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“Where are the tests?” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, I talk to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: host of Crooked Media's America Dissected, which is our twice
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a week in-depth podcast about the coronavirus from the perspective
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of public health officials and medical experts. But first, Dan
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and I will dive into the latest developments around the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: government's response to the pandemic from the White House to Congress.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about the results of Tuesday's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: primaries and where things go from here now that Joe
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Biden will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee. Also, please
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: check out this week's excellent Pod Save the World, where
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Tommy and Ben explain South Korea's more successful coronavirus response.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: how Donald Trump was warned a crisis like this was
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: coming by the Obama administration, and what a competent government
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: response would actually look like. It's a really great episode.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Tommy and Ben did a great job, so check it out.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: For those of you who have been looking for a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: way to help people who are hurting the most during
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: this incredibly difficult time, Crooked Media put together a coronavirus
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: relief fund that will split your donation equally to groups
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: providing critical support, to food banks, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, seniors,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: kids who depend on school lunches, and others, you can
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: donate at crooked.com slash coronavirus. We also want to thank
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: everyone who left us voicemails in response to us asking
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: how coronavirus and social distancing has impacted you. We will
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: be sharing some of those voicemails throughout today's pod. And
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: if you'd like to leave one, We would love to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: hear from you. Thank you for the voicemails and keep
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: them coming. And finally, an update on touring for Love
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: It or Leave It and Pod Save America. We have
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to cancel all live shows from March through May. This sucks.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: We're all sad about it, but obviously it is way
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: more important for everyone to stay healthy. Full refunds will
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: be available at the point of purchase. Ticket holders will
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: receive an email from the ticket provider with further instructions.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And we really hope to reschedule once this nightmare is
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: behind us. So, Dan, let's talk about where we.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Are, huh?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Where are we, John? Where are we?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I know where I am. I'm in my house where
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I've been for a week now.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, you are part of the Shelter in Place, what,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: 7 million people in Northern California, I believe, that are
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: sheltering in place?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: That's what everyone should be doing.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: How's that going?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: You know, it's good, you know, given all things, you know, the.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of time on my hands, but
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: it's the right thing to do. And I am grateful
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: that California and where we live in California is taking
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: the overall majority of people taking it very seriously and
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: doing what needs to be done. And that's ultimately the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: right thing. And I would love it if other places
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: around the country were following the lead that Governor Newsom
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: and the county officials where I live who put this
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: into effect would do.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: No, I feel the same way. So you and I
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: separately were just watching this crazy fucking press conference by
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, which is something you could say about every
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: press conference he's given since, I don't know, 2015, earlier.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: But there are a lot of lies there, as usual.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of vitriol, as usual. But I do
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: want to sort of start with a story from Reuters
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: that I think sums up where we are right now
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and why. This was a story that ran yesterday. So
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: on January 20th, the United States and South Korea both
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: confirmed their first cases of coronavirus. Both countries, same day,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: confirmed the first case. South Korea responded with a massive,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: immediate nationwide effort to fight the pandemic. And as of yesterday,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: they've tested nearly 300,000 people. And as a result of
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the number of new infections in South Korea have been
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: declining over the last few weeks. In the United States,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: where we have six times the population of South Korea,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: we have tested only 25,000 people, and the number of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: new infections are growing exponentially every single day. We're now
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: well past 8,000 cases and 100 dead. We've got doctors
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and healthcare workers begging for more hospital beds and masks
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and ventilators. The economy is at a standstill. Schools are closed.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Millions of people might not be able to leave their homes,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: go to their jobs or open their businesses for months.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: We've already seen a spike in unemployment claims. And in
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the midst of all of this, Donald Trump gave himself
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a 10 out of 10 on his response to the crisis.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Dan? Would you be more in
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the eight or nine range or what would you give him?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Is zero an option?
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: Zero. Zero.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Zero is an option in this exercise. I mean, how
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: did we, you know, before we get to sort of
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the economic fallout and the response in Congress, how did
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: we fall so far behind countries like South Korea? And
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: why isn't this sort of the biggest story?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard for something to be the biggest
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: story right now because of this is, there's only one,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: there's a thousand aspects to the one story that is
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: dominating the country. But there were some really important stories
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: in the Wall Street Journal overnight, which I think get
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: to the bottom of what is happening here. The problem
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: we have is even though the Trump administration was warned
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: repeatedly about this, that President Obama and Obama's administration said
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: that this was the thing that kept them up at night,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: that Trump– not only did he ignore those warnings and
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: not prepare for this. he took steps to actively ensure
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: America was less prepared by firing the Global Pandemic Response
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Unit within the White House National Security Council, and then
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: downplayed the warnings of everyone once the coronavirus hit the
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: United States and has left us woefully unprepared. If we
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: had followed South Korea's path, which was wholly available to us,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: then we would be in a vastly different situation, both
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: in terms of public health and the economy. And we
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have the vast majority of Americans being told not
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: to leave their home for weeks at a time. And
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: it really boils down to, I think, what is this
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: unique element of Trump's presidency, which is this combination of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: incompetence and narcissism. Incompetence in the sense that he has
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: not dialed into the facts of what is happening in
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: America enough to think ahead of anything more than a
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: news cycle. And the fact that he was so concerned
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: about early on this process about the idea that more
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: testing would lead to more news stories about people having
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: coronavirus and he wanted to downplay it. And so we
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: missed the opportunity to expedite and expand testing in a
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: way that would ensure that we knew who had the disease.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: And the fact that we cannot do the testing is
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: why everyone is social distancing and quarantining in place and
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: shelter in their home or whatever. But it's also just
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: a simple fact that there are people walking around with
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: coronavirus who have no idea. and therefore giving it to
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: other people. And then you have essential personnel, medical professionals,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: members of Congress, a group I don't often call essential personnel,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: but they are in this case, who can't get tested
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: and therefore are being removed from the process, right? There
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: are medical, much needed doctors and nurses who have come
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: in contact with a coronavirus patient and may be showing
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: some symptoms of something. But because they can't get a test,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: they have to leave the hospital for 14 days. And
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: it puts us in this tremendous shortage. And this Wall
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Street Journal story said that there were three failures that
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: all happened that led to where we are on testing.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: One is the fact that the CDC insisted on creating
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: their own test and then screwed it up. The second
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: is a refusal to expand the criteria of how to
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: use commercial and private tests early, which limited the availability
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: of tests to states and hospitals. And then the last
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: thing was not reaching out to the commercial labs and
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the private companies that make these tests to warn them
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: about what was coming, to ask them to prepare. Because
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: even once we got more tests, we were still short
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: on the swabs you need to administer the test and
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: the reagents you need to process the tests. And if
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: we had started preparing when we first had warnings that
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: this might happen, then we would have had the capacity
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: to test potentially millions of Americans and dramatically reduce the
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: public health and the economic consequences.
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: For the country.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And I think it's important to understand that it's not
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: just a failure in the past, but it continues to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: be a failure, even as we're seeing testing being ramped
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: up all over the country. It's still not keeping up
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: with the need by any stretch. And if you look
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: at country, you know, a lot of people and Tommy
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and Ben cover this on Pod Save the World. And
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I talked to Abdul about this as well. You know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: some people are saying, oh, well, you know, China was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: able to contain this better because they're an authoritarian government.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: South Korea is a democracy. Germany is a democracy. There
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: are other countries who took this seriously earlier and are
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: taking this more seriously now that are implementing mass testing.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And as a result, not only will they have fewer infections,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: but they may not have to implement as drastic social
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: distancing measures as That not only keep people at home,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: but keep the economy at a standstill like us, like
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: we are right now and that we will have to
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: do for some time probably. So I think, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: as we watch these press conferences and all this happy
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: talk and all these promises come out of the Trump
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: administration every day that turn out to then. not be
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: true or turn out to be exaggerated. I continue to
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about sort of the press and the
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: politics of it later. But I continue to believe that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the most important questions that should be asked at these
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: briefings are about the testing, because it does seem like
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the way out of the tough choice between our health
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and our economy is some kind of a mass testing
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: program that is ramped up as quickly as possible. And
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: it's clear that we are not there yet. So let's
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: talk about the economic response. On Wednesday night, Trump signed
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the House's family-first agenda into law, a coronavirus relief bill
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that passed the Senate 90 to 8 and provides free
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: testing for everyone, two weeks of emergency paid leave for
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: government employees and employees at companies with up to 500 employees,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: 10 weeks of paid childcare leave, $ 1 billion in food
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: assistance to students, seniors, the poor, and food banks, and
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: $ 1 billion in unemployment insurance support. That is just the beginning.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: The White House and Congress are now working on an
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: even bigger coronavirus relief bill that will be at least
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: $ 1 trillion. The administration has embraced a democratic policy of
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: direct cash payments to Americans. They want to send people
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a check in April and another in May. The amount
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: will depend on family size and income. They also want
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: to provide $ 300 billion in loans to small businesses, $ 50
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: billion in loans to the airline industry, and $ 150 billion
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: in loans for other distressed sectors of the economy. Dan,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: what do you think of a Republican president and Republicans
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: in Congress suddenly embracing a $ 1 trillion stimulus package? And
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: do you think it's enough?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It's almost certainly not enough. This is unlike anything the U.S.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: economy has faced since at least the Great Depression. Which is,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: you think about 9-11, you think about financial crisis, restaurants
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: were open within a day of 9-11. The impacted industries
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: around 9-11 was primarily the airlines, when no one could
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: fly because they had to be shut down for a while.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: During the financial crisis, everything else was open. Obviously, there
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: was a shortage in demand because people had less money,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: but businesses were still open. Everything is closed. And I
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: have heard from several people in my life in the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: last 24 hours who have been laid off from their
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: jobs because they work in the food and beverage industry
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: or construction or anything else that is completely shut down.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And these businesses do not have the margins where they
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: can not receive revenue and continue to pay their employees.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And this is really an economic situation unlike anything we
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: have ever seen. The projections on GDP in the second
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: quarter are dramatically worse than they were in the worst
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: parts of the 2008 financial crisis.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Which, having been there, both of us, were absolutely terrifying
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: every single day of the end of the 2008 campaign
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and the beginning of the Obama administration in 2009. And
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the sort of outlook that Barack Obama's economic advisors offered
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: him every day was terrifying. And they were talking about
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: sort of Great Depression-style scenarios. And I think a lot
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: of us back then thought, well, it really can't get
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: worse than this. And it seems right now that it
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: is worse than that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, it cannot imagine it isn't. And for some businesses,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: whenever this comes to an end, there will be a snapback, right?
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Where people who were going to purchase cars... or do
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: other things that they would ordinarily do but can't do
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: and this quarter will do in the quarter where people
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: get back. But for huge majorities of Americans, they are
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: going to be in a hole that a $ 1, 000 check,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: a $ 2, 500 check, a $ 4, 500 check is not going to
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: help them if they cannot work for months at a time.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: And even if they're allowed to delay tax payments or
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: have evictions being suspended like they are in a number
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: of municipalities and states in the country, how you get
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: out of that hole is, you know, many of these
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: businesses will not survive. And it's going to take a,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: you know, the $ 1 trillion number is a very, very
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: large number. And people keep comparing it to the $ 800
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: billion or so that was in the Economic Recovery Act
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: that Obama passed. But people forget that the Economic Recovery
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Act was like the fourth or fifth piece of legislation
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: that was put in place to deal with that crisis
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: and that recession. And This is just one. There's going
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: to be a lot more that has to be done
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: just to protect American workers and families from financial ruin
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: who are struggling to get by anyway.
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the key thing here is the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: timeline on this, and that if we knew this was
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: going to be like this for two months, three months,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: four months, then you could start putting a number on
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: sort of the relief package that would be necessary to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: help people. The problem is, you know, you have like
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: this Imperial College report out that sort of rightly scared
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the shit out of the Trump administration and Boris Johnson
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and other world leaders that's talking about, you know, social
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: distancing measures like this and shutdowns like this for 12
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to 18 months until a vaccine is developed. I mean,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: if large sectors, most sectors of the economy, not just
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the United States economy, but the global economy are shut
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: down for 12 to 18 months, you're absolutely right that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: $ 1 trillion is going to look like a drop in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the bucket. from most people who just don't have an
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: income and are forced to stay home. I mean, it
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: is very, very scary. And so I think, you know,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I think the first reaction to a bunch of conservative
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Republicans saying, yeah, no, we're for direct relief is, wow, look,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the Republicans came around. The fact that they're coming around,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I think shows that they're looking at some of these
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: projections and coming around to like $ 1, 000 a month is
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: not a big fucking deal. When, as you point out, $ 1, 000,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: like two checks for $ 1, 000 each or $ 2, 000 each or
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: even $ 4, 000 each, like some of them are saying, that's
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: not going to be nearly enough, not even close to enough,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: if this thing lasts four, five, six, seven, eight months
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: or 12 to 18 months. It's really fucking scary.
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: This is a number that's based on what seems to
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: be the overly optimistic projections of not just Trump, but
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: also a lot of people in the financial sector. You
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: see these economic projections for the rest of the year,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: and they're projecting this giant bounce back in the economy
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: in Q3. And yes, that is possible, I assume, if
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: this is something that fades soon, but there's no reason
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: to expect that. And we should be preparing for the
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: worst and hoping for the best, which is the exact
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: opposite of how the Trump administration has approached this, which
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: is why we're in this fucking mess to begin with.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So what should Democrats fight for in this bill? And
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: how hard should they fight for it? I know you
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: offered some ideas in a memo yesterday that everyone can
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: find on cricket.com as part of your shelter at home
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: extra time. You're now churning out very good memos. So,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, everyone can benefit from that, I guess.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, as I said to you after I
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: wrote this thing that Basically, I'm writing unsolicited campaign memos
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: for the same reason that people in solitary confinement do
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: push-ups to keep from going insane. And so, look, if
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: you're a candidate or organization out there, I got time.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Hit me up. The advice will be worth what you're
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: paying for it, which is zero.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It's free advice. Free advice.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, free advice. But I spent a lot of time
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: thinking about this over the last few days, as we've
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: all had so much time. about how Democrats handle this,
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: because we know how Republicans would handle it in a
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: similar situation, which would be if there was a massive
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: economic tumult six months before Barack Obama's reelection, Mitch McConnell
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: and Paul Ryan's approach to this would have been tough luck,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: because they know that there's a strong correlation between the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: strength of the economy and the reelection prospects of the
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: incumbent president. So there would be no incentive for them
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: to do anything to help. And you say, God, that's
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: so callous and partisan. How can you say that? Well,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you how, why I can say it, because
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I know it to be true, because that was the
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: exact approach that Mitch McConnell and the House Republicans took,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: not seven months before Barack Obama's reelection, but two months
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: after his election, and where they basically decided that the
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: best way to take back power in the 2010 elections
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: was to hurt as many American workers as possible and
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: blame Obama. So that's what will be happening now. That
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: is not a strategy available to Democrats, because we like
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: to be able to wake up in the And we
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: want to help people. And that is a fundamental difference
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: between the parties. And our voters would hold us accountable
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: for that level of cynicism. And so how do we
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: do this with, how do we sort of navigate these
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: politics without letting Trump off the hook for what he did?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: And I think in the context of the debate, I
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: would say the three pieces of advice I give to
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Democrats are, one, we have to offer an alternative. We
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: have to let them know what a bigger, bolder, more progressive,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: more populist approach would look like. And you're seeing some
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: of that already. There's an approach in the House from
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Maxine Waters and one in the Senate about using this
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: bill to cancel student loan debt. There is a bill
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: from Fred of the Pod, Sherrod Brown, and Cory Booker,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and Michael Bennett, and others that is about a $ 4, 500
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: check to voters, which is a much larger sum. There
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: are a number of recommendations put forward by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and Elizabeth Warren about the sort of pro-worker strings that
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: should be put on any of these corporate rescue packages.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: You know, none of the money can be used for buybacks.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren had an idea that if you accept the money,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: you have to put a worker on your board. sort
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: of those sorts of things. So we have to put
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: forward an alternative. The second thing is Democrats have to
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: recognize that we have a lot of leverage here.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: All the leverage.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Trump and McConnell, who's trying to hold on the Senate,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: need this more than politically. Put aside the economics, the patriotism,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: the morality. They need this politically more than anything else
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: in the world. And this is a thing we know
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: from having worked in the Obama administration during a previous
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: financial crisis, is that the public holds the president and
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: his party accountable for what happens and what doesn't happen.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And so inaction is something that hurts them. And Trump
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and McConnell know that, which is why they are coming
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: here with a trillion-dollar package, and they are pretty thirsty
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: for this. And so Democrats should use that to get
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: what they can. And so The last part of the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: advice is the point of our advocacy should show the
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: difference between the two parties, that we are fighting for
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: workers and struggling families, and they are fighting for corporations.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: That's why we have to be pushing for bans on
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: stock buybacks and ensuring the money goes to workers and
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: those sorts of things and highlight those differences. We need
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: to do the right thing for people, and we need
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to be seen as reasonable in trying to accomplish something
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: because we are reasonable and we are trying to accomplish something.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that we have to sort of concede
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: everything to the Republicans. And I think I saw Senator
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Schumer on CNN last night, and he was saying all
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: the right things on this. And so at least at
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the outset, I think the Democratic mentality is headed in
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the right direction, even if there were some significant bumps
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: in the road in that first House bill that you
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: guys talked about on Monday.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the main lesson that I took away
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: from how we handled the financial crisis in 2008 and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: 2009 is propose what you believe is needed, not what
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: you believe can pass. And there were reasons that we
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: had to propose what we believed could pass back in 2009.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: And those reasons were what you just laid out, which
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: is the Republicans didn't want to help us anyway. And
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: so they weren't going to give us the votes. And
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: so we had to figure out a way to get
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: it through Congress because we were in charge. But as
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: you point out, Democrats have the leverage now. Donald Trump
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and Mitch McConnell need Nancy Pelosi to pass something through
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the House. They need 60 votes in the Senate, which
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: means that Mitch McConnell needs help from Chuck Schumer. And
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: so I think that Democrats have to propose the most
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: ambitious package that they believe will solve the problem. And,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you know, you laid out some of the ideas that
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: have been been people have been kicking around. I do think,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you know, making sure that these direct payments to people
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: aren't one time payments, that they happen monthly and is
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a good idea or at least every few months, or
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: at least that they continue. And it's not just a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: one-time thing because I do think that the more, the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: further we get into this, um, the harder politically it's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: going to be to continue having Congress pass these big
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: relief packages. And I also, and you know, and Brian
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Boitler also wrote a piece on crooked, um, about what
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Democrats should do and you all should go check that out.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: But Brian has a good idea, which is look, if
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: we get to November and you know, Joe Biden wins
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the presidency and he's the next president, we know what
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: will happen, which is Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Congress will refuse. Well, suddenly they won't like relief packages anymore.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Suddenly they won't like direct cash payments anymore and they
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: will try to strangle Joe Biden's presidency and they won't
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: care if they bring the economy down. And so there
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: should be sort of automatic triggers here where as long
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: as GDP is under a certain amount, as long as
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: unemployment is at a certain amount, direct cash payments to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Americans and other relief measures continue automatically so that we
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: don't have to continue going back and having to pass
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: new packages out of Congress. So I do think that's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: a good idea. I think we'll need bigger cash payments.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, Bernie Sanders suggested, you know, $ 2, 000 a month,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and then also that Medicare should expand to cover all
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: coronavirus related healthcare costs. I think that's, um, a good idea.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: There's also a, this is good, a proposal floating around,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and I think it's been embraced by even some center-right
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: economists and, you know, some people in the White House
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: for a trillion dollars to small businesses to help cover
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: 12 weeks of missed revenue, though it might have to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: go much longer than that. And the government will pay
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: off those loans so long as the companies that get
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: them don't lay off workers. So there's an incentive there
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to keep people employed. I think that's good. You talked
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: about restrictions on uh, CEO compensation and stock buybacks for
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: any company that gets help. Everyone from AOC to Elizabeth
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Warren to Chuck Schumer has been talking about that on
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the democratic side. So that's good as well. Um, so yeah,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I do think, but, but again, no matter what we
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: go and, you know, we talked about student debt cancellation
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: as well. Elizabeth Warren's been pushing that. So there were
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of good ideas out there on the democratic side.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I think the key is going to be to hold
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the line here and, and not, and realize that you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the Republicans need Democrats to pass this. And like you said,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: make sure that people know there's a difference between the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: parties and who we're fighting for. One other area that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: we've been talking about that Congress needs to do something
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: on is voting in November and elections. And there's been
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a big push. There was legislation by Ron Wyden and
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobuchar about vote by mail. Do you want to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about vote by mail and why
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: it's so important?
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, There is a very real fear that this
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: virus will bounce back in the fall. That was what
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: happened with H1N1. That's what happened with the 1918 flu pandemic.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: And if that is the case, people are not going
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to feel safe going to the polls because every polling
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: place in America would violate the CDC guidelines on gathering.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And it is just simply not possible to We cannot,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: America under the best scenarios is absolutely fucking miserable at
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: administering elections. It is a national shame. So imagine what
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: it would be like in the middle of a pandemic
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: where the, I don't know when the last time you
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: voted in person, but have you ever seen a poll
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: worker who was not in the vulnerable population? Usually they're
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: senior citizens. There are almost always long lines and the
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: spaces are too small. And so what is the best
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: things that we can do to ensure that people have
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to participate in this election, to exercise their
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: right to citizens without exposing themselves to a potentially lethal virus?
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: And the best answer is vote by mail. There are
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: other things we can and should do just to fix
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: our elections generally, but we saw what happened in some
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: of these states on Tuesday, where the states that had
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: vote by mail had turnout that seemed respectable, and the
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: states that didn't had greatly diminished turnout. And so We
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: need to do this. And Democrats have been pushing for
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: vote by mail, where just to give people who don't know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: vote by mail is a fully vote by mail election
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: like Oregon and Washington and what California is transitioning to.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Every registered voter gets mailed a ballot. They fill it out.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: They send it back. And in most cases, it just
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: simply needs to be postmarked by election day. And There's
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: no reason we should not do that everywhere in the country.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: There's a piece of legislation co-sponsored by Amy Klobuchar and
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Ron Wyden that was introduced just yesterday that would mandate it,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: and it should absolutely be included in this bill. In
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: my piece, I also lay out some of the very
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: specific things we need to do to protect voters, even
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: with vote-by-mail, against malevolent Republican election officials that people can
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: read more about that have been pushed by our friend
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Mark Elias, the legendary Democratic elections attorney. But I think
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: it's very important that this be in this bill for
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: the exact reasons that Brian talked about in his piece,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: which is we know this from 2009. With every passing bill,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: the likelihood of another bill passing goes dramatically down. The
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Congress only has so much energy and political will. And
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: if it's not, this is the train leaving the station.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: You better put it in this one because it's going
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: to be exponentially harder the next time.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard somewhere that they may sort of punt
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: this to like a fourth relief bill after this third
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: relief bill that they're discussing now. And, you know, they'll
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: do election reform there. I really worry about that. And
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I worry about Mitch McConnell being willing to, you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: dive into changing our elections for the better with Chuck
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Schumer and, you know, Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump after we're through this relief package. I think
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the Democrats should be demanding it in this current package.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, as Mark Elias points out in his
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Washington Post op-ed about this, as you should all read,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: is it's not very easy to do this. Like we
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: need to do it, but there's a number of steps,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: partly because states administer elections. And so it's hard to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: have sort of one national standard here. So, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: there's 16 states right now that require an excuse to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: vote by mail. And so the Wyden-Klobuchar bill would basically say,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: all right, every single state, there should be no excuse
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to vote by mail. You shouldn't have to have an excuse.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But even that's not enough, because like you said, that
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't get you to the point where the states are
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: automatically mailing every single voter a postmarked ballot to send in.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, that legislation also has $ 500 million
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that it would give to the states to sort of
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: take some of these steps that are necessary. And part
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of those are, you know, you got to provide the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: free postage, you got to mail the ballots, you got
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: to make sure that the states accept ballots that are
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: mailed on election day, because a lot of states that
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: have no excuse vote by mail say that the ballot
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: has to get there on election day. And you also
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: have to get now more workers and more volunteers to
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: count all those ballots that come in maybe a couple
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of days after the election because they were postmarked on
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: election day. So there is sort of a number of
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: steps that every state has to take to get there,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: which means that this has to start happening now. This
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: cannot be, if we wait till September or October, it's
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: going to be too late to do this. And we
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: have to prepare for the fact that by November, this
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: thing may not be gone. And in all likelihood, it'll
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: still be dangerous for at least a lot of vulnerable
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: populations and older voters to go out and vote. And,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: you know, for Republicans that have often been resistant to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: things like vote by mail and making voting easier, they
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: should think about the fact that most of their voters
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: are older voters. So it's not obvious that vote by
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: mail would benefit one party or the other, which I
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: guess is the, is the hope that maybe both parties
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: would come together and make it happen.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: In a normal world, higher turnout benefits Democrats for the
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: most part. Not true everywhere, but that is generally true.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And history has shown in states like Colorado, which adopted
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: vote mail, studies show that it also helps increase turnout
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: dramatically in some cases among populations least likely to vote.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: But in this particular case... Just you fucking yahoos who
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: all yelled at me on Twitter when I tweeted about
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: this saying, never let a crisis go to waste. Imagine
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: what the electorate looks like if people over the age
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: of 70 are afraid to go vote. Who do you
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: think that hurts? Fucking armchair Twitter political strategists in the
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Republican Party. Who do you think that hurts? One of
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: the people who tweeted at me about this was one
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: of Mitch McConnell's aides, you fucking yahoo.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, they are the fucking– some of the worst fucking
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: people in politics.
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: Well, I mean, look, who could not– I mean, look,
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: who could– like, is there anything to better show political
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: genius than electing a Republican in Kentucky?
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Congratulations.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Just fucking gross. All right. Before we move on from
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Congress– Should we talk about the fact that, and I
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: know you want to talk about this, two members now
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: have tested positive for COVID-19, Republican Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and Democrat Ben McAdams of Utah. Why are members of
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Congress still going to work and not sort of practicing
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: the same extreme social distancing that the rest of us,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: when we are depending on them to pass the this
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: legislation that will save the economy, save democracy, et cetera.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Like why can't they figure out how to institute remote voting?
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Why are they all still huddled together in Washington and
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the Capitol and Capitol Hill offices potentially exposing each other
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to this? I mean, it seems very scary and very stupid.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I probably, I really discovered this last night, uh, when
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I did it. So I Googled, I Googled, uh, Congress
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: and continuity of government plan. And it turns out there
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: is none. And there's an excellent story written a few
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: weeks ago by Garrett Graff in Politico magazine who first
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: explored this after the mass shooting in which Steve Scalise
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: was wounded, that Congress basically has no plan if a
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: large portion of members were incapacitated or in some way
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: or deceased through some sort of– this was in the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: context of a mass shooting or terrorist act. And then
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: he updated it about coronavirus. And then Paul Kane, who
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: knows Congress as well as anyone in The Washington Post,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: has another story today, which is there is no plan
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: for this. And Mitch McConnell was on the record in
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the story opposing the idea of mobile voting. Now, every
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: member votes on the same machine. They all touch it,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: and then someone else touches it in the House. They
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: are near each other. Cory Gardner is apparently self-quarantining after
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: he came in contact with someone just after being at
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: a lunch of Republican senators, which is essentially just a
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: meeting of the vulnerable population. And this is very, very
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: worrisome that you could be in a place where large
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: portions of Congress are unavailable. Steve Scalise, who the leading
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Republican vote counter, is currently unavailable because he is self-quarantining.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: And we need a plan that means that members can
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: vote remotely. We needed this a long time ago, but
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: it is not implausible. that large portions of Congress will
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: be unavailable to act at a time of national crisis
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: unless we put in place an actual plan. It is insane,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: and I hope someone is working on it right now.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, get on that, someone. Probably a good idea.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: And now, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to play
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: some of the many voice notes that you all left us.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks again for calling in, and please keep them coming.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: Hi, my name is Stephanie. I'm from Red Bank, New Jersey.
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: And on March 9th, I was actually laid off from
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: my job.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Before, you know, it was.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: Really all hit the fan. And my company had given
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: me three weeks severance, which is, you know, generous of them.
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: And three weeks is usually enough time to find another job.
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: The problem is that I did have several interviews set
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: up for this week and next week, and one is canceled,
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: one is moved to a phone interview, and even then
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: they don't know when regular operations would start, so they
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: don't know when I would be able to start if
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: I was to be hired. It is immensely annoying and frustrating,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: to say the least, and everyone out here is suggesting
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: a payroll tax, and that's not going to help me.
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: Because I don't have an income right now. It just
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: doesn't help me. And, yeah, I don't know what I'm
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: going to do with all my bills. Because even if
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: I was hired by someone, I wouldn't start until probably
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: well after April 1st. And I have bills to pay.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: And I don't know what I'm going to do.
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: I really don't.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I'm really.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: I'm really stuck. So, um, yeah. So I hope that
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: the government can do something to help me. I don't
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: hold very much weight. I am very lucky in that
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: I have friends and family that are willing to help
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: me out and say they'll help me out if that
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: comes to it. But I know that not everybody has that.
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: And I really, really hope that we can all get
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: our stuff together and just take this seriously. Okay. Well,
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: thank you guys for listening and I'll I hope everyone
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: stays safe out there.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Ali and I'm calling from Brooklyn.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: I have been sick since Monday and actually called my
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: urgent care.
• 36:29
  Speaker 9: They urged me not to come in.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: But I defied them and visited the urgent care facility today.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I was not given a COVID test. Even though I
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: was showing some symptoms, they're only giving those tests to
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: folks who have a fever, shortness of breath, and all
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: But here's the thing.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: My job requires me to interact with the public. And
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: I believe that if we are showing some symptoms, we
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: should be able to get the test. For some reason,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: what I'm hearing on the news from pundits, that's not
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: translating into, like, real-life situations. So there's a disconnect, obviously.
• 37:20
  Speaker 9: I don't know.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know who can help. I don't know who
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: to call. But I just thought.
• 37:25
  Speaker 10: I'd share my story, my experience.
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: Bye. Hi, this is Megan.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I'm from Missouri, and I work for a county health
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: department here. We are actually one of the lowest-funded county
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: health departments in the state of Missouri. And on top
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: of that, Missouri ranks 50th out of all the states
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: on public health funding in the nation. We have a
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: staff of about 35 people to serve a population of
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: around 350,000. So prior to the outbreak, I was working
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: on things like vaping education with teens. some opioid crisis
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: response grants, doing things like writing data briefs. And as
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: of now, all of that work has been dropped to
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: help our outbreak response team. There's only five people on
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: that team. And so now the entire health department has
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: been called in to help them deal with this and
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: help our community get through this. So thanks for what
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: you're doing. Thanks for taking these listener stories. And thanks for,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: you know, all my coworkers and I listen to your
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: podcast every week and it makes our day better. So
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: thank you.
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about how the politics of Trump's response is
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: playing out, which is something you also talk about in
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: your piece. At some point earlier this week, after he
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: read that report from Imperial College that more than two
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: million Americans could die in this pandemic if nothing is done,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump suddenly looked and sounded like he was
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: taking this seriously, even if he's certainly not acting that way.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And after one of his daily press conferences, CNN's Dan
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Bash said, quote, If you look at the big picture,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: this was remarkable from the president of the United States.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: This is a nonpartisan. This is an important thing to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: note and to applaud from an American standpoint and from
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: a human standpoint. He is being the kind of leader
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: that people need, at least in tone today and yesterday,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: in tone that people need and want and yearn for
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: in times of crisis and uncertainty. You know, Is it
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: even worth yelling about this since we've been doing it
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: since Trump started running for office in 2015 and now
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: they are still doing this shit in the middle of
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a pandemic?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Look, there's nothing more infuriating than Trump being graded on
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: a curve and the steepest curve in American history, but
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be fixed. It will never be fixed.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: And it's not everyone in the media to be very clear,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: but it is the general conversation just gives Trump a
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: participation trophy for completing sentences and That would never be
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: provided to any other president, most certainly a Democrat. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: we have a choice. It is okay to yell about it.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: It is okay to tweet about it. But it is
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: another reminder, in particular now, right now, that if the
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: primary means by which we plan to convince the American
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: people that Donald Trump is unfit for this office, is
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: the least prepared person to be in charge during a pandemic,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: is someone who should be fired in November... If our
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: primary means of doing that is through the mainstream media,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: we will fail at that task for a whole host
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: of reasons we've been talking about for a long time.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: The media doesn't have the reach nor the cultural inclination
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: to do our job. It is our job as Democrats
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: to tell people that Trump is unfit. It is not
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: the media's job. Sometimes people can get that impression from
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: some very good journalism that happens, but they're going to
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: report what he says. And They may fact check it
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: minutes later, hours later, days later, but we have to
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: be the ones who hold them accountable. And we're going
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: to have to learn this lesson as a party eventually,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: or we're just going to perpetually live in this miserable timeline.
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And it does seem like because all that you just
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: said is true about the media, that Trump's press strategy
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: over the last week is benefiting him politically, partly because
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: of sort of the institutional... weakness of the media and how,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: as you point out, it's, it's not their job, it's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: our job, but also he, you know, he gets to,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: he gets to come out every day. He gets to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: dominate the airwaves. Uh, everyone takes his press conference live
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and he can just say whatever he wants. Uh, he
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: can lie however he wants. He can exaggerate progress all
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: he wants. He can offer a lot of happy talk and,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: you know, it, I could imagine it appearing to sort
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: of the average American who is home, like everyone's home
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: right now. Okay, well, this guy, you know, maybe, you know,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: he's been an asshole before. He lies. I don't know
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: if I trust him, but he looks serious. He is
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: just talking about a lot of progress. He's saying that
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: everything's under control. Everything's going to be great. And so
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I do wonder, you know, how do Democrats handle sort
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: of Trump's press strategy right now, knowing that there is
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: no bully pulpit as powerful as the presidency under any president?
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: So I'd say three things. One, Democrats have a tendency to,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: ourselves included, I am very guilty of this, to focus
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: on the style and optics of Trump as opposed to
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: the substance. And he's up there, he's saying the wrong words,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: he doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing, he's
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: putting misspellings in his tweets. And we use that as
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: evidence of unfitness for office. For the vast majority of
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: the electorate, Trump's style and language and demeanor is baked
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: into the cake. They were aware of it when he
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: was elected. They live with it. It is not going
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: to be reason enough to meet the pretty high burden
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: of firing a president after one term. And so I
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: think in this case, we need to focus on the
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: substance of what he has done wrong, the very specific
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: things that he failed for weeks to invoke the Defense
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Protection Act to ensure that we have enough ventilators and
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: respirators and masks. that he is responsible for the lack
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: of testing, that he fired the pandemic unit, that he
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: was briefed on multiple occasions about a pandemic and did nothing.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: We have to focus on the specific, very specific fact-based
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: things that Trump did and didn't do that led to
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: this crisis and not the insane thing he said or
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: tweeted that morning. So that's one. Two is we need
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: to– Democratic groups, Democratic candidates need to tell the story themselves.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: And we can talk about, there's a debate about this
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: among some of our most valued and respected friends, but
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: I think Democrats need to be advertising because Trump, like
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: if you were someone who consumes these press conferences and
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: every news story like we do, and a lot of
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: our listeners do, it's pretty obvious what he has fucked up.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: If you're just someone who is trying to manage their
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: life through this incredibly scary time and dealing with having
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: kids at home and maybe working from home or worrying
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: about if you're going to get another paycheck and you're
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: just sort of surfing the news, you see Trump at
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: his podium making statement after statement after statement. It seems
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: like he's doing something. And so if we want to
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: tell people the truth and we want to inform them
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: about that Reuters story you read, we're going to have
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to pay to do that. And the third thing is
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: we need more Democrats to get out there. And I
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: think that involves our presumptive, soon to be presumptive nominee
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: in Joe Biden, being out there as the public face
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: of the Democratic response, talking about what Trump did wrong,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: what he would do differently as a president. The speech
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: he gave last week before the debate was excellent, and
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: we could use more of that in my list, a
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: couple of things that he could do. But his presence
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: and voice, he is the only Democrat right now who
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: can get something in the neighborhood of the sort of
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: press attention that Trump does. And if he is off
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: the field, we are dramatically outgunned in the media space.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really agree with that last one, especially because
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I'm remembering in the 2008 crisis, you know, obviously we
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: were in a different place than Biden is right now because,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you know, Barack Obama was the nominee. It was September, October,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: November of 2008. And one of the things that benefited
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the Democrats then was Pelosi and other Democrats sort of
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: stepped back and made sure that all of the messaging
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: sort of went through Barack Obama. He was the leader
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: of the party at that point, even though he wasn't
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: president yet. And so, you know, George Bush was doing
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: what George Bush was doing. And Barack Obama was out
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: there every day, you know, criticizing both McCain and George
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Bush and sort of showing how he would act as
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: president of the United States. And he was speaking on
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: behalf of the Democratic Party and he was offering the contrast.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: And one of the things you and I have been
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: talking about for the last couple of years is it
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: has been much harder in the Trump era for there
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: to be one voice for of the opposition and the
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: democratic party because we didn't have a nominee yet. Well,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: now we're about to have a nominee. And I do think,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: and it's, it's obviously there's a lot of challenges, right?
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Because there's not a campaign trail anymore. And we'll talk
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: about all that and there's not rallies, but I do
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: think we have to hear not just statements, not just tweets.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: We must have to hear Joe Biden's voice almost every
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: day during this crisis. Um, not only as part of
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: his campaign for presidency, but as to, to, to let
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Americans know what a Biden presidency would look like. So
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: I think that's super important.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: To be completely fair to team Biden, right? Like it's
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: very easy for, you know, podcasting wasn't a huge deal
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: when we were working the away campaign, but there were
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: people like us who didn't have to deal with all
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: the challenges of the campaign offering lots of advice. So
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: to be fair to them, I think it's, This is
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: a very delicate part of the campaign. We'll talk about this,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: but they are trying to wind this down in a
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: way that is appropriately respectful to Bernie Sanders and his supporters.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: They don't want to look presumptuous. They have a ton
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: of work to do and perhaps more work than any
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Democratic nominee in history to put together a fully functioning
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: general election campaign. He has been underfunded for a very
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: long time now. He just hired a new campaign manager,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: the very excellent friend of ours, General Malley Dillon. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: so they're not, no one's on vacation there. And you
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: have to do all of this while your staff is
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: working from home. So there are tremendous challenges. I just
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: think sooner rather than later, it is important for the
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: party generally, but for Biden particularly, is to be out
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: there now because the memory is short in the Trump era.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: And this is, you have to strike when people are
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: paying attention to a particular story if you want to
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: burn it into their memory in a way that will
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: still be relevant in November. And that moment is now.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I 100% agree with all of that. And
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I think that up until now, I totally understand where
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the Biden team has been and the different challenges they're facing,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: both in terms of challenges they'd be facing, regardless of
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: whether there was a pandemic, because of the fact that
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders is still in the race. And also, the
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: added enormous challenge of organizing this kind of response during
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: a pandemic when all their staff are working from home and,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: you know, their nominee can't be out on the trail.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: So I totally understand that. Let's go back to the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: ad debate, the debate over sort of Democrats sort of
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: launching an ad blitz about this right now, because, you know,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: as you alluded to, David Axelrod and David Plouffe, who
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: are incredibly close, have worked together. We're partners and then
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: partners on our campaign. I've been friends for life, sort
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: of got into it a little bit on Twitter, respectfully,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: about whether Democrats should run ads right now. And there
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: was this Washington Post story about how Pacronym, which is
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Tara McGowan's organization, you know, Tara's been on the pod before,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: and David Plouffe is helping out there too. You all
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: know Plouffe. They're going to sort of launch some ads
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: about Trump's response to the pandemic. And Axe sort of
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: quote tweeted it and said, you know, I don't know
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: that this is the time for negative ads right now.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: There'll be a time at one point down the road,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if this is it. And, you know,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Plouffe said, I disagree. We basically have to do this.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: We can't. just disarm because you know that Team Trump
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: is going to be out there touting how wonderful he
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: is every single day. What did you think about that debate?
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I know you and I both feel this way,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: and anyone who worked for Barack Obama does, is that
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: there's no people that we have more respect for as
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: people and as political strategists than Axe and Plouffe. And
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Even when I was writing my book, I wrote some
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: things that I knew Axe would disagree with, and it
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: made it hard to write them, right? Because it's like he's...
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: one of the smartest people I've ever known and one
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: of the best people I've ever worked with. And so
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: the idea that he disagrees makes me deeply uncomfortable. And
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: I think just to be fair to Axe's point of view,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: this was interpreted by some on Twitter to say that
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Axe was saying basically, this is a time for unity
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: behind Trump and we put politics aside.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he wasn't saying that.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: He was not saying that. He was making a case
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: about the political wisdom of of running political ads at
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: a time when people are deeply afraid and deeply worried
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: about the fate of the country. And so it's a
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: disagreement in strategy. And I think what matters here, I
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: agree with Plouffe in this, because I don't think we
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: can let this opportunity pass itself by, and we can't
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: let Trump use this to gain an advantage. We've seen
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Republicans use these opportunities where they have cowed Democrats from
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: making their political case. Bush, after 9-11, Democrats lined up
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: behind him. help give Bush a 90% approval rating, and
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: then he used that 90% approval rating to bully America
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: into a war and bludgeon Democrats by comparing them to
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Osama bin Laden. So we should be very cautious about that.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: But I think the tone of the ads matters a lot.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Like Pakran was talking about are fact-based digital ads that
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: share some of the information that we have talked about
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: where Trump messed it up with a targeted set of
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: voters via Facebook or other platforms, which is different than
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: the sort of stereotypical negative television ads that you see
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: with the ominous music and the blurred faces and all
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: of that. If people were watching CNN to get the
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: latest information about how to protect their families, and then
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden was this commercial that looked like
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: a terrible negative ad and then said, paid for by
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: the Democratic National Committee or Joe Biden for America or
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: whatever else, I think Axe would be 100% right. I
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: think the sorts of things that Plouffe and Packer and
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: him are talking about are necessary and appropriate in this
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: timeline is my personal view. But this is a good
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: faith disagreement. And, you know, certainly acts feeling differently always
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: makes me question my own opinion.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I think back to what Barack
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Obama always used to tell me when I'd go off
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: to work on some speech, which is, you know, you
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: don't have to put a lot of spin on the
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: ball when the facts are on our side. And to
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: our conversation earlier, when we talked about you know, Democrats
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: don't need to be just focused on Trump's stylistic snafus,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: his crazy tweets, the things he says, all that kind
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: of stuff that, you know, we'd probably be better off
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: focusing on the substance of how he has fucked up
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: this response and continues to fuck up this response. We'll
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: be better off. I believe the same is true about
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: any video we share, any ad that runs, anything like that.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: There is a mountain of evidence that that Donald Trump
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: has screwed up this response. And look, it's not just
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: about gaining some political advantage in the narrow sense where
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: we usually talk about it regarding campaigns, right? It is,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: there is a substantive angle to this, which is we
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: want the response to be better. We want to demand
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: a better response to this so that people can live,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: so that our economy can go back to normal. And
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: if all we have is Donald Trump at a podium
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: lying and exaggerating and telling us everything is fine when
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: it's not, there needs to be voices on the other
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: side saying, hey, he's not telling you the truth. He's
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: fucking this response up and don't believe him. And we
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: need to demand better because lives are at stake. Livelihoods
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: are at stake, you know? And I think it's bigger
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: than politics, you know? And so I do think that
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: like in this media age, right? There is an imbalance
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: between what Donald Trump can go out and say and
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: what all of us can say in response. And so
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I think that having ads like this that, again, are
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: measured and substantive, you know, respectful of what Axe is
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: worried about, which is that a lot of people are
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: scared out there. And so I think you have to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: really be careful about the tone. But I think we should,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: I think Plouffe is right, we should not disarm here.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: And just one other thing on this is my bias
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: here is, you know, I wrote about this in my book,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: but I believe that the only way to have a
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: successful communication strategy in this media age is with a
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: substantial digital advertising component. And I think that is true now.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: That is true in the general election. And if Joe
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Biden is president, he should have an up and running
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: campaign that is telling voters about what he is trying
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: to do for the country from inauguration day through election
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: day of his first term. And that is the only
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: way to succeed in this world where there's like an
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: on and off season of for advertising is I think
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: an outdated concept that doesn't work anymore.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: So speaking of Biden, we should talk about the fact
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: that there were primaries on Tuesday. And after the primaries
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, Ohio last minute
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: postponed theirs. Biden is almost certain to become the Democratic
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: nominee for president. Just to give you a little math,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: if Joe Biden lost every primary from here on out
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: by 10 points, he would still win a majority of
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: pledged delegates and clinch the nomination. In order for Bernie
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: to pull ahead, he'd have to win the remaining contest
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: by an average of like 40 points each contest, 30
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: or 40 points. So that's where we are. So it
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: does seem like it's over, right, Dan? What do you think?
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, the math certainly is clear. And I have
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: to say, just even as we begin this conversation, it
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: just even feels weird to talk about these primaries in
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: the context of everything that's happening. You know, and we
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: are people who... you know, in a normal week, you
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: and I would have spent hours before the pod, like
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: digging into the, you know, the exit polls, the precinct data.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: That's my favorite thing, looking at exit polls.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I haven't even looked at them yet.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's like, and I didn't
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: even watch election night coverage, right? Me neither, me neither.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Just kind of, it wasn't even like mainlining Twitter. I didn't,
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: I wasn't anticipating the seen enough tweet from Dave Wasserman.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Although the one I will say, the one I was
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: very interested in which we should just give a little
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: shout out to, is Marie Newman beating Dan Lipinski in
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: the primary in Illinois, a pro-choice progressive candidate who primaried
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: a conservative anti-choice, anti-ACA Democrat and came out on top.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: And that was some good news.
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: We had her on the show a couple of times
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: and back in, I think on stage in Chicago, was
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: that a year ago, two years ago?
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It could be anything before last Wednesday
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: is just a different era.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But anyway, we're really happy for Marie Newman. Go ahead.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: So the math is very clear that Joe Biden is
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: going to be the nominee. That is what it is.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Now Bernie Sanders is still in the race and we
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: don't have a primary for a while now, I don't believe.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: And so we'll have to see what happens next. But
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden has, for all intents and purposes, clinched the nomination.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: And the question is, how does he begin to prepare
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: for that? And how does he do that with another
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: candidate whose supporters he desperately needs to be president still
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: in the race?
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Any good ideas? How he brings this to a close
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: in a way that maximizes party unity and makes sure
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: that Bernie's voters turn out for him in November. There
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: was a start, I think, in the speech that he
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: delivered on primary night, which I believe he delivered from
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: his home and they sort of live streamed it from
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: like an iPhone because they didn't have a lot of
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: equipment on hand, which is understandable. But in that speech,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I think he reached out to young people who have
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: been voting for Bernie Sanders. He talked about Bernie Sanders' agenda.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Of course, he has already adopted Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy plan.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: He adopted a version of Bernie Sanders' free college plan,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: not quite as generous as Bernie's plan. It was more
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: like Pete's plan, but again, he did. So what else
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: can he do?
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the most important thing for Biden and
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Biden supporters and pro-Biden Democrats out there is to give
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders and his campaign and his supporters some time.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Like everyone tweeting at Bernie and telling the New York Times,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: the Washington Post, that were political, whoever else that Bernie
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: should drop out is not helpful. Like maybe those people
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: have never lost an election and don't know what it
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: feels like, but it's fucking hard. And it's really hard
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: when you thought you were going to win just like
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: two and a half weeks ago. And this has been
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: a dramatic change. And it's also happening to a campaign who,
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: like everyone else, is in this incredibly difficult position where
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: they can't even gather in a room together to discuss it.
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: And so- We went through this a little bit with
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Clinton because we mathematically clinched the nomination after winning the
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: North Carolina primary and preventing Clinton from racking up a
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: lot of delegates in Indiana. And she stayed in the
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: race for another six weeks. And that was quite annoying
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: at the time, I would say. But we were able
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: to begin preparing for... We started doing hiring plans. I
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: know I was already out trying to figure out what
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: our general election communication staff would look like. We were
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: doing meetings, talking about policy rollouts and advertising schedules. And
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: so you can begin doing that stuff now, but it
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: just has to be done delicately. And so Bernie being
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: in the race right now, particularly doing what he is doing,
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: which is focusing on the pandemic and how to make
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: the economic package as pro-worker as it possibly can, does
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: not hurt Joe Biden in any way, shape, or form.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: And so I would just recommend that Biden's senior campaign
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: team Bernie's campaign team are hopefully talking. At some point,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Biden and Bernie should talk. But just for the rest
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: of us, yelling at Bernie, gloating about it or anything
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: else because you're still angry about something that happened in 2016,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: I think is particularly not constructive and actually pretty insensitive
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: to some people who just work their ass off to
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: try to elect someone they passionately believed in.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and are worried about their jobs too. And look,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: with the exception of Bernie's press secretary on Twitter, None
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: of his staffers and Bernie himself are attacking Joe Biden anymore.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: They pulled down their digital ads. So there is no
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: cost to Joe Biden here of Bernie continuing to take
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: time to figure out what comes next or how to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: bring this thing to a close. And so I think
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: that's important to keep in mind for all the people
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: who are like, well, it's hurting Joe Biden that he's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: still in the race and it's hurting the party. Like
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: it is not right now at all. So we should
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: let him let him make that choice. Look, I do think,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: you know, I would say to. a lot of the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Bernie supporters out there and progressives, you know, on Tuesday night,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I tweeted that, you know, Joe Biden will run on
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: the most progressive platform of any Democratic nominee in history.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And that's, you know, thanks in part to Bernie Sanders
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: and the movement he inspired. And, you know, that didn't
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: help with a lot of Bernie's more hardcore supporters. And
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: I understand that. It happens to be true. Joe Biden's
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: health care plan is much more progressive than Barack Obama's.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: It's more progressive than Hillary Clinton's. That's true of most
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: of his policies. It's certainly true of all of his
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: policies in comparison to Barack Obama's in 2008. And it's
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: true for a number of policies in comparison to Hillary
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Clinton in 2016. Now, a couple of people rightly said
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: in response, well, it's fine for him to have those
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: policies now and to write them down, but how can
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: we trust him to fight for them? And I think
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: that's completely legitimate. And what I would say is, look,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: I think for Bernie supporters, for progressives, it is going
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: to be, you're going to be better off with a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden administration than a Donald Trump administration for a
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: million reasons. But one of the challenges that Bernie had
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: in this race and other progressive candidates have had for
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years is with Donald Trump as president,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: what's on people's minds more than anything else is we
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: have to get him out of office. Before anything else happens,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: we have to get him out of office because he
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: represents an existential threat to the country. And that is true.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Once Donald Trump is out of office, once there's a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the White House, like, progressives should push
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden hard. You know, they should continue to protest.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: They should continue to push him on things where he
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't live up to some of his campaign promises. Or
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: they should push him further left when they have to.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: You know, they should continue to elect members of Congress
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: like AOC and Katie Porter and others who are going
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: to continue to push the agenda in a more progressive direction.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: And they're just, it's going to be easier to do
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: that With Joe Biden in the White House and with
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: everyone working as hard as possible to make sure that
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: he wins, then God forbid if we have another term
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. And so I just think like, you know,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: if you supported Bernie Sanders, you know, your job doesn't
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: end when Bernie Sanders leaves the race or when Joe
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Biden becomes president. At that point, you have to fight
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: even harder. And I remember Barack Obama used to say this,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: that he's, you know, he was he was happy that
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: he always had folks on the left who are pushing
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: him harder. And because he was an organizer himself and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: he remembers what it was like to push people in
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: power to be more progressive. And, you know, he didn't
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: always do everything that they wanted, but he always appreciated
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: that they were there pushing really hard. And I think
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: that the same is going to be true of Joe
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Biden if he's president. So what I would say is
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: work your asses off to elect him now and then
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: do not give him an inch once he's in office
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and keep pushing because once the threat of Trump is gone,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: we can be free to push Joe Biden as much
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: as possible.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right. And the other thing I
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: just would recommend to the Biden campaign, to all of us,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: to everyone else out there is, whether these are Bernie
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: supporters who are indicating that they may not support Joe
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: Biden or wonder if they should, or people who just
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: generally may not vote, shaming people is never an effective
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: strategy for getting them to vote. And so like, So
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: instead of just yelling like, you know, you're selfish or
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: why are you doing this? It is going to be
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: up to Biden and Bernie and every other Democrat out
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: there to make– ourselves to make the case for why
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: this election matters, what the stakes are, and why Joe
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Biden– and what Joe Biden would do to make America better.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: And that is the best way of doing it instead
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: of just yelling at people, you know, for not voting
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: or not being there yet, right? So it's just like
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: give people space. have some respect for... And I would
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: also say just separate... There are people who are going
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: to tell you that they're not going to vote for Biden,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: prominent Twitter personalities, because it's a shtick. And maybe they
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: vote for him, maybe they don't. But we should focus
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: on real voters, because there are real, well-meaning, progressive voters
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: who are wondering if there is a place for them
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: in this party. And those are the people that we
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: should be reaching out to and explaining... who Joe Biden is,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: what he would do and why this election matters, and
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: less about people who are trolling for the sake of
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: generating an outrage response that benefits their social media standing.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Ignore those people, right? Like the vast majority of Bernie staffers,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Bernie supporters, Bernie voters, they do. They're wondering if there's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: a place for them that's party and they are worth,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: absolutely worth reaching out to and talking to and making
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: sure they know that there is a place. And we
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: should continue to have a dialogue with those people. And
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: then there are, you know, certain assholes on the left
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: with podcasts that you should safely ignore for good because
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: they are just trying to do this to be assholes.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: And it's a tiny minority of people. And it's not
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: worth getting in debates with them on Twitter anymore. It
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: is worth reaching out to the very hardworking organizers and
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: staffers who work their ass off for Bernie Sanders, who
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: just want to know, who deeply believe in the things
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: that they fought for. and just want to know that
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the next Democratic administration and Democratic Congress is going to
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: fight for them. And that is an entirely legitimate view.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think, turning to Joe Biden, what do
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: you think that Joe Biden and his campaign should be
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: doing right now to get ready for the most bizarre, unique,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: crazy general election in history with a pandemic as the
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: backdrop and potentially a recession that we've never even seen before?
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: In a normal world, what they would be doing is
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: hiring as many organizers and staffers as they possibly can
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: to get ready for the general election. They would be
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: focusing their messaging and their research on how you beat Trump,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: how you can persuade people, deciding what states you're going
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: to invest in, building your budget for that, and all
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: of those things. They're going to have to do those things. Now,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: that is dramatically complicated by the fact that they cannot
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: have a meeting. They have to do it all through
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: phones and video conferences and They can't have rallies. They
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: can't do all those things. So I think another portion
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: of this is our old chief of staff, Dennis McDonough,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: always used to do something called red teaming, where he
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: would take a group of people and basically try to
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: poke holes in whatever the plan is or worst case
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: scenario to people who were not involved in it intimately.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: And I think there is a really worthwhile project for
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Biden's campaign or a group of people who want to
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: help Biden to Design what a campaign strategy looks like
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: if America is social distancing in September, October, and November.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: What is your plan if there is no convention? What
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: is your plan for a VP rollout if you can't
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: have a rally to announce it? What is your plan
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: if there is no bus and whistle stops tour? And
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: I think that that is a very interesting project that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: they– they should begin on. And that's not something that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: the current, the campaign manager, the communications director, the consultants
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: can do because they're busy with the day-to-day work. So
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: I think that there is sort of a role for
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: a coronavirus red team for how you campaign in this environment,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: because Trump has a very easy strategy in that world,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: which is he's got several billion dollars worth of ads
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: to run, and he can walk down that White House
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: briefing room every day and dominate the conversation. So what
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: does a Democratic candidate do in a world in which
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: it may be unwise to put two 70-year-olds in the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: same room to debate?
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: That's a lot to figure out. I mean, I would
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: just say, I'm just a lowly speechwriter, so I'll just,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: from a messaging point of view, we are in the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: greatest crisis of our lifetimes right now. And I think
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden needs to be the president that the country
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: needs right now and needs to show how he will
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: govern as president through a crisis like this. And that is,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I believe, what finally won the election for Barack Obama.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I heard Axe saying this on his podcast the other day,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: that he believes that Barack Obama won the election sometime
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: in October during the financial crisis when he showed that
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: he would be the better leader in a crisis like that.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: And it's going to be a lot tougher for Joe
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Biden for all the reasons we've pointed out, but also
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: because there's a longer runway here We're still in late
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: March and we got it, we got till November, but
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: I think in words and action, he needs to be
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: the president that the country deserves right now. And so
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: I think that sort of overarching goals, like every decision
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: they make should sort of flow through that frame.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: I think, I think that's exactly, that's exactly right. And,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: you know, it, it time feels very strange these days.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: Like when you say it's March, like that seems crazy
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: to me, but it is right. Like he is locking
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: up the nomination three months before Clinton in 16 or
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: Obama in a way. And so he does have this time.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: Time is certainly not on anyone's side because Trump actually
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: has a much bigger infrastructure headstart than any incumbent president
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: in history. Um, But he has more time than I
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: think any of us anticipated because this campaign seems to
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: be coming to a close sooner than was, I think,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: anticipated by a lot of people. And so how do
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: you use that time is really important. So I'm now
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: going to spend the rest of my time thinking about
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: this Red Team project. And if we're still sheltering in
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: place next week and no one on the Biden campaign
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: calls me, then I'm going to just write it for Christmas. cricket.com
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, I'll be waiting for more memos.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: More memos coming from you. They're going to become.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: Stranger and more and more esoteric as time goes on.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: One memo at a time. That's how we're going to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: do this. All right. When we come back, I will
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: talk to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the host of Cricket Media's
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: America Dissected.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: Hey, Podsave.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 9: I just wanted to give you guys a quick voice
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 9: memo because you were asking about corona stories and I
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 9: don't want to tell you where I'm from or my name,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 9: but I work for the United States Postal Service and
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 9: we were given a briefing this morning and they've been
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 9: behind every single day on the information from the CDC,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 9: from the Trump administration, from every other country. Basically, our
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 9: briefing went this morning that the only way we could
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 9: leave and use sick leave would be if we showed
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 9: all three symptoms at the same time, which is incredibly
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 9: laughable because from everything we've read, this goes in stages.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 9: It's also incredibly dangerous. I work in a station of
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 9: 30 people. I am a regular carrier, so I have
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 9: all the benefits, health insurance, union protections, X, Y, and Z,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 9: but we are not practicing social distancing. Carriers take breaks.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 9: They share food.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 6: I mean, yesterday they were sharing donuts. Today they were
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: sharing celery sticks and ranch out of the same container.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: It's absolutely mind-boggling that they won't, you know, practice this stuff.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: There's no hand sanitizer. There's no gloves.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 9: There's no masks. I bring my own gloves. I have
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 9: been bringing my own gloves for as long as I've
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 9: been a carrier, which has been five years. The hand
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 9: soap that we have in the bathroom is like Christmas themed.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 9: Who knows how old that is? Things are not going
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: well with the Postal Service. You can read reports from
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 9: MIT and other places that talk about the ability of
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 9: the virus to live on cardboard and plastics and I'm
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 9: currently delivering my route. The bag that is in my
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 9: hand is made of plastics. I have no idea if
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 9: the clerks protect themselves both in our station and in
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 9: the plants themselves. I just want, you know, you guys
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 9: don't have to play this, but if you could get
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 9: the message out that, you know, we aren't prepared. The
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 9: Postal Service is not prepared to deal with this. They're
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 9: acting as if this is very... very minimal, that, you know, yes,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 9: you might not be able to get it from your letters,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 9: but you can get it from your coworkers. You have
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 9: no idea where your coworkers go after work. I mean, here,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 9: bars and restaurants close at 5. People left work and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 9: immediately ran out to a local establishment, local bar to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 9: get in drinks, and I'm seeing... I understand that it
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 9: was St. Patrick's Day, but it's not acceptable. So please,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 9: please get this out on Pod Save America, Pod Save
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 9: the World, something. Because I have numerous customers who are elderly.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 9: They still don't take it seriously. They're listening to Fox
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 9: News and just coming out the door to try to
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 9: grab the mail from me without practicing any sort of distancing.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 9: I don't want to get sick. I don't want to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 9: be off of work, but that's the reality we're living in.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 9: I am more prepared for this because of my military background,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 9: and I've taken it seriously from the jump, but we
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 9: don't seem to be doing it at work. So thank
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 9: you very much, and let's get through this together.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 10: Hi, my name is Fiona, and I'm a senior at
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 10: Williams College. A couple days ago, I was told that
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 10: I would be forced to leave the place that I
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 10: consider home and the place where I have my greatest
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 10: support system as we transition to virtual learning. To lose
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 10: closure around such an important time in my life has
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 10: been emotionally devastating, to say the least. And I realize
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 10: that this is a time in my life that I
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 10: will never get back. I'm really grateful that I get
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 10: to return to a family. That accepts all parts of
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 10: my identity, unlike many of my peers. However, as a
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 10: low-income student, leaving campus means losing my work-study job, which
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 10: was my only source of income between now and when
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 10: I start my real adult job this summer. And I
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 10: don't know where I'm going to get the money to
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 10: rent my first apartment, which is really scary for me.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 10: But I wanted to thank everyone at Crooked Media for
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 10: bringing me joy and stability through your podcast in this
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 10: difficult time for all of us. And I just, I
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 10: really appreciate all that you do.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 9: Hey, John.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Hey, Tommy.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 11: Have you listened to Hall of Shame, our brand new podcast?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Both episodes. Many times.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 11: So Hannah and I listened to it the other day.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 11: We had it on in the kitchen while we made dinner.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 11: Rachel Bonetta, Richard Fruchbaum, they're hilarious. They're stories from sports history.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 11: So there's one about a figure skating dust-up, shall we say,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 11: a little bit of a cheating scandal. The Russians are involved.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: It's hilarious.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: It's awesome.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: What about a little marathon dust-up as well?
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 11: From our hometown of Boston.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: That's right. I have to say... We've been listening to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of news lately. The news is, it's tense. Yeah,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: this is such.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 11: A relief, such a joy to just laugh for 20 minutes.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: And we both have listened to our early cuts of
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: these episodes, but it finally came out, and so I
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: drove home and I decided to listen to Hall of Shame.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: It really just took the temperature down. I laughed a lot.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: Actual LOLs.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. Download it, subscribe, Hall of Shame. It's
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: a nice breather.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 12: I'm Akilah Hughes.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 13: I'm Gideon Resnick.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 12: We are the hosts of What A Day, Crooked's daily
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 12: news podcast.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 13: Look, we understand keeping up with the news can be
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 13: a challenge, especially when we're living in an actual pandemic
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 13: and we haven't gone outside in a week.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 12: Life is like a movie.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: But you know what?
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 12: That's why we're here. We'll be bringing you the news
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 12: every weekday morning in about 15 minutes. So you're up
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 12: to speed on the latest developments, both coronavirus related and not.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 13: And as always, our goal here is to keep you informed,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 13: but not feeling like you're overwhelmed.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 12: So you don't have to count on Twitter, which can
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 12: be very exciting and dramatic, but also very scary and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 12: not always real. We're going to be level-headed right here
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 12: all the time.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 13: Yeah, so go ahead and subscribe to What A Day
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 13: now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 13: to podcasts.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: I am now joined by the former health officer for
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: the city of Detroit and the host of Crooked Media's podcast,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: America Dissected, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul, how are you doing?
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 7: I am doing well. I'm distancing socially and trying to
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 7: keep upbeat and focused, and I think this is a
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 7: challenging time, but this is a moment where our country
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 7: can come together, and I hope that we do.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Your family holding up okay as well? So far, so good.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 7: We've got a two-year-old, and I think she's a little
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 7: bit confused about why everyone's at home all the time,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: but she doesn't hate it. I'll tell you that much.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: That's good. So I think one of the big questions
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: on everyone's mind is how long is this going to last?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: There was a report from British researchers at Imperial College
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: this week that appropriately scared the shit out of Trump
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: and Boris Johnson and others that said we may have
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: to enforce these kind of severe shutdowns and social distancing
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: for not weeks or months, but weeks. a year or
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: a year and a half. What was your reaction to that?
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 7: So it was a report by a group of infectious
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 7: disease modelers who are some of the best in the business.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 7: And I'd read their research in the past, And so
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 7: when I saw this report and delved into it, they
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 7: make a number of really plausible, thoughtful assumptions, which is
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 7: what you have to do whenever you model anything out,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 7: because of course, none of us know the future. But
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 7: their assumptions are thoughtful and make sense. And let me
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 7: just explain where they come to their final finding, is
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 7: that for us to be This sort of extreme social distancing, right?
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 7: People aren't working like they used to. People aren't going
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 7: out like they used to. And this has huge implications
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 7: for society and our economy. But the reason we're doing
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 7: that is because we have to slow the spread of
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 7: the disease so that the number of new cases don't
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 7: overwhelm our healthcare system's capacity to deal with them. But
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 7: they argue that, you know, we may come to a
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 7: crest of the number of cases and start seeing cases decline.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 7: But even at that level of newly immune people who
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 7: have gotten the disease and gotten over it, it's still
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 7: not enough to protect us. And so even if we
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 7: stop this social distancing, that the number of new cases
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 7: might start to increase again. They argue that the only
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 7: way that we stop that from happening is either the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 7: doomsday scenario where so many people get sick at the
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 7: same time that you get enough people who survive it
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 7: that you have what we call herd immunity, or- we
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 7: have a vaccine. And the argument is that, well, the
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 7: first vaccine trial, assuming this vaccine is safe and effective,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 7: would give us a vaccine in 18 months. We've got
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 7: 14 months for the phase one, and then the phase
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 7: two and the phase three can be rushed a little bit.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 7: So that's another four months. So that's 18 months. And
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 7: then you have a vaccine and you can vaccinate people.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 7: And now we don't have to social distance anymore. So
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 7: this is the thinking that goes into that estimate. The
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 7: hard part, right, is that in our society, we believe
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 7: in human rights. And that's an important thing. It's what
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 7: makes us a democratic society, what makes us the United
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 7: States of America. Where they've seen really successful mitigation has
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 7: been in China. But in China, there's not the same
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 7: respect for human rights. And so everybody has a QR
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 7: code that they have to show whenever they enter any building.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 7: And their phone, in effect, is tracing where they've gone
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 7: so that we know who they've come in contact with.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 7: so that they can be in effect put into isolation
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 7: or quarantine if they were exposed. And there's mandating, you know,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 7: a fever and then a test, which in our country,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 7: you know, we just can't do because of our norms
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 7: and our beliefs, which are important. And so here's where
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 7: they get to that 18-month estimate. And I think it's
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 7: important that folks recognize that, you know, we're going to
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 7: have to tuck in. Like this is going to be,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 7: we're not going to go back to the normal we
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 7: knew even two weeks ago or a month ago, We're
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 7: going to have to generate a new normal in this
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 7: moment and then hope we can, as a society, take
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 7: this thing on so that we can inevitably at the
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 7: end get to the kind of normal that we all
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 7: know and love.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: So I do want to dig in on testing a
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: bit more here. You know, you and I were talking
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: earlier about this smart Twitter thread from Trevor Bedford, who's
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: a scientist studying viruses and immunity. And he said he
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: thinks it's possible to beat this thing earlier by rolling
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: out a testing program that's even bigger. and more technologically
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: advanced than what South Korea has. And obviously that's another country,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: you know, not authoritarian like China, but that has also
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: been able to, through mass testing, been able to sort
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: of bring down the number of cases over the last
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks. What do you think about that? And
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: is there any way you could see that we could
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: sort of compress that timeline that you just spoke about
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: that they laid out in the Imperial College report?
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 7: Um, I think we can. The realization though, is that
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 7: we're going to have to, as a society, deeply and
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 7: fully invest in this. It's got to be priority number one.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 7: And I think in some respects, everywhere from people like
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 7: you and I to leaders making decisions have sort of
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 7: had this attitude of just say it ain't so, right?
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 7: And a bit of a denial about running into it
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 7: and solving it rather than trying to deny that this
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 7: is going to be a new normal. You know, what
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 7: that thread articulates is the ability to leverage testing in
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 7: the moments when it's the most effective. So in medicine,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 7: there's an old adage which holds true. And it's that
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 7: you never run a test the outcomes to which you're
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 7: not going to respond to. So knowing somebody has a case,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 7: if it's not going to change what you're going to
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 7: do for them, It's not worth wasting the test. But
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 7: right now, we're using all of our testing among folks
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 7: who are already very sick with the symptoms of COVID
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 7: who are in the hospital. What we really ought to
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 7: be doing is using those tests to test people who
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 7: may have been exposed, but who are not yet showing
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 7: symptoms because If the test is negative, then we can
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 7: presume that they weren't infected. But if the test is positive,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 7: that means that they may be the super spreaders that
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 7: we have to isolate so they don't spread it into
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 7: everyone else. Because what we do now understand is that
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 7: a large proportion of the spread of this disease is
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 7: through people who don't have symptoms. And so being able
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 7: to identify who has a disease, even among those who
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 7: don't have symptoms is really critical. And I think that's
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 7: what this thread really smartly lays out is a protocol
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 7: to be able to understand who is where and who
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 7: may have been exposed based on our cell phone geo-tracking data,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 7: and then be able to move tests to folks who
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 7: may have been exposed and understand whether or not they
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 7: have the disease so that they're not in a position
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 7: where they're asymptomatic, but spreading the disease in the population.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 7: And I think that could be a really smart protocol
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 7: that could help us to really shrink that timeline and
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 7: to mitigate the disease and save a lot of lives.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: So, you know, obviously a mass testing program would be
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: sort of at the top of the list of things
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: we should be doing right now and focusing on, you know,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: if you were a former public health official, if you
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: were running the show at the White House right now,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: what would be at the top of your to-do list,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: aside from testing, that the federal government isn't doing? What
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: do you think they should be doing right now?
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, three things. Um, Number one, you know, the testing
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 7: problem right now is just it's a supplies problem and
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 7: we need more supplies. And that's across the board. And
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 7: so with a focus on testing, I would be leveraging
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 7: the government's capacity to take over our manufacturing capacities as
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 7: a country to be manufacturing a couple of things. The
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 7: swabs that we need to test, the personal protective equipment
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 7: that frontline healthcare providers need to provide their care and
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 7: to take care of patients. and then ventilators. Because part
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 7: of what we talk about is flattening the curve. But
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 7: the reason we're flattening the curve is because we don't
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 7: want the curve to overwhelm our healthcare system, which means
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 7: that one of the things we have to do is
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 7: increase our capacity to provide healthcare so that that happens.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 7: It's both flattening the curve and also anticipating the curve.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 7: The second thing I'd be doing is deploying every avenue
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 7: of alternative medical care that I could. So that would
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 7: mean setting up MASH-style hospitals just outside of major metropolitan
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 7: areas and and leveraging the National Guard to be able
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 7: to staff them. And then the third thing is I
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 7: would be finding every healthcare worker I possibly could, folks
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 7: who are still in training, folks who have gone into retirement.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 7: And I wouldn't just be directly employing them on the
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 7: front lines. What I would be doing is thinking about
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 7: how do I give National Guard's people a baseline level
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 7: of training so that they can work under our medical
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 7: professionals and extend our capacity to provide care for people
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 7: who have COVID-19. And so those three things, increasing our
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 7: manufacturing of key healthcare goods, increasing our just bed capacity,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 7: and then increasing our staffing capacity, I think are really
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 7: going to be critical to expanding our ability to provide care.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 7: And then of course, we've got to keep social distancing, right?
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 7: So flattening the curve and anticipating the curve is critical.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: So another problem we're having is with young people who
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: think that COVID-19 is only dangerous to old people. And
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: so they're not taking it seriously and going on spring
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: break and flying everywhere and acting like morons. What is
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: your message to younger generations about this pandemic?
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 7: If you've got a pair of lungs and you're breathing,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 7: you're at risk. And I know that risk seems low,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 7: but 0.2% is still low. people who are going to
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 7: get sick. In fact, the CDC just came out with
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 7: new data showing that 40% of the people who are
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 7: hospitalized with COVID-19 are between the ages of 20 and 54.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 7: And so, you know, that includes those beach bros in
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 7: Florida who are just out having a good time because,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 7: you know, YOLO. But we've got a responsibility to move
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 7: that message to folks and realize that, A, you're at risk.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 7: Don't pretend like you're not. But then B, even if
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 7: you're at low risk, the people that you know and
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 7: love in your life are not. And I'll be honest
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 7: with you, to me as a younger, healthy person, I'm
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 7: really privileged that the risk of serious disease and death
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 7: is relatively low in somebody like me. But I'll be
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 7: honest with you, if I got sick and got laid
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 7: up for a couple of weeks, it'd be bad. But
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 7: if I knew that I possibly made my grandma or
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 7: grandpa or favorite neighbor or auntie or uncle sick, and
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 7: they had a serious outcome and potentially died because of me,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 7: I would be devastated for the rest of my life.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 7: And I want folks to appreciate that that's a potential
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 7: outcome here. And in protecting yourself, you're also protecting those
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 7: folks for whom COVID-19 could be so much more dangerous
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 7: and fatal. And so we've got a responsibility to act together.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 7: This is not the time for us to be selfish.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 7: And I know it sucks.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 6: Like it sucks.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 7: Nobody wants to stay home. People have been planning trips
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 7: for a long time. I had a book tour planned,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 7: 39 stops and had to cancel it all. I get it.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 7: Like it sucks. But this is where we are right now.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 7: And we have a responsibility to think about all of us,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 7: not just our own needs and wants in a moment.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: So I asked folks on Twitter if they had any
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: questions for you. And one of the most common questions
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: that I got was about transmission. People are asking, is
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: it safe to get takeout? Is it safe to go
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: to the store, touch groceries? So people get the social
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: distancing with other people, but they're having questions about transmission
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: in terms of touching surfaces. What do you, uh, what
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: do you know about that?
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: So I'll tell you what I'm doing.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 7: Um, you know, if I'm, uh, if I'm going to
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 7: get groceries for the family, I'm bringing some Clorox wipes
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 7: with me and, uh, some gloves. And, um, you know,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 7: as soon as I get up to my grocery cart,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 7: I'm putting on my gloves and I'm wiping down that
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 7: grocery cart with my Clorox wipes. And then I'm shopping with,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 7: you know, with my gloves on you know, exchanging whatever
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 7: money or credit cards with the teller and then wiping
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 7: my credit card back down. And then when I get home,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 7: I'm literally leaving the bags on the doorstep, taking the
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 7: groceries out, wiping them down insofar as I can. Obviously,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 7: you can't do that with produce, but you can wipe
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 7: down the bags and then going that way. I think
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 7: eating takeout is okay, but, you know, I would really
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 7: be asking, What is your kitchen staff doing to make
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 7: sure that you're keeping us safe? And are they practicing
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 7: the best possible hygiene? And what is your sick leave policy?
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 7: Because I don't want the person in the back having
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 7: to come to work because they're worried about whether or
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 7: not they're going to lose their job and then coughing
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 7: all over the food that they're making, right? So I
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 7: think this is an opportunity for us to just hold
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 7: businesses accountable and say, look, I'm trusting you to keep
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 7: me and my family healthy. Show me what you're doing
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 7: to do that. and then going from there.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: Well, those are some good tips. I just picked up
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: some of those myself, so thank you. All right, last question.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: You have a piece in The Guardian today about what
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: you call the broader epidemic of insecurity that we've been
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: grappling with for quite some time. I know this is
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: also the subject of your new book, Healing Politics. Can
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: you talk about what you mean by the epidemic of insecurity?
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah, John, I had the privilege of traveling all over
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 7: my state for 18 months when I ran for governor
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 7: in Michigan. And You know, I'm an epidemiologist by training.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 7: Our job is to understand patterns of disease and populations.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 7: And I thought I'd left epidemiology behind when I decided
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 7: to run for office. But it turns out when you
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 7: meet people in their homes, in their VFW halls, in
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 7: their union halls, and you talk to them, you start
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 7: putting together patterns pretty quickly, right? You start to appreciate
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 7: the stress that, you know, maybe hunches somebody's back a
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 7: little bit more, the emphasis that they put in the handshake.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 7: And for me, I started to ask myself, why are
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 7: we where we are politically? Why is it that people
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 7: are so frustrated in this moment? How did we end
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 7: up getting Donald Trump? And over the course of that
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 7: 18 months, I started to piece together the fact that
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 7: so many of the systems that we rely on to
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 7: provide us the means of a dignified life, whether it's
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 7: housing or healthcare or education or a good job, these
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 7: have been stripped out for parts by corporations who've realized
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 7: the opportunity to make a lot of money and it's
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 7: left us fundamentally insecure. And that insecurity becomes all the
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 7: more clear when you have an offending moment like this
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 7: one where we're facing a pandemic and you see the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 7: house of cards that we're left with and how it's
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 7: so easily knocked down and how that disproportionately impacts poor
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 7: and underserved people. And so in this book, I sort
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 7: of tell the story of my science and my own
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 7: upbringing and to set up an understanding of how epidemiology
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 7: works and how we understand the moments that we live in,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 7: and then make this diagnosis of an epidemic of insecurity
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 7: working outward from the individual to look at all these systems,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 7: and then talk a little bit about what I think
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 7: we need to be thinking about politically if we want
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 7: to solve it. And the crazy thing is, as an
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 7: epidemiologist who's publishing a book about an epidemic in the
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 7: context of a pandemic, it's hard to appreciate sort of
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 7: what you're predicting in the moment when you're writing. I mean,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 7: I wrote this thing a year ago. And then now
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 7: a lot of it makes a lot more sense, but
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 7: it's painful. And unless we are willing to fix the
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 7: undergirding of society and rebuild a lot of these systems robustly,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 7: I worry that we won't have learned the big lesson
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 7: of this pandemic, that it's not just about a virus.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 7: It's also about how we as a society and we
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 7: as individuals are so much more vulnerable to it because
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 7: of the context in which we live.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Well, everyone should absolutely go by Healing Politics. It's an
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: outstanding book. And also, if you haven't already, subscribe to
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: Abdul's podcast, America Dissected. You're doing it on Tuesdays and
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: Fridays now. We're talking, focusing entirely on the coronavirus, and
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: you're talking to experts, and it is incredibly well done.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: I've loved it so far. So thank you also for
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: doing this. and for everything else you're doing, and I
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: appreciate you joining us today.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 7: John, thank you for having me on, and thank you
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 7: for being supportive of America Dissected. We're really grateful to
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 7: have an opportunity to move what we hope is really
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 7: important information that allows people to understand what we're facing
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 7: and what we can do about it.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Well, it certainly is. All right, buddy, take care.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: All right, you too.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Abdul for joining us today, and Dan.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: It was great talking to another human being besides Emily.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: Emily and I have just been talking to each other nonstop.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: And it's rare to be able to speak to someone else.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the most social interactions I've had
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: in a week outside of my wife and my daughter.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: So if you hear any other podcasts out there looking
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: for a guest, hit me up. I'm ready to talk.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: All right, man. I'll talk to you later.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: Stay safe, everyone.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: every week.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 9: Thank you.