Latest / Pod Save America / "Sex Demons and Karaoke with Dan and Alyssa."

Transcript

"Sex Demons and Karaoke with Dan and Alyssa." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Alyssa is filling in for Jon Favreau, who, as many
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of you probably know, in perfect Thursday podcast form, Jon
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and Emily Favreau had their baby immediately after Tommy and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I finished recording the Thursday pod. Charlie Favreau is happy, healthy,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and adorable. And Jon is obviously taking a little time
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to adjust to his new life as a dad. Alyssa,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: thanks for filling in.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I'm squatting. I'm never leaving.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: You're always welcome. That is my rule of life.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, Alyssa and I are going to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: take some of your most pressing questions about the upcoming
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: VP announcement and so much more. But first, we're going
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to talk about why Trump is having a self-involved meltdown
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: as the country surpasses 150,000 COVID deaths as we bid
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a fond farewell to the bright but brief new tone
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: era in American politics. Before we get to that, some
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: housekeeping notes. Alyssa, I don't know if you had a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: chance to listen to Pod Save the World this week,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: but Tommy and Ben did a little, they kind of
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: stepped on our that's the ticket corner.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: I did listen. And, you know, we were so good.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: They had to get up in our jam.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I understand. I understand. Look, we appreciate all VP talk.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So Tommy and Ben got a little pissed at the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: way pundits were talking about Susan Rice's VP prospects. So
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: they made the case for why she would be a
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: great pick. Then they discussed how Trump's donors turned ambassadors
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: are acting crazy on their semesters abroad and Ben interviewed
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Israeli news anchor Yonit Levy about the ongoing anti-Netanyahu protests. Alyssa,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: did you know that we are officially less than 100
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: days away from the election? I did. Did you know
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that because you were looking at the calendar or because
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: everyone with any association with Crooked Media has been tweeting
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: about it incessantly since Sunday?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Check and check.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Do you think 100 days is a long time or
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a short time in our quarantine life?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: So I've been quarantined upstate for 131 days. So it's
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: a month less than that, but still hard to say.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I feel like a lot can happen. A lot has
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: happened since I got up here. A lot can happen
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: before election day.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yes. Time has no meaning.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But- Has no meaning.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: We're obviously up against a lot in this election between
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: voter suppression, the pandemic, completely crazy president. But right now
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: we're in the middle of the every last vote week
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of action to fight back and make sure that every
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: last vote is counted. We're going to need every single
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: one to win this election. Over this week, we'll be
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: asking you to volunteer, donate what you can, and specifically
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: request your ballot by mail. Earlier this week was a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: totally real and not made up holiday called National Vote
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: by Mail Day. If you head to votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you can request your ballot now and get it done early.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: While you're there, you can sign up to call or
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: text young voters in swing states and tell them to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: do the same. This election will come down to every
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: last vote, and we can't afford to lose a single one.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Head to votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote for everything you can do
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to help. I also want to flag something that our
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: friend and the author of the new book, She Proclaims,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Palmieri, texted me yesterday because I think this was
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: her submitting for the mailbag. But because she's a friend
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and this is very important, we're going to move it
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to the very important housekeeping section. She sent me a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: tweet from Democratic lawyer and our friend Mark Elias that
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: according to the Civic Center, voter registration rates in April
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and May of 2020 have plummeted in relation to the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: rates in the same months in 2016. Declines in voter
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: registration rates have been as significant as 75% in some states.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: This is obviously a result in some ways of the pandemic,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: but it is very distressing. Please go check if you're
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: registered and help your friends and your family register at votesaveamerica.com.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Our adopt-a-state program also has some voter registration calls to action,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: so you can help get voters registered in six key
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: battleground states. This is obviously some very concerning news, but
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it's something that we have time to do something about.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So go to votesaveamerica.com and figure out how to do that.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: All right, Alyssa, that was exhausting. And it's a reminder
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that Jon Favreau's job every week is much harder than mine.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: But we will persevere. All right. As we discussed last week,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's much lauded third new tone era came to
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: an unsurprising close less than 10 days after he revived
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: his coronavirus briefings. And as the United States surpassed 150,000
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, on Monday, the president and Donald
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Trump Jr. both retweeted a video where a doctor promoted
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a completely disproven conspiracy theory that people do not need
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to wear masks because hydroxychloroquine cures coronavirus. The doctor featured
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: in this video has some pretty extreme views beyond her
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: thoughts on COVID. For example, and this is real, she
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: has said that gynecological problems are caused by people having
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: sex with demons in their dreams and that alien DNA
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: is being used in medical treatments. That is a real thing.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: At his Tuesday briefing, a CNN reporter challenged Trump on
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: his decision to retweet this video. This is how I responded.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: The woman that you said was a great doctor in
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: that video that you retweeted last night said that masks
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: don't work and there is a cure for COVID-19, both
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: of which health experts say is not true. She's also
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: made videos saying that doctors make medicine using DNA from
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: aliens and that they're trying to create a vaccine to
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: make you immune from becoming religious.
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: Well, maybe it's a sign, maybe it's not, but I
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: can tell you this. She was on air along with
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: many other doctors. They were big fans of hydroxychloroquine And
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: I thought she was very impressive in the sense that
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: from where she came, I don't know which country she
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: comes from, but she said that she's had tremendous success
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: with hundreds of different patients. And I thought her voice
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much, everybody.
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: It might be hard to tell since this is an
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: audio medium, but That was Trump walking out of the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: briefing immediately after being pressed on the topic. Alyssa, what
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: is your reaction to our president spreading conspiracy theories from
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: doctors who are concerned about demon sex?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I had to watch the clip twice to understand how
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: the demon sperm gives you fibroids and cysts during dream
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: demon sex.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about that for just a minute. Just
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: a minute. I'm a smart person, you know? And I
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: was like, how does that happen?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Now imagine the president of the United States doesn't take
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: the beat that I just took before retweeting something so
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: utterly fucking insane. But my favorite is after he did
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: it multiple times, he says, I know nothing about her.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I know nothing about her.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Like, like he doesn't understand the string of words he
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: puts together in sentences.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: They're more disturbing than the demon sex.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, it, We are laughing, and as we point
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: out all the time around here- It's not funny. Because
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: laughing is sometimes easier than crying, or at least preferable
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to crying.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I can do both.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: It is embarrassing how irresponsible and stupid he is. When
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Tommy was on last week, he and I talked about
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the return of these briefings and how Trump got up
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: there and told people at the briefing that kids could
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: not catch coronavirus.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Which is why he was pushing to irresponsibly reopen schools. Now,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: that is a piece of very dangerous misinformation. There is
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: very limited research on this. There are some studies that
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: show the exact opposite. The fact is, we don't know.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And when the President of the United States stands before
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the nation and passes along false information, they could get
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: people killed. And that's what this is doing. Many more
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: people will see this video because the President tweeted it,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: because of all the traffic it got on social media platforms.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It will not see The fact checks for it will
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: not see even the president, not really walking away from it,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: but sort of distancing himself as he slowly on national
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: television realized the shame of his own stupidity and will
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: believe that they don't have to wear a mask, right?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: You are doing something deeply dangerous. And frankly, it still
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: just points out what an absolute moron Trump is because
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: As we have discussed before, the best way for him
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to get reelected is to get the virus under control.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: The best way to get the virus under control is
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to convince every single person in America to wear a mask.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Yet he spends his time convincing people not to wear masks,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: therefore making the coronavirus worse, therefore making it less likely
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he gets reelected. I mean, it is just another reminder
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: that Trump is painfully stupid and America is massively suffering
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: for this.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, yes.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: We are.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Like, I mean, think about it.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: The man can't get a convention because he literally, if
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: he had just told people to wear a mask, had
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: just like admitted that this virus was bad and that
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: we were all going to have to work together to
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: combat it. I mean, it was like the jaws of
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: life to get him to admit that he couldn't go to.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Jacksonville, which is like one of the top five states.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Florida is one of the top five states that's spiking,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: that has ICU beds, like ICU beds are overcapacity.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And he just, despite the fact that.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Life and science and doctors tell him A is happening,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: he continues to track to Z.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's, I mean, it really, it's mind boggling. You know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: we mentioned that this video got 20 million views on
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Facebook and elsewhere and took a very long, and eventually
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: was taken down by all of the major social media platforms,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: but way later than it should have been. Judd Legum,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: who writes the newsletter Popular Information, pointed out that this
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: video is originally a Breitbart video, and Breitbart is considered
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: a news partner by Facebook. Facebook has previously identified the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: promoter of this video as a trusted news partner, meaning
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: that they feel like that information can and should be
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: spread across Facebook to their audience, I guess. I don't
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: know what you call people who read Facebook, except for
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: probably misinformed. But A, why do you think this video
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: got so much traffic even before Donald Trump and his
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: idiot son got involved? And why do you think the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: social platforms are still so bad at dealing with misinformation?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that it got so many views
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: for voyeurism.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: It's like a fucking accident. You can't look away. You're like, what,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: what is this? Let me just check. And I mean,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I only watched the first three minutes because I was
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: afraid I was going to get demon sperm. So I'm like, well,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: back it away from this one. But You know, I
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: think that it's all, the things that he retweets are
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: so fantastical. They're so extraordinarily dumb. It's like, you almost
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: can't believe the president's still doing this. Let's see what
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: he got up to today. And so, you know, even
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: before he retweeted it, I think that it's just, people
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: are just like, why do people read the Inquirer still?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's the big question, right? Is
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: this people who are reading this because, or watching this
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and consuming it because it is completely absurd? And they're
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: just sort of wallowing in the absurdity, as you say,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: much like the Inquirer, right? Where it's like, you know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Ben Affleck's alien baby sort of story, right? Or are
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: there people who are watching this because they trust Breitbart?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: They are not savvy enough news consumers to be concerned
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: or skeptical of videos they see on Facebook. Are they
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: people who are looking for a good news about this
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: terrible situation we're in, right? Where it's like, everything seems
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: so bleak. While work is being done on vaccine, it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: obviously not coming anytime soon. Things are getting worse, not
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: better in large parts of the country. Much like Trump, right?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Trump retweeted this video because he wants to convince people
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: there is a quick fix. Right.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I think the people who are watching it who aren't
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: laughing at it will watch anything that they think is
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: telling them what they want. Like somehow, like people are so,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: there is a pocket of people who are so resistant
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: to wearing a mask because they think they're like being
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: owned by the libs and they'll watch anything or look
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: like for any glimmer of hope or like information in
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: quotes that they don't have to wear a mask, that
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: someone is telling them what they want to hear. I
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: think that's a lot of it, that they're like, see,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: also we can't be racist because she's a black lady.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: So fuck you.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess there's that. I mean, it is like,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Like part of this is obviously Trump. I mean, once again,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it goes to just how simple-minded he is, which is
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: he went way out on a limb on hydroxychloroquine. He
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: was proven wrong over and over again. And if he
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: was capable of shame, would have been embarrassed about this.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So every time he sees someone, anyone, right? Real, fake,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: demon sperm believer, otherwise, who agrees with him, he will
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: retweet them without asking. any scrutiny. And he has gotten
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: himself in trouble so many times since he got in
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: this race for just retweeting random people. He's done conspiracy theorists.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: He's done Nazis. He's retweeted people who are QAnon and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: have promoted Pizzagate over and over again. He makes this mistake.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And he is incapable of learning from it. He once
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: again has spent another day and many more news cycles
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: demonstrating to the country why he is doing a terrible
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: job of managing the biggest issue people care about, the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: greatest crisis, I think, in American history in nearly a century.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And the thing he needs to do to fix his
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: political problems is just do his job. And he is
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: utterly incapable of doing his job because he has never
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: been interested in the actual job of president. And that's
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: sort of being laid bare by all of this.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Can't you just imagine the conversations where they're like, A,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: you could do your job. He's like, what's option B?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: He will do... Anything.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: And the funny thing is, like when you think about
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: what it would have taken to really attack this COVID crisis,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: it's not super complicated. Like you didn't have to be
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: the brightest bulb to be like, America, wear a mask.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Don't touch each other. Stay home when you can. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: like stay six feet apart. Don't lick each other. It's
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: like it's not that hard. And it's like, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: sometimes I was thinking, you know, for the past couple
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: of years that like the world, the cosmos, karma was
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: giving the American people a break because our president was
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: so stupid. They knew we couldn't answer the call if
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: something truly terrible were to happen. And then they're like,
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: we've had movies about this. There have been Law &
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Order episodes about coronavirus. Let's give him something that he
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: can handle. And he was like, try again.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's incapable of doing the bare minimum that would
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: be required to at least improve the situation, right? There's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: lots of hard logistical challenges about dealing with shortages in PPE.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And there's obviously a massive problem with testing backlogs, particularly
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: in my state of California, where people are waiting seven
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to 10 days to get a test, which basically makes
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: them useless. You know, like I had a friend with
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a child in preschool and one of the parents of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the kids in his class tested positive for coronavirus. So
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: they shut the school down until the kid could get
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a test. And it took seven days for that kid
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: to get a test back. So none of those kids
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: could go to school for those seven days.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And every time that happens, the school's going to like,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: those are hard problems, but it's also notable that Trump
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: is not trying to solve them.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Like not even a little, like not even making an effort.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny what you said about, you know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you can do your job. And he said, well, that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is always funny. But, you know, it's like the scene
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: in The Departed that we talk about sometimes where Mark
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Wahlberg says, I'm the guy doing my job. And then
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Trump would just raise his hand and say, I'm the
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: other guy.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Like with no shame.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Proudly, right? He's like, I got this far without doing
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: an ounce of fucking work. So you do you. Fuck.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: Fuck.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, if that was not all at this briefing the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: other day, in addition to trying to defend his conspiracy tweets,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Trump also used his briefing to engage in some public wallowing,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: not over the health and economic crisis the country is undergoing,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: but over his own popularity. Let's take a listen at
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: what he had to say.
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: Why don't I have a high approval rating with respect
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: and the administration with respect to the virus. We should
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: have a very high because what we've done in terms
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: of we're just reading off about the masks and the
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: gowns and the ventilators and numbers that nobody's seen and
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: the testing at 55 million tests. We tested more than
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: anybody in the world. I have a graph that I'd
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: love to show you. Perhaps you've seen it where we're
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: up here and the rest of the world is down
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: at a level that's just a tiny fraction of what
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: we've done in terms of testing. So it sort of
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: is curious. A man works for us, with us very closely, Dr.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Fauci and Dr. Birx, also highly thought of.
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: And yet they're highly thought.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Of, but nobody likes me.
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: It can only be my personality.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: That's all. Alyssa, according to YouTube, you're officially a campaign expert.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's a good idea to make yourself
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the victim in the week that the 150,000th American dies
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: of coronavirus?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: No, no, it's not.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It's not a good idea. Do you consider that a
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: leading question?
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I think it's a question my cat could have answered
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: because he's fairly alert.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: And attuned to what's happening in the world.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, buddy, can you even imagine if Barack Obama
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: had gone out and been like, meh, it's almost the
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: election and we have a hurricane, meh.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, like we would have been like, yo, you
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: should stay inside for the day. You should just like
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: take it down. Trump can't. It's like, it's the narcissism, right?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: It's the most pathological form of his narcissism that he literally,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: and we know that instead of sitting around with the
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: very experts he's jealous of and saying, how do we
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: kill this virus? He sits alone in the Oval Office
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: and draws like doodles of like Dr.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Fauci with devil horns.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Because he's like, I can't believe no one likes me.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Why doesn't anyone like me?
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: He is literally... Gargamel from the Smurfs.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: He sits in his tree and he's like, I can't
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: believe it when there are actual problems that he's not
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: equipped to handle. So he focuses on why nobody likes him,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: but nobody likes him because a lot of people are
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: dying and it's kind of his fault.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: The core of the argument that a lot of us
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: have been arguing that Democrats should make against Trump for
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a long time is that it's always about Trump, that
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: his mantra is Trump first, America last. And this is
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the perfect example of it, which is given everything that's
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: happening in this country, the massive amounts of tragedy happening, right?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And it's not just, it's coronavirus, it's millions of people
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: without jobs. We learned today that the Gross domestic product
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: dropped by more than 30% in the second quarter. To
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: give you an example, the worst quarter of the Great
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Recession was a drop of, I think, 8.5%. And amidst
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: all of that misery and anxiety and concern, he immediately
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: focuses on his own poll numbers relative to his own advisors.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Not even his own poll numbers relative to Joe Biden's, right?
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Which at least you could argue would be about an
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: election where he could pretend to think that you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: substantive policy issues in the direction of the country we're
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: at today. He is concerned that a doctor who works
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: for him is more popular than him, is more trusted
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: than him. And that level of narcissism is simply incompatible
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: with being president of the United States. It just does
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: not work. And I mean, it's just truly stunning that
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: he will continually do this, right? And as we get
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: closer to election, as his political position gets worse, he
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: is spiraling more out of control. As you're watching this Alyssa,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: do you think there's anything Trump could even possibly do
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to fix his political problems?
• 20:15
  Speaker 7: Legally?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: No. I mean, either. No, I mean... We'll get to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: some extra legal options in a minute.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, like, here's the funny thing, too.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: You know that when they were trying to spoon feed
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: him this economic data this morning, that he was like,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: what do you mean?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: We're winning. Not as bad as the depression.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: And they were like, they didn't collect that data back then,
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: so you can't really make that comparison. There's... You know,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: the thing is, because 100 days is still a lot
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: of time for all intents and purposes, and because everybody's
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: memory is so short, if he started crushing the pandemic,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: he could probably make up some ground, you know?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, it wouldn't be... People... This is
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the problem, not problem. I think it's just a... It's truth.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: People want him to succeed because they don't want people
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to keep getting sick. And so I think that if
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: he actually.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: could put at least the American people on par with
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: his political ambition.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I do think that he could help himself.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I don't think that he could, you know, get himself
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: necessarily over the finish line, I hope. But I think
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: if he actually like hunkered down, sat down, fucking read
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: a couple books, maybe talked to some scientists that he
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: would actually listen to, he could make up ground if
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: he actually came out with a national strategy to crush
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: the coronavirus.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am not saying Trump cannot win, because
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: you were right. I would never say that. As you know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I tend to wallow in the dark side of things often,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: when it particularly comes to political elections. Other than that,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I'm a totally sunny person.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: But post-Kyla, I've been a sunnier person, I think, if
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: not on the podcast, in my general life. But because
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: 100 days is, as you said, a long time, Trump
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: could get lucky, right? Things could get better. The American
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: people could listen to Trump less. Governors could listen to
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Trump less. And the coronavirus could get better. The economy
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: could improve. And that would certainly help Trump. And Trump
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: only needs to get to within three and a half
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: to four and a half points of Biden in the polls,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the national polls, to have a chance to have a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: very close, narrow electoral college victory. Having said that, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: then we have, I would say, massive amounts of uncertainty about,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some of this when we get
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to the mailbag, but massive amounts of uncertainty about The
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: counting of how an election is going to take place
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: in the pandemic. Are we going to have enough poll
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: workers to have enough polling places? Are mail ballots going
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: to be counted? We have a postal system that is
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: classing before our eyes at the same time that we
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: are depending on said postal service to deliver ballots on time.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Like lots of big questions here. I don't think that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: there's anything that Trump himself can do to improve his
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: political position. Like he cannot change. This is who he is.
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: The circumstances around Trump can change because of the actions
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of other or just the world changing. But he himself
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: has proven time and again that he is just an
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: absolutely miserable politician. He is too self-absorbed to do the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: right thing. And the thing that is so particular about this,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: whether he wins or loses is not going to depend
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: mostly on whether he gets the right slogan. He comes
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: up with a cool nickname for Joe Biden. He comes
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: up with a good message. What it's ultimately going to
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: depend on is him doing his job.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And that is the one thing he is incapable of doing.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: He simply does not have the temperament, the intellectual capacity,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the curiosity, the empathy to be President of the United
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: States at this moment. You can fake it somewhat in
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: times of peace and prosperity, but this is when real
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: shit is happening. People care and you have to do
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: your job if people are going to judge you on that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And he cannot do his job. He simply cannot. He
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: could not go two weeks. He cannot go two weeks.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: with being serious about this, right? I mean, honestly, the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: other thing you would say is in addition to doing
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: his job, the thing he could really do is shut up.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Stop talking. Don't go to briefings. Don't do interviews. Stop
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: tweeting crazy shit. Just disappear into the background and let
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: people do the work, right? Don't be jealous of Dr. Fauci.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Put him out every single day, right? Have a forward-facing,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: confidence-inspiring spokesperson for this. But he can't do it because,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: as Tommy and I talked about last week, Trump always
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: thinks that more Trump is the solution when it's almost
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: always the problem. Right.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: As if all of this was not enough, Trump also,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: disregarding the advice I just gave to shut the F up,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: did an interview with Axios' Jonathan Swan on Tuesday. The
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: full episode won't air until next week, but Axios released
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a pretty astonishing clip on Wednesday morning. Last month, the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: New York Times published a groundbreaking investigative article that asserted
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: that Russian government entities were paying bounties for members of
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan. The Trump
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: administration did basically diddly squat about it. Trump and his
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: staff have since tried to deflect blame, claiming the president
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: was not briefed on the intelligence, contradicting multiple government officials
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: who have said it was absolutely included in the presidential
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: daily briefing, which maybe he reads, maybe he doesn't. But
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: since he doesn't read anything, he probably won't. In the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: last month, the story has faded from headlines, but Swan
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: asked Trump about it on Tuesday and whether the president
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: had raised the issue with Vladimir Putin when they spoke
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: on July 23rd. Here are some highlights of that exchange.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: It's been widely reported that the US has intelligence indicating
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: that Russia paid bounties, or offered to pay bounties, to
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: Taliban fighters to kill American soldiers. You had a phone
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: call with Vladimir Putin on July 23rd. Did you bring
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: up this issue?
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: No, that was a phone call to discuss other things,
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: and frankly, That's an issue that many people said was
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: fake news.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: It never reached my desk. You know why?
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: Because they didn't think it was intelligence.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: They didn't think it was real.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: They didn't think it was worthy.
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: If it reached my desk, I would have done something
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: about it. It never reached my desk because.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: Do you read your written brief?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I read a lot.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I read a lot. They like to say I don't read.
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: I read a lot.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Former, John Nicholson, former head of forces in Afghanistan said,
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: and this is when he was working for you, that
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: Russia is supplying weapons to the Taliban. Isn't that enough
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: to challenge Putin over the killings of U.S.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Soldiers?
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: Well, we supplied weapons when they were fighting Russia, too.
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: You know, when they were fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: It's a different era.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm just saying, yes.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: No, no, I'm just saying we did that, too.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, I mean, that answer is obviously deeply absurd and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I think, frankly, quite offensive to a lot of people
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that he did not bring it up. He's obviously lied
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: about it. I think, you know, impressively, I think Jonathan
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Swan pushed him on the point that It was in
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: his briefing book, which Trump is basically admitting, you can
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: bring this horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: It's not there. It may have been in the briefing book,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: but he certainly did not read it. So maybe he's
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: telling the truth about that, but that sort of speaks
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to a bigger problem. And I think it's good that
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: this came up in this interview because it hasn't come
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: up in a number of the other interviews Trump has
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: done recently. It did not come up in his much
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: lauded Fox News Sunday grilling from Chris Wallace. You know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: do you think this is an issue Democrats should continue
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: to push?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Like, abject, like, failure to even do the bare minimum. Like,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: he approaches his job with less curiosity than, like, I
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: can't even come up with what less than.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: He has no curiosity whatsoever.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: When he talks about Russia, it's like he's Jan Brady saying, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: He's so stupid. I mean, he's just so stupid. And
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I think that it's important that... people keep making the
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: point to maybe people who don't follow this news every
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: day that he's literally just like opening the door.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: He's like, Putin, here you go. Don't care. Look, as
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: long as we're good, I don't care what you do
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: to everybody who's on the ground. And he.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Has talked to Putin eight times since this intelligence was
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: in the report he did or did not read.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And never raised it. Like that's... It's fucking wild. Like
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: it's really wild.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Not even to be like, Hey, stop doing that until
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: after November. But he like, doesn't even, he's not even
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: like slick enough to do that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it, it, it ties into, I think it
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: should be brought up and I have some, you know, it's,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: it matters how you do it because like people who
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: are voting on, on Trump's ties to Russia and what
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: happened in 2016 election and elsewhere are We have those voters.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: They decided they were against Trump a long time ago
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: when Crooked Media and Change Research did polls of swing
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: states earlier this year and last year. The Russia attack
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: always tested relatively weak because, like I said, the people
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: who care about it have already moved. But there's a
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: way to do this specific version that is different from
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Trump is Putin's buddy, Trump is Putin's lapdog, a lot
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of sort of the language you hear on Twitter, and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: more about Trump being incompetent and too afraid to do
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: his job. Because I think one of the things that's
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: important to remember about messaging is that you do not
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: want to reinforce the notion that Trump is a strong man.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Because his persona as a strong man is what helped
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: pull some voters into his category in 2016. It doesn't
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: mean we should not talk about his authoritarian impulses. We
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: should not talk about the secret militias that Trump is
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: dispatching to Portland and other cities. But we need to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: do it in the context of the larger weakness in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: which he is operating, the larger incompetence of it.
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: It's not that he is a strongman, it's that he
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: is incompetent and therefore is resorting to these extra legal tactics.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the way to talk about this
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a lot, is not just to do Russia, Russia, Russia,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: but to put it in the context of him being
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: an incompetent and weak president who's too afraid to bring
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: this up to Putin, to undermine that notion of strongman.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: We got all prepared for this pod. I did some
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: work last night getting ready for it. And then, of course,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Trump had quite a morning on Twitter where he did
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: lots of things, including promoting a pizza place called Patio
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Pizza because he saw the owner on, I think, CNBC
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: this morning. And much like the hydroxychloroquine video, Trump promoted
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: pizza that he has never eaten because the person said
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: something nice about him, which think about that for a second.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: But He did have do something that was particularly concerning
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Trump tweeted, and I quote,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: with universal mail-in voting, not absentee voting, which is good,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: 2020 will be the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the election until people can properly, securely, and safely vote?
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Question mark, question mark, question mark. All right. First, we
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: do a little fact checking here. Mail-in voting and absentee
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: voting are the same thing. And that voter fraud is
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: extremely rare. But people, we've gotten a lot of questions
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: on Twitter and elsewhere about Trump's ability to delay the election.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: To be clear, he absolutely cannot do this. The date
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: of the election is set by Congress. And according to historians,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: there has never been a successful attempt to move election day.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: If you want to do a deep dive into all
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the legal reasons that Trump can't do this and how
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the dates of elections get set, Vox has a great
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: explainer on it, as they often do. Melissa, are you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: concerned Trump's going to delay the election?
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: No, no.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: No, I'm concerned he's going to keep talking about it,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: but he, no, he can't move the election.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Fuck him.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: He's like, there's many, many things he is going to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: do to try to steal this election. We've talked about them.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: We will continue to talk about them throughout this because
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: people need to stay vigilant. But this is an attempt
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to distract from the, one, the embarrassment over him retweeting
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: that video. I think the sad news this morning that
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Godfather's pizza CEO and former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: died of coronavirus, potentially having contracted it at Trump's mask-free
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: rally in Oklahoma last month. So I think that we
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: need to treat this with the absurdity as evidence that
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Trump is stupid, not as evidence that he is going
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: to steal the election this way. He has other ways
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to steal the election that we're going to fight really
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: hard against.
• 32:16
  Speaker 8: Election Day is November 3rd. Between a global pandemic and
• 32:19
  Speaker 8: voter suppression efforts, it's critical to help every American register
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: to vote and ensure that every last vote counts, which
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: includes encouraging as many Americans as possible to request to
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: vote by mail. VoteSaveAmerica.com is a one-stop shop for voter
• 32:32
  Speaker 8: registration and engagement. and has created an amazing hub that
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: compiles the tools you need to request your vote by
• 32:37
  Speaker 8: mail ballot early, to volunteer to call voters, or to
• 32:40
  Speaker 8: be a poll worker and much more. Please visit votesaveamerica.com
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: right now to get involved with every last vote.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: All right, you ready to do this mailbag?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Let's hit the mailbag. Okay.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: The first question, Alyssa, is for you. It's from Jim
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Saylor via Community. Dear Alyssa, thank you for your fantastic
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: three-part series looking at the vice presidential search. I loved
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: your anecdotes. And as someone who grew up in Rhinebeck,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I also loved hearing your story. You mentioned during the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: pod that you were disappointed that Vice President Biden announced
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: he would pick a woman without actually selecting one. I'm
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: wondering if you have seen some benefit to this process.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I have watched a good number of excellent potential candidates
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: getting national attention in a way they never would have
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: without this public attention. I also noted from your pod
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: that several candidates, including Senator Kerry, who were in consideration
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: for the vice presidential nomination, went on to run for
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: president themselves. I wonder if we might consider this as
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a great opportunity for publicizing a number of qualified women.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Definitely. Absolutely.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: I think that it is great that people across the
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: country know about what an amazing leader Karen Bass is.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: They know about Kamala Harris. You know, they, of course,
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: they probably knew more about Kamala and Elizabeth Warren, but
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: people like Governor Whitmer and, yeah, all the ladies.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's great.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: And I hope that they all use this platform to
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: do good things in their districts and states. Yeah.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting point about the impact of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: making that declaration at the beginning of the process, which is,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: let's say he had not done that, right? Even like,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: like as you and I talked about on that's the ticket, uh,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: you know, our belief is that Joe Biden sincerely decided
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the right thing to do for a whole host of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: reasons was that he was going to pick a woman, right?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: And then he made the decision to announce that fact
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: in advance. But had he not made that declaration at
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the beginning, the shortlist discussion right now would include a
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of men, right?
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: You know, you could be like, would Bernie Sanders be
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: on the ticket? Would Cory Booker be on the ticket?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: What about, you know, Pete Buttigieg? You know, all kinds
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: of different people have said it's been We probably would
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: not be having a conversation about Karen Bass or Val
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Demings or Keisha Lance Bottoms if it was not a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: list that was all women. So I think that that
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: has been one of the upsides of that situation. All right.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Sarah Puto Pluns via community. Okay. But like for real,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: when is Biden going to announce his VP pick? I
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: know we'll never find out who until the day of,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: but I'm dying to know a ballpark estimate.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: He said next week, right?
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he said the first week of August is when
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: this is likely to happen.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Now, here's my question.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: To parse words, is it that he will make the
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: decision the first week or he will announce the decision
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: the first week?
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't remember.
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: We don't know. We don't know. I think that question
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: was left vague. He has talked about the beginning of
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: August being the timeline in multiple contexts over the last
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: few months. He's talked about being at the point to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: make a decision at that time. He's talked about having
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: a decision at that time. There's been some discussion of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: whether that was when all of the vetting stuff would
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: be done and he would be in a position to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: interview the last few people. We just don't know. But
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: if you look at the calendar convention, it starts August 17th,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and the FPP must speak there and have her name
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: put into nomination there. So we're running out of time.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And historically, this pick has normally happened seven to 10
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: days before the convention or, um, in many cases. So
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I think we are, uh, Sarah, I think we're getting
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: close to this.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Also with the amount of leaks happening, like the sooner,
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: the better my friends.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's, you never know, as we talked
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: about on that's the ticket, the three-part pots of America
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: mini series about the VP selection featuring the two of us. Uh,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that you never know what's a real leak and what's
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a fake leak, right? Like there are stories that, you know,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: there's this terribly, terrible offensive story that was on CNBC
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: last night about, um, some Biden allies who were pushing
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: against Kamala Harris, you know, very obviously sexist description of
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: her as being quote unquote too ambitious for the job
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of vice president. Um, as if that ambition was a negative, um,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: You know, it's one that a lot of people very
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: rightly got upset about. In fact, the, you know, Joe
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Biden's campaign manager actually put out a tweet to try
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: to knock down the idea that that's something that criticism
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: that Biden was considering. But that's a bunch of random
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: donors saying it, right?
• 37:04
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: There was a story about Karen Bass and Kamala Harris
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: that was being pushed, I think, by a lot of
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: anti-Kamala Harris people in California. That was, you know, that's
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: all people who are not in the room making decisions.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: So it's like, what's an actual leak? And what is
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: people who don't know anything just talking is one of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the great sort of parlor games of the VP process.
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Which if you want to learn more about, check out.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: That's the ticket.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: In the Pots of America feed.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Anywhere you get your podcasts or something. All right.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: More VP questions. This is one we got a lot
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: from a lot of different people, but here it is
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: from Ali Sait, also via community. Last night, Politico reported
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: that Kamala was the VP and included a quote from
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign. Does this mean that Kamala is the VP?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: How is there a quote from Biden about Kamala being
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the VP if not? Leaks?
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Well, as we talked about on That's the Ticket, the
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: night before John Kerry announced that John Edwards was his
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: vice presidential pick, the New York Post ran Dick Gephardt
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: was the pick on the cover of the newspaper. So
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: we have no idea how or why these things happen.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: A lot of times we know that there may be
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: four or five finalists that the campaign is working on
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: and they have sort of like packages ready to go
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: depending on who it's going to be. So, you know,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: I think that's how it happens. But I don't feel
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: like we should really read anything into it.
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: Do you?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like other forms in which this question came in
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: was you know, did the Biden campaign give this to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Politico on an embargo and Politico messed it up and
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: therefore quickly deleted the tweet? No, as you point out,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: all of these media outlets are one of the first
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: ones out of the gate when the news comes. So
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: they have pre-prepared all of their social media assets for it.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: They have written shells of stories with biographical information about
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: all of these people so that they can move very quickly.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: And every once in a while, someone hits the wrong
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: button and it goes live. This happens It happens with
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: election results a lot where the AP will accidentally send
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: across the wire something that says Donald Trump was reelected
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: or Barack Obama was reelected and all that. It's a glitch.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: So don't worry. I wouldn't read too much into that.
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: No.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: But I would say if that's actually the quote they
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: have in the hopper to use in case it's her,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I might just refresh the quote a little bit. Could
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: use a little finessing.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's the Biden. I hope it's a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: dummy quote.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know why they do that.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Me too. you just put in like Latin for dummy copy. TKTK, right. Yeah,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: so I don't know why. That part was weird, so
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I can't really speak to that. Maybe the conspiracy theorists
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: are right and Biden has picked Kamala Harris and he
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: told Politico and no one else and someone with an
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: itchy Twitter finger at Politico put it out by accident.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Who knows? Can't rule anything out these days.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Someone named Rexcat via Twitter. You never talk about incumbents
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: switching VPs. Do you think there's any chance of that
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: happening with Pence?
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Never say never.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I have been of the mind for a long time
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that I thought, A, Trump would ditch Pence, and B,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: it would be the right thing for Trump to do.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: In fact, I may even have written something to that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: effect that is just sitting in draft form on my
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: computer somewhere.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: What are you waiting for?
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Well, Alyssa, I got a lot of things on my
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: plate these days, and I really write a lot of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: things that get to be about 45% done, and then
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: they just sit on my computer.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I'm that way with friendship bracelets.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I think now we are getting so close to a
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Republican convention that it seems less likely he will ditch Pence,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: but Pence adds nothing to Trump. Not anymore. He has
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: no value. He is a waste of space. In 2016,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: he served as a validator for some evangelical and conservative
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: voters because Pence was seen as one of them. And
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it was sort of buttressing this idea that Trump would
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: get into office and then act like a moderate Manhattan
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: billionaire and not like an even stupider version of Paul Ryan,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: which is what he ended up governing as. But if
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you were Trump and you... think about things in terms
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: of TV because you were once briefly on a very
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: bad show with mediocre ratings. And, you know, it's not
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: unusual when shows get bad ratings to try to bring
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: a new character into the, into the mix. Like I'm
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: sure you remember this Alyssa, because we are of the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: same generation when Leonardo DiCaprio briefly joined.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: The cast of Growing Pains.
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Right. He's the homeless kid that Mike Seaver found.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Or Mr. Seaver. one of the Seavers found and he
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: came to live with them. Like you could see Trump
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: seeing this role that he needs a new narrative, a
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: new excitement to add something new to the mix and could,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: you know, like there would be some political logic of
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: picking Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or something that would
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: create some, permission for some set of voters who are
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: skeptical of Trump as a misogynist or skeptical of Trump
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: as a racist. I don't know what a difference it
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: would make, but right now, Mike Pence is adding nothing.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: The other advantage to ditching Pence would be that you
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: could blame Pence. Pence is in charge of the coronavirus
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: task force. I don't know why he hasn't thrown him
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: under the bus earlier. That's been a very strange dynamic
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: that I guess Trump views any critic, just like he
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: views Any person being accused of racism as an attack
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: on him or any man anywhere in America being accused
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of sexual harassment or sexual assault as a reflection on him,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: he views any criticism of the coronavirus response as a
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: criticism of him, when he could have easily just thrown
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence under the bus.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Well, but I mean, think about it.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: If anyone had asked Mike Pence to throw out a
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: first pitch, Mike Pence would be fired.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you brought that up.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Luckily, he's the.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Least dynamic person on the planet, so no one even
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: fucking talks about him. But, I mean, you have to
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: assume that since March, since Biden said he'd be picking
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: a woman, that Mike Pence has kept a close eye
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: on Nikki Haley in her tweets.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, Nikki Haley is auditioning for this job. She very
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: much wants it. That is why she is continually tweeting
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: absolutely absurd things, because that is the fastest way to
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Trump's heart.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Do you mean like, what a hero, he wore a mask.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Fuck you.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, congratulations on doing the bare fucking minimum three months
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: too late. All right. Sheila Mahatra, I hope I said
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that correctly, via community, vote by mail. Is it better
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: to vote by mail or in person? Is there any
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: risk of my mail ballot not being counted? Even if
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I send it in on time. Alyssa, what do you think?
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Well, I wonder the same question.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: And I think that's In the era of COVID, I
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: think I'm going to try and vote by mail. But
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: we saw the Tony DeCoppo special on CBS that it
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: takes longer than we would assume sometimes for the mail
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: to get to where it's.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Supposed to go.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: So I would say they're equal as long as you
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: vote a couple days early, mail your ballot in a
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: couple days early.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would mail your ballot in. If you decide
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: to vote by mail, I would mail it in on
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the first day you can do it.
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Yes. In the Florida primary, 18,530 ballots were not counted
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: because many of them arrived by mail after the deadline.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: The Postal Service is swamped anyway. There's a huge, obviously
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: because people are going, they're doing more ordering. Things aren't going,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: people aren't going to stores, doing things in person. The
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Post Office is being underfunded. It's being, the Post Service
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: is being managed by a Trump lackey who was totally
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: unqualified for the job and doing very dangerous and stupid
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and potentially illegal things. And so if you feel like
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: the safest way for you to vote is vote by mail,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: you should vote by mail. If you live in a
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: state that offers easily accessible early voting that can be safe,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: we do need people to vote early because we want
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: to get as many people to vote early to reduce
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the pressure on the postal service and to reduce the
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: amount of people who have to vote on election day. Basically,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: The goal is to bank as many votes as possible,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: not for political reasons, although that is obviously helpful, but
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to reduce the dangers for people on election day because
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: we know we are going to have fewer poll workers
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: than we need. And Crooked Media is working to help
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: encourage people to become poll workers. And we'll talk more
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: about that as time goes on. But I don't want
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: to tell people to do one or the other. But
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I would just say, if you choose to vote by mail,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Get it in as soon as possible. Do not trust
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service to get it there on time because
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: mail ballots get tossed out way more than you would
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: think because of things getting there too late from the
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: mail and because of, in many cases, very arduous and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: unfair and discriminatory signature match laws. In Nevada, in this primary, 6,700
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: ballots were rejected because officials couldn't verify voter signatures. And
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: that's been very problematic. Two people I would encourage you
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to and follow. to learn more about
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: all these issues is, of course, Stacey Abrams, our friend
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: over there at Fair Fight, who has obviously experienced firsthand
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the worst elements of Republican voter suppression, and Mark Elias,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the Democratic election attorney who does a lot of writing
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: at something called Democracy Docket. I would follow him on
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Twitter because he has been raising a lot of the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: warning flags about what could happen and with some real
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: important actual information about what you can do about it. Alyssa,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: this question comes from Ken Thompson via Facebook. Do you
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: think Biden should be doing more interviews right now to
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: counter the sheer amount of time Trump is on the air?
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Or is having the focus totally on the shit show
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: that is the Trump administration beneficial to the Biden campaign?
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: I think that he does not need to match Trump
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: interview for interview or news story by news story. That's
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: not what he has to do. I think he has
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: been getting out there and doing things. He needs to
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: continue to do that. I think it's important to not
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: just try to focus only on the national news, but
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: doing local stuff, doing stuff that speaks specifically to audiences
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of target voters. That could be local TV, that could
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: be things that have large audiences of young podcast listeners
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: to pick one thing out of a hat, or Black voters,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Latina voters. There's a way to do smart, targeted communications
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that does not depend on trying to win the national
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: news cycle with Trump. Because the playing that game. And
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I think to Biden, the Biden campaign is great credit.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: They have not played that game. They have been, you know,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: pretty disciplined about how they've used their candidate, picking big
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: moments and not trying to match Trump blow for blow.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: But as time goes on, that's going to continue to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: become more of an imperative, not just for like persuading people,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: but informing them about voter registration deadlines for what we
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: talked about earlier, how to vote by mail, all of
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: those things. There's a communications element to organizing, and that's
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: going to require some targeted communications.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: It's very smart.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: You want to take some fun questions?
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take fun questions.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Okay. Sophie via Twitter. I always love hearing about what
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: you are reading and writing. So what are some of
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: the good books, novels especially, you've been reading? Let's also
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: do TV shows. Alyssa, what have you been watching and
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: reading you'd recommend to people?
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to be really honest. I have not
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: been reading that much lately because it makes me fall asleep.
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: Sorry.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: But I don't want to lie to the Pod Save
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: America fans.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: So Um, watching, okay, I watched documentary that was really
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: enjoyable called Every Little Step about a chorus line. And
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: it's on Amazon Prime. And, uh, I loved it because
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: it's like, you know, you're feeling like down in the
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: dumps and everything seems like a dumpster fire.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: And like, sometimes you just keep persevering and it pays off.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: So I watched that. I, it's kind of it. And
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: I watch Law and Order all the time, which everybody knows.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: SVU mostly.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Where are you on criminal intent?
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: So I have to be honest.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Can you actually do this? Can you rank the law
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: and orders for me?
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So interesting.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: It kind of goes like there's Elvis and Fat Elvis,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: So I.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Would say I like early law and order, number one.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: I like later SVU, number two. I'm really excited to
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: see the Elliott Stabler spinoff. One of my favorite things
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: to do is scream at the television when DK and
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: I are watching. When I spy someone who was a
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: baby actor back then and now they're famous, I'll be like,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: oh my God, that's Huck from Scandal. And then criminal intent,
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know why. Those just creep me out more.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Do you hate Vincent D'Onofrio?
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: I don't hate Vincent D'Onofrio.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: I thought he was very funny in The Breakup, one
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: of my favorite Jennifer Aniston movies.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Is that the one, Vince Vaughn? That's pretty dark. Yeah.
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: That takes place in Chicago. I wrote about it in
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: a whole chapter of my book.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: I remember.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: But no, I think that my theme for the past
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: couple of months has been that I need shows that
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: show justice because.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: We're not getting any in America.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: So I really leave that to Mariska Hargitay.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Should Mariska Hargitay be on the VP shortlist?
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: The VP was on SVU with Mariska Hargitay.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot about that.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. And also, I just really love that they forecast everything.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: Like if anyone wanted to know how coronavirus spreads, you
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: should watch like season 17 of SVU.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: What are you watching? What are you reading?
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: What are we watching in our house? Here's what we're
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: watching in our house. This is my– I don't even
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: think– I think this show is good enough that you
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: can't call it a guilty pleasure, but we– Hallie and
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I love Yellowstone.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: That's a good show.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Do you know what Yellowstone is?
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what Yellowstone is.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: It's Kevin Costner. All right, I don't know. I mean,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Kevin Costner, a story about a Montana ranch. It's great.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: We're very excited in the middle of season three right now.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: We're watching I May Destroy You on HBO, which is amazing.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: And obviously, we are midway through Below Deck Med. And
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: I'm very concerned about how you film future seasons of
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Below Deck in a coronavirus era. Yeah. Because blow deck,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: if you like blow deck, it never ends. It's like
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: blow deck happens, then blow deck sailing out, then blow
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: deck made, and then blow deck comes back.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, do you mean like TLC? Like 90 Day Fiance,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: is that what you're going to say?
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: 90 Day Fiance the other way, 90 Day Fiance happily
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: ever after, 90 Day Fiance beyond the 90 days. And
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: then pillow talk, which is where old couples– talk at
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: the camera while other people, like while the season's unfolding,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: I laugh my ass off. I can't believe how uptight
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: I got that they kicked off Tim and Veronica.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: I love them.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: And then in terms of what I'm reading, I have recently,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: people ask the questions I answer them. What do you
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: want me to do? Um, I just read a book
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: called the burning, which is a book about, uh, It's
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: sort of about politics in India, which makes it sound
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: more serious than it is. It's like a very interesting
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and– fun is not the right word, but it's just
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: a very well-written book from a first-time novelist. Then I
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: read a book called Weather by Jenny Ophel, which is
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: a very short, sort of amazingly written book about people
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: dealing with the existential threat of climate change, which also
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: is less dark than it seems, I promise you. It's
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: just really, really well done. And now I'm reading– now
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: you're going to make fun of me, but I'm doing
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: this primarily to keep up with Tommy and Ben and
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: The Worldos is Anne Applebaum's book, The Twilight of Democracy,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: which is about sort of the lure of authoritarianism. I
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: felt like this was a book I have to read.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I should do it. It's the right thing to do.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: I should be serious and learn things. But it's actually–
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: it's a much more sort of engaging read than I imagined.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: It's actually quite good.
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: You know, I really– I started The Fountainhead a while ago.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Who are you, Paul Ryan?
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Just kidding. The what?
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: You should have just said– we should always just say
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: that we're reading Infinite Jest, right? Isn't that what you're
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: supposed to say?
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Well, no.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: What I was going to say is as soon as
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: it arrives, I will read She Proclaims by our friend
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Jen Palmieri.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: But mail up here is very, very slow. They said
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: it will be here in seven to ten days.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Well, that's another warning about your mail ballot, people.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Good point.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to torture you with this question because
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I know you won't get it. But don't worry. Christopher
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Brown via Twitter says, what does Ben Simmons' new three-point
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: shot mean for the 76ers bubble championship chances? And then
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: here's the note from Jordan Waller, our producer extraordinaire. Dan,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you got so many basketball questions. So, and I mentioned
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: the so many basketball questions just because it feels like
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: a huge missed opportunity that I have somehow not figured
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: out how to have some sort of basketball opportunity.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Podcast, YouTube show. Like, where is it?
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Where is it? It's a failure on my part.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: This is laziness. It's laziness.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not a good self-starter.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Do I have to write a memo?
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Probably. I will say this to Christopher Brown. I am
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: reserving judgment on Ben Simmons' three-point shot until he shoots
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: minimum four three-pointers a game when the season starts. I
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: think the Sixers' first game is Saturday.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: This is from Ross Bennett via Community.com. With many late
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: nights working in the White House, what was the food
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: situation like? Is the cafeteria always open? Are delivery drivers
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: coming and going?
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: In the White House.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: In the White House, yes.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: You know that you and I often had our meals together.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: But never late at night because it's a food desert.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: It's a food desert. There's no food near the White House, really,
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: that stays open. And the cafeteria, which is called the
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Navy Mess, closes at 8 p.m.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Is that right? Do I remember that right?
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's right.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: 8 p.m.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: And if we were there that late, chances are we
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: were not eating the Pfeiffer special, which was chicken, brown rice,
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: and broccoli. If we were there late, that's a true story.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: Pfeiffer's laughing because it's a true story. It was called
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: the Pfeiffer special. And I know because the Navy mess
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: reported to me.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Well, that's in part because I organized a campaign among
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: my staff to suggest brown rice on the suggestion cards,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: which is how we got brown rice at the mess,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: which is why I got the special named after me.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Which when you combine this with the Ann Applebaum thing
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: makes me seem like an even bigger loser than I
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: actually am.
• 55:53
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Because the truth is, though, if we were there eating dinner,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: what were we having?
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Chicken fingers.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Chicken fingers. And sometimes a grilled cheese.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Sometimes. I would never eat a grilled– I would always
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: eat the chicken fingers every single time I had the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: opportunity at the White House.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: And I was the dick that would order a Caesar
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: salad with chicken but would ask for the chicken to
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: be hot because that's how I like it. And I
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: walked down to the Navy mess once and they were like,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: is that hot chicken ready for the Caesar salad?
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm right here.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: It's very possible. Things have changed in DC since we left.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: But when we were there, as you point out, there's
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: no food around the white house at night. Cause it's all.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: It's like public service land.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: But it's a bit like, like the restaurants, the restaurants
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: aren't open for dinner because most restaurants aren't open dinner
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: because they close when people go home. Cause people don't
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: live around the white house per se.
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: And.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Getting in and out of the White House is a
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: pain in the ass and takes time. And so like
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to go outside, get your food and bring it back
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: was annoying. So it's just like be hungry and then
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: go home and eat what's in your fridge was the
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: often choice when we work late. So that's a long
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: answer to that question.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: But I bet it was enjoyable.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Okay. This one comes from your friend, Monica Lewinsky via Twitter.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Monica loves us.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, please describe in detail the birthday cake you were
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: going to make me were it not for COVID. Also,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: if you two were to do a karaoke duet, what
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: would it be? Okay.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: So first, Monica knows her cake was going to be
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: a yellow cake with custard filling and strawberries. It was
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: going to be buttercream on the outside with hot pink
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: and yellow roses, which I have taught myself how to
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: make with green leaves and pink sprinkles. That was going
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: to be her birthday cake because we both love buttercream
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: roses and i've known this for a while so i
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: taught myself how to make them so that i could
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: celebrate her birthday properly which was like last.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Week but when did she get the cake uh do
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: we have to wait for trump to solve coronavirus or
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: to get this she.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Gets the cake after her 47th year around the sun okay.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: You want to get to the karaoke part of this yes.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: Yes yes what do you say what's your care what
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: would you do at.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: What would you do can i admit something here You've
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: never done karaoke.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: One time I got almost dragged into it, but I've
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: spent my entire life, my entire adult life avoiding doing karaoke.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: And can I tell you why?
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Tell me.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Well, because when I was in high school, you had
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: to take a, some sort of music class and I
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: didn't like not, I, I am to music what Donald
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Trump is to being president. It just doesn't work. Like,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: like if you said to me, Dan, in order to
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: get reelected, you have to play the flute. I would
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: just not get reelected. Like that's how it would be.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: And so the, so I took chorus cause that seemed
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: better than some sort of band related activity. And Midway
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: through the semester, the choral teacher asked me if I'd
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: be willing to lip sync. Okay, same! How horrible is that?
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Seventh grade!
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: No, it was eighth grade.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I know, I was in high school. I was like
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: 16 and I was like, as long as I get
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: my pass grade, I will lip sync the F out
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: of the song. That's what I'll do. and so I
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: did and but that was traumatic and that's why I
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: don't do karaoke it's that that is my answer.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: This is what makes us amazing because I was in
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: eighth grade.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Mr.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: LeSwan, our chorus teacher, he had been in Attack of
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: the Killer Tomatoes.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I can't believe you just doxed your chorus teacher.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: I did because we were singing Still Haven't Found What
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: I'm Looking For by U2. And he straight up was like,
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: I appreciate your enthusiasm, but maybe you should lip sync.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: But see, you.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: I am to, I am to singing as Donald Trump
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: is to self-awareness. I was like, don't, I'm great. I'm
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: going to do it. Fuck him. I'm great.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I sing all the time and I've done
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: karaoke several times. So are you saying that you have
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: no karaoke song?
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I, I have assiduously avoided it
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: my whole life. Okay. Well, if you, here's the thing,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: if you like, this is how seriously I take it
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: is like, especially when I was like younger and like
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you would go out a lot more, a lot more
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: people at karaoke birthday parties. Like, If you drink a
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: little bit slower than everyone else, you can position yourselves
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: that you never end up singing karaoke. Because by the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: time it gets around and people think you should do it,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: they've gotten too drunk to remember and you don't have
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: to do it. And then there are going to be
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people who are friends of ours who
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: listen to this who are going to be like, you know,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I did go to a lot of karaoke birthday parties
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: or karaoke bars with Dan and I have never seen
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: him sing. That somehow I've avoided it all these years.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Okay, so if it was like my 50th birthday and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: my only birthday present that I wanted in the whole
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: world was that you sang karaoke with me, we would
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: sing Losing My Religion as a shout out to Dylan
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: and Brenda 90210.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to pretend like you did not say
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: that and that I have no obligation in an unsaid
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: number of years until said birthday party was going to come.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: By the time we turn 50, I feel confident we
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: may be able to fly again.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: I'll come to you.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Put that in the books.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's a good place for us to end
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: because we have now devolved into even more absurdity than
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: usual when we do these podcasts together. Alyssa, thank you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: for joining us on short notice to fill in for
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau. And our best to Jon and Emily and Charlie.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: And Leo, of course, who's adjusting to a new occupant
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: at his home. We're so happy for them. And they're
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: going to be great parents. Thank you, everyone. And we
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: will see you next week.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 7: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 7: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 7: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 7: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: every week.