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Transcript

“The Trump Pod Challenge.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 4: Later in the pod, Lovett talks to Hawaii Senator Brian
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: Schatz about the fight over the next economic relief bill
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: and the 2020 Senate map. Before that, we'll talk about
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: what might have been the series finale of The Daily
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: Trump Show, the growing panic among Republicans over the November
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: election and Joe Biden's homebound campaign.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: But first, Lovett, how was the show this week?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: We had a great Lovett Relieve It. John Hodgman came
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: by and judged the monologue, which was a delight. uh,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Akilah Hughes egged on by Travis Helwig quiz Ronan and
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I on our relationship, Ronan and me in a way that, uh,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: tried to get us to break up and, uh, talk
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: to Katie Porter star studded who we love about what's
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: happening in Congress. So it was a, um, Great episode.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: We talked to listeners.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It was a nice break from everything. So check it out.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: We also have a big announcement today. Crooked Media has
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: partnered with Pineapple Street Studios and Spotify to bring you
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: a brand new limited series podcast called Wind of Change,
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: an original series hosted by investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: The show begins when Patrick hears a rumor that Wind
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: of Change, the very popular power ballad by the Scorpions
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: that was an anthem for the end of the Cold War,
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: was actually written by the CIA. This series is Patrick's
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: journey to find the truth. The trailer is out now
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: on Spotify. Follow Wind of Change on Spotify to binge
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: all eight episodes.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: On May 11th.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Exciting, huh?
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I just have to say, you know, we've been
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: working on this show with Patrick for the better part
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: of a year. I've gotten to know him. I've read
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: all his work forever. He's one of the best journalists
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: in journalism period. His book last year, Say Nothing, was
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: one of the best books I've ever read. And this
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: story is incredible. I've literally thought about it ever since
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: the first day he pitched it. And to hear this
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: thing finally come to life is so exciting. It is
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: such a fun journey. It'll be a great break from
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: coronavirus hell. Subscribe to Wind of Change. Do it on Spotify.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Then you can binge it. It's going to be great.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I'll start with what might be some good news after
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: being subjected to Donald Trump's hours-long White House briefings nearly
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: every day for the last two months. The country may
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: be getting a break. Trump held no briefing on Saturday
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: or Sunday and White House aides say they may be
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: cutting back the president's appearances.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: That's the good news.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: The bad news is that it's because the president suggested
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: a cocktail of sunlight and disinfectant might cure COVID. Let's
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: take a listen to what happened on last week's briefing.
• 2:54
  Speaker 6: So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think
• 3:03
  Speaker 6: you said, That hasn't been checked, but you're going to
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: light inside the body, which you can do either through
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: the skin or in some other way.
• 3:14
  Speaker 7: And I think you said you're going.
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: To test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute,
• 3:23
  Speaker 6: one minute. And is there a way we can do
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: something like that by injection inside or.
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: Almost a cleaning because you see it gets on the
• 3:34
  Speaker 6: lungs and it does a tremendous number of the lungs.
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: So it'd be interesting to check that so that you're
• 3:39
  Speaker 6: going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds,
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: it sounds interesting to me.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: So Tommy, I don't want to dwell too much on
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: the story since it's been covered quite thoroughly, but Trump
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: later said he was being sarcastic.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Is that how people took it? Trump is that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: Friend we've all had who says something really shitty to
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: you and then pretends he was kidding.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: It's like, come on.
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: What?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I was kidding.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: You know, they're like, your haircut looks like Neil Patrick
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: Harris got stranded on a desert island.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: What? He's being funny.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: You know, that's what my wife said to me.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Hannah was like, Hannah said to you, drink bleach. I'm
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: just kidding.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so we had some fun with that. When
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: you're the president, it's less fun.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: I mean, in this case, you know, Trump suggested that,
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: I guess, like getting a sunshine enema or drinking bleach
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: could cure you of coronavirus, because we all know the
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: way HIV goes away is you just get a tan.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: And it ended up having people calling poison hotlines. The
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: Surgeon General had to clarify on Twitter, Clorox and Lysol
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: were putting up statements. And so again, the stated rationale
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: for broadcasting these coronavirus task force briefings live is that
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: viewers will get important medical information. And again and again,
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: we're seeing that's not happening. I mean, anyone who watched
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: this comment knows he was not being sarcastic because we
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: have eyes and also who tries out some jokes at
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: the pandemic response briefing.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: That's not the right venue. So anyway, of course he
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: wasn't kidding. It's ridiculous.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it would be funnier if it wasn't like if
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: all of these states weren't getting calls through their hotlines
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: about people actually thinking this could be a fucking cure.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's also some useful information there. Like it
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: does seem like direct sunlight and humidity can help kill
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: the virus outside. And maybe that's good to know. Maybe
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: we all shouldn't hang out inside. We should hang out outside.
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: But all that information is washed away by him saying
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: this crazy nonsense.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: It does seem like this is part of a larger
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: pattern where Trump just completely contradicts his own public health experts.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: His CDC director said the virus could be even worse
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: in the fall and winter. Trump said then it might
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: not come back at all.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: Fauci says we need to do a lot more testing.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: Trump said last week he disagrees with them, that we're
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: doing great on testing. They demoted the doctor in charge
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: of developing a vaccine last week because the guy refused
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: to promote Trump's favorite unproven treatment, hydrochloroquine. What's the danger
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: here for Trump? I mean, there's the danger for us,
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: which we just talked about. What's the danger for Trump?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so one thing that happens after this is
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: every serious health official associated with this administration is goes
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: on television in the next day or two and doesn't
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: say five or six important things people ought to know.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: They say, oh, here's what Trump meant. Yeah, you know,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I heard that. You know, Birx was asked, like, what
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: was Trump talking about? And she's desperate to try to
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: make sure people don't drink bleach while also not being
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: too contradictory because that ends up coming back on you
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: tenfold in the form of Trump insulting you, retweeting someone
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: calling for you to be fired. And this is a
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: person who has vacillated between just trying to do her
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: job and being a bit of a Trump flunky. But
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: she was making the point that Trump, oh, he just
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: had learned something and he was trying to think it through.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And sometimes he thinks out loud. Obviously, that's incredibly irresponsible.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly irresponsible for the president to be thinking out
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: loud about something he learned. Now, the thing he learned was,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: sunlight may be the best disinfectant, an old saying that
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: is just sort of common wisdom about the ways, you know,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the way sunlight may help us in this situation. He
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: was learning some basic information. Now, one of the things
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I was striking is that this whole question of will
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the virus come back in the fall or not, right?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And Fauci says, probably, we don't know, but it looks
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: like we should be prepared for a combo flu season,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: COVID season, that seems like where we're probably heading. And
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Trump says, well, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it will
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: go away. It doesn't matter. This is a silly and
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: stupid prediction debate. We should be preparing. This is very simple.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Like a legitimate president would say, you know, I'm a
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: bit more optimistic because that's my nature and but the
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: scientists tell me we need to be ready for it
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: coming back. And so we're going to be ready for
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: it to come back. We'll hope for the best and
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: prepare for the worst. But we end up in these
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: endless loops that are not about the best way to
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: respond to this growing pandemic, but actually the axis of
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: debate is only about Trump. Was he right? Was he wrong?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Is he smart? Is he dumb? Is he helping himself?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Is he hurting himself?
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Is he lying?
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Is he telling the truth?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: And we do that over and over and over again.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: And that means that I think in like a a
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, like forget the like specific information, the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: cultural societal response to this virus is confused in large
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: part because this incredibly important podium is so thoroughly misused. Yeah.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, from the public's perspective, we've seen in
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: every poll since the beginning of this, that they trust
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: public health officials and experts far more than they trust
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump. And that's been even more true the longer
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: this goes on. And so as he continues to contradict
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: a number of people that the public trusts more than him,
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: it makes him even less credible in the eyes of
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: the public during a pandemic that goes on and on
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: in which he seems to always be looking, as you said,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: love it for like the easiest way out. Everything is like,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: he wants the miracle cure. He wants it not to
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: come back in the fall. He thinks everything's gonna be fine.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: And like, It's this just debilitating short-termism on his part
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: where he just wants to get through that news cycle.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: But like that doesn't work that well as the pandemic
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: drags on. What happens if it comes back in the
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: fall and winter and everyone's like, oh, Donald Trump told
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: us it wouldn't be back.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: It's only going to be worse for.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Him, you know?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, but he just knows that like if it
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: does come back in the fall, everyone will say you
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: told us it was going to be better.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: And he'll say, no, I didn't. And he'll just lie
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: about it again. My favorite thing of.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: The day is that the New York Post reporting that's
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: being regurgitated on Fox News this morning, that Trump is
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: just working so hard that he's skipping lunch sometimes. And,
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: you know, as you can tell by looking at the guy,
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: he's not exactly wasting away.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: It's like so ridiculous.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, I believe like whatever Stafford decided last night
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: to pitch MSNBC. every single reporter on a new strategy
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: that involves less time for Trump at the podium and
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: more of a focus on economic issues. I believe that person.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: I believe that's what they want. I believe they think
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: that's smart. I don't believe for a second Donald Trump
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: is going to give up that podium because as a human,
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: he's a broken narcissist and he's desperate for praise and affirmation.
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: But as president, like this seems like his main activity
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: for the week every week, right? He doesn't attend the
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: coronavirus task force meetings themselves. That's how you get a
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: scenario where you like half hear some briefing. and decides
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: to riff on the healing powers of ingesting bleach. He
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: just watches TV all morning, gets mad, tweets, and then
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: rages on reporters in the briefing. I literally don't know
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: what he'll do with his time if he's not at
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: these events.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I also want to just, let's just also just be
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: clear here. You know, there have been a lot of
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: people saying that the cable networks are wrong to take
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: these briefings live. And now that we know that they
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: may be politically toxic for Trump, and that's the only
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: reason they're considering not airing them, I want to once
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: again continue to urge CNN and MSNBC and Fox to
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: carry these briefings live. It is their obligation. We need
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to see what the president is saying every day.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: That was going to be my next question.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, we have worried that these briefings
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: are sort of artificially propping up his approval ratings because
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: they're nothing but propaganda. It's clear now they're having they're
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: either not doing that or they're having the opposite effect.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, Tommy, Navigator's daily tracking poll had Trump's approval
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: at 47.49 a month ago, now has him at 42 approved,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: 56% disapproved, which is.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: The worst rating he's had in a month. Why do
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: you think the briefings have been pushing things the other way?
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, we should stipulate that, I mean, maybe
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: the briefings are unrelated to his polling, right? Early on,
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: there was a rally around the flag effect for every
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: leader in the world. Trump got less of a bump
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: from that sort of impact and it went away faster.
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: It's also clear that things have gotten way worse just
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: on the ground in everyone's lives. The global death toll
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: is over 200,000. The financial impact is mounting.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: It's been devastating.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: I do think, though, as president, and we've seen this
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: in polling for Trump on other issues like China, sometimes
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: you get credit just for looking active and seeming like
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: you're on top of something. You get you get credit
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: for trying. But I do think like as people get impatient,
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: as their lives get worse, as you round six weeks
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: without leaving your house, the briefings strike you a different way.
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: You can tell he's making mistakes, you know, and then
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: like saying something like this drink bleach comment, like, That
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: jumps out and becomes part of a national conversation that
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: includes SNL and like late night shows and all the
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: places that might not otherwise be talking about the coronavirus
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: task force briefing. I think it compounds the problem because
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: people don't believe him. They want to hear from scientists
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: and they think he's chaotic and not necessarily in charge.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Lovett, what do you think?
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: You know, to Tommy's point about not knowing how the
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: briefing is really affecting this one way or another, I
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: do think because we're in the thick of it, it's
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: hard to know the relationship between, you know, Trump's blundering
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: and the biases that a lot of people who might
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: be sympathetic or prone to voting for Trump, like kind
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: of older white voters, how that is kind of running
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: headlong into the fact that these are people who are
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: most at risk and most afraid of what this virus
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: could do to their families, themselves, their communities. You know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: We talked about this when this first started, that Trump
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: plays on people's emotions. That's what he does. He plays
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: on their fears and he plays on their worst instincts.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: But it's hard for that to be a match for
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: the scale of what we're facing. This is a global pandemic.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It is affecting every corner of the country. It is
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: making people afraid and closed off from one another and
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: insecure and uncertain with a whole bunch of economic calamity
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: on top of that. And so his usual bag of
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: tricks feel completely insufficient for this moment. And so he
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: can try all he wants. He can retweet a Joe
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Biden deep fake. He can attack the Nobel Prize. He
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: can go to the briefing, not go to the briefing.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: He's at war with reality. And that's not something he
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: can win.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think people are getting tired of
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: the Trump show in the middle of a pandemic. You know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: 23% now trust what he says about the coronavirus, just
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: incredibly low when you consider that his base is like
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: 35 to 40% of the population. It's from an AP poll.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: Navigator has 63% of people say that self-absorbed applies to
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Trump's response. 57% say the response has been chaotic. 56%
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: say erratic and irresponsible. Axios did a focus group of
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Obama-Trump voters in Ohio. And I thought it was interesting
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: because they all said that they wished he would act
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: more like their Republican governor, Mike DeWine. And sort of
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: the conclusion from the focus group, what a lot of
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the voters were saying is there's a little appetite for
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: partisan politics among these voters when it comes to a
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: crisis with life and death consequences. They want a leader
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: who will work with health and science experts, find solutions
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: and activate in a way that won't polarize the country.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: So of course his move when things aren't going well
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: for him is to blame people and try to divide
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: people against each other. And, and like all you, and
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: like you said, love it, all these little tricks, right?
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Like everything is a game. He's mad about everything. He's
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: yelling at the media and all that stuff. Like a
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: lot of people don't tolerate that normal times and they're
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: really not tolerating it in the middle of a pandemic
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: and an economic crisis.
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: Um, yeah.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: So because of Trump's political problems, uh, Republicans are, uh,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: starting to act like Democrats and panicking. According to the
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: New York Times, quote, Republicans were taken aback this past
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: week by the results of a 17-state survey commissioned by
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: the Republican National Committee. It found the president struggling in
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: the Electoral College battlegrounds and likely to lose without signs
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: of an economic rebound this fall, according to a party
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: strategist outside the RNC who's familiar with the poll's results.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Times also notes that a recent wave of polling that
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: showed Republican senators in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, and Maine
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: trailing or locked in a dead heat with potential Democratic rivals. Tommy,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: should we allow ourselves to enjoy this news? Or do
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: we think the Senate's more in play than it was?
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And why?
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, these polls are good news for Biden generally.
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: So it's not just national polls that have him winning
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: and that don't end up meeting much when applied to
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: the Electoral College. These are real leads in state polls
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, states he really needs to win.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: Trump's trying to go on offense places. And like, you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: Minnesota is like the only state they've really targeted for
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: a pickup. And that's not looking good. I think he's
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: down 10 there. So we're lucky that we have great
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: Senate candidates on top of that. And they've been fundraising well.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: But like, I don't think anyone should get cocky here.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: I mean, the best thing that listeners can do is
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: pick a Senate race or two, promote the hell out
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: of those candidates on social media. Maybe you set up
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: a recurring donation, give them five bucks a month because
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: that that adds up and really matters. But, you know,
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: I'm going to let myself feel hopeful. And I think
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: we're going to talk more about the Biden campaign and
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: what is and isn't working. But, you know, Sarah Gideon
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: in Maine, Doug Jones in Alabama, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: Mark Kelly in Maine, Gary Peters in Michigan, the Colorado race.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: Like we got to win a lot of those races
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: and defend elsewhere to to take back the Senate.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: I know you're going to talk to Brian Schatz about
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: this in a little bit, but what do you think
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: about this election? the improving poll numbers for Democrats here?
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I think they're horseshit. I'm not going to buy them. Look,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: it's nice to see. I hope they're right. I hope
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: it gives people a jolt to support their candidates. I
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: think we should just continue to assume that winning back
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: the Senate is hard and may get harder as we
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: get closer to the fall. We don't know. We also
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: just don't know how all of this will play out
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: with the virus and how it affects turnout, which is,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I think, just this big, flashing unknown. And so beyond that,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: you know, yes, I think it's a, it's heartening to see,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: it's hopeful. And we talked about this from the beginning too,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: that this virus was going to shift people's expectations and
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the economic fallout would shift people's expectations of government, that
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: people are going to turn to government and look for
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: a well-run, active government that helps people in their time
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: of crisis. And I think that that lends itself to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: voters considering Democrats more than they might have otherwise. But
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: beyond that, I think it's still so early.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: One thing about the Senate is, you know, we've been
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: seeing in the last couple of election cycles, this has
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: just been a trend that's continued, is it's not as
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: likely that when there's a competitive Senate race and a
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: presidential race, the Senate race goes to one party and
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: the presidential goes to another. So I think in 2016,
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: like if Hillary won a state, then the senators who
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: were competitive in that state, who were in competitive races
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: also won that state, Democratic candidates. If Trump won a state,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: then the Republican candidates were competitive. So the Senate's much
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: more closely linked to the presidential race. So you would
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: expect now if Trump is having some problems, then the
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: Republican candidates in those states are also going to have problems.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: I also think, by the way, that like, We've talked
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: for a long time about how winning the Senate back
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: has been incredibly important, but I do think it's probably
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: even more important now because of the pandemic and the
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: economic fallout, as we heard from Mitch McConnell last week.
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: Week.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Like if Joe Biden wins the presidency and Mitch McConnell
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: is still the Senate majority leader, I do not think
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: anyone should expect any more economic relief, stimulus, anything to
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: come out of that Senate. Mitch McConnell is going to
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: fucking put the brakes on any more stimulus, and he's
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: going to rerun the play that he ran when Obama
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: took office amid the Great Recession. It's just abundantly clear.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: And so I do see winning back the Senate almost
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: as important as winning back the presidency when it comes
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: to digging us out of this economic crisis. All right,
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: let's talk about Our fellow podcast host, Joe Biden, over
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: the weekend, the New York Times and The Washington Post
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: published a pair of deep dives into how the former
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: vice president's campaign is adapting to the pandemic.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: He and Dr.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Biden are holed up in their house with very few staff.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: He's doing Zoom fundraisers and virtual rope lines. He's calling
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: volunteers and first responders to thank them. And he's doing
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: hours of policy briefings about the coronavirus response each day.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: This has reportedly been a tough adjustment for Biden, who
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: truly does love one-on-one campaigning. It's also fueled concern among
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: some Democrats that the Biden folks aren't doing enough to
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: steal the spotlight from Trump. All that said, Harrington wrote
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: a piece for CNN over the weekend arguing that from
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: a polling perspective, what he calls Biden's, quote, invisible campaign
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: is actually working. And he points to some of the
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: polls we just talked about, recent polls from Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: that show Biden with clear leads. And he argues that
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: all the extra coverage is actually hurting Trump and helping Biden.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what do you think about this? Is Harry right?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Is some of the worry overblown there?
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, I think Harry's right in that Trump
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: tends to do worse when the focus of the media's
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: attention is on him, right? I mean, ultimately, when he
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: finally surged against Clinton, it's because we were wasting our
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: time talking about her emails and Comey and all that bullshit.
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: So it's a good contrarian point. It's a good pushback
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: to all the people freaking out and saying, where's Biden?
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Why isn't he getting more coverage? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: That said, like, I don't think we should feel comfortable now.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: I mean, if this is a snapshot of the race
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: in the midst of a pandemic where Trump is getting
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: hammered every day for a failed government response, I think
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: it's entirely about that and not really at all about
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: Biden's campaign. So we know from some good reporting that
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: how he's trying to reach voters. They're doing cable hits,
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: virtual events, virtual rope lines, strategic local TV interviews in
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: swing states. Like all those are very smart things. Is
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: that message really penetrating? Are people seeing him where they
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: need to see him? I just don't know. But I'm
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: sure almost any campaign would tell you like they would
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: like to do more. They would like to reach more people.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: And so some of the articles you mentioned, it does
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: sound like Biden is spending a lot of the time
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: every day prepping for the job of president, which obviously
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: that's important. But if I were his staffer, I would
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: probably argue, let's skip the economic briefing or national security
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: briefing today and just spend another hour doing these local
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: satellite hits in North Carolina or whatever. I do think
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: this thing is going to turn. No one can get cocky.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: The press will get bored of talking about only the coronavirus.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: Trump will attack Biden. They will find a way to
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: make it about him and drive down his numbers. So again,
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: I do think a bit of this is on us.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: The easy things listeners can do is like follow Biden
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, like post things about him,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: about the platform that you like, like be an influencer
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: in your own little online community. Donate a little bit
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: of money if you can, because that's where we should
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: all get really scared is Trump's financial advantage. It is
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: going to be hundreds of millions of dollars and it
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: could swamp any message from Biden.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: You know, part of this is we're in the middle
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: of a pandemic that focuses on the people in charge, right?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: That's why we're talking about governors. That's why we're talking
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: about Trump. So there's some part of it, just sort
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: of exigent circumstances make it hard for Joe Biden to intercede.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: And I do think that they should be looking for
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: places to make news. I think they are doing that.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: So some of this is just the reality of the situation.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: It does remind me a bit of what we were
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: saying during the whole primary where Joe Biden was doing
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: fewer events than virtually any other candidate. And there was
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: an argument made again and again, where's Joe Biden? How
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: can he become the nominee if he's not doing as much,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: if he's not on the trail? And now here we are,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: he's the nominee. I do think what Tommy said about
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: the money is really important. One thing I was thinking
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: about too, because the Biden campaign has been putting out
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: ads and also longer, like one minute, two minute, three
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: minute videos telling a story about a policy, response, what
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: have you. And they're excellent. And what's striking about them is,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: when you take Joe Biden and you edit Joe Biden
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: and you remove some of the halting phrases and some
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: of the places where he's a bit meandering and tries
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: to answer three questions at once, what you're left with
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: is just the pure best version of his message delivered
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: by him. And it's really effective. So part of this too,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: is I think getting them the resources they need to
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: put a lot of money behind those ads is going
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: to be increasingly important if he's campaigning from home.
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: You can tell that, you know, One indication that Harry's
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: analysis is right is that it's bothering the Trump campaign
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: that Biden isn't getting as much coverage. Because what they
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: want to do is define Joe Biden before he can
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: define himself. And what the Biden campaign seems to be
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: doing is... They think that a generic Democrat would beat
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump in this environment because people are sick of
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump, his approval ratings are falling, and they just
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: basically want to be that generic Democrat. And the slight
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: advantage Joe Biden has is, compared to many of the
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: other people he ran against in the primary, some of
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: the newer candidates, he is fairly well known. So unlike, say,
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: John Kerry against George W. Bush in 2004, Most people
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: can identify Joe Biden. They know he was Barack Obama's president.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: So he has that baseline of of people who know
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: who he is. I do think to your point, Tommy,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: there's you know, there's still that doesn't mean that they
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: should rest on their laurels. This thing is fucking far
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: from over and will turn a million more times. You know,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: Jason Goldman, who was the chief digital officer in the
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Obama White House, he talked to Dan on Thursday after
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: he talked to Dan about some of the stuff. He
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: wrote a Medium post that I think is really smart
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: and everyone should go look at. He talked about how
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden is never going to catch up with Donald
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Trump in terms of followers on Twitter, YouTube, all these
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: social media channels. But what he can be doing is
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: sort of what he's doing in terms of local media
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: on television, doing all these local television interviews, but do
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: it digitally. So he should be using existing channels with
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: a large reach already to find persuadable voters that aren't
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: sort of his own YouTube channel, his own Twitter feed, right? Like,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: He did Desus and Mero on Showtime a couple of
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: weeks ago.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: It was great, right?
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: Desus and Mero has an entire audience that Joe Biden
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: will never reach with Joe Biden's own media channels, his
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Twitter and stuff like that. He could, you know, I
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: saw that his podcast is getting 40,000 downloads an episode
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: in the Washington Post story. He could, for example, come
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: on our podcast.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we reach more than 40,000 people. Oh, he's getting 40,000 downloads.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: So a friend of mine.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: If you wanted to promote his podcast, he could probably
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: come on this show.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. And then he never has to
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: talk to us again.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Because it's almost like doing his podcast 50 times.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: So well put.
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, a friend of mine recommended last night, like, hey,
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: why isn't Biden tweeting about the Jordan documentary?
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: And you know what?
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: I don't know if Joe Biden is a big NBA fan,
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: if he's ever met Michael Jordan or You wouldn't want
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: to be authentic sounding. But that is a huge cultural
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: conversation that's happening online. That's not about the coronavirus that
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: lets you introduce yourself to voters who might not be
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: watching CNN or or, you know, talk about something that
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: shows who you are in a different way. And I
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: do think like finding those opportunities is important.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: Like you don't have to match Trump's 73 million Twitter followers,
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: but like do what AOC does and have conversations on
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: Instagram live or whatever with people who have big audiences.
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: And you know, you guys are like half kidding about
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: booking Biden on PSA, but like the best way to,
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: you don't have time to build a huge podcast audience
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: and nor like that's not an end in and of itself.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: You're just trying to reach people.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: So if you're spending.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Hours and hours and hours on the thing that's getting
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: downloaded 40,000 times, that's probably not a better use of
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: time than going on like Tim Ferriss's show, right? Not
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: about politics does huge numbers. It's not people seeking out
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: political views. You might reach Republican swing voters. Like There
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: was a big dust up with Bernie and Joe Rogan.
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: Like you can think his views are wrong. You can
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: think they're offensive, but have a conversation with him, change
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: his mind, push back on those views, and then reach
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: that audience that otherwise will hear like a shittier, like
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: alt-righty sounding conversation more often, right? Like I do think
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: you have to get out of the bubble of people
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: that are searching out political news or coronavirus news to
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: reach new folks.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I'd also say too that, first of all, yes, the
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Jordan documentary also, um, sometimes 90th birthday, another option, uh,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: for those that were only familiar with one and not
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the other, uh, Christine Baranski was on the dream team. Uh, so, but, but,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: but I'd also say too, is that, um, you know,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: there was one, one study looked at sort of, you know,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Trump's hours and hours and hours and hours in the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: briefing room. And I think that, that, that the sum
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: total of the moments in which he's expressed empathy, uh, Uh,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: for victims was something I think like, was it four
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: and a half minutes, four and a half minutes total
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: of empathy. And I was thinking about what Joe Biden
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: can do in that and taking moments to just, uh, um,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: do basically a political presidential, um, yous, thank yous to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: nurses and doctors. Also, you know, summer is coming. And
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: when it's here, people are going to want to be
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: out and about. They're going to start bending the rules.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: And there's no voice at the national level thanking Americans
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: for doing the hard thing of quarantining, right? Of like,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: thank you for what you're doing. It seems like it's exhausting.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: You're staying home. It feels like you're not doing anything,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: but actually you're doing something really important for the country.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: There's no one really offering that. And that is something
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: that I think Joe Biden can do. And it would
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: contrast with what Trump fails to do.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: That's all.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: And look, I mean, it is the end of April, right?
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: He has become the presumptive nominee faster than most. So
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: he's got time. I do think the most important things
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: he can be doing right now are A, raising money,
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: And be sort of assembling a staff for the general
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: and staffing up and figuring out policy and all that
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: kind of stuff. But, you know, it may turn out
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: to be true that not being Donald Trump is all
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: he needs to win. But like, don't want to bet
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: on that. And like you said, love it. Like they
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: do have sort of an ability because Trump. we're in
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: the middle of a pandemic to control the message a
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: bit more than usual, control what you hear from Biden
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: more than usual when he's just sort of at a
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: rally spouting things off. So you might as well use
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: that advantage to present the best case for Joe Biden
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: to as many people as possible and reach them where
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: they already are instead of trying to turn their attention
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: to the Biden media apparatus. Find them where they are
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: and present your best case.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: You just sort of.
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: There's also the constant challenge with Donald Trump of him
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: doing 40 offensive things a day, and you can't talk
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: about all of them because then people learn about none
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: of them. And I do think that the Biden campaign
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: can help focus people on the right things because the
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: problem is if Trump in any way insults the press
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: corps or asks someone to move CNN from the front
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: row to the back row, that's obviously a ridiculous, shitty,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: offensive thing that shouldn't happen. But the press corps likes
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: nothing more than to report on his attacks on the
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: First Amendment or his criticisms of them and to retweet
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: how great their colleagues are. Like this story about Trump
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: forcing the West Point cadets to return to campus, to
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: quarantine for two weeks, to maybe be alone, to maybe
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: not have their families is one of the most selfish
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: acts I have ever heard of in my fucking life.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: Then you're going to deploy these kids overseas to war.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: You should be talking about that every single day until
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: this bullshit idea is canceled. And like, I'd love to
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: see Biden carrying that message constantly.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that is fucking crazy. And it also is like,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: it is the ideal contrast with Joe Biden, right? Who
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: was like very good at showing empathy and, uh, and
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: helping people grieve.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Whose son served and lost his life. I mean, not
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: related to war, but yeah.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: And then versus Donald Trump, who's like putting kids at risk,
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: who are already risking their lives to serve their country
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: just so he gets a photo op. Um, Let's dig
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: into Biden's message, particularly as it relates to the economic crisis.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: He did an interview with Politico's Michael Grunwald, where he
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: was fairly populist and combative in a way I haven't
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: heard in a while from him. He hit the big
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: banks for not lending enough money fast enough to small businesses, saying, quote,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: this is the second time we've bailed their asses out.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: And they quote, they're only alive because the American taxpayer.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: He said the next economic stimulus bill should be, quote,
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: a hell of a lot bigger than the last bill,
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: which was two trillion dollars. And he used his own
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: management of the 2009 Recovery Act to hit the Trump administration, saying, quote,
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: there's no coordination.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: There's no accountability. Come on.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: The guy waits to hold up money because he wants
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: to make sure his name is on the checks. What
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: do you guys think of this interview and message from Biden?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: It was it was strong. I mean, that's it was
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: the most sort of direct and well articulated an argument
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: for the kind of stimulus he would seek would be.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: I appreciated him coming back to the checkpoint because it
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: was a little bit of a non sequitur where he
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: dropped it, but he clearly needed to get that in.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: He wanted to hit Trump on the checks. I do
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: think you see someone trying to strike a more populist
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: note and that, you know, the conversations he's having with
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: the left and the party, whether it's around these sort
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: of policy groups or his conversations with Bernie or his
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: conversations with his advisors about how he has to shift
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: to appeal to the broadest coalition of Democratic voters is
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: in there and coming out as he's speaking.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I thought.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what'd you think?
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: I loved hearing it. I loved it.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, listen, Democrats, we have this responsibility gene that
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: flows through everything we do and makes us less savvy
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: politically right now. Because I think Democrats understand we need these,
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: the CARES Act one and two to work. We need
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: like massive government intervention to get people back on their feet.
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: And so you don't want to, you know, undercut that
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: process in any way if it'll have long-term ramifications. But
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: it was great to hear Biden calling out bullshit that
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: was in the earliest forms of the relief, right? Like
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: specifically saying we need massive aid to states and cities.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: That's important.
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: It's a marker we should lay down, not only to
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: push Trump, but also to push Schumer and Pelosi. He
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: was talking about we got to make sure that cops
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: and firefighters get paid and don't run out of money.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: He was talking about the lack of oversight. He was saying,
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: you know, of the banks, this is the second time
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: we bailed their asses out.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: Like, I think that's great.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: He needs to outflank Trump in terms of populism. If
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: that creates some discomfort for Chuck and Nancy, I'm totally
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: cool with that. I imagine the rest of the House
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: Democrats in particular are cool with that because a lot
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: of these deals are getting cut between Pelosi and Mnuchin
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: and Schumer through leadership.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: So more of this. Do this all the time.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: I was really happy to read this. I mean, I
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: think there's two sort of essential messages for the general
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: election for Biden. One, he's already nailed because it was
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: basically his primary campaign message, which is what we saw
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: in that or what we heard about in that Axios
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: focus group of Obama-Trump voters. They want competent leadership. It's
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: not going to divide the country against each other. They
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: want to sort of pull people together. So Biden's got
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: that covered. But there's another essential message that is because
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: of this economic crisis and the rage and despair that
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: so many people are going to be feeling for a
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: long time who are out of work or have seen
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: their wages cut or don't have health care. And if
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: he can't channel that, you know, he's going to be
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: in trouble. And I think we're now seeing him start
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: to channel that anger in a really important way. And again, like,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: you know, hope he does it on television interviews in
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: a whole bunch of different ways instead of just a
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: political interview. But, you know, if that's a reflection of
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: what his team's going to look like, his policies, then
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: that's a very good sign. On that note, there is
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: a balance he has to strike. You know, on Thursday,
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Bloomberg reported that one of the people who Biden has
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: been getting economic advice from is Larry Summers, a veteran
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: of the Clinton and Obama administrations who's managed quite a
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: few economic crises, but is also viewed by progressives as
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: too centrist and too lax when it comes to regulating
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: the banks. And a number of these groups called on
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Biden to remove Summers from his list of advisors. How
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: big of a deal do you think the Summers thing is?
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: It feels like a very Twitter-focused controversy. I mean, look,
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: Larry Summers is one of the few people on the
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: planet who has been a part of an effort to
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: rescue an economy. I think it's worth hearing him. But
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: it's also notable that during his time at the White House...
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: Biden's like econ guy was someone named Jared Bernstein, who
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: was seen as too progressive, too far to the left.
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: He was criticized by Wall Street. So this would be
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: an opportunity, I think, for Biden to use some of
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: his own channels, like sit down, have a conversation with
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: Jared Bernstein about what should be in the next round
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: of the CARES Act. Like, what do you want to
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: see in it? Flesh out a bunch of progressive priorities
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: in a long and thoughtful way that speaks to what
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: you really believe and want to see happen and gets
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: you around a headline that you like dared to call
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: Larry Summers. You don't have to like Larry Summers. A
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: lot of people don't, but he's a smart economist. So
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: maybe give him a call.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Lovett? I know you're a huge
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Larry fan. You know, I.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Actually, you know, Larry's a very, very smart, very, very
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: strange man.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: You and I have worked with him on speeches, we know.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: We've worked with him on speeches. You have to, listen,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I have sat in a room with Larry Summers as
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: he kind of waxes economic and try to take what
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: he's saying and try to translate it into human English.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: So I've been there. He's one advisor among many. I
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: actually understand why his critics would blow a gasket because
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: he's not just to the right of where they want.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: He's also really smart and effective about getting his point
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: of view reflected in policy. That said, he's one of
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: a bunch of advisors. And Joe Biden should absolutely be
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: free to talk to a full range of advisors from
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: the far left to the Larry Summers wing and use
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: that to help synthesize the best but also more progressive policy.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So I just see it as a short-term small controversy.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: And the way you answer it is, as Tommy said,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: is by making sure that what you actually end up
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: advocating for is progressive in a way that sort of
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: fulfills the expectations of a lot of people who are
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: getting behind Joe Biden.
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, there's only a handful of people in
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: the world who have managed to governments through economic crises
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: larry summers is one of them so if you're going
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: to call larry up as someone who first of all
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: he knows them because he worked with them and as
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: someone who who has been through economic crises for advice
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: that's fine if you're just calling them informally for advice
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: it's very different than him saying like yeah he's floating
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: larry's name for fucking treasury secretary right then then you
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: know then we can all have our debate about that
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: um but i do think You're right. Like if, you know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: the same story said he's still relying on Jared Bernstein
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: and a whole bunch of others. I know the Biden
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: campaign is talking to a lot of progressive groups. This
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: goes back to sort of a conversation we've had before. Like,
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: you know, it might be a good idea for Biden
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: to start announcing members of his economic team or people
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: who he's going to be that are going to be,
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: you know, he's going to be relying on advice from.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: in the White House and floating names. And, you know,
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: the Biden campaign can do a lot to sort of
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: allay progressives fear over this while still saying, yeah, he's
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: going to call a wide range of people for advice sometimes.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: And that's just how it's going to be.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think part of this, I think whether
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: it's what he's advocating for in terms of what should
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: be in the next round of stimulus, who he's talking
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: to as he's generating new policies, you kind of see
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the push and pull of sort of the political challenges
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: of the situation he's in. In that, people are saying like,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: where is Joe Biden? Why isn't Joe Biden in the fight? Well,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: one way he can get more in the fight is
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: having a stronger, more specific set of positions he's advocating
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: for in a stimulus. It can be in announcing policies
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: he would pursue as president and announcing the members of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: his staff, putting out there that who he's talking to
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and what he's talking about. Now, that may get him
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: more coverage. That may get people to understand what kind
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: of president it would be. But also, with that comes
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of scrutiny. And some of that scrutiny will
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: have downsides and have risks. So I think that's sort
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: of the balance.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: And then in short of that, though, you could do
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: a little roundtable conversation with Katie Porter, Elizabeth Warren, and
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: Pramila Jayapal, who endorsed today, who would offer you a thoughtful, well-informed,
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: progressive view of how to go forward, let the press
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: hear it, let them cover it, make it part of
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: the conversation about this next package of relief that should
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: come out of Congress. And that would be a net
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: benefit in many ways.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe Biden even skips it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: All right. On that note, when we come back, we
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: will have Lovett's interview with Senator Brian Schatz.
• 41:09
  Speaker 8: Hi, I'm Patrick Radden Keefe, and I'm a reporter at
• 41:11
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• 41:15
  Speaker 8: I investigate a rumor I haven't been able to shake
• 41:17
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• 41:20
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• 41:23
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• 41:26
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• 41:28
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• 41:31
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• 41:34
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• 41:41
  Speaker 2: He's the senior senator from the great state of Hawaii,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: and he's so good at Twitter, he makes Chris Murphy
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: look like Chuck Grassley. Please welcome back Senator Brian Schatz.
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, John. Very fun to see you.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: So Senator Schatz, first of all, it's good to see you.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: How are you and your family doing right now?
• 42:00
  Speaker 7: Everybody's okay. Kids are in school, such as it is.
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: They're doing distance learning and where I'm in my bedroom
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: and everybody's sort of ensconced and trying to get as
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: much work done as possible, but we're safe. And Hawaii
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: has done a really good job in lowering the case
• 42:17
  Speaker 7: count and in doing a sufficient number of testing. So
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: everybody's safe and sound and the economy is awful, but
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: our healthcare situation, at least over the last month, has
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: been exactly what we expected given the restrictive measures we took.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Hawaii is a state that is more dependent on tourism
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: than most. What has it been like in Hawaii? What
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: are people doing to get through this time? What are
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: you hoping to see in terms of stimulus to directly
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: help places like Hawaii?
• 42:48
  Speaker 7: Well, it's a ghost town. I mean, we walked through Waikiki.
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: Just to give you context, it's 10 million visitors a
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: year across the state of Hawaii. And now we're getting
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: fewer than 100 a day. which is appropriate in terms
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: of making sure that we don't get overrun with coronavirus cases.
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: But every Waikiki hotel is shut. Everybody who works in
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: tourism is out of a job. It's hard to know
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: the number precisely, but certainly 30% unemployment sounds about right.
• 43:20
  Speaker 7: So people are really, really suffering. Everybody seems to be
• 43:26
  Speaker 7: following the rules, but it is deeply, deeply painful. And
• 43:30
  Speaker 7: I'm sure you see this in LA and everybody sees
• 43:33
  Speaker 7: it from where they're from. A lot of local institutions,
• 43:37
  Speaker 7: small ones especially, are on the edge of shutting down
• 43:40
  Speaker 7: and never reopening. So that's sort of hitting home for
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: a lot of folks at Leaky Leaky Drive-In, this old
• 43:47
  Speaker 7: drive-in that everybody grew up going to finally shut down forever.
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: And so we're just trying to make sure that our
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: small businesses, our institutions are And our families can survive
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: this kind of short-term extinction event. And then we come
• 44:01
  Speaker 7: out the other end, we can talk about some structural
• 44:03
  Speaker 7: reforms to make sure we're less vulnerable in the future.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about what we can do in this emergency.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: You know, we hear a lot about what's happening with
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: phase four in the Senate. A lot of that coming
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: down to a fight over funding to support first responders
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: and others that are funded through state and local governments.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: What's the latest on the negotiations right now?
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: Well, I don't think there are really negotiations right now.
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: I think Mitch McConnell is taking extreme positions in order
• 44:32
  Speaker 7: to make it look like if we get to the
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: middle that that's some big progressive victory. But there's a
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: couple of things. First, defunding the post office. If the
• 44:39
  Speaker 7: Republicans want to take defunding the post office to the
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: electorate this year, they can be my guest. But the
• 44:46
  Speaker 7: truth is that funding for the United States Postal Service
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: is both essential under normal circumstances, but especially essential during
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: a pandemic situation. And it is deeply unpopular to defund
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: the post office. So we're not going to haggle over that.
• 45:01
  Speaker 7: We're just going to fund the post office. That's not
• 45:04
  Speaker 7: something we have to trade for. And likewise, as it
• 45:06
  Speaker 7: relates to funding states and counties, Republican governors, Republican mayors,
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: they are all going to their individual senators and members
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: of the House and say, don't die on this hill
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: for us. We need these resources. And as we imagine,
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: even in a best case scenario where we can do
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: a partial reopening and or even an eventually more fulsome reopening,
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: you're going to need your first responders and you're certainly
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: going to need to fund your school systems because at
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: least half the world can't go back to work if
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: their kids are still doing distance learning from home. So
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: the opening of the education system, the capacity of the
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: healthcare system, the full funding for first responders is an
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: essential aspect of recovery. We're not going to let Republicans
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: turn this into a left-right issue, especially when the National
• 45:56
  Speaker 7: Governors Association unanimously, all of the governors in the country,
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: asked for $ 500 billion, not because it reflects their view
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: about the right size and scale of the state government,
• 46:11
  Speaker 7: but because this is a desperate situation and we've got
• 46:14
  Speaker 7: to fund the people on the front lines.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: So, you know, you've seen McConnell in the past few
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: days strike out a bunch of maximal positions. One was
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: that he wasn't sure there was a need for any
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: more stimulus that we've already spent too much. The other
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: was to your point about saying that he doesn't see
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: the value of rescuing states, even though states are in
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: the midst of mounting an unprecedented response to this virus,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: while at the same time having no revenue because every
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: business is closed and people aren't paying taxes. People aren't
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: paying for the services that they normally pay for, at
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: least to a large extent. How much of that is
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Is that pure posturing? Is this just a means for
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: him to create leverage because if he says he needs
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: a bill, he's lost the one option he has, which
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: is to walk away?
• 47:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's right. I think this is pure posturing.
• 47:06
  Speaker 7: I think the deal will be cut eventually. I think
• 47:10
  Speaker 7: Nancy Pelosi will go first and put together a draft
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: of a bill, which we're going to like. And then
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump is going to.
• 47:20
  Speaker 7: Deputize Steve Mnuchin to negotiate with all of us. And look,
• 47:25
  Speaker 7: it's a clunky system and it's the result of the
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: Senate being run by Republicans and a result of the
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: president being the president. But we're going to get to
• 47:35
  Speaker 7: a deal eventually. And I'm not particularly troubled by Mitch
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: McConnell's posturing because I don't think he will win in
• 47:41
  Speaker 7: the end.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: So in terms of what people listening can do, you know,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: for reasons that I understand, you know, A lot of
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: these negotiations have been Pelosi and the administration, Pelosi, Schumer,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: McConnell and the administration kind of hammering things out relatively
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: quickly because of the scale of the emergency. But at
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: the same time, there are a lot of ways in
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: which Congress can bring in the views of Americans and
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Americans can have their voices heard in this process to
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: create pressure that feel more difficult right now. You know,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: at Crooked, we've been pushing people to call on senators
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: for vote by mail. Where are the hinge points that
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: you see right now where people listening should be calling
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: their members to push their Congress people, push their senators
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: on to kind of make sure we get the most
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: progressive and most helpful bill out of these negotiations?
• 48:32
  Speaker 7: Well, I think voting rights is a good place to
• 48:34
  Speaker 7: focus because it's the high ground and because the Republicans
• 48:37
  Speaker 7: are legitimately awful as it relates to voting rights. You
• 48:40
  Speaker 7: saw what they did in Wisconsin. You see what they
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: are trying to do in New Hampshire to prevent students
• 48:46
  Speaker 7: from voting. in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in Georgia,
• 48:50
  Speaker 7: all over the country, they are making it central to
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: their strategy to make it difficult to vote. And it's
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: always disgusting to do that, but it's especially disgusting when
• 49:00
  Speaker 7: you're asking people to take a physical risk in order
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: to exercise their constitutional franchise. So that is a great
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: place to focus. I also think state and local funding
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: is essential. These are your teachers and your firefighters and
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: your nurses. and your cleaners, and I and I just
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: want to emphasize, you know one important aspect of this
• 49:21
  Speaker 7: pandemic has caused us to realize that these people that
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: we call essential are the people that we pay the
• 49:28
  Speaker 7: Least and so when we talk about our public officials,
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: it's very common to talk about teachers nurses and firefighters
• 49:35
  Speaker 7: but it's also the people who clean facilities and It's
• 49:38
  Speaker 7: also the people who pick up our refuse. It's the
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: people who make it possible for us to have sufficient
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: sanitation and sufficient confidence in that that we can start
• 49:48
  Speaker 7: to reopen buildings and reopen operations. And so that is
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: something worth fighting for. And just tactically, even though a
• 49:56
  Speaker 7: lot of these negotiations are not happening on the Senate floor,
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: you can still hammer your senator's office's phones Everybody's still
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: picking up the phone. Everybody is still picking up their email.
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: Most offices are operational. And so the same tactics calling
• 50:13
  Speaker 7: your member still work.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: So the last financial crisis a decade ago, Mitch McConnell
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: had a very different position on large influxes of cash
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: to save an economy. He basically kind of tried to
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: thwart President Obama viewing his job is to make him
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: a one-term president. Obviously, McConnell's taking a different tack now,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: but if we are so fortunate as to elect a
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Democratic president, we will once again see Republicans become intransigent,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: suddenly rediscover the deficit, suddenly rediscover spending. Are there steps
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: that Democrats should be taking right now to inoculate our
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: economy from future sabotage when we will almost certainly in 2021,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: hopefully under a Democratic president, need to continue to take
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: action to help people?
• 51:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's a really important point, but it's
• 51:09
  Speaker 7: actually hard to talk about because we have to win first, right?
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to win first.
• 51:14
  Speaker 7: And so we have to win first, but we don't
• 51:16
  Speaker 7: have the luxury of saying, hey, we've got to win first.
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: I do think we should be pursuing things like automatic
• 51:22
  Speaker 7: triggers for the availability of unemployment insurance and even the
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: PPP program. We ought to consider whether or not automatic
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: triggers makes sense so that it's not up to the
• 51:32
  Speaker 7: discretion of Mitch McConnell to decide whether to tank the economy,
• 51:38
  Speaker 7: depending on who's in charge of the executive branch. But
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: you make a really important point, which is everybody needs
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: to know that the op-eds are going to start flying
• 51:48
  Speaker 7: in October, November, and December, and all of these anti-deficit
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: groups are suddenly going to find religion again and say,
• 51:55
  Speaker 7: we got through that, but now we face a new crisis.
• 51:59
  Speaker 7: And that crisis is the debt and the deficit and
• 52:02
  Speaker 7: responsible people. The only thing we can do is cut
• 52:05
  Speaker 7: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We couldn't possibly reverse the
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: tax cuts that we passed three years ago. We couldn't
• 52:13
  Speaker 7: possibly find any new revenue or close the carried interest loophole.
• 52:17
  Speaker 7: The only way, the only responsible way to deal with this,
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: according to many Republicans and pundits in Washington, D.C., is
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: going to be reduced entitlements for people for whom their
• 52:28
  Speaker 7: average income Social Security check is $ 1, 400 a month.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: So now, one way we can avoid Mitch McConnell exerting
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: this power is by winning the Senate. You know, you
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: talked about winning first. There have been a flurry of
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: stories in the past few days suggesting that the Senate
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: is more in reach now than we previously thought. What
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: is the latest on Democratic efforts to win the Senate?
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: And where are you most hopeful? Where do you think
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: listeners should be directing their resources right now?
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: Well, yeah, the field is wide. Look, we could do
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: poorly this election cycle or we could do well, and
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: nobody really knows. And I've gotten out of the business
• 53:09
  Speaker 7: of predicting. But I will say that we have more
• 53:13
  Speaker 7: than four races to work with. You're North Carolina, Arizona, Maine, Iowa,
• 53:19
  Speaker 7: Colorado are your first cut. But we also have Kansas
• 53:22
  Speaker 7: and Montana and South Carolina and and Texas and Kentucky
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: and the two seats in Georgia. Now, all of those
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: are winnable races. The likelihood that we win say all
• 53:33
  Speaker 7: nine or 10 of those pretty low, but the important
• 53:36
  Speaker 7: aspect of this, and I just encourage everybody to do this,
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: do not just contribute money and contribute your time to
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: the person running against the person you hate the most.
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: We really do need to spread the love around and
• 53:48
  Speaker 7: make sure that every single one of those races is
• 53:51
  Speaker 7: in play because we just don't know who's going to
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: be the next Heidi Heitkamp or Jon Tester or Joe Donnelly,
• 53:58
  Speaker 7: the unexpected Democratic win of this cycle. And if we
• 54:02
  Speaker 7: only have four well-funded candidates, then we have to run
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: the table on all four of those and not lose
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: anything else. And so it's really important to expand the
• 54:12
  Speaker 7: playing field, which means that you guys, all your viewers,
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: may want to do your own research and not just
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: donate to the sort of most famous Senate candidate of
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: this cycle, whomever that ends up being.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do want to plug, if you go
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: to votesaveamerica.com slash getmitch, you can donate to our Get
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Mitch Fund that's supporting a bunch of different races at
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: once and will kind of spread your money around because
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: it is now such a wide field. One last question, Senator.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: You know, this is an incredibly dark time. There's a
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: lot of people hurting. Every day we have the president.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: playing an amateur epidemiologist slash pharmacist slash doctor on television.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: But there's a real chance here that Democrats could win,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: keep the House, win the White House, and potentially even
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: take the Senate. Can you talk a little bit about
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: how much our politics change if we all do our
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: part and make that happen, that just how different our
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: economic policies would look if right now there were Democrats
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: doing the legislating?
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: Everything would be different. Everything would be different from the
• 55:21
  Speaker 7: top to the bottom, from the way you would deal
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: with a pandemic in the first place to the way
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: you would structure your economic response. All of it would
• 55:30
  Speaker 7: be different. And it's not just this pandemic, although that's
• 55:34
  Speaker 7: top of mind for every single person in the country.
• 55:36
  Speaker 7: It's also what we do with climate. It's how we
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: treat each other. It's the extent to which we can
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: believe our government. And I just would like to offer
• 55:45
  Speaker 7: one thing, because I know you've got plenty and plenty
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: of viewers here. If you are currently a person who
• 55:51
  Speaker 7: sort of consumes political content like you consume other content,
• 55:55
  Speaker 7: so you have a predisposition towards love it and you
• 55:58
  Speaker 7: like political content and you think it's entertaining and you
• 56:02
  Speaker 7: root for the Democrats, you have to transition right now
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: from a political consumer of news to a political actor.
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: And that's what's going to be the difference in this
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: election cycle. We all have to go from passive consumers,
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: political hobbyists, to figuring out what material act you're going
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: to take in the next two or three weeks to
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: change the course of history. Because democracy is not what
• 56:25
  Speaker 7: we have, it's what we do. We all have to
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: get involved. If we all get involved, we're going to
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: be very successful this cycle. If everybody sort of treats
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: political activism like, replying to someone they disagree with on
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: Twitter and listening to a few liberal podcasts, that ain't
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: going to get it. We really all have to personally
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: get involved.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Everyone has to get personally involved. You have to do
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: more than just listen to this show. If you haven't called.
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: That's an important start.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Look, it's important. Obviously, keep listening, keep downloading to podcasts.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: That's critical. But you have to do more. And if
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: you haven't yet, now is the time. You've been listening
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: to Pod Save America for now three years and you've
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: yet to pick up the phone. It's time to pick
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: up the phone. Senator Brian Schatz, thank you so much.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Are you at all concerned about what happens when Chris
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Murphy hears my dumb joke that I started this interview with?
• 57:17
  Speaker 7: I am a bit concerned about that because, you know,
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: we're like brothers.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, you're like brothers. Have you been Zooming? Have you Zoomed?
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: No, we're like brothers who are competitive with each other.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 57:30
  Speaker 7: Brothers who Zoom with each other.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Brothers.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Is it brothers with like a Kennedy-esque overbearing father who
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: set you against each other your entire lives and left
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: you nothing but a husk of ambition in an effort
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: to destroy the other?
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm not sure how to respond to that, John,
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: but that sounds... Pretty good. Would Chuck Schumer be our
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: Kennedy-esque overbearing father? Okay.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, great.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Senator Brian Schatz, thank you. Stay safe, stay healthy. And
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: thanks for joining us.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Take care.
• 57:59
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Senator Schatz for joining us today. And we
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: will talk to you guys later.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: What's up, boys?
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: What's happening?
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Why do we have to?
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, we guess we can end the show. We
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: didn't even talk about Alex Azar getting fired.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: Oh, no.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Or not getting fired.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Not Alex Azar.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Or did he get fired?
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: No. There's all these floats that he might get fired.
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Azar's the one. Azar's responsible. Once Azar's out of here,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: we'll be smooth sailing. Got to get rid of Azar.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: It's funny because on paper, he actually is qualified. He
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: was deputy HHS secretary under Bush. But he's just such
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: a political hack that it is amazing that he was
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: able to fuck this up so badly. I mean, like,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: I love a good labradoodle, but why would you have
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: a dog breeder as your head political guy for six years?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: So barking up the wrong tree with that guy.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: I also felt.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Should have hit pause.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: I felt fairly good that we did not cover any
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: number of the crazy tweets that Donald Trump let loose yesterday.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I was watching them on Sunday and I'm like.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: you know what?
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: He is like desperate for attention now. I mean, to
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: our point earlier, it does feel even.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: Are we doing the show or are we not doing
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: the show? This is getting so meta.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: Is this an outro?
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I think we're in an outro.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I think it's a fun long outro for the true fans.
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: Well, it's like, you know, now we're just listing things
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: off that we didn't do. It's the, like the Nobel tree.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: When he confused the Nobel for the Pulitzer Prize.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Was that what was going on? He confused the Nobel
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: for the Pulitzer.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And then he spelled Nobel wrong too. I don't know
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: who the fuck cares.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Spelled it Nobel.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: We're in the middle of a pandemic. Seems like there
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: are bigger issues. But then what the president's tweeting about
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: every day.
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: But then he pretended that he meant noble, misspelled, because
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: they are not noble because they're journalists and they're a
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: fake news bat. So he's always right.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Bad stuff, guys.
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: Bad stuff.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: Bad president.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Idiot.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: All righty. We'll talk to you later.
• 59:59
  Speaker 7: Bye, guys.
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: Bye. Bye.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: Milo Kemp, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: every week.