Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s imaginary enemy.”

Transcript

“Trump’s imaginary enemy.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dan talks to Jason Goldman, former White
0:26
Speaker 1: House chief digital officer who also worked on the founding
0:28
Speaker 1: team at Twitter, about how Joe Biden and other Democratic
0:31
Speaker 1: candidates can get more creative with their digital strategy ahead
0:34
Speaker 1: of November. Before that, we'll talk through Trump's immigration order,
0:38
Speaker 1: the coming fight over economic stimulus, and we will take
0:42
Speaker 1: a few of your questions. But first... Check out this
0:46
Speaker 1: week's Pod Save the World to find out what's going
0:47
Speaker 1: on with all those rumors that North Korean leader Kim
0:50
Speaker 1: Jong-un is gravely ill. And here's some wild speculation about
0:53
Speaker 1: what comes next. Tommy and Ben also talk about how
0:56
Speaker 1: the price of oil can be negative. Israel finally probably
1:00
Speaker 1: forming a government. And then they take a walk on
1:03
Speaker 1: the Albright side with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
1:08
Speaker 3: What?
1:11
Speaker 2: Does Tommy write these? I think he does.
1:15
Speaker 1: I think he does. A walk on the Albright side.
1:18
Speaker 1: Is that a thing?
1:20
Speaker 2: It is now.
1:20
Speaker 1: I thought it was a walk on the wild side. Anyway, great.
1:23
Speaker 1: You should listen to the episode. We also want to
1:27
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2:11
Speaker 1: Send us a video, tell us why you want to
2:13
Speaker 1: make sure this election is safe to vote in. All right,
2:18
Speaker 1: let's get to some news. Donald Trump's approval rating is
2:22
Speaker 1: back in the low 40s, Dan. Fox News polls have
2:25
Speaker 1: him down eight points to Joe Biden in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
2:28
Speaker 1: Quinnipiac has him down four points in Florida. His internal
2:31
Speaker 1: polls are showing similar problems, which I'm sure has absolutely
2:35
Speaker 1: nothing to do with why he tweeted this on Monday night. Quote,
2:39
Speaker 1: In light of the attack from the invisible enemy, as
2:42
Speaker 1: well as the need to protect the jobs of our
2:43
Speaker 1: great American citizens, I will be signing an executive order
2:46
Speaker 1: to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States. Dan, it
2:51
Speaker 1: turns out the order he actually signed was not quite
2:53
Speaker 1: as sweeping as the tweet. What does it do and
2:56
Speaker 1: what doesn't it do?
2:58
Speaker 2: I know people should probably sit down because it turned
3:01
Speaker 2: out that this one singular time Donald Trump said something
3:04
Speaker 2: that was not true. So just be prepared, people. Anything
3:08
Speaker 2: is possible. What it does is effective today, I believe,
3:13
Speaker 2: for 60 days, the United States will suspend entry to
3:16
Speaker 2: foreigners who do not have an immigrant visa already in hand.
3:20
Speaker 2: It doesn't affect immigrants already in the United States. It
3:23
Speaker 2: does not affect the families of U.S. citizens who are
3:26
Speaker 2: trying to get immigrant visas. It does not affect migrant workers.
3:29
Speaker 2: It is a very limited prescribed thing that was primarily,
3:33
Speaker 2: it's a press release masquerading as an executive order.
3:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
3:37
Speaker 1: Also a carve-out for medical professionals, anyone on a temporary visa.
3:42
Speaker 1: So it's basically employment-based visas for people who are outside
3:47
Speaker 1: the country, which had basically been halted already because most
3:53
Speaker 1: people in the world already can't come to America right
3:55
Speaker 1: now because of coronavirus. So just so everyone has an idea,
4:02
Speaker 1: like about 200,000 people got these visas last year. and
4:08
Speaker 1: the type that he suspended for 60 days. And so
4:11
Speaker 1: most of the people it affects wouldn't be able to
4:13
Speaker 1: come here anyway right now, though there's still a good
4:17
Speaker 1: amount of people who have been trying to come to
4:19
Speaker 1: the United States for quite a while and now will
4:21
Speaker 1: be held up because of this order. It was interesting
4:26
Speaker 1: to me that he didn't just make it about, or
4:29
Speaker 1: he didn't even primarily make it about, coronavirus and sort
4:33
Speaker 1: of protecting us from people from other countries with the
4:35
Speaker 1: virus coming here and infecting people. He made it about
4:38
Speaker 1: protecting American jobs. Will this actually protect American jobs, Dan?
4:43
Speaker 2: No, it will not. I mean, every study shows that
4:49
Speaker 2: immigration is good for the U.S. economy. It helps us
4:51
Speaker 2: grow the economy, which helps create jobs. This is a
4:56
Speaker 2: right wing racist myth that they have been peddling for
5:01
Speaker 2: decades now. And Trump is just, this is, he has
5:04
Speaker 2: been the chief peddler of this racist Republican myth for
5:07
Speaker 2: a long time.
5:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just to think about this, like 26 million people
5:12
Speaker 1: have filed for unemployment in this country. And as I
5:15
Speaker 1: just mentioned, 200,000 people applied for these visas last year. Um,
5:20
Speaker 1: you know, what a big tell here is that he
5:23
Speaker 1: made a carve out for guest workers and farm workers
5:25
Speaker 1: and medical professionals because it's, even Donald Trump, or at
5:29
Speaker 1: least his government, realized that this country runs on immigrant
5:35
Speaker 1: labor and the parts of the economy that are currently
5:38
Speaker 1: running on a lot of immigrant labor, he has allowed
5:42
Speaker 1: that to continue because he knows.
5:44
Speaker 2: When you say parts of the economy, do you mean
5:48
Speaker 2: Trump wineries, Trump hotels?
5:51
Speaker 1: Certainly those parts of the economy, yes. But just, you know,
5:54
Speaker 1: the Washington Post gave a good example. There was a,
5:56
Speaker 1: you know, Brazilian jujitsu expert who was about to start
5:59
Speaker 1: his own gym in the United States. How many people
6:02
Speaker 1: would that have hired? Right. Like there are people who
6:05
Speaker 1: are coming here every day to open businesses, to start businesses,
6:08
Speaker 1: to hire Americans, to grow the economy. The Wall Street Journal,
6:13
Speaker 1: the liberal left wing Wall Street Journal had an editorial
6:17
Speaker 1: about this. where they said, if immigrants steal American jobs,
6:20
Speaker 1: why were there millions of unfilled jobs before the pandemic?
6:24
Speaker 1: Good point, Wall Street Journal editorial board. So clearly Trump
6:28
Speaker 1: did this because he thinks it's good politics. And there
6:32
Speaker 1: is unfortunately some evidence for that. A recent USA Today
6:36
Speaker 1: poll showed 80% of Americans support temporarily stopping immigration from
6:42
Speaker 1: all other countries during the pandemic.
6:46
Speaker 2: What do you think about the politics here? Well, I
6:48
Speaker 2: think like I would start with some caveats here. The
6:52
Speaker 2: first is just in general as Democrats, we have to
6:57
Speaker 2: stop treating Trump as some sort of like political sorcerer
7:00
Speaker 2: who's figured out, who's cracked the code on how to
7:03
Speaker 2: win elections.
7:06
Speaker 1: We can never get rid of that. I mean, I
7:08
Speaker 1: think it's partly because of the surprise of 2016, but
7:10
Speaker 1: it's like, look at 2018, look at all the other
7:14
Speaker 1: special elections. There's a lot of other evidence that has
7:17
Speaker 1: built up so far.
7:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:18
Speaker 2: I mean, he stumbled ass backwards into the presidency on
7:21
Speaker 2: a wave of voter suppression, third-party voting, and a collection
7:27
Speaker 2: of black swan circumstances involving Jim Comey and the Russians
7:30
Speaker 2: and all of that, and an electoral college advantage. The
7:34
Speaker 2: best piece of evidence that even in 2016, it was
7:36
Speaker 2: not some sort of political genius is He won Wisconsin
7:41
Speaker 2: with fewer votes than Mitt Romney got in 2012. Mitt
7:44
Speaker 2: Romney lost by seven points. He ran behind noted empty
7:50
Speaker 2: suit and conspiracy theorist peddling crank Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.
7:55
Speaker 2: And as you just pointed out, he has lost virtually
7:59
Speaker 2: every election in a blue or purple state that has
8:01
Speaker 2: happened since he won. So he's not a political genius.
8:05
Speaker 2: Having said all of that, I think just because something
8:10
Speaker 2: did not– and I don't think immigration is why he
8:12
Speaker 2: won in 2016. I think it's why he won the
8:14
Speaker 2: Republican primary, but I don't think it's why he won
8:15
Speaker 2: the general election primarily. Having said all of that, we
8:20
Speaker 2: are living in a very different context right now. And
8:22
Speaker 2: when you get into tough economic times, voters look for
8:26
Speaker 2: someone to blame. And Republicans have had great success over
8:30
Speaker 2: the years blaming people who are, quote, not like their voters.
8:34
Speaker 2: So that is immigrants– Poor people, you know, sort of
8:38
Speaker 2: it's the Anne Randian, Paul Ryan, maker's taker situation. And
8:43
Speaker 2: so there is like Trump's ability to use this argument
8:48
Speaker 2: is amplified in this new political environment where people are
8:53
Speaker 2: fighting for jobs. And it was in a time of
8:55
Speaker 2: historic low unemployment five weeks ago.
8:58
Speaker 4: Yeah.
8:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:00
Speaker 4: I mean.
9:01
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he signed the order Wednesday night.
9:05
Speaker 1: I think there was sort of less of an uproar
9:08
Speaker 1: than even I thought there would be. I think he
9:10
Speaker 1: wanted to provoke a political debate that he didn't really
9:15
Speaker 1: seem to provoke. And so we're all sort of moving on.
9:18
Speaker 1: But I do think this is going to be a
9:22
Speaker 1: big part of the campaign. I mean, you know, he's
9:26
Speaker 1: going to say to Joe Biden, there's 20 something million
9:29
Speaker 1: people out of work. Why do you think immigrants should
9:34
Speaker 1: start coming into this country again after the first 60
9:37
Speaker 1: days is up? Your plan is to give citizenship to
9:40
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants to have immigration to this country. Why do
9:43
Speaker 1: you think we should have immigrants coming to take jobs
9:48
Speaker 1: when we have 20-something million Americans out of work? And
9:51
Speaker 1: I think he's going to frame his economic plan as
9:55
Speaker 1: one where he's going to stop immigration and put American
9:58
Speaker 1: jobs first. And then... when you look at polling numbers
10:01
Speaker 1: like that, what does Joe Biden say? What do the
10:04
Speaker 1: Democrats say? Yeah.
10:06
Speaker 2: I mean, immigration is such an interesting political issue on
10:10
Speaker 2: a whole host of reasons, on a host of vectors.
10:12
Speaker 2: But he tried this in 2017.
10:14
Speaker 3: Remember, he.
10:18
Speaker 2: Made a bunch of MS-13 attack ads and tweets in
10:21
Speaker 2: Virginia against Northam. He obviously will never forget the caravan
10:28
Speaker 2: of seven-year-old MS-13 members who were moving quite slowly to
10:31
Speaker 2: the American border during 2018. Right. He tweeted about it
10:35
Speaker 2: in the Kentucky governor's race. He's tried it and it's
10:37
Speaker 2: failed in all these contexts. And immigration, in times of
10:43
Speaker 2: relatively good economy, immigration– does work with Trump's base because
10:47
Speaker 2: it's not about jobs. It's about changing American identity. It's
10:51
Speaker 2: losing this MAGA America where political power and cultural power
10:57
Speaker 2: was in the hands of white Christians primarily, right? It's
10:59
Speaker 2: this fear of change. In a tougher economy, it becomes
11:05
Speaker 2: one of who gets the benefits of the economy. And
11:09
Speaker 2: like he could, like I said, he could have success there.
11:12
Speaker 2: What I thought was interesting about this was Trump is
11:15
Speaker 2: suffering a little bit from being the president who cried
11:17
Speaker 2: wolf because we yell about the press all the time.
11:21
Speaker 2: I think overwhelmingly the press were skeptical when he said it.
11:25
Speaker 2: They nailed him for not doing what he was going
11:27
Speaker 2: to say. I think Democrats in Congress and others handled
11:32
Speaker 2: it appropriately and didn't take the bait. Now, it's one
11:36
Speaker 2: thing to respond to a Trump tweet and a Trump
11:39
Speaker 2: executive order. It's another thing when Trump weaponizes Biden's immigration
11:43
Speaker 2: plan as his economic plan. And we're going to have,
11:45
Speaker 2: and there's some, I think a good conversation about how,
11:48
Speaker 2: how you navigate that situation.
11:50
Speaker 1: How do we navigate that situation?
11:53
Speaker 2: I hope you had the answer. Let's ask Joe Biden.
11:55
Speaker 2: Maybe he knows.
11:57
Speaker 1: I think that after 60 days, the first thing is, okay,
12:01
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, uh, you said that you were going to
12:03
Speaker 1: protect American jobs with this immigration order, suspension of immigration. Um,
12:08
Speaker 1: Is the unemployment rate better? Do more Americans have jobs? Clearly,
12:12
Speaker 1: it's not. I think you first point out that it's ineffective,
12:15
Speaker 1: that it's not.
12:15
Speaker 3: Going to work.
12:16
Speaker 1: It just didn't really protect American jobs. Then I think
12:18
Speaker 1: you have to hit him for not having a real
12:21
Speaker 1: economic plan. And I think you have to say he
12:23
Speaker 1: wants us to blame each other. He wants to divide
12:27
Speaker 1: us against each other when the real source of the
12:29
Speaker 1: problem is Donald Trump and the Republican Party want to
12:33
Speaker 1: protect their rich friends and the wealthiest corporations, and they
12:36
Speaker 1: don't want to do shit about For most people in
12:38
Speaker 1: this country who are working in the middle of or
12:41
Speaker 1: who are out of work in the middle of this
12:43
Speaker 1: horrible recession. And I think that's I think, you know,
12:46
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about sort of the economics of
12:48
Speaker 1: all this. But Donald Trump and the Republicans do not
12:51
Speaker 1: have any semblance of an economic plan. to deal with
12:56
Speaker 1: what could be the greatest crisis we've faced since the
12:58
Speaker 1: great depression. They don't because all they've done so far
13:01
Speaker 1: is make it easier for their rich friends to get
13:04
Speaker 1: tax breaks and government funding while there's a ton of
13:07
Speaker 1: people who are out of work. And they're going to
13:10
Speaker 1: tell you that it's all about immigration and they're lying
13:13
Speaker 1: because they've tried to suspend immigration and it hasn't fucking worked.
13:17
Speaker 2: So I think that's exactly right. I mean that what
13:19
Speaker 2: you're ultimately saying, Democrats need to do, and I'm very
13:23
Speaker 2: encouraged by what we've seen in the first 48 hours
13:25
Speaker 2: since Trump did this, is you don't play Trump's game,
13:28
Speaker 2: you call it out, right? You explain why he's trying
13:31
Speaker 2: to divide Americans, what he's trying to distract from, as
13:33
Speaker 2: you said. The fact that he massively fumbled this response,
13:37
Speaker 2: which has put us in this situation, trying to distract
13:38
Speaker 2: from the fact that the benefits of the economic recovery
13:42
Speaker 2: package are often going to large corporations. He's trying to
13:44
Speaker 2: help his friends and punish his enemies in this situation.
13:48
Speaker 2: And so Calling out what Trump is doing, explaining why
13:50
Speaker 2: he's lying, not just that he is lying or not
13:53
Speaker 2: just that he is dividing us racially, but why he's
13:56
Speaker 2: doing those things and what he's trying to distract from,
13:59
Speaker 2: gives us an opportunity to pivot back to the issues
14:03
Speaker 2: that motivate our voters and persuade the voters we need.
14:06
Speaker 2: Because that is always what, like this has been Trump's
14:08
Speaker 2: political superpower to date is he has the ability to
14:11
Speaker 2: move the political conversation onto the issues that excite his
14:15
Speaker 2: base and don't do very much for our base. And
14:18
Speaker 2: we have to be able to pivot back to the
14:21
Speaker 2: issue set that matter for us, which is economic inequality,
14:26
Speaker 2: health care, fighting for working people in the middle class.
14:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:29
Speaker 1: Immigrants aren't trying to kick you off your health insurance.
14:32
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the Republicans are trying to kick you
14:34
Speaker 1: off your health insurance by going to court to repeal
14:36
Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act. Immigrants aren't trying to keep your
14:39
Speaker 1: wages low or keep you out of work. Donald Trump
14:41
Speaker 1: and the Republicans are by refusing insurance. to support a
14:43
Speaker 1: $ 15 minimum wage and refusing to extend unemployment insurance. I
14:49
Speaker 1: think you just have to continue to bring it back
14:51
Speaker 1: to what Trump and the Republican Party is doing and
14:55
Speaker 1: reveal what he's doing on immigration as a tactic to
14:58
Speaker 1: divide us to avoid blame for what he has done.
15:02
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the political fight over how to
15:05
Speaker 1: dig the economy out of this crisis. On Tuesday, the
15:09
Speaker 1: Senate passed by unanimous consent a $ 484 billion coronavirus relief
15:14
Speaker 1: bill that will help small businesses avoid layoffs, fund hospitals,
15:17
Speaker 1: and expand testing. But with tens of millions of people
15:21
Speaker 1: out of work for God knows how long, almost everyone
15:24
Speaker 1: agrees we'll need at least another stimulus bill. Democrats in Congress,
15:29
Speaker 1: Democratic and Republican governors, mayors, economists, even Donald Trump, who
15:33
Speaker 1: tweeted about the need for relief to state and local governments, infrastructure,
15:37
Speaker 1: and then all kinds of tax cuts. The big exception
15:40
Speaker 1: here is majority leader Mitch McConnell and some other Republicans
15:45
Speaker 1: in Congress. McConnell told reporters that he's concerned about the
15:48
Speaker 1: debt and that it's time to hit pause. So Dan,
15:52
Speaker 1: the guy who added about $ 2 trillion to the national
15:56
Speaker 1: debt with a tax cut that mostly benefited the rich
15:58
Speaker 1: is now suddenly worried about the debt again. What's going
16:02
Speaker 1: on here?
16:03
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure... That this is a principled political position
16:08
Speaker 2: for Mitch McConnell, a man known for his principles. I mean,
16:12
Speaker 2: just fuck off. I mean, it's just so absurd. And
16:15
Speaker 2: just the shameless cynicism that emanates from everything that man
16:20
Speaker 2: does is– it's truly galling. And it's just we should
16:23
Speaker 2: always note that Mitch McConnell will go down in history
16:26
Speaker 2: as one of the worst, most dangerous people who have
16:28
Speaker 2: ever been involved in American politics– He is as responsible
16:31
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump being president as anyone else. He's more
16:34
Speaker 2: responsible for Donald Trump being president than Donald Trump or
16:36
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin or anyone else. It is Mitch McConnell and
16:38
Speaker 2: what he has done to rig our democracy, both in
16:40
Speaker 2: the short term and long term. So he is terrible,
16:43
Speaker 2: full stop. There are– like what he is doing here
16:46
Speaker 2: is he obviously doesn't give a shit about the deficit.
16:48
Speaker 2: He cares about Republican political power. Like that's obvious. You
16:50
Speaker 2: say that why. I think there are two things that
16:53
Speaker 2: drive this sentiment. One is for as bad as Mitch
16:57
Speaker 2: McConnell is, he's also quite savvy. And what he tends
17:00
Speaker 2: to do is come out and publicly oppose things he
17:04
Speaker 2: privately supports so that he can then trade them and
17:10
Speaker 2: treat them as a concession in a negotiation. So obviously,
17:12
Speaker 2: it is very much in McConnell's interest to help the
17:17
Speaker 2: economy because he's trying to hold on to the Senate.
17:19
Speaker 2: And a bad economy means it's going to be harder
17:21
Speaker 2: for Senate incumbents to win. And so he obviously wants
17:24
Speaker 2: to put more money in the economy. But if he
17:25
Speaker 2: comes out against it, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer
17:28
Speaker 2: are in the situation of getting the thing they also want,
17:31
Speaker 2: then McConnell treats it as a concession and can trade
17:33
Speaker 2: it for something Democrats don't want. So it's savvy and
17:35
Speaker 2: it's a negotiated play. The other thing that I think
17:38
Speaker 2: undermines it is politicians, particularly ones who've been around forever.
17:41
Speaker 2: And since Mitch McConnell is a vampire, he has most
17:44
Speaker 2: certainly been around forever. They're always defined by their most
17:48
Speaker 2: devastating electoral experiences. Like Democrats who are around in 1994
17:53
Speaker 2: have this sort of PTSD reaction to gun issues because
17:57
Speaker 2: of the but I think incorrect view that the assault
17:59
Speaker 2: weapons ban led to the Republicans taking Congress in 94.
18:03
Speaker 2: Like a lot of Republicans truly believe that one of
18:05
Speaker 2: the reasons they got clobbered in 06 and 08 is
18:08
Speaker 2: because of the huge amount of spending that Bush did
18:12
Speaker 2: on the Iraq war, on the tax cut, on the
18:14
Speaker 2: Medicare prescription drug benefit. And so I think McConnell does
18:16
Speaker 2: have some fear that being painted as big spenders is
18:21
Speaker 2: going to diminish Republican turnout. I don't think he's necessarily
18:24
Speaker 2: correct about that, but I think that does drive some
18:26
Speaker 2: of his messaging.
18:27
Speaker 1: I mean, you think that would go out the window
18:29
Speaker 1: in the middle of a pandemic and near depression, you know.
18:34
Speaker 1: So the issue here is focused around money to state
18:38
Speaker 1: and local governments, which has been supported not just by Democrats,
18:43
Speaker 1: but by Republican governors. And McConnell said this the other
18:49
Speaker 1: day about sending money to state governments, quote, we all
18:54
Speaker 1: have governors regardless of party. who would love to have
18:57
Speaker 1: free money. And that's why I said yesterday, we're going
18:59
Speaker 1: to push the pause button here, because I think this
19:01
Speaker 1: whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments
19:04
Speaker 1: need to be thoroughly evaluated. McConnell instead suggested states should
19:09
Speaker 1: be allowed to declare bankruptcy, which they're currently prohibited from
19:12
Speaker 1: doing under federal law. What's this all about?
19:18
Speaker 2: I think this is, as I was referencing, a negotiating tactic,
19:21
Speaker 2: because Democrats are very much going to want to give
19:25
Speaker 2: these states aid. It was at the centerpiece of the
19:28
Speaker 2: battle this past week over phase three. Are we at
19:32
Speaker 2: three and a half?
19:34
Speaker 1: It was three and a half, but we're now talking
19:36
Speaker 1: about four.
19:37
Speaker 5: Okay.
19:37
Speaker 3: All right.
19:38
Speaker 2: So phase three and a half, part of the big
19:40
Speaker 2: battle the Democrats wanted was this aid to local governments
19:42
Speaker 2: because their budgets are being busted by this because they're
19:48
Speaker 2: spending all this money on helping hospitals and doctors and
19:52
Speaker 2: trying to get tests from all over the world because
19:55
Speaker 2: the Trump administration sucks. Their tax base, like everyone else's,
19:58
Speaker 2: is going way down because no one's working. And what
20:01
Speaker 2: that ultimately means is, it's important to recognize this, is
20:03
Speaker 2: that the federal government can borrow money to pay for.
20:06
Speaker 5: Itself, right?
20:07
Speaker 2: Which is exactly what we've been doing with.
20:08
Speaker 1: These trillions of dollars for- Hence the deficit, yeah.
20:11
Speaker 2: Hence the deficit. Almost every state has a state law
20:14
Speaker 2: that requires them to balance their budget. And so when
20:19
Speaker 2: expenses exceed revenue, they have to make cuts. And what
20:24
Speaker 2: that means oftentimes is that they are going to have
20:29
Speaker 2: to cut the pay or lay off state employees. Now,
20:31
Speaker 2: Republicans will pitch state employees as nameless, faceless, evil bureaucrats,
20:36
Speaker 2: but that's not what we're talking about. We are talking
20:37
Speaker 2: about public school teachers, firefighters, cops, many people who are
20:41
Speaker 2: on the front lines of fighting the coronavirus are going.
20:44
Speaker 1: To- Hospitals, healthcare workers, schools, like just millions more jobs
20:49
Speaker 1: here in an economy where people have already lost a
20:51
Speaker 1: lot of jobs.
20:52
Speaker 3: Yes.
20:52
Speaker 2: And it is just worth just putting a fine point
20:56
Speaker 2: on it that the Republican position is it is okay
21:00
Speaker 2: for the federal government to borrow money to give Massive
21:03
Speaker 2: tax cuts to corporations that did nothing other than enrich
21:06
Speaker 2: the rich. But they are not okay with borrowing money
21:09
Speaker 2: to ensure that teachers, firefighters, and cops do not get
21:12
Speaker 2: laid off in the middle of a pandemic. That is
21:14
Speaker 2: their position. That is who they are fighting for.
21:17
Speaker 1: And they're also specifically going after pensions too. McConnell keeps
21:20
Speaker 1: saying this. Like we don't want to give money to
21:21
Speaker 1: state governments to help fund their pensions because the pensions
21:24
Speaker 1: are why they might have to declare bankruptcy. So basically
21:28
Speaker 1: the retirement... Of all these people who– teachers, health care workers, cops,
21:35
Speaker 1: firefighters who have worked their whole lives and have earned
21:37
Speaker 1: this pension. And now basically McConnell is saying, well, no.
21:40
Speaker 1: They should just– because there was a pandemic, they should
21:43
Speaker 1: have to be poor in retirement. That's it.
21:45
Speaker 2: So to be very clear, the position of the Republican
21:48
Speaker 2: Party is that they want to cut Medicare and Social
21:51
Speaker 2: Security and deny people their pensions. Yeah.
21:55
Speaker 1: And again, like and it's I mean, it's the position
21:57
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party because it's McConnell and all these
21:59
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress. But like you have people like Larry
22:02
Speaker 1: Hogan of Maryland, Charlie Baker in Massachusetts. Like there are
22:05
Speaker 1: a number of Republican governors throughout the country who are
22:09
Speaker 1: also asking for this money, for this funding. And yet
22:13
Speaker 1: then there's Mr. Mitch McConnell, who, again, like you said,
22:15
Speaker 1: is using it as a negotiating chip. What should Democrats
22:19
Speaker 1: do about this? How should they talk about this? How
22:21
Speaker 1: should they approach negotiations with McConnell and the other congressional
22:27
Speaker 1: Republicans in this next round?
22:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I thought you guys had a very good
22:30
Speaker 2: conversation about this on Monday, and they should take a
22:34
Speaker 2: maximalist position and they should pass a. Nancy Pelosi and
22:40
Speaker 2: the Democrats should pass a phase four. They should be
22:42
Speaker 2: the one to control the pen on this and force
22:44
Speaker 2: McConnell to react. And I think how they do it
22:48
Speaker 2: is very important. And I remember Tommy making this point
22:50
Speaker 2: in recent podcasts that it's gotta be big and bold
22:53
Speaker 2: and progressive, but not seem like a Christmas tree where
22:56
Speaker 2: there's a whole bunch of different little things on there.
22:58
Speaker 2: And because it's, it is ultimately a negotiating and messaging document.
23:03
Speaker 2: And so you want to, you want to optimize it
23:05
Speaker 2: for those two, um, factors as opposed to what is
23:10
Speaker 2: the absolute all-encompassing policy. Because all the things that were
23:14
Speaker 2: in the bill they almost passed in phase three seemed
23:18
Speaker 2: like really good things, but they didn't necessarily help the
23:23
Speaker 2: politics of the bill. So we got to think about
23:25
Speaker 2: it from a political perspective.
23:28
Speaker 1: If you were Pelosi, would you pass a bill out
23:30
Speaker 1: of the House before starting to just negotiate with Republicans
23:33
Speaker 1: over a bill?
23:34
Speaker 2: Yes, yes. I think they should pass a bill out
23:36
Speaker 2: of the House for sure. Because also you want something
23:39
Speaker 2: to run on.
23:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't understand why they wouldn't do this.
23:44
Speaker 3: I do.
23:45
Speaker 2: I do understand why this is hard. And it's like
23:49
Speaker 2: this has always been the conversation that we have both
23:53
Speaker 2: externally and internally about how hard it is to be
23:55
Speaker 2: a Democratic leader is many of Pelosi's members are not
24:00
Speaker 2: going to want to vote for a bill with a
24:02
Speaker 2: very large price tag that is not going to become law.
24:06
Speaker 2: Like how many multi-trillion dollar votes do you want to
24:09
Speaker 2: take in one year, right? You want to save your
24:11
Speaker 2: vote for the things that are actually the bill that's
24:13
Speaker 2: going to deliver the trillions of dollars to people. And
24:16
Speaker 2: so I think there will be some resistance within her
24:19
Speaker 2: caucus to do that. Now, I don't agree with that
24:23
Speaker 2: political calculus that that is a mistake. I think you
24:24
Speaker 2: are better off offering voters a roadmap of what it
24:28
Speaker 2: would look like of unified democratic control than one line
24:32
Speaker 2: and one attack ad about what you voted for. Now
24:34
Speaker 2: you've already voted for several trillion dollars. So what is
24:37
Speaker 2: one more trillion dollars or two more trillion dollars? I
24:39
Speaker 2: don't think it's going to make a substantive political difference.
24:41
Speaker 2: But that will be, my guess is that's the internal
24:44
Speaker 2: caucus pressure on Pelosi and leadership.
24:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand that in normal times, the fear
24:52
Speaker 1: about voting for something with a high price tag. Because
24:55
Speaker 1: as much as we know that this whole argument over
24:59
Speaker 1: debt and deficits are stupid, we have seen multiple focus groups,
25:04
Speaker 1: multiple polls, where most Americans don't quite get how deficits
25:09
Speaker 1: and debt work. And they think to themselves, I have
25:12
Speaker 1: a budget, why doesn't Washington have a budget, right? So like,
25:14
Speaker 1: this is the sort of political calculus that goes on
25:18
Speaker 1: in normal times. I think that Democrats underestimate the pain
25:24
Speaker 1: and anger and rage and fury that is building in
25:27
Speaker 1: this country at their peril. And like, Donald Trump is
25:32
Speaker 1: in charge right now. Mitch McConnell is in charge of
25:36
Speaker 1: the Senate right now. And I think even these frontline Democrats,
25:41
Speaker 1: look at your districts, talk to the people in your
25:43
Speaker 1: districts who are out of work, who are worried about rent,
25:47
Speaker 1: who are worried that they're going to lose their job,
25:49
Speaker 1: who've already lost their job, who can't pay a mortgage.
25:52
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a price to pay as
25:56
Speaker 1: there is maybe in normal times about supporting a very
26:00
Speaker 1: big ambitious bill that focuses on putting people back to
26:04
Speaker 1: work and taking care of people who are out of
26:07
Speaker 1: work and making sure that everyone has health care during
26:11
Speaker 1: this pandemic. I just don't think there is a price
26:14
Speaker 1: to that like there may be in other times.
26:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that is most likely correct.
26:20
Speaker 2: But what the political reality of the moment is and
26:25
Speaker 2: what drives the inherent political fear in Vulnerable politicians of
26:30
Speaker 2: either party are not always the same thing.
26:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that is true. Let's talk about what Joe
26:34
Speaker 1: Biden should do here. So he's also been pushing for
26:37
Speaker 1: another big stimulus bill. He's agreed with what most of
26:40
Speaker 1: the Democratic leadership has called for, but he has been
26:43
Speaker 1: relatively quiet about the details. Do you think that's just
26:48
Speaker 1: to give Schumer and Pelosi room to negotiate this deal because,
26:52
Speaker 1: you know, he's not in office yet? And if so,
26:55
Speaker 1: is that the right play here?
26:57
Speaker 2: Well, I think it is the only play that Joe
27:00
Speaker 2: Biden would ever run. There is a world where if
27:02
Speaker 2: someone was a different and I think less serious person
27:06
Speaker 2: than Biden, where you could run against everyone, right? This
27:11
Speaker 2: is not enough. Washington has failed you. I would do X, Y,
27:14
Speaker 2: and Z. And Joe Biden is an institutionalist, and so
27:19
Speaker 2: he would not do that. But he also knows how
27:21
Speaker 2: to get things done, and he knows– He is planning
27:23
Speaker 2: on winning this election, and he is planning on Chuck
27:25
Speaker 2: Schumer being the leader of the Senate, Nancy Pelosi being
27:27
Speaker 2: the Speaker of the House, and working with them to
27:30
Speaker 2: fix the mess Trump left them. So he's not going
27:33
Speaker 2: to score political points at the expense of congressional Democrats.
27:38
Speaker 2: It is just not consistent with who he is. And
27:41
Speaker 2: even if that– I don't think that costs him politically
27:44
Speaker 2: in the short term, but it– like he's willing to
27:48
Speaker 2: pass up some political opportunities because– it doesn't help the
27:52
Speaker 2: party writ large. And I think he, I do believe
27:55
Speaker 2: that he wants to be, he does not want to
27:57
Speaker 2: have a lonely victory, right? He wants to bring everyone
28:00
Speaker 2: along with him.
28:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that too. But I also, you know,
28:03
Speaker 1: Barack Obama was also an institutionalist and he had to
28:07
Speaker 1: balance in 2008 during the financial crisis, appearing as a steady,
28:13
Speaker 1: competent leader who had a lot of experts around him
28:17
Speaker 1: who could get the country through the crisis. And also,
28:21
Speaker 1: channeling the rage and frustration that people felt towards Washington
28:28
Speaker 1: and Wall Street for what had happened to the economy.
28:31
Speaker 1: And I do think Biden should probably err a little
28:36
Speaker 1: bit more towards the side of channeling the populist anger.
28:41
Speaker 1: Like you said, Joe Biden's never going to be Bernie Sanders, right?
28:44
Speaker 1: We get that. But Joe Biden is middle-class Joe, the
28:48
Speaker 1: guy from Scranton. He does have it within his character
28:52
Speaker 1: to fight on behalf of working people who are upset,
28:57
Speaker 1: who are angry. We have seen him do it before.
29:00
Speaker 1: And I looked on his website last night. He's got
29:05
Speaker 1: he's got a plan there, you know, he's, he's talking about, uh,
29:08
Speaker 1: you know, forgiving $ 10, 000 of student loans, like Senator Warren
29:12
Speaker 1: has proposed increasing social security checks by $ 200 a month. Um,
29:16
Speaker 1: as Senator Wyden's proposed emergency paid sickly for everyone who
29:19
Speaker 1: needs it, making sure that no one has to pay
29:22
Speaker 1: a dollar out of pocket for COVID testing treatment or
29:25
Speaker 1: a vaccine. He's got fiscal relief to States and local governments.
29:29
Speaker 1: So he's got a lot of the elements there on
29:31
Speaker 1: his website. Um, I just wonder if he has to
29:35
Speaker 1: do a little bit more to channel that anger.
29:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that these are sort of two separate
29:41
Speaker 2: but not inconsistent things, right? One is, can you channel
29:45
Speaker 2: the anger of the American people? Yes, and he, in
29:51
Speaker 2: the past, in the 08 campaign in 2012, he was very,
29:54
Speaker 2: very good at that. He is someone who, both publicly
29:57
Speaker 2: and privately, thinks about and fights for working class people.
30:04
Speaker 2: You and I have been in many economic meetings with
30:08
Speaker 2: Joe Biden over the years. He always brings up and
30:11
Speaker 2: talks about it in terms of any idea that was
30:14
Speaker 2: being proposed invariably in a PowerPoint by the National Economic Council.
30:18
Speaker 2: He would bring it up in the context of whether
30:21
Speaker 2: it helped the people in the neighborhood he grew up
30:23
Speaker 2: in Scranton or the neighborhood of Claymont, Delaware near where
30:26
Speaker 2: I grew up. where he lived after Scranton. So like
30:30
Speaker 2: he thinks that way, right? And it is very hard
30:32
Speaker 2: in his defense to communicate that sitting in a chair
30:37
Speaker 2: in front of a bookshelf.
30:38
Speaker 1: I know, it's really hard.
30:40
Speaker 2: Like that is very challenging. But that is a separate
30:44
Speaker 2: conversation from whether he should get out ahead of congressional
30:48
Speaker 2: leaders on policy ideas. And I think he can get
30:53
Speaker 2: out ahead in coordinations.
30:55
Speaker 3: Right.
30:55
Speaker 2: And I do think that it would be wise. And
30:59
Speaker 2: he's done this already. I think continuing to do this
31:01
Speaker 2: is good. Realizing that the massively changed economic circumstances of
31:07
Speaker 2: the last month give him some permission to adopt new, bolder,
31:12
Speaker 2: more populist economic ideas.
31:14
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. And I
31:16
Speaker 1: think he has that permission now. And I think that
31:19
Speaker 1: they are getting there. They sent out a campaign message
31:22
Speaker 1: memo the other day. the Biden campaign where they said
31:26
Speaker 1: there was an unmistakable bias toward giant corporations in the
31:29
Speaker 1: CARES Act, which left out the smallest businesses that power
31:31
Speaker 1: so many American communities, blah, blah, blah. Trump also fired
31:34
Speaker 1: the inspector general who'd been charged with overseeing these funds,
31:36
Speaker 1: which is extremely alarming. He's letting hedge funds game the
31:39
Speaker 1: system on the Paycheck Protection Program. So you can see
31:43
Speaker 1: that they're starting to move there in the campaign. What
31:47
Speaker 1: do you think, in terms of the campaign, Biden's sort
31:50
Speaker 1: of most effective economic message and argument is?
31:53
Speaker 2: Well, I think just as we were talking about how
31:55
Speaker 2: in economic times, people look for someone to blame and
32:00
Speaker 2: they either blame down or they blame up. And just
32:03
Speaker 2: as the changed economic circumstances have potentially given Trump's immigration
32:10
Speaker 2: demagoguery more potency, I think the changed economic circumstances also
32:14
Speaker 2: give democratic populism more potency. And so the way I
32:19
Speaker 2: think this works for Biden is because Democrats helped pass
32:23
Speaker 2: all of these bills, it is hard to attack the
32:26
Speaker 2: bills themselves because Democrats have their hands all over them
32:29
Speaker 2: and have touted them. What you can do is focus
32:33
Speaker 2: on the implementation. Make Trump own all the big corporations
32:38
Speaker 2: who are getting loans, the small businesses who are being
32:40
Speaker 2: denied loans, the checks that didn't get through, the glitchy website.
32:43
Speaker 2: Every bit of implementation falls on Trump. and call them
32:47
Speaker 2: on it and do it in the context of a
32:48
Speaker 2: narrative that is 100% correct, which is Trump fights for
32:52
Speaker 2: big corporations and rich people like himself at the expense
32:55
Speaker 2: of working people. And so I think that's where we focus.
32:57
Speaker 2: And I think Biden should be very good at this
33:01
Speaker 2: because he was the person that Obama put in charge
33:04
Speaker 2: of managing the Recovery Act. So he knows how these
33:08
Speaker 2: things work. He saw how Republicans weaponize the inevitable mistakes
33:12
Speaker 2: that happen in the management of large government programs. And
33:15
Speaker 2: so he can do it. And I do think it is,
33:18
Speaker 2: I have begun to question whether Biden has access to
33:21
Speaker 2: time travel. Because just imagine this, like 35 years ago,
33:26
Speaker 2: I think, Biden hired Ron Klain out of law school.
33:29
Speaker 1: I know.
33:30
Speaker 2: To work for him. And then you flash forward that
33:32
Speaker 2: we are now in a pandemic, in a massive economic crisis.
33:38
Speaker 2: And the guy he hired out of law school 35
33:39
Speaker 2: years ago is an expert in pandemics. and Economic Recovery
33:43
Speaker 2: Acts because Ron Klain helped manage that for Biden. I
33:47
Speaker 2: was like, did he know that?
33:49
Speaker 1: That's some real luck there. Glad we have Ron around. Okay.
34:02
Speaker 1: We have time today to take some of your questions
34:06
Speaker 1: that you've been asking on various social media platforms. So
34:11
Speaker 1: let's dig into a few of them before we get
34:13
Speaker 1: to your interview with Jason. Todd Flora on Twitter asks,
34:17
Speaker 1: where does Biden sit in terms of cash on hand?
34:20
Speaker 1: Nobody's talking about this, nor the huge money advantage that
34:24
Speaker 1: Trump has in the general. Well, Todd, we've been talking
34:28
Speaker 1: about it. Maybe not on the pod yet, but you
34:33
Speaker 1: and I have been texting nervously about it.
34:37
Speaker 2: Trump's money advantage is.
34:41
Speaker 3: Massive.
34:43
Speaker 2: It is the most massive money advantage that anyone has
34:45
Speaker 2: ever had. And we haven't even begun to talk about the...
34:48
Speaker 2: Republican superbacks, the Koch brothers, and everyone else who will
34:51
Speaker 2: be engaging in this election. He raised a quarter billion
34:55
Speaker 2: dollars last quarter, which is an ungodly amount of money.
35:00
Speaker 2: Biden had a very good fundraising quarter where he raised
35:04
Speaker 2: 46 million, but there's a very well-reported and quite disturbing
35:10
Speaker 2: New York Times article about Biden's fundraising, which shows that
35:15
Speaker 2: That money mostly dropped off a cliff once the pandemic
35:18
Speaker 2: hit and people were sheltered at home and people became
35:21
Speaker 2: very concerned about the crisis. So Biden is a candidate
35:23
Speaker 2: who to date has been a primarily offline fundraiser. He
35:29
Speaker 2: raises more of his money than a bunch of the
35:32
Speaker 2: other primary candidates through high dollar fundraisers. And now he
35:35
Speaker 2: is locked in his house, unable to go to high
35:39
Speaker 2: dollar fundraisers. So it is a cause of immense concern.
35:45
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:45
Speaker 1: So if you're worried about Donald Trump winning a second term,
35:49
Speaker 1: you know, and if you can, consider donating to Joe Biden,
35:52
Speaker 1: you know.
35:53
Speaker 2: And people will say just that Hillary Clinton had way
35:56
Speaker 2: more money than Donald Trump in 2016 and still lost.
35:59
Speaker 2: And that is true. Joe Biden does not need Donald
36:02
Speaker 2: Trump's money to win. He doesn't need more money. He
36:03
Speaker 2: doesn't need as much money. But he does need enough.
36:06
Speaker 3: Right.
36:07
Speaker 1: He doesn't need to wipe away Donald Trump's cash advantage,
36:10
Speaker 1: and he probably never will. But he does need enough
36:12
Speaker 1: money to run a great campaign, right?
36:14
Speaker 5: No. That's right.
36:15
Speaker 4: Okay.
36:16
Speaker 1: Ben Key via the PSA phone. Some pundits are floating
36:21
Speaker 1: the idea of Biden going ahead and announcing key members
36:24
Speaker 1: of his cabinet. Do you think this is a good strategy?
36:27
Speaker 1: And he still won't come on the pod?
36:30
Speaker 2: I don't acknowledge his absence on the pod. I don't either.
36:34
Speaker 1: Someday.
36:35
Speaker 2: It is an available option for him. He can take
36:37
Speaker 2: it if he wants.
36:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'd love to have him.
36:38
Speaker 2: If he doesn't, we're still going to do everything we
36:40
Speaker 2: can do to help him.
36:41
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, we don't care either way. All right.
36:44
Speaker 1: What do you think about the Tom Friedman strategy there?
36:50
Speaker 1: We should say the Tom Friedman column, which went around
36:53
Speaker 1: to way too many people that I know and came
36:55
Speaker 1: back to me, was like, you know, Biden should announce
36:57
Speaker 1: this big unity cabinet with, you know, Republicans and AOC
37:03
Speaker 1: and everyone in between. And we should all sort of
37:05
Speaker 1: like come together and hug and sing Kumbaya and all
37:07
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But I think there is a
37:10
Speaker 1: separate idea of just announcing whatever cabinet he would announce
37:14
Speaker 1: after he becomes president.
37:16
Speaker 2: I would say that that time Friedman column came out
37:20
Speaker 2: when I was doing my book tour back when we
37:23
Speaker 2: could travel.
37:24
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That was five years ago, six years ago.
37:27
Speaker 2: Two months, two months ago. And, and I got asked
37:33
Speaker 2: about this column at every stop I went to. And
37:35
Speaker 2: the first time I got asked was in a bookstore
37:38
Speaker 2: and it, I reflexively laughed hysterically. And, but here's the
37:41
Speaker 2: thing I will tell you, people who go to book
37:44
Speaker 2: events and bookstores really like Tom Friedman.
37:49
Speaker 1: I look, I'm sure my, you know, there's a lot
37:51
Speaker 1: of people I know and love and think is very
37:53
Speaker 1: smart who loved Tom Friedman too. We're just very fucking
37:56
Speaker 1: cynical adults, you know, pundits that have been around for
38:00
Speaker 1: too long.
38:01
Speaker 2: Yes. I, I'm going to hear those words in my brain.
38:05
Speaker 2: every night before I go to sleep for a month.
38:06
Speaker 2: Thank you. I mean, I look, I think to be serious,
38:10
Speaker 2: it's like, I think it is a good idea. I
38:14
Speaker 2: think it is worth exploring naming some of them. You
38:17
Speaker 2: don't have to, you don't have to like roll out
38:18
Speaker 2: the SBA administrator now, but the.
38:22
Speaker 1: But I think maybe the SBA administrator with all the
38:24
Speaker 1: small business stuff going on.
38:26
Speaker 2: That was unfair to the SBA. I apologize. But I
38:31
Speaker 2: think there's like it, It always sounds like one of
38:35
Speaker 2: those terrible ideas that people suggest without any context of reality.
38:42
Speaker 2: And so I'm hesitant to endorse it myself. But so
38:44
Speaker 2: if he announced someone who, you know, he announced a
38:48
Speaker 2: treasury secretary designee or a treasury general designee, that would
38:53
Speaker 2: give people an image, a view of what his government
38:55
Speaker 2: would look like. It may help with some constituencies who
38:57
Speaker 2: have some questions about whether how progressive he is going
39:00
Speaker 2: to be. It's because you see all the time on Twitter,
39:03
Speaker 2: which is reality, people saying that Joe Biden is going
39:06
Speaker 2: to appoint Jamie Dimon to be his Treasury Secretary, which
39:11
Speaker 2: he's obviously not going to do. And so you could
39:15
Speaker 2: quell some of that. And it would give you just
39:18
Speaker 2: additional surrogates to do Zoom chats.
39:21
Speaker 3: Right.
39:22
Speaker 1: No, I think the surrogate point is well taken. I
39:25
Speaker 1: also think my mind often goes to something Biden's towards
39:30
Speaker 1: the end of the primary, where he told a crowd,
39:34
Speaker 1: you know, I see myself as a bridge to the
39:37
Speaker 1: younger generation, right, which is a very self-aware thing to
39:41
Speaker 1: say that he knows he's, you know, going to be
39:43
Speaker 1: president at 77 years old and that the Democratic Party
39:47
Speaker 1: is becoming younger and more progressive. He understands that. And
39:51
Speaker 1: I think he could show that by sort of announcing
39:55
Speaker 1: a cabinet that is that is part of the next generation. Right.
39:59
Speaker 1: That represents the next generation. And by the way, and
40:03
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Obama did this to an extent
40:05
Speaker 1: during the economic crisis when he talked to a lot
40:08
Speaker 1: of sort of economic experts and obviously. There's a whole
40:11
Speaker 1: debate about who he chose that we don't have to
40:13
Speaker 1: go into right now. But I think particularly around the
40:19
Speaker 1: economic crisis, and this was a point that our good
40:22
Speaker 1: pals made on our show Hacks on Tap, David Axelrod
40:26
Speaker 1: and Mike Murray, that like announcing an economic team specifically
40:32
Speaker 1: would actually be helped because it would show sort of
40:34
Speaker 1: exude competence and that like you have a group of
40:37
Speaker 1: people who can help get the country through the crisis. Now,
40:40
Speaker 1: I do think if you do that, there's a premium
40:43
Speaker 1: on selecting people who are not just like smart economy people,
40:47
Speaker 1: but also, you know, progressives and people who are going
40:50
Speaker 1: to send a signal to a lot of constituencies that
40:53
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is going to take sort of helping the
40:56
Speaker 1: middle working middle class and the poor seriously. So I
40:59
Speaker 1: think that would be a good idea.
41:00
Speaker 2: This is the hill I'm going to die on. Katie
41:03
Speaker 2: Porter for Treasury Secretary.
41:04
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it.
41:06
Speaker 2: Great messenger. consumer advocate bridge to the next generation. Just,
41:11
Speaker 2: it is such a no brainer to me.
41:13
Speaker 1: Doesn't, doesn't take Elizabeth Warren out of the Senate. Right.
41:17
Speaker 1: Which is another, you know, I mean, because Elizabeth Warren
41:19
Speaker 1: for treasury secretary also great, but you know, neater Senate seat.
41:22
Speaker 3: Okay.
41:24
Speaker 1: Some fun stuff. Anthony Orlando on Twitter asks, let's get
41:27
Speaker 1: to the important stuff. What's in your quarantine binge watching rotation.
41:32
Speaker 2: Do you want to tell us John, what you've been watching?
41:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
41:35
Speaker 1: We've been watching too much to handle. Here's my thing.
41:40
Speaker 1: Here's my thing. In general, in non-pandemic times, I tend
41:45
Speaker 1: to not watch, um, content that will make me more
41:50
Speaker 1: anxious than the news already does. Uh, I do watch
41:53
Speaker 1: some of it, but it's usually a high bar because
41:55
Speaker 1: I feel anxious all day reading Twitter and reading the news.
41:58
Speaker 1: So I usually like to watch more mindless stuff or comedy. Um,
42:03
Speaker 1: I have had an even tougher time with all of
42:05
Speaker 1: that in the pandemic. I can't focus on really good,
42:08
Speaker 1: high-quality television. So we've been looking for sort of sillier
42:11
Speaker 1: stuff to watch. And Emily and I came across Too
42:14
Speaker 1: Hot to Handle on Netflix, which is a reality show.
42:19
Speaker 2: Do you want to give everyone the plot?
42:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to. I'm about to. It's a bunch
42:24
Speaker 1: of very attractive people that they put on an island
42:27
Speaker 1: from all over the world. who aren't allowed to have
42:31
Speaker 1: sex with each other or even kiss each other, or
42:34
Speaker 1: else they lose some prize money. And that's it, man.
42:39
Speaker 1: That's the plot. And you just see what happens, and
42:42
Speaker 1: it is wild. They are some fascinating people. That's all
42:48
Speaker 1: I'll say about that.
42:51
Speaker 2: Uh, I am sure that before this quarantine ends and
42:54
Speaker 2: mid 2023, we will have watched you out to handle there.
42:58
Speaker 1: It is, I was gonna say, it's right. You and
42:59
Speaker 1: Holly always watch the same garbage reality shows that, that
43:02
Speaker 1: I watch.
43:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have been, we've actually been watching. Below deck
43:08
Speaker 2: ceiling out, which is quite excellent. So we're very, we
43:12
Speaker 2: very much enjoyed that top chef is on. Um, and
43:15
Speaker 2: I would tell anyone who was looking for something thoroughly
43:18
Speaker 2: enjoyable to binge. is go watch old seasons of top chef.
43:22
Speaker 3: Okay.
43:22
Speaker 1: Uh, I haven't watched top chef.
43:24
Speaker 4: All right.
43:24
Speaker 3: I should do that.
43:24
Speaker 2: Top chef is amazing. And you would do in this environment,
43:27
Speaker 2: have to get past the fact that it's almost like
43:30
Speaker 2: a period piece because a lot of it involves people
43:33
Speaker 2: eating together and eating establishments, which is not something that
43:35
Speaker 2: we recall.
43:36
Speaker 3: Period piece.
43:37
Speaker 2: It's tough. It's like watching people have to use a
43:41
Speaker 2: payphone in a movie from the eighties. Like it's very,
43:43
Speaker 2: it's very, uh, disconnecting from life. We, we have been watching, um,
43:49
Speaker 2: Miss America on Hulu.
43:50
Speaker 1: Oh, I want to watch that.
43:51
Speaker 2: Which is great. It's really great. We've watched the first
43:53
Speaker 2: couple episodes. We also watched also on Hulu, uh, little
43:57
Speaker 2: fires everywhere to be surprised, even though you had told
43:59
Speaker 2: me in advance, a cameo from your brother.
44:01
Speaker 1: That's right. Andy Favreau. That's right.
44:04
Speaker 4: Yeah.
44:05
Speaker 2: Episode six, which you had definitely told me and I
44:08
Speaker 2: definitely forgot. And I looked up for my phone and
44:11
Speaker 2: your brother was on my TV, which has happened before,
44:13
Speaker 2: but it was, it was out of context there. Um,
44:16
Speaker 2: And then, to anyone who loves sports, I finally got
44:20
Speaker 2: around to watching the first two episodes.
44:22
Speaker 1: Of Last Dance. I really want to watch that.
44:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really great. I mean, it's phenomenal. That is
44:28
Speaker 2: my exact era of basketball because my first basketball memory
44:36
Speaker 2: is being allowed to stay up to watch the North
44:38
Speaker 2: Carolina-Georgetown game. with my dad and that shot being made,
44:42
Speaker 2: the Jordan made. So like, that's the beginning of my
44:44
Speaker 2: basketball experience through everything. And so it's, it would be
44:47
Speaker 2: phenomenal in a world where sports was allowed to exist,
44:49
Speaker 2: but I.
44:50
Speaker 1: Was gonna say one of the questions from Lindsay Zinger was, um,
44:52
Speaker 1: question for Dan, how are you coping without the NBA?
44:55
Speaker 1: Because I need tips. I'm guessing.
44:57
Speaker 2: Well, I would, I would, I would last dance fulfills that.
45:00
Speaker 2: I think, um, The, our old friends at the ringer
45:04
Speaker 2: have been doing this very fun podcast series where they
45:06
Speaker 2: redraft all the previous drafts. So if you're a basketball
45:09
Speaker 2: draft nerd, that's very fun. Um, but I will also
45:13
Speaker 2: say that as a Sixers fan, this season has been
45:17
Speaker 2: so stressful that I don't think I could survive the pandemic.
45:21
Speaker 2: With the Sixers not ever scoring out of the pick
45:24
Speaker 2: and roll, like it would be more than I could
45:25
Speaker 2: possibly take. And so there is this like weird, sick
45:29
Speaker 2: relief that I don't have to be mad about. I
45:31
Speaker 2: could never live in a world where I had to
45:32
Speaker 2: watch Trump's press conference for two hours. And then turn
45:34
Speaker 2: on a Sixers road game in a row. Like that
45:36
Speaker 2: would be more than I could take.
45:37
Speaker 1: That's, that's rough. Um, Carolyn Hicks asks, can you, can
45:42
Speaker 1: you guys chat about the Mark Warner tuna sandwich debacle
45:45
Speaker 1: from the internet? That was, I had heard a lot
45:49
Speaker 1: of people talking about it and I was like, what
45:50
Speaker 1: is everyone making a big deal out of? The guy's
45:52
Speaker 1: just making a tuna sandwich. And then I watched it
45:55
Speaker 1: and I was just, I mean, for those of you
45:57
Speaker 1: who haven't seen it, I don't know why Mark Warner
45:59
Speaker 1: decided he needed to do this and share this with
46:01
Speaker 1: the world. Um, but, He made a tuna sandwich. Like,
46:06
Speaker 1: he dumps the tuna out on some bread with all
46:08
Speaker 1: the water in from the can. He squirts, like, ten
46:12
Speaker 1: times too much fucking mayo on the sandwich. He slaps
46:17
Speaker 1: a piece of cheese on it, and then he throws
46:19
Speaker 1: it in the microwave for just 30 seconds. Which... What
46:26
Speaker 1: was he doing? I.
46:29
Speaker 2: I did not know that was Mark Warner the first
46:31
Speaker 2: several times I watched it.
46:32
Speaker 1: Well, it also had this weird sheen on it like
46:35
Speaker 1: it was from the 80s.
46:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't figure out what was going on. And
46:39
Speaker 2: I have to tell you that I couldn't finish the video.
46:42
Speaker 2: I could not get past the dumping of the tuna water.
46:44
Speaker 2: And this is me. And people should enjoy the food
46:48
Speaker 2: they like. But there's nothing that I find more disgusting
46:52
Speaker 2: than a tuna sandwich. I lived in a group house
46:56
Speaker 2: in college once where– one of my housemates cooked tuna
46:59
Speaker 2: helper and it took like literally six months for the
47:03
Speaker 2: smell to leave our home. And I'm like, if the
47:06
Speaker 2: choice was eat a tuna melt or vote for Paul Ryan,
47:09
Speaker 2: I'd have to flip a coin. Like that's how I
47:11
Speaker 2: feel about tuna melts.
47:12
Speaker 1: I don't love tuna either or tuna sandwiches for some reason,
47:15
Speaker 1: like a well-made tuna melt I can do. And I,
47:17
Speaker 1: and I enjoy and which is why we should all
47:20
Speaker 1: be very grateful for for Kamala Harris, who did an
47:23
Speaker 1: Instagram live last night, where she did an Instagram live
47:27
Speaker 1: with Mark Warner, where she taught him the appropriate way
47:30
Speaker 1: to make a tuna melt. And because she is such
47:33
Speaker 1: a great cook, it was like deluxe. She chopped up
47:37
Speaker 1: celery and red onion. And she had her husband holding
47:42
Speaker 1: the camera the whole time. And it was very funny
47:43
Speaker 1: and very enjoyable. And it was It was a good
47:45
Speaker 1: piece of content to consume, especially after Mark Warner's troubled,
47:50
Speaker 1: troubled attempt at a tuna sandwich.
47:52
Speaker 2: I would love it if Mark Warner's staff, some of
47:54
Speaker 2: whom we know from previous political experiences, could reach out
47:58
Speaker 2: to us. Completely off the record. We'll never get you
48:00
Speaker 2: on the pod, but I want to know the origin.
48:01
Speaker 3: Me too.
48:03
Speaker 2: What was the discussion that led to that happening? And
48:07
Speaker 2: I don't begrudge them. This is the most online attention
48:09
Speaker 2: that Mark Warner's gotten in a long time. I think
48:10
Speaker 2: it's actually.
48:11
Speaker 1: He's the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
48:15
Speaker 2: You know what? I am 100% for it. You have
48:19
Speaker 2: to try lots of things. He probably gained Twitter followers,
48:22
Speaker 2: which means more people.
48:23
Speaker 1: There's going to be meetings in his office for months
48:26
Speaker 1: where some staffer says, how do we replicate the tuna video?
48:31
Speaker 1: to get the boss more attention.
48:33
Speaker 2: We we need a like this will be like the
48:36
Speaker 2: race yeah it'll.
48:39
Speaker 6: Be we need a tuna video for stimulus oversight we
48:45
Speaker 6: need a tuna video for intel funding and that wants
48:48
Speaker 6: to be his office that'll be every senate office.
48:52
Speaker 1: That's what's gonna happen All right. So Trish Heaton asked us,
48:57
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm a huge fan. I want to
48:58
Speaker 1: thank you for providing me with some bits of wisdom
49:00
Speaker 1: and sanity in these crazy times. I unfortunately drink quite
49:04
Speaker 1: a bit of alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal
49:05
Speaker 1: with our current political and COVID environment. What do you
49:08
Speaker 1: personally do to cope? Might you recommend some healthier alternatives? Look, Trish,
49:14
Speaker 1: we hear you. I hear you. I would say this.
49:21
Speaker 1: because I think when this first started, it sort of
49:24
Speaker 1: felt like, or at least I felt like, okay, yeah,
49:27
Speaker 1: you can drink a little more at dinner. You can
49:31
Speaker 1: not wear real clothes. Time has no meaning. Watch TV
49:34
Speaker 1: at all hours.
49:35
Speaker 4: Do whatever.
49:35
Speaker 1: Whatever. I have found that a couple weeks into this,
49:39
Speaker 1: maybe a month into this, maybe a month in a
49:41
Speaker 1: couple weeks, I don't know what time it is. Having
49:44
Speaker 1: some kind of routine has helped me a little bit more.
49:48
Speaker 1: So like, I can't go to the gym anymore. But
49:50
Speaker 1: now I like wake up, I have a time that
49:52
Speaker 1: I work out as opposed to just like sitting on
49:55
Speaker 1: Twitter for an hour and a half wondering about the
49:57
Speaker 1: fucking state of the world. And then I make myself
50:00
Speaker 1: breakfast and then I, you know, actually put some real
50:03
Speaker 1: clothes on and then it once work is done, Emily
50:07
Speaker 1: and I take a walk around the neighborhood and we
50:08
Speaker 1: cook dinner and I do the dishes. So it's like,
50:10
Speaker 1: I do think giving yourself some sort of routine, um,
50:15
Speaker 1: can help calm you in these times. Um, at least
50:19
Speaker 1: that's what I've found.
50:21
Speaker 3: I don't know.
50:21
Speaker 1: Have you found anything?
50:22
Speaker 2: No, I have been quarantined for six weeks with a
50:27
Speaker 2: very cute, very energetic two-year-old. And so it survived.
50:31
Speaker 1: I guess that's all out the window, huh?
50:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. I, uh, I saw someone like tweet and some
50:40
Speaker 2: terrible human being tweet. Like if you exit this shelter
50:43
Speaker 2: in place without a new gig and like new skills,
50:47
Speaker 2: a second language or side hustle figured out that's on you.
50:51
Speaker 2: And I was like, that person does not have children
50:53
Speaker 2: like that. That's a whole different world. Like, look, it's really,
50:57
Speaker 2: I don't have a good answer. It's really hard. I
51:00
Speaker 2: find it. everyone's going to do it differently. We have
51:05
Speaker 2: reached this, like you were right that in the beginning
51:07
Speaker 2: there was this sort of like the world's going to
51:08
Speaker 2: end philosophy for it's like, drink what you want, eat
51:11
Speaker 2: what you want. And now it's like, you sort of
51:13
Speaker 2: have to make this fit into your, something that resembles
51:16
Speaker 2: a daily life. I would say if you don't want
51:19
Speaker 2: to watch Trump give a two hour press conference, don't
51:21
Speaker 2: do it.
51:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm fine. And this is, this is hard for
51:24
Speaker 1: us because our job is to cover the news and to,
51:27
Speaker 1: and to read the news. But I'm finding that the
51:28
Speaker 1: hardest thing is like the news was bad. and makes
51:32
Speaker 1: you anxious always before the pandemic. And now it's just fucking,
51:36
Speaker 1: it's miserable, especially because, you know, like every story always,
51:41
Speaker 1: you know, the most extreme examples of everything, the most
51:43
Speaker 1: pessimistic examples, the most pessimistic predictions of the future are
51:47
Speaker 1: all the headlines. Donald Trump's press conferences can make you
51:51
Speaker 1: insane every day. It's just bad, bad, bad. And that's
51:54
Speaker 1: partly because there's a lot of bad news out there,
51:56
Speaker 1: but partly because, you And I find that the trickiest
52:02
Speaker 1: part because when I, I find myself when I, especially
52:05
Speaker 1: late at night or early in the morning, when I'm
52:07
Speaker 1: reading the news or scrolling through Twitter, you just, you
52:09
Speaker 1: can go to dark places very fast. And so to
52:11
Speaker 1: sort of, um, uh, have your news diet be somewhat, uh,
52:16
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, less than, less than usual,
52:20
Speaker 1: or at least figure out when to read the news
52:21
Speaker 1: and when not to read the news. I think that
52:23
Speaker 1: helps a little bit. Yeah.
52:24
Speaker 2: Finding non COVID content in your life is also important.
52:29
Speaker 2: I mean, like, your routine should be get up, shower,
52:31
Speaker 2: put on a belt, listen to Pod Save America, other
52:33
Speaker 2: crooked media podcasts, and then find non-COVID content.
52:35
Speaker 1: Right.
52:36
Speaker 2: Which I think, like, that is a recipe for perfect health.
52:39
Speaker 1: For sure.
52:39
Speaker 2: Like, but feel free to take a break. Like, I mean,
52:42
Speaker 2: I think that's been true of the Trump era in general,
52:43
Speaker 2: and everything is magnified in this shit show.
52:46
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:47
Speaker 1: Last question that just came from Instagram real quick. Will
52:49
Speaker 1: there be a season three of The Wilderness? Fuck, I
52:51
Speaker 1: hope not. That's just my answer to that. The whole
52:55
Speaker 1: point is to be out of The Wilderness after November.
52:59
Speaker 1: So as much as I loved making two seasons of
53:01
Speaker 1: The Wilderness, I really did. And everyone should, if you
53:03
Speaker 1: haven't listened to season two yet, please do. We now
53:05
Speaker 1: have a nominee. Obviously, the world is much different. But
53:07
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the lessons still apply for November.
53:10
Speaker 1: But no, I fucking hope I'm not. I'll probably be
53:12
Speaker 1: doing a third season of The Wilderness soon. From somewhere
53:16
Speaker 1: that is wilderness. I will be hopping out somewhere if
53:20
Speaker 1: there is a third season of The Wilderness.
53:23
Speaker 2: If you're doing it, you'll be doing it from your house.
53:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, right.
53:28
Speaker 1: Or anyway.
53:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
53:30
Speaker 1: So the answer to that is I hope not.
53:33
Speaker 4: All right.
53:33
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Dan's interview with
53:36
Speaker 1: Jason Goldman.
53:44
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone.
53:45
Speaker 5: I'm Alex Wagner, journalist and co-host of Showtime's The Circus,
53:48
Speaker 5: and now host of the new Crooked Media podcast, Six
53:51
Speaker 5: Feet Apart. Each episode of Six Feet Apart will offer
53:55
Speaker 5: a window into the hidden worlds of this pandemic, the
53:58
Speaker 5: chaos and fear, the resilience and innovation, all of which
54:01
Speaker 5: have been necessary parts of survival in this extraordinary moment.
54:06
Speaker 5: New episodes of Six Feet Apart drop every Thursday. Subscribe
54:09
Speaker 5: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you like to
54:13
Speaker 5: listen to podcasts.
54:17
Speaker 2: I'm joined now by the chief digital officer for the
54:20
Speaker 2: Obama White House and a member of the founding team
54:23
Speaker 2: at Twitter, Jason Goldman.
54:24
Speaker 1: How are you, buddy?
54:24
Speaker 3: Hey, good to see you.
54:26
Speaker 2: Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the campaign,
54:29
Speaker 2: how are you and your family dealing with quarantine? Are
54:32
Speaker 2: you enjoying sheltering in place with a small child?
54:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we both have that in common, which
54:37
Speaker 4: is being trapped inside with a slow-moving Tasmanian devil.
54:41
Speaker 3: Who seeks only to destroy.
54:43
Speaker 4: So at least it keeps you busy.
54:47
Speaker 3: I can say that much.
54:49
Speaker 2: I sometimes think about what the alternative life is where
54:51
Speaker 2: I'm quarantining without a two-year-old. It's basically that, as I
54:56
Speaker 2: heard someone put it, I would finish Netflix.
54:58
Speaker 4: Right.
54:59
Speaker 3: It would just be over. Yeah. You'd get that 100%
55:02
Speaker 3: complete score.
55:05
Speaker 1: Yes.
55:06
Speaker 2: Is there something at the end of Netflix?
55:07
Speaker 3: Is there.
55:08
Speaker 2: Is there some secret?
55:10
Speaker 4: Yes.
55:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an Easter egg.
55:11
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
55:12
Speaker 3: All right.
55:15
Speaker 2: I want to start by asking you about this series
55:20
Speaker 2: of articles that have been out there recently about sort
55:23
Speaker 2: of the massive digital advantage that Trump has. There was
55:27
Speaker 2: a New York Times column or article from Kevin Roos
55:30
Speaker 2: about Biden's losing the internet. What is your assessment of
55:34
Speaker 2: Trump's digital advantage and what's your level of concern about
55:38
Speaker 2: it heading into the election?
55:40
Speaker 3: So I think let's start with good news, because why not?
55:43
Speaker 4: I think in recent times, it seems at least according
55:47
Speaker 4: to acronyms reporting that on the ad spend side, the
55:50
Speaker 4: Biden campaign is actually doing better than Trump in terms
55:54
Speaker 4: of spending money on online digital ads and spending money
55:58
Speaker 4: on Facebook.
55:58
Speaker 3: And that's important. because that was a big gap.
56:02
Speaker 4: In the 2016 election where the tools that were made
56:05
Speaker 4: available to the campaigns were just taken more advantage of
56:08
Speaker 4: by Trump. And so specifically the numbers are in the
56:11
Speaker 4: last 30 days, Biden outspent Trump 8.3 million to 5.3 million,
56:15
Speaker 4: and that's including 5.5 million versus Trump's 2.9 million on Facebook.
56:20
Speaker 4: So it's a significant amount of overspend, which I do
56:24
Speaker 4: take as good news. So that's because it was ignored previously.
56:30
Speaker 4: The concern that you have is less about the dollars
56:34
Speaker 4: then and more how they think about digital strategy and
56:37
Speaker 4: how Democrats in general think about digital strategy. And in general,
56:41
Speaker 4: I think it still looks a little bit too much
56:43
Speaker 4: like it did when I joined the White House in 2015,
56:47
Speaker 4: which is that digital is this condiment that you sprinkle
56:51
Speaker 4: on top of an already baked product. communications and political strategy.
56:55
Speaker 4: You figure out what you want to say and to
56:57
Speaker 4: whom you want to say it, and then you turn
56:58
Speaker 4: it over to some young people to make it go viral.
57:02
Speaker 4: And that's sort of best illustrated by, I was having
57:05
Speaker 4: a conversation in my early days at the White House
57:07
Speaker 4: with someone who worked on national security issues. And they said,
57:10
Speaker 4: what we really need is an ice bucket challenge to
57:12
Speaker 4: defeat ISIS. And that to me is kind of where
57:16
Speaker 4: a lot of conversations about digital strategies still are in
57:19
Speaker 4: democratic politics.
57:21
Speaker 2: I mean, when we talk about Trump's Digital advantage, to
57:25
Speaker 2: use a term of art, his platform advantage, right? He has,
57:27
Speaker 2: I think, 75 million Twitter followers. Biden has five, I think.
57:31
Speaker 3: Right.
57:32
Speaker 2: Biden has 30,000 some, I think, as of last week.
57:35
Speaker 2: Subscribers to his YouTube channel. Trump has many X that. Obviously,
57:39
Speaker 2: Trump has an email list that is in the tens
57:42
Speaker 2: of millions. Biden has one that we assume is less
57:44
Speaker 2: than that. How would you advise Biden's campaign to catch
57:48
Speaker 2: up or negate that advantage as much as possible, given
57:52
Speaker 2: the time constraints we're under?
57:54
Speaker 4: So I think the real advantage that Trump has online
57:58
Speaker 4: has less to do with the metrics and more to
58:00
Speaker 4: do with the fact that he has embraced something that
58:03
Speaker 4: you and others have talked about, which is that he
58:05
Speaker 4: is the chief communications officer for his campaign. And he
58:10
Speaker 4: understands that digital and his Twitter feed and his Facebook
58:13
Speaker 4: feed and the ads that he runs all over the
58:15
Speaker 4: place are just different vectors of the same message.
58:18
Speaker 3: Now, I in no way want to see.
58:19
Speaker 4: Joe Biden embrace Twitter or any digital platform in the
58:23
Speaker 4: same way.
58:24
Speaker 3: That Donald Trump has.
58:26
Speaker 4: However, there is an idea there, which is that you
58:29
Speaker 4: can be, you have to have a holistic strategy in
58:31
Speaker 4: which the candidate is the center of that strategy and
58:34
Speaker 4: all of these different platforms seek to amplify that central message.
58:39
Speaker 4: And they're all thought of as different vectors of the
58:41
Speaker 4: same strategy, as opposed to, well, we say the one thing,
58:45
Speaker 4: the New York Times, because that's the thing that really matters.
58:47
Speaker 4: And then we'll just clip it out to these other platforms.
58:51
Speaker 2: You know, I think some, Not necessarily folks in the
58:54
Speaker 2: Biden campaign, but some Democrats would look at this and say,
58:58
Speaker 2: in the primary, Bernie Sanders had a massive digital advantage
59:04
Speaker 2: over Biden. Along the metrics we're talking about, the strategy
59:06
Speaker 2: we're talking about, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg all had huge
59:09
Speaker 2: digital advantages. over Biden. They had more digitally native campaigns,
59:13
Speaker 2: and yet he won pretty overwhelmingly. You can look at
59:18
Speaker 2: that two ways. One, which is he won because he
59:22
Speaker 2: was more focused on more traditional means of communications and
59:26
Speaker 2: less focused on retweets and going viral, which I think
59:29
Speaker 2: there is some truth to that. or he won in
59:31
Speaker 2: spite of that digital disadvantage.
59:33
Speaker 3: What's your take?
59:35
Speaker 4: First of all, I think the things that might have
59:37
Speaker 4: worked in the primary will be different than work in
59:38
Speaker 4: the general election. The type of things that you need
59:41
Speaker 4: to do to really engage voters during the primary may
59:47
Speaker 4: not be the same things that you need to get
59:49
Speaker 4: your message out during a pandemic in which you can't
59:51
Speaker 4: hold rallies or do any of the traditional things you
59:53
Speaker 4: would be doing in a general election across 50 states.
59:57
Speaker 4: And so, you know, that's that's one big part of it.
59:59
Speaker 4: I do think some of the things that Biden has
1:00:01
Speaker 4: prioritized actually make a lot of sense in for doing
1:00:05
Speaker 4: on digital and doing as the campaign ramps up, for example,
1:00:09
Speaker 4: focusing on talking to local papers and talking to local
1:00:12
Speaker 4: news outlets. We know that people trust their local news
1:00:15
Speaker 4: outlets a lot. And that was something that in the
1:00:17
Speaker 4: digital shop in the White House, we really would push
1:00:19
Speaker 4: for because we you'd get great clips from that conversation
1:00:22
Speaker 4: and you could do a lot with them online.
1:00:25
Speaker 3: So it doesn't need to be an either or.
1:00:26
Speaker 4: And I think that some of the things that actually
1:00:30
Speaker 4: they've prioritized so far might end up working out for them.
1:00:35
Speaker 2: Have you read these stories about this debate that's taking
1:00:38
Speaker 2: place within the Biden campaign about sort of building up
1:00:41
Speaker 2: their own digital shop for hiring people? Hawkfish, which for
1:00:45
Speaker 2: our listeners who do not know, is a digital startup
1:00:48
Speaker 2: that came out of the Bloomberg campaign effort. Do you
1:00:52
Speaker 2: have any take on what the right thing to do
1:00:54
Speaker 2: there is or any sense of how Hawkfish works?
1:00:57
Speaker 4: So, I mean, first of all, I think so with
1:00:59
Speaker 4: regards to Hawkfish and the Bloomberg campaign, I actually think
1:01:02
Speaker 4: the strategy that they had.
1:01:03
Speaker 3: For Bloomberg was pretty good from a digital perspective.
1:01:08
Speaker 2: If your goal is to win Guam.
1:01:10
Speaker 4: It didn't work from an electoral standpoint, but it worked
1:01:13
Speaker 4: up until the candidate had first contact with the public.
1:01:18
Speaker 4: It got people talking about a candidate who wasn't on
1:01:21
Speaker 4: the ballot in the races in which they were running
1:01:24
Speaker 4: these campaigns. And it was reminding people of his core value,
1:01:28
Speaker 4: which is that he's going to spend a shit ton
1:01:30
Speaker 4: on this election. And he's willing to put his money
1:01:33
Speaker 4: behind it and do all these unconventional things, which maybe
1:01:36
Speaker 4: is the right kind of electoral argument against Trump. It
1:01:39
Speaker 4: didn't work because he showed up and got completely dismantled
1:01:44
Speaker 4: by Elizabeth Warren, which underlies the key point, which is
1:01:47
Speaker 4: you can't have some genius, make it go viral on
1:01:50
Speaker 4: the ground digital strategy if it doesn't cohere in any
1:01:53
Speaker 4: way with who your candidate is and what that candidate
1:01:56
Speaker 4: is actually going to do out on the debate stage
1:01:59
Speaker 4: or on the campaign trail or on the stump or
1:02:01
Speaker 4: on TV interviews or anything. You're just going to have
1:02:04
Speaker 4: something that got a lot of people talking about it
1:02:06
Speaker 4: for a couple of days and then it's.
1:02:07
Speaker 3: Going to be completely undermined.
1:02:09
Speaker 4: So I think that's my concern with the idea of
1:02:12
Speaker 4: looking at a third party digital consultancy as being the
1:02:16
Speaker 4: magic bullet one stop shop for digital strategy, because the
1:02:20
Speaker 4: temptation will be that they come up with some really creative,
1:02:22
Speaker 4: interesting stuff, but it has absolutely no coherence with who
1:02:26
Speaker 4: Joe Biden is. The values that he's trying to express
1:02:29
Speaker 4: to the American people are the type of campaign that he's.
1:02:30
Speaker 3: Going to run.
1:02:31
Speaker 4: So for that reason, I worry about the complete outsourcing
1:02:34
Speaker 4: of digital strategy. And I think instead it needs to
1:02:37
Speaker 4: be more, you know, within connected to their core core mission.
1:02:42
Speaker 4: You know, there was this interesting quote in that story.
1:02:44
Speaker 4: One of the hawkfish stories where an unnamed advisor to
1:02:47
Speaker 4: the Biden campaign said, our current digital team packs a
1:02:50
Speaker 4: hell of a punch and we're looking forward to expanding
1:02:52
Speaker 4: for the general election. So I think that's interesting. First
1:02:55
Speaker 4: of all, I don't know why that quote had to
1:02:56
Speaker 4: be off the record. Second of all, I mean, you know,
1:02:59
Speaker 4: it seems like a fine quote. But second, the core
1:03:03
Speaker 4: of the quote is that we punch well. And that
1:03:06
Speaker 4: kind of pugilistic language makes sense coming from the Joe
1:03:09
Speaker 4: Biden campaign. That sort of reflects something that you think
1:03:12
Speaker 4: about when you think about Joe Biden. And it reveals
1:03:14
Speaker 4: the fact that the unnamed communications person who gave that
1:03:17
Speaker 4: quote understands that their communication to the press, even if unnamed,
1:03:21
Speaker 4: needs to cohere to who their candidate is.
1:03:24
Speaker 3: And you need to see that on the digital side
1:03:26
Speaker 3: as well. And that's what I worry about if they
1:03:28
Speaker 3: just completely turn it over.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: I don't know who that quote was, so I'm not
1:03:32
Speaker 2: suggesting it's this person, but Rob Flaherty, who is their
1:03:34
Speaker 2: digital director, is very talented, very strategic guy. And so
1:03:41
Speaker 2: I do agree that they have punched above their weight,
1:03:44
Speaker 2: even if it doesn't seem that way from sort of
1:03:47
Speaker 2: the way we think about it. We talk about platform
1:03:49
Speaker 2: advantage in the sense that Trump has more Facebook fans
1:03:51
Speaker 2: or more Instagram followers or Twitter followers, whatever else. But
1:03:54
Speaker 2: Trump also has what I try to describe sometimes as
1:03:57
Speaker 2: an algorithmic advantage, which is his message of outrage and
1:04:02
Speaker 2: fear is the one that is favored by the way
1:04:06
Speaker 2: the algorithms work, particularly on Facebook. And Biden cannot, would not,
1:04:11
Speaker 2: and should not run a campaign that is outrage-based. Like
1:04:14
Speaker 2: that's not who he is. It wouldn't necessarily work with
1:04:15
Speaker 2: his voters. How do you think, and this is, I mean,
1:04:18
Speaker 2: this is the question that you were tackling in the
1:04:19
Speaker 2: White House for Obama, which is how can a candidate
1:04:21
Speaker 2: who's trying to run on decency or hope or good
1:04:26
Speaker 2: policy ideas. How can they get traction online in a
1:04:30
Speaker 2: culture that is sort of dominated by trolls and outrage?
1:04:34
Speaker 4: I think this is a really important point because I
1:04:35
Speaker 4: don't think we should undersell the fact that the current
1:04:38
Speaker 4: algorithms and the current systems are set up to value
1:04:42
Speaker 4: outrage and reward outrage. And there's all of these really
1:04:44
Speaker 4: weird feedback loops that are getting exposed even now during
1:04:47
Speaker 4: the pandemic.
1:04:48
Speaker 3: That make it really bad.
1:04:49
Speaker 4: As a concrete example, Willow Remus had an interesting post
1:04:52
Speaker 4: on One Zero on Medium about what happened with the
1:04:55
Speaker 4: Fire Fauci and what's been going on with some of
1:04:57
Speaker 4: these protest campaigns where what's happening is people on the
1:05:01
Speaker 4: side of collective action and let's not open the country
1:05:05
Speaker 4: without a plan are reacting negatively when they see these
1:05:08
Speaker 4: images of people saying Fire Fauci or including the president
1:05:12
Speaker 4: and protesting in front of state capitals and are amplifying
1:05:15
Speaker 4: those hashtags.
1:05:16
Speaker 3: And so they end up trending more.
1:05:18
Speaker 4: You know, Renee DiResta in the article described it as
1:05:21
Speaker 4: kind of an autoimmune disease that's happening, where there's this
1:05:24
Speaker 4: perverse amplification of the thing that you don't want to
1:05:26
Speaker 4: have happen. So even people who are against the thing
1:05:29
Speaker 4: that they're outraged by are fueling it and ending up
1:05:34
Speaker 4: affecting trending topics. And the platform should be thinking about
1:05:37
Speaker 4: how to fix that in a more concrete way than
1:05:40
Speaker 4: they have. However, that being said, we know that outrage
1:05:44
Speaker 4: isn't the only thing that works online. I mean, first
1:05:46
Speaker 4: of all, as you mentioned, Barack Obama did not do
1:05:50
Speaker 4: outrage online. Barack Obama was elected twice and governed under
1:05:55
Speaker 4: a completely different emotional spectrum of hope and engagement and
1:06:00
Speaker 4: highlighting what was common among the American people. And that's
1:06:03
Speaker 4: what his digital strategy reflected and I think was successful. However,
1:06:07
Speaker 4: it isn't even true just within the realm of politics.
1:06:10
Speaker 4: You see folks like Steph Curry or Lin-Manuel Miranda who understand,
1:06:13
Speaker 4: or Jose Andres, who understand how to use their platform
1:06:16
Speaker 4: to reach people on an emotional level that is positive
1:06:20
Speaker 4: and that spurs them into action. All three of those
1:06:22
Speaker 4: are people who have used their platform to register people
1:06:25
Speaker 4: to vote or get people.
1:06:26
Speaker 3: To donate meals.
1:06:28
Speaker 4: And I think that's the other side of the coin
1:06:31
Speaker 4: that actually does work. And Joe Biden is really well
1:06:34
Speaker 4: positioned for this moment where we're in need of someone
1:06:37
Speaker 4: showing us that there's a way for empathy and common
1:06:41
Speaker 4: understanding to lead.
1:06:42
Speaker 3: Us out of the worst crisis of our lives.
1:06:44
Speaker 2: Did you see the video that he taped with Jill
1:06:49
Speaker 2: Biden and his granddaughter just doing this? I assume you
1:06:53
Speaker 2: think that's an example of the kind of thing that
1:06:54
Speaker 2: could work for him.
1:06:55
Speaker 4: Yeah. And I think the reason that works is because
1:06:58
Speaker 4: in this moment, people are looking for things that feel vulnerable.
1:07:02
Speaker 4: People are looking for things that feel intimate.
1:07:04
Speaker 3: And that's why.
1:07:06
Speaker 4: People are hanging out on Zoom chats and hanging out
1:07:08
Speaker 4: in Instagram Lives all night, because it gives you this
1:07:11
Speaker 4: feeling of something that's That's raw, that's intimate, that's in
1:07:14
Speaker 4: your bedroom and, you know, that you can see and
1:07:18
Speaker 4: feel not as alone in a time that's very scary.
1:07:21
Speaker 4: And Donald Trump does not have that gear at all.
1:07:23
Speaker 4: It's exclusively it's a lane that's exclusively available to Joe Biden,
1:07:27
Speaker 4: even if he weren't the type of candidate and type
1:07:29
Speaker 4: of person that he is. And the fact that he is,
1:07:31
Speaker 4: in fact, very good at those type of things, I
1:07:33
Speaker 4: think will is something that he should lean into. The
1:07:36
Speaker 4: guidance I would give the campaign is just you have
1:07:38
Speaker 4: to do more of them. You just have to do
1:07:39
Speaker 4: more stuff with digital. A lot of it is you
1:07:42
Speaker 4: just need more swings at the bat. You only get
1:07:44
Speaker 4: one chance to, you know, kind of interview with the
1:07:46
Speaker 4: editorial board of The New York Times like they have
1:07:48
Speaker 4: a process for that.
1:07:49
Speaker 3: But you can do lots of different things.
1:07:52
Speaker 4: And some of them are going to be duds and
1:07:53
Speaker 4: sometimes the computers don't work and you're trapped in a
1:07:55
Speaker 4: room with President Obama and he's wondering why he hired
1:07:57
Speaker 4: this guy whose computer has crashed. That could happen to
1:08:01
Speaker 4: a theoretical person. But you just keep trying things until
1:08:07
Speaker 4: you find stuff that works for the combination of what
1:08:09
Speaker 4: your message is and who your candidate is.
1:08:13
Speaker 2: The context of the conversation as we've been having is
1:08:16
Speaker 2: about how politics is conducted on the level, right? How
1:08:19
Speaker 2: does Trump get his message out? How does Biden get
1:08:21
Speaker 2: his message out? But one of the elements that was
1:08:24
Speaker 2: so critical in 2016 was specific efforts at disinformation, right?
1:08:29
Speaker 2: Whether they're state-based from Russia, whether they are being fueled
1:08:33
Speaker 2: by domestic troll farms, international troll farms. What is your
1:08:37
Speaker 2: sense of how the Democratic Party– and I'll give an
1:08:41
Speaker 2: example of this for folks who have flushed 2016 down
1:08:44
Speaker 2: their memory hole. You look at articles with serious amounts
1:08:48
Speaker 2: of engagement on Facebook. Many of them from 2016 contain
1:08:52
Speaker 2: totally false pieces of propaganda. Hillary Clinton was endorsed by ISIS.
1:08:57
Speaker 2: FBI agent who worked on the– an email vest. found
1:09:00
Speaker 2: dead in apartment. Pope endorses Trump, which people believed, which
1:09:05
Speaker 2: seems crazy. But that's going to come back now. It's
1:09:08
Speaker 2: going to be more sophisticated. I know Facebook and Twitter
1:09:12
Speaker 2: have taken some steps, but Democrats obviously have to have
1:09:15
Speaker 2: a plan to deal with disinformation. You referenced this article
1:09:18
Speaker 2: in Medium, which I think gets at this. But what's
1:09:21
Speaker 2: your take on where Democrats are on the battle against
1:09:25
Speaker 2: disinformation and what do you think we need.
1:09:27
Speaker 3: To be doing? I think it's going to be as
1:09:30
Speaker 3: big a problem, if not worse.
1:09:32
Speaker 4: I really don't think that disinformation is going to be
1:09:34
Speaker 4: solved for this election cycle. And in some ways, we
1:09:37
Speaker 4: just still don't have the right amount of tools to
1:09:40
Speaker 4: call it out, particularly homegrown, domestic, we-do-it-to-ourselves disinformation.
1:09:45
Speaker 3: I worry much more about that than the foreign kind
1:09:48
Speaker 3: of state actor variety.
1:09:51
Speaker 4: Because as the example with the fire Fauci hashtag or the.
1:09:55
Speaker 3: Liberate protest show, We're really doing it to ourselves.
1:09:59
Speaker 4: And one of the reasons we are is because the
1:10:02
Speaker 4: other side has this tremendous propaganda amplification machine in right-wing media.
1:10:07
Speaker 4: And I want to get back to the digital side
1:10:10
Speaker 4: of things, but I think it's worth emphasizing how big
1:10:13
Speaker 4: a part of the overall disinformation problem is really because
1:10:17
Speaker 4: of right-wing media. Yochai Bankler and other authors wrote this
1:10:21
Speaker 4: book called Network Propaganda, and it came out in 2018.
1:10:25
Speaker 4: I think it's still as relevant now as it was then,
1:10:28
Speaker 4: in which they kind of do this multi-factor analysis of
1:10:31
Speaker 4: all the things that happened in the 2016 cycle with
1:10:34
Speaker 4: regards to disinformation. What really was, what were the biggest levers?
1:10:39
Speaker 4: And they find consistently that it's conservative media. And the
1:10:42
Speaker 4: reason for that is that, you know, the voters who
1:10:44
Speaker 4: are loyal to Trump are less likely, you know, less
1:10:46
Speaker 4: likely to be online. These stories existed online, but then
1:10:50
Speaker 4: got supercharged by right wing media. And that's what allowed
1:10:52
Speaker 4: other electeds and other politicians to pick them up. And
1:10:55
Speaker 4: we don't really have any, as you know, and I've
1:10:58
Speaker 4: talked about, we don't really have the antibodies to that
1:11:02
Speaker 4: to that system yet. And we're seeing it just play
1:11:04
Speaker 4: out in a supercharged way during the pandemic. So that's,
1:11:07
Speaker 4: I think, of real concern. On the digital side, I
1:11:11
Speaker 4: think that some of the platforms have taken more steps
1:11:14
Speaker 4: than they have previously, particularly with regards to political ads.
1:11:18
Speaker 3: And I think with the pandemic, you're seeing things change faster.
1:11:21
Speaker 4: For example, just this morning, like three hours ago, Google
1:11:23
Speaker 4: announced that they're going to start doing, you're going to
1:11:27
Speaker 4: be able to see transparency for who placed any ad
1:11:29
Speaker 4: on Google, not just political ads, which I think is
1:11:32
Speaker 4: a move in the right direction. And the types of
1:11:35
Speaker 4: things that all the platforms have done with various levels
1:11:39
Speaker 4: of success or seriousness to take down disinformation about the
1:11:42
Speaker 4: pandemic are also noteworthy because they violate the central tenet
1:11:47
Speaker 4: that the platforms have tried to.
1:11:48
Speaker 3: Hew to, which is that we do not have an
1:11:50
Speaker 3: editorial role in this. With the pandemic, we found something
1:11:53
Speaker 3: that was so important that that excuse just wouldn't fly
1:11:56
Speaker 3: and they would have to say, well, okay, we obviously
1:11:59
Speaker 3: have to do this because people are going to drink,
1:12:01
Speaker 3: you know, aquarium bleach and we've got to try to
1:12:03
Speaker 3: protect people. And so I think we're going to see
1:12:07
Speaker 3: that the slope isn't that slippery and that platforms can
1:12:11
Speaker 3: actually do more than heretofore they've been willing to do.
1:12:15
Speaker 2: Jason, last question for you. There is obviously a very
1:12:18
Speaker 2: real possibility that this is going to be the Zoom
1:12:21
Speaker 2: election where just the typical means by which we campaign rallies,
1:12:28
Speaker 2: door knocking, in-person communication with other human beings is not
1:12:33
Speaker 2: going to be on the table for For Biden, Trump,
1:12:36
Speaker 2: or anyone involved in this election, are you seeing or
1:12:39
Speaker 2: hearing anything in digital world that are interesting tools or
1:12:44
Speaker 2: strategies for how we could successfully politic in that environment?
1:12:51
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I think people are trying stuff, you know,
1:12:53
Speaker 4: I mean, unsurprisingly folks like AOC are good in this
1:12:56
Speaker 4: environment and are doing stuff on Instagram, like answering questions
1:13:00
Speaker 4: from folks while doing stuff at home. I mean, it's, it's,
1:13:03
Speaker 4: it's really the same kind of stuff that she was
1:13:05
Speaker 4: doing before, but it just really works now where, you know,
1:13:07
Speaker 4: she's cooking in her kitchen. We're all cooking in our kitchen.
1:13:09
Speaker 4: She's answering questions. Like I have questions I need answered
1:13:12
Speaker 4: about what's going on. It's perfect for the moment. I
1:13:16
Speaker 4: don't know what the early results are in terms of
1:13:18
Speaker 4: I'd be interested in seeing some data in some of
1:13:21
Speaker 4: these telephone town halls. I could see them being very successful,
1:13:25
Speaker 4: particularly with a demographic that's maybe less online and that's
1:13:29
Speaker 4: less interested in hanging out and watching an Instagram live.
1:13:34
Speaker 4: And so I'd be interested to know what the sort
1:13:35
Speaker 4: of reach is on those. But the one thing that
1:13:38
Speaker 4: we're definitely seeing is that people are spending a lot
1:13:41
Speaker 4: of time online. Like, you know, there's, you know, 500,000
1:13:44
Speaker 4: people logging in, trying to get in, not able to
1:13:47
Speaker 4: get in to see, you know, a baby.
1:13:49
Speaker 3: Face battle on Instagram live. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, like, like,
1:13:52
Speaker 3: you know, you can't get in. It's so hot. You
1:13:54
Speaker 3: can't get in.
1:13:55
Speaker 4: There's a, you know, so I think I think, you know,
1:13:59
Speaker 4: the point is not that, you know, Joe Biden should
1:14:01
Speaker 4: go book a battle with baby face, but more that,
1:14:04
Speaker 4: you know, that there is a pent up demand for
1:14:06
Speaker 4: people to have communal experiences that connect with other people
1:14:10
Speaker 4: to feel a sense of engagement. while being at home,
1:14:15
Speaker 4: but using the tools that we already have. I don't
1:14:17
Speaker 4: think we need a special magic tool that doesn't exist.
1:14:20
Speaker 4: I just think folks need to try more things and
1:14:22
Speaker 4: do them more often and don't be afraid if the first.
1:14:24
Speaker 3: One doesn't work.
1:14:26
Speaker 2: Jason Goldman, thank you so much. Thanks for being here
1:14:28
Speaker 2: on Positive America and we'll talk to you soon.
1:14:31
Speaker 3: Thanks so much.
1:14:35
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jason for joining us today. Have a great
1:14:38
Speaker 1: weekend and we'll talk to you next week.
1:14:40
Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
1:14:40
Speaker 1: Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is
1:14:49
Speaker 1: Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
1:14:52
Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support.
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Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed,
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Speaker 1: and Milo Kemp, who film and upload these episodes as
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Speaker 1: videos every week.