Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s Train Blame Game.”

Transcript

“Trump’s Train Blame Game.” · Pod Save America

0:01
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:21
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:23
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:47
Speaker 2: Check out the brand new merch that just dropped for
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0:58
Speaker 2: that means. And by the fact that all of Jason
1:01
Speaker 2: and Rosie's predictions are correct, obviously. I do know what
1:04
Speaker 2: that means. Head to cricket.com slash store to get your
1:08
Speaker 2: shirt now. Also, Dan, we had some special elections this week.
1:13
Speaker 1: Exciting.
1:14
Speaker 2: Really exciting, which I knew about the Wisconsin race. I
1:18
Speaker 2: didn't really know the other ones were happening until they happened.
1:21
Speaker 1: You're slipping.
1:23
Speaker 2: But Democrats kind of crushed them. The party overperformed in
1:26
Speaker 2: three races, won by a New Hampshire State House candidate,
1:29
Speaker 2: a Kentucky State Senate candidate, and Virginia's Jennifer McClellan, who
1:33
Speaker 2: will become the first black congresswoman to be elected in
1:36
Speaker 2: the history of the Commonwealth. They didn't know that race
1:39
Speaker 2: was happening. We also had the first round of voting
1:42
Speaker 2: in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race. The general election
1:46
Speaker 2: on April 4th will be the most important election of 2023.
1:53
Speaker 3: Why?
1:54
Speaker 2: Because the winner will tip the balance of the court,
1:57
Speaker 2: which will decide whether the state's abortion ban and severely
2:01
Speaker 2: gerrymandered maps are legal. Basically, it's about whether or not
2:05
Speaker 2: the state of Wisconsin will still be a democracy. So
2:10
Speaker 2: here's what we got from the first round of voting.
2:13
Speaker 2: The conservative candidate will be Dan Kelly. He is an anti-choice,
2:17
Speaker 2: ultra-MAGA activist who was involved in the efforts to overthrow
2:22
Speaker 2: the 2020 election. Apparently, he was their chief counsel, all
2:29
Speaker 2: the people who were trying to figure out the fake
2:30
Speaker 2: elector scheme. That's who this guy is.
2:32
Speaker 1: He's the Rudy Giuliani of Wisconsin.
2:37
Speaker 2: He also lost his last election in 2020 by 10 points.
2:44
Speaker 2: But he is extremely well-funded. So that's the conservative candidate.
2:48
Speaker 2: The liberal candidate is Janet Protasewicz, a pro-choice, anti-gerrymandering judge
2:54
Speaker 2: from Milwaukee. She needs to win, and she needs our help,
2:58
Speaker 2: which is why we are officially kicking off our No
3:01
Speaker 2: Off Years program for 2023 now. We will be focused
3:05
Speaker 2: on all the ways you can get involved in this
3:07
Speaker 2: Wisconsin race, no matter where you live. You can donate
3:09
Speaker 2: to support voter education and mobilization efforts in Wisconsin. So
3:13
Speaker 2: this is going to be the most expensive judicial race
3:18
Speaker 2: in any state ever in history. And a lot of
3:24
Speaker 2: conservative donors are prepared to spend millions and millions to win.
3:29
Speaker 2: They got a bunch of right-wing billionaires up there in Wisconsin.
3:33
Speaker 2: I don't know if you knew that, but they are
3:35
Speaker 2: ready to dump a whole bunch of money into this race.
3:37
Speaker 1: The U-lines, the Kochs like to play around in Wisconsin.
3:41
Speaker 1: They're all going to be there because they hate democracy
3:43
Speaker 1: and they hate freedom.
3:45
Speaker 4: Yeah.
3:46
Speaker 2: Basically, it's the conservative candidate that Democrats wanted to face
3:51
Speaker 2: because he's more extreme and he lost his last race
3:53
Speaker 2: by 10 points. But the stakes are super high. And again,
3:57
Speaker 2: if Janet wins, that is, it's a good chance that
4:01
Speaker 2: abortion will be legal in Wisconsin, and that we will
4:05
Speaker 2: have new maps, which means that when a majority of
4:09
Speaker 2: Wisconsinites vote for Democrats, you will see Democratic representation in
4:14
Speaker 2: the state legislature, and then hopefully in Congress as well.
4:18
Speaker 2: So it's pretty huge.
4:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:20
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about this a few weeks ago,
4:22
Speaker 1: but you really cannot overstate just how important this is.
4:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:26
Speaker 2: So you can also sign up to be part of
4:28
Speaker 2: the VSA volunteer community. We'll show you how you can
4:30
Speaker 2: help whether you're in Wisconsin, whether you're not in Wisconsin,
4:33
Speaker 2: wherever you are. Just head to VoteSaveAmerica.com today to get
4:38
Speaker 2: started and help out. All right, let's get to the news.
4:42
Speaker 2: Donald Trump ventured out of his beach club this week
4:44
Speaker 2: to visit East Palestine, Ohio, where a 150-car train carrying
4:50
Speaker 2: toxic chemicals derailed a few weeks ago and spilled toxic
4:54
Speaker 2: chemicals into the air and water of a town that's
4:56
Speaker 2: home to about 5,000 people. Trump went there to blame
5:00
Speaker 2: Joe Biden for the crash, even though the former president
5:03
Speaker 2: is responsible for repealing regulations that had to do with
5:06
Speaker 2: both railroad safety and toxic chemicals. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg,
5:12
Speaker 2: who's been getting hit from the right and the left
5:14
Speaker 2: over the administration's response, is in East Palestine today. Here's
5:19
Speaker 2: some of what both men said during their visits.
5:22
Speaker 5: To the people of East Palestine and to the nearby
5:25
Speaker 5: communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
5:28
Speaker 1: We have told you loud and clear, you are not forgotten.
5:31
Speaker 5: I sincerely hope that when your representatives and all of
5:36
Speaker 5: the politicians get here, including Biden, they get back from
5:39
Speaker 5: touring Ukraine, that he's got some money left over.
5:53
Speaker 1: Are you shocked he hasn't come here yet?
5:56
Speaker 5: He should have been here a long time ago.
5:57
Speaker 1: Boot edge edge. You know what you call them? Boot
6:00
Speaker 1: edge edge.
6:01
Speaker 6: I heard him say he had nothing to do with it,
6:03
Speaker 6: even though it was in his administration. So if he
6:05
Speaker 6: had nothing to do with it, and they did it
6:07
Speaker 6: in his administration against his will, maybe he could come
6:11
Speaker 6: out and say that he supports us moving in a
6:15
Speaker 6: different direction. We're not afraid to own our policies when
6:19
Speaker 6: it comes to raising the bar on regulation.
6:22
Speaker 2: Oof. It is 2023, right? Because it feels, really feeling
6:26
Speaker 2: like it's 2020.
6:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, we only have one entire calendar year until the
6:32
Speaker 1: first votes in the Republican primary are cast.
6:35
Speaker 2: Oh, so long. Okay, before we get into the politics,
6:39
Speaker 2: which we will do, what do we know so far
6:42
Speaker 2: about why the train derailed and how safe it is
6:46
Speaker 2: in East Palestine right now?
6:49
Speaker 1: The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the specific
6:52
Speaker 1: cause of this crash, but they believe, based on some statements,
6:55
Speaker 1: that it involved an overheated ball bearing that forced the derailment.
7:01
Speaker 1: That's the specifics of this one. The broader reason why
7:05
Speaker 1: this train derailed and there are 1,000 derailments a year
7:08
Speaker 1: is the rail industry is lightly regulated, frequently puts profit
7:14
Speaker 1: over safety, and very specifically, has been trying to save
7:18
Speaker 1: money by making trains longer, i.e. putting more cars in
7:22
Speaker 1: the train, which means they can transport more cargo, more
7:26
Speaker 1: dangerous chemicals in this case, with using fewer people. The
7:30
Speaker 1: longer you make the train, the more likely there is
7:33
Speaker 1: to be a derailment. And so that is the broader
7:36
Speaker 1: issue here that is really at the crux of what
7:39
Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg is saying, is that we need more regulation
7:41
Speaker 1: to enforce more safety because the rail industry will not
7:43
Speaker 1: do it on the road. That is very clear. In
7:45
Speaker 1: terms of how safe it is there, The EPA state
7:48
Speaker 1: officials have said the air and water are safe and
7:51
Speaker 1: the people aren't at risk. But every reporter who's been there,
7:54
Speaker 1: if you look at social media, there are a lot
7:55
Speaker 1: of reports about people with headaches and rashes and sick
7:59
Speaker 1: farm animals and pets and dead fish. And so we
8:02
Speaker 1: don't know that. But the residents are obviously quite concerned.
8:07
Speaker 1: And that's why Biden's EPA administrator was there last week.
8:10
Speaker 1: And so we don't know the answer to that, but
8:14
Speaker 1: there's a real level of concern about the safety given
8:16
Speaker 1: the large amounts of dangerous chemicals that were released from
8:21
Speaker 1: this train as a way to prevent a massive explosion
8:24
Speaker 1: that could have cost a lot of lives.
8:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and officials continue to say that the air and
8:29
Speaker 2: water are currently safe. But if you're someone who was
8:33
Speaker 2: evacuated from your home, you come back, you've seen like
8:36
Speaker 2: black clouds in the sky, you're seeing dead animals all
8:39
Speaker 2: over the place. You're seeing pictures of water with what
8:43
Speaker 2: looks like chemicals in it. You have a rash. Your
8:47
Speaker 2: kids have a rash. You are coughing all the time. Yeah,
8:51
Speaker 2: you're going to be pretty fucking concerned. And apparently like
8:54
Speaker 2: the EPA, the tools that the EPA was using to
8:58
Speaker 2: measure contaminants in the air and the water are not calibrated.
9:03
Speaker 2: So like they're calibrated to like figure out whether it's
9:05
Speaker 2: like an epic disaster basically. Yeah. And not to whether
9:09
Speaker 2: like some of the lower levels of contaminants in the air,
9:12
Speaker 2: they might not pick up. Just again, you know, we've
9:15
Speaker 2: had EPA cuts now for about 10 years, continue to
9:19
Speaker 2: cut down, make cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. And
9:22
Speaker 2: so now there's going to be officials on the ground.
9:25
Speaker 2: And I think one thing we learned, for example, after
9:27
Speaker 2: 9-11 with first responders is like you've really got to
9:31
Speaker 2: track this kind of thing over time when it comes
9:34
Speaker 2: to the health of the community and the safety of
9:36
Speaker 2: the community and the environment. And see what happens. And
9:39
Speaker 2: so a lot of questions still to be answered there.
9:42
Speaker 2: So this has, of course, become a huge political issue.
9:46
Speaker 2: There's lots of blame being directed at lots of people
9:48
Speaker 2: from lots of different places. Let's start with the criticism
9:50
Speaker 2: that Biden and Buttigieg have received from the left, which
9:54
Speaker 2: I think falls into two categories. One, they didn't speak
9:57
Speaker 2: up or show up fast enough. And two, they haven't
9:59
Speaker 2: done enough. to regulate the railroad industry, specifically that they
10:02
Speaker 2: hadn't yet revived an Obama-era safety rule that Trump repealed,
10:07
Speaker 2: which would have required better braking technology. What do you
10:11
Speaker 2: think of those criticisms?
10:13
Speaker 1: I think it is fair to say that while the
10:17
Speaker 1: Biden administration has been exponentially better than the Trump administration
10:20
Speaker 1: in terms of regulation, generally holding corporations accountable, there's a
10:24
Speaker 1: lot more work that can and should be done on
10:26
Speaker 1: the rail industry. I think that is a fair statement.
10:30
Speaker 1: That is fair criticism. I think in the Biden administration,
10:35
Speaker 1: Secretary Buttigieg would say their hands are tied in some ways.
10:38
Speaker 1: Congress has passed some laws that limit what they can do.
10:42
Speaker 1: As we know, and this gets like way in the
10:44
Speaker 1: weeds of federal regulation, There are cost-benefit analyses. And when
10:49
Speaker 1: one– if a Democratic administration puts in place a regulation,
10:52
Speaker 1: a Republican administration takes it away with a new cost-benefit analysis,
10:56
Speaker 1: it complicates the next administration we're putting back in. So
10:58
Speaker 1: that is ways. But I think it's fair to say
11:00
Speaker 1: need to move faster and more aggressively. And frankly, need
11:04
Speaker 1: to move more faster and more aggressively than Obama did too.
11:07
Speaker 1: Like when you look at the rule that we'll get
11:09
Speaker 1: to in a second, could be much stronger and should
11:12
Speaker 1: be much stronger. So that's there. You cannot have that
11:16
Speaker 1: conversation without talking about just how far Trump and the
11:19
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress went to side with rail lobbyists to
11:23
Speaker 1: make rail travel in this country more dangerous, to make
11:26
Speaker 1: disaster this more likely, to make pollution harder to clean up,
11:29
Speaker 1: to make companies less accountable for their misdeeds in this case.
11:35
Speaker 1: There is some confusion as it relates to this one
11:38
Speaker 1: specific rule that Obama put in place in 2014 after
11:42
Speaker 1: a bunch of train derailments. And that law would require
11:46
Speaker 1: pneumatic brakes, electric brakes essentially, more sophisticated, more expensive brakes
11:52
Speaker 1: than the ones on most trains, on trains carrying a
11:55
Speaker 1: certain amount of toxic chemicals. And when you have those brakes,
11:59
Speaker 1: derailments are less likely because All the brakes will kick
12:03
Speaker 1: in at the same time. So the train cars don't
12:05
Speaker 1: run into each other and then become derailed. And so
12:11
Speaker 1: the fact that Biden has not put in that place
12:12
Speaker 1: is going to be a huge point of criticism. And
12:14
Speaker 1: that criticism is probably fair. But that rule, were it
12:18
Speaker 1: in place, would not have applied to this train. This
12:21
Speaker 1: train had a lot of chemicals, but not enough cars
12:24
Speaker 1: to meet the threshold of the Obama rule. So I
12:27
Speaker 1: think there's a fair point that that law, that regulation
12:30
Speaker 1: be back in place. I imagine it's very quickly going
12:32
Speaker 1: to be in that process because of this, but that
12:34
Speaker 1: would not have prevented this specific disaster, which is something
12:36
Speaker 1: I think has gotten very lost in the big debate
12:38
Speaker 1: over this.
12:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the real question is, if we know
12:43
Speaker 2: that these electronic brakes, which would update brakes that currently
12:48
Speaker 2: are like Civil War era brakes on a lot of
12:50
Speaker 2: these trains, if we know they would prevent derailments, why
12:55
Speaker 2: just say that they should apply to what's known as
12:58
Speaker 2: high hazard flammable trains, right? The ones that are carrying
13:00
Speaker 2: so much toxic. Why not? This, you know, this train
13:03
Speaker 2: was classified as a mixed freight train instead of a
13:05
Speaker 2: high hazard flammable train. Why not just make sure that
13:08
Speaker 2: all of the trains have these brakes? You know what
13:10
Speaker 2: I'm saying? Like, how about that? Now that would have been,
13:12
Speaker 2: I think during when the, when the Obama administration originally
13:16
Speaker 2: proposed the regulation, some experts were saying, well, try to
13:20
Speaker 2: broaden this regulation so that it includes more trains so
13:23
Speaker 2: that it applies to more kinds of trains, more categories.
13:26
Speaker 2: And for whatever reason, they didn't think they could do that.
13:29
Speaker 2: The railroad industry fought back. They said that this was
13:32
Speaker 2: like beyond the scope of this regulation. Again, don't know.
13:36
Speaker 2: But like now, hopefully they do that. And again, like
13:39
Speaker 2: you said, it's not just now up to the administration,
13:41
Speaker 2: because then in 2015, Republicans in Congress slipped into a
13:45
Speaker 2: bill that, oh, by the way, like you need to
13:49
Speaker 2: do all this cost benefit analysis before you have any
13:51
Speaker 2: kind of railroad regulation or transportation regulation. And so now.
13:56
Speaker 2: hands are tied. And so now Congress probably needs to
13:58
Speaker 2: intervene to really expand a lot of these rules.
14:02
Speaker 1: This becomes, this is not a defense of what happened
14:05
Speaker 1: in our administration, what's happening here. The challenge in all
14:08
Speaker 1: of these regulations is because the laws as written over
14:11
Speaker 1: the many years of the regulatory state are largely pro-corporation.
14:17
Speaker 1: And so you have to demonstrate, to have a regulation
14:20
Speaker 1: to be able to stand in effect, to pass scrutiny
14:22
Speaker 1: from Congress and the courts, the benefits of that regulation
14:25
Speaker 1: have to outweigh the costs to the people on whom
14:28
Speaker 1: the regulation is implemented. And that can become challenging when
14:32
Speaker 1: trying to stop things like derailments that happen a lot,
14:36
Speaker 1: but they happen on only a small fraction of the
14:38
Speaker 1: number of trains that go. So if you say every
14:40
Speaker 1: train has to have these breaks that cost X amount
14:43
Speaker 1: of money, and you look at the number, so how
14:46
Speaker 1: many accidents does that prevent? That would prevent 1,000. 1,000
14:48
Speaker 1: accidents cost X, but the cost of all these breaks
14:52
Speaker 1: having to go in is larger than X, then you
14:55
Speaker 1: can't do that regulation.
14:56
Speaker 2: Which is just a very, I know it sounds like
14:59
Speaker 2: mathematically wise and efficient, but it's like, oh, guess what?
15:04
Speaker 2: It costs the railroad X billions of dollars and it
15:08
Speaker 2: only costs the community that got devastated by a derailment
15:13
Speaker 2: You know, X million dollars. Well, you know what? When
15:15
Speaker 2: it's like 5,000 people who can't return to their houses
15:18
Speaker 2: and then have long-term health problems, yeah, maybe the dollar
15:21
Speaker 2: amount on that cost is not as much as what
15:23
Speaker 2: it costs the fucking railroad that's making record profits. But
15:27
Speaker 2: maybe it's still a good idea to do for public
15:29
Speaker 2: health reasons.
15:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we don't apply that sort of logic across
15:33
Speaker 1: the federal government as an example.
15:35
Speaker 4: Right.
15:35
Speaker 1: Most Americans still have to take their shoes off when
15:37
Speaker 1: they get on a plane because 20 years ago, someone
15:40
Speaker 1: tried to put a bomb in their shoe as an example.
15:43
Speaker 1: The point here is everyone should do more and do better.
15:47
Speaker 1: We also need better laws that are more pro-consumer and
15:52
Speaker 1: more aggressive on corporations. That is the foundation that limits
15:56
Speaker 1: the ceiling of what even the most aggressive administration can
15:59
Speaker 1: do on these matters.
16:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
16:02
Speaker 2: But you mentioned the Trump administration and their record. Here's
16:05
Speaker 2: some of the things that the Trump administration did, uh,
16:08
Speaker 2: when Trump was in office, they dropped a ban on
16:11
Speaker 2: shipping liquefied natural gas by real tank car. And that
16:15
Speaker 2: ban was so that the, uh, they, they said that
16:17
Speaker 2: the expansion of us natural gas production necessitated the rollback.
16:21
Speaker 2: The ban had been a response to concerns about possible explosions.
16:24
Speaker 2: Trump administration says we didn't care. We got to ship
16:26
Speaker 2: more natural gas. Um, Trump's Federal Railroad Administration stopped conducting
16:31
Speaker 2: regular rail safety audits of railroads, which the Biden administration
16:35
Speaker 2: did reinstitute once they took office. Trump rolled back almost
16:39
Speaker 2: every regulation on toxic chemicals imaginable and put a chemical
16:43
Speaker 2: industry executive in charge of the EPA's chemical division. And
16:48
Speaker 2: lest you think this is all just Trump-era bureaucrats doing
16:51
Speaker 2: all this work and Trump didn't know what the fuck
16:53
Speaker 2: was happening, Trump bragged about some of this. He said,
16:56
Speaker 2: literally quote tweeted a headline that said, Trump rolls back
17:00
Speaker 2: train-breaking rule meant to keep oil tankers from exploding near communities.
17:05
Speaker 2: And he wrote, effect will be great, exclamation point, on
17:09
Speaker 2: his tweet of that headline. In case you couldn't understand
17:15
Speaker 2: all the other policy weeds, regulation bullshit we were talking about,
17:19
Speaker 2: That's what he did. That's what Trump did when there
17:23
Speaker 2: was a... That's his record.
17:25
Speaker 1: He celebrated on social media a rule that would have
17:29
Speaker 1: made what happened in communities like East Palestine less likely
17:33
Speaker 1: as a victory for himself and the rail industry. That
17:36
Speaker 1: is the smoking gun. Like, that could not be more obvious.
17:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, whether a regulation would have, like, prevented this specific
17:44
Speaker 2: crash or whatever, this is what he was celebrating when
17:47
Speaker 2: he was president. So here's what Pete Buttigieg has now proposed.
17:52
Speaker 2: He said that the Department of Transportation will pursue some
17:56
Speaker 2: regulations on their own on high hazard flammable trains and
18:00
Speaker 2: electronic brakes. But, you know, you could tell from the
18:03
Speaker 2: language in there that it's basically like whatever the law
18:06
Speaker 2: will allow them to do and that they are constrained.
18:09
Speaker 2: The Department of Transportation is constrained by certain laws that
18:11
Speaker 2: are on the books. So he also called on Congress
18:15
Speaker 2: to act for some of the bigger stuff. So bigger
18:17
Speaker 2: fines for railroads, more of these electronic braking regulations and
18:21
Speaker 2: regulation of hazardous materials. So all these Republicans who are
18:26
Speaker 2: complaining now about Pete and about the Biden administration, I'm
18:29
Speaker 2: sure as soon as some Democrat introduces legislation to expand
18:34
Speaker 2: the regulations on electronic brakes and hazardous materials and fines
18:38
Speaker 2: for railroads, I'm sure All of these Republicans will be
18:41
Speaker 2: on board this legislation. We'll have all these co-sponsors, right?
18:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have seen the light. Because of this disaster,
18:47
Speaker 1: they now recognize the dangers of siding with real lobbyists.
18:49
Speaker 1: They now care passionately about pollution and risk and safety.
18:54
Speaker 1: So done.
18:56
Speaker 2: Should be a huge bipartisan victory on this one, right?
18:59
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Biden, get your pen ready. You've got bills to sign.
19:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. All right, so the criticism from the right,
19:06
Speaker 2: of course, has been predictably nastier and more absurd. Republican
19:10
Speaker 2: politicians have been attacking Biden for visiting Ukraine before Ohio.
19:14
Speaker 2: You heard Trump do that. Marjorie Taylor Greene even said
19:16
Speaker 2: that Biden should be impeached over it. They've been calling
19:19
Speaker 2: on Pete to resign. And then we're hearing this kind
19:22
Speaker 2: of shit from people like J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson.
19:24
Speaker 7: East Palestine is overwhelmingly white and it's politically conservative. More
19:28
Speaker 7: than 70 percent of the voters in the surrounding counties
19:31
Speaker 7: supported Donald Trump in the last election. That shouldn't be relevant,
19:35
Speaker 7: but as you're about to hear, it very much is.
19:38
Speaker 7: If this affected the rich or the favored poor, it
19:42
Speaker 7: would be the lead of every news channel in the world.
19:45
Speaker 7: But it happened to the poor benighted town of East Palestine, Ohio,
19:49
Speaker 7: whose people are forgotten and in the view of the
19:51
Speaker 7: people who lead this country, forgettable.
19:53
Speaker 2: So why do you think MAGA World is so intensely
19:56
Speaker 2: focused on East Palestine, aside from the fact that, you know,
20:00
Speaker 2: they've always been champions for health and safety regulations?
20:05
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson pretty much said it. And if you want
20:07
Speaker 1: to understand... Modern Republican Politics. Compare the Republican response to
20:15
Speaker 1: the crisis in Flint, Michigan, a largely black community, and
20:19
Speaker 1: the response here in East Palestine, a largely white community.
20:23
Speaker 1: The message here, and Tucker Carlson says he is the
20:28
Speaker 1: urtext of Republican philosophy and messaging. He just says it.
20:32
Speaker 1: It's not subtle. The point here is they want to
20:35
Speaker 1: demonstrate to their base that it is– Joe Biden, Democrats,
20:42
Speaker 1: liberals do not care about a certain segment of the population.
20:46
Speaker 1: That we would prefer to do this to help other people,
20:48
Speaker 1: help people abroad, as we'll talk about, and not help people.
20:52
Speaker 1: It is pure racial demagoguery.
20:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is. The reason that they're all
20:59
Speaker 2: intensely focused on this is that this hits at the
21:01
Speaker 2: core of their message. It touches on all the erogenous
21:05
Speaker 2: zones for MAGA politicians, right? Democrats only care about people
21:10
Speaker 2: who are not white, not American, and not from small
21:14
Speaker 2: town red America. And that message happens to intersect with
21:19
Speaker 2: how a lot of working and middle class Americans of
21:21
Speaker 2: all parties and races feel about government and most institutions,
21:26
Speaker 2: which is no one cares about me, no one listens
21:28
Speaker 2: to me, no one sees me. So they know that
21:30
Speaker 2: this is fertile ground, not just for the MAGA base,
21:34
Speaker 2: but for a lot of people who just feel left
21:36
Speaker 2: behind by government. Because they are in communities that have
21:40
Speaker 2: been hollowed out in a post-industrial world, not just rural
21:43
Speaker 2: white communities, but inner city black communities, rural black communities,
21:47
Speaker 2: Latino communities all across the country. And so this is
21:51
Speaker 2: what they do. Now, what do you think of the
21:53
Speaker 2: best democratic response to this bullshit?
21:57
Speaker 1: So there's two ways to look at it. The first
21:59
Speaker 1: is like, what's your specific response to what happened here
22:03
Speaker 1: in this community and with rail disasters in general? And
22:06
Speaker 1: I think you, the riff you had a few minutes
22:09
Speaker 1: ago in this podcast about everything Trump did to side
22:13
Speaker 1: with corporations, side with lobbyists, put a chemical industry lobbyist
22:16
Speaker 1: in charge of these things, like that is the right
22:19
Speaker 1: approach here. And that is, Pete Buttigieg did a little
22:22
Speaker 1: bit of this in a subtle, hatchet-friendly way. as a
22:27
Speaker 1: pushback to Trump. So I think that is the way
22:30
Speaker 1: to do that here. More broadly speaking, there is a
22:36
Speaker 1: battle here for, as you put, people who feel left behind.
22:40
Speaker 1: And that is not, as you say, not just white
22:43
Speaker 1: rural blue-collar voters. It is people in inner cities. It
22:46
Speaker 1: is people who are left behind in various communities, rural, suburban, urban, etc.
22:53
Speaker 1: And people who feel like they have not gotten a
22:56
Speaker 1: correctly feel they have not gotten a fair deal in life.
22:59
Speaker 1: The economy has not been friendly to them. The system
23:01
Speaker 1: has not been fair to them. And Republican response to
23:05
Speaker 1: that is to say the reason you are left behind
23:07
Speaker 1: is because Democrats care about people poorer than you, people
23:12
Speaker 1: who live in a different country. You know, you sort
23:14
Speaker 1: of said this. So how do we respond to that?
23:17
Speaker 1: Part of that is to explain Republicans are the ones
23:20
Speaker 1: who have left them behind Because they care so much
23:23
Speaker 1: about rich people and corporations, that they want to help
23:26
Speaker 1: their wealthy, rich, politically connected friends and not these people.
23:30
Speaker 1: And so we have to go on offense against Republicans
23:33
Speaker 1: as people who could actually represent and fight for people
23:37
Speaker 1: who feel left behind in all parts of the country,
23:39
Speaker 1: of all races, of all life stories.
23:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, I think there's something
23:43
Speaker 2: even bigger here that Biden does quite well. I think
23:46
Speaker 2: he did in the State of the Union quite well, too.
23:49
Speaker 2: You know, it was very telling to me when there's
23:51
Speaker 2: an Axios piece where they got on the phone with J.D. Vance,
23:55
Speaker 2: senator from Ohio, you know, Peter Thiel puppet, the guy
24:00
Speaker 2: who ran away, left Ohio so he could go to
24:03
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley and then get funded by Peter Thiel, billionaire.
24:07
Speaker 2: So he tells Axios, you know, because they asked him, like, well,
24:10
Speaker 2: why are you all caring about this so much? And
24:12
Speaker 2: he said, because, you know, Trump and Tucker Carlson and I,
24:15
Speaker 2: we realized these are our voters. These are our voters.
24:19
Speaker 2: And and then you have, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene
24:22
Speaker 2: this week saying, you know, we need a national divorce.
24:24
Speaker 2: And in people from blue states who moved to red
24:27
Speaker 2: states shouldn't be able to vote for five years.
24:29
Speaker 3: Right.
24:30
Speaker 2: And I do think there is an opportunity for Democrats
24:33
Speaker 2: not just to show that they're on the side of
24:38
Speaker 2: working class people and sort of, you know, and sort
24:41
Speaker 2: of engage in this economic populism, but really like go bigger.
24:45
Speaker 2: And it is like we we believe that everyone does.
24:49
Speaker 2: Everyone deserves to live in a safe, healthy, prosperous community,
24:53
Speaker 2: no matter where you live, what you look like or
24:56
Speaker 2: who you voted for.
24:57
Speaker 3: Right.
24:57
Speaker 2: Like you think those these people are your voters. I
25:00
Speaker 2: don't care if they're our voters or not. They're they're
25:02
Speaker 2: Americans and we care about them. And the problem with
25:05
Speaker 2: that party is. They only want to help the people
25:08
Speaker 2: who believe what they believe and who support them. And
25:13
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and the Democratic Party want to help everyone,
25:16
Speaker 2: even if you're not for us, even if you didn't
25:17
Speaker 2: vote for us. And the rich people who run the
25:22
Speaker 2: railroad spent a lot of money lobbying politicians to get
25:25
Speaker 2: their way. And now those rich people and those politicians
25:28
Speaker 2: are trying to get us to blame each other for
25:31
Speaker 2: this or to blame someone else, to blame Trump. Black
25:34
Speaker 2: construction workers, right? That was part of the Tucker Carlson
25:36
Speaker 2: thing that he said, oh, Pete talked about there's too
25:40
Speaker 2: many white construction workers. Well, what Pete said was in
25:43
Speaker 2: inner city communities, they're importing white construction workers to do
25:47
Speaker 2: projects when there's a lot of unemployment and you could
25:49
Speaker 2: have more black construction workers work on those projects. So,
25:52
Speaker 2: of course, Tucker Carlson turns that around to say no
25:54
Speaker 2: more white construction workers from, you know, that's what Pete
25:56
Speaker 2: Buttigieg says. So they want you to blame black construction
25:59
Speaker 2: workers or Ukrainians who are fighting for their lives against
26:02
Speaker 2: a dictator or unions and government officials who have been
26:06
Speaker 2: fighting for better regulations and better working conditions. Blame anyone
26:10
Speaker 2: but the rich assholes who run the railroads who spent
26:13
Speaker 2: a bunch of money to lobby politicians successfully.
26:17
Speaker 1: We're like in century two of rich railroad barons fucking Americans.
26:22
Speaker 2: It's just– It's unbelievable. It's really incumbent upon Democrats to
26:28
Speaker 2: not just say, no, they're hypocrites. They've done this. We're
26:32
Speaker 2: on the side of working people. It's not just that
26:33
Speaker 2: they're hypocrites. It is a game that they're playing. They
26:36
Speaker 2: don't want you to point the finger. They want you
26:38
Speaker 2: to point your finger at everyone else except the people
26:41
Speaker 2: responsible who are the rich assholes who line their pockets.
26:45
Speaker 1: What we are sort of like dancing around here is
26:48
Speaker 1: this belief. much bigger quasi-false choice debate happening within the
26:54
Speaker 1: corridors of the Democratic Party, which is there's a report
26:57
Speaker 1: out this week from American Family Voices, a very smart
27:00
Speaker 1: political organization, looking at the Democratic brand among blue-collar working-class voters. And,
27:05
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, it's not great. And so the question– and
27:08
Speaker 1: we obviously know that. We've seen that as we– as
27:12
Speaker 1: Democratic share of the working-class vote and the non-college-educated vote
27:15
Speaker 1: has gone down in recent elections. And so the question is,
27:20
Speaker 1: what do you do about it? And the debate sort
27:22
Speaker 1: of centers around two ideas, and they're not mutually exclusive,
27:25
Speaker 1: but in a world of limited resources, they kind of are.
27:28
Speaker 1: One is improve the Democratic brand. The other is damage
27:34
Speaker 1: the Republican brand with these voters. And that is sort
27:36
Speaker 1: of where, you know, where you're trying, where sort of
27:38
Speaker 1: the polls around which this debate operates is what is
27:42
Speaker 1: the more likely path to success, short term and long term, right?
27:47
Speaker 1: Because we're on a ticking clock here. if we want
27:49
Speaker 1: to solve some of these problems by 2024, particularly if
27:52
Speaker 1: we're running against a Republican who's not Donald Trump. And
27:54
Speaker 1: so I'm sure we'll talk about this a thousand times
27:57
Speaker 1: between now and the election, but that is a big
28:00
Speaker 1: question for Democrats is how we address some of our challenges.
28:03
Speaker 1: Other Republicans don't have just as many challenges. It's just
28:05
Speaker 1: they just happen to have an electoral college that structurally
28:07
Speaker 1: favors them in a pretty massive way.
28:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
28:10
Speaker 2: And as we talked about, I think just a few
28:12
Speaker 2: weeks ago here, And for a long time, the problem
28:15
Speaker 2: with Democrat and Democrats and working class voters was with
28:18
Speaker 2: working class white voters. Now, increasingly, it's becoming a problem
28:20
Speaker 2: with working class black and Latino voters, especially male voters
28:24
Speaker 2: as well. So it's a big challenge. All right. We
28:36
Speaker 2: should talk a little bit more about Biden's secret trip
28:39
Speaker 2: to Kiev this week. Kiev, Kiev.
28:42
Speaker 3: Look.
28:42
Speaker 2: I listened to Prod Save the World this week, and
28:44
Speaker 2: Tommy and Ben still haven't landed on how to pronounce it.
28:47
Speaker 1: Let me guess. Does Ben say Kiev and Tommy says Kiev?
28:51
Speaker 2: No. I forget what Tommy was saying, but Ben was
28:54
Speaker 2: criticizing him for not being able to have the correct
28:57
Speaker 2: Slavic intonation there.
28:59
Speaker 1: Oh, of course. Well, I worked in the White House
29:02
Speaker 1: when Russia invaded Crimea, and we got corrected a lot
29:07
Speaker 1: on the Kiev thing by people who worked with Ben.
29:11
Speaker 3: I will tell you that.
29:13
Speaker 2: Biden went to the capital of Ukraine. Let's just say that.
29:16
Speaker 2: So Tommy and Ben also covered all the background and
29:19
Speaker 2: secret planning involved in a presidential trip to a war
29:22
Speaker 2: zone on this week's Pod Save the World. So you
29:23
Speaker 2: should definitely go check that out. It's a great episode.
29:26
Speaker 2: That leaves us free to break down the politics, like
29:29
Speaker 2: the hacks that we are.
29:31
Speaker 1: Just know thyself.
29:31
Speaker 2: Exciting, right?
29:32
Speaker 1: Know thyself.
29:34
Speaker 2: All right. So a few Republicans like Lindsey Graham praised
29:37
Speaker 2: Biden's visit, but most of the estate has used the
29:43
Speaker 2: why Ukraine, not Ohio talking points, or they said something
29:47
Speaker 2: similar like this.
29:48
Speaker 1: I think I and.
29:49
Speaker 8: Many Americans are thinking to ourselves, OK, he's very concerned
29:53
Speaker 8: about those borders halfway around the world. He's not done
29:56
Speaker 8: anything to secure our own border here at home. We've
29:59
Speaker 8: had millions and millions of people pour in, tens of
30:02
Speaker 8: thousands of Americans dead because of fentanyl. And then, of course,
30:05
Speaker 8: we just suffered a national humiliation of having China fly
30:09
Speaker 8: a spy balloon clear across the continental United States.
30:14
Speaker 2: That annoying voice you heard is, of course, Ron DeSantis.
30:17
Speaker 2: You'll be hearing a lot more of that annoying voice
30:19
Speaker 2: over the next year. Of course, who can forget how
30:22
Speaker 2: embarrassed we were by the balloon? Before we get to him,
30:26
Speaker 2: what did you think of Biden's trip to Ukraine and
30:29
Speaker 2: his speech in Poland afterwards?
30:31
Speaker 1: I thought the speech was incredibly powerful. The visuals were important.
30:34
Speaker 1: The message was important. It was strong. I think it
30:37
Speaker 1: went a long way to not just helping build support
30:41
Speaker 1: and unifying the country around the sacrifices that we are
30:45
Speaker 1: going to make on behalf of the Ukrainians, but this
30:49
Speaker 1: upcoming battle in Congress over funding for Ukraine. And so
30:53
Speaker 1: I thought it was from a pure like nerdy logistics perspective.
30:57
Speaker 1: I went on two trips with Obama to Afghanistan and the,
31:02
Speaker 1: how you pull that off is, was always stunning, but
31:06
Speaker 1: this is 10 X more complicated than that. We were
31:09
Speaker 1: landing where the U.S. has a military presence where we
31:11
Speaker 1: had bases. They'd done it. Several presidents, two presidents had
31:14
Speaker 1: done it. There was a pattern to it. This is
31:17
Speaker 1: something totally new. It involves like 18 hours on a train.
31:19
Speaker 1: I mean, just truly a very brave and bold decision.
31:24
Speaker 1: I think no one would have really criticized Biden for
31:26
Speaker 1: not going. I mean, it's incredibly dangerous. The Trump never went.
31:30
Speaker 1: I think maybe he went once to a war zone.
31:35
Speaker 1: But just I thought a very, very impressive from the
31:37
Speaker 1: White House and from the president.
31:38
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a ballsy thing for anyone to do,
31:41
Speaker 2: flying in the middle of the night on a smaller
31:44
Speaker 2: Air Force plane and then taking the very long train
31:47
Speaker 2: ride into the middle of a war zone where there's
31:49
Speaker 2: no U.S. military protection, let alone an 80-year-old president. So
31:55
Speaker 2: I also think it's hard to argue the guy's not
31:58
Speaker 2: up for the job when he's doing shit like this. Yeah, exactly.
32:00
Speaker 1: Let's see some of these other assholes do that. It
32:02
Speaker 1: was very impressive.
32:03
Speaker 2: Which I'm sure was part of the thinking that went
32:05
Speaker 2: into this. I'm sure it was part of it. And yeah,
32:09
Speaker 2: it looked really great. And then you have like, I
32:11
Speaker 2: think you pointed this out in the message box, and
32:12
Speaker 2: you've got that jack-off Ron DeSantis on television looking like
32:16
Speaker 2: a goon.
32:17
Speaker 1: What a split screen. Biden is traveling by train into
32:20
Speaker 1: a war zone to meet with an incredibly brave leader
32:24
Speaker 1: fighting the Russians. And Ron DeSantis is doing an interview
32:28
Speaker 1: on President's Day with Pete Doocy. What?
32:33
Speaker 2: And look, I think to the speech, you know, every
32:36
Speaker 2: time that Biden gets to hammer home his message about
32:39
Speaker 2: democracy versus autocracy, freedom versus tyranny, which happens now to
32:43
Speaker 2: be both a national and an international message.
32:47
Speaker 1: What a world. Just find and replace Putin with DeSantis
32:50
Speaker 1: and you got the same speech.
32:53
Speaker 2: Well, but it's like, you know, it's Biden has a
32:56
Speaker 2: consistent message and he has since, you know, basically the
32:59
Speaker 2: 2020 campaign. about this and so it was uh it
33:03
Speaker 2: was a good you know he i think he did
33:05
Speaker 2: it really powerfully you know he made the argument that
33:07
Speaker 2: the appetites of an autocrat cannot be appeased they must
33:10
Speaker 2: be opposed which again something we're doing abroad and at
33:15
Speaker 2: home so i thought that was great so uh twitter's
33:18
Speaker 2: favorite nate uh dropped this take in response to desantis's
33:21
Speaker 2: comments Quote, granted, voters don't care about foreign policy that much,
33:27
Speaker 2: but the emerging GOP stance on Russia-Ukraine is likely to
33:30
Speaker 2: be unpopular with swing voters and is giving Democrats a
33:33
Speaker 2: free wedge issue where they'll be on the right side
33:35
Speaker 2: of public opinion in 2024. Tough shot at the world
33:38
Speaker 2: I was there, huh?
33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, seriously. That's why they hate Nate so much. We're
33:42
Speaker 1: talking about Nate Silver, right? That's the Nate we're referring to?
33:44
Speaker 2: That is Twitter's favorite Nate. Yeah, I think that's sarcastic.
33:48
Speaker 1: We're really Nate Coon guys around here, but yeah, I
33:50
Speaker 1: get your point.
33:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a Nate Cohn guy living in a Nate
33:53
Speaker 2: Silver world. Anyway, enough.
33:56
Speaker 1: What a fucking nerdy thing for you to say and
33:58
Speaker 1: then meet a laugh at.
34:00
Speaker 2: Just like a Twitter joke from five years ago.
34:02
Speaker 7: All right.
34:03
Speaker 2: What do you think of Nate's overall take about the
34:05
Speaker 2: politics of this?
34:07
Speaker 1: I think he is technically correct if you look at
34:10
Speaker 1: the polls right now. There is majority support for what
34:15
Speaker 1: President Biden is doing in terms of sending weapons. in
34:19
Speaker 1: terms of economic aid and financial support, in terms of
34:23
Speaker 1: not sending US troops. People support the US policy and
34:28
Speaker 1: what is happening there. I think it is fair to
34:31
Speaker 1: say that there is polling that shows that patience is
34:34
Speaker 1: not infinite. There was a Chicago Council on Global Affairs
34:38
Speaker 1: poll from a couple months ago that has been tracking
34:42
Speaker 1: the question of, are you in favor of US support
34:45
Speaker 1: for as long as it takes? Last summer, that number
34:48
Speaker 1: was 58%. This most recent poll, it's 48%. So there
34:51
Speaker 1: is some erosion there. People think we should do this forever.
34:54
Speaker 1: But Biden is clearly on the political high side of
34:56
Speaker 1: the issue. Now, the question is when people actually vote
35:01
Speaker 1: is 100 miles from now, 100 years from now. A
35:04
Speaker 1: lot can change on issues of US involvement abroad quickly,
35:09
Speaker 1: both if things change on the ground in Ukraine, but
35:11
Speaker 1: also if they change on the ground here. If we
35:15
Speaker 1: were to face a recession, people's support for sending money
35:19
Speaker 1: to Ukraine could change pretty quickly. The other more important question,
35:23
Speaker 1: I think, is if DeSantis or Trump or anyone else
35:28
Speaker 1: who has this position as a Republican nominee and the
35:31
Speaker 1: vast majority of people disagree with it, are they going
35:32
Speaker 1: to disagree with it but care about it enough that
35:35
Speaker 1: it influences their actual decision? There are things you support
35:38
Speaker 1: and oppose, and there are things that influence your vote.
35:40
Speaker 1: And I am skeptical that this would influence people's vote.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. But again, I agree with what you said. It
35:47
Speaker 2: it's totally dependent on what the situation on the ground
35:51
Speaker 2: is over the next year or so, right? Both like,
35:55
Speaker 2: is there a recession here? What happens if Putin starts winning?
35:58
Speaker 2: What happens if Putin escalates the war to other countries
36:02
Speaker 2: and the US and NATO feel like we have to
36:04
Speaker 2: escalate our support for Ukraine as well? Like these are
36:06
Speaker 2: all wild cards. And I think, you know, you talked
36:09
Speaker 2: about who the Republican nominee is. I think where Trump
36:13
Speaker 2: and now DeSantis and likely the rest of the field
36:16
Speaker 2: are on Ukraine, and they're there because the MAGA base
36:20
Speaker 2: is there, that's going to ensure that we will have
36:22
Speaker 2: a year of a heavily covered Republican primary where all
36:26
Speaker 2: the candidates are going to be ginning up nativism and
36:29
Speaker 2: isolationism and spreading disinformation about the war. And, you know,
36:33
Speaker 2: you wonder what kind of effect that will have on
36:36
Speaker 2: public opinion along with the possibility that conditions here or
36:40
Speaker 2: abroad could change. And I do think, like, The easiest,
36:43
Speaker 2: cheapest politics in the world is to say, let's stop spending.
36:48
Speaker 2: Let's stop sending money to foreigners and and help our
36:51
Speaker 2: people instead. You know, that's like a tried and true,
36:54
Speaker 2: easy political gimmick. And so I would not want to
36:57
Speaker 2: underestimate it.
36:57
Speaker 1: How many speeches did you write for John Kerry about
37:00
Speaker 1: building firehouses here and not in Baghdad?
37:03
Speaker 2: It's it's just so many times he said that. And
37:08
Speaker 2: it was the highest testing line.
37:12
Speaker 3: Of.
37:13
Speaker 2: Anything he said in his stump speech.
37:14
Speaker 1: It speaks to the limits of that, right? Because that
37:17
Speaker 1: was an election in which foreign policy was the number
37:19
Speaker 1: one issue for most voters. And even then, not that
37:23
Speaker 1: the election turns to that sort of phrase, just to
37:25
Speaker 1: put some perspective on why DeSantis took this position. So
37:28
Speaker 1: CBS and YouGov do this really interesting thing in their
37:31
Speaker 1: polling where they isolate Republicans who self-identify with the MAGA
37:36
Speaker 1: movement and then compare what MAGA Republicans think with regular Republicans.
37:40
Speaker 1: And so in January, they asked in their poll, do
37:43
Speaker 1: you want your representative to support funding for Ukraine?
37:46
Speaker 2: Yes or no?
37:48
Speaker 1: All Republicans, 48%. MAGA Republicans, 38%, right? So, and what is,
37:54
Speaker 1: and if, lest you think that, I can't believe I
37:58
Speaker 1: said lest you think in the same podcast, but you
37:59
Speaker 1: earlier said lest you think.
38:01
Speaker 2: But, but, doing this too long.
38:07
Speaker 3: Seriously.
38:09
Speaker 1: The MAGA Republicans are not a faction of the Republican Party.
38:12
Speaker 1: Consistently over the year in which CBS has been doing this,
38:15
Speaker 1: self-identified MAGA Republicans make up half of Republicans. So you
38:19
Speaker 1: have two-thirds, to sort of reverse the math here, two-thirds
38:23
Speaker 1: of one-half of Republicans do not want their member of
38:25
Speaker 1: Congress to send money to Ukraine. And those are the people,
38:28
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis is probably correctly betting, are more likely to
38:31
Speaker 1: vote in primaries or more likely to donate to primary candidates,
38:35
Speaker 1: more likely to attend rallies. So that's where the energy is.
38:37
Speaker 1: So that's where he is appealing. Even if I don't
38:39
Speaker 1: think Ron DeSantis has any like hard, well thought out
38:43
Speaker 1: views on Ukraine, he's just going where he sees the
38:45
Speaker 1: political winds blowing, which is his one skill that he
38:48
Speaker 1: appears to be better at than most Republicans is figuring
38:50
Speaker 1: out where the energy in the party is going to
38:52
Speaker 1: be five minutes from now and getting there in four minutes.
38:56
Speaker 4: Yeah.
38:57
Speaker 2: And I mean, I think all the other candidates will
39:00
Speaker 2: probably do the same thing too. I'm sure, I'm sure
39:02
Speaker 2: Nikki Haley has a whole bunch of statements where she's,
39:06
Speaker 2: you know, a Russia hawk and supportive of Ukraine. But like,
39:10
Speaker 2: I'm sure she'll fold just like DeSantis.
39:12
Speaker 1: Not Nikki.
39:14
Speaker 2: No, come on.
39:15
Speaker 1: That's an unfair hit.
39:17
Speaker 2: Pompeo will be there. Pence, they'll all be there. They'll
39:19
Speaker 2: all be there. Which brings us to the next topic.
39:21
Speaker 2: You know, one important dynamic here is that what's happening
39:25
Speaker 2: in the Republican primary on Ukraine is happening on most issues,
39:29
Speaker 2: which is that everyone's trying to out Trump Trump. This
39:32
Speaker 2: is especially true on issues of race, gender and sexual orientation.
39:36
Speaker 2: Nikki Haley billing herself as the future of the Republican
39:39
Speaker 2: Party just said this about Ron DeSantis is don't say
39:42
Speaker 2: gay bill, which bans teachers from giving classroom instruction on
39:45
Speaker 2: sexual orientation or gender identity. through the third grade. Quote,
39:49
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I don't think that goes far enough. When
39:52
Speaker 2: I was in school, you didn't have sex ed until
39:55
Speaker 2: seventh grade. Mike Pence is in court trying to force
39:58
Speaker 2: Iowa schools to out transgender students. Glenn Youngkin is calling
40:02
Speaker 2: for a review of Virginia's AP African American Studies curriculum,
40:07
Speaker 2: taking a page out of the DeSantis playbook. And Trump
40:10
Speaker 2: himself is going further than he ever did in 2016
40:12
Speaker 2: or 2020, and proposing a nationwide ban on gender-affirming care
40:17
Speaker 2: to minors and a federal law recognizing only two genders.
40:22
Speaker 2: Cool party, all about limited government and personal freedom. So
40:26
Speaker 2: to me, this seems like a path that will make
40:28
Speaker 2: them all less electable in a general election, but far
40:31
Speaker 2: more dangerous if they still manage to win. What do
40:35
Speaker 2: you think?
40:35
Speaker 1: I think it makes them far more dangerous even if
40:38
Speaker 1: they don't win. And I think it is important to
40:41
Speaker 1: at least acknowledge that that we are about to head
40:44
Speaker 1: down a at least year-long bidding war of bigotry and
40:50
Speaker 1: raising the level of rhetoric. And that is going to
40:54
Speaker 1: have consequences. It's deeply dangerous for LGBTQ plus community, for
41:01
Speaker 1: trans people in particular. We've already seen both in 2016
41:05
Speaker 1: and 2020 where the rhetoric coming out of Republican politicians
41:08
Speaker 1: has translated into real world violence. And that It is
41:12
Speaker 1: a dangerous dynamic that is happening. And even if a
41:15
Speaker 1: candidate who is mildly less dangerous and the most dangerous
41:20
Speaker 1: of these dangerous people gets elected, they're probably going to
41:22
Speaker 1: put in place the dangerous policies, just as Glenn Youngkin
41:25
Speaker 1: is doing, right? Donald Trump, who even tried to portray
41:29
Speaker 1: himself kind of as less of a culture warrior on
41:35
Speaker 1: some of these issues, then went in place and did
41:37
Speaker 1: all the terrible things when he got there, right?
41:39
Speaker 7: It is.
41:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it is dangerous. Now, the question is, is
41:43
Speaker 1: it going to make them unelectable? We have no idea.
41:47
Speaker 1: Will it potentially make them less electable? Will it give
41:50
Speaker 1: Democrats not an opportunity but sort of an imperative to
41:55
Speaker 1: reuse the MAGA– extremism messaging from 2022 that was so effective? Absolutely.
42:01
Speaker 1: But this primary will take place in large place inside
42:06
Speaker 1: a hermetically sealed right-wing news bubble. And people who don't
42:09
Speaker 1: pay attention to politics full-time, who are going to pay
42:12
Speaker 1: no attention to Republican primary, who will decide the 2024 election,
42:16
Speaker 1: will only know about these things if we tell them.
42:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
42:19
Speaker 2: And look, we're talking about the Republican primary right now,
42:22
Speaker 2: but there's hundreds and hundreds of bills that have been
42:24
Speaker 2: introduced and laws that have been passed in uh, mostly
42:28
Speaker 2: red States or purple States, uh, throughout the country that
42:31
Speaker 2: have targeted LGBTQ kids, uh, trans kids, um, trying to,
42:37
Speaker 2: you know, ban certain books, um, try to prevent kids
42:41
Speaker 2: from learning about, uh, history, uh, the history of race
42:45
Speaker 2: in this country. So it's already happening. Um, and I
42:48
Speaker 2: think it, I think the question is you're right. Like it's,
42:51
Speaker 2: it's Democrats. Um, We have to figure out a way
42:54
Speaker 2: to respond to this. We shouldn't avoid the argument. We
42:56
Speaker 2: have to figure out a way to win the argument.
42:59
Speaker 2: I think it's true that some of the polling on
43:01
Speaker 2: these issues, especially gender identity, is not where a lot
43:04
Speaker 2: of us would like it to be. But again, the
43:06
Speaker 2: way to deal with that is not to avoid the argument.
43:08
Speaker 2: It's to win it. I think Trump and DeSantis and
43:10
Speaker 2: a lot of these mega media assholes, they want to
43:13
Speaker 2: get in a fight over cherry picked examples of this
43:17
Speaker 2: one book or this one athlete or this one teacher
43:19
Speaker 2: and And I think Democrats shouldn't take the bait. I
43:22
Speaker 2: think we should approach the issue like we did abortion
43:25
Speaker 2: in 2022 and, you know, point out that MAGA politicians
43:30
Speaker 2: do not get to make decisions about what our children learn,
43:35
Speaker 2: who they love, who they become, and what kind of
43:37
Speaker 2: health care they need. They don't get to tell our
43:40
Speaker 2: kids that they're not as worthy of love or respect
43:43
Speaker 2: or protection under the law as other kids just because
43:46
Speaker 2: who they are makes some other people angry or uncomfortable.
43:49
Speaker 2: And that's it. That's just like period, end of story.
43:52
Speaker 2: And I think you carry that message everywhere and then
43:55
Speaker 2: you don't get down into the weeds with them about
43:57
Speaker 2: all the individual fights they want to pick in this
44:00
Speaker 2: school district or that one. And I think that's a
44:02
Speaker 2: powerful enough message that it will marginalize the Republican extremism
44:08
Speaker 2: and make Democrats the party that are sort of willing
44:10
Speaker 2: to listen to parents and kids.
44:12
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of polling on these issues, including
44:15
Speaker 1: the issues around gender identity and There are some polls
44:19
Speaker 1: that look really hard for Democrats or others that look
44:21
Speaker 1: terrible for Republicans, and it is over framing how those
44:24
Speaker 1: issues are discussed.
44:27
Speaker 2: That's why the framing is so important.
44:28
Speaker 1: That's why we have to engage and engage aggressively because
44:31
Speaker 1: if we do not, this will be debated on the
44:34
Speaker 1: cherry-picked examples they have, on the distortions, on the lies,
44:37
Speaker 1: on the conspiracy theories. This is something we said way
44:41
Speaker 1: back in the Trump era, which is we do not
44:45
Speaker 1: get– in a world in which– The right-wing megaphone exists
44:48
Speaker 1: where you have social media companies like Facebook that push
44:51
Speaker 1: these cultural issues to the forefront. We don't get to
44:53
Speaker 1: decide which fights happen. We just have to figure out
44:58
Speaker 1: how to win those fights. And this is one of
45:00
Speaker 1: those cases. It's not just a political imperative. It's a
45:04
Speaker 1: moral imperative in this case, too, because if we don't
45:06
Speaker 1: fight back, no one's going to fight back. And that is,
45:08
Speaker 1: I think, a message for everyone from top to bottom.
45:10
Speaker 1: You're going to hear a bunch of pollsters and consultants say, Well,
45:13
Speaker 1: people care about inflation and the economy. And that's all true.
45:15
Speaker 1: And you're going to have to put this in context.
45:18
Speaker 1: And there are versions of the race class narrative messaging
45:21
Speaker 1: that we've talked about many, many times over the last
45:23
Speaker 1: many years on this that apply here too, which is
45:26
Speaker 1: Republicans are lying. They're trying to scare people. They are
45:30
Speaker 1: dividing people. They are picking on kids. And they're doing
45:33
Speaker 1: it for a reason. And what is that reason and
45:35
Speaker 1: who benefits? And that's the sort of messaging narrative that
45:37
Speaker 1: we need.
45:39
Speaker 2: We just talked about it around the railroad issue. You know,
45:43
Speaker 2: if it works in both cases, this is what, you know,
45:45
Speaker 2: Anat Shankar has been on here a lot, Heather McGee.
45:49
Speaker 2: They have done a lot of research into this, and
45:51
Speaker 2: it happens to be the morally correct thing to do,
45:54
Speaker 2: but it also happens to be the most politically effective
45:56
Speaker 2: thing to do, is to call out the bullshit. Mallory McMorrow,
46:00
Speaker 2: state senator for Michigan, was on this podcast last week.
46:03
Speaker 2: She was doing a version of it, too. That's why
46:05
Speaker 2: her speech went viral a ways back, right? Like, this,
46:09
Speaker 2: we should not feel... defensive about this. There is a
46:12
Speaker 2: way to talk about this that is that is aligned
46:15
Speaker 2: with our values and also is going to appeal to
46:19
Speaker 2: the broadest possible audience of people. And what it does
46:22
Speaker 2: is it marginalizes the extremists and all the folks on
46:25
Speaker 2: our side and folks in the middle, you know, will
46:28
Speaker 2: agree with the with this framing. So another Republican who
46:32
Speaker 2: may be joining the field is South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
46:36
Speaker 2: He's in Iowa this week. And according to Politico, quote,
46:38
Speaker 2: has a belief that perhaps other Americans are similarly disgusted
46:42
Speaker 2: with the tenor of today's politics and want a candidate
46:46
Speaker 2: who will restore civility.
46:49
Speaker 3: Red Hen. Civility alert. Red Hen. Civility alert. Paging Chuck Todd.
46:57
Speaker 3: Paging Chuck Todd. Tip O'Neill. Ronald Reagan. You are needed
47:01
Speaker 3: with a bourbon in the West Wing. Red Hen.
47:05
Speaker 2: Red Hen. I'm sorry. Red Hen.
47:07
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
47:09
Speaker 2: I didn't need to do that, but.
47:11
Speaker 1: I mean, one of my favorite things.
47:13
Speaker 2: The word civility was right there.
47:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that I really enjoyed in
47:17
Speaker 1: the last week or so was when, before, as part
47:20
Speaker 1: of the ruse to go on this secret trip to
47:24
Speaker 1: the capital of Ukraine, Biden attended a restaurant, a dinner
47:27
Speaker 1: at a restaurant named Red Head, which is an excellent
47:31
Speaker 1: restaurant in D.C., which caused Tommy, whose voice you hear there,
47:35
Speaker 1: to speak up. Little did Tommy know... the red hand
47:38
Speaker 1: incident of 2000 and whatever year that was, was it
47:41
Speaker 1: a different red hand?
47:43
Speaker 2: It really ruined Tommy's day.
47:45
Speaker 1: Well, I was so nice. I did it privately on text,
47:48
Speaker 1: like from friend to friend. I didn't just like actually
47:50
Speaker 1: him on Twitter. No, he actually, that's, that's, that's the
47:56
Speaker 1: kind of guy Tommy is. That's sort of accountability he
47:58
Speaker 1: brings as a pundit.
48:00
Speaker 2: Enough about Tommy's right hand obsession. Is there room for
48:03
Speaker 2: a candidate in this Republican primary who wants to focus
48:06
Speaker 2: on civility and Instead of fighting the culture wars.
48:10
Speaker 3: Maybe.
48:11
Speaker 1: Is that not the answer you were expecting, is it?
48:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to say a big no on this one.
48:17
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that is not where the energy is.
48:21
Speaker 1: And it is true, as Nate Cohn, our favorite Nate,
48:24
Speaker 1: pointed out in his New York Times newsletter the other day.
48:27
Speaker 1: Candidates who start with above 20% in early polls are
48:33
Speaker 1: the ones who almost always win. So the fact that–
48:37
Speaker 1: as you look at that, it means that the overwhelming
48:38
Speaker 1: likelihood is that either Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump will
48:41
Speaker 1: be the Republican nominee. But I want to bring a
48:44
Speaker 1: tiny modicum of humility to this because the way the
48:48
Speaker 1: Republican primary works does allow a possibility for someone to
48:54
Speaker 1: sneak up the middle and get momentum very quickly because
48:58
Speaker 1: unlike the Democratic contests, Republican contests are winner-take-all. So there
49:02
Speaker 1: is a situation where you could win in a multi-candidate
49:05
Speaker 1: field with a pretty– it could be that the overwhelming
49:08
Speaker 1: majority of Republicans do not want civility. But the pro-asshole
49:13
Speaker 1: people are divided amongst the nine assholes and the very
49:15
Speaker 1: small sliver of civility people align behind the one civility candidate.
49:20
Speaker 1: and that person could win primaries and take all the delegates.
49:22
Speaker 1: Is that likely to happen? Absolutely not likely. Is it probable?
49:28
Speaker 4: No.
49:28
Speaker 1: Could it happen?
49:29
Speaker 4: I don't know.
49:30
Speaker 1: Do I make predictions? Absolutely not.
49:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that to the polling you cited about Ukraine,
49:41
Speaker 2: like the MAGA base in the Republican Party is either
49:45
Speaker 2: behind Trump or is Ron curious. And then I think,
49:52
Speaker 2: and I think those are largely non-college educated voters. That's
49:57
Speaker 2: the base of the Republican Party right now. That's Trump's base.
50:01
Speaker 2: Then I think there's a set of college educated Republicans
50:04
Speaker 2: who are a smaller portion of the party and they
50:07
Speaker 2: are mostly done with Trump. It's probably still vote for
50:10
Speaker 2: him if he's the nominee.
50:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
50:13
Speaker 2: 100%. And are looking at DeSantis, maybe looking at Haley,
50:18
Speaker 2: looking at Scott, maybe looking at some of these other,
50:20
Speaker 2: maybe looking at a Sununu if he gets in. And
50:23
Speaker 2: that group of people, they're going to split their vote
50:26
Speaker 2: between all those candidates, but that's a small segment of
50:29
Speaker 2: the Republican party. And I just don't know how Tim
50:32
Speaker 2: Scott Or anyone else besides DeSantis breaks into the much
50:38
Speaker 2: larger segment of the Republican Party, which is the MAGA base,
50:41
Speaker 2: especially if your brand is like sunny Republican optimist. I
50:48
Speaker 2: just don't I don't know. Maybe I could be wrong.
50:50
Speaker 1: Just as a teaser here. I recorded an episode of
50:54
Speaker 1: Political Experts React earlier this week with Cornell Belcher looking
50:58
Speaker 1: at- Tim Scott? Yes, with Tim Scott. And boy, he
51:00
Speaker 1: was impressive, I have to tell you. No, with Cornell Belcher,
51:03
Speaker 1: who was a Democratic pollster, was one of Obama's pollsters,
51:08
Speaker 1: incredibly smart guy. And we looked at DeSantis, Haley, and
51:13
Speaker 1: Tim Scott's sort of early forays into presidential command. And
51:16
Speaker 1: he had some really interesting thoughts about how Scott could
51:19
Speaker 1: possibly give himself a chance. So that'll be out next week.
51:24
Speaker 1: You should definitely watch that as opposed to Tommy's thing
51:27
Speaker 1: that he does that is trying to usurp.
51:28
Speaker 2: Liberal tears.
51:30
Speaker 1: Don't say the name. Which we have.
51:34
Speaker 2: Not been invited on yet. Tommy's done two already. No
51:37
Speaker 2: one's invited us.
51:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know why? Because he wants fucking views. And
51:40
Speaker 1: you know how you get views? You invite Brian O'Dell
51:41
Speaker 1: and Cohen on to do your video with you as
51:43
Speaker 1: a star. But when I sat down to record it,
51:47
Speaker 1: Ben and Elijah wanted to make sure that I knew
51:50
Speaker 1: that Tommy name-checked me in the recording of Liberal Tears,
51:55
Speaker 1: which I have not seen because I will not give
51:56
Speaker 1: him that free view because we're in a competition.
51:59
Speaker 2: Anyway, so what did Cornell have to say about these?
52:01
Speaker 2: Do we get a preview of what Cornell had to
52:03
Speaker 2: say about Nikki?
52:03
Speaker 1: No, yeah, you know what you do? I'll tell you,
52:04
Speaker 1: you get a preview.
52:04
Speaker 2: You have to watch.
52:05
Speaker 1: You go to the Positive America YouTube channel. You subscribe
52:08
Speaker 1: if you haven't, and then you watch the video, and
52:09
Speaker 1: you'll be smarter. Don't give it away for free here.
52:13
Speaker 2: Before this just becomes a completely internal cricket conversation here,
52:16
Speaker 2: a couple more points about Tim Scott. One, I do
52:19
Speaker 2: think that I want to go on record as saying
52:21
Speaker 2: I do think he has a better chance than Nikki Haley.
52:23
Speaker 2: I think he I think that like, look, I think
52:26
Speaker 2: of that mess of a Republican convention in 2020. He
52:28
Speaker 2: gave the best speech of all of them. It's funny.
52:31
Speaker 2: A couple of people tweeted at us after we talked
52:35
Speaker 2: about Nikki Haley. Like, I don't know. I saw her announcement.
52:37
Speaker 2: I'd sort of be scared of her in a general election.
52:39
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, yeah, that's not the point. If Nikki
52:41
Speaker 2: Haley was the Republican nominee, if Tim Scott, even more
52:44
Speaker 2: so than Nikki Haley, was a Republican nominee. I would
52:47
Speaker 2: be much more nervous about running against them. I think
52:49
Speaker 2: they'd be a much, I just don't see how they
52:51
Speaker 2: get through the primary in this party. That's my biggest
52:54
Speaker 2: issue with them. But again, and also Tim Scott was
52:58
Speaker 2: on Hannity, as one does when one is testing the waters.
53:01
Speaker 1: As one does when they believe in civility.
53:04
Speaker 3: Right, yeah.
53:05
Speaker 2: And well, so Hannity asked him, as he did with
53:08
Speaker 2: Nikki Haley, what are your policy differences with Trump? And
53:11
Speaker 2: Tim Scott said, Probably not very many at all. I
53:14
Speaker 2: am so thankful that we had President Trump in office.
53:17
Speaker 2: So you can see it like where Mr. Mr. Civility,
53:20
Speaker 2: it's going to be a little tough.
53:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
53:23
Speaker 2: Oh, you agree. You is that it was that you
53:25
Speaker 2: agreed with child separation. Did you were you thankful that
53:28
Speaker 2: he was in office when he tried to incite a
53:32
Speaker 2: riot to overturn the election? Is that something you were
53:34
Speaker 2: grateful for? Like, you know, I don't know. This is
53:37
Speaker 2: going to really hold up.
53:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's it's a tricky wicked, as they say.
53:42
Speaker 2: It's a bit of a tricky way. Okay. When we
53:45
Speaker 2: come back, strict scrutinies. Leah Lippman will join to talk
53:48
Speaker 2: to Dan about the big tech cases in front of
53:51
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court this term.
54:01
Speaker 1: This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two
54:03
Speaker 1: cases that could change the rules for online speech. Joining
54:06
Speaker 1: us to break it all down is Leah Lippman from
54:08
Speaker 1: Crooked's legal podcast, Strict Scrutiny. Leah, welcome back to the pod.
54:12
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
54:13
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for doing this in the middle of an
54:14
Speaker 1: ice storm. That is a very generous way to spend
54:17
Speaker 1: your time during a climate change natural disaster that you
54:20
Speaker 1: may be dealing with.
54:21
Speaker 4: I'm happy to come into work as long as the
54:23
Speaker 4: internet is allowed to continue to exist.
54:25
Speaker 2: So there we go.
54:26
Speaker 1: That's true. So I wanted to have you on today
54:30
Speaker 1: for two reasons. First, everyone loves a strict scrutiny Positive
54:34
Speaker 1: America crossover episode. So we got to give the people
54:36
Speaker 1: what they want. Two, these cases before the Supreme Court
54:39
Speaker 1: both obviously have very high stakes, but they're also, I think,
54:42
Speaker 1: a good gateway to help people understand the contours of
54:46
Speaker 1: the big tech policy discussions that are happening, sort of
54:50
Speaker 1: fear-mongering from the right about shadow banning and censorship and
54:55
Speaker 1: legitimate concerns, not just from the left, but from everyone
54:58
Speaker 1: about the role social media plays in the spreading of disinformation,
55:01
Speaker 1: election suppression, hate speech, incitement of violence, of all of that.
55:05
Speaker 1: And so if we could possibly start with helping people
55:09
Speaker 1: understand what is at stake, perhaps in this, the Gonzalez
55:12
Speaker 1: case might be the one to start with. What's at
55:15
Speaker 1: stake there, what that case is about, and how it
55:17
Speaker 1: impacts this thing called Section 230 we hear about all
55:20
Speaker 1: the time?
55:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. So Gonzalez is the case about Section 230,
55:24
Speaker 4: which is the big provision in a law known as
55:26
Speaker 4: the Communications Decency Act of 1996. And basically, that law
55:31
Speaker 4: limits your ability to sue interactive computer service providers that
55:35
Speaker 4: host other content like Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube, all of
55:40
Speaker 4: that stuff. It limits your ability to sue those things
55:43
Speaker 4: for content provided by other people. That is, it limits
55:46
Speaker 4: your ability to sue Google when some idiot like Ted
55:49
Speaker 4: Cruz puts something up on Google. And so the question
55:53
Speaker 4: in the case is basically, well, under what circumstances, if any,
55:57
Speaker 4: can you sue Google and these other companies for some
56:02
Speaker 4: of the content that's put up by third parties if
56:06
Speaker 4: Google and these other companies are maybe doing some things
56:09
Speaker 4: with that content, like recommending it to you. After you
56:12
Speaker 4: finish watching one cat video, YouTube queues up another, and
56:15
Speaker 4: they're making a recommendation to you. And so you're no longer,
56:18
Speaker 4: the plaintiffs say, suing the companies just because of the
56:22
Speaker 4: cat videos. You're suing the companies because they're recommending those
56:25
Speaker 4: cat videos to you. They've come up with these algorithms
56:30
Speaker 4: that the plaintiffs say are the company's own content. And
56:34
Speaker 4: so that's why the plaintiffs say they're able to sue
56:37
Speaker 4: companies here. And the case is really about the future
56:40
Speaker 4: of the internet because, of course, now the internet works
56:43
Speaker 4: based on these algorithms. How is TikTok supposed to work
56:46
Speaker 4: unless it knows what videos to recommend to you next?
56:49
Speaker 4: Or how are search engines supposed to work unless those
56:52
Speaker 4: search engines can return search results that are queued up
56:55
Speaker 4: for you based on the algorithm's recommendations about which search
56:59
Speaker 4: results you're supposed to like? And so these cases are
57:01
Speaker 4: really about when, if ever, can these companies can be
57:04
Speaker 4: liable and what limitations they will place on companies' ability
57:08
Speaker 4: to kind of curate the content that's on their sites.
57:12
Speaker 1: I think the most important part of your explanation right
57:16
Speaker 1: there about Section 230 is the use of the term
57:19
Speaker 1: 1996 to describe when that law was written. We're obviously
57:23
Speaker 1: talking about a very different internet, the most basic internet
57:27
Speaker 1: in the world, where we are Where what I think,
57:30
Speaker 1: if I understand correctly, and by understand I mean having
57:34
Speaker 1: listened to the most recent episode of Strict Scrutiny, that
57:36
Speaker 1: what they were really trying to do with that law,
57:39
Speaker 1: the internet they were thinking about was when AOL or
57:42
Speaker 1: Prodigy was providing people access to the internet and then
57:45
Speaker 1: people were either creating a nascent website or posting on
57:49
Speaker 1: message boards. So if you posted on a message board
57:52
Speaker 1: something libelous about me, I could sue you, but I
57:56
Speaker 1: could not sue AOL or Prodigy or wherever else. Is
58:00
Speaker 1: that correct?
58:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right. And what the law was trying
58:03
Speaker 4: to do was say, well, if those companies take down
58:05
Speaker 4: some of the defamatory content but leave up others, we're
58:09
Speaker 4: still not going to treat the companies as the publisher
58:11
Speaker 4: or speaker of the content that they missed and just
58:14
Speaker 4: left out.
58:16
Speaker 1: But now what's different is it's not just that the
58:19
Speaker 1: platforms are no longer passive, right? They are actually specifically
58:24
Speaker 1: showing people content based on the data that they have
58:28
Speaker 1: accumulated in highly targeted ways for the purpose of profit, right?
58:32
Speaker 1: So now they are active. And so what is that?
58:36
Speaker 1: What do you, based on the briefs in this case,
58:39
Speaker 1: the hearings from the last couple of days, where do
58:42
Speaker 1: you think this is going? Is there a Are we
58:45
Speaker 1: just in a binary situation where it's either status quo
58:49
Speaker 1: or the internet ends tomorrow, or is there something in
58:51
Speaker 1: the middle that could be resolved here, or are they
58:54
Speaker 1: going to kick this to Congress?
58:55
Speaker 4: I think there's definitely some things in the middle where
58:57
Speaker 4: they could leave some possibility for suing the social media
59:00
Speaker 4: companies under some circumstances, although I don't think they're going
59:04
Speaker 4: to say you can sue them here just based on
59:08
Speaker 4: the recommendation of a next video based on an algorithm
59:12
Speaker 4: that picks up certain information about you or certain behavior
59:16
Speaker 4: that you've engaged in on the internet. I don't think
59:18
Speaker 4: they're going to say that's enough to allow you to
59:20
Speaker 4: pierce these companies' immunity. But I think you heard some
59:24
Speaker 4: real hesitation on the part of the justices that about
59:27
Speaker 4: their ability to figure out when you could sue these companies.
59:32
Speaker 4: You had Justice Kagan saying, it's not like we're the
59:34
Speaker 4: nine greatest experts on the internet here. So maybe we
59:38
Speaker 4: should allow someone else to try and pick and choose
59:41
Speaker 4: what cases you can sue these social media companies, in
59:43
Speaker 4: which cases, You can't. But I also think you're right
59:48
Speaker 4: that this law that the court is trying to parse
59:51
Speaker 4: and figure out when it allows you to sue companies
59:53
Speaker 4: and when it doesn't, it was written in 1996 before
59:55
Speaker 4: these algorithms were so endemic to the way these companies
59:59
Speaker 4: did business, before they were actively pulling information about people
1:00:04
Speaker 4: using that as proprietary information to generate algorithms, to recommend
1:00:08
Speaker 4: additional content, and then sell information about you to other companies.
1:00:12
Speaker 4: And that wasn't the backdrop against which this law was written.
1:00:16
Speaker 4: And I think in an ideal world, the justices would
1:00:18
Speaker 4: like Congress to write a new law that tried to
1:00:21
Speaker 4: sort between different algorithms and different conduct that these companies
1:00:24
Speaker 4: engage in.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: Do you think that there, I know that with this
1:00:28
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, we rarely, it rarely makes sense to contemplate
1:00:31
Speaker 1: quote unquote ideal outcomes, but do you think, is there
1:00:33
Speaker 1: an ideal outcome that you would like to see from
1:00:35
Speaker 1: these cases?
1:00:36
Speaker 4: I think an ideal outcome would be the smallest decision
1:00:40
Speaker 4: possible that just says as little as the court can.
1:00:44
Speaker 4: So they just say, you know, based on these allegations,
1:00:47
Speaker 4: which are basically like, you can see a thumbnail for
1:00:50
Speaker 4: the next video that YouTube queues up for you. That's
1:00:53
Speaker 4: not enough to say that YouTube is recommending content and
1:00:58
Speaker 4: generating all of these algorithms that are recommending ISIS content
1:01:02
Speaker 4: to people based on, you know, behavioral analogs that the
1:01:05
Speaker 4: company should be responsible for. But maybe in another case
1:01:08
Speaker 4: where you obtain other information about how the algorithm works
1:01:12
Speaker 4: or the company is taking more active steps or you
1:01:14
Speaker 4: say they're taking more active steps to recommend this content,
1:01:17
Speaker 4: then maybe you can sue them there. And I think
1:01:19
Speaker 4: that that would probably be the best outcome for the
1:01:23
Speaker 4: court to say as little as possible, partially because it's
1:01:26
Speaker 4: clear they don't actually understand how any of this technology works.
1:01:29
Speaker 4: I mean, in the second case, Justice Thomas brought up
1:01:31
Speaker 4: pagers and I do, like, pages have not been here
1:01:34
Speaker 4: for a while.
1:01:34
Speaker 1: I mean, if you ever watch a Senate hearing on
1:01:40
Speaker 1: issues like this, you come away with the conclusion that
1:01:43
Speaker 1: we don't really want Congress involved to solve these problems.
1:01:45
Speaker 1: They don't understand it. Then you listen to a Supreme
1:01:48
Speaker 1: Court hearing, and you're like, we really don't want this.
1:01:49
Speaker 1: We're running out of branches pretty fast to deal with this.
1:01:53
Speaker 1: Just to put a final point just sort of on this,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: how strong is the Section 230 liability shield Could someone
1:02:01
Speaker 1: theoretically under the current law, at least heading into these cases,
1:02:07
Speaker 1: if you were to find out that a platform knowingly
1:02:12
Speaker 1: allowed misinformation or libelous information or dangerous information to circulate
1:02:17
Speaker 1: or be promoted, could they be sued civilly? Are they
1:02:21
Speaker 1: as protected as the gun manufacturers? It feels like to
1:02:25
Speaker 1: a lot of people, both on the left and the right,
1:02:26
Speaker 1: these companies just operate without any fear of any legal repercussion.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: And so just trying to understand exactly how much protection
1:02:37
Speaker 1: they have and what Congress potentially do to change that.
1:02:41
Speaker 4: They have a ton of protection right now based on
1:02:44
Speaker 4: how courts have interpreted the law. And basically, courts have said,
1:02:49
Speaker 4: if you are suing these companies based on anything on
1:02:53
Speaker 4: their websites, Section 230 bars that claim. And I think
1:02:57
Speaker 4: the plaintiffs are right that That goes too far. And
1:03:01
Speaker 4: you heard some real skepticism by a pretty wide array
1:03:06
Speaker 4: of justices. So Justice Kagan, Justice Jackson, also Justice Thomas
1:03:10
Speaker 4: and the Chief Justice were all pretty astonished about the
1:03:13
Speaker 4: prospect that you couldn't sue a company if a company,
1:03:16
Speaker 4: let's say, intentionally wrote an algorithm that would recommend discriminatory
1:03:21
Speaker 4: content or that would discriminate against certain people. The justices
1:03:25
Speaker 4: didn't seem to think that Section 230, properly interpreted, would
1:03:28
Speaker 4: bar that lawsuit, but they have no idea where exactly
1:03:32
Speaker 4: to draw the line between when you can sue a
1:03:35
Speaker 4: company and when you can't. But it's absolutely the case
1:03:38
Speaker 4: that this immunity is extremely far-reaching today, probably too much so,
1:03:43
Speaker 4: but also that courts don't know exactly how to cut
1:03:46
Speaker 4: back on it.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: The state of Texas passed a law recently that would
1:03:54
Speaker 1: have real liability for this company under the idea that
1:03:57
Speaker 1: they're operating in the, quote unquote, the state of Texas
1:03:59
Speaker 1: in terms of censorship, shadowing. It's a huge hodgepodge of
1:04:03
Speaker 1: right-wing mad libs. But that case is also theoretically widening
1:04:08
Speaker 1: its way eventually to the Supreme Court. Is that correct?
1:04:11
Speaker 4: Yes. So that's a net choice case coming out of
1:04:14
Speaker 4: the Fifth Circuit, the Texas law. There's also a similar
1:04:16
Speaker 4: case arising from a Florida law. That's another kind of
1:04:18
Speaker 4: mad libs of conservative grievance. But the Supreme Court wouldn't
1:04:21
Speaker 4: hear those cases until next term. And I actually think
1:04:24
Speaker 4: it's too bad that the court is potentially hearing those
1:04:27
Speaker 4: two cases in different terms, because at their core, they're
1:04:30
Speaker 4: kind of about whether, under the law, government entities or
1:04:34
Speaker 4: private entities can treat these social media companies as the
1:04:37
Speaker 4: publishers or speakers of all the content on their website.
1:04:40
Speaker 4: The Florida and Texas law says, you're responsible for the
1:04:43
Speaker 4: content on your website, and therefore, you can't moderate any
1:04:47
Speaker 4: of it. Whereas the federal law, Section 230, says, no,
1:04:50
Speaker 4: you can moderate it and still not be treated as
1:04:53
Speaker 4: the publisher or speaker of the remaining content on your website.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Switching gears here. We have all been talking and waiting
1:05:01
Speaker 1: to hear what was going to come out of the
1:05:03
Speaker 1: special grand jury in Fulton County. We got a, we
1:05:06
Speaker 1: even slowed down the podcast last, the positive America podcast
1:05:11
Speaker 1: last week, just so we could hear what was going
1:05:12
Speaker 1: to come out in the report. The report basically told
1:05:15
Speaker 1: us nothing that then changed over the last 48 hours
1:05:18
Speaker 1: or so when the four women of that special grand
1:05:21
Speaker 1: jury began doing a media tour and And there has
1:05:25
Speaker 1: been political playbook this morning that says, did this person
1:05:29
Speaker 1: just help Trump get off? There's word that the Trump
1:05:34
Speaker 1: side is going to try to use this as a
1:05:36
Speaker 1: way to get out of any indictment that may come.
1:05:39
Speaker 1: This fourth person has not told us that Trump is
1:05:41
Speaker 1: going to be indicted, but has implied that that recommendation
1:05:44
Speaker 1: came forward. Help us understand– What rules apply here? Did
1:05:50
Speaker 1: this woman break the rules? If she did break the rules,
1:05:53
Speaker 1: does that mean Trump's going to get out of jail again?
1:05:55
Speaker 1: What is going on here?
1:05:57
Speaker 4: So she definitely broke norms around confidentiality of these indictments. Norms.
1:06:03
Speaker 1: Norms are so 2015. Yes, yes, norms. Tell me about rules. Yes.
1:06:07
Speaker 4: Sometimes norms become rules and norms are treated as the law.
1:06:12
Speaker 4: And here I can imagine the Trump administration, not Trump administration, gosh,
1:06:15
Speaker 4: speaking about the way things used to be. You know,
1:06:18
Speaker 4: the Trump camp saying, well, look, by basically insinuating before
1:06:23
Speaker 4: the allegations became public that there was going to be
1:06:25
Speaker 4: an indictment against Trump, she's kind of poisoned the well
1:06:28
Speaker 4: and interfered with the possibility of a fair jury trial
1:06:31
Speaker 4: under the Sixth Amendment and other potential constitutional guarantees like,
1:06:35
Speaker 4: you know, general principles of fairness under the due process clause. Again,
1:06:39
Speaker 4: because you're kind of polluting the well before, you know,
1:06:42
Speaker 4: the facts actually are coming out. Now, do I think
1:06:45
Speaker 4: that's necessarily a winning claim?
1:06:47
Speaker 1: No.
1:06:48
Speaker 4: But I think it's actually pretty bad to have people
1:06:51
Speaker 4: who served on the grand jury steadily leaking information about
1:06:55
Speaker 4: what was going on in the grand jury before any
1:06:57
Speaker 4: of that becomes a formal legal process. I mean, you
1:06:59
Speaker 4: can imagine a different situation where, for example, a grand
1:07:03
Speaker 4: jury recommended an indictment for someone And maybe their deliberations
1:07:07
Speaker 4: were influenced by invidious forms of discrimination on the basis
1:07:11
Speaker 4: of race or sex. And a prosecutor said, you know what?
1:07:13
Speaker 4: I'm actually not going to go forward with the indictment
1:07:15
Speaker 4: because I concluded that the grand jury proceedings were so flawed.
1:07:18
Speaker 4: But before they make that decision, you have people on
1:07:21
Speaker 4: the grand jury leaking that, oh, we chose to indict
1:07:23
Speaker 4: that person.
1:07:24
Speaker 1: That could be really bad.
1:07:25
Speaker 4: And I wish this wouldn't have happened. I don't think
1:07:29
Speaker 4: it would make any resulting indictments invalid. But I don't
1:07:33
Speaker 4: love to see it.
1:07:35
Speaker 1: Does it matter that she is not the foreperson of
1:07:40
Speaker 1: the grand jury that would actually deliver the indictments, that
1:07:43
Speaker 1: this was a special grand jury that was making recommendations
1:07:46
Speaker 1: to the prosecutors? And then as I understand it, the
1:07:49
Speaker 1: Fulton County DA will then try to seek an indictment
1:07:52
Speaker 1: from a separately impaneled regular grand jury. Is that correct?
1:07:56
Speaker 4: So it could affect the analysis of any legal claim
1:07:59
Speaker 4: that Trump camp made in that it seems to further
1:08:02
Speaker 4: remove any possible influence this person had over whether an
1:08:06
Speaker 4: indictment was ultimately issued and whether an indictment was ultimately sought.
1:08:10
Speaker 4: But I don't think it affects the substance of their
1:08:13
Speaker 4: claim that this person has kind of poisoned the well
1:08:16
Speaker 4: and influenced the proceedings in a way that should give
1:08:19
Speaker 4: us pause if it happened in other cases.
1:08:23
Speaker 1: And could the woman herself face any sort of legal
1:08:29
Speaker 1: consequences for having done this? Are there criminal penalties for this?
1:08:32
Speaker 4: So I am not familiar with all of the criminal
1:08:35
Speaker 4: laws in the state of Georgia. It turns out criminal
1:08:38
Speaker 4: law is actually pretty vast. I think it's also a
1:08:42
Speaker 4: little unfortunate that too often the criminal penalties end up
1:08:46
Speaker 4: being faced by people who try to challenge those in
1:08:50
Speaker 4: power and try to impose criminal consequences on the more powerful.
1:08:55
Speaker 4: So I wouldn't be shocked if we start to see
1:08:58
Speaker 4: suggestions that this person could face certain forms of civil
1:09:01
Speaker 4: or criminal liability for breaching rules of confidentiality around the
1:09:04
Speaker 4: grand jury proceedings. But I haven't yet seen any exact
1:09:09
Speaker 4: claims about the sort of liability she might be facing.
1:09:11
Speaker 1: Leah Lippman, thank you so much for joining us. It's
1:09:13
Speaker 1: always great to talk to you. And hopefully you have
1:09:16
Speaker 1: power and the internet still exists in some more accountable
1:09:18
Speaker 1: form the next time we speak.
1:09:20
Speaker 4: We'll see what Sam Alito has in store.
1:09:27
Speaker 2: Thanks to Leah Lipman for joining us today. Everyone have
1:09:29
Speaker 2: a fantastic weekend and we will see you next week.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: Bye everyone.
1:09:37
Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:09:40
Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
1:09:44
Speaker 2: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
1:09:47
Speaker 2: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
1:09:51
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Speaker 2: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
1:09:57
Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
1:10:00
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1:10:04
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