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“Thanksgiving mailbag.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Today's pod is our annual Thanksgiving mailbag.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: where we answer some of the great questions you've asked
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: on social media over the last week. And some not-so-great questions.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And some not-so-great questions. Yeah, well, you'll know which ones
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: those are.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Pundit just peed on the rug in here. It's happening
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: right now. Just let it finish. Just let her finish.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: What is going on with you?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: She is five years old. That was crazy.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Good girl, Pundit.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: What the fuck? You know what?
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: That's about the right level of respect for us. Continue.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And joining us later in the pod is our good
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: friend and new father, Adi Barkin. We'll hear from Adi.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Before that, a few quick housekeeping notes. There's a brand
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: new episode of Tommy's On the Ground in Iowa series
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in your feeds right now. You want to tell us
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: more about episode two, Tom?
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, if you've ever wondered why Iowa gets to
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: go first, we'll walk through that history. If you want
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: to understand how the caucuses work, we'll explain that and
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: we'll actually take you to a caucus location in 2016
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: and talk through some very important rule changes this year
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: that could change the way people see the results. And
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: we'll go to a house party with undecided voters outside
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: of Des Moines. We'll spend more time with the field
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: organizers we met in episode one. And I think you
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: will like that part the most because they're awesome. But
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: then if you hate Iowa and you think it sucks
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: and shouldn't be first, stay tuned for episode three.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Also, the first season of America Dissected with Abdul El-Sayed
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is now completely out. And Thanksgiving break is the perfect
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: time to catch up on this fantastic series if you
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: have not had a chance to check it out. Finally...
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: We've got some new merch on cricket.com. We got holiday merch.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: We got gay news shirts. We got call Congress sweatshirts
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that are, I'm told, the softest ones we've ever made.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Which ones?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I guess the call Congress.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, cool.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Softer than.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Softer than gay news?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Softer than the Republican response to. Donald Trump's crimes.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: The Gay News shirts are legitimately really cool shirts.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I definitely was thinking we should do a funny picture
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: where you two are in the Gay News shirt and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I'm not and I'm just furious between you.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: And you're in a Patriots jersey.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I will always be a prop. Okay, so make sure
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: you're following at Crooked Media on Instagram to find out
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: all the new merch that we'll be dropping all season long.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just doing the marketing stuff.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I think Pundit thinks that rug is outside. I think
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: she thinks that's grass.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we can have a whole bunch of excuses. Okay,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: let's get to the mailbag. And we're going to start
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: with a few questions about impeachment. Indigo Swirl on Twitter asks,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that's my favorite part of doing this. If the House
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: votes for impeachment, how will Senate proceedings differ from the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: ones we are watching?
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Is that Indica or Sativa?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I think just tell us, just tell us how much
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: more or less pizzazz there will be in the Senate.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I think we can actually expect more pizzazz in part
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: because this is now going to be, as Trump said
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: himself on Twitter, home turf. And congratulations to all the
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Republican senators who now are viewed by Donald Trump as
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the home team, the home team owned.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: He's probably right.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Probably right.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: But this will be a trial, uh, in which Republicans, uh,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: will be in control of the majority, uh, and we'll, uh, uh,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: determine the rules. It will be presided over by Chief
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Judge John Roberts. How this all plays out, we don't know.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Justice. What'd I say?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: You called him Chief Judge.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Sticking with it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And what the Senate will do, the predictions have run
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: the gamut from conservatives saying that they should drag the
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: trial out for six months to try to make it
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: about everything but Ukraine, all the way to conservatives saying
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: that it should be dismissed without ever having a trial.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Those happen to be both arguments made by Hugh Hewitt.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Latest reporting is they're thinking about two weeks. That's reporting
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: from Senate Republicans and people who know about Senate Republicans
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and the White House on background. So we'll see. But
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: it could change.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: It could change.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Can I ask you guys a question?
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: So there was a good piece in, I think, New
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: York Magazine about all the rules and how it works.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: And I think the key thing people need to know
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: is that the Constitution writes very little about the rules
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: of impeachment. It's really all deferred to the House and
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: the Senate, and so they get to pick a lot
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: of these things. But there's a question about how much
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: senators are or are not allowed to speak about the
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: trial during the trial. Obviously, you're a juror, so you
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: sit there silently. But there seems to be a question
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: about whether they're allowed to discuss it after the hearings
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: are over or on the weekends or whatever, which if
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: there's a gag rule on them, that is materially different
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: for those running for president and would be a big deal.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: It would.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: So I think, I mean, as you said, Tommy, what
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the Constitution says about the Senate trial is only that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the chief justice presides and that you need two-thirds to convict.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: That's all it says. After that, it depends on what
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: the Senate rules are. You know, the Republicans control the Senate.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: There was a note in that piece that you talked about, Tommy,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that Ed Kilgore wrote in New York Magazine that in
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the Clinton impeachment, there was unanimous consent, meaning everyone agreed
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: on what the rules of the Senate trial were. I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: find it hard to believe that there'll be unanimous consent
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: on the rules this time around. But it does show
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: you how much leeway Mitch McConnell has to set the rules.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: What has happened in the past, what should happen is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: there are House managers who who act like prosecutors. So
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a few House members, Democrats, will present the Democrats' case
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: for impeachment because presumably the House at that point will
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: have voted to impeach the president. And so the House
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: managers will act as prosecutors. They will present the case.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Both sides will be able to call witnesses. But again,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: whether those witnesses are accepted or everything else, it's all
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: going to be set up by these rules in advance
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that the Senate agrees on. Now, the only thing is
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: for Mitch McConnell to set these rules, he needs, of course,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: 51 votes. So if he tries to pull anything too shady,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you could imagine a scenario where a Susan Collins,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Elisa Murkowski or Cory Gardner, some of those people, Mitt Romney,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: even people who might ultimately vote to acquit Trump may
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: say to themselves, eh, I don't know if I really
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: want to do this, whatever crazy unfair thing that McConnell
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: wants to do, though, you know, we'll see what what
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: level of tolerance they have.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And it's also, I think, the John Roberts question. He
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: is a conservative conservative. but he's also someone that takes
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a great deal of pride in representing the court faithfully.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So I think it's an open question how active a
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: role someone like John Roberts would play versus someone like
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: William Rehnquist during the Clinton impeachment.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: One other thing here I just want to raise because
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I read it this morning. Josh Marshall in a Talking
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Points memo got an email from a former U.S. attorney
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: noting that Pelosi spoke the other day and she said,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So we didn't get Bolton or Mulvaney or any of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: these people to testify. The Senate may be able to
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: get that testimony. And this former U S attorney said,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the reason why is, and what Democrats may be thinking
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: is they could call John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney as
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: witnesses in the Senate trial. And then instead of it
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: going to court, the person who would decide whether it
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: was acceptable to have them as witnesses or not is
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: John Roberts. And so instead of having stuff hung up
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in court until the summer, John Roberts could just decide
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: right then and there to do it. Now, Roberts could say,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to make these decisions. I'll kick them
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to the Senate. But again, I'd rather Susan Collins vote
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to say, no, none of these people should testify and
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: have to take that politically painful vote than to just
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: have it tied up in court. So it could be
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: what the Democrats are thinking on this.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Good for them if they are. That's savvy.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Smart Democrats. Man, Democrats.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: What a new feeling, huh?
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Smart Democrats thinking strategically, planning ahead.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: You might say they have high, high hopes for a living. Oh,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: my goodness.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I can't get it out of my head.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: And look, I don't say that in any way to
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: denigrate the Pete campaign or anything else. It's just that
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: song is an earworm, and.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: I hate it.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Someone on BuzzFeed set the High Hopes song to a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: video of the 96th Democratic Convention with Hillary Clinton dancing
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and people doing the margarita, and it's so funny.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: So there's like a theory of the internet that says...
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: It's impossible to tell the difference between extremism and the
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: parody of extremism that it ultimately always looks the same.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: And I think that there's a corollary, which is dorky,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: sweet earnestness is impossible to distinguish from the parody of it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: And so my feed is filled now with two sets
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: of videos, people earnestly doing the Pete dance and people
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: ironically doing the Pete dance. It's all the one dance.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: You all look the same. I cannot tell the difference.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: I would just say to anyone making fun of the
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: kids in those videos, when you're doing visibility and you
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: wake up at 4 in the morning to go stand
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: on a corner at 5 in the morning and you're
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: there for 12 hours, you need to do some things
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: to stay warm and to occupy your mind. So if
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: you want to do a stupid dance, do a stupid
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: fucking dance.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Like, good for them. Yeah, like.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: All of the mockery should be in good fun only
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: because these are people out there knocking on door. I
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: feel that, too. You know, I'm sick of the fucking
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: cynical Internet anyway, but I'm going to keep having fun
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: You know, the song will break me.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Jason Tondra on Twitter asks, can the House's vote to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: impeach or the Senate's vote to impeach be held anonymously,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: presumably freeing some Republicans to vote their conscience? Is that
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: even possible? It sounded crazy at first, but Julianna Glover,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: who is a Republican lobbyist in D.C., wrote a piece
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: in Politico about this. where she raised the fact that because,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: as we just said, that um, the Senate can basically
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: set their own rules with 51 votes. Technically the Senate
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: could probably set a rule that it could be anonymous voting.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Will they?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Seems doubtful.
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: And then you think of it like a jury. It's not,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: it's outlandish when you consider that, like, well, hold on.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: These are members representing constituencies, representing States. They ought to
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: be on the record, but then you think, well, they're
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: also behaving like a jury and jurors, uh, uh, often
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: are able to cast their votes anonymously. So it seems very,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: very unlikely.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: Rural jurors.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Rural jurors. Yeah, honestly, we're going to get fucked by
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: a bunch of rural jurors.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: It's an interesting idea and question. I think in practice,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: after the vote, the first thing that would happen is
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: Lindsey Graham would be like, teacher, teacher, I voted to
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: get you off, and everyone else would follow suit, and
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: it would be.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It would be so funny because you know that what
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: people said publicly and the final vote tally would not
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: line up and be like, some of you are lying.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Some of you voted to remove this guy.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Michelle Bopp on Twitter asks, whatever happened with the making
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the military stop in Scotland to prop up Trump's failing
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: resort stuff? Is it still under investigation? Will it have
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: enough steam to include as an article of impeachment? What
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: do you guys think? Whatever happened to that? Still there.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Still there.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: There was a story in Politico, I think, that showed
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: that there were, I think, $ 250, 000 worth of expenditures at
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: that resort. There's the ongoing problem of the U.S. Secret
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: Service having to pay tens, if not hundreds of thousands
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: of dollars to rent golf carts and things from Donald
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Trump and put money in his pocket.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, it's terrible. It's grifting.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: It's something that should be examined by the Oversight Committee
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: or whatever the appropriate place is. I don't think there's
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: any chance it becomes part of impeachment.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean... I guess the reason why there's
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: no chance or very little chance is because we just
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: saw two weeks of sort of painstaking hearings where witness
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: after witness comes forward and, you know, Republicans try to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: muddy the whole thing up. And I think Adam Schiff
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and the Democrats in the House Intel Committee were near
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: flawless in their performance here. But, you know, it's hard
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: now to imagine another two or three weeks of hearings
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: where you bring in all these witnesses and start educating
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: everyone about the emoluments clause and what it is. Regardless
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: of that, though, because so much of impeachment is an
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: exercise in public education, I would hope that as the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: House managers make the case in the Senate or even
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: as the judiciary considers articles in the House, someone raises
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and makes a little speech on the fact that the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: president's foreign policy could be influenced by the fact that
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: foreign governments are making him richer every day and have
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: been since the beginning of the presidency. And really, it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: fits right in with his sort of corruption uh with
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: foreign policy uh in the ukraine scandal too so i
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: i think it's not some side issue here i think
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you should i think it's it's good for democrats to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: sort of weave it into the larger story at the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: least all right let's move on to a few 2020
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: questions this is from jennifer db on twitter please opine
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: on the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates respective foreign
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: policy experience and if you have specific advice you'd give
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: them tommy this one's for you their experience okay You
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: can just go with the top ones. I think it's
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: too much to go through all 20.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: I would happen to agree with you. Mayor Pete in
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Tulsi served in the military. That's relevant experience. I think
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: Bernie Sanders has done a ton of work since 2016
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: on foreign policy. He's got a really smart team and
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: he's shown a lot of interest and fluency in the issues. So,
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: for example, there was a leadership change in Bolivia recently.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Evo Morales was forced out. Some say it was a
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: popular uprising. Some say it was a coup. And it's
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: actually become a distinction on the left between Bernie and
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren. So that's one recent area where they're starting
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: to talk about these issues. You know, Biden has the
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: most experience, period, but he also voted for the Iraq war.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: So that probably cuts both ways. Who am I missing here?
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I mean, she has put out a bunch
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: of plans. She gave a major foreign policy speech early.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: You know, she's smart and thoughtful on almost all these issues.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Biden, I mean, Biden does, I think when he is
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: at those debates and says, you know, I've met all
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: these foreign leaders, I've traveled around the world, like he
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: does have, you know, like you said, someone could make
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the weaknesses, someone can make judgment arguments against him about Iraq,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: but his foreign policy experience, even before he ran for
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: president or was vice president was extensive.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Can I just say one thing?
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: Like he gets dinged a lot for voting for the
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Iraq war and he should, and everyone who ever voted
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: for that war, you know, has to own it. But
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: he's also, I think, learned from that mistake. and was
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: one of the people in the Situation Room in 2009,
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: arguing against sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: And I think in hindsight, his position was right, and
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: the decision Obama made was wrong.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And one piece of advice, you know, I'm not
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a foreign policy expert, but I am a worldo. I was,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and I think I said this, in the focus groups
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I did for the wilderness, I was surprised at how
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: many voters who are sort of low information voters, don't
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: pay a ton of attention to the news, aren't familiar
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: with all the details of every policy as we are,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: brought up on their own when talking about Trump, how
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: embarrassed he has made them feel to be Americans and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: how he's embarrassed us on the world stage. And we
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: got to get rid of this guy because he has
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: ruined all of our alliances and we're worried about that.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And what if that doesn't make us safe? And I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: was just like, as those of us who worked in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: politics well know, it's hard to get voters to care
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: about foreign policy when there's not an imminent war or
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: terrorist attack or something like that. And to have all
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: these people talk about America's standing made me think that's
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: an argument that Democrats should probably make more because you
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: don't hear it very much. This is from Asho Chell
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. What do you think is the best strategy
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: for Bernie to win the nomination? What's he doing right
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and what should be the focus? Sometimes we don't talk
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: about Bernie enough and he's one of the frontrunners, so
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I figured this would be a good question for us. Lovett,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: what do you think?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: I would say, I don't know how you do this,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: but I think the clear question for Bernie is, how
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: do you broaden your coalition beyond the incredibly enthusiastic, young
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: base that he has built since 2016? You know, there
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: was this question after 2016, which is what share of
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Bernie's support was pro-Bernie? What share of it was anti-Hillary?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I think what we've seen is There was a good
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: chunk of people that were with Bernie and are not
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: with him now, but that does mean that he could
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: earn their support again.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: I think you make a really interesting point because when
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: you look at some of the data out of Iowa,
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: like Bernie's, so the Iowa State University has been polling
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: people and then repolling portions of their respondents.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: And the Bernie people are rock solid. They're not going anywhere.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: And then everyone else's candidate, they're just sort of bumping
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: around like Warren gained a bunch and she lost a bunch.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: And you can see the fluidity of the race that
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: like 60% kind of willing to be convinced cohort. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: then there's just the rock solid Bernie or bust folks.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: And I'm not saying that they would like not vote
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: for the Democrat in the general. I'm just saying they're
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: like all.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: In for Bernie.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: And it's a big question whether their strategy is even
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: to expand the base this time or whether they think
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: like if we're over 15% in a whole bunch of precincts,
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: we're going to be viable. And like they can outlast
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: everybody else by just getting through it. And like I
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: get the sense that that's their strategy. They're not really
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: trying to grow. They're trying to maintain. But I don't
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: know that.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, one path for him would be
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: he so he's been like second or third or fourth
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. Right. So let's say he either wins Iowa,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: which is within reach for him, or he comes in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: second or third in Iowa.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: You can see anywhere from one to three in Iowa,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Bernie keeps going.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Now he goes to New Hampshire. He won New Hampshire
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in 2016. It's always been a good state for him.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: He's from Vermont with a little bit of momentum. Now, say,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you know, if someone like Pete wins Iowa and then
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: it's tough for Warren to keep going or Warren wins
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and it's tough for Pete to keep going, you start
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: winnowing the field after Iowa. You get to New Hampshire. Obviously,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden will still be there. Now Bernie wins New Hampshire.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Now he came in first through third in Iowa and
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: wins New Hampshire. Now they're both off to South Carolina.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And after Joe Biden, the one candidate with the most
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: support in the black community is Bernie Sanders. He has
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: more than Warren or certainly more than Pete or anyone else,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: at least nationally. In South Carolina, it goes back and forth.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But so then he's got a race against him and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. And then he tries to make the case
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: at that point, he doesn't need to make the case
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: that he's a democratic socialist, but he needs to make
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the case that he is the more progressive alternative to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: And it starts to look a lot like 2016. The
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: one thing I would add to that Okay, that's the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: kind of political delegate path and how it could all
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: play out. I do think that, you know, thinking about
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: it just rhetorically, if I were thinking about how Bernie
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: needed to go beyond his current base of support, I
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: would think, what is the language he could be using
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: to reach out to people that doesn't in any way
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: contradict his rhetoric and his left-wing credentials? And to me,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I think that there's a part of the case I
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: would really be interested in Bernie talking about more. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: he has this critique. He has this incredibly powerful critique
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: about what's broken in our system, the power of corporations,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the need for a revolution of working people. And I
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: think it resonates with a lot of people. And I
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: also think one thing, I know from my own family,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: you see it in the polls, you see it in
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: how people respond to Bernie. You believe him, you like him.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: You know that he's telling you what he thinks. It's
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: what makes him such a strong debater. When he says
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: something on that stage, he has this incredible armor of
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: him never ever seeming as though he's being political. He's
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: always telling what you think, what he actually believes. And
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: it's effective. I think that there's a positive version of
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: his story that he doesn't often tell, not just about
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the villains he'll take on, the enemies of working people,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: but a positive vision for the kind of America he
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: sees and what he sees as the opportunities he would
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: have as president. And the reason this fight is ultimately
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: worth it, the good that people can do, the positive outcomes,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the good in America that he's trying to exploit. And
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I think If I were thinking about how to get
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Bernie to see beyond the current people supporting him, I.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Would start there.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: The other thing that's notable, I think, is they just
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: announced 4 million individual donations. Not donors, but donations, which
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: makes me believe that there's several million donors. And if
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: he can turn all of them on the day after
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Iowa and get 10 bucks out of people, he's coasting
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: financially into New Hampshire.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, three candidates definitely are going to have the cash
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: for the long run here. It's Pete, Elizabeth Warren, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. This is from Sonia on Twitter. What could
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: a Democratic president really do on actual day one of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: her or his presidency in 2021? How much can realistically
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: get done that day? And what could they do slash
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: fix by executive action on the very first day?
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Well, it depends on your bedtime and your wake up time.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And whether or not you're a procrastinator.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, are we talking nine to five?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: You can get a lot of EOs drafted during that transition.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: What about executive?
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: We walked into that White House on day one and
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: our emails didn't work.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: We had those fake Gmails.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: We couldn't figure out what to do. You literally get
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: on buses after the inauguration and the buses drop you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: off at the White House and you get in there
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and you sit at your computer and you're like, Now what?
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: How do I work? What do I do? What happens? Yeah.
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, things that people have proposed are Kamala Harris
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: has talked about proposing gun executive orders, gun control executive orders,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: if Congress doesn't act in the first 100 days. So
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: that's more of a reasonable time frame, I think, than
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: day one.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Warren has proposed a moratorium on drilling. You could get
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: all the candidates or most of the candidates have proposed
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: getting back into the Paris climate agreement on day one.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: The American Prospect did a great, a very cool project
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: called the Day One Agenda that everyone should go check out.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: You just Google it. and laid out a whole bunch
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of other executive actions that they looked at legally and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: that the president could do on drug prices, effective marijuana legalization,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: labor movement stuff, corporate accountability stuff. So I think there's
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a lot you could do. I would say from a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: media perspective, it's probably not a great idea to do
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a ton of things on day one, even though you
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: could pass a bunch of executive orders on day one
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and sign a bunch of executive orders on day one.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: it's not great to do a bunch because you can
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: only get so much media attention at one day. And
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I think one thing we suffered from in the Obama
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: administration at the beginning is, like, we passed the Recovery Act, right?
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And in addition to, like, propping up an economy that
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: was about to collapse, the Recovery Act also made, like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: historic investments in education, in clean energy, and all these
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: other things. Never got credit, really, for any of it
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: because it all happened at once. And one of the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: things you learn when you're in the White House is, like,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you have to really sort of spread out the accomplishments.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And then when you achieve something, really hammer home the
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: accomplishment in the media, because when things happen too fast,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: people forget about them. And then when it comes election time,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: they're like, well, what have you actually done for me?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just a political concern. I do think
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: it's a genuine governing necessity because proving that the ideas
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: that we believe in are not just good on policy grounds,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: but good politics is, I think, is really important. One
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: other thing I'd say is, I think you also just
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: should divide them into two buckets. There's the bucket of
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: undoing the damage Trump did. There's a bunch of environmental rules,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: coal rules, pro-corruption decisions. There's a host of things that
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I would say are more urgent. And I would say
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: you do those very quickly. And then you look at
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the kind of the new and positive changes you want
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: to make as something you meet out in the early
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: days of the administration.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: Fire all those lobbyists. Like the personnel stuff is a
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: big deal. Like getting a white nationalist named Stephen Miller
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: out of the White House is a big deal. Putting
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: someone in charge of the State Department that's not denigrating
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: and like driving out career diplomats is.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: A big deal.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Like there's so many every little thing is going to
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: be such a welcome change.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I would love so many more questions at the next
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: debate and just of the candidates in general about. executive actions,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: plans to do stuff without Congress if Mitch McConnell retains
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: control of the Senate, which is very possible.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Will you do a White House briefing? Yes.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And questions about, like you just said, Tommy, personnel. Who
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: are you thinking about? What kind of person would you
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: put in this position? And yeah, because I think it's
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: really important and it may end up being the primary
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: power of the president, the next president. From Moni Ray
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, what are your thoughts on making presidential primaries
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: all in one day? To that, So that I would say,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: if you enjoy what Michael Bloomberg's about to do with
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: $ 50 billion on television, that would be the kind of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: campaign we would have.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Very bad idea.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's a very bad idea, especially because I think,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: you know, in a primary, there are flights of fancy.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: There are moments of mania. Candidates rise and fall in
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the polls. And I think the idea, I guess what
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I would say is if you think that's a good idea,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: think about all the different days. that that primary could
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: happen and how many different candidates have led at different
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: points in the primary. The good thing about our system
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: is A, it means that everybody gets a say over time.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: And B, candidates have to kind of really be tested
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: out in different forums over time, small states, big states, caucuses, primaries.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And I think ultimately, I think it redounds to the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: benefit of democracy.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: In episode four of my Iowa series, we go through
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: some other potential ways to do it that might be better.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: So stay tuned.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Well, and look, and you have this, you've covered this
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in the Iowa series too, but plenty of criticisms of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the homogeneity of the caucuses, right? They're too old, they're
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: too white, you know, they have all kinds of problems
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: with them. But the fact that we have a primary
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: system now that forces candidates to compete in person and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: travel around smaller states and meet people and hold events
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: is very important. I do not think we want a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: democracy where the only time we see these candidates is
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: on their television ads or or in these debates. People
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: should be able to meet candidates. So should we have
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: more diverse states? Yeah, absolutely. We can talk about that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: But they should be forced to walk around these states
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and meet people.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I've got a pitch.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: What if New York City went first?
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Ugh. You're welcome. I've got a pitch.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: You're welcome, hometown.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: Only blue check marks on Twitter.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they should run through the fucking
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: gauntlet of the blue check marks. See if you piss
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: everyone off. All right, let's get to some other issues.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Rachel on Twitter asks, What is one issue that hasn't
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: gotten any attention recently that you've been dying to talk about,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: but there hasn't been room in the show due to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the election and impeachment? All of them, Rachel. Let's just
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: go around the horn. Let's go around the horn. There
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was a story in the New York Times last week
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: about FedEx.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. That was great.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: FedEx and their lobbyists and their CEO lobbied relentlessly against
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: for the Trump tax bill that Trump pushed for and
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the Republicans all voted for. And as a result of that,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in 2017, FedEx paid about $ 1. 7 billion in taxes. In 2018,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: their tax bill was zero.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: They got a rebate.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: They got a rebate.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: The government paid them.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: The government paid them.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Technically, the government paid them. And during the lobbying for
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: this tax cut, FedEx said, oh, well, if you give
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: us this tax cut, we will invest all this money
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and equipment, and that will create jobs, and that will
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: stimulate the economy. There was no investment. The money went
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: back to their wealthy shareholders.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Buybacks and dividends.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So that is one. So there's two stories that are
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: connected here. So that is one story. On the other
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: side of this, we just had two elections in Kentucky
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and Louisiana, where in Kentucky, Andy Beshear, part of the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: reason he won is because he expanded Medicaid in that state,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: or he defended the Medicaid expansion that his father actually did,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and the Republican opponent, Matt Bevin, the governor- had tried
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to cut Medicaid. In Louisiana, John Bel Edwards is there
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: for a second term as Democrat because he fought for
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the state's Medicaid expansion and his Republican wanted to get
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: rid of it. Donald Trump, if he wins a second term,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: will gut the Medicaid expansion in every state, will gut Medicaid.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Millions and millions of people will be thrown off Medicaid
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and they will tell us it's because they can't afford it.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: FedEx just saved a billion dollars and Donald Trump wants
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: to cut Medicaid. Every Democrat running for office, and especially
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the presidential candidates, should be talking about that trade-off, the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: tax bill for health care cuts in this election, and
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: they should not wait till the general, someone bring it
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: up on stage next time. Next time we're in the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Medicare for All cul-de-sac, because I guarantee, and we saw
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: this in our Wisconsin poll, it probably pulled better than
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: anything else.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: That's my issue.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: I have two. One is, so the Montgomery Advertiser ran
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: a story where they talked to prisoners who inside of
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: the Alabama prison system in truly horrid, horrible, animalistic conditions.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: They have just been abandoned and left to fend for themselves.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: There are drugs and weapons. It is cruel and unusual
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: punishment being meted out on a massive scale. The other story,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: this is just something that's on my mind generally all
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the time, is we talk about the importance of infrastructure.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: We talk about tackling climate change.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: We talk about.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: High-speed rail and traffic and the high cost of living.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: One thing that contributes to all of these problems is
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: the fact that in the United States, building costs more
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: by an order of magnitude in some cases than it
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: costs to build trains and tunnels and bridges and roads,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: not in countries like standards or environmental standards. We're talking
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: about our costs being more than double than parts of Europe.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: And it means that our capacity to deal with everything
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: from housing costs to traffic to clean energy is hampered
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: by the fact that every mile cost twice as much
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: or more to build. And it's a crisis everywhere in
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: the country. And it's something that there's no one cause
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: of it. There's a bunch of different causes. And a
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: presidential candidate who can start thinking about that, politicians who
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: can take this issue seriously, will be doing an incredibly
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: important service because all the ups and downs of politics,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: this one issue is hampering us constantly and will continue
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to do so for decades unless we figure it out.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I think we should be talking about civility.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, shut the fuck up.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: So Ben Rhodes and I talked about this on Pod
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Save the World this week, but remember North Korea?
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: Remember how they were building nuclear weapons?
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: Remember how they were building missiles that can launch those
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: nuclear weapons and hit the United States?
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: They're still doing that.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: And Trump's effort at a diplomatic play has done nothing
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: but buy them another, what, 18 months of time to
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: make more weapons and more missiles and On top of that,
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: he is currently trying to extort the government of South
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: Korea to pay us 400% more to station U.S. troops
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: on the Korean Peninsula, something that allows us to project
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: power into the Asia-Pacific region and is obviously a hedge
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: against this North Korean aggression because we can spot their
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: missiles when they launch them. We can monitor them all
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: these ways. What's he extorting them in exchange for? Investigation
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: into which opponent?
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Good question. Yeah, Tulsi.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: And so the combination of those two things, allowing the
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: North Korea problem to fester, which is admittedly a hard problem,
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: but he's failing, and driving our allies in South Korea
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: away from us has led to the South Koreans cutting
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: some sort of defense agreement this week with the Chinese.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: And if we just, if we unravel our alliances with
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Japan and Korea and the Philippines and all these places
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: in the Asia Pacific and push them at the hands
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: of the Chinese because our dumb fuck president thinks about
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: this in terms of being a cash register and not
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: an alliance. It is something that is unfixable after he's gone.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Oof.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: So it's just like the stakes of the presidency, right?
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: And like, yeah, those are the stakes. Speaking of things
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: that we almost can't do anything about, Chris asks, what
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: are we going to do about judicial appointments? How do
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: we come back from Republicans packing the courts, if anything?
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: It's a hard one.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Sorry, Chris.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: You know, look.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Got to win that Senate.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: We got to win the Senate.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: We have to win the presidency. And we have to
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: face the fact that we have been losing on this battle.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: We have been just getting our asses handed to us.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: But I think like the judges that put the Trump
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: put in place aren't going anywhere. They get lifetime appointments.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: So that's that. And he's reshaped almost a quarter of
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the federal judiciary are Trump judges right now, which is
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: fucking terrifying. But it just goes to show how badly
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: we need to win the Senate. and not just the presidency,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: because if we win the presidency, not the Senate, there
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: will be no more Trump judges or Republican judges, but
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: there'll be no more any judges.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It will certainly mean that fewer Democratic appointed judges will
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: get confirmed. We don't know that they'll stop it completely.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll see.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: We'll see. We don't know.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I mean, you know, look,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: we may actually be at the point where they simply
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: will not confirm any more judges. Regardless, winning the Senate,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: not just means confirming judges, it also puts even the
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: possibility of judicial reform on the table. What that would
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: look like is anyone's guess. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has a
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: pretty bold proposal on that, but it does seem a
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: bit fanciful at the moment.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Get Mitch or die trying. Donate to the Senate Fund.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good call.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, some fun questions.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank goodness.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Just Fluffy on Twitter asks, do any of you eat
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: tofurkey follow-up if you do why do you hate yourself.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I want to take this question i want to take.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of that until i guess i've read that.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Uh i personally i personally eat uh turkey uh however
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: for those out there who partake in tofurkey i think
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: you deserve absolutely no judgment and if if you want
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: to say that uh vegetarians and the uh moral and
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: environmental choice they're making uh is silly, you can take
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: that joke back to 1992. Yeah, I think if you eat.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Tofurkey, you're a bad person and you deserve punishment. I'm
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: just kidding. Being vegan is good for the environment.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that Just Fluffy is the Twitter account
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: for Cory Booker.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I'm actually so excited.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: High hopes for a turkey.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I am so, I am genuinely excited about the innovation
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: happening in vegetarian food. Impossible Burgers, Beyond Burgers, they are delicious.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And I just like that.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: This one's for you, Senator Booker.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Did you watch the Vox Explained on Netflix on this?
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: I have not.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: That show's fantastic, by the way. And they did one
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: on the future of meat, I believe.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I am very excited for the day when beautiful New
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: York strip steaks are printed by a 3D printer like
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: the size of pizza boxes. That's what I'm looking forward to.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Think about it.
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: No, no, don't.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: If it's good, it's good.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: From LB on Instagram. Canned cranberry sauce or no?
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Canned. I love that gelatinous garbage. No.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I don't like cranberry sauce homemade or canned. I'm not
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a cranberry sauce fan.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I think the beauty, I don't like, I am against,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I am against just taking the can of cranberry sauce
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: and just kind of thumping it onto the plate.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: That's a good sound.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: I much prefer, I much prefer a little bit of magic,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: a little bit of theater. Take that, and put it
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: in a bowl, mash it up, add maybe some walnuts
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: to it. That's what Fran Lovett has done in the past.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Then you've got a beautiful cranberry sauce. Did it start
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: in a can? Sure it did.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Sure it did.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't end in a can.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: That's innovative.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: Kat Aaron, who is the amazing producer at Pineapple Studios,
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: who's been doing the Iowa series with me, was saying
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: she was making a mango pie.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: There's so much innovation happening, guys. Sparking innovation in cooking
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: across the country.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing. Those are my two favorites.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, what a man.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Chestnut stuffing, specifically. Lil Favreau's chestnut stuffing is.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I've had some Lil Favreau things. It's legendary. It's quite good.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Those are my two. I'm pretty simple, you know. Turkey's fine, too.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: It's meat.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Let's be honest. A ham is better. Right. Yeah.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: That's true. Galatian nonsense.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: That's very Galatian. Yikes.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: From Aaron and Goose on Instagram, pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Why is this still or ever a thing?
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Aaron.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: It's fun.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Let me just tell you.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Have some fun.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: One of our favorite White House moments as speechwriters was
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the turkey pardoning remarks.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Right, Lovett?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: So fun. Such fun jokes.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Because it was just how many really corny, cringeworthy jokes
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: could we get Barack Obama to make And the answer
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: was all of them. Because he never read the remarks
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: until right before.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: The best thing about that, he would laugh as he
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: was reading them. When you snuck a joke into a
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama speech that he would read on the fly,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: laugh to himself, and then deliver it, what a treat.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Do you remember any cut ones that you didn't make?
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: I can't remember.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Cody will know if he's listening right now since he
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: was there longer than both of us.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: Cody, yell back through the thing.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: But I just remember we spent Way too much time
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: on those remarks because they're like five minute remarks. And
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: like you said, the president has other things to do
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: and to not spend a lot of time on them.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: But they're also something seen by millions of people.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: True.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: They get aired. They get taken live.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Everywhere. Also, guys, I mean, those were fun jokes, but
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: the drafts of like I was always.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: Allowed on the White House Correspondents Jokes drafts, even though
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: I contributed nothing, but. Being on the email chains when
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: the really mean, we all know they're going to get
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: cut jokes went around was my favorite thing in the
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: whole process.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty good.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: So fun.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: HiAves on Instagram asks, do Tommy and Fabs have wedding
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: advice for Love It?
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: This question was not highlighted.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Want Hannah to plan it for you?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, here's the tricky part
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: for me. Every couple has one part of the couple
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: is the more organized part of the couple. I do
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: not know between the two of you who seem like
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: you can barely function in society.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I think I did fine, all right?
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Who is going to put that shit together? Is it
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: going to be Emily? Is Emily going to plan the
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: wedding for the two of you?
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Throw money at the problem. Hannah's far more organized than me.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: Here's the problem I had, which was when I don't
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: have an opinion on a decision, it feels painful to
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: have to make it, so I tried to defer it.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: And then what I came to really understand was When
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: you're constantly deferring to your partner on a decision, you're
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: actually just loading the responsibility onto them, and that's not
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: cool either. So you have to just find ways to
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: have an opinion, even if they get overruled, because then
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: you won't care.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Domino's in an escape room. Is that so much to ask?
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: What I would say is what you remember about your
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: wedding are the people who were there. And the times
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that you had with the person you're marrying during that
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: whole celebration because you're both really busy and there's a
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: million things going on. And so as you think about it,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: make sure the list is important. Spending time with the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: people who came is important. And then obviously having time
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: for you and Ronan to hang during the special day
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: is important too.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that advice.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: I was just blacked out the whole time. I'm half kidding.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, dead sober hours that just sort of like
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: anxiety just wiped away.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is very true too. Have fun. From Alexis
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, did John Lovett ever get Pete Buttigieg to
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: play Risk with him online? If so, who won?
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Has not happened yet. I proposed the game. Chasten did reply.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: I'm hoping to have an opportunity to talk to Mayor
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Pete at the very least about his strategy. He has
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: spoken negatively and I think fairly about The classic Australia play,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: while that is a good early game strategy, you do
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: get somewhat stuck in your expansion into Asia. Obviously, famously, Asia,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: a land war in Asia, very difficult. It's very hard.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: It is hard to expand from Australia outward. Sounds like
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: he's more interested in South America strategy. I respect that
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: as well. Just interesting in talking with him about some
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: of the nuances. For instance, if you are in Australia,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: are you moving up? to Kamchatka? Are you moving west
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: towards the Middle East? These are the questions that I
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: need Pete to answer if he's going to be someone
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I can see sitting behind that resolute desk. He's going
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: to be in the Situation Room, and he's going to
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: have to decide. Does he go for the Urals? Does
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: he go for Siam?
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Azores?
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Not a territory, I don't believe. Japan is.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: I was about to praise Mikey Barb's interview with Pete
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: this morning on.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: The Daily, but now there was a lot of questions
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: that weren't answered. I can tell.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I used to play Risk when it was a board game,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: not online, and now I feel like I want to
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: get back into it. You guys all seem like you're
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: having fun online with Risk. Yeah, there is a game
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: always happening in this office. I believe we have 40 employees,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: 38 of them are playing. Not me, not John F.,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: because we've never been invited. Never invited.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Well, you've lost the first round of Risk, it sounds like.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Having friends.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Last question. From across the universe on Instagram, what are
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: you thankful for? I will say the staff at Crooked Media.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: And you all have gotten to know some of them.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: There's many others that you don't. As we just mentioned,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: we're about 40 strong now. And just the incredible work
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: ethic they bring every day, the incredible spirit they bring
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: every day. These are some of the most talented, good-hearted people.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I cannot believe every day we come to work that
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: we have assembled a team like this.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: I cannot believe it.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: I'm very grateful that in the midst of Trump.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Still haven't hired any assholes.
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that streak's going to end. Yeah, every day grateful
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: that in the midst of this sort of Trump crisis,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: we got the opportunity to build this company and to
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: feel like we're part of it and helping others find
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: a way to be part of the actual fight. Because
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I do think it has been necessary to know that
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: there are outlets where you can do something in the
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: wake of so much unfairness and lies and mean-spiritedness and
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: that I am very grateful for.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: I'd like to say I'm very grateful to my wife, Hannah,
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: for that moment when I said, hey, I want to
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: move to LA to start a podcast. She somehow agreed
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: and somehow thought maybe this will turn out to be
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: a good idea. Sure, let's uproot our lives in San Francisco,
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: move to Los Angeles so you can talk into a
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: mic with your friends once a week.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Aren't you glad you don't live in San Francisco?
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: I love my friends up there. I was there for
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: a wedding last weekend. It was such a great visit.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: I realized that that city is very into one thing,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: into tech or the people.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: I knew, and I just wasn't as into it.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: And here we are, guys.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Here we are.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Happy Thanksgiving.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have our interview with
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Adi Barkin. Joining me on the pod is the author
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: of the new book, Eyes to the Wind, a memoir
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of love, death, hope, and resistance. A good friend and
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: a hero to everyone here at Crooked Media, Adi Barkin. Adi,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: my first and most important question. You and Rachel just
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: had a beautiful new baby named Willow. Congratulations. What is
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: it like to be a father for a second time?
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: And what does Carl think of his new baby sister?
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: Willow is doing great. Thank you for asking. She'll be
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: just over two weeks old when this episode airs. She
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: was born a whopping 10 pounds, with a full head
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: of jet black hair, which is funny because neither Rachel
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: nor I are big or have black hair. She is
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: eating well and sleeping relatively well. Carl is extremely affectionate
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: towards Willow, which is very cute and heartwarming. But, as
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: we have this 3 year old, he is also quite
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: jealous and desirous of attention, so he is being pretty
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: destructive and wild in the evenings. Rachel is doing really great.
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: She is so calm and patient with him. But it
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: is pretty difficult for me to watch. Since I am
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: now basically completely paralyzed, I'm able to hold Willow, which
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: is wonderful, but I really can't do any child care
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: and I can't help Rachel deal with Carl when he
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: starts acting up. So the wonder and joy of parenthood
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: is tainted for us by the tragedy of ALS. When
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: Carl was born, I was still healthy. And for those
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: first four months, Being a father was easier for me,
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: came more naturally to me than being an activist. So
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: I definitely yearn for those days.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine. And, you know, I saw a
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: picture on Twitter of you holding Willow. And I think
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you said something about how happy you were to be
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: able to get that time where you were actually doing
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: child care there by holding Willow while everyone else was busy.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure those moments are really precious for you.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: So you recently endorsed Elizabeth Warren in an op-ed that
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: was published in The Nation and with a video that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: was one of the most moving endorsements I've ever seen.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: You also praised Bernie Sanders and said that deciding between
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: him and Warren is, quote, a wonderful and difficult choice
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: for progressives. Why was it important to you to publicly
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: announce your That's.
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: A good question, John, and one that I struggled with.
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: Because I could certainly see a role for myself remaining
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: neutral as between the two of them and working to
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: ensure that the two camps treat each other with respect
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: and stay positive, and then join forces when the time comes.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: But I decided that it's important for progressive activists to
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: pick a side. and start campaigning. We need to be
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: stretching and building our muscles for the general election. We
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: need to be getting our friends and family and coworkers
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: and neighbors involved, so that we have a really enormous
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: grassroots army ready to defeat Trump. So that is what
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: I am going to be doing for Elizabeth's campaign. Trying
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: to get as many people as involved as possible. And
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: I am trying to do it in a way that
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: models progressive movement solidarity. I really deeply admire Bernie and
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: think he would be a historically great and transformative president,
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: just like Elizabeth. So I am trying to show both
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: his and her supporters that we can follow the two
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: candidates' leads and advocate for our favorite one without denigrating
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: the other one. Because, ultimately, we're on the same side,
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: struggling with corporate Democrats for the soul of the party now,
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: and then in a battle with the fascists for the
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: future of our democracy and our planet.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's so important that that kind of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: tone comes from both the top. And, you know, you
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: see Warren and Bernie are such good friends and clearly
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: respect each other. And I think if people, prominent people
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: like yourself, are sort of setting the tone for both
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: of the supporters being friendly to each other, even while
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: they compete, I think that's a really great thing. The
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Medicare for All option that Elizabeth Warren wants to pass
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: in her first year is clearly... much more generous and
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: comprehensive than the public options proposed by candidates like Pete
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Buttigieg or Joe Biden. But it still does represent a
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: bit more of a glide path to single payer than
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Bernie's transition, which only requires the passage of one bill.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: It strikes me, however, that Warren's strategy is more politically
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: feasible since even a generous public option has more public
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: support and more support among Democratic senators than Bernie's bill.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with this? What are your thoughts?
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: I guess I would say two things, John. First, it's
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: important to highlight just how transformative Elizabeth's proposal would be.
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: It would, in the first bill, in the first year,
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: give 135 million people the opportunity to enroll in Medicare.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: It would be free for most of them and cheap
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: for everyone. It would have comprehensive care. including the long-term
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: home care that I and so many other disabled and
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: elderly people need to stay in our homes. So this
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: would be a massive down payment on Medicare for All,
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: and unlike Mayor Pete's plan, it is actually designed to
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: attract people away from private insurance. And second, it's designed
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: to pass with 51 votes in the Senate through reconciliation,
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: which won't work for full Medicare for All. So I
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: am excited about the product proposal because it gets us
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: half of the way to our destination. And it does
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: so quickly in a way that builds power for us
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: to win the whole enchilada in a couple of years.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: So one thing I haven't been able to figure out
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: myself is why Joe Biden's staff still hasn't agreed to
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: let the vice president sit down with you for an
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: interview about health care. If you did have the chance
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: to sit down with Joe Biden today, what kinds of
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: questions would you like to ask him?
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: This is a hard question, John. For those of us
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: who watched last week's debate, I do think that it's
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: becoming increasingly clear that Biden is losing his mental acuity
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: and everyone is talking about it in hushed tones, not publicly.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: Folks like you don't want to be too critical because
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: you have a personal relationship with him and you like
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: him as a human being. And all of us are
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: concerned about being ableist or ageist. But the truth is
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: that he is having a very hard time stringing together
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: a coherent sentence, let alone articulating a powerful vision of
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: the America he wants to create. But as you noted
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: on the pod last week, this disturbing fact does not
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: seem to be moving the poll numbers very much. And
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: that is really concerning. So I would actually be curious
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: about your take on this topic. Should we be talking
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: more about his mental capabilities, or should the other candidates
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: be questioning his ability to do the job of president?
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, this is a tough one. I mean, I'll
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: tell you what I think. And of course, I do
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: not have any kind of inside knowledge about this. I'm
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: not someone who can judge anything. his mental acuity, but
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: knowing him as I do and have, I don't think
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it is any kind of mental decline, at least from
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: my experience. I think it's a couple of things going on.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I think the first thing that's happening is, and you know,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: if you haven't, you should read this really sort of
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: moving piece in the Atlantic last week about Joe Biden's
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: stutter and overcoming the stutter and which he's, you know,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: you have sort of for life and, I think in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: moments where he is feeling challenged, defensive, nervous at times,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: it sort of comes out and you have people saying
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that they see this during the debate, what you've seen,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: and they don't necessarily see it in some of his events.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: They think he's much better in the events. Now, all
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: of that said, as you know from listening to the pod,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I've been fairly critical because even if he is mentally sharp,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I think he is not, as you said, articulating always
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: a coherent vision of the country. And I worry, I mean,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: people talk about electability all the time when they talk
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: about Warren or Sanders or people like that. I'm worried
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: about electability in the sense that you have to be
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: incredibly nimble to take on Donald Trump in a general election.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: And I worry that for whatever reason, whether he's defensive,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: whether it's just, you know, he's sort of more of
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: an old school politician, whatever it may be, I worry
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: very much about that with Biden. But I do also
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: realize that we live in a country where a lot
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: of the electorate does not pay as close attention to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: politics as you or I do. And they do have
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: fond memories of Joe Biden as Barack Obama's vice president.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: And that feeling is especially strong in the Black community.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I think the question is, as the primary moves from
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: places like Iowa and New Hampshire to the rest of
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the country, what happens to his support? We see in
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Iowa and now in New Hampshire, it's not that great.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: You know, he's like fallen to third or fourth place.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And it very well could be that once Iowa and
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire happens, if someone else wins besides Biden, people
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: who are just starting to pay attention to the race
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: look up and say.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: He didn't win Iowa. He didn't win New Hampshire. Maybe
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: he's not that electable against Donald Trump. Maybe I should
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: back some other candidate. So that could happen. Or People
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: could say, no, I know he's a little shaky in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: some of these debates, but this is a guy I know,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: and I know his values, and I know who he is,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and I think he's got a good heart, and that's
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: good enough for me. And so I think both Elizabeth
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Warren and Bernie Sanders and all the other candidates are
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: playing this well because ultimately, I think articulating a coherent
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: vision of where you want to take the country is
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: going to be more powerful in persuading voters than only
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: trying to sort of draw contrast with the other candidates.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: So I do think the other candidates are doing this right.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: But no, you know, as you've heard on the pod,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I have my concerns about him too. And for me
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: to articulate those concerns says a lot because I do
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: know him and I do think he's a wonderful human
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: being and I'm still articulating those concerns. So, you know,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: something I think.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: About a lot.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: One question I have, and this is sort of follows
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: along what we were just talking about, You and I
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: briefly talked about this on Twitter the other week, but
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: President Obama, who's been quoted as saying Medicare for all
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: is a good idea, answered a question from Stacey Abrams
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago where he said that while all
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: the Democratic candidates should be even bolder than he was
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: in 2008 and push the envelope even further, they should
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: remember that a lot of voters, including Democratic voters, don't
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: have the same views as progressive activists. I saw that
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: as fairly uncontroversial and took it as a reminder that
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: it's on us to do the hard work of persuasion.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: But what did you think of that?
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: John, to be honest, I think your interpretation fails to
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: recognize the context of Obama's remarks. We're in the middle
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: of a heated primary with two very discreet camps, the
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: progressive Sanders-Warren wing versus the centrist Biden-Buttajig wing. Obama has
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: very intentionally stayed out of the debate until now. But
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: last week in Atlanta, he joined the fray, And that
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: is why folks on the left got upset. He said,
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: and I quote, this is still a country that is
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. The average
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: system and remake it. I think that using the word
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: revolutionary was clearly an allusion to Bernie's call for a
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: political revolution. And his juxtaposition of revolution with improvement was
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: an endorsement of the incrementalism offered by Joe Biden. One
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: reason this frustrates me and other activists is that Obama
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: built his brand on the notion that we could hope
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: for big change, and that our activism could yield transformative results.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: That was the message of his historic New Hampshire speech
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: that Goode made into the Great Will.I.Am music video. He said,
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: yes we can change the opinions of the country, yes
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: we can accomplish great things. But now, in his public remarks,
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: he's choosing to play the conservative realist, taking public opinion
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: as a fixed, rather than as something that can be
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: molded by organizers and politicians. Obviously, Medicare for All is
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: an excellent example of how politicians can shape public opinion,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: and move the Overton window, quite powerfully. So that is
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: the first reason that Obama's remarks upset me. But the
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: second reason has more to do with the question of
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: prioritization than the specifics of his remarks. President Obama has
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: chosen to largely stay out of politics since he left office.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: He hasn't given speeches condemning Trump's racism or corruption or
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: attacks on the press or the civil service or almost
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: any of the other gasoline atrocities of the regime. Instead,
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: he's using his enormous megaphone and credibility to criticize activists,
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: as he did a few weeks ago, and to encourage
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: Democrats to nominate a moderate for president. I think it
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: is a shame. Even his foundation is focused on community
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: service rather than civic engagement. Imagine if he and Michelle
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: were spending their time and fundraising abilities to raise money
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: to build an army of community and union organizers. Imagine
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: just what a big change that could engender.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: So I will, I'll respond to that and then I
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: will give you a chance to, to respond to. And look, Obviously,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: as you know, I am biased because I worked for
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: the man for quite a while. I also, you know,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: during the wilderness, a podcast that I did was quite
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: critical of different things that Obama had done during his presidency.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I'm fine being critical of Obama and his presidency. But
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I will just tell you, as someone who knows him
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: very well, and not only knows him well, but has
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: spent so much time around him writing for him that
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I know not only how he talks, but how he thinks.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you probably where he was coming from. And
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: the best way I can explain it is Barack Obama
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: often likes to talk about the world as it is
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: as more of a political analyst or a sociologist or
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: an anthropologist, however you want to describe it. He does,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: when he's having a conversation, sort of get into a
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: mode where he's not necessarily He doesn't do, like, strategy.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: He doesn't do, like, I'm going to go to this event,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: and this is where I'm going to tell everyone to
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: be a moderate and elect a moderate. Like, that's just
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: never how he's been. He doesn't view politics like that.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: What he does is, he's having a conversation with Stacey Abrams.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: They get into it, and he wants to describe the
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: electorate and politics as it is. And the way that
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: he believes politics is, is there are most... And you
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: can look at this with opinion polls. Most people don't want...
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: to tear down the entire system. Most people do want
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: their lives improved. Most people are really upset with the system.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: They are.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: That part is right. And Bernie has that part right.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: And so does Warren, right? People think that politics is corrupt,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: that no one's looking out for them. They're angry about that. But,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: and look, and i i spoke to stacy abrams actually
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: afterwards because i'm interviewing her for the wilderness and and
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: she put it an interesting way she said a lot
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: of people have been lied to by politicians so much
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: that when a politician comes out and talks about really
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: really big dreams some people think is this going to
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: really get done or am i just going to be
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: let down again by this politician she said. And so
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: what we really need to make sure is that when
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: we propose something, we can actually achieve it. Now, I
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: can tell you, Barack Obama is still the guy who
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: believes in that kind of big structural change that he
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: was talking about back in 2008. And he wasn't talking
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: about how hard we should push. I think he believes
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: that progressive activists should push really hard. And I really
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: wish that that the two of you could have spent
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of time together because I really think you
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: would appreciate him and like him and it would be
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: great to hear you guys go back and forth on
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: this too. But I know for a fact that he
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: does not believe that we need to choose a moderate
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: for president. I know for a fact that he wants
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: to let the process play out and that his comments
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: were not intentional in any way. Now, to your second
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: point He definitely spoke out all through the midterms, campaigned
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: really hard, wasn't afraid of being critical of Trump during 2018.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: You can look at all of his speeches. That said,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: do I wish he was out there more, saying more
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: and pushing even harder? Yeah, I do. There's been times
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: where I said, God, I really wish the boss was
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: out here to say that this is really scary right
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: now and this is a frightening moment and to sort
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: of lead the troops. Now, the reason he doesn't is
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: he's not worried about himself or his own reputation, but
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: he is worried about casting a shadow over the next
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: leaders of the democratic party. And he thinks that it's
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: other people's turns to step up and take the lead.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't want to cast a shadow over those people.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: So I think that's why he doesn't get out as much,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: as much as he should. But you know, if it
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: were up to me, um, I would like to see
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: him out there more, um, because I think he is
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: a unique talent and I know he believes in the,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: he believes in, uh, in the future of this country.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: And I think he'd be useful, but, um, but no,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: but look, I, I, I totally understand what you're saying.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: So I guess the question is why he's choosing to
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: be an analyst rather than a participant. It seems to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: me like we have enough talking heads who are analyzing
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: the situation. I think that he could be doing more
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: to build up the civic infrastructure in America, even in
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: the nonpartisan way that Stacy and Andrew Gillum are doing.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: And as for meeting him, I would love to. There's
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: still time. Please encourage him to come do an interview
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: with me in Santa Barbara, or maybe we could do
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: it at the DNC in Milwaukee.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I will certainly mention that to him next time I
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: talk to him, and that is an excellent point. We
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: should all do a lot less analyzing and a lot
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: more organizing, including him, so I agree with that. Just
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: thinking about what he said, as an activist and organizer...
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: What are some of the most effective strategies you've learned
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and used to persuade people who may not be conservative,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: but might be more moderate on some issues or even
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: disengaged in politics altogether? How do you move that crowd
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of people from either disengaged or sort of wishy-washy to activists?
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: What are some of the strategies you've used?
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: Well, for people who are disengaged from politics, I try
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: to ask them about their lives, about their dreams and
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: their obstacles. and then I try to show them how
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: politics deeply affects them. I am less good at persuading conservatives,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: which is one reason that I prefer base turnout to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: persuading undecideds.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: So Adi, I know you've already asked me a few questions,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: but since this is a tradition, whenever you come on
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America, do you have any other questions for me?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: First, if you had to predict now, who do you
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: think will win Iowa and the nomination, respectively? Second, What
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: would be your advice to the Warren and Sanders campaigns, respectively,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: about what they should be doing differently and better?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Great questions. All right. So the first question, I have
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: studiously avoided predictions in public, but I can tell you
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: that even privately, when people ask me this, I tell
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: them I'm really not sure. Look, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: by all accounts, are winning Iowa, not just because of
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: what the polls say, but when you talk to people
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, they'll tell you they have the best organizations
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: of anyone. People say that Booker has a pretty good
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: organization too, but he's obviously further.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: Down in the polls.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: And so I think both of those candidates have a
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: pretty good chance to win Iowa. But again, we are,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: it's getting close, but we're still a little far out.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: And so things can change. And Bernie or Biden, I
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: could also see winning Iowa as well. I think it
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: is at the point where I think the other candidates
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: who are in the running, I think it's going to
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: be very, very, very, very, very hard for them to
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: win Iowa. I'm not going to say never, but it's
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: increasingly difficult. So I think the big question here is,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: if you have a Warren, and we talked about this earlier,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: if you have a Warren or a Buttigieg that wins Iowa,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: And in New Hampshire, if you have a Warren, a Buttigieg,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: or a Sanders that wins New Hampshire, I think the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: question looming over everything is two different things have happened
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: in past primaries at this stage. Either the voters in
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: South Carolina and throughout the rest of the country look
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: at those wins and say, those are the candidates who
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: can beat Trump, those are the winning candidates, and it's
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: got to be one of them. Or, and this has
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: also happened, People say, OK, that happened in Iowa, New Hampshire,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: but I still like Joe Biden or I still like
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, who also has pretty high name ID. Or
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: this is a very, very outside shot. I've been seeing
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: nonstop advertising from Michael Bloomberg or something like that. But
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I think the question is, do Iowa and, you know,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: in a lesser level, New Hampshire really have the slingshot
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: effect that they have had in 08? Or is it
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: a campaign like we've seen in the past, maybe in
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: the 90s and early 2000s, where, you know, because Joe
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Biden currently has such strong support in the black community
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and among non-college educated white Americans who together make up
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: most of the party, both of those groups, or at
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: least a majority, is that enough for Biden as he continues?
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: And I just don't think we'll know that until We
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: see what happens after Iowa and after New Hampshire. Advice
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: to the Warren campaign. It's rare. I have so little
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: advice for the Warren campaign because I do think she's
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: running an excellent campaign. I have been impressed with it.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Just all personal beliefs and ideologies aside, just as a
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: former practitioner of campaigns, I have been incredibly impressed with
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: the campaign that Elizabeth Warren is running, not just organizationally,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: which I'm not an expert on, but just message-wise. I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: think the candidates, and this goes to Bernie, too, the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: candidates who have a message and stick with that message
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: and do not have that message veer one way or
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: the other just because the polls go one way or
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the other are the candidates who tend to do best.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: And so I think both of them fall into that category.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: For Warren, I was very happy to see her Medicare plans.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: because I think it speaks to people's desire not to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: have something more or less liberal or more or less moderate.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: But like I was saying, I think people want to
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: understand practically how are you going to get this done,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: this policy that you're proposing. And I think in almost
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: every other policy that she had proposed, she had not
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: just the policy and details, but a path to get
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: that done. And I didn't think she had that as
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: well for Medicare for All. And I think she does now.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: So I think she solved it. what was a challenge
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: for her with that new plan. The one thing, and
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I've said this before about Warren, is she is so
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: focused on economic inequality and corruption, which she should be.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: But I do think sometimes her message seems like it
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: could be a message that a politician could deliver in 2016,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: in 2012, in 2008, when there were similar levels of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: corruption and inequality. And I think to really meet the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: moment you need in your message to talk about the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: moment we're in. And this doesn't mean to just talk
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: about Trump more, but talk about the precariousness of what
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: has happened to our democracy and what could happen to
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: our democracy if Donald Trump is reelected. I also think
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: that if she's thinking about the general election, which she
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: should be because she could be the nominee, and she's
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: thinking about how to build a coalition, that speaking about
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: corruption in Washington and talking about how she's taken on
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: both parties at times, including her own party, is not
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: just a way to sort of enamor yourself to progressives,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: but also a lot of moderates and independents who don't
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: think in terms of partisan politics. And they might say,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: that Elizabeth Warren, she's not necessarily partisan. She just loves
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: taking on corruption, whichever party is doing it. And I
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: actually think that's a powerful message for a general election.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: And I also think as people wonder, is the person
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: I nominated for president going to be able to get
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: the job done and, you know, actually unstick Washington and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: break the gridlock there? The answer is not, well, I'm
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: going to work with Republicans because we know the Republican
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Party is not going to work with us. Elizabeth Warren
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: has an answer, which is, when I was in Washington
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: as a newcomer, I created an entire federal agency from
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: beginning to end. And I had a wall of Republican opposition,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: of Wall Street opposition, and even opposition within my own party.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: And you heard her talk about the CFPB at the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: Iowa Liberty Justice Dinner. I believe she should probably talk
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: about that even more as she gets to the homestretch,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: just as an example of look what she can get done.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: And I think with Bernie, I think it's always, you know,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and Bernie does this well himself, but I think His
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: campaign needs to be about, it's a movement, right? And
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: he's done a good job articulating it's a movement. Well,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: movements grow by addition. And I think to the extent
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: that his campaign can be welcoming of everyone, you may
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: not have been with us at the beginning, but we
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: welcome you now. I think that's really important because sometime,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: at least some of his online supporters, it can seem
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: like they don't actually want you in the movement. They
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: just want to prove that they're right. And I don't
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: think that's the case with Bernie. And I don't think
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: that's the case with a lot of the people who
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: actually work for him. So I just think that message
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: needs to be delivered even more. So that's my views
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: on them.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: Have you heard about Bernie's effort to bring in new
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: people into the caucuses? Do you think he may be
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: doing something that is not being captured by the polls
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: and could deliver a big upset victory?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: Certainly. Certainly.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Because I can remember in 2008, when we kept saying, oh,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: we're going to expand the universe of caucus goers. Barack
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: Obama is going to bring in young people, independents, Republicans,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: people who have never voted before, every person of color
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: that lives in Iowa. And people would say to us,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: that's never going to happen. And the polls that Hillary
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: would do and the polls that John Edwards would do
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: would show Barack Obama in second or third because they
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: imagined a caucus universe that was much smaller than we anticipated.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, the number of people who turned out
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: in the Iowa caucus in 2008 even bigger than we imagined.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: And it totally blew away the Clinton campaign and the
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Edwards campaign and all the reporters who thought, no way
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: is there going to be a caucus this big. And
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: I think according to the last Des Moines Register poll,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: you did see there was a number about enthusiasm that
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: suggested that the caucus universe could be even bigger than
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: anyone imagined. So yes, that could happen. It could happen
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: for Bernie, it could happen for Warren, it could happen
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: for a lot of the candidates.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: Okay. So basically.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: Nobody has any clue what is going to happen.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: That is correct. That is the one thing we know
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: for sure. All right, Adi, since this will be running
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: right around Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: I'm grateful for a whole bunch of things. But this
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: year I am particularly grateful to the five amazing caregivers
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: who bathe and dress and feed and move me every
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: day and keep me comfortable and safe. And I am grateful,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: of course, to Michael Bloomberg who is sacrificing so much
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 5: to save America. God bless Mike and God bless the pod.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Adi, it is always such a pleasure to talk to you.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: I am grateful for you and for your friendship and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: for always teaching me and pushing me and inspiring me
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: and holding my feet to the fire when I deserve it.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: And please give Rachel and Carl and Willow my love
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: and Emily's love. And I hope you guys have a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: really wonderful Thanksgiving.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: Likewise, John. Happy Thanksgiving.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: All right. Thanks to Adi Barkin for joining us. And
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: thanks to all of you.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Mayor Pete.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Enjoy your risk games with Pete Buttigieg.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Enjoy your cranberry sauce.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: Enjoy this.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: Enjoy it. I hope, people.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: Enjoy it.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Happy Thanksgiving. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Segwin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: and Katie Long for production support, and to our digital team,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.