Latest / Pod Save America / “Parscale finds something new.”

Transcript

“Parscale finds something new.” · 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 Crooked Media's own Dr.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed about his interview with Dr.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Tony Fauci. Before that, we'll talk.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: About a very rough, very weird week for the Trump campaign,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's ambitious climate plan, and his campaign's decision to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: start running ads in Texas. But first, check out this
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: week's special bonus episode of This Land, where Rebecca Nagel
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: talks about what last week's big Supreme Court decision means
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: for Native rights. Today is an excellent episode. Just out.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Um, also our adopt a state program sent out the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: first call to action emails last week. And I'm told
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: that we have a, a bit of a competition on
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: our hands. Uh, team Florida raised over $ 40, 000 to register
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: voters in that state. Uh, but team North Carolina apparently
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: made 10,000 calls in a single day to educate voters
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about down ballot races in that state. And for some reason, Dan, uh,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: whoever put those two anecdotes in the pods of America
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: prep chose to ignore the fact that the host reading
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: them has adopted Arizona and So I have no updates
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: from my state, but I'm sure we're doing an incredible job.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing the T-shirt because I was like, fuck this.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: No one gave me an update on Arizona.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's because there was just so much
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: amazing news they decided to leave it out? Or do
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: you think maybe you should be more involved in your team?
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Maybe I should be more involved in my team.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Although I saw an email from Juliette, our Team Arizona
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: email this morning, and it seems that we have called 3,000
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: voters already in rural Arizona because we're trying to register
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: more rural Arizonans as part of that state's efforts in 2020,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: which I think is great. It would have been great
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to include that in the prep doc, but I guess
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: we don't have any Team Arizona people working on the pods.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: That's a failure to recruit on your part.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I would say I am not... a white guy named Nate.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm not saying I'm good at math, but 10,000
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: is definitely more than 3,000. That's what I know.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Fuck off.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Everyone else, if you haven't already signed up, it's not
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: too late. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash adopt. Join the thousands
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of volunteers looking to flip some swing states.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Finally, one last thing.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: We have refreshed and restocked the Crooked merch store at crooked.com
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: slash store. We got new Friend of the Pod merch.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: We got new Adopt-A-State merch. I'm told there are even
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: some This is, again, just right in the prep doc,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: word for word. Fun and flirty tanks, Dan. Fun and
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: flirty tanks. I guess that's just for you.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Did Michael write that? I don't.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Know.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Things are out of control here.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: So please go to cricket.com slash store and get them
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: while they last.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: All right. Let's get to the news.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's campaign strategy of trying to get reelected by
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: ignoring the pandemic that's ravaging America isn't really catching on.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: A Quinnipiac poll on Wednesday has him down 15 points nationally.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Monmouth poll has him down 13 points in Pennsylvania. He's
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: down about nine points nationally, about seven to nine points
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in the battleground states he needs right now on average.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Last night, he replaced his campaign manager, Brad Parscale. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, he held an official White House press conference
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: in the Rose Garden that was supposed to be about
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: China and Hong Kong. but was instead an hour of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: incoherent rambling about Joe Biden and the campaign. We pulled
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a few excerpts. See if you can follow along.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Here's a clip.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: We have great agreements where when Biden and Obama used
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: to bring killers out, they would say, don't bring them
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: back to our country.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: We don't want them.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: Well, we have to.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: We don't want them. They wouldn't take them.
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: Now with us, they take them. Someday I'll tell you why.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: Someday I'll tell you why. But they take them, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: they take them very gladly. They used to bring them out,
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: and they wouldn't even let the airplanes land if they
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: brought them back by airplanes. They wouldn't let the buses
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: into their country. They said, we don't want them. Said, no,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: but they entered our country illegally, and they're murderers, they're
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: killers in some cases. And they said, nope, we don't
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: want them. They'd turn the bus around, they'd turn the
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: plane around, then they'd land in the United States, and
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: who knows what happened to them.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: But it wasn't good. And we have one about polls, too.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: I think we have really good poll numbers. They're not
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: suppression polls. They're real polls. You look at the intercoastal
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: in Florida. You look at the lakes. You see thousands
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: of boats with Trump signs, American signs. You've got the
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: Trump Pence sign all over. You look at what's going on.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: You look at.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: Bikers for miles and miles riding up highways proudly with
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: their signs.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Dan, Is it possible that Donald Trump's freewheeling rhetorical style
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: may undercut his argument that Joe Biden isn't mentally fit
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: to be president?
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much to break down from those clips.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are so many good parts. One, you know,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: you may not know this, John, because I know how
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: close you fall to politics, but boat freighters are the
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: new soccer moms.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: It's what a lot of the data journalists are saying,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: is that you have to look at.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Look, we're laughing now. It's going to be pretty embarrassing
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the day after the election when Donald Trump has won re-election.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And we should have seen it coming in the number
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of boat people holding up Trump signs in Florida.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, I agree with that. And I agree with that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And I remain... I have a lot of remaining concerns
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: about this election, which we can talk about. But if
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is re-elected and Bill Mitchell retweets my July
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: 2020 tweet about boat freighter said it's the least of
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: my fucking problems. I'll tell you that. But also when
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: he's in there and he's like, they let in killers.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Some of them are even murderers.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: He's like, and we don't know why, but I'll tell
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: you someday. It was so hard to follow. I mean,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that was just, those were two clips. We could have
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: done like 10 clips from that press conference.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: It was one.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I realize it's ridiculous to, To keep saying that was
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: one of the most rambling, incoherent things Donald Trump has
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: ever done, because we say that all the fucking time
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: we have for the last however many years. But that
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was really that was new levels that that Rose Garden
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: press conference, new levels. And I mean, should we talk
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: for a second about the fact that it was an
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: official White House press conference in the Rose Garden from
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the president of the United States? where basically he used
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the entire time to attack his political opponent. Like it
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: was a campaign rally. That's not, it's not normal, right?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: It's not normal, nor is it legal.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Legal, right? Which, which people just sort of skipped over. Yeah.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It's neither cool nor legal. I think is from, uh,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: back going back to impeachment a hundred years ago. Um,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: it is, you cannot campaign from federal property. Like, and,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: When the president does political work, then his campaign or
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: his political party is required by law to reimburse the
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: taxpayers for some of the costs incurred. For example, if
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: President Trump gets on Air Force One and flies to
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Ohio to do a campaign rally, it is a political event,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: a portion of the cost of Air Force One, the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: traveling staff, security costs, et cetera, must be paid by
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the campaign. And so when you do it on federal
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: property in the White House, you are violating the a
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: large number of laws. And a lot of people were like, well,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the president's exempt from the Hatch Act, which is a
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: terrible law that we should change. The president should not
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: be exempt from the Hatch Act, since the president is
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: the person with the greatest incentive to use federal property
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: for political purposes. But even still, what that means is
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: not that what he did was legal. What it means
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: is that Trump can't go to jail for it, but
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the campaign still must be billed for what they did. Now, obviously,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: there's no one in any position of power to make
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: him do that, given that Bill Barr is at the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Department of Justice. But It is very illegal, and it's
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: easy to let the craziness override the crimes, but they
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: are both there.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the sort of sorry state of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: his campaign right now, which, I mean, that press conference
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: was Donald Trump sort of flailing for some kind of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a message about Joe Biden, about himself, about his presidency.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: It is clearly not working. We know that not just
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: because of the polls, but because he did fire his
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: campaign manager or demote his campaign manager last night. Brad
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Parscale is now, he stays on as the digital person
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and Bill Stepien is who was the deputy campaign managers.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Now the campaign manager. What do you think about Trump
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: firing Parscale? Is that going to, that going to fix everything?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Seems like it will not fix everything. Um, because the
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: problem is like that press conference with the microcosm of
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: the problem. He has no argument for himself. no argument
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: against Biden, and no real connection to the reality of
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: what the country's facing.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I would say that's number one.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: That seems to be the biggest problem.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that it's an interrelated set of problems. But,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: you know, you said, you know, we always say Trump
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: was crazy. He said these crazy things. And it has
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: certainly been a large part of our lives over the
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: last four years now since we've been doing podcasts together.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: One presidential term of podcasts, God help us, is that,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: you know, Trump does crazy things. We dunk on them.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: We make fun of them.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: And we do that.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: And it's okay to laugh at him because you can
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: either laugh or you can cry. But what's different this
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: time is the context. He's doing this at a time
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: in which coronavirus cases are spiking, where 800 people are
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: dying a day in some cases. Millions of people lost
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: their job. And so ultimately, the problem is Trump, not
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Brad Parscale or Bill Stepien or anyone else. And politics
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: is sometimes quite simple. And Trump is losing because Trump
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: is a shitty president. Millions of people have lost their
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: jobs and 130,000 people are dead. Full stop. It's not
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: about ads. It's not about message. That is the big problem.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: And he needs a solution to fix that problem, which
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: is much bigger than Brad Parscale.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about what that solution could possibly be.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you and I talk about this every day.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm torn over these polls. On one hand,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you know, we have maintained for a long time that
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: we are out of the prediction business.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: On the other hand.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I do want to be honest with people listening about
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the state of the race right now. I think it's
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: important to look at these polls not as a prediction
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of what might happen in November, but a signal that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: what Donald Trump is doing right now, his campaign strategy
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: is not working. What Joe Biden is doing is working,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: at least right now. What do you think Donald Trump
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: could potentially do to make this race tighter?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: First, my very important caveat. about no predictions, and I
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: want to be very clear that I am a glass
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: one-tenth empty kind of guy, right? That's my approach to
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: these things generally. I know you are.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: That's why I send the best polls around all the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: time to you, just to sort of poke you a
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: little bit.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, I almost put in the outline that when you
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: were sitting around with the revised schedule last night about
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: talking about these polls, I almost pointed out that this
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: would be the part where I drizzled on your parade
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: because I can't fully rain on it, given.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: What's going on.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: But.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I think Donald Trump's political fate is primarily centered around
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: things that are beyond his control. He needs to get
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: a handle on the coronavirus, which he has some control over, certainly,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: like wearing a mask and doing his job. The bare
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: minimum of his job would help. The economy is going
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to drive this some. What Donald Trump needs to do
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: is he needs to do his job. He needs to
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: get lucky because he needs things to look better in
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the country. And he needs to find a message that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: goes right at why a significant number of people who
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: either voted for Trump in 2016 or were approved of
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: him just a few months ago, now support Joe Biden.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: And right now he has no plan to do any
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: of those things.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think partly because Trump won unexpectedly in 2016,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: there is this view of Trump that he is, that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: he has some sort of magic powers, that he's Teflon, right?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: That he defies the laws of political gravity. And so
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: everyone's sort of waiting for like his, his, Is Trump
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: going to define Joe Biden in some very damaging way?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Is Trump going to pull some trick out of his hat?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And I think I don't know what will happen in November,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: but I think that none of that is what's going
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: to ultimately help him. What's going to help him is
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: doing his job and controlling the pandemic, because that is
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the main issue on everyone's mind. Look at poll after
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: poll after poll. What is the issue you're most concerned about?
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And right up there is either the the economy or
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and the pandemic are like the number one and two issues.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And of course, they're interrelated, which Donald Trump also does
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: not understand. But even as we're looking at some of
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the polls from yesterday, like the Quinnipiac poll, the number
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: one issue for people was the economy, but Biden is
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: now winning that issue 50 to 45. We have talked
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: about a lot on the pod before that that has
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: not happened yet, that Trump's strength in the economy was
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: sort of the one thing he was holding onto. You
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: wrote a memo about this. Number two issue for people
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: is the coronavirus issue. And they trust Biden over Trump
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: on that by 59 to 35. Trump cannot win with
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: those numbers like that. And so he can win. But
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: in order to win, he has to have people start
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: trusting him more on handling the coronavirus. And he has
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: to sort of win back and strengthen the economy. And
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to do that, he actually has to get the virus
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: under control and sort of do something to give people
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit more faith in his capacity to govern.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: If he does that, I could see the race tightening up.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: If he doesn't, I don't think I can see that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I think that all of that is true. And if
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: the conditions on the ground do not get better, whether
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: he has a good message on Biden, a good message
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: for himself is less relevant. He needs to get it
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: close enough that then campaign tactics and messaging can truly matter. Now,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: just the thing I think we just have to remind
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: ourselves every day and remind our listeners is Through the
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: lack of wisdom of our founders, we are basically spotting
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Trump four to five points. So if you look at
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: a national poll and say Biden's up 10, how is
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Trump going to get, how's he going to come back
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: 10 points? Trump doesn't have to do that. And there's
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: no way he can do that. If Trump gets the
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: race between four and five points, he has a pretty
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: good shot at pulling off an electoral college victory like
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: in 2016. And so a 10-point lead.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So can I just press you on that for one minute?
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Because I've always thought that was true.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: If you look at the polling averages right now, he's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: about nine points nationally. But then in the three swing states,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the three easiest swing states for Joe Biden to flip
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: from 2016 and to thus win the presidency would be Michigan, Pennsylvania,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and Wisconsin.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: We've talked about this.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And it looks like Biden is also leading, at least
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: according to the polling averages now, in those three states
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: by seven to nine points, seven points in Wisconsin and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: closer to nine points in Michigan and Pennsylvania, which surprised
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: me or surprises me because I thought that that's sort
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of a narrower difference between those swing states and the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: national number than I thought there would be.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. And like, I almost texted you this yesterday, but
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I thought it would be way too on brand for me,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: which is when we were looking at the Pennsylvania poll,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the Monmouth poll of Pennsylvania, which is 53-40 Biden, I think,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: that it's just there is no math where Biden is
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: up 10 nationally and up 13 in Pennsylvania. That does
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: not work as we understand demographic groups. Now, the thing
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: we have to remember about 2016 was the national polls
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: were correct, the state polls were wrong. And the weighting
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: of demographic groups and turnout models matters much more in
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: state So it is very possible that this seven-point lead
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin is closer to five if it's weighted appropriately.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: And if that is the case, that fits within the
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: context of the electoral college advantage we think Trump has now.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It is also possible that because Biden is so overperforming
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: among white voters and older voters that he is sort
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: of eluding that trap by doing very well with voters
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: that are disproportionately represented in those Midwest battleground states, which
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: could explain why the margin in Arizona is much smaller
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: on average in these polls than in these states. Midwest
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: battleground states where, because Biden is in many of these
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: polls underperforming among Latinx voters. And so, and that's it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: So I don't think we know the full answer. I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: think we should just operate as if Trump has this
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: popular vote disadvantage, let's say electoral college advantage, because honestly,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: if it turns out that that does not exist and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Biden wins these states by as much as his popular
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: vote margin, like, you know what? Whatever. Say I was wrong.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: That's fine.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Well, look, I mean, I saw Jen O'Malley Dillon, Biden's
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: campaign manager, say this, and I don't think Jen's just
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: sort of saying this to sort of set expectations in
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the right way, that she's like they have always expected
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the race to get tighter in the fall. And I
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: think partly it's because where you see Biden overperforming among
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: sort of older white voters, among non, you know, white
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: voters in general, non-college white voters, too. These are groups
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that are traditionally Republican, traditionally Trump voters. And as we
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: get closer to the fall, polarization in the electorate will
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: sort of naturally bring these people back to the Republican column.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And so Biden's lead among these voters right now is
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: maybe not as sure as you would want because they're
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: not dependable Democratic voters.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And whenever your lead is based on not dependable Democratic voters,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you know, you should.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Still be fairly cautious. It's also... That's a note of
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: caution for me.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: It's also Biden's at what is probably close to his ceiling.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: So you look at Pennsylvania, right? So let's say that
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the Monmouth poll is correct, right? That Biden is at 53.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Obama got 54.5 in 2008 in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: more Republican state now than it was because of demographic changes.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: So I find it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Hard to imagine that Biden is going to exceed Obama's 54.5
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: in that state, which means, so you're at 53% 40,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: which means you have 7% that is unallocated. Presume 1%
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: of that goes to third party, given that's generally what
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: third parties have gotten. So you can take a bunch
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: of that other vote and allocate it to Trump, which
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: means it's not 53-40, it's 53-48, right? Which is a
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: much closer race, but still a huge win. So there
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: are a couple of narratives to beware coming up. One
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: is Trump's going to go up in the polls. He's
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: probably not going to do it. He may not be
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: doing it at the expense of Biden, He may be
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: doing it just simply by getting some of his voters.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Getting some of the undecideds too.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who are his people. They're 2016 Trump voters who
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: were just disillusioned by the complete clusterfuck that is the country.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So that's one narrative, and that's going to be the
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Trump comeback narrative. We saw that with Obama and Romney
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: in 2012 when we were winning by margins larger than
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: we would. McCain, you see this every time. We saw
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: it with Clinton, Trump, and we made the same point again.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: didn't work out so well, but two out of three
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: is not bad. But then the other narrative that we
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: should be prepared for is Bill Stepien is now a
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: campaign manager. And I read with great amusement today in
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: some stories that Bill Stepien's great skill is candidate management.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Which is so funny because he's worked for Trump for
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: like four years now. And so bang up job, Bill.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: He's going to get those tweets under control any day now.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Well, I think what is very possible to happen because
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Trump has had so many turnovers, both in his first
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: campaign and his White House, that what always happens is
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Trump gets rid of someone. Someone new comes in and
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: then Trump like doesn't tweet for three days. And then
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: we get 75 glowing profiles of the new person in
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: charge and how the story. You can see the headlines now.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: How did Bill Stepien tame Trump's Twitter account? Do you
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: remember when everyone wrote stories about how John Kelly did
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the most basic things like making people write things down
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: in meetings and things like that? So that is coming.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: The reason you fire your campaign manager is, one, because
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: your first campaign manager sucks. The other reason is you
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: need a circuit breaker on your bad narrative, and a
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: new campaign manager gives you a chance to have that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say that I think that's going to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: be harder to get that reset narrative in the middle
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: of the pandemic. But again, like stepping back from all
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: of our like, you know, digging into the demographics of
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: polls here, the president of the United States is on
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the wrong side of almost every issue that the public
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: cares about right now in a big way. You know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: like by 71 to 26 percent, people think everyone should
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: be required to wear face masks in public. That is
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: not like a Republican versus Democrat polarized nation debate, as
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: sometimes the media makes it out to be. It is
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: a 71-26 debate, right? And so like, even on his
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: white grievance politics, right, which he tried to kick up
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: in a CBS interview, before his crazy press conference, he
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: responded to a question about why black Americans are dying
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: at the hands of law enforcement by saying, quote, so
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: are white people, more white people, by the way. In
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the same interview, Trump also said, I know people like
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the Confederate flag and they're not thinking about slavery. I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: just think it's freedom of speech. You know, Quinnipiac poll
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: asks about Confederate symbols. 54 to 40 people say they
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: support removing Confederate statues. 51, 42 support renaming military bases
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: named after Confederate generals. 56% see the Confederate flag more
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: as a symbol of racism. So even on the white
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: grievance politics that basically helped him win in 2016 in
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the electoral college, the public is sort of against him
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: on even that base issue for him.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I think it's not even with the white grievance politics.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's especially the white grievance politics because he
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: was beginning to suffer from coronavirus mismanagement when the protests
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: after the murder of George Floyd happened. And the way
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Trump responded to that supercharged his political downfall because it
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: sort of told you everything that you did not like
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: about Trump. And he is operating his entire campaign around
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: a world that does not exist anymore, right? Where Black
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Lives Matter is accepted among the large swaths of the population,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: including the numbers of Republicans. The fact that the Confederate
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: flag is now seen as a sign of prejudice among
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Republicans Republican voters as well as Democratic voters are in
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: a majority of the country.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: The Mississippi state legislature?
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I think if you were to the right of Mississippi
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Republicans on race, you've probably done something wrong.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, Jesus.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back on Earth, Democratic candidate for President Joe Biden
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: is just running a normal campaign. He's doing events. He's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: given speeches. He's rolling out policy. And it turns out
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: he's rolling out some really ambitious policy, especially around climate,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: where he released a $ 2 trillion plan this week that's
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: focused on creating jobs through investment in clean energy and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the construction of sustainable infrastructure. The plan draws heavily on
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the Unity Task Force recommendations developed with Bernie Sanders' allies
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and includes goals like 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035, a
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: million green auto jobs, the creation of a civilian climate core,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: which Jay Inslee originally proposed, zero emission public transportation in
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: cities with more than 100,000 people, much more. Here's a
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: clip of Joe Biden delivering a speech about his climate plan.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Here we are.
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: Now with an economy in crisis, but with an incredible opportunity,
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: not just to build back to where we were before,
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: but better, stronger, more resilient, and more prepared for the
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: challenges that lie ahead. And there's no more consequential challenge
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: that we must meet in the next decade than the
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: onrushing climate crisis.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Left unchecked, it is literally.
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: An existential threat to the health of our planet and
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: to our very survival. That's not up for dispute, Mr.
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: President.
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, The only word
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: he can muster is hoax. When I think about climate change,
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: the word I think of is jobs.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Dan, you've been part of many a climate plan rollout
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: in your time. What do you think of Biden's?
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by it on a number of levels. One,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I'm glad he did it. Biden's original climate plan was
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: obviously the most progressive climate plan of any Democratic nominee.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And he went, much further here, which is, you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I think where both you and I want our Democratic
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Party to be. So I think that's good. I think
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because it tells us a couple of things
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: that I think are pretty encouraging about Biden and his campaign. Like,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: as we just spent the last few minutes cautiously talking about,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Biden is winning. And candidates can look at being in
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: a strong position one of two ways. They can see
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: their lead in the polls as a disincentive for risk
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: or permission to be bold. And this is Biden being
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: bold because despite all of our concerns and the narratives
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: after Bernie dropped out, Biden has unified the Democratic Party.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: There is not this huge swath of Bernie or Warren
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: voters who are unwilling to support Biden. To the credit
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: of Biden, Bernie, and Warren and everyone else, the party
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: is unified. So he did not need to do this
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: from a defensive political position. He did something bold. And
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I think that speaks well of the kind of campaign
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: he's running and the, you know, and hopefully the kind
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: of president he would be.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And he made, he made a lot of progressives, especially
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: on climate and climate activists happy. The Sunrise Movement's Varshini Prakash,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: who was a member of the task force, said that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Biden's plan addresses many of the criticisms that people within
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the environmental movement had of his original efforts. Julian Brave
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Noiscat of Data for Progress said, a progressive think tank
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that we work with sometimes. He said this to Slate
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: about the plan. Joe Biden endorsed a Green New Deal
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in our view substantively, which is, you know, that's pretty big.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: That's pretty big. Why do you think Biden made his
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: plan more ambitious and progressive, knowing, like you just said,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that he didn't have to politically?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: The context has changed, right? He, like, Biden.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: When he got in this race, it was really a
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: lot of his message and his sort of political reason
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: for being was to return to pre-2016 normalcy. That is
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: not available to us as a country anymore because of
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: the coronavirus and the ensuing economic crisis. So I think
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: he now sees his role. I mean, he's talked about this, right?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: And people are going to talk about it. This is
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: more FDR than normalcy. sort of keeper of the flame. Right.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And so it's bold. And we'll talk about this, that
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: it has a real tie into what fixing the economy
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: looks like. So I think it, you know, and I
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: think it is to, you know, his credit that he
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: went down this path. And I think to the credit
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: of all of these activists who fought so hard for
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the green new and everything else who recognized that Biden
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: didn't give them everything he wanted. Like there's not a
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: ban on fracking in here, but he went a long
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: way and they, they recognize the benefits of their activism and,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: and push for this. And I promise you, it's not
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: like Biden gets to walk in the White House and
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: just pick out his pen and make this law. There's
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: going to be a lot of work on this and
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of pushing. And I think it is a
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: sign of true good faith or opportunity for progressive activists
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: that it has worked on climate and can work on
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: other things going forward.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I also think the politics around climate have changed significantly
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: since Barack Obama proposed a cap and trade plan in 2009.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I think that is a testament to progressive activists, to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: young people who have pushed this to the forefront of
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the agenda. It's also due to the fact that we
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: are seeing the devastating effects of climate change in our
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: lives all the time now. So if you look at polls,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and Data for Progress has some great polling, so go
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: check that out, but all kinds of polls, there's just
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a lot more Americans, you know, it's not 50%, it's
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: up to 60%. It's two thirds of Americans who want
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: bold action on climate from the federal government. And so
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: he sort of has a political context that has changed
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: here that I don't think we didn't have the benefit
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: of back in 2009. I also think the other thing
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: is a lot of states have sort of taken action
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: on their own over the last several years. So basically
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: having this mandate that we have to generate 100% carbon-free
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: electricity by 2035, you've seen other states in the country,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: even redder states like Montana, put in place these rules
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: over the last several years. And so a lot of
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: these states have led. And so some of Biden's plan
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: is basically scaling up what we've seen in cities and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: states across the United States already.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: You're correct. The political context has changed. I think there
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: are some pitfalls that we should talk about, about that
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: political context. But the primary realization of that change is
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: that the Democrats are now unified on climate. The reason
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: that cap and trade cannot get through the Senate was
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: because there were a whole bunch of Democrats who were
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: from coal-producing states or oil-producing states who vehemently opposed that
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: sort of climate legislation. And now that unanimity is a
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: product of two things. One, changing opinions, right? You have
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Ohio senators like Sherrod Brown who are from a coal-producing
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: state who are supportive of real important climate action. But
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: it's also because geographic sorting among partisanship, right? Like in 2009,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Obama had two senators in Louisiana. He had two senators
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: in West Virginia, a senator in Alaska, like every place
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: that were huge fossil fuel producing parts of the country,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: there were Democrats. Those Democrats have all lost their seats
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: and we're now much more centered around other parts of
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the country. So it's a little bit of two things
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: happening at one time. And Republicans still are still, Republican
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: voters are still very skeptical of climate. And while Democrats
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: have moved a long way, poor Republican voters have moved
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: very little in the last decade. And you still have,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I think, according to Pew earlier this year, a quarter
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: of Republican voters who think climate change is a hoax.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: So one in four Republican voters looks at our melting
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: fucking planet and thinks it's not happening. Now, these are
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: probably also, I bet they're the Venn diagram of the
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: climate change deniers and the non-mask wearers is like one circle.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not moving those people on anything. So the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign was pretty excited to go after Biden's plan.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: They said, quote, it's more like a socialist manifesto that
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: promises to massively raise taxes, eliminate jobs in the coal,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: oil or natural gas industries and crush the middle class.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: He's pushing extreme policies that would smother the economy just
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: when it's showing signs of roaring back. You know, that's
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that's those are all the signs I see roaring back economy.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Could this attack from the Trump campaign be effective right now?
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: No.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, I hate to say it that way, because.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: in a close race, you only have to move a
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: few voters at a state for it to matter. So
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: could it matter? Yes. Is it likely to be massively consequential?
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: No.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't, the fact that Biden moved, Trump would
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: have said all those exact same things at his illegal
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Rose Garden press conference if Biden had stayed closer to
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: his original plan than the Boulder plan.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Which by the way, is such an important realization over
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: these last several years in general that we've been talking about,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: about progressive policy, right? That like, The Republicans are going
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to say we are socialists who want to kill jobs
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and raise taxes no matter what we propose, even if
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: it's the most center left type policy. And so that's
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: not a reason alone to propose an ambitious progressive policy,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: but it should not be a reason that you avoid
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: doing that.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And effective political attacks only work if they are believable
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: and fit with a narrative that is already understood by voters.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: And so some of the speculation about the political dangers
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: of the Green New Deal originates from how the Trump
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: campaign was able to weaponize Hillary Clinton's comments about coal
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: miners in 2016. But that was not about climate. That
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: fit within a larger narrative about her being an elite
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: with disdain for working class people, which obviously we don't
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: believe that to be the case, but that is how
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: it fit. It wasn't really about climate politics. It was
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: an elite politician looking down their nose at working people,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: which only worked because it fit with the deplorables comments
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: in a bunch of, you know, 30 years of Republican
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: characters of Hillary Clinton. That is a harder case to
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: make against Biden.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: It just is.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So Biden really framed this as sort of an economic
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: plan as well. And I thought Eric Levitz had an
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: interesting piece in New York Magazine about this, saying that
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Biden's policy, quote, doesn't just represent a more substantively ambitious
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: response to the climate crisis. It also establishes massive green
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: investment as the cornerstone of his vision for economic recovery,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and that he clearly views this as a governing priority.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: What did you think of that?
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: I thought that was a very, very smart take from
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Eric Levitz, who I think is very, very smart. And
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: it is a good reason for optimism. If you sort
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: of boil down what I think Eric means by it is,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to, in order
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: to respond to this economic crisis, are going to have
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: to put in place a massive jobs program. And the
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: fact that Biden is centering his jobs program around the
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: exact same things that will help deal with our climate
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: crisis and move us to his new, more aggressive admissions
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: goal is a sign that he is going to do
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: sort of two birds with one stone here, right? It's
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: not going to be a bunch of sort of random
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: infrastructure jobs or public work programs that aren't connected to client.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: And so tying those two things together You sort of
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: think about legislation in Congress as the number of trains
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: leaving the station, because we know that the appetite, the
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: political will for big action in Congress is pretty limited.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: And the one thing that we believe, assuming the Democrats
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: do the right things on things like the filibuster and
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: everything else, is that one of the first things they
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: will do if the economy looks like what we think
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: it looks like is going to be a huge version
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: of the Recovery Act from 2009, a massive economic relief bill.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: And if that is tied to real investment in dealing
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: with climate, that means we have a real chance of
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: getting climate done. Because if you do them separately, you
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: spend all this political capital on the economy, and then
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: you try to come back and do cap and trade
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: or other aspects of the Biden plan later, it's going
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: to be much harder to do that.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, the irony here is the reason it was
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: called the Green New Deal, which it was labeled far
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: before we ever had a pandemic and a recession is
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: was to draw an explicit connection to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: New Deal, which was a very ambitious, the most ambitious
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: in history sort of public works, public spending program to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: get the economy moving in the midst of a depression
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: in history. And the idea is we're going to do
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: what FDR did with the New Deal in the Great
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Depression and except we're going to make sure that the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: investment is in sustainable infrastructure, clean energy jobs.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: And all the rest.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And now Joe Biden is facing probably the biggest economic
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: crisis since FDR was president. And if he takes office,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: we'll be facing that. And we'll need a very ambitious strategy.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: jobs and economic plan to pull the country out of recession.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that like, you know, the Green New
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Deal immediately, you know, Fox News turned it into fucking,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: you know, farting cows and hamburgers. But I always, I
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: always thought that it was very smart politics to talk
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: about a climate plan as fundamentally a jobs and economic plan.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: because I think that is a smarter political way to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: sell it to people, that it's not, you know, people
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: care deeply about the climate. They also care about their
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: own livelihoods. They care about jobs. They care about good jobs.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And especially they care about that now and will if
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden wins and takes office in the midst of
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: this recession. And so for Joe Biden to say, you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's gonna have a lot of economic plans, I'm sure,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: if he steps into office in January. But I think
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: for him to be able to say, my big, sweeping,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: ambitious economic plan is to transform this nation, to transform
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: our energy, to move towards a clean energy future and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: do it in a way that creates millions of good-paying jobs,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: not just for people sort of constructing things and engineers,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: but for scientists. There are so many jobs in so
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: many different sectors that will be created through a clean
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: energy transformation in this country. And I think it's just
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a very smart political move.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: What makes it harder for Republicans to oppose these measures
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: when they are tied to dealing with the, you know,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: 10 million Americans who are unemployed because of the pandemic-related recession. Right.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: So one other notable campaign development this week was the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: appearance of a Jill Biden for President television ad in
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the state of Texas.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to the ad.
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: I'm thinking of all of you today across Texas. I
• 38:32
  Speaker 7: know the rise in case numbers is causing fear and apprehension.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: People are frightened.
• 38:37
  Speaker 7: And they're especially worried about their parents, their grandparents, their
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: loved ones who are most at risk. This virus is tough,
• 38:46
  Speaker 7: but Texas is tougher. We can stop the spread, but
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: it's up to all of us to do it. We
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: have to step up and do both the simple things
• 38:54
  Speaker 7: and the hard things to keep our families and our
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: neighbors safe.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Wear a mask.
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: Wash your hands. Stay home if you can and socially
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: distance when you go out. I want every single American
• 39:05
  Speaker 7: to know if you're sick, if you're struggling.
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: If you're worried about how you're going to get through
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: the day, I will not abandon you.
• 39:14
  Speaker 7: We're all in this together. We'll fight this together.
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: And together, we'll emerge from this stronger than we were.
• 39:21
  Speaker 7: Before we began.
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So this ad went up after a New York Times
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: story about how Democratic officials have been pressuring the Biden
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: campaign to, quote, compete aggressively in more states. This election,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: officials argue, offers the provocative possibility of a new path
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: to the presidency through fast changing states like Georgia and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Texas and a chance to install a generation of lawmakers.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: who can cement Democratic control of Congress and help redraw
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: legislative maps following this year's census. Does this Texas ad
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: mean that the Biden campaign now agrees with this assessment?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Great question. You know, that ad, the original buy that
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: was talked to that started this week was about $ 65, 000.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: According to our friends at Advertising Analytics, it was mostly
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: it was a cable buy. There are reports this morning
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: that Biden is starting to buy broadcast TV. And if
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: that is the case, and you see real dollars behind that,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: then that means at least they're going to test the waters.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: And you can do that, right? Which is you, I
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: imagine they've polled Texas. They have a baseline poll. They
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: may do it statewide. They may do it within a
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: few key media markets. And you can see, does a
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: sustained advertising campaign over a period of time move numbers?
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: This is a huge decision for the Biden campaign.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: And why is that?
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Well, so you take Texas and Georgia, which are the
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: two states where people say, like, Democrats have a real opportunity.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: So in 2018 in Georgia, Stacey Abrams spent $ 20 million
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: on ads and another $ 3 million on mail. Now, some
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: of that was spent in the primary, but most of
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: it was the general. So this is a, Georgia's a
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: $ 20 million decision for Biden, if he wants to truly
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: compete there. Texas, probably a $ 40 million decision, at least,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: to truly run a campaign there. So You know, Biden's.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: Fundraising is- It's got like 10 media markets at least.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, these are massive states with many media
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: markets and with expensive media. And so like this is
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: a huge investment of resources. And for all of the
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: success that Biden has had raising money, and they announced,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: General Malley Dillon, his campaign manager announced this morning, they
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: have $ 242 million cash on hand. They have a quarter
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: of a billion dollars in the bank.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Which basically almost wipes out the Trump campaign's cash on
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: hand advantage with money.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, but that's sort of a little deceptive, right? It's
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: incredibly impressive, but Trump has already spent a year and
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: a half building up data, infrastructure, hiring. All that money
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: is already out the door, already accounted for. So a
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: lot of the things that Trump was spending money on
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: in 2019, Biden has to spend money on now. So
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: while they have narrowed the gap tremendously, it'd be naive
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: of us to think that Biden is at parity already
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: with Trump because he's not. no, he could get there
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: because his fundraising has been quite strong. And I think
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: there's some indication that Trump's is lagging as all other
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: elements of his political life are lagging, but it's a
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: big decision and it's a risky decision. And it is,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: it can be a hugely risky decision because that's $ 60
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: million that's coming out of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Florida,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: and North Carolina to pick six States that listeners could adopt.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: So, well, so let's talk about the risks associated with
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: this decision. Um, Here's what our good pal David Axelrod
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: tweeted about the New York Times story, which, of course,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: came before this ad buy. First rule of presidential campaign planning.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Lock down the states you must have by making sure
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: your operations and ads are funded there for duration. Then
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: you expand to more ambitious targets. That's not cautious.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: It's smart.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: And before you commit to compete for a state, you
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: better be clear about what the cost of competing to
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: win that state would be. Texas, Ohio, and Georgia are
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: all large states with expensive and extensive media markets, half-assed
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: efforts are a waste of resources. What do you think?
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I agree with that. I mean, obviously, because
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: we studied at that political wisdom for years. Before he
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: was a hack on tap, he was just our boss. But,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people responded to that tweet
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: from Axe and said, I know because a lot of
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: them tagged us in the response, so thank you, people, saying, well,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: that's not what Obama did in 08, because... To be clear,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Obama took the Kerry 2004 map and expanded it to
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: it because we competed aggressively in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: and Missouri. And we flipped three of those four states.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: And people, when we started competing in those states, people
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: thought we were insane, right?
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Democrats- Yeah, Virginia, everyone sees Virginia as like a safe
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: blue state now. In 2008, there was nothing safe about
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Virginia as a blue state at all.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: But what is different, I think, and important to note
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: is that although Virginia is not cheap and North Carolina
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: is not cheap. Indiana is cheaper and Missouri somewhat expensive,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: but we also had a massive, massive fundraising advantage over McCain.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Obama was able to raise so much money that we
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: were able to go outside the spending limits that you
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: get from matching funds. And so we had money to
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: play with. And there's sort of two ways to think
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: about the map, right? There was like, how do you
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: get to 270, which is Axelrod's point, which is right.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Like If you have determined with all of your analysis
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: experience and data that it's going to take X million
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: dollars to win the states you need to get to 270,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: and you have more than X, you can go spend
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: that elsewhere, which is what we did. Because at some point,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the ads are diminishing returns. You can't hire more field organizers.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: You can't run more ads. So you have that extra money. Now,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: you want as many paths to 270 as possible, particularly now.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Because What we just do not know in our coronavirus
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: electoral world is, let's say you're depending on Wisconsin to
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: get you over the 270 mark. That is your difficult state.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: What happens if that becomes a coronavirus hotspot at the
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: end and you can't vote in person in Milwaukee? We
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: will lose that state. What happens if there's a massive
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: screw up with mail balloting in Pennsylvania because they're doing
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: it for the first time in the general and a
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of people don't get their ballots in the
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: city of Philadelphia or in the suburbs? Because of the
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: unpredictable nature, you want those paths. But can you afford
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: those paths? And that's a really tough question for the
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Biden campaign to make. Because this is not adding Montana
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: with one media market. This is adding two of the
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: most expensive states in the entire union to your map.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Look, I also think there's additional considerations besides the presidential
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: race that may be part of the play here. Like,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: you know, I heard our friends at Hacks on Tap
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: talking about this this week. And Mark McKinnon, who has
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: obviously spent a lot of time in Texas politics, you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: his point was, this is crazy. If you're Joe Biden
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and you're winning, if you get to the point where
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: you're winning Texas, you've already won the electoral college just
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: because of demographics, right? And so if you're winning Texas,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: that means that you've probably won Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida. And,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: you know, the state that's super expensive to play in
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that you want to play in because it's going to
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: be closer and you have an easier shot to win
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: is Florida, right? Right. So I get all that too.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: And demographically, as you're looking at the states you're most
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: likely to win and what is that tipping point state
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: that's going to put you over 270, Texas and Georgia
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: are not going to be those tipping point states at all.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: But as the New York Times alludes to in that story, um,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It is possible that we can flip the Texas legislature.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: We have a Senate race in Texas. We have two
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Senate races in Georgia. There is redistricting coming up where
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: in a number of states, flipping legislatures could give us
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the power to redraw the maps to lock in majorities
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: in Congress for the next generation. Joe Biden as president
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: with a Republican Senate is a world different than Joe
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Biden as president with the Democratic Senate. And in many ways,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: like even if Joe Biden wins and we have a
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Republican Senate, thank God Donald Trump is gone, but life
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: is going to be incredibly difficult. And there's going to be,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: it's going to be incredibly difficult to pass almost any
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: progressive legislation. We're talking about an ambitious climate plan. Like
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: there's almost no climate plan that will pass if Joe
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Biden is the president and Mitch McConnell is running the
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Senate still. So I do think like, and look, part
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: of this is on Like everyone who is listening to
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the podcast right now, like donate every last fucking dollar
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: you can to Joe Biden and to the Senate races
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: and to everywhere else. Because if we if Democrats basically
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: have this massive financial advantage, sort of like the one
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: you were talking about that we had in 2008, it's
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: going to be easier to start for the Biden campaign
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: to start competing in Texas and Georgia and some of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: these other places. And by the way, when the Biden
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: campaign decides to compete and spend that money, that helps
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Democrats down ballot, which is why I'm talking about this.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: That sort of helps all Democrats in the state in
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: their races just by having more attention from the presidential
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: campaign in that state. So I do think like, you know, I...
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I would be worried if I thought the Biden campaign
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: was like, we're going to play in Texas, but Michigan's covered.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: We got it. I don't think they're doing that. If
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: they are doing that, that's bad.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: But I do think that, yeah, they should spend every
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: last penny competing in as many places as possible. That's
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: not brilliant strategic advice, but I do think that's what
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: they should do.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: So a couple of things on that. One is I
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: agree with everything you're saying about the importance of the
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party investing all of these states, right? It's the
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: 50-state strategy. We've been talking about it for decades in
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: this party. We rarely implement it. But you either play
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: to win or you don't play at all. Because if
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: you're not going to spend enough money to actually put
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: the state in play, then you're wasting money, right? Now,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: a show buy here to test the– money to test
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: the waters or a show buy for media narrative, you
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: can do that. In 2008, we did a show buy
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: in Arizona. to show we were expanding out to Arizona
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: mainly just to fuck with John McCain, but we didn't
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: spend a lot of money. That's fine. But if it's
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: going to take $ 40 million to win, don't spend $ 5
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: million playing around there. That's $ 5 million wasted. And it's
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: also donors, there are limits to what people can give.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: And so Biden isn't the only place to make investments
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: in these states. You have Senate candidates in Georgia. You
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: have MJ Hager, who just won the runoff in Texas,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: going against John Cornyn. Any contribution to her helps put
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Texas in play. You have Beto O'Rourke's organization, Empowered by
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: the People, which has been trying to flip the legislature,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: but just today announced it was expanding to statewide operations
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: as opposed to just focusing on target districts. And so
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: there are lots of places that you can make real
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: investments there that don't only happen through Biden. Now, the
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: thing that I think would be interesting for the Biden
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: folks to do, which is this also is going to
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: seem crazy given where we are, maybe not, but There
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: were real questions about whether Obama should play in Florida
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: in 2008, because we lost it in 2000. Bush had
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: won it pretty easily in 2004. There was a sense
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: it was moving dramatically away from Democrats. And like Texas
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: and Georgia, huge investment of resources, right? Ton of media markets,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: very expensive, gigantic state. And what Plouffe did, our campaign
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: manager on that campaign, was he wrote a memo and
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: did a presentation where he detailed for our donors. And
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I don't mean the big, rich donors. I mean everyone
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: on our email list. what it would take to win Florida.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Here's how much it's going to cost. Here's how many
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: organizers we're going to have to hire. I remember this
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: very clearly because you were too high ranking a writer
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: to ever edit plus memos. So I edited this one
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and he rejected every single one of my edits, every
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: one of them. But like, I think it'd be interesting
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: for them to do, to lay that out for their supporters,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: like what it takes to win Georgia or Texas and
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: see if there's good idea.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I think, For everyone who's listening
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: who can give, especially the wealthier people who are listening
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: who may be big Democratic donors, I don't know who listens.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: I think that we are in an environment where because
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: of Trump's approval right now, because of the pandemic, because
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: of the recession, because of just the political climate in general,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Democrats have an opportunity to possibly not just beat Donald Trump,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: but to sort of crush the Republican Party under Trump.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: And I don't know that you get that opportunity every
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: four years or every two years. And so if you
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: were thinking about giving, now is the time to give
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: every last dollar you can possibly give.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: Because I do.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Think like, you know, having Joe Biden winning and then
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: possibly having a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House could set
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Democrats up and progressive legislation up for success for quite
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: some time. And I just think the stars are all
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: aligned on some of this stuff now. And so some
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: of the stuff we're talking about, the tough decisions that
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign is going to make about money are
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: going to be easier decisions the more that people give.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: That's just the.
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: Way it is.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: And the same goes for volunteering, right? They need X
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: number of volunteers in the battleground states. And if you
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: can exceed that number, then you can start having people
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: volunteer in Texas and Georgia. And One of the features,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: I guess it's the only feature of the pandemic, is
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: because so much is happening digitally, is that you don't
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: have to be in Texas or Georgia to volunteer in
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: those states. You don't have to get on a plane
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: and go to them. If you are volunteering X number
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: of hours a week, some portion of that can end
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: up in Texas and Georgia if the Biden campaign has
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: enough to meet their volunteer quotas for the battleground states,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: for the current set of battleground states.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, when we come back, we'll have my interview with Dr.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed about his interview with Tony Fauci.
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: Hey, I'm Akilah Hughes.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: And I'm Gideon Resnick.
• 53:05
  Speaker 8: We are the hosts of What A Day, Crooked Media's
• 53:07
  Speaker 8: daily news podcast.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Look, we understand keeping up with the flood of news
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: every day is hard.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: There are updates on coronavirus, Disney reopenings, animal news. What else?
• 53:15
  Speaker 8: So much else. But we're here to help you cut
• 53:17
  Speaker 8: through all that. We break down the biggest news stories
• 53:20
  Speaker 8: each day and help you understand what's important and what
• 53:22
  Speaker 8: you can do about it, all in 20 minutes or less.
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: Episodes of What A Day come out every morning, Monday
• 53:27
  Speaker 8: through Friday at 4 a.m. Eastern, wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: But you actually don't have to listen that early.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Don't get up that early, please.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: On the pod today, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is the host
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: of the Crooked Media podcast, America Dissected.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: His book, Healing Politics, is out now. Abdul, welcome back
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: to the show.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, John.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: So you interviewed one of your personal heroes on America
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Dissected this week, Dr. Tony Fauci. Fascinating interview. Everyone should
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: check it out. I found it Especially interesting that Fauci
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: has been doing a lot more interviews recently, even as
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Trump and the White House are trying to both silence
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: him and publicly attack him. What does it say to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: you that he's still speaking out now, maybe even more
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: than ever?
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: Well, Tony Fauci, like you said, he's a legend. I
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: remember in med school opening up my infectious disease textbook.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: And one of the authors was Anthony Fauci. The guy's
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: been around for a long time. He's been in this
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: role for 32 years. To put that in perspective, I
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: was three when he became director of the NIAID. And
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: he is a public servant, consummate public servant. You don't
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: do this work unless you believe deeply in the work.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, Dr. Fauci realizes that we are
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: in the the people of the United States. And he
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: recognizes that his best service right now is publicly communicating
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: about the severity of where we are and what we
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: need to do to take it on. And if the
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: White House is going to block his access to the
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: platforms that he traditionally should have because of his stature
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: and his leadership and his knowledge, then he's going to
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: find other opportunities, which, you know, worked in our favor
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: because when I reached out to him, his team reached
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: right back out and said, you know what, this is
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: a podcast focus on coronavirus, of course, I'll jump on.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: And we had a great conversation about where we are
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: in this pandemic and where we need to go. The
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: message hasn't changed. The other thing that I'll say is,
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: you know, you and I both share a bit of
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: an understanding of the inner workings of a complex bureaucracy.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: And Dr. Fauci has been around for a long time.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: He understands how this thing works. So, you know, he
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: understands that he's going to be able to leverage these
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: platforms to make news and that the people need to
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: hear from him. Yeah.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: In fact, he's probably safer the more public he is
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: in some ways that Trump knows that the number of
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: people who trust Fauci over Trump, which is significant, kind
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of gives him a little running room to speak out.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: And he's doing it in a smart way, I think.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Did anything in the interview surprise you or what stuck
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: with you the most?
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: There were a couple of moments for me that were
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: Both surprising, but also in hindsight, spot on. Number one,
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: we talked about the challenge of the decision to both
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: in the beginning of the pandemic to message that masks
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: were not something that the general public should be wearing.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: And what went wrong in the communication and why it changed. And,
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: you know, at the end of the day, the hard
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: part about messaging in the middle of a fast moving
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: pandemic for which, uh, you have very little science because
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: of course we didn't know coronavirus existed six months ago,
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: seven months ago. Um, is that you're constantly trying to
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: make decisions in an evolving space of science. And as
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: the science changes, you have to change your positioning. And
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: that's exactly what happened. But he admitted that it was
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: a mistake and that we should have been a lot
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: smarter about protecting the fact that at some point the
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: science could change. But early on in the pandemic, the
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: need to make sure that professionals on the front lines
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: who were involved with caring for symptomatic patients needed that
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: PPE more than the general public did. Considering that at
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: that point, we didn't know that asymptomatic spread was a thing.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: And so we thought, well, you know, if you're not
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: being exposed to symptomatic people every day, then you probably
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: don't need a mask. And of course we were wrong.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: And we should have been a lot more thoughtful early
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: on in the pandemic that the science might change on that.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: The second point that I thought was really quite profound
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: was the fact that, you know, I asked him, you've
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: worked for a lot of administrations and, you know, it's,
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: It's funny, with Anthony Fauci, you don't really know where
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: he sits on the political spectrum. Like, his political party
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: is science. But I asked him, you know, you, by
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: nature of having served under six presidents, there has to
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: be some presidents that you disagree with. And have you
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: ever thought about just walking away? And he said, no,
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: the work is too important. And, you know, the point
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: that you made, I think, John, in the last Pod
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: Save America episode, I think was spot on. Like, if
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: you're President Trump... Why in God's name are you trying
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: to undermine a guy whose general approval in the public
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: is super high in the middle of a pandemic? Like
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: it makes no sense. I just don't understand the politics
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: of it. And I think Fauci also understands that it
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: makes no sense and he's going to end up winning
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: this agreement. Yeah.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, the politics from Trump's view of this is
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: He has been hoping since the beginning that if he
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: like closes his eyes and puts his fingers in his ears,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: that the pandemic.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Will go away.
• 59:00
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Like the more he talks about it, the more he
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: acknowledges it. He thinks that makes it real for people
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and that somehow it's not real for people if he
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: just if Tony Fauci isn't. speaking, if Donald Trump isn't
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: giving these press conferences every day, which is fucking absurd.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: Ostrich public health policy.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting what you said about the masks, too, because,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I've been thinking about this a lot since
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the pandemic. Like it must be such
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: a challenge in public health because so much of public
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: health is communication. And, and, you know, you and I have,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: have been in politics and you're thinking about how to
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: message things and how to make sure that you let
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: the public know what the truth is, but you know
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that if you change your mind or you change the
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: message that you could get penalized for that. And that's
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: just the way sort of politics and communications works. But
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: the health side of public health is based in science
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and science changes and it grows and it evolves. And
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I imagine it must be, and you know, you've obviously
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: been in public health for a long time, It must
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: be one of the central challenges of that field to
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: sort of both do the political communication side of this
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: and sort of evolve with the science and change with
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: the science.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll say a couple of things about that. In
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: most circumstances, public health professionals are trained to just interpret
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: the science and develop a message that is true to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: the science without Because we take it for granted that
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: politicians are going to do what's right based on that science.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: And I think this is one of the first moments
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: where on a grand scale, public health professionals are realizing
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: that it's not enough just to interpret the science, that
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: we also have to be very smart about messaging because
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: we can't leave it to the politicians to do what's right.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: And then the second point is that action when it
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: comes to stopping a pandemic or preventing a public health
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: disaster in general, takes two forms. The first is informing
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: public policy, which are the things that government uniquely can do.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: And then the second is informing people about the things
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: that they can do to protect themselves. And the hard
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: part is that when you're pushing a message, you have
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: to do both at the same time. And sometimes, like
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: when it comes to masks, the government has a real
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: responsibility of protecting the people who are most vulnerable and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: most critical to being able to care for folks. That's
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: why it was so important that healthcare workers had PPE
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: on the front lines because if they're getting sick, then
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: our hospital capacity goes to zilch. And of course, our
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: whole goal there was to flatten the curve to make
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: sure that there was enough space and ventilators and beds
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: in our hospitals to care for people. And if all
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: of a sudden the nurses and the doctors and the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: staff that you need to do that are gone, it
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: doesn't matter how many ventilators or hospital beds you have
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: because the people who are there caring for them are sick.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: And so getting PPE out to those folks was critical
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: from a government imperative. And at the same time, we
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: should have been able to tell people, look, a cloth
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: mask is something that you could wear, right? At this point,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: the science isn't there on telling us whether or not
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: it's effective. And that's the mistake that was made is
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: that we, in trying to protect PPE for the critical
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: folks who are necessary to be able to run our
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: hospitals and take care of people who are getting sick
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: in massive numbers, we allowed the message to veer into, well,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: masks aren't useful anyway. And that was the big mistake.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: And so public health professionals now on the front lines
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: with the responsibility to message both to policymakers and to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: the public have to realize that you're saying one word
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: that's being interpreted by two very different groups of people.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: And you have to be really thoughtful about making sure
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: that you're not allowing any group of people to misinterpret it.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: And as you're messaging a scientific... truth, reality that is
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: changing over time as we learn more, it's an extremely
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: complex thing to do. I will say, you know, there
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: is nobody better in America at doing it than Anthony Fauci. And,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: you know, it is a testament to this moment in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: this pandemic that it is so hard to do that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: somebody who is as good at doing it as Dr.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: Fauci has made mistakes. And, you know, the important thing
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: to remember though, is mistakes or lack of knowledge are
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: not the same thing as lying and distrust. And so
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: folks who will point to, you know, things that public
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: health professionals have said back in January, when it was
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: an evolving picture and we didn't have the science that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: we have now, right? Doesn't mean that people are lying
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: to you. It just means that we didn't know enough
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: to be able to tell you what would become the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: truth after science took its process.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: So, you know, you and I could sit here and
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: talk forever about all the ways that Donald Trump has
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: fucked up and continues to fuck up the response to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: this crisis. I'm in Los Angeles right now. Like we
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: were one of the first major cities to issue a
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: stay at home order. Garcetti, Mayor Garcetti issued a universal
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: mask order on May 14th, even before they started to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: reopen the bars and restaurants in mid-June. We never really
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: got our case count below like a thousand a day.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that even some of the more
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: cautious and restrictive cities and states have had a hard
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: time bringing this pandemic under control?
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Unfortunately, the sine qua non of public health is
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: what you do before you're ever in a crisis. And
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: if you look at where we are as a country,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: we are profoundly unequal, which meant that even as we
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: quote unquote lockdown, that didn't mean lockdown for everybody. That
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: meant lockdown for people like you and I who can
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: discuss complex topics behind a computer screen. For a lot
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: of folks who are essential, the people who are most
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: at risk of both getting the virus and dying of
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: the virus, they were expected to go back out because
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: of course we invented a new word for expendable, which
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: was essential. And so those folks who were the most
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: likely to get the disease in the first place were
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: still being exposed in that moment. And so what happened
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: is because our economic system is so profoundly unequal, because
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: there was not enough action to keep folks at home,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: to allow them not to have to choose between saving
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: their lives and their family's lives or saving their livelihoods,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: is that we allowed the virus to continue to spread
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: as a function of the lack of preparation as a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: society that we had on net to take this on.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: And then couple that with the fact that on a
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: national level, we had done away with the pandemic response
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: unit in the National Security Council. We had threatened funding
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: for the CDC and state and local health departments. And
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: we allowed what should have been a containable epidemic not
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: to be contained. And so you have in effect the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: tinder of inequality and the exposure to which poor folks
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: are relegated in that moment. And then you have the spark,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: which is the failure to contain the epidemic in the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: first place. And that's what created the circumstance that we're in.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, once you have a live fire, right,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: you can have the best fire station and the best
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: fire response in the world, and you're still battling an inferno.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: The trick is to make sure that you don't let
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: it become an inferno in the first place. And of course,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: you know, we had packed away tinder, in the form
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: of inequality. And we had a spark in the form
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: of disinvestment in public health. And here we are now. Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: And, you know, you can certainly see that here in
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles. You know, they had a couple of the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: public health department, a couple of charts up yesterday of
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: sort of the positivity rate and the case count among
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Latinos in Los Angeles versus white folks and even black folks.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: And what has been.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Clear is the working class Latino population in Los Angeles
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: is which includes so many of the people who were
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: still working when the city shut down, has been hit
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: so much harder than especially the white population of the city.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: So you're right that, yeah, a lot of people just
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: didn't get to stay home. And so the virus wasn't contained.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: That's right, John.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: If you were running the federal response right now, what
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: would you do? What are some of the first big,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: you know, major steps that you would take to sort
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: of course correct here?
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll give you five big actions. The first is
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: that I would mandate masks nationwide in public places. I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: know that there's going to be a big backlash because,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: of course, the president has been sitting there and politicizing masking,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: but we know that it is essential and critical to preventing.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: Number two, that I would establish a very clear federal benchmark,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: county by county, in terms of case positivity per test
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: and in terms of speed of spread. And I would
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: use the power of the federal government to mandate lockdowns
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: in communities where you have runaway spread. Number three, I
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: would be really, really investing in making sure that we
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: have the hospital capacity that we needed in local communities
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: that were heavily affected and making sure that, you know,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: all of what we had built out in the Northeast
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: when that outbreak was as bad as it was, was
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: moving into the states where the outbreak is now the worst.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: And then number four, I would really, really be pushing
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: a clear federal investment in livelihoods. We need to renew
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: unemployment benefits that are going to expire at the end
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: of this month because people shouldn't have to be choosing
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: between their lives and their livelihoods. And I think that's critical.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: And then when it comes to number five, I think
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: we've got to be building the ability to contact trace
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: and test at scale. One of the big mistakes that
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: we made is that we locked down, right? And we
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: were able to push transmission down below a certain threshold
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: where testing and tracing was a possible containment approach to
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: this pandemic. But then we never built up the testing
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: and tracing capacity that we needed. And all of a sudden, right?
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: Of course, cases started to rise again because there's no
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: magic bullet here. This is just basic. workhorse public health.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: And so we've got to massively invest in contact tracing
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: and massively invest in testing. And if we can't do
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: that right, we are going to continue to see this sawtooth, jagged,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: you know, increasing cases, then, you know, massive lockdown response, then,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: you know, the cases come down, and then everyone opens up,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: and then everyone like, yo, COVID is now over, but
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: it's not. And so those things are critical. And the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: messaging here, we've got to get right. And the messaging
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: has to be, listen, there is no magic bullet. COVID
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: will not be over until we get to a point
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: where we can show across the board reductions in transmission.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: And even then we have to be vigilant in the
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: way that we're going to be able to do this, right?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: If we all want to have our economy and our
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: freedoms and the ability to walk around and do the
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: things that we all took for granted just six months ago,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: then it's going to be because we are willing to
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: sacrifice a little bit, right? Wear an uncomfortable mask when
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: you go out, you know, be willing to answer that
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: call from the health department when they tell you that
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: you were exposed and, you know, you're potentially at risk
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: and you're going to need to quarantine for 14 days.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: And so we can choose between, you know, these minimal
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: kinds of losses of our autonomy and, you know, the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: ability to not take for granted that COVID is out there,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: And then have the rest of our society, or we
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: can ignore these things and choose not to abide by
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: them and face this recurring system of shutdowns, which is
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: so devastating to our lives and our livelihoods.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: What's your best guess on the timeline for the development
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: and deployment of a vaccine that's going to give us
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: most normalcy back?
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciated the way you asked that question because
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: it's not just about having, you know, in theory, a
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: vaccine that works. It's also about being able to manufacture
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: it at a scale where we can achieve herd immunity
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: because we can vaccinate enough people, you know, at scale.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: My best guess, and, you know, this is a best guess.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: This is kind of like the epidemiologic version of me.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: Asking you who's going to win the election.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: Is that I hope that by the end of 2020,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: we have a theoretical vaccine. Probably, I'll be honest, I
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be surprised if we had more than one. And
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: then by, I would say, mid 2021, I think, you know,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: we'll have had the level of vaccination where, um, you know,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: where we can achieve the kind of herd immunity where
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: COVID is, is no longer the dominant question about, you know,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: whether or not we're going to be able to move
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: forward in the ways that we're used to as a society. Um,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: but again, this is, this is like asking me who's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: going to win the.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: One last thing I want to talk to you about.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: You're a member of the Healthcare Unity Task Force put
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: together by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Can you walk
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: me through some of the final recommendations you released last
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: week that were sort of substantively different than Joe Biden's
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: original health care plan?
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah, John.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: So for context, we had three Bernie Sanders appointees, of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: which I was one, and five Biden appointees. And we
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: came in with very different perspectives. I believe deeply in
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: Medicare for All. I've got a book coming out about
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: it in February. But we also knew that this was
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: an issue that had been litigated substantially. And we also
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: knew that if we were to walk out into a post-COVID-19,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: post-George Floyd reality with a pre-COVID-19 plan, that we would
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: not be doing Joe Biden any services. And that was
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: consistent and a point of consensus across the board. All
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: eight of us agreed with that. The conversation was contentious
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: at times. There are points at which we disagree, but
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: we also know the clear and present danger, not just
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: to healthcare in America, but to democracy itself if Donald
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: Trump wins. And so what we were able to do
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: was build a far more robust version of the public
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: option that I think achieves a lot of the goals
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: that Medicare for All advocates came into it with. Of course,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: it's still not Medicare for All, still not satisfied, but
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: it does achieve a lot of goals. It is truly public,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: meaning it's operated by CMS, rather than being kind of
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: like a Medicare Advantage plan, which is sort of set
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: up in terms of guidelines by public authorities, but operated
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: by a private corporation. Second, it is, you know, in
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: the context of this COVID-19 pandemic, extremely generous. In fact,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: more generous in terms of reductions in out-of-pocket costs than
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: Medicare itself is. And then really importantly, every public option
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: to every individual, there is going to be a no
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: deductible option. Deductibles are confusing. They're like the money you
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: have to pay to unlock the money you already paid
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: for to get your insurance. And so everybody would have
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: a no deductible option. And for folks earning less than
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: 200% of poverty, that means people earning roughly $ 52, 000 a
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: year for a family of four, they're automatically enrolled and
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: it is free. There are no premiums. All that comes
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 4: with it are the out-of-pocket costs. And then beyond that,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: one of the big wins, I think, and the thing
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: that I'm most proud of is that right now it
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: is public policy in America that Medicare, which is the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: single biggest buyer of prescription drugs, can't negotiate the price
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: of those drugs with corporations. And The recommendations do away
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: with that. In fact, rather than just even negotiating on
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: behalf of Medicare buyers, Medicare would be able to negotiate
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: on behalf of every single American, which is a huge deal.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: We also doubled investment in federally qualified health centers, do
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: away with some of the barriers that are frankly just
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: cruel to immigrants getting access to healthcare that they should
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: have access to in this country. Investments in the Indian
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: Health Service, And one point for me, which is a
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: baby of mine and something that I care a lot about,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: given that I was the health director in the city
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: of Detroit and saw firsthand what health disparities looked like
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: every day, is a commitment to an executive order which
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: commands and offers resources for a whole-of-government approach to root
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: out health disparities. That means not just HHS, Health and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: Human Services, but the Department of Treasury, the Department of
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Labor, all of
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: them are tasked with the responsibility of asking How do
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: our policies and systemic racism insinuate their way into our policies?
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: And how do these create inequities in our country? And
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: how can we meaningfully root them out? And so I'm
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: very optimistic about this plan. Of course, not satisfied. I
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: believe in Medicare for all. But I also know that
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: for folks who believe in Medicare for all like I do,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: there is no world in which a Donald Trump presidency
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: advances the ball down the field for Medicare for all.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: The way I sort of think about it, and I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: tend to think in crude sports analogies, is that you know,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: right now we've been in defense for a long time. And, um,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: I got the choice between going on defense again, uh,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: under another Trump presidency and, uh, working to, you know,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: prevent the repeal of the ACA, or we can go
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: out in the field and, you know, um, potentially kick
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: a field goal. And, you know, if I wanted to
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: score a touchdown, I'm going to take three points on
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: the field, uh, any day. And, um, and so, you know, progressives,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: I think have a lot to look at in these
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: plans and say, you know what, you know, we got
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: to come together. We've got to be Donald Trump. And
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: then starting on day one of the Biden administration, we
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: can't let up on the things that we know need
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: to change in this country. And that's got to be
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: the way forward for us.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, look, first of all, I'm so glad
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: that you were one of the people on this task force.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: I think it sounds like tremendous progress. You know, I
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: think what was lost in some of the conversation in
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: the primary about the different plans is like, not all
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: public options are created equal. And I think Biden's public
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: option in the primary was sort of on the, you know,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: on the flimsier end of the scale, just compared to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: sort of a Pete Buttigieg public option or what Beto
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: and Kamala had and stuff like that. And I think
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: what he has agreed to now, thanks to you guys, is,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is very robust that, you know, people
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: making $ 50, 000 or less in this country, many of whom
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: have been even shut out of Medicaid in states where
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: they haven't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. to
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: be automatically enrolled in a government run plan that is
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: premium free, that is no deductible, that takes care of you,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: that alone, just for some of the poorest and working
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: class folks in this country would be huge. And again,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: the idea behind the public option is that hopefully so
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: many people like that option that it eventually crushes the
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: private insurance companies over time, not as quickly as obviously
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: moving to Medicare for all would be in a single payer. But,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: you know, hopefully people try it, they like it, and
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: then we move closer towards a single payer goal.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I sort of judge healthcare policy by
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: two basic questions. Number one, would it benefit the median
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: family that I was responsible for when I was health
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 4: director in the city of Detroit? And if I go
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: to them and I say, What is your circumstance now
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: when it comes to healthcare? Will this meaningfully improve it?
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: And that's absolutely the case. And then second, what will
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: the insurance corporations who profiteered off healthcare for a long
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: time think about this policy? And I assure you, they're
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: not going to like it. They're not going to be happy.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: So part of me is just like, yo, if the
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: bad guys don't like it and the people who are
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: hurt by the system do like it, then we're probably
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: moving in the right direction. And so I do think
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: there's some real movement here. And I got to say,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: it was a privilege working with every member of the team,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: like the earnestness that came through the process. And in
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: honesty with the disagreements that we had, but earnest appreciation
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: for what we all were trying to do, I was
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 4: just really impressed by. And I think one of the
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: frustrations with 2016 is that that earnestness never came through.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: Whereas in 2020, I think folks sitting on opposite sides
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: of the table looked each other's eyes and said, you
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: know what? We all want the same thing for the country.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: We have a different... in an opinion about how we
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: get there sometimes or how fast we try and get there.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: But we agree in what direction we want to go.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: And that's a big deal. So let's come together and
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: think about how we get there and let's move forward.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: And I'm really proud of that.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: Abdul, thank you for joining us as always. Everyone, please
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: go check out America Dissected. It's a fantastic podcast. Definitely
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: check out the Anthony Fauci interview and go pick up Abdul. book,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: Healing Politics. It's a fantastic read. Thank you so much
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: for joining us, man.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: Take care.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: John, always a privilege and my best to Emily, who
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: I know almost there with the little young Favreau. I'm
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: really excited to see pictures.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: Almost, almost. A couple of weeks away. Take care, man.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: All my best.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: You too.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Abdul for joining us today and everyone have
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: Bye everyone.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support, and to
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: every week.