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“The Taliban takes Afghanistan.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: And joining us today, while Lovett is on vacation, New
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: York Times journalist Jane Koston. Jane, so excited to have
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: you on the pod.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: I'm thrilled. I mean, being on vacation also sounds cool,
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: but I would rather be with you guys.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Well, and you've joined on a sunny day for news.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: On today's show, the Taliban take Afghanistan as the Biden
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: administration scrambles to contain the fallout. Cook Political Report's Amy
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Walter breaks down what the new 2020 census numbers mean
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: for redistricting. in the battle for the House, and the
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: latest culture war is the right-wing crusade against vaccine and
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: mask requirements. But first, two big announcements. Journalist Josie Duffy
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Rice has joined What A Day as co-host alongside Gideon
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Resnick and recently announced co-host Travelle Anderson and Priyanka Arabindi.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Josie's first episode drops today.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I'm just applauding that.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It's good to applaud. Thank you.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Also, second announcement. Crooked is back with a brand new
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: season of This Land. where award-winning journalist Rebecca Nagel takes
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: you inside her year-long investigation into how conservatives are using
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: a series of custody battles over Native American children to
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: dismantle American Indian tribes. This Land's trailer is out right now,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: and the first two episodes premiere on August 23rd. Subscribe
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: to What A Day and This Land wherever you get
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: your podcasts.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: The Taliban has taken over Afghanistan nearly two decades after
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: the American military drove them from power.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: The U.S.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Government had anticipated the eventual collapse of the Afghan government
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: after President Biden announced he would make good on President
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Trump's deal with the Taliban to remove all U.S. forces
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: from Afghanistan this year. But the Biden administration was surprised
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: by the speed and success of the Taliban's final military offensive,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: which ended with the capture of Kabul and chaotic scenes
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: at the international airport. where Americans, Afghans and other allies
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: have been desperately trying to leave. Over the weekend, the
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: president announced that an additional 6,000 U.S. troops would be
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: deployed to Afghanistan to help people evacuate safely. And there's
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: reporting that the Pentagon could relocate up to 30,000 Afghans
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: who've applied for special immigrant visas to military bases in
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: the U.S. In his Saturday statement, Biden also said, quote,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: one more year or five more years of U.S. military
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: presence would not have made a difference. If the Afghan
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: military cannot or will not hold its own country in
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: an endless presence in the middle of another country, civil
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: conflict was not acceptable to me. Tommy, can you talk
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: about the circumstances that led Trump and then Biden to
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: decide on that full withdrawal as the only remaining option?
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and how the situation devolved from those announcements to the
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: scenes of chaos that we've been seeing at the airport.
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I'll try to do a quick version. I mean, I
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: think they both had the same calculus, which was that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the U.S. went to Afghanistan to get the people responsible
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: for 9-11, like bin Laden, and then degrade al-Qaeda to
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the point where the al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: couldn't plan another 9-11 and strike the U.S.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: Again.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: That part was pretty successful. But the exit strategy that
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the U.S.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Created to get out of Afghanistan was to build the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: capacity of the Afghan government and the Afghan military so
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: that we could hand over control of security to the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: government-led forces and then facilitate a peace deal between the
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Afghan government and the Taliban. Trump negotiated a deal with
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: the Taliban that would have had U.S. forces out of
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Afghanistan on May 1st, 2021, in exchange for some assurances
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: that are probably not worth the paper they're written on.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Biden extended that deadline to August 31st. So fast forward
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: to today, how things just unraveled so quickly.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: When the U.S. pulled out, without U.S.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Air support and logistical support, it sounds like the Afghan
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: government just literally couldn't get food and supplies to their forces,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: especially the ones in more remote locations. And I think
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: they made a mistake not pulling back from some of
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: the more remote locations to protect just population centers. And
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: then even further back, maybe sometime last year, local Afghan
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: officials started cutting basically mini peace deals with the Taliban,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: mini ceasefires. And when the deadline for the U.S. to
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: get out got closer, more and more of these deals
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: started getting cut. And so what happened was districts, capitals
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: just handed over control to the Taliban. It wasn't that
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the Afghan forces were defeated. It's that most of them
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: just didn't fire a shot. That's not true for the
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: special forces, the elite commando units. They were fighting really
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: hard in places like Kandahar, but there just aren't enough
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: of those forces as compared to the broader Afghan army
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: and broader Afghan police. So that's how you know, the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Taliban just marched into Kabul. I mean, I think the
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: regular forces decided we're not getting paid. In some cases,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: we don't believe in this government. This is not worth
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: dying for. And so they basically said, here's the US
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: supplied M4 rifle I was given. It's yours now. I'm
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: going to go home.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Jane, why do you think that these two very different presidents,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Trump and Biden, ultimately overruled their military officials who recommended
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: reportedly keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan while trying to reach
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: a peace agreement with the Taliban.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: I think that it speaks to one of the funny,
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: there's been a lot of talk online today about the
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: blob and people are referencing the blob are talking about
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: kind of the foreign policy apparatus that has largely been
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: supportive of first this war and then continuing involvement in Afghanistan.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: And I would also argue Iraq. Mm-hmm. And so I
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: think that one thing and it's been interesting to see
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: that apparently Donald Trump has scrubbed all reference to his
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: own deal or attempted deal with the Taliban from his website.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: But then he said it was like, oh, it's routine
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: website maintenance. And I'm like, sure, honey, sure. But that
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: was something that I think that he picked up on
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: is that the I'm going to use the term neoconservative, though,
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: that I think that that's generally now used as a slur.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: But I mean, the the general agreement of foreign policy
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: hawkishness that was very popular in the Republican Party when
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: this all got started when I was a freshman in
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: high school. And even before then, I think that there
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: was a sense that Trump wisely recognized that that was
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: incredibly unpopular with Americans. Even just hearing the early arguments,
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: I think that you put it very well of like
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: our initial arguments for being in Afghanistan and That stopped
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: being the argument for being in Afghanistan in 2002, 2003.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Let's keep in mind that the Taliban, we could have
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: had some sort of agreement made in December of 2001,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: in 2003, and in 2010 after the surge. And in
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: the first instance, Donald Rumsfeld turned it down. And I
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: think that both Trump and Biden recognized that. I think
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: wisely that this is an incredibly unpopular conflict. The arguments
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: for which were never that great and have steadily disintegrated.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: And I think it's interesting how you're now seeing this
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: being used as a partisan cudgel because of course it is.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: But I think it's worth noting that both parties are
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: responsible for a war that costs $ 2 trillion for the
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: $ 88 billion spent, quote unquote, training the Afghan army, that
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: Afghan army that isn't getting paid. So where's that money?
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: I said earlier that I could make a ludicrous reference here.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: And mine is basically like, You know that song where
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: he's just asking questions like, what you got in that bag?
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: What you got in that bag? Who's your weed man?
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: How you smoke so good? Where is the $ 88 billion
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: that was spent training the Afghan army that didn't get
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: paid and understandably said, we would rather not do this?
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: And I think that it's worth noting that this war
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: has been a money sink and a moneymaker for a
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: whole host of people. And what I just keep thinking
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: about are the folks that I went to high school
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: and college with who fought in this war. And there
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: were people who were old enough to not only have
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: fought in this war, but then to have children who
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: were old enough to fight in this war. Post 9-11,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: foreign troops.
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: And I think that there are a lot of people who,
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: and I've said this before, that like, this is bad.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: This is very bad. But it was never going to
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: be good. And I think you've seen some kind of
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: neoconservative argument saying like, well, if we would have stayed
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: for another year or another five years, and if we
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: committed more troops and more specifically, more American weaponry, and
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: I'm like, but then what? Because essentially you've set up
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: a client state. That's not, and then what are our goals?
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: What are we supposed to be doing here? Even the
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: debate about what the goals were and are and could
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: be are just so amorphous that the whole thing just seems,
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: it's just, It's very sad. I think that's my main
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: thing I keep just thinking about is that this is very,
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: very sad.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: So two things.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Number one, I did tell you that you would be
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: awarded extra points if you worked in a ludicrous reference
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: in a discussion about Afghanistan.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: You did that. You do get those points.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Number two, I think you made a really good argument
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: about sort of the neoconservative critique of that centers on
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: the wisdom of the withdrawal itself. A lot of the
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: other criticism that Biden is getting is about, okay, maybe
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: it was the right idea to withdraw, but the execution
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: of the withdrawal has been a bit of a disaster.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who's been supportive of Biden's policy,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: sort of hit back in that criticism. He tweeted, I'm
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: open to the possibility there was a different way to
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: withdraw that wouldn't have led to a quick Taliban victory.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: But if that's your take, then come to the table
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: with specifics on how your alternative would have created a
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: different outcome. Tommy, do you see an alternative that would
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: have worked better?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's two issues to separate out.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: There's the visa issues that you mentioned at the start,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: the SAV. visa and the P2 visas and the broader
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: war effort. Clearly, the Biden team didn't leave enough time
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: to process these visas for interpreters or people who work
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: for USAID or as we expand, like who might be eligible,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: people who work for news organizations. That process is slow
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: and like just mind-bogglingly bureaucratic in a normal year. you
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: add COVID on top of that and it just slows
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: to a crawl. And so I think what, you know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: that was a huge mistake and Biden needs to fix that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: And when you say mistake, what they should have done
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: is sort of just like streamlined all that paperwork.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Either streamline the paperwork or push out the withdrawal date.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And I think when you say push out the withdrawal date,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: some people are saying, well, he should have just, you know,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: pushed out the withdrawal date past the fighting season because
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: in the summer, the Taliban fights really hard.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: In the winter, it's almost impossible. So they don't.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I think what we're really talking about is like 2023.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: to allow time to sort out all of these issues,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: get everybody out.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: Um, if you did that, can I just ask if
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: you did that and extended the withdrawal date with a
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Taliban military offensive that ended in, in Kabul, would that
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: still have happened? And then would you view as troops
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: been in danger and fighting? Taliban forces while we waited
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: longer to get that visa process in place?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Possibly. So basically, when we cut this peace deal with
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: the Taliban, they stopped attacking U.S.
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: Forces.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: They were decimating Afghan forces. So it's an open question
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: of whether they would have said, OK, you know, Biden
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: pushed the deadline from May to August and they didn't,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: you know, increase attacks on U.S. forces because they knew
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: we'd get out of there eventually. It's an open question
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: about whether they would have allowed for another extension. So
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: I do think that's one thing you could have argued.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: But the other alternative is basically You have to say
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the U.S. should have a permanent troop presence where we're
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: doing air support intelligence or logistics for the Afghans in perpetuity.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: And like Jane was saying, this fantasy that there is
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: some magical number of troops for six months or more
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: that could have fixed it, it's a fiction. I mean,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: the U.S., the coalition had 130,000 troops at the height
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: of the surge in Afghanistan. We could not defeat the
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Afghans militarily. So it's very frustrating now to hear that
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you could send 5,000 more guys, 10,000 more guys, and
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: it would have been okay. The thing I do think
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: you have to remember is I've heard a lot of
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: commentators on TV saying, man, you could have had a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: few thousand guys there for a little longer and it
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: would have been relatively safe or relatively low cost because
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: there haven't been casualties lately. Again, there haven't been casualties
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: lately because we cut a deal with the Taliban and
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: they weren't attacking us. If they saw us as breaking
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: that deal, I think they would have started attacking us again.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. That's the point here. And also, I don't
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: that that argument of like, well, you know, there haven't
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: been any casualties lately. It's kind of like if you're
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: a construction site, if you heard that there weren't any
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: workplace injuries lately, that does not generate confidence. But I
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: think that the arguments that we have heard from the
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: national security establishment and from U.S. security for the past
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: 20 years have never been on the up and up
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: about what's actually going on on the ground in Afghanistan,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: especially with regard to the attempts to train the Afghan army.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: It was a money sink for the past 15 years.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: And I think that, I just think that this idea
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: of there being a better way, this is bad, but
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: a better way that extends into 2023. Well, then what
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: about 2025? We just start thinking about, again, like the
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: permanency of this mission. which is something that I don't
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: think very many people would have signed on to. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: I think that that's the thing that's interesting is that
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: this is one of those moments, and I think about
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: this a lot, that we sometimes see things as being like, ah,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: the American people have spoken or the American people think X.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: And generally you can ignore that. And people generally, but
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: this is one of those moments in which the American
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: people are like 70% of Americans want out of Afghanistan.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: And there are a host of people who are like, no, no, no.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: What they mean is they want roughly 3,000 to 6,000
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: soldiers there all the time. They don't.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Well, that brings up the point, and obviously it's too
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: early to predict the political fallout, both short-term and long-term.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, dear Lord, yeah, I have no idea.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I have no idea.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: But what is your sense of how the American people
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: might react to what is a very complicated situation, which
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: involves troops coming home, a 20-year war ending, the Taliban
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: on video chanting death to America, and I'm sure that
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: will get worse, scenes of chaos and potentially violence in Afghanistan, and...
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: refugees being settled in America? Like, how do you think
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: that all plays out?
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: I have no idea. Yeah, I mean, not at all,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: especially because historically, and for better, for worse, probably worse,
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: foreign policy matters don't exactly figure into how Americans or
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: how really most people in most countries vote, with rare exceptions.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: And I think that The arguments here are that it's
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: funny because you're seeing simultaneously that kind of the Trumpian
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: argument is that, well, we would have done the same thing,
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: but better. And so I think that it'll be really
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: I don't know how people are going to react to this.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: I also I also am curious as to how much
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: of this I think this might be a moment. I'm
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: not sure personally how much of this is because of
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: who I happen to be following, but people who are
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: very engaged in the foreign policy space, but a lot
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: of people aren't. And I think that I had a
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: conversation yesterday where they were like, you know, the New
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: York Times, my employer, the top is all Afghanistan, all Afghanistan.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: And then if you go to like the most read articles,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: it's Maureen Dowd writing about Barack Obama's birthday party, which
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: is like, you know, a great subject for an opinion piece.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: But I think that it goes to like, how we
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: think about them, how we think about events is largely
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: how we think about these events impacting us personally. But
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: I do want to say that there are a group
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: of people for whom this would be deeply impactful. And
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: that's the folks who are veterans of the wars in Afghanistan.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure that many of them are your listeners.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: And I happen to know a host of folks who
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: fought in both Afghanistan and in Iraq. And I think
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: that when you're going to get a variety of opinions
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: from veterans. And I think that it's very challenging when
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: you have the kind of like the veteran opinion, because
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: I'm like millions of people have served and that is
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: thousands of different opinions. But I do think that this
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: must be an incredibly challenging time for people who have served,
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: whether you were serving back in 2001, 2002, or if
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: the people who are being sent back now, as we speak.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: And I, I just, I just keep thinking about those
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: folks because this is something where our understanding of this
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: conflict is so it bleeds so much into our understandings
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: of political conflicts and everything happening being entirely domestic. But
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: if you were on the ground there, you know, I had,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: I knew a colleague who was stationed there, but he,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: you know, he worked for GAO, but he was stationed
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: there and went to the bar with soldiers and you like, like,
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: his entire understanding of this was like, it's a very
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: strange compound because there's a lot of fast food, but
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: most people leave to go get food elsewhere. And it
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: was just this very small experience of such a big subject.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: And I just keep thinking about how like, this is
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: a very complicated conversation. And I feel as if this
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: is going to somehow uncomplicate itself into being one about
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: like Democrats versus Republicans. And I'm concerned that the folks
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: who have been there, who have been stationed there, who
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: have fought there, who have died there, we'll get forgotten.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: Like, Speaking of very simplistic takes, you know, you're seeing
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: this is Biden's Saigon sort of all over the coverage. Tommy,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: we were talking about this the other day, and you
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: brought up John Kerry's very famous line when he was
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: a soldier protesting the Vietnam War at home when he said,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: how can you ask a man to be the last
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: man to die for a mistake? And I do wonder,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a line with such powerful and challenging implications, just,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of how the country thinks about a
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: war like this ending after 20 years in failure.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, you know, Jane's opening point that I
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: have no idea how this is going to cut politically either,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I think is the right one. I do think there's
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: a question sort of like, what do people know about
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: what's happening? Do they know that the ins and outs
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: of the decision to send more troops, the visa questions, whatever,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: or do they just know that we lost a war
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and they don't like losing things? Because I do worry that,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: you know, when people are trying to figure out what,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: how this will go, You know, there's all this polling
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: about how Americans want to bring the troops home and
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: end our war there. But, you know, if you see
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: real acts of barbarism from the Taliban or evidence that
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: terrorist groups are reconstituting or just the fact that sort
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of the media has decided that this is a stain
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: on Biden's legacy and a humiliating defeat. Like those that's
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: the language you're hearing in almost every story. This is
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: a humiliation for the United States as if it's somehow
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: noble to continue a project that was doomed to failure
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: 10 years ago.
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Right. And I think that that explains the extremely bifurcated
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: response you saw from the Trump administration, which argued simultaneously
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: that they should start this exit and also attempted to
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: drop some of the largest non-nuclear weapons we have in Afghanistan.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: And so I think that that's something that is not
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: unique to Trump or to Republicans or to Americans. I
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: think that having that confused response is not at all,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, what I've seen mostly is I want it out,
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: but not like this.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: And I think that the thing that I'm thinking about
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: a lot now also is that the, I mean, you're
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: starting to see a certain people, person whose name rhymes
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: with Bevan Biller, talking about how, oh, this is just
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: an effort to turn America into Angela Merkel's Germany, which
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: I'm like, Berlin's pretty cool. Um, but like talking about refugee,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: you know, the process of permitting more. And I would
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: say many, many, many more Afghan refugees come to the
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: United States. And I think that that's a process by
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: which you are starting to hear folks who are plugged
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: into these conversations with, um, refugee resettlement being increasingly concerned about.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: And especially because that's one thing the Biden administration showed
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: seemingly no real urgency to start getting folks out of
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: the country and especially making refugee resettlement more possible in
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: the country. And I'm aware that in part, that's because
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: we have just come out of a presidency that was
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: so marked by a market hatred for refugees and for
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: the conceit of refugee resettlement. And this idea that we
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: have to placate those type of attitudes as if they
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: are normal or something that is like something that should
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: be placated. I understand that. But I think that this
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: is a moment where that needs to be a major priority.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, I found it very notable that the sort
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: of neoconservative hawkish critique here is, yes, we should have
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: stayed there and look at the chaos and look at
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: the destruction. And that's what their angle is going to be.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: But where Miller and Trump and some of the Trumpier
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: parts of the Republican party are going to go is
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: the refugee resettlement. And if they can gin up a
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: refugee crisis on top of a border crisis, then they
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: got themselves an argument. And it's notable to me that
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: they find that more effective than shouldn't we have stayed
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: in Afghanistan a little bit more. So I don't know
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: what the politics are going to be, but clearly they
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: think that it's more politically advantageous to, um, demagogue about
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: refugees than anything else.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: And I look, I think that's going to be sort
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: of an unfortunate outcome of how chaotic these last few
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: days are, which is it's going to create more focus
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: on efforts to get refugees out of Afghanistan to speed
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: up the SIV visa process, which, by the way, Congress
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: has had years. I mean, the program was created in 2008,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the Special Immigrant Visa Program. We've had years to get
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: people out of Afghanistan. Congress has shown no urgency to
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: speed up the process. So have subsequent administrations that could
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: have reduced bureaucracy, made it faster, et cetera. But like,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: That's where our focus should be. The Canadians already announced
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: that they're going to take in 20,000 individuals from Afghanistan.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: We should be doing 10 times that. Like full disclosure,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I thought Biden getting all troops out of Afghanistan was
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: a good idea.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I supported that decision.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: In hindsight, I think Barack Obama sending 53,000 more troops
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to Afghanistan in 2009 was a mistake because we surged
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: all these troops and we got back to nearly the
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: same status quo. And he did it at the time
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: because it looked like major population centers and cities were
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: going to be overrun. And so we wanted to fight
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: back against the Taliban. But the problem was the U.S.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: military can clear territory. They can kill people. They can
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: hold territory. But there was no way to transfer it
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: to an Afghan government or Afghan military or Afghan police
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: to hold it, to provide security, to provide services, to
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: all the things you would expect out of a basic government.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Our ambitions were just far too great for this massive
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: nation-building project. And we completely lost sight of the original
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: reason we went there, which was al-Qaeda.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Last question on this, Jane.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know if we will learn these lessons,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: but what lessons should we learn from this about sort
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: of the limits of U.S.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Foreign policy?
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Well, we never learn anything.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I needed that caveat there.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: We never learn it. I mean, I just keep thinking
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: about how like Rocky III is dedicated to the brave
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: fighters of the Mujahideen. I think that one of I mean,
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: it is that specificity that was lacking. And it was
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: a specificity that I think, it's interesting because I've started
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: to see a lot of conservatives who are suddenly very
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: concerned about the status of women and girls under the Taliban,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: as everyone should be. But I would make two notes here.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: I was a freshman in high school in 2001, and
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: I was opposed to entering Afghanistan because I was a
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: liberal in a conservative city. And the response I got
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: from everyone was the, Laura Bushist, don't you care about
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: women and girls? Don't you know what the Taliban does
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: to women and girls? And I'm like, yes, I'm aware
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: of what happens here. But that was not the reason
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: we were in Afghanistan. The reason we were in Afghanistan
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: was to prevent al Qaeda from having a base of
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: operations and to hunt down people who were connected with
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: September 11th. Now, notably, most of the people involved with
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: September 11th were from Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, where women and
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: girls also do not have a great time, but we
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: send them weapons and we have fun times with them,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: even when they murder journalists. And so I think that
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: the moment we lacked that specific argument, the moment it
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: became about, oh, you know, nation building, we're going to
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: build an economy and a political system. And we're going
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: to basically turn this into what we said was going
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: to be its own independent government, but what turned out
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: to be apparently a client state. And I think that
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: that lacking of specificity is something that I will remember
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: in the future. And it is just, it's very weird
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: to see the same arguments that we heard in 2001,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: 2002 being used again, where it is about, don't you
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: know what the Taliban does to women and girls when
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: we know that wasn't why we were there in the
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: first place. It just became like a nice amuse-bouche to
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: be like, yes, why don't we throw that in too?
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: When it's very clear that with the number of governments
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: that we have close and happy relationships with that also
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: are terrible to women and girls and sexual minorities, that
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: wasn't our priority. And I really wish that we wouldn't
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: have lied and said it was.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I saw a reporter that I really like and trust tweet,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: does the Biden administration's departure from Afghanistan, is that at
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: odds with his pro-democracy promotion platform?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And that made me.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Because I think the lesson of the last 20 years
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: is we cannot force democracy on a country at gunpoint.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: We cannot solve a country's political problems with our military.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: And so we have this look, we're 20 years after 9-11. Right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: And like this era has been defined by a wild
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: overreaction to a massive psychological wound that I'm not in
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: any way trying to act like it wasn't it was
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: horrible for all of us. But it led us to
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: invade countries, trample civil liberties, dump money on security operations.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: It is not clear. that have made us safer. And like,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: we just haven't, I don't know that we fixed some
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of the policies, but we haven't right-sided the mentality.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's something like, I know we're
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: going to be having a lot of nine 11 related
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: takes and thoughts. And I will always think about how
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: fucking sad it was and horrible it was and how
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: horrible it continues to be. You know, I, I remember
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: that day. I remember where I was. I remember every
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: aspect about it. I remember there was a girl I
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: told it happened and then she laughed because she didn't
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: believe me. And I've never forgotten who that was and
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: how mad I still am about that, even though she's
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: like 34 now and I should probably move on. But
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: like but it was one of those moments in which
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: like this horrible thing happened and we had and the
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: means by which we had to deal with it. was
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: this and i i think about that moment of like
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: you know no no you know the most important thing
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: you can do is go to the mall and the
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: ways that this war became about 9-11 but not about
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: 9-11 and it does seem to be that the war
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: on terror in general was attempting to be about something
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: but wound up being largely in my view for nothing
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: and it's interesting because there's been a lot of response
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: from people who were supportive of the war on terror
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: like saying like when was the last major terrorist attack
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: you remember? And I'm like, you mean like domestic or
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: international or like what? How are we thinking about this?
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: Because this did not, in my view, make us safer.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: It made us in many ways appear far weaker because
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: and then in a lot of ways, I think it
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: generated an anti-American attitude that I think we've seen time
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: and time again when you interview folks who have been
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: involved in attempted or completed terror plots, they are thinking
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: of their actions as reprisals for what our government has
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: done in these countries. And so I think that the
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: thing I keep thinking about is that this all started
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: for horrifying, sad, bad ways, and it continues to be
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: horrifying and sad and bad. Yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: I keep thinking about what Obama used to say and
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: then clearly learned the hard way, which is, you know,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: wars are much easier to start than they are to end.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: And that's that's something that we're seeing play out right now. OK,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: when we come back, I will talk to Cook Political
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Reports editor in chief, Amy Walter, about the new census
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: data and how it affects redistricting. The 2020 census results
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: have finally been released, which means that states now have
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: all the data they need to draw new congressional districts
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: that will last for the next 10 years until the
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: 2030 census. Here to help us break down what this
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: means for the redistricting battles that will play out over
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: the next several months, as well as the 2022 midterms,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Cook Political Report Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Amy, welcome back to the pod.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me, John. I'm excited.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: So the Cook Political Report's analysis of the census data
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: written by Dave Wasserman has a headline that will undoubtedly
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: pique the interest of most Pod Save America listeners. New
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: census data set is mostly good news for Democrats. We
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: don't get a lot of good news these days. Why
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: is that?
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: Mostly not bad, right? We're speaking in the.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Low bars, low bars.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: Very low bar. There were two big questions that folks
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: like David had before the census data came out. One,
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: was there... we're going to see a real undercount of Latinos,
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: especially in and around major metro areas and in the Sunbelt.
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: Because when we got the reapportionment information earlier this year,
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: there were a lot of stunned folks, stunned because the
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: expectation was that Texas was going to get another district,
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: not just two, but would have three seats, that Florida
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: would pick up another district. And so the The thinking was, well,
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: maybe because of COVID plus all the politicization of the
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: census around citizenship during the Trump era, that that had
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: really dissuaded many Latinos from filling out the census. But
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: what came to be is that, as you know, the
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: the census information came in, not just showing that indeed
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: America is, those parts of the country are growing quickly,
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: but they're growing because their non-white population, their voters of
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: people of color have exploded. And so what that suggests
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: is yes, people work actually counted. So that was good news,
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: number one. But good news, number two, I think if
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: you're Democrats, especially in those states, is that the urban areas,
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: which are the most democratic in the inner suburbs, will
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: retain a lot of power, if not more, they will
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: be harder to shop up, because you can't just take
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: a piece of those and and spread them out as
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: easily as you could if they were losing population. So
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: in that sense, it's some good news for Democrats. The
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: bad news, which of course we have to bring up,
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: because I know you would.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Of course, of course. I was going to go there next.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: You're going to go there next to like, well, waiting
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: for the shoe to drop is that Democrats don't control
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: the redistricting process in Texas or Georgia or Florida. And
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: you could still be very creative as a line drawer,
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: especially if you want to maximize your position. even with
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: this new data. I do think it makes it harder,
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: and this is what we're going to be looking for,
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: not just this year, but quite frankly, for the next
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: couple of years, is the kinds of court challenges that
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: we are likely to see that will be based on
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: the fact that this growth of non-white voters, voters of color, people,
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry, they're not just voters, this is everybody, of
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: the total population, suggests that if Republicans do a significant gerrymander,
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: that Democrats could come back and say, hey, all the
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: growth in the state has been driven by the fallen
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: groups of people, and yet, how is it possible that
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: we only have two or three or whatever many districts
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: that have significant population voters of color. Why are white
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: voters overrepresented in this state, given what we know about
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: the population and the population trends? So you started this
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: interview with a very interesting question. point about you, and
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: it's factually true, you draw these maps for the 10
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: years before we have our next census. But look what
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: happened between 2010 and 2020, right? Many of these maps
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: were redrawn because of court challenges. And Democrats actually succeeded
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: in winning back the House because of some of those
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: court-ordered redraws in places like North Carolina. and Pennsylvania and Virginia.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: So to me, the bigger question is that are sort
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: of the short term, right? What can these legislatures do
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: today that will impact the 2022 elections? What will be
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: argued in front of court? What will be successful? And
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: if those maps are redrawn, what do those look like?
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: And that could actually set us in motion for the
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: next few years.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: So that is a fantastic top line summary of the data. Uh,
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: I do want to dig in just on, um, sort
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: of the diversification of the electorate point on two specific questions.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: I saw that the census changed the way they ask
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: about race. How much do you think that may have
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: affected the results?
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. And you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: the New York times actually wrote something up about this.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: I think it was over the weekend and their takeaway
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: was there are a number of, of factors that have
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: gone into, uh, why we saw such a significant rise
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: in the number of people who consider themselves to be
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: of two or more races. One could be, you're right,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: the wording, right? So the questionnaire, if you look at
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: the 2010 questionnaire and the 2020, to the naked eye,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: it doesn't look that different, but they did actually make
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: changes that allow for people to write things in that
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: you couldn't before, right? So you could say, for the
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: first time, well, really I'm Jamaican and Puerto Rican, right?
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: You didn't have to choose one or the other. And
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: so that could be one. The second is people, as
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: we know, race is a social construct. So our definitions
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: of race change constantly. And so for different generations, how
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: they identify themselves changes. And then the third is we
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: do truly have more people especially of recent immigrants who
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: are marrying people who are not of their same race.
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: You have a lot more mixed race households. And then
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: those children are going on and defining themselves as mixed race,
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: whereas their parents might not have done that, right? Or
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: might not have called their own child a person of
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: mixed race. So it's all really, it's a fascinating conversation
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: to have with demographers and sociologists and political scientists as
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: we sort of work through this. But you know better
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: than anyone, right, this idea of how people view themselves,
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: the lens with which they view themselves and the world
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: is not fixed. And we put a lot of emphasis
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: on this and we shorthand things, especially in politics, and
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: it fails to capture the nuance that is and has
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: always been the American experience.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: I do want to talk about how it may affect
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: the legal challenges. And you were just making this point
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: in the piece that Dave wrote, it said that you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: the declines in the non-Hispanic white share of the population
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: might strengthen Democrats' hand when they challenge Republican gerrymanders in court.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of listeners might not know why
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: that is, why it might strengthen Democrats' hand to say that, okay,
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: at the point you made earlier, that in certain districts
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: and in certain states, there's a diversifying population. So it
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: should theoretically tie Republicans' hands a bit more than it
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: would have otherwise.
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: Right, that you can say, well, hold on, if our
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: state has grown X amount and almost all of it
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: came from non-Hispanic white, Asian, other races, how can there
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: be the same number of districts that are majority white
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: and no other districts that have significant populations of people
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: of color. And so it would argue against, you know,
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: there's this saying in redistricting, there's cracking and then there's packing, right?
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: You can pack as many of your, if you're doing
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: the gerrymandering, you'd put what you would think of as
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: the other teams, voters, residents into one district, pack as
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: many as you can. And that gives you an opportunity
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: to draw better or more competitive districts for yourself. In
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: this case, because we know, especially when it comes to
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: African-American voters, but just in general, the more diverse a district,
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: the more likely it is to be democratic, the more
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: diverse demographically. And so... if Republicans then say, take a
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: district that is now, I don't know, 52% voters of
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: color and make it 87%, right? And say, well, look,
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: there we go. There, we just put them all in
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: this district. And Democrats say, well, hold on one minute. Everybody,
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: got packed in this one district when they aren't even
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: close to each other, right? Did you draw it in
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: a way that you were bringing in disparate communities from
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: across the state? Or they were not really communities of
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: interest in that same way. I'm not an election lawyer.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: So I don't I don't even want to pretend to
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: be one on a podcast. But, you know, it seems
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: it seems to me that, you know, the real question
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: going forward is how. how open are the courts going
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: to be to some of these challenges? And then the
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: next question is, what does a majority minority district mean?
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: What is the definition of that? Does it mean that
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: it has to be 50.1%? Is it that it's just a,
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: an attempt to get to that number? What's the number?
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: What's the acceptable number? Obviously, we know that the Supreme
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: Court didn't want to weigh in on this. This is
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: going to be something for the states to have to tackle,
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: which ultimately means that it's the district courts and the
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: state courts that have to tackle this. But it's not
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: entirely clear that we know what that means, especially when
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: you no longer have the Justice Department weighing in on
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: these maps.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: So yeah, and we and it matters legally, we should say,
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: because the Supreme Court has basically said that partisan gerrymandering
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: is okay. But there have been more successful challenges to
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: race based gerrymandering because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: which is why we're talking about this at all. Beyond
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: the legal challenges, after what we saw with the Hispanic
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: vote in 2020, and to a lesser extent, the black vote,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Do you think it's still possible to know whether a
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: diversifying nation helps Democrats or Republicans?
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: All right. I mean, isn't that, that's exactly the question, John,
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: because look, we have, we had record turnout in 2020
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: in this country that the census captured. And it, it
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: showed that yes, a diversifying country is, And given the
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: margins by which Democrats continue to win voters of color,
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: diversifying country means that they're probably going to win the
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: popular vote. If all goes the same way, if Republicans
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: follow the same playbook, Democrats follow the same playbook, Democrats
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: continue to win the popular vote election after election. But
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: that the electoral college vote is basically between 40 and 80,000
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: votes between going to a Democrat or a Republican. And
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: so that is not changing, at least in the immediate future.
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: I think the other thing that we've learned over these
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: last few years is it's not the assumptions that have
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: been made about Latino voters. We've been forced to re-look
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: at those, right? So these assumptions... And especially I think
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: that many, even many Democrats made, oh, this is a
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: 70% Latino district. We win Latinos 70-30. Great. Let's turn
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: out every single voter we can. It's all GOTV, all GOTV,
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: no persuasion, no understanding of necessarily what the issues are.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: It's just bad.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: Plug and go. And that obviously is not a strategy
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: for the future. That missed a lot of, as we
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: talked about, the nuance. But we also know that when
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: it comes to geography, that density is really so much
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: more of a powerful factor. predictor of electoral performance, right?
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: So the denser a suburb, the denser an outer exurb,
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: whatever we are calling those now, the more likely that
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: it could be competitive. Fewer, less density, more Republican. And
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: that the race piece of it is a part of
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: the story, but not the entire story.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you have rural Hispanics and rural Blacks acting
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: more like rural whites than Blacks and Hispanics in cities
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: acting like college-educated whites. And so geography becomes more of
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: an important factor even than race, or at least increasingly
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: a more important factor than race.
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: That's right. And education.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: And education, right.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: And there were some studies after the election that, again,
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: we've talked so much about White non-college, white college, and
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: the shift. And those are still the two biggest population
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: sets out there. But when you look at Latino college, non-college,
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: you saw some of those same breakouts, right? Non-college, much
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: more conservative leaning college, leaning toward Democrats. So that shouldn't
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: be surprising, but we somehow... I don't know that we
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: were shocked by it, but it was one of those
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: things that I think, look, it's expensive for pollsters to
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: go in and do some of these deep dives and
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: to oversample populations that have traditionally been sort of ignored.
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: But it's clear that if in these races that are
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: one on the margins, which right now we're in an
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: era where, as I said, 40,000 votes determined who the
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: next president of the United States is, 30,000 votes, who's
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: in control of the House and the Senate. You know,
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: those votes on the margins matter and understanding what it
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: is that these voters are actually doing and thinking versus
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: just assuming based on past performance. And by the way,
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: we measured past performance today. so inaccurately.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: So it's not all that.
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: Helpful to go back and go, well, in the 90s,
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: we saw, well, how were we defining Latino in the 90s?
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: How were we defining Asian? We weren't even talking about that.
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: Asian Americans are now the fastest growing group and have
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: been the fastest growing group of Americans. And Asian's a
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: pretty big category, right? I mean, you're talking about everything
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: from South Asian to China. And I just think you
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: have to really appreciate and understand the nuances between those
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: different groups, which, you know, Coming back all the way back, John,
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: this is why I love house races so much, because
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: those communities of interest can play very different roles, right?
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: So we saw you have a very strong Cuban influence,
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: we all know, in South Florida.
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: You also have, at where you are, in two districts
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: in Orange County that Republicans flipped They were Republican.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: Democrats won them in 2018. Then Republicans flipped them back
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: in 2020. You have really significant Korean communities. You have
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: significant Vietnamese communities, as well as significant Latino communities. Those
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: members of Congress have to understand, and they do. If
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: you're successful there, you understand everything. who those communities are,
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: what is important to them in a way that at
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: a presidential level gets sort of glossed over, right?
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: You mentioned that Republicans obviously still have a significant advantage
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: over the redistricting process because they control it in a
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: lot of key states. Do you think that Republicans will
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: be able to simply draw their way to a House
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: majority with the data that's all out there and the
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: map and everything we know now?
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: I have to ask if you're if you're looking at
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: the number five.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: That's really the number we're looking at right now, which
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: would which would flip control from Democrat to Republican. That
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: seems very doable to me. There are two layers. One
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: is what can Republicans do? Right. How creative, how willing
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: are they to kind of be aggressive, knowing that it
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: could come back to bite them later on? or they
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: could get that map overturned in court. But do they
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: want the short-term gain of let's just get it right now,
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: get what we can, worry about all the fallout later?
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: And then the second piece of it is how aggressive
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: are Democrats going to be? Because, you know, Illinois, they
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: don't have many states where they control the whole process.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: Illinois is one of them. Will they aggressively go back
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: draw that map. And, you know, again, you have a
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: governor in the state who has said publicly, right, no gerrymandering.
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: We hate gerrymandering. We want to have independent redistricting. Okay,
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: so we'll see where that goes. And then in New York,
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: where Democrats really could make significant problems for, Democrats can
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: make significant problems for Republicans. Basically, axing all, but a
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: couple of districts upstate for the Republican party. So that
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: you combine those two things. Oh, and then your state,
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: you know, California is independent redistricting, but that independent redistricting
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: was actually pretty good for Democrats in, the 2010 redraw. And,
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: you know, in a state that is overwhelmingly Democratic as California,
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: you may get better maps than, you know, people have
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: been thinking about. So, you know, you put those places together,
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: that could help to offset. So there's what your Republicans
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: can do, and then what's the offset?
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: So Illinois, New York, California, are there any other states
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: you're looking to for potential surprises? What are the biggest
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: redistricting mysteries to you right now?
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: So Maryland is another one. Again, these are just on
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: the margin. But are Democrats going to redraw to get
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: literally an 8-0 map? They did it in the last
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: round of redistricting. They created some really... perverse districts. So
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: that suggests to me they would be willing to do
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: it again. But there are a couple of states that
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: are really big question marks. New York, again, because they've
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: never had an independent commission. So the New York legislature
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: would have to vote to overturn the the independent legislature.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: If they didn't like it and then go out and
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: just create their own maps, that would be clearly pretty gerrymandered. Ohio,
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: similar question mark. What can Republicans do there, given that
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: they don't draw the initial map, an independent commission does,
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: but will they say, let's just play politics. Let's not
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: even pretend, right? Because that's what both bodies would have
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: to do is basically say, we're just not even gonna pretend.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: that this is an independent process. We're going to overturn
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: it and draw our own maps. And then Michigan is
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: a big question mark too. You know, the good news
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: for Democrats is they have a Democratic governor this time around.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: They didn't in 2010. And it's an independent commission. Wasn't
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: that way in 2010. But Detroit is, as you know,
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: that was one of the cities that did not look
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: as robust as places like Chicago or New York. And so,
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: and they have to lose a seat. There are a
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: lot of Democrats. I think the statistic, if I remember,
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: don't hold me to this, but it's something like, you know,
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: the five Democrats who represent Detroit and the immediate areas
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: outside of Detroit all live within like 10 miles of
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: each other. So there's, It's musical chairs there. It's really
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: dangerous if you are any one of those Democrats. There
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: was good news out of Michigan in 2018 with Democrats
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: picking up two seats there. But that's going to be
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: a really tough go of it. And it's unclear exactly
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: what that's going to look like, but it could be... again,
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: even though Democrats theoretically are in a better spot than
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: they would be with Republicans in charge, that could be
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: an uncomfortable place for Democrats.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, I'm going to end this interview feeling realistic
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: about the outcome, but perhaps... more cautiously optimistic than I
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: was before.
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Don't be, don't assume that because there are so
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: many moving parts and then the thing you appreciate and
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: your listeners, I'm sure appreciate more than anything, which is
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: this is a, a local process, right? This is parochial
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: politics too. We talk about this as if every single
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: person who is in the state legislature, who is on
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: an independent commission in these states, is thinking about sort
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: of the national implication, right? So many of these folks
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: who are drawing these districts, right? It's like my buddy
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: who sits next to me, I'm worried about his district, right?
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: Like you're thinking about what you want to do for
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: your own parochial interests in that state as well. And so,
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: you know, that is something that you can't, and I
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: think national folks appreciate this, but it's also frustrating. They
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: can't control that. You can't tell a state legislature what
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: to do. And for years, California, the line drawing was
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: done by a cantankerous legislator named John Burton, who, you know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: just famously would like draw the maps himself and who
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: he liked and who he didn't like.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: And that's what it was.
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: So, Just know that it's a lot less linear than
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: people think.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Well, we will be following all the coverage of the
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: redistricting process, especially on the Cook Political Report. Everyone should
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: go check it out and subscribe. It is a valuable
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: resource for this. You've got Amy and Dave and their
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: brilliant team who know more about this than most. So, Amy,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining the pod. And we
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: appreciate you.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: Thanks, John.
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: We're really happy to.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: If you want to learn more about redistricting and also
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: help get in the fight to stop it, the National
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: Democratic Redistricting Committee and All on the Line have a
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: state-by-state plan to achieve fair maps and fight partisan gerrymandering.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: So this week, if you head over to votesaveamerica.com slash nooffyears,
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: you can sign up to learn more from the experts themselves.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: All on the Line is hosting redistricting you summer sessions
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: to ensure grassroots activists and volunteers like you have the
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: tools you need to make your voices heard through this
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: final stretch of the 2021 redistricting cycle. Again, that's go
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: to votesaveamerica.com slash nooffyears to learn more and get a
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: bunch of volunteer opportunities where you can actually make a
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: difference in the outcome of these redistricting battles. The United
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: States is now leading the world once again. When it
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: comes to the spread of COVID-19, not only cases, but
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: hospitalizations and deaths are spiking all over a country where
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: 90% of all counties are now experiencing substantial or high
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: transmission because about 30% of all eligible Americans have not
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: yet chosen to get their first shot. A growing number
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: of governments, businesses, and schools are trying to contain the
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: pandemic by requiring vaccinations and or masks in indoor public settings.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: One big obstacle, Republican politicians, pundits, and activists in Texas
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: are Governor Greg Abbott banned mask mandates and vaccine mandates
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis banned mask mandates and threatened
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: to withhold the salaries of school officials who defy him.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: Those two states alone, Florida and Texas, account for nearly
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: 40 percent of the country's new hospitalizations. But Republicans are
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: intent on waging a full on culture war against public
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: health measures just the same. Here's what some of them
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: have been saying recently.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Everyone needs to get.
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: Back down, back down to common sense and remember that,
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: you know, we're human. We can't live forever.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: We are going to catch all kinds of diseases and
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: illnesses and other viruses.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: And we get hurt sometimes.
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: It's almost as if the vaccine invited this explosion of cases.
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, you've had all the experts say, well,
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: look out for the Delta variant or the Lambda variant.
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: Next is going to be like the Chi Omega variant
• 57:10
  Speaker 6: or the.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: Pi Kappa Psi variant.
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: I got the Florida variant. I got the freedom variant.
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: It affects the brain. It gets you to think for yourself.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: It makes you think, once you think about it, that
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: maybe none of this is really about COVID.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's about social control.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: So that last clip was from a school board meeting
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: in Tennessee where some activists were threatening doctors.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: So that's cool.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: You also heard Marjorie Taylor Greene in there saying, hey,
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: we can't live forever. Matt Gaetz talking about how the
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Florida variant has affected his brain.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: No argument there.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: Jane, do you think that Republican opposition to mask and
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: vaccine requirements is rooted in a genuine belief about the
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: need for limited government? Or is there something else going on?
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: That's a very leading question, because, of course, there's something
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: else going on here, especially when you see in Texas,
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: they have Austin bars were like, could we have a
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: mask mandate? Could we require vaccines? And they're like, no,
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: we'll shut you down if you do that, because that's
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: how limited government works. No, but I think this is
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: also an example of a moment in which you are
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: seeing that and I. I would argue this is also
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: true in some cases for Democrats, of people being absolutely
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: terrified of the base they need to vote for them.
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: Where you're seeing Ron DeSantis arguing that they shouldn't even
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: require proof of vaccination from people coming to the United States.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: And that's weird for Ron DeSantis. And he won't even endorse...
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: vaccine passports for, I mean, the argument of like, how
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: desperate do you need to be to pander where you're
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: saying like, no one should need proof of vaccinations. But
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: I also think it's worth noting here, this is another
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: one of those moments in which like, we are hearing
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: a lot about something, but I remain questioning as to
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: whether or not it is reflective of like, mass opinion.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: And I think that we see that with regard to masks.
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: When you ask people about mask mandates in schools and elsewhere,
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: they're generally supportive. But of course, there are people who
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: are not supportive of that. And they're very, very, very loud.
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: And I think that and then you're seeing that also
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: in smaller towns and elsewhere, they're attempting to defy these
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: executive orders in Texas and Florida. But I also think
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: like One of the challenges, because we're thinking about, we're
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: doing an episode on this very subject. One of the
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: things that's particularly challenging about COVID, if this were a
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: disease that only appeared to impact a particular subgroup, none
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: of this would be a problem because no one has
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: any problem ensuring that other people can't do something. And
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: we see the very same people who argued, I went
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: back a while back and was thinking, looking at how
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: people treated folks with HIV in the late 1980s and
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: early 1990s because some moron on the internet tweeted something like,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: we wouldn't even do this to people with AIDS. And
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, yes, we did. And we have. Because
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: you see mass polling arguing that not people with full-blown AIDS,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: but people with HIV should be legally prevented from marrying
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: or having children. And that sterilization should be an issue.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: So let's keep in mind that when it comes to
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: public health, how people think about this is often tied
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: with how vulnerable they view themselves as being to either
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: the disease itself or to the requirements of government. And
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: so I think that this is one of those moments,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: especially when you're hearing people who are making the argument
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: of like, oh, well, we all have to die from something.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: About what other disease would you make that argument? Like
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: at a certain point, like, should we just stop funding
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: cancer research? Like, because When you got to go, you
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: got to go. But yeah, it's a challenging issue also
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: because something that I do want to bring up is
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: that a lot of the people who are the loudest
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: people who are saying that they absolutely would never get
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: vaccinated under any condition tend to be working class white voters.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: That's pretty clear based on the research. But the number
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: of people in a lot of urban areas who are
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: unvaccinated or resistant to the vaccine, shall we say, are
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: black and brown Americans who are resistant for any number
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: of reasons. And also folks within specific religious communities that
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: are hesitant regarding the vaccine. So we have a lot
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: of different forms of vaccine hesitancy. And my concern here
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: is I want people to get vaccinated. I think that
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: would be awesome. I would really prefer that everybody get vaccinated.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: Please get vaccinated. But I think that there are lots
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: of different forms of vaccine hesitancy. And I think that
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: occasionally we get very focused on like, very loud Georgia
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: CrossFit enthusiast vaccine, like anti-vaccine enthusiasm. And we're not focused
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: enough on the people who think, for instance, that you
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: have to pay for the vaccine. Or something that I've
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: been thinking about is when we got vaccinated in the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: beginning of the year, a lot of people tweeted about like, oh,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: you know, I got really sick for about two days.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: If you're an essential worker or working in a job
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: where you don't have vacation time, How appealing is it? Like, yeah,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: you're going to get this vaccine and then you're going
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: to not be able to work for two days and
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: you might lose your job. So have fun. It's still
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: important for you to do it. Like, I think that
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: we need to do more thinking about how that vaccine hesitancy,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: not vaccine refusal, because I think those are two separate issues,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: but we need to deal with each of those in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: a different way. And a lot of it is like, yes,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: there are going to be the Republicans or who are
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: terrified of their base and terrified of saying anything that
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: is supportive of the vaccine in any way, because apparently
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: the worst thing in the world would be to not
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: be in office. This remains like a funny thing about
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: politics is that like the worst thing in the world
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: is not not being a senator anymore. Like your life
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: will go on if you are not in the United States.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Not for these people. Not for these people.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Like I'm like, I live in Washington. You're allowed
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: to still be here if you're not a United States Senator. Like,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: you know, you can like, you can go to the bar.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: It'll be great. But I do think that we need
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: to think if we're thinking about increasing vaccination numbers and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: not just being incredibly angry, like which you can also do,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: you can do both at the same time. But I
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: think it's worth thinking about like vaccine hesitancy and the
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: reasons behind it and how some of, our own actions
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: may contribute unintentionally to vaccine hesitancy and how to think
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: about that.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such a good point about vaccine hesitancy. I mean,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: you know, I was like, as soon as a vaccine
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: was offered to me and I could get it, I
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: was like first in line.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I was really excited about it. So I'm someone who.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Really, really loves vaccines. I, of course, got J & J.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: And so I've been thinking at some point about, oh,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: do I need a booster? But it's even like the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: thought process of that. You're thinking, OK, when would I
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: get another shot? And how many days could I take
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: off if I have side effects and not look at
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: my busy schedule? And, you know, I have the luxury
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: of taking days off.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: But you're right.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: There's a ton of people who just for the sake
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: of the fact that they can't take work off or
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: they don't have easy access to the vaccine or someone
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: hasn't knocked on their door and told them about it,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: that they may not take it. So it's not all these,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: as you said, the Georgia CrossFit crew. But I do
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: think the reason we talk about that so much more, Tommy,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: is because Republican politicians have now made this an identity issue.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: which is what they've made so many other issues now
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: so that it's not based in sort of self-interest or
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: what's good for you or what's going to make you
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: feel better, what's going to save your life even. It's
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: all about your identity as a partisan and that sort
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: of drowns out all the other sensible conversations.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you think. Yeah, I know.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: I know people in my life and friends of friends who,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: you know, were, were, nowhere close to being Republicans, but
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: they were scared by internet research or, you know, maybe
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: they came across Robert F. Kennedy on Facebook and they
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: think like, oh, he's a Kennedy. This is a legitimate
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: voice on policy.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: We're, we're,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: we're almost out of Kennedy's. You should listen to on Facebook.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: There's like, we're, we're, we're low on Kennedy. Like if
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: there's a Kennedy involved, like you got it. And like,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: then you're like, oh, okay. Oh no, not that one.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: But like, you could see how, Your average person would
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: see him and think, oh, this is like a real
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: serious thought leader.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: But you're right.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, on the Republican side, you know, I just
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: come to believe that culture fights are everything for Republican leaders,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: especially ones who want to win a Republican primary.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, you saw Josh Hawley with his budget resolutions,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: which are like. ban critical race theory type on masks
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: given to vaccinated abortion.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Whatever crazy thing.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: You have Larry Elder, who's trying to run to recall
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom in California, who did an interview one day
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: where he said Gavin Newsom was elected fairly. A couple
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: of days later, he said he wanted a mulligan on
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: that answer and had to clean it up and say
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: that Biden was not actually elected fairly.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: So like, you know, all.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: Of these people are terrified of the people they purportedly
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: want to vote for them.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: They're owned by their base.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: And right. And I think that that's something it's interesting
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: because I think with regard, you see occasionally conservatives arguing
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: that Democrats are also controlled by their base. But that
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: would mean that like the Democratic base is so myriad
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: that you have like progressive base that actually hates Democrats
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: and then like centrist base that hates progressives. And it's
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: just like, it's like a very large, confusing high school
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: that I am afraid of. But yeah, I think that
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: there also, the thing about it is that it is
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: like an identity marker and it's an identity marker that
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: seems so constituent on this one thing. When you know
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: that what gets me is that when you know, all
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: of the people making these talking points are vaccinated, right? Like,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: All of them are.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: The sin of hypocrisy is no longer a problem for anyone.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: That has just gone out the window.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: Right. They're all vaccinated. And especially because then you start
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: getting into like when you're public health concerns, the relationship
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: between public health and individual actions is always curious and questionable.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: And if I I've been I've been in like a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: history wormhole as I tend to be in. But if
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: you go back to like the actual story of Typhoid Mary,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: One of the things that was about that was that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: like she was condemned by the city, but no one
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: explained to her why she was in so much trouble.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: And she was just like, I just want to work.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: Why won't people let me do my job? And well,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: it turns out her job involved introducing people to typhoid fever,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: which is very unpleasant. But I think that that intersection
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: has always been really complicated for people. But it is
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: interesting that this has been another moment in which the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: Kennedy I don't like and the people who were anti-vaxxers
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: before this, the people who were like, no, no, no,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: you shouldn't get any vaccines for anything. Like we are
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: seeing a re-up of measles, which can kill you. We
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: are seeing re-ups of numerous diseases that we were very
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: proud of having eliminated. And it's interesting how that history
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: has been helpfully forgotten by certain Republicans. I saw someone
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: tweeted something like, You know, maybe COVID will just be
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: with us like smallpox. And I'm like, who do you
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: know who's gotten smallpox? We did that. Like we eliminated it.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: There are certain like there are vials of smallpox in
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: very secure facilities and like three places on earth. What
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: are you even talking about? Like there there's a history
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: here and it's a complicated one but i think that
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: people are willing far too willing to ignore the complicated
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: and embrace the easy well.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: That is very true and i mean i do think
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: what's depressing about it is like if if seeing other
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: people getting sick and dying around you and in some
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: cases getting sick and almost dying yourself if that's not
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: going to convince you to either get a life-saving shot
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: or wear a mask inside for a little while longer, like,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: aren't you just beyond convincing at this point? Like, aren't
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: you sort of beyond, don't we have a group of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: people now and some of these Republican partisans who are
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: just like beyond the goal of politics itself, which is
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: to like persuade people to see something differently? Like, if
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: we can't do it on this issue, I don't know,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to happen with anything else.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: Well, when the aliens come, we are fucked is my
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: big takeaway. And I guess climate change will be second
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: to that. I mean, I do think like, I do
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: think fighting about this in a political context is probably
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: just not the path forward. I do think like the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: fact that it's become a culture war issue bleeds into
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: making it harder to convince these sort of fringe cases.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: Like for example, Joe Rogan, right? Joe Rogan is like,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: I'm just an idiot comedian with like a massive audience.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: Why would anyone listen to be on vaccines or anything else?
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: But he brings it up a lot. And then, you know,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: fairly recently, a year or two ago, he had Alex
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: Jones on who was spreading anti-vaccine, information about the polio vaccine,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: which I could have given you one Google search, one
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: link to explain sort of the challenges with polio vaccinations,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: which is basically there's an oral version where you poop
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: it out and you can infect people. But there's a
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: version that gets injected into you that is completely safe
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: and is basically eradicated disease.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: That's the gist.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: But he has Alex Jones on and they're like spreading
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: sort of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. And now he's sort of,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: you know, in the place where Rogan just doesn't want
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: to be told what to do by the libs or
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: anybody else.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: So he's going to keep asking questions.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: And like, that's how I think this whole debate has
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: gotten distorted and stupid. And it's so fucking dangerous because
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: it's not just the hardcore magas.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: Also because Alex Jones, as he has admitted in court,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: this is a performance art that is mostly meant to
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: sell supplements. But I would also say that like that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: entire conceit, there's this internet terminology of just asking questions
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: where you're just jacking off where it is like, all
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: you're doing is asking questions, but like, what is for
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: questions for the pursuit of what you are, you have
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: a thesis and you're just going to find support for
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: your thesis. It's not a hypothesis. It's not the if
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: then statement, and then you might be wrong. And you're like, well,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: it turns out I was wrong. No, they're like, you
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: have a thesis and you're just going to find the
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: pieces of information that support it. And I think that
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: that is one of those things where one of the,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, The conceit of the Internet was like you
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: could have all of the information in the world, but
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: you wouldn't stop being a person like there were people.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: There's a one of the person who basically invented the
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: idea of like washing your hands for surgery wound up
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: in a mental hospital because he was basically telling surgeons
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: the time. Your hands are dirty. And they were like,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: but I'm a gentleman. I'm always clean. And they're like, no,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: you aren't. And they're like, no, you're wrong. And it
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: basically drove him insane. And then he ironically died of
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: an infection due to a wound he received from a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: prison guard in a mental assignment.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: So like history is the worst.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man. People are like learning from the problem here
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: is people. The problem here is that like the intricacies
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: of people in groups are it's always going to be
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: really hard to deal with, especially when you need them
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: to do something. And I always like, I understand wanting
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: to have this be an apolitical space, this conversation around COVID,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: but I'm really trying to think of an illness that
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: we've faced that hasn't been political throughout history. And I
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: just cannot think of one. Like, do you remember when
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: we were like the idea, especially because at first COVID
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: wasn't going to be a thing. And then COVID was
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: a thing, but it wasn't that bad. But it's interesting
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: because the same people arguing that it's not that bad
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: are suddenly very allegedly worried about undocumented migrants bringing in COVID,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: which I'm like, but why would you be worried? Because remember,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: it's not that bad. Like, none of this makes sense.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: None of it makes sense, but none of it ever would.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: Well, that's because it's never going to be apolitical once
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: the government is involved and the government is involved because
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: this is a public health issue, right? And I do
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: think you know, back to my original question to you,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: which is like, is there some sincere belief in limited
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: government driving this? It's not a sincere belief in limited government,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: but it is a skepticism and cynicism about government and institutions.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: And to your point, Jane, the whole just asking questions
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: is designed to make people distrust people in positions of authority,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: whether it's the government, whether it's their own doctor or
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: whether it's their own community public health official. And I
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: do think that's been driving so many of these Republican
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: culture wars anyway, is that like people in positions of authority,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: people in positions of power, you can't trust and they're
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: trying to screw you. And that is sort of what
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: drives this whole message.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: I would also say, for better or for worse, we
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: also give the government no flexibility to be wrong. The
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: novel coronavirus, it was a brand new thing. For a while,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: we thought it was on surfaces. We thought masks might
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: be a bad idea. They corrected that when they could,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: but that creates a big trust gap with the US
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: government that I don't know has been filled. Now, do
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: I think people should be able to intellectually get over that? Sure,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: but I also can understand how You know, if you're
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: a parent, you're trying to figure out, like, is this
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: new mRNA vaccine safe? Should I give it to my
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: kid eventually?
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Like, it's a scary, big decision.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: I do think we have to approach that with some
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: empathy and some understanding to try to get them the
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: information they need. And it's probably going to be outside
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: of the political context, which, you know, is why I
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: sort of have long thought it's best when you have
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: other people communicating about these things. But look, today we're
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: just asking questions, which is, you know, is Lovett out
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: today because he was arrested?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Just asking questions.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: I could find the answer easily by Googling like Joe
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: Rogan could, but instead I'm just going to ask questions
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: because that's easier for me.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: That is an easier thing to do. And it's more fun.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: I do think that's why, Tommy, I try to approach
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: with some, you know, there are all these pieces lately
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: and headlines and tweets that sort of like sneer or
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: celebrate when an unvaccinated person is in the hospital and dying.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: And even when I've Like Charlie Warzel tweeted a good
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: piece about it the other day, and I retweeted that,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: and I saw that he starts getting ratioed by a
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: whole bunch of people who are like, I've lost my
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: patience with unvaccinated people.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Fuck them.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: And it's like, look, I'm enraged at unvaccinated, most unvaccinated
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: people for not doing this. I'm more enraged at the
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: people who are spreading the disinformation, and I'm trying to
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: have some humility and understanding for especially a lot of
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: the people that Jane was talking about who aren't like
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: these crazy Republican partisans. who were just trying to do
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: this to stir up trouble, but just people who were
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: scared and confused and have been spread a lot of misinformation.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Look, I have people I love deeply and who are
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: not vaccinated, who I worry about all the time. And
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: you know, there's what, what can you do?
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: They're not doing this to hurt somebody else. They've just
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: have come to a different conclusion based on the fucking
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: cesspool of garbage that's available on Facebook and the internet
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: about wildly complicated issues. And they're probably sold a bill
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: of good by charlatans who use it to make a profit.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Et cetera, et cetera. But here we are.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm no science expert. I'm just regurgitating what I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: read as well. But I have faith in these institutions.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: That's something that I think that we don't talk enough about.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: I also was like, there's a vaccine. I'll go get it.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Fine.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: And I think that there's an element to which we
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: have this conceit of expertise. And I was just talking
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: about like, we were talking about Afghanistan earlier and you
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: have the conceit of expertise of the people who were like,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: the Afghan army is going to be fine. And I'm like,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: I am not in Kabul. And I was like, I'm like,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't know enough about this, but then
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: people who do know a lot about this seem to
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: be thinking this one thing. And so I could kind
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: of understand how people would be like at a certain point,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: whose expertise is there and whose expertise isn't there. But
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: at the same time, you see the same people who,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, I, I, You see the same people who
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: are very resistant to the medical establishment telling them what
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 4: to do with regard to COVID, who then, if they
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: get COVID, will be inherently reliant on that same medical institution.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: The people who are on oxygen, the folks who are
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: dying in hospitals, where it's so complex. I mean, human
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: nature is incredibly complicated and complex and how we think
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: about these things. But I do see that there is
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 4: an element here where you're like, how are we, how
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: do we trust these people, but not these people? What
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: is research and what is quote unquote research? Like, when
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: am I just listening to people who sound like me?
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: So it sounds correct. And when am I actually getting
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: real information? When am I, because I think that one
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: thing is, for instance, people look at the trying to
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: find like, well, a lot, all these people have been
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: injured by the vaccine and they're using a, like a
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: website to which The CDC invites you to upload these
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: instances of challenges with vaccines. The problem is that when
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: you go back and look at them, some of the
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: people haven't even received the vaccine at all.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: And but then you're like, but it's you know, it's
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: a website and it looks scientific. And I'm like, yeah.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: And I look at websites that look scientific and I
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: have sources that I believe have sources I don't believe.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's it's really hard in these moments,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: especially when the people who are supposed to be informing
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: us about a lot of different subjects. We've seen them
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: again and again be wrong. But I think that where
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: I always go is like when you're wrong, admit it
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: and explain how you were wrong and how you got
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: to your wrong conclusion. And if you have a lot
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: of different pieces of information. and they all are they
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: come from differing places and people who might differ ideologically,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: but they center on the same basic finding. I'm like, OK,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: that seems believable. But I do understand how different. This
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: is a time where it seems as if everything is believable,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: but nothing is. And that's really hard in the midst
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: of a pandemic.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: No one can predict the future. I have empathy for
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: people who are scared or confused. I have scorn and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: disgust and hatred for the people like Donald Trump Jr.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: who spread anti-vaccine. information or just fear monger because they
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: think it'll help them politically. Those are the people I
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: think should be written off from society.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: And just to end on a somewhat positive note, um,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: whether it's been because so many cases have been going
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: up in hospitalizations and deaths or people becoming more persuaded,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: we have seen sort of the, uh, vaccinations increase over
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: the past month. I think we're now at like the
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: highest level every day we've been at since, since July 4th.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: So at least it is heading slowly in the right direction. Um,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: Jane Koston, thank you so much for joining Pods of
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: America today. Amy Walter, we also thank you for joining.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: It's fantastic to have you, Jane. We should come back
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: again soon. Let's do it again.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: Let's do it. And then, you know, maybe something will
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: be happy happening.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: Maybe we'll get to talk about like something. I'm just
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: not even like happy, just like neutral.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, we'll shoot for having you back for a neutral conversation.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: What's a good thing we could talk about?
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we'll see.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: I haven't finished White Lotus yet.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: Is that good?
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 6: It is.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: Flavia and I were just talking about it before the
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: episode began.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: The finale is quite good.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: I have not seen it. And I just keep inventing
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: what it's about based purely on images.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: That's a fun game.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: Memes like it's like how Big Little Lies, I just
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: assume is about lesbians. I don't know what it's about,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: but I'm assuming it is. And I'm like, oh, busy lesbians,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: my favorite kind. I just I'm in this weird moment.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 4: And like in content where I can only watch things
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: that will make me feel neutral, positive or good. So
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: I'm like people keep recommending like I don't understand why
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: the Trump administration seemed to correspond with people telling me
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: to watch. Like, don't you want to watch The Handmaid's Tale? No, no.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: I want to watch Midsummer Murders. I want to watch
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: like old episodes of Poirot. I want to see if
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: I can find old episodes of Wishbone.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: This is why I watched Emily in Paris and all
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: these people came down on me like a ton of bricks.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: You know what? Here we go. It was mindless. It
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: was fun.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: Then I watched the 1999 Woodstock doc and it's fucking depressing.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 7: Yeah. No, no.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, I want to like listen to nonsense
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: and then watch nonsense. And then like Hulu is like,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: do you want to watch some more nonsense to make Yeah,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: I do. I'm just going to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: not like the new season where they're actually dealing with
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: the stuff that happened last summer. I watch old episodes.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: You know what never fails? Golden Girls, but not the
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: episodes where Dorothy has to deal with having chronic fatigue
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: syndrome because that's too hard. I just want to hear St.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: Olaf stories.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 3: No, this is like the success of Ted Lasso, right?
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: People are like, the fact that it's groundbreaking. It's groundbreaking
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: that there's a show about a nice guy. Everyone's like,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: what is this all about?
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: A nice guy who then inspires other people to be nice.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: I was like, I can't get into it. Everybody's into it.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: And then we started watching it like last weekend and
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: we just barreled through because I was like, I don't
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: feel anything but good.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that way with Hacks too, even though
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: it was kind of sad.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Hacks is good about that. I like this
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: pop culture close. This is the most fun. This is good.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: And also, and I want to thank Jane because even
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: though this is an episode about Afghanistan and redistricting and COVID-19,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: We are going to name it Busy Lesbians now, which is.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: After Big Little Lies.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: A show, again, people are going to email me.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: I never saw it either. Never saw Big Little Lies myself.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: People are going to email me. Big Little Lies is
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 4: actually not about that. And I'm like, I'm just going
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: to ask questions. And I'm just going to do my
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: own research by making it up.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Where was Lovett arrested? We don't know. Thank you, Jane.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it. We'll talk to you later.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez. It's
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: and Nar Melkonian, who film and share our episodes as
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: videos every week.