I'll be
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a one-term president as many people wanted him to do.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: You never got that democratic bench that, you know, those
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: runners and riders to be able to kind of show
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: off their wares and be ambitious and be in a
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: place where they could challenge him. So everyone else, I guess,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: the Whitmers and the Newsoms and the Shapiros and the
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Buttigiegs are waiting for 28, I guess. My problem with
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: that is if Biden loses now, do we even get
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: an election in 28?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: That's a very good point. I do wonder, you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: there's clearly space to Biden's left on Gaza. I don't
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: know that there's a ton of space to Biden's left
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: on a lot of other issues just because of the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: way he's governed, because of the way until Gaza.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And so I do think then you're down to you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Democratic politicians like Dean Phillips, who's running, just saying like,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I am exactly like Joe Biden, except I'm younger. And
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: there's like nothing else to say. Or if you have-
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I used to.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Own an ice cream company, Joe Biden eats ice cream.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right, that's it, that's it. Or if you're a Democratic
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: politician who does oppose Biden's Gaza policy, how many of
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: those Democratic politicians are as broadly appealing to Biden in
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: not only just a general election, but even in a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: The reality is where it's this point now, and I
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: know the Ezra Klein piece about the convention and all
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: that got people excited. The reality is if Joe Biden,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the later it gets in the day, the more likely
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: it is that the person who runs instead of Joe
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Biden is Kamala Harris. And with respect to the vice president,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: she has certain political skills, but most people do not
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: think she has a better chance of beating Donald Trump
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: than Joe Biden.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: And she may, but we just don't know. Again, we
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: just don't know.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: We leave the polls on Biden being bad against Trump. Well,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: she's worse against Trump.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: So a senior Biden campaign official told Politico that, quote,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the president shares the goal of many of the folks
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and a just and lasting peace. We will earn their
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: votes between now and November. I think the question is,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: how much of that uncommitted vote do you think Biden
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: can win back by November? And how can he do it?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: It's very hard to say, because as you said earlier,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: some of the uncommitted are not motivated by Gaza. And
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: those people who are motivated by Gaza are split into
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: two groups. And I don't know the sizes of those groups,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: but the two groups I come across are the group
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: who say, we're done with Biden. We can't, it's too late. 30,000
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: people are dead. It doesn't matter if he gets a
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: ceasefire tomorrow morning, tonight. We can't forgive him. We can't.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: These are people, by the way, in places like Dearborn
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: who've lost not one, not two, not three, but dozens
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: of family members in Gaza, right? So just to put
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: that in context. Then there's another group of people who
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: genuinely are trying to apply pressure. And the whole point
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: of applying pressure is if it succeeds... then you need
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: to change your behavior. Otherwise, no one will ever take
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: your pressure seriously again. So if Joe Biden does get
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: a ceasefire and you can take credit for it as organizers,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: then of course you then want to kind of shift
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: your pitch and say, all right, you got part of
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: what we wanted, maybe a little later than we wanted,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: much later in fact. We need to shift course a
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: little bit. So that is the big question. Can he
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: get a ceasefire? And even a ceasefire, for many people,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a ceasefire is not enough. Where's the accountability? Where's the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: change of relationship with a far-right fascistic Israeli government that
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: has just behaved in this outrageous way, not just in Gaza,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: by the way, John, but in the occupied West Bank,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: where they've killed 100 kids since October the 7th. No
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Hamas running the West Bank, no hostages in the West Bank,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: just for context.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the latest developments in Gaza. On Monday,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: President Biden went on a late night with Seth Meyers.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and said that Israel had agreed to a 40-day ceasefire
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: during the month of Ramadan and was close to a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: deal with Hamas that would free around 40 hostages in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: return for around 400 Palestinian detainees. After the taping, Biden
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and Myers went to get ice cream, as one does,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and the president took a shouted question from a reporter
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: about when the deal might get done. Here's what he said.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Can you give us a sense of when.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: You think that ceasefire will start, sir? Well, I hope
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: by the beginning of the weekend. I mean, the end
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: of the weekend.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: At least my national security advisor tells me that we're close.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: We're close. We're not done yet.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: And my hope is by next Monday, we'll have a ceasefire.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Sure, Jake Sullivan loved that. So no one should get
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: too excited before Biden's ice cream could even melt. Both
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the Israelis and Hamas said the two sides aren't as
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: close to a deal as the president suggested. What do
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: you think happened there, Mehdi?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Professor? off, I love ice cream as much as the
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: next person. I've eaten ice cream live on air at
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: MSNBC on my show for a while. So I'm all
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: for ice cream in public places. But when you're talking
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: about a ceasefire and kids being killed, John, you worked
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: for President of the United States. If you had been
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: in the vicinity of Barack Obama while he was talking
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: about Syrian dead kids while eating ice cream, would you
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: have shuffled over and maybe quietly removed the ice cream
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: from the president's hand while he answered Brett's question.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: See, I will say, I get the optics there. Having
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: been in those situations, I can see what happened and why.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I want to separate out the actual answer itself and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: him raising expectations from the visuals and the situation. So, like,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the guy's advised to be out in public more, advised
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to answer more questions from reporters. So he's out in public.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: This happens all the time with campaigns. You go like,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: we're going to do a, we're going to do an OTR, right?
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: They call it off the record. They don't advise the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: press about this until it actually happens for security reasons.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: So then the president jumps in, you know, they go
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: into a store, they meet some people, they go into
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: a school, like all kinds of last minute stuff. So
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: he does that. That's fine. They go to the ice
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: cream place. And then he gets a shouted question. Now
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: he could ignore the reporter's shouted question, which people would
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: criticize him for because he's not answering enough questions. So
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: he decides to answer the question and I'm trying to imagine, like,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: someone lunging while all the cameras are on and grabbing
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the ice cream away. I don't think that would have worked.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't have been great, but it couldn't have been
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: worse than him literally holding an ice cream on the
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: evening news clips or on social media or TikTok while
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: he's talking about, you know, where 12,500 kids have died.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: But let's talk about the substance of it. Are we
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: going to get this far? I suspect not. And I
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: think there's been far too much mixed messaging from this administration.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Tommy and I discussed this at length last week. The
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: United States has a lot of leverage here. It has
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: refused to use that leverage. Joe Biden has refused to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: use that leverage. The Pentagon has refused to use that leverage. Obviously,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: we know Congress will never use its leverage. And that
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: means that Israeli ministers can say, why do we care
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: what Joe Biden says with or without an ice cream
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: in his hand? We can do whatever the hell we
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: want because the money tap's not being turned off. The
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: arms keep coming. The Biden administration bypassed Congress not once, twice,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: to make sure arms get to the Israelis as they
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: kill thousands of people in what the ICJ has called, plausibly,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: could plausibly be a genocide. So I think that's the problem,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: where we hear these leaked stories that the White House
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: is very upset with Netanyahu. Biden wants a ceasefire. We
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: see him saying, I hope to get a ceasefire in
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: certain days. At the National Prayer Breakfast recently, he was
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: very eloquent about the pain that Palestinians have gone through
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and how he wants to help Palestinians. But do the
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: actions match the words? Is he willing to do what
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: needs to be done? And so far, still no. I
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: wrote a Guardian piece recently saying, The American president has
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the power to pick up the phone, call the Israeli
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: prime minister and say, it's done. Stop. Ronald Reagan did it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden did it in 2021 when Netanyahu was killing
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: people then. He could do it now. And for the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: life of me, I don't understand why he's not, as
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I say, not just for moral reasons, but for his
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: own domestic political reasons. And I think just on the ceasefire,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: very quickly, John, just so your listeners are aware, this
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: isn't about pro-Israel, anti-Israel. People in Israel are upset with Netanyahu.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: for not doing a ceasefire and getting hostages out. Families
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: of the hostages have protested outside the prime minister's office, parliament.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: In fact, a hostage who was released was assaulted by
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: police at a demonstration recently while calling for the hostages
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: who are still behind in Gaza to get released as
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: part of a deal. So the Israeli government made clear
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that hostages are not their priority. They are using the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: hostages as a way to do what they've always wanted
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: to do, which is wipe out Hamas, if that's even possible,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: and take back Gaza.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you if you even compare the number
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: of hostages that have been released and the Hamas leadership
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: that has been wiped out with, and you put that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: next to the number of civilians and especially children who
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: have been killed, it doesn't, even if you're a staunch
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: supporter of Israel, you still haven't gotten the hostages back.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Hamas leadership is still out there. And meanwhile, The death
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of thousands and thousands of civilians is, you know, at
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the result of what your government is doing.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And you mentioned staunch supporters of Israel. My question to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: staunch supporters of Israel, forget Palestinians for a moment, just
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: as a supporter of Israel and Israeli people and Israeli hostages,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: what does it say that the Netanyahu government and the
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Israeli military, this is an undeniable fact, John, have killed
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: more Israeli hostages than they've rescued? That's pretty stark five
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: months into this war. They have killed wittingly, unwittingly, whatever
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: argument you want to have, they've killed more Israeli hostages
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: than they've rescued. That tells you that even from the
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: perspective of let's fight this war to save the hostages,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: this war is a disaster. Put aside the whole moral
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: calculation of killing 30,000 Palestinians to get back 150 hostages. Yeah.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I listened to you and Tommy last week, and I'm
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: skeptical that if Biden called Bibi tomorrow and said, end
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: this thing, or did a big public break, that Bibi
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: wouldn't just say, fuck off, I'm going to do what
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I want anyway. Um, maybe it would definitely, you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: it would definitely put a lot more pressure on them
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: where I do think Biden can obviously exert leverage and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: have an impact is on the aid is on the
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: military aid. And, and to me, like if, if, if
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: there's an aid package that passes, and I know that
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: this is like sort of wrapped up in Ukraine and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: everything else, but if there's an aid package that passes
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: with a military aid to Israel, where there are no conditions, like,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I just, I don't know that to me for people
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: who are upset with with Biden's Gaza policy seems like
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: it would be like a point of no return at that,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you know? And so I just, I don't understand.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Children, right? It's something you teach children, like conditions, restrictions,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: strings attached. You don't get what you want for nothing.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Like basic stuff that we've abandoned in our geopolitics and
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: our foreign policy. We're going to give you all the
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: weapons you want with no conditions. Then we're going to say,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: do stuff. And you're going to say, no, of course
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: you're going to say no. I mean, when this two
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: bit fascist, and when I say fascist, the guy calls
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: himself a fascist. Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, who
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: is a far right, calls himself a proud fascist, a
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: proud homophobe. When he says, I'm not going to allow
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: flour to go into Gaza and the American government says,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: you really should allow it. And he says, no, what
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: does that do for America standing in the world? This
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: two bit fascist in Israel can tell the United States
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: of America to F off with no consequences.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think you've got to condition the aid.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And I also think Like you got to you got
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to come up with or find a ceasefire resolution at
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the U.N. that the United States can support.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just and then, you know, Biden can
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: certainly make a public break with Bibi. But, you know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you can hear him on Seth during the interview with Seth.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: He sort of gets into the details of of what
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: he's hoping happens.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: There's a temporary ceasefire and he's already gotten assurances from
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Bibi that they won't invade Rafah. without making sure that
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: they evacuate civilians there and all that kind of stuff.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, it's always this hope that if
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: there's a pause in violence and we can get them
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: to do this and they're still listening to me, then
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it can buy us more time and there can be a... And, like,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I get where that thought was coming from, maybe even
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of this conflict, but at this point,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: with the number of times that Netanyahu has basically just
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: given Biden the finger, I don't know how much more
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: you can hold out hope that this guy is going
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to do what you want him to do.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: To quote Bill Clinton, I quoted him last week. I'm
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: going to quote him again. I've never quoted Bill Clinton
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: this often in my life. Coming out of a meeting
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: with Benjamin Netanyahu back in the day when Netanyahu was
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: prime minister. Netanyahu was very old. Clinton comes out of
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: the room and says, who the fuck is the superpower here?
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that is a good quote. So Biden didn't
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: just talk about Gaza with Seth Meyers. He appeared with
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Meyers and Amy Poehler as part of late night's 10th
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: anniversary show. He was also asked about everything from dark
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Brandon memes to concerns about his age. Here's what he said.
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: You mentioned some classified materials, some documents recently leaked, some
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: classified documents. And this isn't a gotcha show, but I
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: do want to ask about it that says you are
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: currently 81 years old.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Who the hell told you that? Yeah. That's classified.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: That's classified.
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: All jokes aside, according to recent polling, this is a
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: real concern for American voters. How do you address that
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: concern going forward as you come up to the 2024 elections?
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: Well, a couple of things. Number one, you got to
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: take a look at the other guy. He's about as
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: old as I am, but he can't remember his wife's name.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Number one. Number two, it's about how old your ideas are. Look,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is a guy who wants to take
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Wade.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: He wants to take us back on a whole range
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: of issues that are 50, 60 years, they've been solid
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: American positions.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So whether the Biden folks planned it like this or not,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the president's appearance coincided with a lot of Democrats advising
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: him to get out there more and mix it up.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: How do you think it went?
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I think that was a good answer, what we just heard.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I think when he has some of those good digs
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: at Trump on Trump's criminality or age or whatever it is,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: they work. Because let's be honest, it's not that hard
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: to make fun of Donald Trump. I wish more Democrats
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: would do it and do it more often. I mean,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Seth Meyers, it's kind of predictable, late night liberal comedy show.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I did slightly cringe. I did Seth Meyers once, and
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: you do that walkout. It's a very long walk to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: your seat. You're kind of nervous. The audience are looking
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: at you. And he did look a little frail, if
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: we're going to get into the whole age debate. The
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: problem with Joe Biden is he looks older. That's just
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: a reality. Donald Trump is far unhealthier, far more mentally incompetent,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: far more ignorant, far more forgetful, far more incoherent. But
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden looks to the normie average voter who's not
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: following this up as a little bit more frail. I
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: think he should address the age thing head on. I've
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: said that for a while. Ronald Reagan did it with
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: humor famously in the 80s. Biden has a good sense
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: of humor. I actually think they could do stuff outside
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: of the humor realm, right? For me, the moment when
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden really pushed back against critics who said he's
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: too old to do the job, he's too frail, he's
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: too weak, was when he gets on that train and
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: goes to Ukraine. I can't remember what it was, last year,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: year before, I've already lost track of what month it was.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: But he gets on the train, he goes to Ukraine,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: he goes in secret, this epic journey. And he gets
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: to Ukraine and he wanders around with Zelensky. And I
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: didn't know this at the time, and I bet a
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: lot of Americans still don't know this. He's the first
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: president of our lifetimes to go into an active war zone.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: with the US military. He just had a Secret Service detail.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: And remember there were sirens going off and Republican conspiracy
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: theorists were like, they put those sirens on on purpose
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: to make them... Because the DNC controls Vladimir Putin's airstrike plan.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: But that for me was quite powerful. And I remember
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: at the time people were like, they should cut an ad. Well,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: the problem with our politics, John, as you know, is
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: it's very ephemeral. We've all moved on. Everyone's forgotten about that.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm sitting here in 2024 saying, where's that ad?
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Why aren't we seeing more of that? Why doesn't he
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: just go to Kiev next week? right? Do the stuff
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: that shows you are a dynamic leader. You know, for me,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: the best domestic moment of Biden's presidency in terms of
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: rhetoric is when he's given the State of the Union
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: and the Republicans are heckling him and he heckles back
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: and you see the poll numbers go up, right? The
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: populist Biden, the Biden who's willing to mix it up,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: the Biden who's willing to call out people, that Biden domestically,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: put aside my issues, very strong issues with his Gaza policy,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: that Biden works. When was he most popular in his presidency?
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: When he's doing the American Rescue Plan in his first
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: few months, when he's super popular. And I can't remember
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: who sent this on Twitter the other day, John. If
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: you read Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, they know
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: he's populist. They're really pissed at his policies about drug
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: pricing and everything else. It's weirdly swing voters, parts of
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: his own base, et cetera, who are not quite getting it.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more with everything you said. I liked
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the answer on age because, you know, he was asked
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: about people being concerned about his age. He didn't get defensive.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: He didn't deny that it was true. You remember after
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: her report when he did that impromptu press conference and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: a reporter asked him about voters' age concerns. He said,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: they don't have those concerns. That's just you. He was
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: completely different with Seth, right? He owned it. He made
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: a joke about it. And then he immediately pivoted to
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: that great line about Trump's ideas being old, which is
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a version of a line AOC used when she was
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: supporting Ed Markey in that Massachusetts Senate race and a
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: line that David Axelrod has been suggesting, even though, you know,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: everyone thinks that, uh, he's now persona non grata in the,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: in the white house, uh, maybe us too, but, uh,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: but it was, I was so happy with that. I
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: was so happy. And like, you know, the, the appearance
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: was not perfect, right? Like he still trailed off at times,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: you know, he interrupts himself once in a while, but
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: if you are, if you're someone who's like wondering whether
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: he's sharp enough for the job or knows his shit,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: like more appearances like that should give you more confidence though.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. Like, he is at his best when
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: he is populist, when he's mixing it up with Republicans,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: like at the State of the Union. And exactly like
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you said about Ukraine, of course, they did make an
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: ad about that. That was one of the first ads
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: of the campaign. But then, you know, we memory hole
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: everything because there's so much news that part of the
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: campaign is just going to be reminding everyone constantly about
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: both all the bad things that Donald Trump has done
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and will do and what Joe Biden has done and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: will do.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And you're so right to remind me of the ad.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to do a pitch. For my book,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: now I've pitched my company, Win Every Argument, which is
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: out in paperback this week. And I quote a line
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: in there, Peter Mandelson, John, you may remember, a very
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: famous British politician, one of Tony Blair's top communications advisors.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: He used to have a phrase, he said, you have
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to keep repeating everything. And when you start getting bored
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: of saying the same thing again and again, you're only
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: halfway towards getting your message across. to the electorate who
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: still aren't paying attention. So you're so right to point
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: out repetition, just banging that home. And one thing I
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: would say about age and mental, I mean, I think
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: there should be a full-on assault on Donald Trump's mental
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: fitness for office, right? We all know the guy is
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: mentally unfit for office. It is the great open secret
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: of American politics, but we don't say it often enough.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: We don't call him out often enough. The man, person, camera,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: crazy guy should not be president of the United States.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: If I'm Biden, and he's also super ignorant, right? The
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: guy doesn't know anything. So, you know, here's a random
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: thought that I've literally had right now while you were talking.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Trump loves to go challenge people to things, right? I
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: challenge Rex Tillis. Joe Biden should come out and say,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I challenge Donald Trump right now. We sit down together
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: and we'll pick a neutral moderator who just quizzes us
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: on things that are happening in the world. Just general knowledge. No,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: just general knowledge. Just literally. Capital cities, world leaders, history.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Trump's obsessive rating. Record ratings. Do it.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about this when... Trump over the weekend
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: at CPAC was like, I am a dissident. I am
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: a political dissident. I'm like, just someone ask him what
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: a dissident is.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: What does dissident mean?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Just someone ask him what a dissident is. I just
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: want to hear his answer.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: When he was president, I think I said it on Twitter,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I was offering money to a White House correspondent who
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: would ask Trump at a press conference, sir, when will
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: you be visiting Wakanda?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: He'll definitely, yeah. We're going to get it on the calendar.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: It's going to be great. People there love me. We
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: love it. We love Wakanda. Don't we love it? All right.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Before we go, we got to talk about the results
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: from the Republican primary in Michigan. Going into the race,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: 538 polling average had Trump at 79 percent and Haley
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: at 22 percent. But as he did in Iowa, New
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Hampshire and South Carolina, Trump once again underperformed the polls.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: He beat Haley 68 to 27 percent with nearly 300,000
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: people turning out to vote against him. We talked about
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden getting 100,000 protest votes in a state he
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: won by 150,000 votes. Isn't there a good argument to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: be made that Trump losing 300,000 votes to Haley in
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a state he already lost by 150,000 votes is an
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: even bigger challenge for him?
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, although the New York Times reported, I don't know
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: if you saw the headline that was getting dissed on
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: social media was, Was it Biden faces challenge from uncommitted,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Trump handily beats his opponent or something like that? What?
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: The numbers are not the same. Biden got... Anyways, look,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I would draw two lessons or two messages from that
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Republican primary. Number one, it's a reminder that within the
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Republican Party, Trump owns the Republican Party. Let's have no
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: debate about who owns the Republican Party. He's the first
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: non-incumbent Republican president to sweep every primary, right? Never happened before.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: He's doing it. And a year or two ago, people
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: would have said, oh, Ron DeSantis is going to do it.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: And some of us said, no, he's not. And here's
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Trump doing it. He owns the Republican Party. It's his party.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Let's just be clear on that. He's the candidate. Having
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: said that, as you point out with the numbers and
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: with the Nikki Haley supporters who say I may not
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: vote for him, he's much weaker in general than people
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: make him out to be. Right now, there's this weird
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: momentum from left and right that Trump's unstoppable. We're definitely
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: going to get another Trump presidency. That's just not true.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: He's eminently beatable. The guy's never won the popular vote.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: against a Democrat, right? Let's just be clear about that
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: as well. Just remind everyone. So he's eminently beatable. It
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: could go either way. I don't do predictions anymore because
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: they're for crazy people. And therefore, you know, there should
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: be some hope taken from the fact that a lot
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: of Republicans are telling polls that I'm not going to
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: vote for this guy if he's the candidate. Now, do
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: we believe them? We know it's a very cultish, very
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: loyal party. They're united in their hatred for the A
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: lot of them will go home to Trump, no matter
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: what they tell exit pollsters right now. That's why it
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: will be so close. But he's eminently beatable. And the
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: worst thing anyone could do is just assume he's won.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying pod save listeners are of the group,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: but there's a lot of people I meet and just go,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: it's going to be Trump. No, that's not true. It
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: could be either of them. It's literally 50-50. Yeah.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And again, I think the main benefit of Haley staying
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: in the race through Super Tuesday is Democrats and the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign are now going to have some pretty good
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: data on where the potential... anti-Trump Republican vote is going
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: to be. And they can look at the map in
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Michigan and they can look at where Trump didn't do
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: well and Haley did do well. And again, are you
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: going to get all of those Haley voters to vote
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Democrat or stay home? You know, probably not, but you
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: can target them for persuasion, right? I mean, the fact
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: that Trump only got 59% in Grand Rapids, 62% in
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Oakland County, like those are bad numbers for Trump in
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: those counties. They are affluent, college-educated counties. And Again, you know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: we talk a lot about sort of Biden defections, but,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: you know, Biden sort of replaced a lot of working
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: class defections, though he got some back after 2016 that
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Hillary lost some. But he replaced a lot of those
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: voters with sort of college educated voters in the suburbs.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: And I do think there's still room to grow with
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: some of those voters, right?
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Like he can remind them who Donald Trump is to
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: go back to what we just said, his mental unfitness
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: and the point you made about repetition and memory holing. Like,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: just remind, oh, Joe Biden got CeCe's name wrong. Okay,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: but Donald Trump said, put disinfectant in your veins. That's fake, right? Like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: this is not hard. There's a whole litany of stuff
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: you can throw at them. By the way, on Nikki Haley, John,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: how long do you think until she endorses him?
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: This could just be a fantasy. I don't think she's
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: ever going to endorse Joe Biden or anything like that.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that's going to happen.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Sportsman's bet, no money. I bet she endorses him.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: But I think that there's a, small chance that she
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: just is like, I'm out. I've dropped out. I think
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's awful. I don't trust Trump. And I'm just
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: going to, I'm just going to go away. I think
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that I would put it at like 20%. I mean,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I'm at 20%.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: John, if she comes second, right. She's in a very
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: prime position to be a favorite in 28. She's not
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: going to piss off the Republican base by not endorsing
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: the candidate. So she kind of has to in some ways. Yeah.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: But then play that out.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: So if Trump wins the election, she's not the favorite
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: in 28 because they're all going to remember that she
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: was a traitor and disloyal and like she's done. If
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Trump loses, then she is better off saying, I told
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: you so. I told you he was a fucking loser.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And that's why I didn't, that's why I didn't endorse him.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: That's why I stayed up.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: We should keep saying, every time we say if Trump wins,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: then we should just put a question mark around 28.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I just want to keep saying that, by the way.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Are you right?
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: No, we could all be in the gulag. All right.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Before we go to break, two quick notes. Next Thursday,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: March 7th, is the State of the Union. We're going
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: to be doing a group thread as we watch. Then
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: right after the speech, Dan and I are going to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: stay up late and record the Friday pod. You can
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: watch with us on the Pod Save America YouTube channel
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: or our Friends of the Pod Discord, where you'll be
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: able to submit questions for us in the main chat.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Head to cricket.com slash friends to learn more and sign up. Also,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: exciting news, Crooked's daily news podcast, What A Day, just
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: added a new weekend series called How We Got Here
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: every Saturday. In the latest episode, you'll learn all about
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: how Christian nationalists took over the GOP. Give it a listen.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: It's Max Fisher, Aaron Ryan. Fantastic. Let us know what
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you think and subscribe to What A Day wherever you
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts. When we come back, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Joining us now, America's Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. Welcome
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: back to the pod, Pete.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me back on.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Good to be with you again.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if you know this about me,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: but I am a very nervous flyer. I think there
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: is not enough Xanax in all of Los Angeles to
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: get me on a Boeing 737 MAX right now. And
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: that's saying something because there's a lot of Xanax in
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: this town. This week's FAA report, that faulted Boeing for
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: its inadequate and confusing safety culture didn't make me feel
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: much better. There was, of course, as you know, the
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Alaska Airlines plane where the door blew off in the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: middle of the flight. How confident are you that the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: 737 MAX and all Boeing planes are just as safe
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: as every other plane in the skies right now?
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Look, anything that the FAA allows to fly, the FAA
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: believes is safe. Anytime I step on a plane, including
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: a Boeing 737 MAX 9, which I did a few
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: days ago, I know that I'm safe because of all
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: of the people from the flight crew and the flight
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: attendants and pilots to the maintenance folks to the FAA
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: who make sure that's the case. Having said that, we
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: believe that there is a culture problem at Boeing when
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: it comes to safety. So the FAA administrator has given
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Boeing 90 days to put together a plan comprehensively demonstrating
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: how they're going to shift that. That includes very specific
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: tactical things that emerged when we deployed FAA personnel to
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: the factories to assess what's going on and more broad,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: big picture things around putting safety first and the culture
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: and the prioritization that happens there. But as a nervous flyer,
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I should tell you that the urgency around this is
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: starting with the context that aviation is the safest way
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: to travel in America and keeping it that way. So
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: this is all about us not taking for granted that
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: traveling on a commercial airliner is by far the safest
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: way to get somewhere. What we also need to do
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: is frankly push the culture on safety in other modes
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: of travel, notably freight rail and cars and roadways closer
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: to that territory, because there's a lot of work we've
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: got to do on that front too. But on the
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: aviation front, you're going to see Boeing continue to be
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: under a microscope and they won't be allowed to return
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: to the production numbers that they have advertised until FAA
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: is satisfied that they've got a handle on all of
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: these issues.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I read that report. What tools do you
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: guys have to ensure that the safety issues are addressed
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to the government satisfaction after that 90 days passes?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: A lot.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, part of it is the audit, like the
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: audit that's underway right now. Part of it is measures
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: like the unprecedented measure that the FAA took to meter
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: the number of planes they can produce in a month
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: and hold that to 38 until they can prove that
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: it is safe to increase it. The basic division of
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: labor here is that the FAA creates a safety standard.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: And then Boeing is responsible for demonstrating that they've met
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: that standard. But another thing that's going on with our
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: new administrator, Mike Whitaker, in office is assessing that entire
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: framework to say, do we have the tools that we
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: need to be a thousand percent confident that every aircraft
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: not only is designed in a way that's safe, but
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: every time each specimen rolls off the line, that it
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: actually conforms to that safe design.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: One more question about air safety and we can move on.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: New York Times reported over the summer that According to
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: FAA records, the number of close calls involving commercial airlines
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: have been happening on average multiple times a week, have
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: doubled over the last decade. What is your assessment of
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: why that's happening? Is this like an air traffic control
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: staffing issue?
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: That's definitely part of it. We just have not enough
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: air traffic controllers in this country. They do a phenomenal job.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: I was just in a tower a few days ago
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: with them. When you go up into one of these towers,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: What's really striking is this deceptive sense of calm because
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: it's quiet, it's measured, but they are working at an
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: extraordinary pace. If you go to, for example, the tower
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: at DCA, close to where I'm sitting here at DOT headquarters,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: they handle about a flight a minute, about 1,000 operations
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: a day. And through that unrelenting pace, their expertise, their
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: training serves them well, but they're being asked to come
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: in for more shifts than we should ask people to
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: come in to.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: If there's a concern that would actually rise to a
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: level that doesn't meet the standards for fatigue or safety,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: then the FAA would rather allow that to mean fewer
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: flights go than allow that to become any kind of
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: knowable safety issue. But bottom line, we don't want either
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: one of those things to happen, which is why we
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: need to hire more. Now, for the last 30 years,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: the number of air traffic controllers has been declining. We
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: have finally reversed that. It's finally growing. We are finally
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: hiring more than the number who leave. But importantly, among
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: the many, many, many reasons why it is absurd for
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: us to be yet again at the cusp of a
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: potential shutdown is that on day one of a shutdown,
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: our air traffic controller academy in Oklahoma shuts down. And
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: just the way the training works out there, if it's
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: closed even for a couple of days, that could set
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: us back by weeks in terms of the pipeline for
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: getting these.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Folks trained up.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: So I know there's a million reasons not to have
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: a shutdown. One of the ones I'm watching most closely
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: is the last thing we want to do right now
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: is allow the hiring and training of air traffic controllers
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: to slow down and get stopped.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: From where you're sitting at the Department of Transportation, what
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: other effects would Americans notice from a shutdown, which I
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: just heard Schumer and Mike Johnson and everyone saying they're
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: hopeful that they're going to reach a deal, but if
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: they don't and there's a shutdown, what would people experience?
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Well, again, the thing I'm probably watching most closely is
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: what that would do to air traffic control hiring. Also,
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: the air traffic controllers who do come in, so the
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: training shuts down. Obviously, the towers don't shut down. That's
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: a function that has to continue 24 by 7 by 365.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: But one thing that will happen is they stop getting paid,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: and they don't get paid until after the shutdown is resolved. Again,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: if you just think about what it's like in those
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: towers and what those men and women are doing every day,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: the last thing I want them worried about is being
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: able to pay rent this month or how they're going
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: to move money cash around because they're not getting a paycheck.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: So that's an important example. All kinds of other functions,
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: some of which affect some of the airport physical improvements
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: that we're doing. And that's just out of the aviation sector.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: And as you know, the convoluted math of how our
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: budgets are put together actually means that parts of this
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: department will be up and running and parts of them
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: will not be. Even just the effort of computing all
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: of that is taking huge amounts of attention and time
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: In a totally unnecessary way, because all the people here
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: in this building who are working on that ought to
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: be working on transportation and all the other things we
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: came here to do.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress are also threatening to block Senator Tammy
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Duckworth's bill to protect access to IVF in the wake
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of the Alabama Supreme Court's decision, even though most of
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: them say they support IVF. They also promote adoption as
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: an alternative to abortion, even though they've tried to make
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: it so that adoption agencies can refuse to work with
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: gay couples. Some have even come after you and Chasten
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: personally for adopting your beautiful twins. What do you make
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: of their inconsistency here? Is it hypocrisy, ignorance, politics, extremism?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It's all of the above.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: And what it is is ugly because you've got politicians
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: who claim to be pro-family. And then it turns out
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: they're incredibly selective about who counts as a family and
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: whose families deserve to be protected. Whether it's a couple
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: like me and Chasten who have provided a loving home
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: and have expanded our family through adoption of our incredible twins,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: our son and our daughter, or whether it's so many
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: people who are counting on IVF as a way to
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: expand their family. Now, I think they know how rotten
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: their own position is. You can tell because they won't
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: own up to it. But still, Like, this isn't theoretical, right?
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Starting with Alabama, and Alabama will not be the last
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: place where families, would-be parents, women lose the right to IVF.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: That is the direct result of decisions that congressional Republicans,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: President Trump, and, of course, the court that they created
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: have made.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: They can't have it both ways.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: And, again, a really good sign that somebody's position is
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: terrible is when they pretend that it's not true.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: You tweeted yesterday about voting for Joe Biden in the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Michigan Democratic primary. About 13 percent of the people there
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: voted uncommitted after an organized effort to protest the president's
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: policy in Gaza. You had protesters show up at an
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: event you held a few months ago at Michigan State University.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: What have you said to friends? or neighbors or young
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: people who told you, you know, I'm upset with the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: president over the war in Gaza?
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: So first of all, I get it. And nobody can
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: look at what is happening there and feel good. The
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: other thing I'll say is that right now, negotiations are
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: underway to make sure that two things happen, an end
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: to the killing and the return of the hostages. Obviously,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: I'm not in the middle of that. That's not what
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: I work on. But I know that that's underway. And
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: I know that the president's leadership is a very important
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: part of all of that unfolding. And look, there's a
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: very clear commitment here to make sure that the future
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: doesn't look like the past. And that's the other really
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: important thing, I think, to think about for Palestinians and
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Israelis living safely, each with a state, an actual state
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: where their rights and their freedoms are protected and their
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: security is looked after. That is obviously not the reality
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: that we inherited. It was not true before October 7th.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: It has not been true since. And until it is,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: there's going to be more pain.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Four years ago on the night before the Michigan primary,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden said that he viewed himself only as a
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: bridge to the next generation of leaders and As someone
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: who ran for president on the need for generational change
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: in Washington, I feel like you are uniquely qualified to
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: make the case for President Biden to younger people who
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: may have their doubts about him right now. What would
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: you say as someone who has now worked closely with
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the president over the last three years?
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: I guess the biggest thing I would say is that
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: we have a president who is focused on the future,
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: who actually cares about what our future will be like.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Not just our future as a country, but our future
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: speaking for a at least by Washington standards, a relatively
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: younger generation and our future in terms of my kids,
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: which is a whole new way of thinking about this.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: The difference between our current administration that is taking the
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: most aggressive action to confront climate change by any country
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: ever versus the prior one that really erased even the
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: word climate from being something they would discuss is just
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: one example of how we do things differently and how
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: we will continue to do things differently.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: And this matters.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, the other thing I think is really important
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: to get across right now is that the gains that
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: we have made on something like climate, there's obviously a
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: long way to go, but none of these gains are secure.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, right now there are debates going on. I know,
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: you know, certainly on our side of the aisle about
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: how to go further, what else is possible. But last
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: time I was testifying in front of the House of Representatives,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I was still debating people who don't believe climate change
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: is real, or at least claim not to believe that
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: climate change is real and legislate accordingly. And they are
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: in charge of one of the chambers of the United
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: States Congress. So right now, so much depends on our
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: ability to advance these policies and whether it's something like that,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: whether it is the work that's been done on student loans,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: whether it is the work that's being done to reinforce
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: the democracy in this country. it is being done with
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: a view to the future. That's part of what makes
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: me proud to work here. And obviously that's especially true
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: on the part I get to work on the most,
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: which is the infrastructure work. Remember, the last president, said
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: he was going to deliver an infrastructure bill. I will
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: admit this is the one time that the last president
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: had me fooled. I thought they were going to do it.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Why wouldn't you do it, right? He said he was
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: a big builder, is a bipartisan priority, good politics.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you do it?
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: And yet, even there, completely failed to deliver. President Biden arrived.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: And by the way, in a way that specifically vindicates
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: his theory of government, which is that you can at
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: least some of the time, get people to cross the
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: aisle and do something together.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: That's how we did this, right?
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: Bipartisan, mind you, far more Democrats than Republicans, but a
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: number of Republicans crossed the aisle to work with President Biden,
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: work with Democrats, work with me, work with others in
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: the administration to get this done. And now we have
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: a trillion dollar infrastructure bill, which is itself also a
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: climate bill, by the way, in the sense that we're
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: doing more for transit, we're doing more for electric vehicles,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: we're electrifying our ports, which by the way, not just
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: less carbon emissions, that means cleaner air for communities, including
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: largely disproportionately communities of color whose kids are more likely
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: to get asthma because they live next to ports and
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: the particulate matter that comes out of those operations. So
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: many things happening around the country. Anyway, my point is, look,
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: obviously I am from a different generation than the president.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: I also know that my generation and my kids' generation
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: are so much better off because the president of the
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: United States gets up every day thinking about how to
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: make sure our future is better.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Biden's governing theory. He's framed this strategy in
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: the past as trying to prove that democracy can deliver.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: And basically the idea is, you know, if you can
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: pass legislation and enact policies that tangibly improve people's lives,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: people will have more faith in the system and be
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: more likely to prefer our democratic system over the appeal
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: of a strongman. And you guys have made like huge
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: progress on passing that agenda and improving people's lives. But,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you know, you hear this from the White House itself
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: that they're frustrated. The media hasn't focused enough on that progress.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: That progress hasn't broken through to people enough, even though
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: it's real and it's there. You've had a front row
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: seat to that when you go to ribbon cutting ceremonies.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: How do you get around that problem, or at least
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: that challenge, where I think the theory is sound about
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: democracy delivering, but yet we're still stuck in this closely
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: divided country where a Trump presidency is possible again?
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Look, I think it's true.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: I'm definitely frustrated that President Biden doesn't get more credit
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: for the things that he's delivered. Part of that has
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: to do with the nature of infrastructure work, how long
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: some of it takes. How indirect some of it is.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, the vast majority of our, for example, the
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: funding that goes to roads and bridges will go through
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: the states. Some of those governors are inclined to credit
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: the president with giving him the funding to get this done.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Some of them obviously less likely to do that. There
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: are even a few cases, they've been pretty rare, but
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: there are a couple of cases, notably in Florida, where
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: a state sent back infrastructure money because they didn't want
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: to get caught cooperating with President Biden. So obviously very
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: frustrating to watch those very, very political dynamics play out. Um,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: at the same time, we know that, that when we
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: get out there and draw attention to this work, uh,
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: people want to see more of that. You can tell
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: because so many of the congressional Republicans who voted against
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: these projects getting funded still want to be there to
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: celebrate the projects. So you can tell that it's good
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: politics and good policy if they want to be there.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: And you know what, if they're there to say, uh,
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: you know, I was wrong to oppose this and I'm
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: glad it's coming and I'm thankful to president Biden, then
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: welcome aboard. Um, Otherwise, I think we feel an obligation
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: to point this out. But bottom line, I think it
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: shows that it does matter to be seen getting good
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: projects out there and getting good projects done. And that's
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: going to continue to be our focus. And if that
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: requires going there, going out to projects is one of
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: the best parts of my job anyway. And I think
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: you'll see the president out there a lot too, both
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: elevating the importance of the projects and helping to make
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: sure that they get delivered.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I've lost count of how many people have said to me,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, secretary Pete's one of the best messengers
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: in the party. Why can't we get him out there more?
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: I know you've got a day job that keeps you
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: plenty busy. Do you plan to campaign for Joe Biden
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: in your, in your personal capacity during this race?
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I expect that I will.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: I can't really get into that while I'm sitting in
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: this chair. Cause, cause you know, I'm here as secretary and, uh, uh,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: we actually care about the hatch act in this administration.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: That's not standard practice maybe, uh, in, uh, for our predecessors, but, uh, Yeah,
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: of course, I'm going to do everything I can out
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: there within the limits of the fact that I have
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: a pretty demanding job here at the DOT, which I'm
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: proud to be doing. And look, we also believe that
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: good policy is good politics. And if we keep delivering
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: in a real way, look, I'm not naive. You don't
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: instantly get credit for doing good things, especially things that
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: take a while. But I also think that one of
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: the best things that I can do on any account
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: is just to have my head down and get this
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: work done.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: You and I got into politics around the same time.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Did you ever imagine 20 years ago that someday you'd
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: have the honor of serving as a cabinet secretary who
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: had to issue a warning to some morons who'd gone
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: viral for wearing their Apple vision pros while driving a
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: cyber truck?
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: The future is now, right? I mean, and I got
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: to tell you, I mean, I don't know what was
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: going on in that video. I don't even know if
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: it was real. I just know that anytime I see
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: something like that, I just feel the need to remind
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: everybody There is no car that you can go by
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: today that doesn't require you to have your eyes on
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: the road and your hands on the wheel. There's some
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: really fancy stuff. There's some cool tech.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: It is designed to supplement the driver, not replace the
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: driver for God's sake. Watch the road. Don't check your email.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: Don't do whatever that guy was doing in that video.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Just keep your eye on the road.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: It's that simple. It doesn't seem like it's a, it's
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: a hard warning. All right. Last question. So Emily and
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I have a toddler who's three. We now have a
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: two month old as well.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: Congratulations.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I no longer know what it's like to
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: not feel tired. You guys have twins. I cannot imagine
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: handling two at once the entire time while one of
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: you is transportation secretary. How has that been?
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: So it's a challenge.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, we became parents to twins on about
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: 24 hours notice. And also, I don't know if every
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: adoptive parent has had this experience, but the advice we
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: got from our agency was actually not to set everything
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: up and have the room ready to go and everything
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: like that because of just the emotions around the false starts.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: And we definitely had false starts as many adoptive parents do.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: So everything changed literally overnight for us. It's, as you know,
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: it's the best and hardest thing in the world. And
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: as I'm sure you also know, you really learn just
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: how much you count on your spouse. And, you know,
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: Chastin's traveling a lot too. You know, he... He's been
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: in demand as a speaker. He's booked it very well.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: And so, in fact, today I happen to be on
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: solo dad duty while he's traveling pretty soon. I'll be
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: looking at a bridge or a tunnel somewhere and the
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: reverse will be true. And, you know, you figure it out.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: But yeah, you really, the two, look, we don't know
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: it any other way, right? We only know what it's
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: like to have twins. But I get the sense that
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: it is more than 2X as demanding as one because
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: you got the one interfering with the other one while
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: you're trying to do your thing, especially around bath time.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: But again, it's the best thing ever. Bath time is tough.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: And the solo parenting when you have to do that,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: that's really tough. Yeah, because you.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: Only have like 10 seconds, right, to get the diaper
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: on the one kid while they're on their way out
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: of the tub before you got the other kid that
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: you got to take care of. It is 3D chess
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: out there.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: You had a recent post that connected with me in
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: the most visceral way. You asked, just how deeply can
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: the Frozen soundtrack get ingrained in your brain's subroutines before
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: it's permanently displacing essential knowledge? And is there anything you
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: can do about this? I want to know if you've
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: figured that out yet, because Charlie was screaming and singing
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Let It Go in his crib at 5.30 a.m. yesterday
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: while I was trying to prepare for this interview.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, at least the music that they're getting toddlers
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: addicted to now is better music. I think objectively better
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: music than what was going around when we were little
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: for the most part. So we got that going for us.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's the real thing. I'm driving along, I
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: have to play Let It Go for the 19th time.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: And then I'm like, there's actually, there's a lot of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: depth to this song, right? But yeah, of course it's
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: also harder because they know what song they want to hear,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: but they don't know how to explain it to me.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: So like if they just say play Snowman, I know
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: which song to go for. But if they say play Castle,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: as they demanded that I do this morning, in the van,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know which song on the Frozen soundtrack castle means.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: There's a castle involved in I think most of the,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know. As far as what knowledge it displaces,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: I used to know something about chemistry, not a lot,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: but like in high school, like I learned chemistry, that's gone.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: And I'm pretty sure that that's coming out of the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: same pocket of my brain that has now been permanently
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: invaded by the Frozen soundtrack, which now also you will
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: find even when your kids are not around, will be
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: playing in your mind at the most unexpected and inappropriate
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: times when you're trying to concentrate on something else.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Constantly, constantly. And the other day we were driving to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: school and Charlie was like, I was like, oh, we're
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: going to play another Hot Wheels song now, the Cars
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: soundtrack again. And he was like, dad, can we have
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: peace and quiet and just chat? And I was like, okay, great.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: But then, careful what you wish for, because then there
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: was about 40 questions on the way to school.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'll take it.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll get into that. And then you get to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: explain all kinds of things.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: I'm already out of my depth on heavy equipment.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Like, what's that?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's an excavator.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: I I don't know.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Another excavator.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: What's that? I don't know, man.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: But you know what? You're the secretary of transportation. You
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: can tell your kids you're in charge of all the excavators.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: And they are not impressed.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: They're not. That's good to know. That's good to know.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Keeps you humble. Secretary Pete Buttigieg, thank you for stopping
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: by Pod Save America and come back soon. Appreciate you.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Same here.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Pete for joining us. And Mehdi, thank you
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: for joining us. Congrats again on the new media venture.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Everyone go check it out. And come back and talk
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: to us soon.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: I would love to come back and talk to you soon.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Till then, I'll be talking elsewhere. Shameless plug alert. Zeteonews.com. Z-E-T-E-O-N-E-W-S.com.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you, John. Thanks to Tommy last week. It's been
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: a pleasure.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Mehdi. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community...
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.