Latest / Pod Save America / “Fox’s Insurrection Group Chat.”

Transcript

“Fox’s Insurrection Group Chat.” · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: We only have 100 days left until the 2022 midterms,
0:04
Speaker 1: and we need to make every one count. We know
0:07
Speaker 1: how high the stakes are in these midterms. Abortion is
0:10
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Climate is on the ballot. Our basic
0:12
Speaker 1: freedoms and ability to make our voices heard to protect
0:14
Speaker 1: them are on the ballot. Head to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms
0:19
Speaker 1: to take our Count Me In pledge to volunteer the
0:21
Speaker 1: weekend of July 31st and become part of our Midterm
0:24
Speaker 1: Madness program to get involved in the most important elections
0:27
Speaker 1: in 2022 from the Senate, to your local school board.
0:51
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:53
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:54
Speaker 1: On today's show, 2021's congressional clusterfuck barrels to a close
0:59
Speaker 1: as the House reveals new details about the right-wing plot
1:01
Speaker 1: to destroy democracy while the Senate tries to save it
1:04
Speaker 1: with a last-minute attempt to pass voting rights legislation. Then,
1:08
Speaker 1: former Biden White House COVID advisor Andy Slavitt joins to
1:12
Speaker 1: talk about how we can prepare for what the Biden
1:13
Speaker 1: administration believes will be a large wave of Omicron infections.
1:17
Speaker 1: And Dan and I discuss the media's role in defending democracy.
1:22
Speaker 1: But first, if you're excited for the release of Spider-Man
1:25
Speaker 1: No Way Home, then you have to check out Crooked's podcast,
1:28
Speaker 1: X-Ray Vision. Host Jason Concepcion and Marvel superfan Rosie Knight
1:32
Speaker 1: are recapping all the previous Spider-Man films, breaking down all
1:35
Speaker 1: the returning villains and sharing their wildest theories about the
1:37
Speaker 1: future of the MCU multiverse. New episodes of X-Ray Vision
1:40
Speaker 1: drop every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. And you
1:44
Speaker 1: can now binge the entire second season of Unholier Than Thou,
1:46
Speaker 1: where host Philip McCarty explores the wisdom of everyday people
1:49
Speaker 1: falling down and getting back up again. All right, let's
1:53
Speaker 1: get to the news. We will have a few special
1:56
Speaker 1: episodes for you guys over the break, but this is
1:58
Speaker 1: our last regular pod of 2021, so we thought we'd
2:02
Speaker 1: take stock of what's happening right now in Washington, the
2:05
Speaker 1: beating heart of our thriving democracy. Let's start with the House.
2:13
Speaker 1: Over in the House, the January 6th committee ended the
2:16
Speaker 1: year by not only voting to hold Trump chief of
2:18
Speaker 1: staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress... They have released
2:21
Speaker 1: some of the text messages that he turned over to
2:24
Speaker 1: the committee, including this one, which was sent to Meadows
2:28
Speaker 1: by an unnamed Republican member of Congress before the polls
2:33
Speaker 1: closed on the night of the 2020 election. Here's what
2:35
Speaker 1: it said, quote, Here's an aggressive strategy. Why can't the
2:40
Speaker 1: states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and other Republican-controlled state
2:44
Speaker 1: houses declare this is BS and just send their own
2:48
Speaker 1: electors to vote and have it go to the Supreme court. Dan,
2:52
Speaker 1: who do you think that was? And what the fuck?
2:57
Speaker 2: Here's the sad thing. It could be honestly, almost anyone,
3:01
Speaker 2: anyone not named Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, maybe a Romney,
3:05
Speaker 2: maybe a Murkowski. Everyone else is a viable suspect for
3:09
Speaker 2: that text. And I think in the answer to your
3:11
Speaker 2: question of what the fuck is, what the fuck? I mean,
3:14
Speaker 2: this is, I mean, this is ultimately the, like the
3:19
Speaker 2: underplayed or under-told story about all of this is just
3:21
Speaker 2: a general Republican disdain for the idea that voters should
3:25
Speaker 2: get to pick their politicians, right? This is what happens
3:28
Speaker 2: when you're a minority party in a country with a
3:31
Speaker 2: theoretically majoritarian system, is you want to do everything you
3:33
Speaker 2: can to prevent the majority from having their will to vote.
3:35
Speaker 2: So this one, it is, I would say, an accurate
3:38
Speaker 2: description to call it an aggressive strategy. Let's just stop
3:41
Speaker 2: counting the votes while we're ahead.
3:43
Speaker 1: Well, I mean– You know, we talk all the time
3:45
Speaker 1: about the big lie. This is like, put the big
3:47
Speaker 1: lie aside. Put the allegations, the false allegations of voter
3:50
Speaker 1: fraud that no one's been able to find aside. This proves,
3:55
Speaker 1: at least for this member of Congress, this Republican member
3:58
Speaker 1: of Congress, that all of the voter fraud allegations were
4:01
Speaker 1: completely bullshit because before there were any voter fraud allegations,
4:06
Speaker 1: before any of this, this person was just like, you
4:08
Speaker 1: know what? Let's just fucking overturn the election. You people
4:12
Speaker 1: don't get to pick who represents you. republican politicians get
4:15
Speaker 1: to pick who represent you that is their platform that
4:19
Speaker 1: is the belief at least of this one republican member
4:21
Speaker 1: of congress that that we should just overturn the votes
4:25
Speaker 1: of republican democrats independents whoever because the people who should
4:29
Speaker 1: get to decide who are in power in this country
4:31
Speaker 1: are republican politicians and not the american people that's it
4:35
Speaker 1: there are only.
4:36
Speaker 2: Two kinds of elections the ones republicans win and illegitimate
4:38
Speaker 2: elections and they're mine that's how they think about.
4:41
Speaker 1: It so let me ask you this uh Why do
4:44
Speaker 1: you think President Biden and Democrats in Congress aren't making
4:46
Speaker 1: a big deal about this? I did some searching before
4:51
Speaker 1: the pod. I did not see many statements. I did
4:53
Speaker 1: not even see– I saw a few tweets here and
4:55
Speaker 1: there from the very online members of Congress. But that's
5:00
Speaker 1: about it. I don't know.
5:02
Speaker 2: I mean it's very– I'm trying to think about this
5:04
Speaker 2: from the perspective of being in the White House. And
5:08
Speaker 2: you sort of think about like what's on the agenda here.
5:11
Speaker 2: for Joe Biden and his team every day. And let's
5:14
Speaker 2: just put aside just the fact that there's the normal
5:18
Speaker 2: stuff that presidents are required to talk about. Like, oh,
5:21
Speaker 2: the so-and-so of Finland is coming today, or the NSC
5:24
Speaker 2: has somehow tricked us into announcing our new Asia strategy
5:27
Speaker 2: this week. And we got to talk about that, right?
5:30
Speaker 2: Like all that other stuff that it has importance in
5:33
Speaker 2: the world, I guess.
5:34
Speaker 1: There's things you say on this podcast that I'm just like,
5:36
Speaker 1: I can't wait Till Ben hears this, Rhodes hears this,
5:40
Speaker 1: and then texts us.
5:41
Speaker 2: Well, it's good because no one listens to this podcast
5:43
Speaker 2: sooner after it comes out than Ben. Like that's sometimes
5:47
Speaker 2: how I know the podcast has come out is Ben
5:49
Speaker 2: has texted me something we have said in it.
5:53
Speaker 1: It's fun. We have fun with our world, Opal.
5:54
Speaker 2: That's right. But then you just think about like the
5:58
Speaker 2: other things that are on their sort of communications department whiteboard,
6:02
Speaker 2: which is, You pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill. That is
6:06
Speaker 2: a huge accomplishment. What is one of the lessons of
6:08
Speaker 2: previous presidencies is go sell your bill. So you got
6:12
Speaker 2: the president talking about it. You got Pete Buttigieg and
6:14
Speaker 2: Secretary Granholm driving in a car together. You're just talking
6:18
Speaker 2: about that. It's like, oh, also, we're in the middle
6:22
Speaker 2: of a second Delta surge and Omicron is coming. So
6:26
Speaker 2: we better use what bully pump we have to tell
6:28
Speaker 2: people to get boosters and vaccinated. So we got to
6:30
Speaker 2: do that.
6:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.
6:31
Speaker 2: We got to make the case for the pieces of
6:33
Speaker 2: legislation we haven't passed yet. Also, why aren't you talking
6:35
Speaker 2: about democracy? It's very hard. Now, the question will be
6:40
Speaker 2: when sort of the calendar switches and we get into
6:43
Speaker 2: next year and we start campaigning for the midterms, what
6:47
Speaker 2: is the core message? What are you going to pick?
6:49
Speaker 2: Is it Democrats deliver? Is it Republicans are trying to
6:53
Speaker 2: steal elections? Is it Republicans are obstructing? We're going to
6:56
Speaker 2: have to pick that story and stick to it, but
6:58
Speaker 2: there is– I just, I'm sympathetic to the view of
7:02
Speaker 2: you should talk more about this. Yes, you probably should.
7:04
Speaker 2: But then what are the things you're going to talk
7:05
Speaker 2: about less?
7:08
Speaker 1: Right. Well, you know, Joe Biden was asked about Meadows
7:12
Speaker 1: and the contempt charge as he was going to the
7:14
Speaker 1: helicopter to Marine one. And he said, you know, I
7:18
Speaker 1: think this, this sounds warranted the, the committee voting for
7:22
Speaker 1: the contempt charge. I haven't looked at the text, which
7:25
Speaker 1: I guess you understand. Look, I very much understand White
7:28
Speaker 1: House has a lot on its plate. It's got to
7:29
Speaker 1: focus on coming Omicron wave, all the legislation it's trying
7:34
Speaker 1: to get passed. So I totally get that. I do
7:38
Speaker 1: think that the anti-democratic movement in this country is sort
7:43
Speaker 1: of the biggest overall looming threat that we face, medium
7:48
Speaker 1: term and long term, particularly when we get around the midterms.
7:52
Speaker 1: And I think that It's fine if you don't pop
7:56
Speaker 1: off right as the text comes out, right when everyone
7:59
Speaker 1: wants you to. But they're going to make a push
8:03
Speaker 1: for voting rights, which we'll talk about. And in the
8:05
Speaker 1: new year, if the Biden administration and the president himself
8:08
Speaker 1: are leaning into voting rights legislation, which will hopefully also
8:12
Speaker 1: include some election subversion provisions, I would talk about this.
8:18
Speaker 1: I would talk about this. And I think that if
8:19
Speaker 1: we want, and we're going to get to this later,
8:21
Speaker 1: but also if we want the media to cover it, more,
8:24
Speaker 1: then Democrats sort of have to talk about it. You
8:27
Speaker 1: have to make a case at some point. You have
8:28
Speaker 1: to do a bunch of different things at once.
8:30
Speaker 4: I mean, when you think about this moment in history
8:35
Speaker 4: in which we're living, and you flash forward a couple
8:39
Speaker 4: of years, and then you think all of this stuff
8:42
Speaker 4: was happening, why weren't people talking more about this?
8:46
Speaker 2: I think you can really... There is something very, very
8:48
Speaker 2: dangerous happening. And there is a sense, maybe it's real,
8:53
Speaker 2: Maybe it's intentional, but the sense that a lot of
8:59
Speaker 2: Washington Democrats, like people in the Senate, some in the House,
9:03
Speaker 2: maybe some in the White House, are missing this threat.
9:08
Speaker 2: I don't know if they are really missing it, but
9:10
Speaker 2: I think if you were to just look at their
9:11
Speaker 2: public statements, you would get the sense that they think
9:17
Speaker 2: that the Republican Party is more normal and less dangerous
9:19
Speaker 2: than we think it is. And that is a position
9:22
Speaker 2: you could really come to regret.
9:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, and I am also very sympathetic. I'm sure
9:27
Speaker 1: if you were sitting here in the White House hearing this,
9:29
Speaker 1: you'd be like, well, you think that Joe Biden just
9:31
Speaker 1: talking about it is going to do what? Is that
9:34
Speaker 1: going to sweep the Republicans out of power immediately?
9:37
Speaker 5: No.
9:37
Speaker 1: Is that going to change their behavior? No. I do think, though,
9:41
Speaker 1: that I was looking for stories about that text. I
9:45
Speaker 1: saw it because Jake Tapper tweeted it. And a bunch
9:48
Speaker 1: of other people were tweeting it. But when you looked
9:50
Speaker 1: for actual stories in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, CNN,
9:56
Speaker 1: I found like a small paragraph in a CNN update story.
10:00
Speaker 1: didn't find a lot of other stories about that very
10:02
Speaker 1: alarming text. And I think we, again, we'll talk about
10:05
Speaker 1: the media's role here, but I think it has to
10:07
Speaker 1: start with, you know, if Democrats, if elected Democrats don't
10:10
Speaker 1: talk about it, then it's not going to get covered.
10:12
Speaker 1: And I do think it's at least important for most
10:14
Speaker 1: of the country to know that this is happening. And
10:16
Speaker 1: then if people don't want to vote based on that knowledge,
10:19
Speaker 1: then that's all we can do, but they should at
10:21
Speaker 1: least have the knowledge. The other bombshell from Meadows' text
10:25
Speaker 1: came from 1-6 committee co-chair and longtime resistance hero Liz Cheney,
10:31
Speaker 1: who read aloud messages from Fox News hosts, and even
10:34
Speaker 1: Don Jr. that begged Meadows to get Trump to call
10:38
Speaker 1: off the violent mob that was attacking the Capitol. Here's
10:40
Speaker 1: a clip. Indeed.
10:41
Speaker 6: Indeed.
10:42
Speaker 7: According to the records, multiple Fox News hosts knew the
10:48
Speaker 7: president needed to act immediately. They texted Mr. Meadows, and
10:54
Speaker 7: he has turned over those texts. Quote, Mark, the president
11:00
Speaker 7: needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home.
11:04
Speaker 7: This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,
11:08
Speaker 7: Laura Ingram wrote. Please get him on TV, destroying everything
11:15
Speaker 7: you have accomplished, Brian Kilmeade texted. Quote, can he make
11:21
Speaker 7: a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol, Sean Hannity urged.
11:28
Speaker 7: As the violence continued, one of the president's sons texted Mr. Meadows, quote,
11:35
Speaker 7: he's got to condemn this shit ASAP. The Capitol Police
11:40
Speaker 7: tweet is not enough. Donald Trump Jr.
11:43
Speaker 2: Texted.
11:44
Speaker 1: How about those fucking heroes, Dan? Trying to stop the
11:48
Speaker 1: mob by texting Mark Meadows and begging him to get
11:53
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to call it off. How about that?
11:55
Speaker 2: Well, if only those Fox hosts had access to the
12:00
Speaker 2: airwaves and maybe some sort of media outlet that would
12:03
Speaker 2: be very influential with the sorts of people who were
12:06
Speaker 2: storming the Capitol that day.
12:08
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, Dan. Thanks to the
12:12
Speaker 1: video team at the Washington Post, we have audio of
12:16
Speaker 1: what these Fox hosts and Don Jr., the Trump family's
12:19
Speaker 1: Conor Roy, were actually saying in public at that time.
12:23
Speaker 6: The Capitol was under siege by people who can only
12:27
Speaker 6: be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement. Now, there
12:31
Speaker 6: were likely not all Trump supporters, and there are some
12:33
Speaker 6: reports that Antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.
12:39
Speaker 3: I do not know Trump supporters that have ever demonstrated
12:42
Speaker 3: violence that I know of in a big situation. They
12:46
Speaker 3: knew there were hundreds of thousands of people that came
12:48
Speaker 3: to town. We also knew that there's always bad actors
12:52
Speaker 3: that will infiltrate large crowds. I don't care if they're
12:55
Speaker 3: radical left, radical right. I don't know who they are.
12:58
Speaker 3: They're not people I would support.
13:00
Speaker 4: If you were to take his speech and compare it
13:03
Speaker 4: to literally any stump speech, you would see absolutely no deviation.
13:10
Speaker 1: What's the significance of this revelation, if you want to
13:13
Speaker 1: call it that, about Fox News hosts and Don Jr.?
13:17
Speaker 1: And what do we do with this information? Laugh.
13:20
Speaker 2: Cry. I don't know.
13:22
Speaker 1: Both.
13:22
Speaker 2: It's really the story of 2021 in so many ways.
13:25
Speaker 2: I think this is ultimately more important for the historical
13:32
Speaker 2: record than it is current politics.
13:35
Speaker 5: Everyone with eyes.
13:39
Speaker 2: In ears who is willing to look and listen knows
13:42
Speaker 2: what happened. They know these Fox hosts are full of shit.
13:45
Speaker 2: The problem, like, I mean, it is significant that Fox,
13:52
Speaker 2: and I think the most significant part from any of
13:54
Speaker 2: the texts is Laura Ingraham saying this hurts all of us,
13:56
Speaker 2: which is sort of a admission that, oh, look what
14:00
Speaker 2: we have unleashed here with our lies and our disinformation
14:03
Speaker 2: and our search for ratings and our firing people up
14:05
Speaker 2: over a bunch of election bullshit. Like this could hurt us, right?
14:09
Speaker 2: Like not– this could hurt the Capitol Police. This could
14:11
Speaker 2: hurt democracy. This could hurt the people who were Mike
14:15
Speaker 2: Pence or anyone else. This could hurt us. Like that's
14:17
Speaker 2: why they care. And it is notable I guess that
14:20
Speaker 2: they texted the president's chief of staff, not the local–
14:24
Speaker 2: the head of the local Antifa, right? So it's pretty
14:26
Speaker 2: clear they know who was responsible. But like it's good
14:29
Speaker 2: that we have a historical record that even Trump's son,
14:32
Speaker 2: who apparently doesn't have access to his father's cell phone,
14:36
Speaker 2: had to text the chief of staff.
14:39
Speaker 1: I realize that's a very small thing in the grand
14:41
Speaker 1: scheme of things, but that's pretty fucked up. He couldn't
14:47
Speaker 1: text his dad. He had to text his dad's chief
14:50
Speaker 1: of staff. There's a lot.
14:54
Speaker 2: It explains a lot.
14:55
Speaker 1: Betavanka had a direct line to dad.
14:58
Speaker 2: The one he loves?
14:59
Speaker 5: Yes.
14:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
15:01
Speaker 2: But I mean, the thing here, like, yes, this reveals
15:05
Speaker 2: a lot. And in the historical record of what happened
15:07
Speaker 2: on this day, we now even have people who have
15:08
Speaker 2: lied about it being caught in those lies. But for the,
15:13
Speaker 2: whatever it is, 60 or 70% of Republicans who believe
15:15
Speaker 2: the election was stolen, the significant plurality of Republicans who
15:19
Speaker 2: believe that Antifa or someone else was involved in this
15:22
Speaker 2: and it wasn't Trump supporters, this information is not going
15:26
Speaker 2: to change that. The problem is not an absence of
15:30
Speaker 2: facts here.
15:31
Speaker 1: There was a.
15:32
Speaker 2: Rally organized by Trump supporters. Trump tweeted and told people
15:35
Speaker 2: to go to the rally. He then went to the rally.
15:37
Speaker 2: At that rally, he said the election was stolen. People
15:39
Speaker 2: should do something about it. People left that rally waving
15:41
Speaker 2: Trump flags and wearing MAGA hats, marched to the Capitol,
15:44
Speaker 2: scaled the walls, chanted around there, Trump won. did horrible things,
15:48
Speaker 2: violently assaulted everyone in their way. It's on video. There's
15:55
Speaker 2: no smoking gun that's going to get a bunch of
15:57
Speaker 2: people to do it. We have to recognize, I think,
15:59
Speaker 2: as we think about the politics of this, that there's
16:01
Speaker 2: a lot of motivated reasoning here. We're not just one
16:04
Speaker 2: Laura Ingraham text away from the bulk of the Republican
16:07
Speaker 2: Party being like, oh, Trump is bad, or insurrection is bad,
16:11
Speaker 2: or 1-6 really happened. I think that that's a really
16:14
Speaker 2: sad statement about American politics and our information ecosystem and
16:18
Speaker 2: all of that. But like, that is, I think the
16:21
Speaker 2: reality of what is here. Like it's great for the
16:22
Speaker 2: historical record. It makes these guys look stupid and force
16:26
Speaker 2: them to sort of backtrack on air, but it's not,
16:28
Speaker 2: the underlying dynamics are not going to change based on that.
16:32
Speaker 1: I also think it highlights something else that we've talked
16:35
Speaker 1: about before, which is that no one has less respect
16:39
Speaker 1: for Republican voters than Republican politicians. And no one has
16:44
Speaker 1: less respect for Fox viewers than than Fox News hosts.
16:49
Speaker 1: And because what they do in private is completely different
16:53
Speaker 1: than what they do in public. In private, they all
16:56
Speaker 1: get vaccinated. All the Republican politicians, the Fox News hosts,
16:59
Speaker 1: they make sure they're vaccinated, they make sure they're safe,
17:02
Speaker 1: and then they just spout anti-vax bullshit on the air
17:05
Speaker 1: all the time. With this, they tell people, oh yeah, no,
17:09
Speaker 1: it was fake, it was Antifa, even as they're privately
17:12
Speaker 1: texting Meadows saying, please call these people off. But they
17:16
Speaker 1: incite people to go to the rally in the first
17:22
Speaker 1: place and put them in harm's way. Who is mostly
17:26
Speaker 1: dying of COVID right now? Unvaccinated Trump supporters. Who gets
17:30
Speaker 1: hurt when they decide not to expand Medicaid? Uninsured Trump supporters.
17:35
Speaker 1: They do this all the fucking time. They have They
17:39
Speaker 1: do not care about their own voters or their own viewers.
17:42
Speaker 1: And I do think that that's something worth mentioning and
17:47
Speaker 1: something that Democrats should think about, too, because, you know,
17:50
Speaker 1: Democrats get attacked. And ever since Hillary Clinton made that
17:54
Speaker 1: gaffe about, you know, calling them deplorables, like, you know
17:56
Speaker 1: who thinks they're deplorable? Fucking Fox News hosts and Republican politicians.
18:00
Speaker 1: They think they're all fucking idiots and they treat them
18:02
Speaker 1: like that. And people should know that.
18:05
Speaker 2: And the question is, how do you make that case?
18:07
Speaker 2: I don't know the right answer to that. But that is,
18:10
Speaker 2: you're exactly right, is that whether it's Donald Trump, the
18:14
Speaker 2: Republican Party, Fox, views their voters as a means to
18:18
Speaker 2: an end. Nothing more. What happens to them does not
18:20
Speaker 2: fucking matter as long as they put them back in power,
18:23
Speaker 2: let them continue to give tax cuts to the rich,
18:26
Speaker 2: to help their friends in the corporations, to make sure
18:28
Speaker 2: that Rupert Murdoch and Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro and
18:33
Speaker 2: the rest of them stay fucking rich. They could give
18:35
Speaker 2: two shits about the rest of you.
18:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. They want to be rich and they want to
18:38
Speaker 1: be in power and the rest of you can fuck yourself.
18:40
Speaker 1: That's it. That's, that's the Republican party.
18:42
Speaker 7: Um, all right.
18:43
Speaker 1: So that's, what's going on in the house. Let's talk
18:44
Speaker 1: about the Senate where, um.
18:48
Speaker 2: What is going on in the Senate, John?
18:50
Speaker 1: You know what I wrote? I wrote this up last night.
18:53
Speaker 1: I don't fucking know. Okay. Here's what's going on. Uh,
18:56
Speaker 1: the build back better negotiations have completely blown up because
18:59
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin woke up one day and decided that, You know,
19:03
Speaker 1: I don't want it to be a dime over $ 1. 75 trillion,
19:08
Speaker 1: but every program that you put in the bill, I'm
19:11
Speaker 1: going to pretend that it has to be extended for
19:14
Speaker 1: 10 years, and I'm going to count that cost of
19:16
Speaker 1: extending the program for 10 years towards the price of
19:19
Speaker 1: the bill. That's what he has decided. So that whole
19:22
Speaker 1: fake CBO score that we talked about earlier in the
19:25
Speaker 1: week that Joe Manchin asked Lindsey Graham to ask the
19:29
Speaker 1: CBO to calculate, he's taking it seriously. He's taking it seriously.
19:34
Speaker 1: And now the problem is we have a $ 1. 75 trillion
19:38
Speaker 1: bill with a whole bunch of programs that if they're
19:42
Speaker 1: extended to 10 years, which apparently they are in Joe
19:45
Speaker 1: Manchin's mind, will be way over 1.75 trillion. So now
19:48
Speaker 1: the question is, what programs can you put in a 1.75
19:51
Speaker 1: trillion dollar bill that are actually authorized for a full
19:56
Speaker 1: 10 years? And just to give everyone an example, the
20:00
Speaker 1: child tax credit, which got a lot of attention because
20:02
Speaker 1: Manchin said there was some reporting that Manchin said that
20:05
Speaker 1: the Democrats should cut the child tax credit completely from
20:08
Speaker 1: the bill. costs $ 1. 6 trillion if it is extended over
20:13
Speaker 1: 10 years. So if you put the $ 1. 6 trillion child
20:18
Speaker 1: tax credit in the bill that Manchin says can't be
20:20
Speaker 1: over $ 1. 75 trillion, you don't have much more room for
20:23
Speaker 1: anything in the bill. The one provision in the bill
20:26
Speaker 1: that originally was authorized for a full 10 years, even
20:30
Speaker 1: before Manchin's problem, were the climate tax credits and grants
20:33
Speaker 1: and all that. They you start doing the math and
20:40
Speaker 1: you realize why this whole thing has started to fall
20:42
Speaker 1: apart because now we need to figure out. So, you know,
20:46
Speaker 1: we can get the climate stuff in there for 0.5
20:47
Speaker 1: for half a trillion dollars. That still gives you now $ 1. 25
20:52
Speaker 1: trillion left to, you know, find programs that you can,
20:56
Speaker 1: you can include that still won't break the bank after
20:59
Speaker 1: 10 years. And, you know, I have to say like,
21:04
Speaker 1: maybe it's just that Joe Manchin wakes up every morning
21:07
Speaker 1: and has a completely different outlook on the legislation. Maybe
21:10
Speaker 1: he's just dumber than we even thought. Maybe I don't,
21:13
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm done figuring out Joe Manchin's motivations, right?
21:16
Speaker 1: Maybe he's dumb. Maybe he's corrupt. Maybe he's trying to
21:19
Speaker 1: do his best. Who the fuck cares at this point
21:20
Speaker 1: that he's screwing everything up. That's all we need to know. Um,
21:23
Speaker 1: but like, you know, did Chuck Schumer not know this? Uh,
21:27
Speaker 1: Dick Durbin, he's number two in the demo in the
21:30
Speaker 1: democratic leadership. He woke up this morning and was like,
21:32
Speaker 1: this is outrageous. I can't believe this is happening. This
21:35
Speaker 1: is not anything that we expected. How is everyone continually
21:40
Speaker 1: surprised by this? What is going on?
21:42
Speaker 2: I mean, not a clue. Maybe we are stupid, but
21:47
Speaker 2: the impression everyone left when the House passed the $ 1. 75
21:54
Speaker 2: trillion version of the bill, whatever that was a month
21:58
Speaker 2: and a half ago, the impression we all had was,
22:01
Speaker 2: We agreed on the top line. We agreed on the– everyone, right?
22:05
Speaker 2: What they were going to pass was something that was
22:06
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood of what Manchin and Sinema are OK
22:08
Speaker 2: for because we took a bunch of stuff that they
22:10
Speaker 2: didn't like out. Clean energy standard, the crazy idea to
22:14
Speaker 2: ask the wealthy to pay a higher tax rate or
22:16
Speaker 2: corporations to pay a tax rate. that existed just two
22:19
Speaker 2: years ago. We took all that out to make those
22:21
Speaker 2: people happy. And then, yes, we knew that they were
22:24
Speaker 2: not going to just pass what the House passed, but
22:28
Speaker 2: they would make some changes. And Manchin would obviously do
22:30
Speaker 2: his normal, annoying shit. And he would unnecessarily means test
22:35
Speaker 2: some things. Because if you could just be cruel to
22:37
Speaker 2: some people in need, like that would be get him
22:39
Speaker 2: centrist points at the No Labels Conference or something. And
22:41
Speaker 2: then the House would pass it and we'd be done.
22:44
Speaker 2: But what his objection now is so– it It is
22:48
Speaker 2: at the fundamental structure of the bill and not just
22:51
Speaker 2: the one the House passed, the bill we've been talking
22:54
Speaker 2: about for a year now. It's like I do not–
22:58
Speaker 2: it is either– like you're right. Is no one talking
23:01
Speaker 2: to him? Is he changing his mind? But the problem
23:05
Speaker 2: with all of– whatever the answer to this, the problem
23:07
Speaker 2: is it is giving everyone unfair, inaccurate expectations of what
23:14
Speaker 2: can happen.
23:16
Speaker 1: And I will say, as a piece of evidence on
23:20
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin's side, he has been talking about what he
23:25
Speaker 1: calls the gimmicks in this bill since before it passed
23:29
Speaker 1: the House. So I don't know if other Democrats in
23:32
Speaker 1: the Senate just didn't take those complaints seriously or they
23:36
Speaker 1: weren't listening to them, but Joe Manchin has been complaining
23:40
Speaker 1: about this 10-year window bullshit for a long time now.
23:44
Speaker 1: But I don't know... Is this going to be another
23:46
Speaker 1: thing where we find out that him and fucking Chuck
23:48
Speaker 1: Schumer signed a piece of paper three months ago where,
23:50
Speaker 1: where Schumer knew this was happening? Like what?
23:53
Speaker 2: I just, it is, it's mind boggling. And it is like,
23:57
Speaker 2: none of it makes any sense. And there's this other
23:58
Speaker 2: story in the Washington post and he's like negotiating on
24:00
Speaker 2: these very fine details of some of the climate provisions.
24:03
Speaker 1: Well, right. Well, that's, I mean, I, I was going
24:05
Speaker 1: to say like the, the, if there's, if you want
24:07
Speaker 1: to find some good news in all of this, like
24:10
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin is not just saying like, He doesn't seem
24:13
Speaker 1: like he's just saying this to tank the whole bill
24:16
Speaker 1: because he's in the while this is going on. He's
24:19
Speaker 1: like in these detailed negotiations about like the electric vehicle
24:23
Speaker 1: tax credit and exactly how it's structured. And then he
24:25
Speaker 1: said to reporters yesterday, like, hey, don't tell me I
24:28
Speaker 1: don't like the child tax credit. If you want to
24:30
Speaker 1: authorize the child tax credit for 10 years for one
24:33
Speaker 1: point six trillion dollars and you want that to be
24:35
Speaker 1: your bill, I'm committed. Let's do it. But then you
24:37
Speaker 1: can't have anything else. So it's he's being completely unreasonable
24:41
Speaker 1: and an asshole here. But it does sound like he
24:44
Speaker 1: would approve a bill that costs $ 1. 75 trillion as long
24:49
Speaker 1: as every program is authorized for the full 10 years.
24:51
Speaker 2: It's just– and if you don't ever know like what
24:54
Speaker 2: is Manchin and what is his staff, like they're probably like.
24:57
Speaker 1: Well, that's the other– that's the other part.
24:58
Speaker 2: He's the chair of the Energy Committee. He's got a
25:00
Speaker 2: lot of energy staffers and I'm sure they're like in
25:02
Speaker 2: negotiations with the White House people and Schumer's office about
25:08
Speaker 2: these specific provisions and Manchin is just bobbing along. you know,
25:12
Speaker 2: listen to Lindsey Graham, just, you know, seeing what he
25:14
Speaker 2: hears on CNBC next and like saying some dumb shit.
25:17
Speaker 2: So you just never, like there are a lot of
25:19
Speaker 2: members who are relatively disconnected from the details and he feels,
25:23
Speaker 2: he feels like one of them, but none of this
25:25
Speaker 2: is good. I would say.
25:28
Speaker 1: No, it's not good. Well, so there, it looks like
25:31
Speaker 1: they are going to quote shelve the build back better
25:34
Speaker 1: bill until the next year. There are some sources in
25:37
Speaker 1: Schumer's office that told NBC till March. Apparently, Um, now
25:43
Speaker 1: this is a problem, maybe because everyone wanted to build
25:45
Speaker 1: back better bill before Christmas, but also in the more
25:47
Speaker 1: immediate sense, the child tax credit does the authorization for
25:50
Speaker 1: that runs out at the end of the year. So
25:52
Speaker 1: I don't know if they can authorize that for just
25:54
Speaker 1: one more year, since that's against what Joe Manchin wants
25:56
Speaker 1: to do. And he wants to say, authorize it for
25:58
Speaker 1: 10 years or nothing. Um, so that's a problem, but
26:03
Speaker 1: I guess is this, all this shit was going down. Um,
26:06
Speaker 1: a bunch of Senate Democrats were like, Hey, let's try
26:09
Speaker 1: voting rights instead. So there was this whole movement to
26:14
Speaker 1: try to pass voting rights legislation, and this change in strategy, this,
26:18
Speaker 1: I would say, abrupt change in strategy, was previewed in
26:21
Speaker 1: a very passionate speech from Senator Raphael Warnock this week
26:25
Speaker 1: on the Senate floor. Let's take a listen.
26:27
Speaker 8: Did we rise to the moment, or did we hide
26:29
Speaker 8: behind procedural rules?
26:33
Speaker 1: I believe that we.
26:34
Speaker 8: Democrats can figure out how to get this done, even
26:38
Speaker 8: if that requires... A change in the rules, which we
26:45
Speaker 8: established just last week that we can do when the
26:50
Speaker 8: issue is important enough. Well, the people of Georgia and
26:56
Speaker 8: across the country are saying that voting rights.
27:01
Speaker 5: Are important enough.
27:04
Speaker 8: I think the voting rights.
27:07
Speaker 9: Are important enough.
27:09
Speaker 1: Amen. So, again, just like everything else in 2021, you
27:13
Speaker 1: hear that clip and you're like, good for Reverend Warnock. Yeah,
27:17
Speaker 1: we're going to get something done. And then Politico drops
27:21
Speaker 1: a story late Wednesday night about Kyrsten Sinema and what
27:25
Speaker 1: she thinks about changing the rules for voting rights. And
27:27
Speaker 1: we've done a lot of Manchinese translation, so we should
27:30
Speaker 1: now try some Sinema translation. This is her spokesman to
27:34
Speaker 1: Politico saying Sinema... quote, continues to support the Senate's 60
27:39
Speaker 1: vote threshold and doesn't want to, quote, eliminate or weaken
27:42
Speaker 1: the filibuster to pass voting rights, but that, quote, if
27:46
Speaker 1: there are proposals to make the Senate work better for
27:48
Speaker 1: everyday Americans without risking repeated radical reversals in federal policy,
27:53
Speaker 1: Senator Sinema is eager to hear such ideas. What do
27:58
Speaker 1: you make of that?
27:59
Speaker 2: Those words... are in the English language. They are actual words.
28:04
Speaker 2: But they mean nothing. Strung together in that order, they
28:08
Speaker 2: mean nothing.
28:08
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm trying to figure out what's actually going
28:12
Speaker 1: on here, because it's got to be something between Manchin
28:17
Speaker 1: and Sinema telling every Senate Democrat, no fucking way are
28:21
Speaker 1: we ever going to change any rules to help pass
28:23
Speaker 1: voting rights. Because if that was the case, then no
28:26
Speaker 1: one would be talking about this. So it's something between
28:28
Speaker 1: that and hey, we've got a solution to change the
28:31
Speaker 1: Senate rules that doesn't eliminate or weaken the filibuster, but
28:35
Speaker 1: can still help us pass voting rights, which they clearly
28:37
Speaker 1: don't have yet because after this whole trial balloon was floated,
28:41
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer this morning on Thursday was like, we're going
28:44
Speaker 1: to still try to get voting rights done in time
28:47
Speaker 1: for the 2022 election.
28:49
Speaker 2: I think he said we're going to get it done.
28:51
Speaker 1: I don't know. So like what? I'm just, I would love,
28:55
Speaker 1: at some point next year early, we should have some
28:57
Speaker 1: Senate rules people on to tell us like, What is
29:02
Speaker 1: the rule change? Here's the question. What is the rule
29:04
Speaker 1: change where Republicans... So Manchin and Sinema are basically saying,
29:09
Speaker 1: we won't agree to any Senate rule change that Republicans
29:12
Speaker 1: don't also agree to. But then why would Republicans agree
29:16
Speaker 1: to a Senate rule change that would allow for the
29:18
Speaker 1: passage of voting rights legislation?
29:19
Speaker 2: They're not. They won't.
29:21
Speaker 1: So then what are we doing?
29:23
Speaker 2: We, people who care about democracy, are talking about voting rights,
29:29
Speaker 2: election subversion, gerrymandering. They are talking about making it easier
29:33
Speaker 2: to pass bipartisan legislation. Like the part of this rules
29:38
Speaker 2: discussion comes from the fact that they were unable to
29:42
Speaker 2: pass or it was very challenging to pass a bipartisan
29:47
Speaker 2: national defense authorization bill. And the fact that Joe Biden
29:50
Speaker 2: can't get a single fucking ambassador passed because Ted Cruz
29:53
Speaker 2: has holds on all of them. I don't even know
29:55
Speaker 2: how that works in a world in which there isn't
29:57
Speaker 2: a filibuster. There are two conversations. One is how do
30:01
Speaker 2: we make our lives of doing the random things that
30:04
Speaker 2: are important but not significant easier? How do you make
30:10
Speaker 2: the building work better? And then there is what we
30:12
Speaker 2: care about, which is how do you make democracy work better?
30:13
Speaker 2: And those are two very separate conversations. Kyrsten Sinema will
30:16
Speaker 2: be part of the former but not the latter. Because
30:19
Speaker 2: her statement is– like she's clearly open to some rule changes.
30:22
Speaker 2: She did vote for a rule change that allows you
30:24
Speaker 2: to skip the filibuster one time to prevent a global
30:28
Speaker 2: financial collapse. So kudos to you, the senator from Arizona.
30:33
Speaker 2: But her statement also makes it very clear– her deeply
30:37
Speaker 2: bad faith, dishonest, illogical statement about reversals of policy and
30:43
Speaker 2: voting rights makes it pretty clear that she'll support minor changes,
30:48
Speaker 2: but something that requires, that would allow voting rights to
30:51
Speaker 2: happen is not on the table with her. And we
30:53
Speaker 2: should come to terms with that right now.
30:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Politico story did say that they're all talking
30:58
Speaker 1: about potential rule changes like bringing back the talking filibuster
31:03
Speaker 1: or saying that you need 41 Republican senators, in this case,
31:08
Speaker 1: on the floor to carry out a filibuster against voting rights.
31:12
Speaker 1: And so in that scenario, you'd have to have 41
31:14
Speaker 1: fucking old people standing on the Senate floor the whole
31:18
Speaker 1: time to stop voting rights. And maybe they would be
31:21
Speaker 1: able to, but then maybe the Democrats could outlast them.
31:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. So like maybe those, maybe Sinema or
31:25
Speaker 1: Manchin would, maybe they would support those.
31:28
Speaker 2: Like the 41 vote thing seems so stupid to me. Like,
31:31
Speaker 2: of course, in a world in which they had, it
31:33
Speaker 2: was a 58-42 Senate, maybe someone would get sick one day,
31:37
Speaker 2: you could sneak through some legislation, but- You think there's
31:41
Speaker 2: going to be a world where Mitch McConnell is going
31:43
Speaker 2: to just slip up and there will only be 40
31:46
Speaker 2: senators and we're going to expand Social Security that day?
31:49
Speaker 2: It just doesn't seem like a real thing to me.
31:52
Speaker 1: I don't either. It would at least– it would highlight
31:56
Speaker 1: just from a political standpoint whether it would work or not.
31:59
Speaker 1: It would highlight– it would get a lot of media coverage.
32:03
Speaker 1: to have this standoff on the Senate floor where you
32:05
Speaker 1: have 41 Republican senators who won't leave the Senate floor
32:08
Speaker 1: to block voting rights, and you have every Democrat, including
32:11
Speaker 1: Manchin and Sinema, on board trying to pass this piece
32:14
Speaker 1: of legislation. It would at least do that. Maybe that's
32:16
Speaker 1: what they're thinking, that they just want to get caught
32:18
Speaker 1: trying here. That's the only thing I could think of.
32:20
Speaker 2: I guess at bare minimum, you might as well make
32:23
Speaker 2: it really physically and emotionally annoying for the other side
32:27
Speaker 2: to grind.
32:28
Speaker 1: Democracy to a halt. Yeah, that's the only thing I
32:31
Speaker 1: could think of. All right, so now we got all
32:33
Speaker 1: that out of the way. We got Build Back Better
32:36
Speaker 1: shelved till March till someone can figure out, someone can
32:38
Speaker 1: haul out a calculator and figure out what programs to
32:40
Speaker 1: put in it to appease Joe Manchin. We got voting
32:42
Speaker 1: rights basically exactly where we were before this trial balloon
32:46
Speaker 1: was floated. A lot of disappointed Democrats out there. I
32:50
Speaker 1: would say that the hosts of this program are among them.
32:53
Speaker 1: But what do you think is a fair and accurate
32:55
Speaker 1: narrative about Biden's first year? Thinking about, you know, now
32:59
Speaker 1: that we've had one year One year of the Biden administration. Obviously,
33:03
Speaker 1: there's a lot of criticism, a lot of pieces, you know,
33:06
Speaker 1: that this was a horrible year for Joe Biden. And
33:08
Speaker 1: so George Will wrote some column that, you know, Ron
33:11
Speaker 1: Klain was tweeting that. What do you think is a
33:15
Speaker 1: fair and accurate narrative on the upside about Joe Biden's
33:18
Speaker 1: first year?
33:20
Speaker 2: It was just such a surprise to find out that
33:21
Speaker 2: George Will was still writing columns. Like, not a clue.
33:24
Speaker 1: Honestly, again, you asked me to name 10 Washington Post columnists.
33:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. Five, I don't know if I could
33:31
Speaker 1: do it.
33:31
Speaker 2: Greg Sargent, EJ Dionne.
33:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, Greg Sargent, Jennifer Rubin. But then like George Will
33:37
Speaker 1: pops up.
33:37
Speaker 2: Perry Bacon.
33:39
Speaker 1: I didn't know that George Will was still in the rotation.
33:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like he and Kathleen Parker, like I
33:44
Speaker 2: think they still write stuff.
33:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's another one, who knows.
33:46
Speaker 2: Don't have to think about her for years at a time.
33:48
Speaker 2: All right, anywho. I mean, one, we should just stipulate
33:52
Speaker 2: that the whole like, let's do a report card on
33:55
Speaker 2: the first year thing is a stupid.
33:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. It's stupid.
33:59
Speaker 2: And they only do it because we're heading into a,
34:01
Speaker 2: quote unquote, slow news period in a normal world, probably
34:04
Speaker 2: not this year. And political reporters need something to write.
34:09
Speaker 2: But I think there are sort of two ways to
34:11
Speaker 2: look at this question. One is, let's focus on what
34:13
Speaker 2: Biden did, right? He came into office with the most
34:21
Speaker 2: narrowly divided Congress in history, where the Republican Party, the
34:25
Speaker 2: majority of whom refused to acknowledge he legitimately won the election.
34:29
Speaker 2: With a government that was a husk of itself because
34:31
Speaker 2: of the massively incompetent former president just like taking out experts,
34:36
Speaker 2: putting in Fox News green room rejects. And in the
34:40
Speaker 2: middle of a pandemic where like literally the White House
34:42
Speaker 2: staff could not meet in the same room. They had
34:45
Speaker 2: to like do Zooms down the hall from each other,
34:47
Speaker 2: like the hardest possible situation. Joe Biden comes in, passes
34:50
Speaker 2: the– a hugely historic and progressive– rescue plan that halves
34:56
Speaker 2: child poverty and saves the economy. Like, yes, people are
35:00
Speaker 2: very frustrated about inflation and all these other things. But
35:02
Speaker 2: if you look at the unemployment rate, economic growth, we
35:06
Speaker 2: are in an incredibly strong place from where we possibly
35:08
Speaker 2: could have been when he came in office. A historic
35:11
Speaker 2: year of job growth. He puts in place a competent
35:15
Speaker 2: government to begin managing this pandemic, ensuring that every person
35:19
Speaker 2: who wants to get vaccinated can get vaccinated. Like in
35:22
Speaker 2: this country, if you just Anyone can go get vaccinated
35:25
Speaker 2: on any given day if they want to do it.
35:27
Speaker 2: Does all of that. Then passes a historically large infrastructure
35:34
Speaker 2: bill with 19 Republicans, something that I certainly did not
35:38
Speaker 2: think was possible a year ago. I mean maybe you
35:40
Speaker 2: were– I mean you were always arguing about how in
35:42
Speaker 2: good faith the Republicans were. They would probably work with them.
35:45
Speaker 2: Well known for that, yes.
35:46
Speaker 5: My big thing.
35:48
Speaker 2: Passes that. You know, which, you know, like roads and
35:51
Speaker 2: bridges are not the thing to get me out of
35:52
Speaker 2: bed in the morning. But Biden and Harris announced today
35:55
Speaker 2: that they're beginning the process through this bill of removing
35:58
Speaker 2: every replacing every lead pipe in this country. That's pretty cool. Like,
36:01
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. And I also read this morning
36:04
Speaker 2: that Biden has now nominated more federal judges than Trump
36:08
Speaker 2: had at this point. So there's like a like things
36:11
Speaker 2: don't feel great in the country right now because of
36:13
Speaker 2: a bunch of things beyond Biden's control, like Omicron and
36:16
Speaker 2: Delta and inflation and supply chain stuff. And you can
36:20
Speaker 2: nitpick around all the things that easily happen, but that
36:24
Speaker 2: stuff in and of itself would be– if we knew
36:26
Speaker 2: nothing else, would be a hugely consequential first year.
36:33
Speaker 8: Yeah.
36:34
Speaker 1: Look, I think the central problem that we're all grappling
36:38
Speaker 1: with here is that when we won those two Senate
36:41
Speaker 1: seats in Georgia– We.
36:42
Speaker 5: Lost our fucking minds.
36:44
Speaker 1: We thought we had a real majority and we never did.
36:49
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin is a very conservative Democrat who voted for
36:54
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer for majority leader, has voted for, as far
36:58
Speaker 1: as I can tell, just about every single judge, even
37:01
Speaker 1: if they're very liberal judges, has voted for the American
37:06
Speaker 1: Rescue Plan, has voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, has
37:09
Speaker 1: voted for, I think, most of Joe Biden's nominees. It's
37:13
Speaker 1: killed a few, but voted for most of them. And
37:17
Speaker 1: that's all he's done. And he's not, he doesn't want
37:20
Speaker 1: to do a whole lot more. I guess he, he,
37:22
Speaker 1: though he says he's willing to spend another $ 1. 75 trillion provided,
37:25
Speaker 1: you know, we already talked about the math there. Um,
37:28
Speaker 1: and is that infuriating that that's all that Joe Manchin
37:31
Speaker 1: will do? Yeah, of course. But I keep coming back
37:35
Speaker 1: to like, what else was Joe Biden going to do?
37:39
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, I do, I was talking to
37:42
Speaker 1: someone the other day and they're like, why didn't Joe
37:44
Speaker 1: Biden get Joe Manchin in a room and say, okay, um,
37:46
Speaker 1: 2024 is going to be a hard election for you
37:48
Speaker 1: in Virginia and West Virginia. You might not win. Tell
37:51
Speaker 1: me the job you want. You want to be an ambassador?
37:54
Speaker 1: You want some great job? I'll give you that job
37:56
Speaker 1: in 2024 so you don't have to run for re-election
37:59
Speaker 1: again and just vote for all my shit. And I
38:01
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, that's a great idea. But like, it's
38:04
Speaker 1: such an obvious idea. We don't think that Joe Biden's
38:06
Speaker 1: tried that already.
38:08
Speaker 2: You mean he hasn't tried bribery?
38:12
Speaker 1: I mean, people talk about what kind of jobs you
38:14
Speaker 1: might want, not bribery. But like, look, I think I
38:17
Speaker 1: don't know. And as much as you know, you can
38:20
Speaker 1: you can criticize them for expectation setting. You can criticize
38:25
Speaker 1: them for messaging. You can do all kinds of stuff
38:27
Speaker 1: if you want. But like to this day, I still
38:30
Speaker 1: don't know how you bend Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema
38:34
Speaker 1: to your will as a Democrat when they well, Sinema
38:38
Speaker 1: is another story. But Manchin is in a state that
38:40
Speaker 1: may not elect another Democrat ever again, at least in
38:44
Speaker 1: our lifetimes.
38:44
Speaker 7: Yeah.
38:45
Speaker 1: And so with the hand they were dealt, which is
38:49
Speaker 1: a fucking shitty hand, by the way, like we used
38:52
Speaker 1: to think that our hand was pretty bad in 2009. Yeah,
38:55
Speaker 1: we had 59 senators. We had 59 senators and we
38:59
Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of pains in the asses there.
39:01
Speaker 1: Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and all the rest of them.
39:04
Speaker 1: But we had 59 and he has 50 and one
39:07
Speaker 1: has been a giant and two have been giant pains
39:09
Speaker 1: in our asses. And he got two more variants that
39:14
Speaker 1: he had to deal with. And an economy that is
39:17
Speaker 1: not back to normal yet because of those two variants.
39:21
Speaker 1: It's a tough hand. And, you know, they did a
39:24
Speaker 1: lot with what they have. And that doesn't mean that
39:26
Speaker 1: we still shouldn't be disappointed or mad or angry or
39:28
Speaker 1: whatever else.
39:29
Speaker 5: But I would.
39:30
Speaker 1: Remind everyone, and we've been talking on this show a
39:32
Speaker 1: lot about this, like, it's not small, the threat to
39:37
Speaker 1: democracy right now that Republicans represent. And you have to
39:41
Speaker 1: ask yourself as we head into 2022 in the midterms,
39:44
Speaker 1: would I rather be disappointed by Joe Manchin or have
39:48
Speaker 1: a bunch of anti-democracy Republicans running this country. And that's
39:53
Speaker 1: not a fun choice, but that's the reality of the
39:55
Speaker 1: choice that we face for sure.
39:57
Speaker 2: I mean, did you sort of like, you know, you
40:00
Speaker 2: and I have talked about this both on this podcast
40:01
Speaker 2: and off that we got our expectations out of whack.
40:04
Speaker 2: Like we should have fucking known better.
40:05
Speaker 1: Right. Like I, I, I was, I was looking at
40:08
Speaker 1: things that Joe Manchin said too. And back in January,
40:11
Speaker 1: and I was like, fuck, we're going to pass big
40:13
Speaker 1: climate thing. We're going to pass this. We're going to
40:14
Speaker 1: be great.
40:15
Speaker 2: But like, you know, in the end, You can almost
40:19
Speaker 2: always figure out what's going to happen in politics by
40:23
Speaker 2: just looking at what politicians' political incentives are. And Joe
40:27
Speaker 2: Manchin's political incentive is not to pass a giant progressive thing.
40:30
Speaker 2: And then you sort of look at this and say, well,
40:33
Speaker 2: Biden did all this great stuff, but he let expectations
40:36
Speaker 2: get out of control. We let expectations get out of control.
40:38
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer certainly let expectations.
40:39
Speaker 1: Get out of control. He definitely let expectations get out
40:42
Speaker 1: of control.
40:43
Speaker 2: And Bernie asked for 6.5, and then we talked about 3.5
40:45
Speaker 2: and all of this. But there is this sort of world,
40:48
Speaker 2: and this is the critique. You hear this from a
40:51
Speaker 2: lot of Capitol reporters, which is, Joe Biden tried to
40:53
Speaker 2: pass FDR's agenda without FDR's majorities. And that is definitely true.
40:58
Speaker 2: But we're also in the situation where you don't run
41:01
Speaker 2: for office to manage expectations, to do the bare minimum.
41:06
Speaker 2: This is a narrow window where Democrats can do good
41:10
Speaker 2: to help people. That's why you do it. And you
41:12
Speaker 2: take risks to do it. And Joe Biden put all
41:15
Speaker 2: of his chips in the table on this Build Back
41:17
Speaker 2: Better bill. And that bet has not paid off yet.
41:20
Speaker 2: And it can come at political cost if it doesn't.
41:23
Speaker 2: But sometimes it's better to try to do something significant,
41:26
Speaker 2: to save the planet. You're not going to take political
41:28
Speaker 2: risk to spend political capital to save the fucking planet.
41:31
Speaker 2: What are you going to spend it on? If that
41:33
Speaker 2: bet ends up not paying off and we suffer from it,
41:37
Speaker 2: that's going to have some real consequences in terms of,
41:40
Speaker 2: as you said, this dangerous Republican Party being in charge.
41:43
Speaker 2: But I don't know that making that bet was the
41:47
Speaker 2: wrong decision. I don't think that it was.
41:50
Speaker 7: Yeah.
41:50
Speaker 1: Look, you know, I see a lot of people on
41:52
Speaker 1: Twitter and elsewhere being like, I voted Democrat all my
41:55
Speaker 1: life and I'm so disappointed. I don't want to vote
41:56
Speaker 1: Democrat again. And it's like, OK, the truth of the
41:59
Speaker 1: matter is, you know, I saw a couple of tweets about,
42:03
Speaker 1: you know, John Fetterman, who's running for Senate in Pennsylvania,
42:05
Speaker 1: was on the West Virginia border. And he's a very
42:08
Speaker 1: rural area doing a campaign event. And he looks around
42:11
Speaker 1: the crowd and he's like, Not a single person here
42:13
Speaker 1: who cares about the filibuster. This whole crowd, this whole
42:16
Speaker 1: crowd wants to get rid of the filibuster. And he's now,
42:18
Speaker 1: you know, running on an anti filibuster platform. I'm sure
42:21
Speaker 1: a lot of the other primary candidates in Pennsylvania will
42:23
Speaker 1: do the same thing. We're seeing Democratic candidates run against
42:26
Speaker 1: all the time. Like the one true thing that Joe
42:28
Speaker 1: Manchin said to reporters a while back was, if you
42:31
Speaker 1: want a bigger bill, if you want more progressive priorities,
42:34
Speaker 1: elect more progressive Democrats. Because I'm not one of them.
42:38
Speaker 1: And he's right. He's right. We actually do have to
42:40
Speaker 1: elect more progressive Democrats. So you can either choose to
42:43
Speaker 1: not participate or not vote Democrat or not, whatever. Or
42:46
Speaker 1: you can go fight to go elect more progressive Democrats.
42:48
Speaker 1: That's it. That's that's sort of the choice we face.
42:50
Speaker 1: And I think I'd rather do the latter. OK, when
42:53
Speaker 1: we come back, I will talk to former Biden COVID
42:56
Speaker 1: advisor Andy Slavitt about the Omicron variant. This week, a
43:09
Speaker 1: Biden administration official told Axios that when it comes to
43:12
Speaker 1: the Omicron variant spreading throughout the U.S., quote, everything points
43:15
Speaker 1: to a large wave. A large wave is coming. Here
43:18
Speaker 1: to talk about what we can do to prepare as
43:20
Speaker 1: individuals and as a country is President Biden's former senior
43:23
Speaker 1: advisor for COVID response, my former Obama colleague and now
43:27
Speaker 1: fellow podcast host of the excellent show In the Bubble,
43:31
Speaker 1: Andy Slavitt. Thanks for doing this, Andy.
43:33
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for having me.
43:34
Speaker 1: So last week I had a wonderful conversation with our
43:38
Speaker 1: surgeon general for another show I host called Offline. And
43:41
Speaker 1: we talked about why it's important for our mental health
43:44
Speaker 1: to do less COVID doom scrolling. So in that spirit,
43:49
Speaker 1: I want to try to stick to Omicron questions for
43:51
Speaker 1: you where the answers can give people an action to
43:54
Speaker 1: take or a behavior to change or something to advocate for.
43:58
Speaker 1: Because I see a lot of people just tweeting, this
44:00
Speaker 1: is going to be a horror show. And I don't
44:02
Speaker 1: know that that's... very productive at this point.
44:06
Speaker 5: Yeah.
44:08
Speaker 1: First off, it seems abundantly clear that every single person
44:11
Speaker 1: should get a booster who is 16 or older and
44:14
Speaker 1: six months past their second dose of Pfizer or Moderna
44:17
Speaker 1: or two months past their J & J shot. Is
44:19
Speaker 1: that right?
44:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely.
44:22
Speaker 9: I think there's, and this is not as bad as
44:26
Speaker 9: it could have been category, is the fact that boosters
44:29
Speaker 9: are highly effective against Omicron. And so it's nice to
44:34
Speaker 9: go into a wave, having the science at least to
44:37
Speaker 9: solve it. We didn't last year. A year ago, we
44:39
Speaker 9: went to a wave, we didn't have the science to
44:41
Speaker 9: solve it. Now we do, so get boosted.
44:44
Speaker 1: What about kids from five to 15 who are vaccinated
44:48
Speaker 1: but not eligible for a booster? What should they do?
44:50
Speaker 1: How should they act?
44:53
Speaker 5: They should act like kids.
44:54
Speaker 1: Okay.
44:56
Speaker 5: You know, it.
44:58
Speaker 9: Is true that kids five to 15 aren't eligible for
45:02
Speaker 9: boosters yet. It's also true that they probably have stronger
45:04
Speaker 9: immune systems. There is data in South Africa and the
45:09
Speaker 9: UK which shows this affecting younger kids a bit more,
45:14
Speaker 9: probably not with severity. So I wouldn't panic, but I
45:19
Speaker 9: would say that for the next period of time, and
45:23
Speaker 9: I think the period of time is actually likely to
45:25
Speaker 9: be potentially very brief because it's gonna be a very
45:28
Speaker 9: fast wave. I think extra caution with your kids or
45:32
Speaker 9: with anybody who doesn't have a booster is warranted. We're
45:36
Speaker 9: seeing schools close. I wouldn't be surprised if in January
45:41
Speaker 9: we were back at that for a little while. But
45:43
Speaker 9: the thing I would want people to understand, John, is
45:45
Speaker 9: that we're not talking about something that's gonna likely last months.
45:49
Speaker 9: We're talking about something that experts are predicting will peak
45:53
Speaker 9: in the middle of January and start to go down
45:55
Speaker 9: very quickly.
45:57
Speaker 1: So this is the one that keeps me up at night.
45:59
Speaker 1: My son Charlie, 17 months old, doesn't sound like he'll
46:02
Speaker 1: be eligible for a vaccine until February at the earliest.
46:06
Speaker 1: And it seems like you said that the Omicron wave
46:09
Speaker 1: will be here in January. Like, should I take more
46:12
Speaker 1: precautions than we've already been taking with Delta? Like, and
46:17
Speaker 1: when would you start taking those precautions?
46:19
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'd be worried about, I'm worried about kids zero
46:23
Speaker 9: to five, because there's a little bit of a perfect storm,
46:27
Speaker 9: and that most of them have not socialized yet, the
46:31
Speaker 9: ones that haven't been at day school. So they don't
46:33
Speaker 9: have either prior immunity or vaccination. And so they're susceptible
46:40
Speaker 9: to getting this. Now, where I would tell you and
46:43
Speaker 9: your wife and everybody else, the little kids don't have
46:45
Speaker 9: to panic, is very likely they'll get it and you
46:48
Speaker 9: wouldn't know it if you didn't test them, if they
46:51
Speaker 9: did get it. But still, none of us wants our
46:54
Speaker 9: kids to be even a little bit sick So, you know,
46:58
Speaker 9: I think it is wise, particularly because we're talking a
47:02
Speaker 9: short period of time, particularly we're talking because he's preschool age,
47:06
Speaker 9: hang out with mom and dad, watch cartoons, probably don't
47:09
Speaker 9: do a ton of playdates.
47:12
Speaker 5: During that period of time.
47:13
Speaker 1: Okay. So same question I DM'd you about in July.
47:19
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe now it's already December. Those of
47:21
Speaker 1: us who got J & J and boosted with an mRNA,
47:25
Speaker 1: Should we get one more booster? Because Michael Lynn, a
47:27
Speaker 1: scientist and doctor who I'm sure you know, he had
47:30
Speaker 1: this whole long thread earlier this week saying that we should,
47:33
Speaker 1: that J & J plus an mRNA is much less
47:37
Speaker 1: protection than three mRNAs.
47:39
Speaker 9: Yeah, so my son, my older son is still mad
47:43
Speaker 9: at me for having gotten the J & J vaccine.
47:46
Speaker 9: He's like, Dad, you think you would have known to
47:48
Speaker 9: tell me not to get that? And I'm sure you're
47:49
Speaker 9: mad at me, too.
47:51
Speaker 1: No, it's my fault. I, you know, well, every public
47:53
Speaker 1: health official said, take the first one you can get.
47:55
Speaker 1: And that's what I did.
47:56
Speaker 5: We did. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.
47:59
Speaker 9: Um, so look, not to be, not to be flip
48:03
Speaker 9: about it, but J and J plus a boost is
48:05
Speaker 9: basically the equivalent of a boost. Um, the, the data
48:08
Speaker 9: on J and J and by the way, on Cinefarm
48:11
Speaker 9: and on Sputnik, um, is not good with, with Omicron.
48:15
Speaker 9: And that's something that, um, I wouldn't even say we
48:19
Speaker 9: could have or should have anticipated. This is, you know,
48:25
Speaker 9: in effect, I would advise people who've taken J &
48:27
Speaker 9: J to almost forget they got that shot at this
48:31
Speaker 9: point in time now that we have Omicron coming. And, like,
48:35
Speaker 9: do a do-over from your first booster. And that's just
48:42
Speaker 9: kind of the reality.
48:42
Speaker 5: It's a very imperfect way to look at it. But
48:44
Speaker 5: we don't need, like... We don't need perfect ways to
48:47
Speaker 5: look at it. We just need something, as you said,
48:49
Speaker 5: that's actionable.
48:50
Speaker 9: And in my mind, I'd go beyond where you started.
48:54
Speaker 1: So I got my Moderna booster before it was authorized
48:58
Speaker 1: specifically as a booster. So I got the 100 mg Moderna,
49:02
Speaker 1: but I'm now booking myself. I just booked myself a
49:04
Speaker 1: Sunday appointment at CVS to get a 50 mg booster
49:07
Speaker 1: plus my J & J. I feel like that should
49:09
Speaker 1: be enough for me then.
49:10
Speaker 9: I think this whole episode should really be about what's
49:13
Speaker 9: right for you, John.
49:16
Speaker 1: There's a whole J & J hive here at Crooked
49:18
Speaker 1: Media and everywhere.
49:20
Speaker 5: No, it's funny though.
49:21
Speaker 9: Like I was texting with Sanjay Gupta this morning and
49:24
Speaker 9: literally I'm like, where are you? And all he wants
49:27
Speaker 9: to talk about like is his daughters and his family.
49:29
Speaker 9: It's like all of us have the same kind of reaction,
49:33
Speaker 9: no matter how kind of policy, you're global oriented. We
49:36
Speaker 9: think we are like at the end of the day,
49:38
Speaker 9: we're like, yeah. And also like my family, I've got
49:40
Speaker 9: this like crazy situation and everyone wants to know what
49:44
Speaker 9: to do. And I think it's very natural. I will
49:47
Speaker 9: say that it's part of the, also part of what
49:50
Speaker 9: the challenge is, is that everybody's acting based on their
49:55
Speaker 9: own risk profile. And, you know, you've got, you know,
49:59
Speaker 9: you've got 75 million people that are in a situation
50:01
Speaker 9: your son's in where they can't get boosted or vaccinated.
50:04
Speaker 9: And you've got, 100 million who probably.
50:06
Speaker 5: Could and aren't.
50:08
Speaker 1: Well, I want to get to sort of what the
50:09
Speaker 1: country should do and some policy solutions soon too. For the,
50:14
Speaker 1: I think it's what, 13, 14% of the country now
50:17
Speaker 1: that is fully boosted, what else should they be thinking
50:20
Speaker 1: about in terms of precautions over the next month?
50:23
Speaker 5: Yeah.
50:24
Speaker 9: And by the way, I have a feeling that the
50:26
Speaker 9: number is higher than what's being reported. You're exactly right.
50:29
Speaker 9: It's about 14%. I talked to some people at the
50:32
Speaker 9: White House today who believe that We actually have somewhat
50:37
Speaker 9: of a misreporting of numbers going on that there's a
50:39
Speaker 9: lot of people who we think have one booster, have
50:41
Speaker 9: one shot, I should say. But what they really are
50:44
Speaker 9: people who came in, didn't have a prior record and
50:45
Speaker 9: got boosted. So the good news, bad news is, you know,
50:49
Speaker 9: you've got a lot more people that are boosted than
50:51
Speaker 9: we think. You've also got a lot more people who've
50:53
Speaker 9: got nothing who are in those kinds of communities.
50:57
Speaker 5: Look, I think it's all the same.
50:58
Speaker 9: I mean, we have, look, if you're in a position
51:01
Speaker 9: where you can afford rapid at-home tests and Then if
51:04
Speaker 9: you're having people over for the holidays, it's a good
51:06
Speaker 9: idea to have people take those tests. My wife calls
51:10
Speaker 9: them a day pass. Really, someone comes home from college,
51:14
Speaker 9: someone comes home, you go to your.
51:17
Speaker 5: Parents, your grandparents.
51:19
Speaker 9: Even if you're boosted, good idea to take one of
51:23
Speaker 9: those tests before getting together. Again, presuming you can afford one,
51:28
Speaker 9: presuming you can access one. I probably spent $ 10 more
51:31
Speaker 9: on that and $ 10 less on my Christmas presents just
51:34
Speaker 9: to make sure I could enjoy the holidays.
51:36
Speaker 1: And just about on the timing of these rapid tests,
51:38
Speaker 1: because I saw some floating around too, like you see
51:41
Speaker 1: some invitations to holiday parties whenever someone says, okay, get
51:46
Speaker 1: a rapid test or give us your negative COVID test
51:48
Speaker 1: one to two days before the event. It does seem
51:51
Speaker 1: like from everything I'm reading that you should take your
51:54
Speaker 1: rapid test as soon, as close to the event that
51:57
Speaker 1: you're going to as possible, right?
52:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
52:01
Speaker 7: I would.
52:01
Speaker 9: And then you can enjoy it and have a good time.
52:06
Speaker 9: And if they don't do that and you choose to
52:08
Speaker 9: go anyway, then it's also not a bad idea to
52:10
Speaker 9: get one done afterwards because you don't want to carry
52:15
Speaker 9: it from there.
52:16
Speaker 1: Will K95 masks work as well against a variant this
52:20
Speaker 1: transmissible that's going to be all over the place? Are
52:22
Speaker 1: we still feeling good about masks?
52:24
Speaker 5: Well, we don't have any data yet, but it works better.
52:27
Speaker 5: It's a relatively.
52:30
Speaker 9: Layer, right? So to my mind, smaller conveniences, like why
52:35
Speaker 9: wouldn't you add the K95 mask? I do think that
52:42
Speaker 9: there's going to be some effectiveness for sure. And this
52:45
Speaker 9: thing is so contagious that without the mask, it's probably problematic.
52:48
Speaker 9: As you know, in LA, masks are required indoors, which
52:52
Speaker 9: is a good thing. Except like, I don't know about you,
52:55
Speaker 9: but if I'm dining indoors, like Like 97% of the
52:59
Speaker 9: time I'm like eating or drinking and so is everybody
53:01
Speaker 9: else in the restaurant. So, you know, but I want
53:04
Speaker 9: to think about kind of, you know, leaning in towards
53:07
Speaker 9: more indoor dining if you can. Outdoor dining, I should say.
53:10
Speaker 1: So on the policy front and getting back to the
53:13
Speaker 1: testing question, should the Biden administration make it even easier
53:16
Speaker 1: for people to get free tests as opposed to this
53:19
Speaker 1: policy they announced where you'd have to get reimbursed through
53:21
Speaker 1: your insurer? What do you think about this whole situation?
53:25
Speaker 5: Well, it's funny.
53:25
Speaker 9: I had a conversation over there this morning with an idea,
53:30
Speaker 9: which is that you could actually make the, because they're
53:34
Speaker 9: in a bit of a bind, right? They don't have
53:37
Speaker 9: the money yet from Congress to buy. They've got some money,
53:42
Speaker 9: but they don't have enough money to get everybody all
53:43
Speaker 9: the tests that they need. The idea was to, it
53:47
Speaker 9: was kind of a technical one, but it's to try
53:49
Speaker 9: to basically make getting a rapid at-home test work the
53:53
Speaker 9: same way it does when you go pick up a
53:54
Speaker 9: prescription at the pharmacy. They can ping your insurance right
53:57
Speaker 9: when you go in to pick it up. So you
53:59
Speaker 9: don't get charged or you'll get charged the appropriate amount.
54:02
Speaker 9: So hopefully they're gonna implement something like that. I've been
54:05
Speaker 9: calling on insurance companies, PBMs, pharmacies to actually reduce the
54:10
Speaker 9: hassle and get this done. But this is one of
54:13
Speaker 9: those situations where in the short term, because it's happening
54:15
Speaker 9: so fast, the White House is gonna need cooperation from
54:18
Speaker 9: the outside to get it done for any practical purposes.
54:22
Speaker 9: If you really want to do something by the time,
54:24
Speaker 9: you know, Omicron's here, there's unfortunately not really the time
54:28
Speaker 9: to do anything else. So they can be criticized. But
54:34
Speaker 9: as you know, policies are perfect. And you got to
54:36
Speaker 9: kind of do the best you can.
54:38
Speaker 1: Well, what else should the administration be doing in the
54:41
Speaker 1: next several weeks to minimize the damage here? What can
54:45
Speaker 1: they do?
54:46
Speaker 9: Well, I'd be talking a lot if I were there,
54:49
Speaker 9: and I think if you were there, to the public
54:53
Speaker 9: about this wave. And I know that people are fatigued
54:59
Speaker 9: and people are not listening and it feels futile, but
55:04
Speaker 9: I don't think you can quit doing that. And I
55:06
Speaker 9: think I would, so I think it starts with a
55:10
Speaker 9: fair amount of kind of continual calling people's attention to this.
55:15
Speaker 9: If you look at around the world, we're probably doing
55:18
Speaker 9: less of that than people around the world are. And
55:21
Speaker 9: then I think there's real justification for saying, I don't
55:26
Speaker 9: really care if you get vaccinated. What I do care
55:28
Speaker 9: about is if you're going to be around people who
55:31
Speaker 9: can't get vaccinated or boosted, I should say, like in
55:35
Speaker 9: an office setting or a school setting, that you have
55:39
Speaker 9: to assure everybody that you're not going to spread COVID.
55:43
Speaker 9: And I think the fact that Republicans have made that controversial,
55:48
Speaker 9: I think we should freaking ignore that because many of
55:51
Speaker 9: them are behaving so badly and so absurdly that for
55:55
Speaker 9: all of the people that are going to say you're
55:56
Speaker 9: stepping on my freedom, you have a whole bunch of
55:58
Speaker 9: other people that are saying I'm doing everything right and
56:00
Speaker 9: you're letting these people get away with essentially making my
56:05
Speaker 9: workplace unsafe, making my restaurant unsafe, making my school unsafe.
56:10
Speaker 8: Yeah.
56:11
Speaker 1: Will Pfizer's antiviral pill that reduces hospitalizations by, I think,
56:16
Speaker 1: 89% be ready to help people through this Omicron surge
56:19
Speaker 1: or is that too far away? No, it won't.
56:23
Speaker 5: It's the right question. It's a great question.
56:25
Speaker 9: It is probably, you know, we interviewed for In the Bubble,
56:30
Speaker 9: we interviewed 12 scientists and we asked them four questions.
56:33
Speaker 9: One of them, what's going to be the scientific breakthrough
56:35
Speaker 9: of 2022? And the majority of them said, that this
56:40
Speaker 9: Pfizer pill that you're referring to, and it's really a
56:42
Speaker 9: series of pills that you've, that if you take it
56:44
Speaker 9: within three to five days of sickness, of being aware
56:50
Speaker 9: with COVID, you're going to, it's gonna do a dramatic job.
56:54
Speaker 9: 90% protect you. That's really great news. Now this, it
57:02
Speaker 9: doesn't scale, the productivity doesn't scale really well. So it's
57:07
Speaker 9: gonna be September, even in September, we're only going to
57:10
Speaker 9: have in the single millions or even 10 million doses
57:13
Speaker 9: here in the US. And look, they're doing something at
57:16
Speaker 9: Pfizer that is admirable, but we should understand that it
57:19
Speaker 9: has a ramification on us, which is that they're distributing
57:22
Speaker 9: it much more equitably throughout the world than they did
57:25
Speaker 9: the vaccines. And they got a lot of criticism for
57:30
Speaker 9: favoring wealthy nations when it came to vaccines. That's being
57:36
Speaker 9: treated differently with these therapeutics, but it does mean There's
57:39
Speaker 9: going to be a lot less to go around in
57:40
Speaker 9: the U.S.
57:41
Speaker 5: For quite a while.
57:43
Speaker 1: We know that variants like Omicron will keep coming potentially
57:47
Speaker 1: until the whole world is vaccinated. How do we do that?
57:50
Speaker 1: What are the obstacles right now, both from a supply standpoint, distribution,
57:56
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff?
57:58
Speaker 6: Yeah.
57:59
Speaker 9: So the problem just got a lot harder because the
58:04
Speaker 9: definition of vaccinated, right, just changed right out from under us, right?
58:07
Speaker 5: Because it used to be two and now it's three.
58:09
Speaker 9: So yeah, I would say we vaccinated, you know, eight
58:12
Speaker 9: and a half million, eight and a half billion people
58:13
Speaker 9: around the globe, which is extraordinary. And it's something we
58:17
Speaker 9: gotta be incredibly proud of. And the US has donated
58:20
Speaker 9: more vaccines around the world for free than anybody. So
58:23
Speaker 9: we should feel good about that. But unfortunately, the hurdles
58:29
Speaker 9: are much higher. Here, I'll tell you what the problem isn't, John.
58:33
Speaker 9: The problem isn't, do we have enough vaccines? The problem
58:36
Speaker 9: isn't do we have enough money? The World Bank has
58:39
Speaker 9: made sure we do. The problem is that there are
58:42
Speaker 9: many countries that going from vaccine to arms, the same
58:48
Speaker 9: problem that we had here a year ago is the
58:52
Speaker 9: real challenge. And in Africa, you may have heard that
58:56
Speaker 9: in South Africa, they actually told Pfizer to stop sending
58:59
Speaker 9: vaccines because their vaccines were spoiling. So getting out to
59:03
Speaker 9: remote parts of the country Getting people to trust that
59:07
Speaker 9: they should put something in their arms that maybe the
59:08
Speaker 9: first time they're hearing of. and getting them to trust
59:11
Speaker 9: an establishment that basically screwed them over on HIV AIDS
59:14
Speaker 9: for a number of years, right? Those are real challenges.
59:19
Speaker 9: And so this last mile problem in Africa is real
59:26
Speaker 9: as in remote parts of the world. And so we
59:28
Speaker 9: need very much an all-hands-on-deck effort. If I think about
59:33
Speaker 9: your pod save the world show, I think about the
59:37
Speaker 9: context that we don't have the same type of global
59:40
Speaker 9: leadership that we once had. The G20 as a body
59:44
Speaker 9: doesn't act.
59:46
Speaker 5: In uniform.
59:47
Speaker 9: The fighting between China and the US and all those
59:51
Speaker 9: things hurt our ability to coordinate a massive global effort
59:54
Speaker 9: that we could have done 30, 40, 50 years ago.
59:57
Speaker 1: Well, here's where I can't figure out. There's the supply issue.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: There's a distribution issue, right? Every country should be more generous,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: rich countries especially, obviously. But we have vaccine hesitancy here
1:00:10
Speaker 1: in the United States that we haven't been able to
1:00:12
Speaker 1: solve however many years into this. Other countries have similar
1:00:17
Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy that they haven't been able to solve as
1:00:19
Speaker 1: well all over the world. What is the plan for
1:00:22
Speaker 1: ending this pandemic that also recognizes the reality of vaccine hesitancy,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: not just in the United States, but all over the world.
1:00:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
1:00:35
Speaker 9: And it's obviously something that we spend a lot of
1:00:37
Speaker 9: time on trying to figure out in the White House. And,
1:00:41
Speaker 9: you know, I've come to believe that in the U.S.,
1:00:45
Speaker 9: and I think it differs a little bit around the world,
1:00:47
Speaker 9: but just to start with the U.S., 20% of the
1:00:50
Speaker 9: public is just pretty strongly anti-science. And this is preceded
1:00:57
Speaker 9: the pandemic. This isn't about, hey, can you find a
1:00:59
Speaker 9: more clever way to communicate why people should take a vaccine?
1:01:04
Speaker 9: This is some pretty embedded stuff. And I know you've
1:01:06
Speaker 9: done deep research in the Wilderness podcast specifically about kind
1:01:13
Speaker 9: of people's attitudes and how far apart people are. This
1:01:16
Speaker 9: is some of that same stuff. I think that it's
1:01:18
Speaker 9: the same stuff that Trump didn't create, but he wrote.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: And so.
1:01:24
Speaker 9: We've got this strong anti-institutional bent, people who believe in
1:01:30
Speaker 9: conspiracy theories. They want to believe the things that they
1:01:33
Speaker 9: read that cause skepticism and doubt on government and pharmaceutical industries,
1:01:37
Speaker 9: all places that have their own vulnerabilities. And so we really, unfortunately,
1:01:43
Speaker 9: like in most things in life, if you get 75%,
1:01:45
Speaker 9: you win, right? If you'd gotten 75% for any political
1:01:48
Speaker 9: candidates you work with, You'd say that's pretty damn good.
1:01:54
Speaker 9: Unfortunately here, this virus isn't as forgiving. So I didn't
1:01:59
Speaker 9: answer your question about end game because I think we
1:02:03
Speaker 9: have to accept that reality and the end game has
1:02:06
Speaker 9: to actually work around it. And that means that we're
1:02:08
Speaker 9: gonna have to understand that there's gonna be a lot
1:02:11
Speaker 9: of people that are gonna get their immunity from prior infection.
1:02:14
Speaker 9: And there's really no other way. And that's imperfect and
1:02:18
Speaker 9: more of them will die. And it's not necessarily, the
1:02:21
Speaker 9: most rational decision. But I think the object's pretty immovable.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, it always sort of bothered me
1:02:28
Speaker 1: that some of the public health experts who weren't so
1:02:31
Speaker 1: hot on boosters before Omicron would say things like, well,
1:02:35
Speaker 1: you know, we're focused on boosters, but the Biden administration
1:02:39
Speaker 1: has just given up on the unvaccinated. And I'm like,
1:02:41
Speaker 1: given up on the unvaccinated, like, we put in place
1:02:44
Speaker 1: mandates everywhere they could, basically, except for airplanes, which they
1:02:48
Speaker 1: could do. But the employer one is now in court.
1:02:53
Speaker 1: We're at the mercy of our judicial system. So like,
1:02:56
Speaker 1: I don't know what else the Biden administration or all
1:02:59
Speaker 1: of us can be doing about the vaccine hesitant in
1:03:01
Speaker 1: this country, let alone other countries. And so then I wonder, like,
1:03:05
Speaker 1: do you think that there, so we're not in a
1:03:07
Speaker 1: situation again where we have another variant like Omicron that
1:03:10
Speaker 1: comes in another six months from now and we think
1:03:12
Speaker 1: everything's fine. Like, are there, are scientists looking into creating
1:03:16
Speaker 1: vaccines or creating certain boosters that would help against any
1:03:20
Speaker 1: kind of variant like is that is that part of
1:03:22
Speaker 1: it i'm just thinking of other ways that we can
1:03:24
Speaker 1: get out of this thing yeah well.
1:03:25
Speaker 9: Let me talk for a second about this politics and
1:03:28
Speaker 9: then about the science you know it probably doesn't help
1:03:31
Speaker 9: that you got guys like eric schmidt in missouri who
1:03:34
Speaker 9: are saying like we shouldn't even report data any longer
1:03:38
Speaker 9: on when there are cases and that breaks it that
1:03:40
Speaker 9: like the very idea of case surveillance is a bad thing.
1:03:44
Speaker 9: It doesn't help that there's been a hundred laws, local
1:03:47
Speaker 9: laws that have been stricken from the books that basically
1:03:50
Speaker 9: make public.
1:03:51
Speaker 5: Health not an option in many, many states.
1:03:54
Speaker 9: So like all this criticism for Joe Biden, he could
1:03:57
Speaker 9: take it, fine, criticize Joe Biden all you want, but
1:03:59
Speaker 9: like where the F is the criticism for like Ted
1:04:03
Speaker 9: Cruz saying, well, you know, we're going to stop the
1:04:05
Speaker 9: government from going forward if we have public health laws.
1:04:08
Speaker 9: Where's the criticism for all people who are like, literally,
1:04:13
Speaker 9: they won't lift a finger to fight the pandemic, but
1:04:15
Speaker 9: they will go to great lengths to fight the people
1:04:17
Speaker 9: fighting the pandemic. So I think that the fact that
1:04:23
Speaker 9: Biden finds himself on his heels on this is understandable
1:04:27
Speaker 9: because he's the president, he's accountable. But I think there's
1:04:31
Speaker 9: so many people who are getting a free pass or
1:04:33
Speaker 9: being irresponsible. In terms of the science side, I think
1:04:36
Speaker 9: the answer is yes, in a couple of ways. One is,
1:04:40
Speaker 9: Like if they create an intranasal vaccine, you know, that becomes,
1:04:47
Speaker 9: I think actually a far, there are innovations that I
1:04:50
Speaker 9: think people can use more.
1:04:52
Speaker 5: I think we also probably, if someone's.
1:04:54
Speaker 9: Like dead set against getting vaccinated, you probably have to
1:04:58
Speaker 9: talk to them about the array of tools that they
1:05:00
Speaker 9: can be using, like antivirals, like rapid at-home tests and
1:05:09
Speaker 9: other types of things. I do think we make a
1:05:12
Speaker 9: mistake and maybe made a mistake by talking about, including me,
1:05:16
Speaker 9: by the way, by talking about the vaccine as if
1:05:18
Speaker 9: it was what was going to end the pandemic instead
1:05:20
Speaker 9: of the, now we all know the right way to
1:05:23
Speaker 9: talk about it. This is a very, very powerful tool
1:05:25
Speaker 9: to help you and your family and your community, but
1:05:27
Speaker 9: it's not the.
1:05:28
Speaker 5: End all be all.
1:05:28
Speaker 9: And so people who are anti-vaccinated, anti-vaccine, some of them,
1:05:33
Speaker 9: I think, feel very justified in saying, see, I don't
1:05:37
Speaker 9: need this thing because They told us it was the
1:05:39
Speaker 9: greatest thing in the world, and it's really not. And
1:05:43
Speaker 9: so I think we just got to take it in
1:05:46
Speaker 9: a more sensible fashion, but also understand that the virus,
1:05:53
Speaker 9: this is a very fit virus. If you talk to
1:05:55
Speaker 9: these evolutionary biologists, it's good. People aren't going to get
1:05:57
Speaker 9: vaccinated or boosted. They're going to get COVID. A lot
1:06:00
Speaker 9: of them will die. A lot of them are in
1:06:01
Speaker 9: the hospital, but a lot of them won't. And if
1:06:04
Speaker 9: they don't feel scared about it, there's nothing you can do.
1:06:07
Speaker 9: But ultimately, that's going to create a layer of protection
1:06:11
Speaker 9: in those communities that's equivalent to the layer of protection
1:06:14
Speaker 9: for vaccines are eventually.
1:06:17
Speaker 5: And then, you know, through that.
1:06:19
Speaker 9: Process, you end up with a much more livable, less
1:06:23
Speaker 9: spreadable disease, we hope.
1:06:25
Speaker 1: Okay. Is there anything else that I forgot to ask
1:06:29
Speaker 1: you that people should know, information they should be armed
1:06:32
Speaker 1: with as they go into the holiday season?
1:06:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'd say just a couple of things. One is.
1:06:42
Speaker 9: No one wants to go back and deal with things
1:06:44
Speaker 9: that are closed and whatnot, but I think it's going
1:06:47
Speaker 9: to be short. I think it's going to be short lived.
1:06:49
Speaker 9: So I hope people feel encouraged that they can get
1:06:52
Speaker 9: through that. And they just offer that as a bit
1:06:54
Speaker 9: of encouragement. Secondly, I think Congress can act. I'd like
1:06:58
Speaker 9: to get some of the pressure off of just the
1:07:00
Speaker 9: White House. You know, it wouldn't hurt to have more
1:07:04
Speaker 9: money for global vaccinations. It wouldn't hurt to have more
1:07:07
Speaker 9: money for, so we can make a stat rapid at
1:07:11
Speaker 9: home test ubiquitous, like your question asked. And so I
1:07:14
Speaker 9: think if we're gonna advocate or put pressure somewhere, I
1:07:17
Speaker 9: think that's not a bad place to do it. And finally,
1:07:21
Speaker 9: I just say, look, we have the tools. We all
1:07:23
Speaker 9: have the tools to get through even these waves. We're
1:07:26
Speaker 9: not in 2020 anymore. And so the panic that we
1:07:28
Speaker 9: kind of all feel when we hear about a new wave,
1:07:32
Speaker 9: It's really this sort of flashback and PTSD.
1:07:35
Speaker 5: PTSD, it is. Exactly.
1:07:36
Speaker 9: And so some of this is take the rational questions
1:07:39
Speaker 9: you're asking. There are now tools and options for almost
1:07:43
Speaker 9: all of them that are far better than we were before.
1:07:49
Speaker 9: And then just be very, very conscious of the fact
1:07:50
Speaker 9: that some nurse or doctor in a hospital is going
1:07:53
Speaker 9: to go through this crush in the next four to
1:07:55
Speaker 9: six weeks. And if we can lighten the load so
1:07:58
Speaker 9: they can get through that, we're going to be in far,
1:08:01
Speaker 9: far better shape.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: Andy Slavitt, thank you so much for joining. Everyone go
1:08:06
Speaker 1: check out In the Bubble. It's a fantastic podcast where
1:08:08
Speaker 1: you can get all kinds of really helpful information about
1:08:12
Speaker 1: this pandemic and living through it. So appreciate you taking
1:08:16
Speaker 1: the time, Andy.
1:08:16
Speaker 5: Appreciate you, John. Thanks.
1:08:28
Speaker 8: All right.
1:08:28
Speaker 1: Before we sign off for the year, we're going to
1:08:30
Speaker 1: do something fairly embarrassing that will only fuel the problems
1:08:32
Speaker 1: we complain about and contribute to our own self-loathing. We're
1:08:35
Speaker 1: going to talk about political playbook. I had to at
1:08:40
Speaker 1: least admit it, Dan.
1:08:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it's good.
1:08:42
Speaker 1: Look what we're doing. Tuesday's headline was, quote, what the
1:08:47
Speaker 1: left doesn't get about the media. And here's what Ryan,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: Lizza and Rachel Bade wrote, quote, one of the most
1:08:53
Speaker 1: consistent criticisms of the political press from the left these
1:08:55
Speaker 1: days is that it treats politics and policy as normal
1:08:58
Speaker 1: when the United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of democracy.
1:09:02
Speaker 1: And here's their answer as to why they do that. Quote,
1:09:07
Speaker 1: for better or worse, campaign coverage emphasizes what candidates are
1:09:10
Speaker 1: doing and saying. Washington policy and politics coverage emphasizes what
1:09:13
Speaker 1: the president and other leaders are trying to move through Congress.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: If Democratic candidates aren't talking about America's anti-democratic movement, and
1:09:20
Speaker 1: if President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority
1:09:23
Speaker 1: Leader Chuck Schumer aren't doing it every day in Washington,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: then the coverage will reflect that. That is not a
1:09:28
Speaker 1: defense of the political media ecosystem, but just a description
1:09:31
Speaker 1: of it. What do you think about that argument?
1:09:34
Speaker 2: I think it is both an accurate description and a
1:09:38
Speaker 2: searing fucking indictment of political media in this country.
1:09:42
Speaker 1: Say more. An indictment in what way?
1:09:49
Speaker 2: The idea that all we do is just tell people
1:09:51
Speaker 2: the information and let them make decisions is not how
1:09:55
Speaker 2: media works, right? You are choosing– like the media is
1:09:58
Speaker 2: not neutral, is not unbiased. They pick the things that
1:10:01
Speaker 2: they– where they put their thumb on the scale. Certainly,
1:10:05
Speaker 2: and this is not a critique. I understand it. Things
1:10:08
Speaker 2: that are good for business for them– get a lot
1:10:10
Speaker 2: of attention. Stories that get clicks, stories that get ratings.
1:10:13
Speaker 2: Do you think back in 2014, CNN had a passionate
1:10:16
Speaker 2: interest in the Malaysian airliner out of journalistic integrity?
1:10:20
Speaker 1: No.
1:10:21
Speaker 2: People watch that story. Do you think CNN or MSNBC
1:10:25
Speaker 2: or others showed empty podiums before Trump rallies in 2015,
1:10:29
Speaker 2: 2016 because they thought that was fucking newsworthy? No, because
1:10:32
Speaker 2: it was good for them. They do that.
1:10:34
Speaker 5: And you know what?
1:10:35
Speaker 2: They're a business with payroll and investors and all the above,
1:10:39
Speaker 2: and the Politico is right that not enough Democrats understand
1:10:43
Speaker 2: the media is a business and they make decisions on
1:10:45
Speaker 2: their business interests. They also put their thumb on the
1:10:48
Speaker 2: scale for things that they decide they want to care about.
1:10:50
Speaker 2: Transparency and access. Do you think they write a gazillion
1:10:53
Speaker 2: stories about Joe Biden's frequency of press conferences because they
1:10:57
Speaker 2: think that's journalistically interesting?
1:10:59
Speaker 3: No.
1:11:00
Speaker 2: They decided a long time ago, and I don't begrudge
1:11:02
Speaker 2: them this either, that they have power and they're going
1:11:06
Speaker 2: to use that power to fight for access and transparency.
1:11:10
Speaker 2: And it is why they, and I think this was
1:11:13
Speaker 2: probably their right decision as much as sometimes it makes
1:11:16
Speaker 2: us feel uncomfortable, were so aggressive about some of the
1:11:19
Speaker 2: early investigations of leaks and whistleblowers that roped in journalists
1:11:23
Speaker 2: in the early parts of the Obama administration. They kicked
1:11:25
Speaker 2: Obama's ass for that. And that is their right. And
1:11:28
Speaker 2: you know what? Frankly, they should do that. But democracy
1:11:30
Speaker 2: is not a tax bill or a healthcare bill. It
1:11:35
Speaker 2: is what allows them to do their fucking jobs.
1:11:38
Speaker 1: You don't have to. It involves them. They like stories
1:11:40
Speaker 1: about themselves a lot. They write a lot of stories
1:11:42
Speaker 1: about themselves. This is a story about them.
1:11:44
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:11:45
Speaker 1: Two, all of us, but them too.
1:11:46
Speaker 2: Do you know who the first people, the authoritarians come
1:11:49
Speaker 2: for when they take power?
1:11:51
Speaker 1: The press.
1:11:51
Speaker 2: They take over the TV station. Look at what's happening
1:11:54
Speaker 2: in Hungary, right? Ben wrote about this in his book.
1:11:56
Speaker 2: They talk about pot, save the world all the time.
1:11:59
Speaker 2: Authoritarians to govern Hungary. What do they do? Take care
1:12:02
Speaker 2: of all the media. What is happening in Russia? And
1:12:04
Speaker 2: the idea that you're just going to cover it as
1:12:06
Speaker 2: if it was a dispute over economic policy or political
1:12:09
Speaker 2: strategy is an insane life choice. And it is one
1:12:12
Speaker 2: where you are so beltway both sides pickled in your
1:12:15
Speaker 2: fucking brain that you can't make decisions that are about
1:12:19
Speaker 2: what's good for not only just good for the country,
1:12:20
Speaker 2: but good for yourself.
1:12:22
Speaker 1: Now, reporters will say, because I've seen them say this,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: like Democrats want us to be on their team. We
1:12:29
Speaker 1: are not on their team. That's not our job. And
1:12:32
Speaker 1: To which I say, first of all, I never thought
1:12:34
Speaker 1: you were supposed to be on our team. I wouldn't
1:12:37
Speaker 1: pick you for any... I would never confuse you for
1:12:41
Speaker 1: a teammate, nor want you as a teammate. That would
1:12:45
Speaker 1: be a really bad team that I'm putting together because
1:12:48
Speaker 1: they're not doing a great job for us right now.
1:12:50
Speaker 2: Yes, in fact, one of the requirements of going to
1:12:51
Speaker 2: journalism is being the last person picked on every team
1:12:53
Speaker 2: in elementary school. That's how you end up with it.
1:12:55
Speaker 1: Oh, man. This is why they don't like us.
1:12:57
Speaker 8: Okay.
1:12:58
Speaker 1: Okay. But look, I so I don't expect them to
1:13:01
Speaker 1: be on our team. I really don't. I don't expect
1:13:03
Speaker 1: you to have my position on health care or taxes
1:13:05
Speaker 1: or climate or any of it, even though you should,
1:13:08
Speaker 1: especially on some of those things. But you're right. Like,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: even from a self-interested standpoint, you would think that the
1:13:14
Speaker 1: media would have an interest in protecting democracy and writing
1:13:18
Speaker 1: about it. I think the question is and a fair
1:13:19
Speaker 1: question is, what would it look like for the political
1:13:22
Speaker 1: press to give the anti-democracy movement the coverage it deserves?
1:13:25
Speaker 1: Is it about the number of stories? Is it about
1:13:27
Speaker 1: the tone of the coverage? Because the other argument you
1:13:29
Speaker 1: get from them is, OK, if suddenly we were just
1:13:33
Speaker 1: rabidly anti-Trump and anti-Republican party because they've become an anti-democracy party,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: wouldn't that just fuel the polarization that already exists in
1:13:41
Speaker 1: the country? And wouldn't that not really persuade anyone else?
1:13:44
Speaker 1: Because now they just think we're in bed with the
1:13:46
Speaker 1: liberals and all the accusations of liberal bias are correct.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: So what is the point of doing that?
1:13:51
Speaker 2: Well, guess what? That already happened. That happened a long
1:13:54
Speaker 2: time ago. It happened because you let the Republicans kick
1:13:58
Speaker 2: the shit out of you for years and tried to
1:14:01
Speaker 2: appease them, not recognizing that those attacks were in bad faith.
1:14:06
Speaker 2: You did that while Fox, whose entire– creation was about
1:14:12
Speaker 2: telling Republicans that the rest of the press was full
1:14:15
Speaker 2: of shit and shouldn't be listened to. And what did
1:14:17
Speaker 2: you do with that? You kept passing orders with Brett
1:14:20
Speaker 2: Barrett cocktail parties. That has happened. You have lost. The
1:14:24
Speaker 2: war is over. You have lost it.
1:14:26
Speaker 5: It is done.
1:14:26
Speaker 2: So you can either– you can stop trying to appease
1:14:29
Speaker 2: people who are not listening to you and just cover
1:14:31
Speaker 2: things in the right way. And I think– I don't–
1:14:33
Speaker 2: the idea of like number of stories is like a
1:14:35
Speaker 2: fake thing in the age of the internet. It's not
1:14:37
Speaker 2: like there are 12 available stories for the New York
1:14:39
Speaker 2: Times per day and how much of our quota are
1:14:40
Speaker 2: we going to use on democracy. What I think the
1:14:44
Speaker 2: key here is and I think the one reasonable request
1:14:49
Speaker 2: to ask is you stop covering voter suppression, election subversion, insurrections,
1:14:56
Speaker 2: trying to restrict– trying to– anti-majoritarian tasks. Stop covering that
1:15:02
Speaker 2: as a political strategy. Cover it as an actual threat
1:15:07
Speaker 2: to democracy, like you would cover in some sort of
1:15:10
Speaker 2: threat from abroad to democracy, right? How would you cover it?
1:15:14
Speaker 2: Take Donald Trump's name off of it. Take the Republican
1:15:16
Speaker 2: Party's name off of it. How would you cover it
1:15:18
Speaker 2: in Turkey or China or Saudi Arabia or somewhere else? Well,
1:15:22
Speaker 2: I guess maybe China is a bad example because they
1:15:24
Speaker 2: would censor themselves in order to stay in the market,
1:15:26
Speaker 2: but it's neither.
1:15:27
Speaker 3: Here nor there.
1:15:27
Speaker 6: Right.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: But look, and I do think one of the big
1:15:30
Speaker 1: problems whenever we talk about the media is, you know,
1:15:32
Speaker 1: we try, there's a broad definition of media that sort
1:15:35
Speaker 1: of covers everyone. And that's not what we're talking about
1:15:37
Speaker 1: here because I do think, I think especially over the
1:15:40
Speaker 1: last several years since during the Trump administration, there are
1:15:45
Speaker 1: plenty of reporters. You see them at the Washington Post, CNN,
1:15:50
Speaker 1: places like that, who actually are taking this threat seriously.
1:15:53
Speaker 1: And I have noticed a change in the tone of coverage.
1:15:56
Speaker 1: the challenge is it is not permeated through the entire
1:15:59
Speaker 1: media system and editors, headline writers, um, Politico, at least
1:16:06
Speaker 1: a lot of folks have put it like there are
1:16:08
Speaker 1: still large media organizations where this is the exception rather
1:16:12
Speaker 1: than the rule. Um, and I think that's the, that's
1:16:15
Speaker 1: sort of the larger problem. It has not become sort of,
1:16:18
Speaker 1: it has not been a systemic change in journalism yet.
1:16:20
Speaker 2: You know, and it's not even, it's like there are
1:16:22
Speaker 2: some very good journalists at, Politico, who write really good things.
1:16:27
Speaker 2: But the general roots of Politico is that they build
1:16:31
Speaker 2: themselves when they created the news organization as the ESPN
1:16:35
Speaker 2: for politics. And they have never lost that view of
1:16:38
Speaker 2: how you think about it. And politics is not sport.
1:16:40
Speaker 2: People's lives and livelihoods are at risk in how these
1:16:43
Speaker 2: decisions are made. And even you can point to a
1:16:45
Speaker 2: bunch of bad stuff at CNN that you point at
1:16:47
Speaker 2: people like Jake Tapper or Breonna Keillor, who have been
1:16:50
Speaker 2: very who have called this stuff out, who have called
1:16:52
Speaker 2: out Fox for their disinformation. Like Brian Stotler has done it.
1:16:56
Speaker 2: In every organization, you can find people who are doing
1:16:58
Speaker 2: the right things and find people who are doing the
1:17:01
Speaker 2: wrong thing. I do want to give– there are two
1:17:03
Speaker 2: points I think we should make that are quasi in
1:17:05
Speaker 2: defense of the press here. One is playbook is right.
1:17:10
Speaker 2: That if Democrats really think this is.
1:17:12
Speaker 1: The threat– I'm just going to cut that one sentence
1:17:15
Speaker 1: and just have it haunt you forever. It's going to
1:17:16
Speaker 1: be– Dan Pfeiffer. Playbook is right.
1:17:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's– you know what?
1:17:20
Speaker 5: Fine.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: Elijah is going to cut it and just run.
1:17:25
Speaker 2: I look forward to doing Campaign Experts React with new
1:17:28
Speaker 2: senior producer Yale Freed. But if Democrats really think it
1:17:35
Speaker 2: is this true threat, we got to say it. And
1:17:37
Speaker 2: I think the one– the biggest misunderstanding that Democrats have
1:17:40
Speaker 2: about the press throughout the entire Trump era is– It
1:17:46
Speaker 2: is not the press's job to persuade voters for us.
1:17:50
Speaker 5: Yes.
1:17:51
Speaker 1: I agree with that.
1:17:51
Speaker 2: If we think Donald Trump is a criminal, the New
1:17:53
Speaker 2: York Times is not going to convince them of that.
1:17:54
Speaker 2: They may write a story, but they may uncover information
1:17:57
Speaker 2: which we can use to make things, but we have
1:17:59
Speaker 2: to make that case. This idea that we're going to
1:18:03
Speaker 2: talk about kitchen table issues and the New York Times
1:18:05
Speaker 2: and Politico and everyone else is going to inform the
1:18:08
Speaker 2: electorate about the threat to democracy, that is a stupid
1:18:11
Speaker 2: strategy and it misunderstands their role and our role.
1:18:16
Speaker 1: And this goes back to what we were talking about
1:18:18
Speaker 1: in the earlier segment. Like, I do think as we
1:18:20
Speaker 1: head into 2022, Democrats have to sort of separate whatever
1:18:25
Speaker 1: Manchin and Sinema are going to do on voting rights legislation.
1:18:28
Speaker 1: Talking about the anti-democratic movement in this country and how
1:18:32
Speaker 1: to save democracy and why it's so important to save
1:18:34
Speaker 1: democracy needs to be a priority for every single Democrat
1:18:38
Speaker 1: from Joe Biden on down to local officials. And everyone
1:18:42
Speaker 1: needs to start talking about it. And everyone needs to
1:18:44
Speaker 1: start calling out the Republican bullshit. And everyone needs to
1:18:46
Speaker 1: make it a messaging priority. Because, you're right, we cannot...
1:18:49
Speaker 1: count on the media to do this. We know that.
1:18:52
Speaker 1: We're just going to keep banging our heads against the
1:18:54
Speaker 1: wall on this. But we do have a megaphone, all
1:18:57
Speaker 1: of us on the progressive side of the aisle, on
1:19:00
Speaker 1: the Democratic side of the aisle here. And Democratic leaders
1:19:03
Speaker 1: should use that megaphone because that's going to be more
1:19:05
Speaker 1: effective than complaining about how the media is not using
1:19:08
Speaker 1: the megaphone. And with that, we will close on 2021
1:19:15
Speaker 1: for now.
1:19:16
Speaker 2: What a hopeful episode. Let's end the year on a
1:19:19
Speaker 2: high note.
1:19:21
Speaker 1: Well, look, that's why we got, we're going to record
1:19:23
Speaker 1: an episode tomorrow that's all of our fun. We got
1:19:25
Speaker 1: some mailbag questions we're going to do. We got the pundies,
1:19:30
Speaker 1: which are always fun. We got our New Year's resolution.
1:19:32
Speaker 1: So that'll be the uplifting episode you all get before
1:19:36
Speaker 1: the end of the year. Until then, thank you to
1:19:39
Speaker 1: Andy Slavitt for joining us today. Everyone have a great weekend.
1:19:43
Speaker 1: Stay safe out there and we'll talk to you soon.
1:19:45
Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
1:19:50
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:19:53
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
1:19:57
Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez is our
1:20:00
Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
1:20:03
Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
1:20:07
Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
1:20:11
Speaker 1: and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
1:20:14
Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
1:20:19
Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.