Latest / Pod Save America / “Kamala at me, bro.” (Debate recap!)

Transcript

“Kamala at me, bro.” (Debate recap!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Later on the pod, I catch up with Beto O'Rourke,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: who's organizing a massive phone bank event next week to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: help turn Texas blue. Before that, the gang's all here
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to talk about last night's vice presidential debate. Quick note
• 0:37
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• 1:02
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• 1:08
  Speaker 1: So just go to votesaveamerica.com slash donate to help out
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and get more information. All right, let's talk about last night.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence met in
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake City for the first and only vice presidential debate.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: USA Today's Susan Page moderated the 90-minute event where the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: two candidates were separated by 12 feet in plexiglass because Pence,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: who runs the White House COVID task force, may have
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: been exposed to an infectious Donald Trump. Kamala spent most
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of the debate holding the president and Pence accountable for
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: their record while making the case for the Biden-Harris ticket,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: while Pence tried to defend the Trump record, evade questions
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: he didn't like, and interrupt Harris like this.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Well, let's get back up.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: But Susan, this is important.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: And I want to add, Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: I have to weigh in.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: I'm speaking.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So aside from Pence's very annoying interruptions, the debate was
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the tame affair everyone asked for after last week's shit
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: show between Trump and Biden, though I did see a
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: bunch of commentary saying it was too boring and forgettable.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: What did you guys think? It wasn't the shit show?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Was it too boring? What kind of debate are we
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: looking for here? Love it?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I know. I look boring is nice. I don't I'm
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I'm good for I'm I'm excited about boring. Look, I
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: think Trump shows up and he's blustery and he's interrupting
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and he's monstrous and he lies. Pence shows up and
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: his whole ethos, his whole strategy, his whole mode of
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: being as a politician is to lie while pretending Donald
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Trump doesn't exist, just acting as if Everything that's happening
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: and swirling around him is not real. That does make
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: for something boring. But I do think boring is pretty
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: good for us because they need something to change. They
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: need something to change quickly. And a boring debate between
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and Mike Pence in which Kamala Harris delivers
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: some pretty tough blows on the biggest issues facing the
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: country like COVID and the ACA then they mix it
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: up and Pence does fine on the economy or what
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: have you. And then the next morning, Trump calls up
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Bartiromo and calls Kamala Harris a monster is not the
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: shift in the dynamic I think that they need.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: You know that that was on the message calendar. Dan,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: what did you think Kamala's strategy was going into this
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: debate and how well did she execute?
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I think it was a three-part strategy.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: Part one was to continue to eviscerate the Trump-Pence record
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: on COVID, which is obviously the most important issue in
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: this campaign. Step number two was to take any opportunity
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: she could to offer details on the Biden-Harris agenda. She
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: was able to do that, I think, particularly well on
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: the Biden economic plan and the climate change plan. And
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: then finally, is to remind people as often as possible
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: that as we sit here in the middle of this pandemic,
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump and Mike Pence are in court trying to
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: kick millions of Americans off healthcare.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: And she did that, I think, two or three times.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: In the debate.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: So I think, you know, you have to judge these
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: vice presidential debates differently than a presidential debate, because historically,
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: these vice presidential debates don't move votes. They are about
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: taking advantage of a large audience to provide potentially undecided
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: voters with relevant information. And I think on that measure,
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: Kamala Harris did incredibly well. I think if you were
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: judging on who won the debate between the two of them,
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: she also won that debate handily. But She advanced her
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: campaign's strategic agenda much further than Mike Pence did the
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: Trump agenda.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Tommy, how do you think that she handled all of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Pence's interruptions?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: As well as she could.
• 4:37
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'm going to Susan Page you, John, for
• 4:39
  Speaker 6: a minute and just not answer a thing you asked
• 4:41
  Speaker 6: by just pointing out the fact that I'm really mad
• 4:44
  Speaker 6: that the debate even happened. It's very frustrating that Mike
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: Pence was on a stage with her and not quarantining
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: with his breathless, frail, ailing boss. They put everyone at
• 4:54
  Speaker 6: risk a week ago, and now we're supposed to pretend
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: that a piece of plexiglass solves the problem. I'm also
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: frustrated that the debate commission still has not solved the
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: problem of the interruptions. They've also created a structure that
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: made these things pretty useless. I mean, Susan paid to
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: better than Chris Wallace, but she apparently wasn't allowed to
• 5:11
  Speaker 6: ask follow-up questions. So there was no one helping her
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: when Pence was trying to interrupt her. And there was
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: no substance to the question. The point of the debate
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: isn't civility. It's to get information that actually matters. And
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: I don't know that they did this. I mean, I think,
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: you know, I think all the polling we've seen so
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: far today that shows that people liked both Kamala Harris
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: on style and on substance. So that to me suggests
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: she handled Pence's interruptions pretty well. But overall, I mean,
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: I think the takeaway was a lot of conversation about
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: the coronavirus, which wasn't necessarily good for the Trump side.
• 5:47
  Speaker 7: Of the ledger.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Can I just say, I do think that there was
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: a difference between what happened with interruptions in the first
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: debate and this debate. It is true that Pence spoke
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: over Kamala Harris, he interrupted, he spoke too long. I
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: will say if a third of your points are being
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: made while the moderator is saying, you know, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Pence,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: thank you, Mr. Pence, it becomes about the interruption. And
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I think the really, what I really appreciated about how
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris handled those moments is I don't think it
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: ever really prevented her from delivering the message she wanted
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: to deliver. And she made moments out of needing to
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: finish what she was saying and delivering some pretty good hits,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: even as he was sort of kind of interrupting her,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: interrupting Susan Page or what have you.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I think she handled the interruptions masterfully. I think she
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: was forceful but polite. I think that as a black woman,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: she knew this and her team knew this going in.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: She faces like all kinds of double standards and you
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: have to walk a tightrope. Like we know this because
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: we know how Hillary had to deal with us in debates.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: We've all worked with Barack Obama. A black man who,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you know, was sometimes concerned that he couldn't appear too
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: angry because of the various stereotypes that he has to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: face out there. So she knew all this walking into that,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: walking into the debate. And I thought the way she
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: handled it by being very forceful but also polite was perfect.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And then when I still saw some fucking undecided assholes...
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: white guys and Frank Luntz's focus group saying that she
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: was too harsh or whatever, it really just bummed me out.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Not that I was surprised that there's sexism and racism
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and double standards out there, but just because I watched
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: it without trying to look at Twitter or any, you know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and just see how she did. And I was like,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I couldn't, I don't think she could have handled it better,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: like with him interrupting all the time and her not
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: being allowed to finish.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's very clear she has a lifetime of
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: experience of being interrupted by dumb white guys and she
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: knows exactly how to handle it. Um, I, it's not
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: just these undecided voters in that focus group you mentioned
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: to basically, as someone said on Twitter, I wish I
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: remember who that basically was like their comments was a
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: lesson from a gender studies class in college. Just how
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: on the nose it was for, uh, misogynistic tropes. But
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: I mean, the right wing leaned into this on Twitter.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: You know, you had Megyn Kelly saying, take it like
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: a woman, don't make a face, which is quite a
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: thing to say from someone who works at Fox News.
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: You had a whole bunch of Harlan Hill saying horribly
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: offensive things about Kamala Harris. It's like they absolutely cannot
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: help themselves when confronted with an impressive showing by a woman,
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: particularly a black woman. You would think there would be
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: enough sense to just take their foot off the gas,
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: but they cannot help themselves and push the envelope. And
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: I haven't looked at what the horrible content that's trending,
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: right-wing content trending on Facebook is, but I have a
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: pretty safe guess it's going to be all about this.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The one hopeful thing is, of course, there's a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: huge gender gap in the CNN poll about how she did.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk about the CNN poll later. But still,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: even with the gender gap, 48 percent of men thought
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: she won versus 46 percent who thought she lost. So
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: it was at least good to see that. But, you know,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the right wing assholes were out in force. How do
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you guys think that Susan Page did as a moderator?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: We had some disagreement in our Slack channel over this.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Love it's a big Susan Page fan.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Look, what I said at the end of the night- Dan,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: not so much. Look, Dan and I really, you know,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: we did mix it up in the group thread. I found, look,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: we just watched the worst debate in presidential history. We
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: have a kind of raving steroid addled misinformation, conspiracy theory
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: spreading monster in the White House. And the final question
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: being from a teen about civility and actually allowing Mike
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Pence a a place to talk about how important it
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: is that we get over our differences is like a
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: pretty extraordinary abdication, I think, of responsibility. I don't think
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: you need to, I don't understand why it would be
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: her job to ignore reality, right? There is a reality.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is the, you know, there was just a
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: study that found he's the leading source of misinformation on COVID.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: He's the leading divider in our country. So that was
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: a bit frustrating. That said, I found her questions on COVID.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I found some of the questions directed at Pence to
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: be pretty direct and not kind of not willing to
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: kind of give Trump or Pence the benefit of the doubt. So,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: you know, I come away with a nuanced view.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: Like I've known Susan Page for a very long time.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: I think she is– she's a wonderful person and she's
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: a phenomenal reporter and she knows a lot about politics.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: And I agree with Lovett that her questions were really good.
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: The problem isn't really with Susan Page. It's with the
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: conception of a debate moderator as put forward by this absurd, ridiculous,
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: completely pointless debate commission. The idea that a moderator should
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: not see it as the role to ask follow-up questions
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: or to fact-check obvious lies from candidates is absurd. There's
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: no point in putting journalists there to just sort of
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: shepherd them around and ask questions if you're not going
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: to hold their feet to the fire.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: And this is the problem. You have a debate commission
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: that is.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Run by an 80-something-year-old Republican gaming lobbyist. We live in
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: this world where fact-checking is seen as partisan because Democrats
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: use facts and Republicans lie.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And it's true.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, you like they Republicans have been against debate
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: moderators fact checking since Candy Crowley called Mitt Romney out
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: for a lie on stage in the 2012 debate about Benghazi.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: And so now it is seen as unfair. So Chris Wallace,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: a person whose brain has been somewhat pickled through Fox
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: News racist agitprop, but is a tough interviewer and fact
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: check the living hell out of Trump in that interview,
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: felt like it was not his job to fact check.
• 11:31
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: So what is the point of having these people there?
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: And so I agree, like I completely agree with Lovett
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: that that last question was absurd. I thought the questions,
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: there's nothing that should have prevented Susan Page from saying,
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: you didn't answer my question, like when they answered a
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: completely opposite topic. She did as well as you can
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: and be expected, given the constraints that we've decided to
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: put on debate moderators to make it easier for Mike
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Pence and Donald Trump to lie to the American people.
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: Like she also said that her plan was to ask
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: candidates some tough questions and some easy questions. Why plan
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: to ask them easy questions?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: It's a fair point.
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: If I wanted a substance list conversation where no one
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: is challenged, I'd watch another episode of Emily in Paris,
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: which is what I did after the debate was over.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: So like, come on. You keep plugging that show. For
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: sure you don't like.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Tom's been talking about Emily in Paris for three days now.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Are you guys getting.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: A Netflix check? Because we're doing a.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Lot of work here. It's indifference.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Let us know.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: If you hate it, I think there's something going on.
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: Don't tell me what I like.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to the next clip.
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: Enough.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you another question.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Let's break down a few of the notable moments. First
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: question was about COVID, which Kamala called the greatest failure
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: of any presidential administration in the history of our country
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and pointed out several times in the debate that the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: White House is actively trying to dismantle the Affordable Care
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Act in the middle of a pandemic. Mike Pence, meanwhile,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: offered thoughts and prayers for those affected by coronavirus, equated
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: criticizing the president with denigrating the sacrifices the American people
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: have made, and even accused Joe Biden and Harris of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: plagiarizing the White House's response plan. Let's take a listen.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Well, the American people have witnessed what is the greatest
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: And here are the facts. 210,000 dead people in our
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: country in just the last several months. Over 7 million
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: people who have contracted this disease. One in five businesses closed.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: We're looking at frontline workers who have been treated like
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: sacrificial workers.
• 13:33
  Speaker 8: The reality is when you look at the Biden plan,
• 13:35
  Speaker 8: it reads an awful lot. Like what President Trump and
• 13:38
  Speaker 8: I and our task force have been doing every step
• 13:40
  Speaker 8: of the way. And quite frankly, when I look at
• 13:44
  Speaker 8: their plan that talks about Advancing testing, creating new PPE,
• 13:48
  Speaker 8: developing a vaccine. It looks a little bit like plagiarism,
• 13:54
  Speaker 8: which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: And I think the American people know that this is
• 13:59
  Speaker 8: a president who has put the health of America first.
• 14:01
  Speaker 8: And the American people, I believe with my heart, can
• 14:04
  Speaker 8: be proud of the sacrifices they have made. It's saved
• 14:07
  Speaker 8: countless American lives.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Tommy, lame plagiarism joke aside that anyone under 50 years
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: old probably doesn't understand. What did you think of Mike Pence, basically?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: His response on COVID is, oh, they just want to
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: do the same thing we are, as his red eyes
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: are bulging out of his face. I don't know what
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: was wrong with his fucking eyes the whole time.
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: The plagiarism joke probably killed with the 50 swing voters
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: who have read What It Takes. Speaking of killing swing voters, plagiarism?
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry, are they infecting Gold Star families? That's your
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: current plan, Mike Pence. Like, it's just, I realize that
• 14:46
  Speaker 6: Pence has no case to make here. There's no spinning 200,000
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: people dead. It is still remarkable to me that their
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: go-to talking point is that they instituted a travel ban
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: to China back in February. And since then, they have
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: fucked up every single thing since. And somehow that sort
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: of absolves them from this. I just like, Pence had
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: no case. And it wasn't just that he got drilled
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: in this opening thing. He kept pivoting back to a
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: conversation about the coronavirus and putting himself on ground that
• 15:17
  Speaker 6: I think is probably the worst polling issue they could
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: be talking about. So I didn't think he got out
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: of that in any.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Way, shape or form.
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: And I think Kamala Harris pretty thoroughly drilled him on
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: their record here.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Well, and I thought she did something interesting, which is
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: she didn't spend a lot of time on Trump's diagnosis,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: his behavior, the Rose Garden thing. She brought it up
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: at one point, but she really went to the larger
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: record on the pandemic. And then she hit them on
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: health care. Here's a clip of her talking about pre-existing conditions.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: On the one hand, you have Joe Biden, who was
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: responsible with President Barack Obama for the Affordable Care Act,
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: which brought health care to over 20 million Americans and
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: protected people with pre-existing conditions. And what it also did
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: is it saved those families who otherwise were going bankrupt.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: because of hospital bills they could not afford. On the
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: other hand, you have Donald Trump, who's in court right now,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, which
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: means that you will lose protections if you have pre-existing conditions.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: And I just, this is very important, Susan. And it's
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: important to- We need to give Vice President- He interrupted me,
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: and I'd like to just finish, please. If you have
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: a pre-existing condition, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, they're coming
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: for you. If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: they're coming for you. If you are under the age
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: of 26 on your parents' coverage, they're coming for you.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Dan, I thought that was a great answer. And I
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: also can't believe that we've now had two debates and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: at least Pence has not prepped an answer on ACA
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and pre-existing conditions. Can they just not defend this? What's
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: going on?
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: There's no answer. They have no plan.
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: Like their plan is to take away the Affordable Care
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Act and fuck over millions of people. That has been
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: their plan from the very beginning. And it is truly–
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: I mean it's both an example of how intellectually bankrupt
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: they were and cruel their approach is. But it's also,
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: once again, not to pivot back to the moderator, but
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: Pence said they have a plan, which would have been
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: a phenomenal time for Susan Page to say, tell us
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: your plan. And he didn't do that because he can't.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: And they like all this is he's they're sort of
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: rerunning the 2018 Republican congressional playbook, which is just claim
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: without evidence or regard for the truth that you protect
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: people with preexisting conditions. But Josh Hawley did to get
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: reelected to get elected. It's what a whole bunch of
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: Republicans tried. It's what Trump is trying. And that could
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: possibly work for some candidates running in red states. But
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: when you are someone who has zero credibility with the
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: vast majority of voters like Trump and Pence do, then
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: it gets very, very, very challenging. And that's why it's
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: so important that Kamala Harris brought it up repeatedly.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: They are relying on the fact that their position is
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: so heinous it doesn't seem plausible. They are relying on
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: the fact that they can say, we will protect preexisting
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: conditions when their actual position is we would like to
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: eliminate the ACA without a replacement and cause untold havoc
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: in people's lives. It's similar to choice as well, right?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: That's why Pence has to dodge the question on choice,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: because their position is the same position he's had since
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: he was the governor of Indiana, which is they would
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: like to criminalize abortion. But of course, that position is
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: so heinous that they are relying on the fact that
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: if they allied the truth on it, not enough people
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: will actually understand or truly countenance just how terrible the
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: outcome of their actual policy preferences would be.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So the issue of racial justice was also raised last
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: night when the candidates were asked whether they felt that
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: justice had been served in the case of Breonna Taylor.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence pivoted to a law and order argument, denied
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the reality of systemic racism in the United States, and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: began the following exchange with Kamala Harris. Here's a clip.
• 18:54
  Speaker 8: And I must tell you this, this, this presumption that
• 18:58
  Speaker 8: you hear consistently from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that, uh,
• 19:04
  Speaker 8: that America is systemically racist. And that as Joe Biden said,
• 19:08
  Speaker 8: that he believes that law enforcement has an implicit bias
• 19:13
  Speaker 8: against minorities is a great insult.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: And the reality of this is that we are talking
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: about an election in 27 days where last week, the
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: president of the United States took a debate stage in
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: And it wasn't like he didn't have a chance. He
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: didn't do it, and then he doubled down.
• 19:43
  Speaker 7: Thank you, Susan.
• 19:44
  Speaker 8: I appreciate that very much. You know, I think this
• 19:48
  Speaker 8: is one of the things that makes people dislike the
• 19:50
  Speaker 8: media so much in this country, Susan, is that you
• 19:53
  Speaker 8: selectively edit, just like Senator Harris did, comments that President
• 19:58
  Speaker 8: Trump and I and others on our side of the
• 20:00
  Speaker 8: aisle make.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Tommy, is Donald Trump's problem that he's selectively edited too often?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: That's the problem?
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: Community theater Reagan impersonator Mike Pence thinks they selectively edited
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: a live debate that we all watched last week. Mike
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: Pence seemed offended on behalf of systemic racism. And I
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: guess also like data. I mean, like we've had this
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: conversation since June. There's been so much polling on how
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: people feel about racial justice, about policing. We all know
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: that public opinion is on the side of the Biden-Harris
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: position on this. I think that's the third issue area,
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: fourth issue area we've talked about so far on the show,
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: where all available evidence suggests that Mike Pence and Trump
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: are taking the wrong side of an issue when it
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: comes to trying to actually attract voters. So yeah, this
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: one didn't go all that well for Mike, I thought.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Well, you could also tell like he he so clumsily
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: pivoted to what he was obviously going to pivot to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: as soon as humanly possible, which there's a discussion about
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Breonna Taylor's case. And he immediately goes to rioting and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: looting and, you know, the poor police and stuff like
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that because he thinks that's the only strong territory. So
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: I actually think that Kamala did really, really well zooming
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: back to talk about Trump. the guy who's running for
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: president being a racist on stage at the debate.
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: I mean, look, the bottom line is like there were
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: several high profile cases of black Americans being murdered by
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: police this summer. And Mike Pence could not find it
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: within himself to have empathy for those individuals who were killed.
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: He had to go to violence. He had to try
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: to make it some sort of blue lives matter wedge issue.
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: And he's not good at this. It came through.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It seems cynical to me.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: He's a dimwit.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: He really is.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Dan, you and I both were making this way.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Like he was known for being dumb.
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I thought the whole thing was a good example of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like how Trumpism doesn't necessarily work without Trump because like
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence, he doesn't get to do his own sort
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of Republican spiel. He has to be constantly defending Donald
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Trump and saying things like Donald Trump would say, but
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: even his whole shtick about the media, Susan, this is
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: why people don't like the media. Like It just doesn't
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: come off well from Mike Pence. I mean, it doesn't
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: come off well from Donald Trump either, but at least
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: with Trump, it's like part of his act. Mike Pence
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: just looks like a fucking, he's a bad Reagan impersonator.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like throughout the debate, you felt the kind
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: of scale of coronavirus, of protests against police brutality and
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: systemic racism, economic dislocation, like the scale of the problems,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: like the actual crises that we're in, made lines about plagiarism,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: lines about riots and Antifa, like these little tiny hits.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: They just don't work. We're just not at that level.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Things are too bad. The crises are too deep. There's
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: too much chaos in the White House for these little
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: kind of pathetic, childish hits and media hits and all
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the rest to land. We're not in that headspace as
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: a country. We are in an emergency and this shit
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: just doesn't work. It just doesn't work.
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: So one of Pence's strategic objectives clearly was to paint
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the Biden-Harris ticket as extreme leftists. One of the tactics
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: during the debate was clearly going to be, Kamala Harris
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: has a more progressive record than Joe Biden, wanted to
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: find the differences in their record, exploit them. The Trump
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: people have been trying to paint them as all secret
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: leftists this entire campaign. Here are a few examples of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: how that went when Pence tried it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 8: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris- want to raise taxes. They
• 23:48
  Speaker 8: want to bury our economy under a $ 2 trillion Green
• 23:51
  Speaker 8: New Deal, which you were one of the original co-sponsors
• 23:54
  Speaker 8: of in the United States Senate. They want to abolish
• 23:57
  Speaker 8: fossil fuels and ban fracking, which would cost hundreds of
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: thousands of American jobs all across the heartland.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden will not raise taxes on anyone who makes
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: less than $ 400, 000 a year. He has been very clear
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: about that. Joe Biden will not end fracking. He has
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: been very clear about that. Joe Biden is the one who,
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: during the Great Recession, was responsible for the Recovery Act
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: that brought America back. And now the Trump, hence administration,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: wants to take credit when they rode the coattails of
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden's success for the economy that they had at
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: the beginning of their term. Of course, now the economy
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: is a complete disaster.
• 24:42
  Speaker 7: So.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Dan, how do you think that Kamala handled both the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: tax hit and the Green New Deal hit?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Very well, I thought.
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's sort of this absurd, not particularly well
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: thought out tactic in these vice presidential debates to say, well, yeah, sure.
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: The guy at the top of the ticket doesn't believe this,
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: but you believe it. Therefore– what? It doesn't make a
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: lot of sense. And I think a lot of Pence's
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: entire approach, and I think Shaniqua McClendon, Crooked Media's political director,
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: said this in the group thread last night, is he
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: was just trying to get to the minimum word count
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: on his college essay. Because he was just saying, just
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: trying to, like he wasn't trying to achieve anything, he
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: was just trying to say words to get to the
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: end of the time. And I think having her say
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: on camera that Joe Biden is not going to raise
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: taxes on anyone who makes less than $ 400, 000 is very.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Very powerful.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: And it's sort of shows how one-dimensional the Trump-Pence strategy
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: is as they led with that. Like you knew that
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: was going to come when you said it. That is
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: the fact that Trump cuts taxes for the rich and
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden raises taxes on the rich is a point
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: in Joe Biden's favor with the overall majority of voters,
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: including a majority of Trump voters. And so opening the
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: door to that is particularly stupid. I mean, it's not
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: stupid for Pence to try to say as many times
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: as possible that Joe Biden is going to ban fracking
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: in Pennsylvania. They've done that in advertising. They've done that
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: in mail out there. But it once again gave her
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: the opportunity to say he's not and to talk about
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: what their plan was and to talk about some of
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: the details of the Biden-Harris climate change, which I think
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: is to their benefit to have that conversation.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I do sort of wonder, there was a tax exchange
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: where she said, you know, he's not going to raise
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: taxes on anyone making under $ 400, 000 a year. Pence said, oh,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: if you repeal the Trump tax cuts, obviously that's going
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to raise some taxes on middle class people because some
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of the even though most of the Trump tax cuts
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: were just for the rich and for corporations, there are
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: some that were on more middle class. And she just
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: didn't answer that question. I'm sort of I'm sort of wondering,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: like what Biden will do in the next debate if
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: asked that. Obviously, Trump's not going to nail him down
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: because Trump doesn't have that. the mental wherewithal.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Or the lung capacity.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Or the lung capacity. But I could imagine a moderator
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: trying to nail him down on that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I also just like, we also have kind of like
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: COVID goggles on. Like, yeah, like that was like a
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: real exchange. It's actually a winning issue for Democrats. It's
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: not as clean as they failed on the greatest crisis
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: in a hundred years and the only thing that matters.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: So yeah, like there was a back and forth. It
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: wasn't a totally clean hit.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: That's okay.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Like in a whole debate in which the most important
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: two issues, Affordable Care Act and COVID. She managed to
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: land just absolutely withering hits, and Pence had nothing to say.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I think matters more than the fact that there was
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: a bit of a kind of like spongy tax exchange.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: By the way, that came after a great hit on
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Trump paying $ 750 in taxes and owing $ 400 million to
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: God knows who. That was really good.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: There was also a Supreme Court question where he kept
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: trying to pin her down on will you pack the court?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Are you expanding the court? She also just did not
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: take the bait on that one. Tommy, that's another one
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: that will surely come up if there is another debate.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Trump thinks, you know, they all think this is a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: winning issue because the pundits all think that, you know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: this is a winning issue too for them because Biden
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and Harris haven't said whether they will expand the Supreme
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Court or not or whether they're even considering it. Do
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you think they can continue to just not answer that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: question or is there a better answer?
• 28:03
  Speaker 6: I mean, look, my personal take is like, I don't,
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: I don't need to hear Joe Biden say he will
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: pack the court and expand it before the election. I'm
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: okay with them skirting it. I'm not sure it's the
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: best answer where we've landed. It seems a little rough,
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: a little tumultuous. There's a way you could just throw
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: it to Congress and say, actually, that's up to the Senate.
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: That's up to the House to vote on whether or
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: not they would do that. That wouldn't be up to
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: the executive. It seems like that would be an easy
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: way out of it. I'm kind of skeptical that people
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: really care. I think these guys live in MAGA land
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: and where people automatically know what the Green New Deal
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: is and automatically think it's bad. I'm not sure that's
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: the case. You know, like that tax hit was the
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: only area where I thought maybe they made up some ground.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: I wish Biden and Harris had a little bit better
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: a court packing answer. But yeah, I don't know. Do
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: I think people came away from that debate last night
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: thinking I might not support Biden and Harris because they
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: might pack the courts?
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: No, nobody would be my guess. I would try and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: answer like Mitch McConnell in 2016 single-handedly changed the size
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: of the court when he stole that seat, the Gorsuch seat.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And since then, he has completely packed the courts, Supreme Courts,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: circuit courts, federal courts with the most extreme right wing judges.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And now he's trying to do it again before an
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: election while people are already voting. People don't want this
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: justice to be seated before an election. And he's going
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to do it anyway. We're we're fighting as hard as
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: we can to stop him from packing the court right now.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And we're going to try to stop him from doing
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: that first. And then we'll see what happens afterwards. But
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on the fight in front of
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: us first.
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Like, just say something like that.
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: Or just hand him a balloon and say, inflate this
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: before I answer the rest of your questions. See if
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: you can inflate this thing on your own.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Look, I feel like there's two options, right? There's like
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: kind of, John, I saw you talking about this on Twitter.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Like you can basically just say like, I hope it
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: doesn't come to it. But if they push us, fuck, yeah,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: we'll do it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: But there's also a kind of version of like a forlorn. Like,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I really hope it doesn't come to that. Like, I
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: just hope I hope we fight this nomination. I think
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: we can defeat this nomination. I hope they don't pack
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: the court. And if and other than that, I'm not
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: going to engage in hypotheticals. I'm trying to get this
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: fight done and hopefully we can stop Amy Coney Barrett
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: and it will never come to that.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Schumer gave them the answer. Schumer said, I'm not taking
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: anything off the table. And everyone was like, oh my God,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Schumer left that on the table. And then that's it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Then no one said anything to him again. He's fine.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer went on his merry way.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: He just went on to shoot more.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: No one asked him a follow-up.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Shoot more vampire fundraising videos for YouTube.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think? I know you've written a lot.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: You're a big fan of court expansion. We don't call
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: it hacking, guys.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Rebalancing, perhaps.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Court rebalancing. What do you think?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I am for court renovating.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Court renovating.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: A little sprucing up. We're sprucing up the courts.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a little court redecorating.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: I think that dais would look better with two additional
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: chairs on either end.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: That's what I personally think.
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: It's feng shui. I've worked on feng shui. I think
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: that answer, John, that you gave is right. There's no,
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: they need a better answer to it. I do think
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: one thing that was very powerful that Kamala Harris did,
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: which is an absolutely stunning fact that we should get
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: more attention, is that Donald Trump hasn't appointed a black
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: person to the court.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: What the fuck?
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I learned that. I learned that. I learned something from
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: the debate.
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, that is absolutely my boy. We should say
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: that more often. I think there is the Chuck Schumer
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: answer is the right answer. And there's, and I think
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: the forlorn tone is the right way to do it. Um,
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: there is one audience in addition to, uh, prominent court
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: Packers like ourselves to hear that.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: And it is, uh, John Roberts.
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: Hmm.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: Who is going to have to make a whole bunch
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: of decisions in the coming months with a completely rigged court.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: And he is someone who has shown in the past
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: to have some very real concerns about his legacy as
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: it relates to the fate of the court and the
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: idea that decisions that he makes that are very clearly
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: putting his thumb on the electoral scale could lead to
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: a changing of the court matters a lot. I believe
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: that that is part of what Schumer does. is doing
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: by saying that is sending a message. Taking it off
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: the table gives Roberts free will to do something, not
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: just on ACA and Roe, but also in a nightmare
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: scenario on a Bush v.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Gore too.
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: The idea that that is going to have some consequences
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: in the back of his head, I think is important.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: That's smart.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: I think there's one other piece of this too, which
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: is the lack of an answer has led, I think,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to a lot of Republicans who are trying to kind
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: of make intellectually dishonest arguments in favor of doing the
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: confirmation is it doesn't matter what we do, they're going
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: to pack the court. And I think the reality, of course,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: is Joe Biden is incredibly reluctant to do something like this.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: He is an institutionalist to the core. And so making
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: it clear that despite, I think, what a lot of
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: left-wing activists and progressive activists would want, which is to
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: pack the court no matter what, for Joe Biden to say,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: not explicitly, but basically say, I hope it doesn't come
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: to that. I don't want to do that. But if
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: they push us, we may have no choice, I think
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: kind of speaks to both sides.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Renovate the court. After not hearing a lot about foreign
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: policy in the first debate, Susan Page did ask a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: few questions about this. Kamala Harris talked about rebuilding alliances
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: while Mike Pence talked about crushing ISIS. Pence attacked Biden
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: for opposing the decision to take out Qasem Soleimani. Harris
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: responded by pointing out all the ways Donald Trump has
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: disrespected those who serve in the military. Here's a clip.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: But you mentioned Soleimani.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Let's start there.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: So after the strike on Soleimani, there was a counter
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: strike on our troops in Iraq. And they suffered serious
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: brain injuries. And do you know what Donald Trump dismissed
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: them as?
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Headaches.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: And this is about a pattern of Donald Trump's. where
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: he has referred to our men who are serving in
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: our military as suckers and losers?
• 33:52
  Speaker 8: The American people deserve to know Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general,
• 33:56
  Speaker 8: was responsible for the death of hundreds of American service members.
• 34:01
  Speaker 8: When the opportunity came, we saw him headed to Baghdad
• 34:04
  Speaker 8: to kill more Americans. President Trump didn't hesitate, and Qasem
• 34:09
  Speaker 8: Soleimani is gone. But you deserve to know that Joe
• 34:12
  Speaker 8: Biden And Kamala Harris actually criticized the decision to take
• 34:16
  Speaker 8: out Qasem Soleimani.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: It's really inexplicable.
• 34:21
  Speaker 8: But with regard to Joe Biden, it's explainable. Because history
• 34:25
  Speaker 8: records that Joe Biden actually opposed the raid against Osama
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: bin Laden.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Tell me what you think about that exchange.
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: I don't think anyone really understood what they were talking about.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: I mean, just for our listeners, right? I mean, they
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: assassinated Qasem Soleimani in January. The Iranians responded with this
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: massive missile strike. They tried to play it down like
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: nothing happened. And as Kamala Harris mentioned, like I think
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: 100 service members had traumatic brain injuries, which was a
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: big deal. The reason they said they had to assassinate
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: a senior military leader in Iran was was because they
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: were providing material support to all these Shiite militia groups
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: in Iraq that were attacking U.S. service members in the region.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: They call that deterrence.
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: But just like last week, we learned that that deterrence
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: is going so poorly that the United States might have
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: to fully withdraw U.S. embassy personnel from our embassy in Baghdad,
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: which is an embassy the size of Vatican City that
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: cost a billion dollars to build. which is one of
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: the most heavily fortified embassies on the planet, right? So
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: the policy they are describing in terms of killing Soleimani
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: has completely failed. But then Pence goes on to totally
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: debase himself by raising his children and their military service
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: as a shield to defend Donald Trump, who he knows
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: damn well said troops who died are suckers and losers.
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: We know that because General Kelly has refused to deny
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: the reports originally in The Atlantic. So what this showed
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: me was like, Again, Mike Pence is willing to say
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: and do anything, even cheapen the service of his own
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: family members in service of Donald Trump.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the post-debate reaction. Instant polling by CNN
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: showed Kamala Harris as the decisive winner, 59-38%. Harris also
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: saw her favorability ratings rise from 56% before the debate
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: to 63% after, while Pence's favorability numbers with the poll
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: didn't budge an inch, remaining at 41%. An Ipsos poll
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: with 538 found pretty much the same thing. The majority
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: of voters thought that Kamala Harris did better than Pence.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: The majority of voters liked her policies better than Pence's.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And she saw her favorability rise to plus 10 in
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: that poll. And Mike Pence's remained at negative 14, didn't
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: move at all. So, you know, what, if anything, did
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: each campaign achieve here? And how much will this debate
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: matter at all? Dan?
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: I think there was an opportunity to deliver a message
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: to what I assume was tens of millions of people
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: watching this debate, some of whom are undecided about what
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: they're going to vote and undecided about who they're going
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: to vote for. The polling shows, Common Sense shows that
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: Kamala Harris did a much better job of that opportunity
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: than Pence did. But the vice presidential debate is not
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: a huge event on the path to Election Day. But
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: it is a moment that matters. And when you are winning,
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are, every time one
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: of these moments passes and you are still winning, that
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: is good. And so they should feel very good about
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: where they are today.
• 37:32
  Speaker 7: Love it.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. I also, one thing we
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: didn't talk about is just that Kamala Harris just took it.
• 37:37
  Speaker 7: The fly?
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, we didn't talk about the fly.
• 37:39
  Speaker 8: Shit.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we also forgot to talk about the fly. Well,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: you know, I think a few people on Twitter have
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: mentioned it. I think that the, she also took a
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: chance to kind of tell her bio, to do her bio.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: And I think that there was value to that because,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you know, like Susan Page asked the question at the
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: end that referenced it. Neither one really answered it, but
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: it is present that both that Joe Biden is older.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And there's a, you know, a question as to whether
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: he would run for reelection and the fact that she
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: would just took an opportunity to like run through her qualifications,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: talk about, um, her past, I think has value. Um,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: and you know, all in all, what, what did Mike
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Pence do to convince millions upon millions of Americans that
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration has failed abysmally on the biggest challenges
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: facing the country? I don't think anything, I don't think
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: there is anything he could say their positions are indefensible, uh,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: and he didn't succeed.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Tommy, will anyone be talking about this this time tomorrow? No.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: This time today.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: I'm shocked we're talking about it right now.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I am too, right?
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: Because Donald Trump decided to unburden himself to Maria Bartiromo
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: for like 35, 45 minutes this morning and said a
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: bunch of batshit stuff.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: And so we're talking about that instead.
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: What was interesting to me was in a debate that
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: was pretty combative and often when you're sort of like
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: engaged in political combat, people don't like either side, right?
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: Kamala Harris still managed to improve her favorability ratings in
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: that CNN poll, it went from 56% to 63%. And
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: I do think that was directly attributed to the way
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: she handled herself.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I also agree, love it.
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: I thought that question early on when she decided to
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: just not even come close to answering whatever the question
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: was and just tell a story about herself and her
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: parents and her upbringing was like a very savvy moment
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: to just tell the story and sort of leaven what
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: had been kind of a tough back and forth with
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: just some sort of hopeful, optimistic two minutes.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Like Hannah hannah couldn't watch.
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: The debate and then when that happened she came and
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: sat down next to me for you know a minute
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: and a half until she left again when pence started
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: talking so the winner tonight was civility guys.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I mean i can't emphasize enough how difficult it is
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: to debate when you're up there like i saw a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: lot of people on twitter say To the extent that
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris got criticism, some people were like, oh, she
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: missed an opportunity to hit him here or she could
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: have hit him here, you know?
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Like the sheer number of things that you have to
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: keep in your mind when you're sitting on that debate
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: stage for 90 minutes. First of all, imagine the anxiety.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: You're in front of like tens of millions of Americans.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: She's had a bigger audience than she's ever had in
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: her life, right?
• 40:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Same with Mike Pence. Same with anyone who does one
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: of these presidential debates. And then you have prepped all
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: this time. So you have lines that you have to deliver.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: You have moments that you're trying to hit. And then
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: whatever your plan is, it's constantly getting interrupted by whatever
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the moderator wants to do and whatever Mike Pence wants
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to do. So the fact that you have all those
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: things going on and she still was able to check
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: off everything on her list, right? Like talked about her bio,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: talked about Biden's economic plan, did the healthcare hit, did
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the COVID hit? Like she got so much done during
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that debate while being interrupted. I thought it was a really,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: really impressive performance.
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: It's probably one of the most impressive debate performances we've
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: seen in a very long time.
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's easy to get lost in frustration with
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: the moderators and the presence of Plexiglas and all of that,
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: but she is a phenomenally talented woman. communicator and she
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: delivers in big moments. She talks like a human, which
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: is something we talk about all the time. She doesn't
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: use political jargon. She looks directly into the camera and
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: she has, as you said, a punch list of things
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: she wants to accomplish with the audience that she has.
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: And she went through, I imagine pretty close to that
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: entire list. And that is something that should be incredibly applauded.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: And this is like, this is one of those moments
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: where she has everything to lose.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: Biden is winning.
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: The press is just chomping at the bit for something
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: could possibly do for a change in narrative. And she
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: is a black woman on national television dealing with a
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: press corps and set of pundits who still abide by
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: a lot of the racist and misogynistic tropes. You saw
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: it in the coverage of her in the primary debates.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: You saw the coverage of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: in their previous debates. And to do that with that
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: much pressure on with the highest stakes, the most important
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: election in history is incredibly impressive. And it shouldn't get
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: lost because a fly lit on Mike Pence's head.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: As Tommy mentioned, you know, thanks to Donald Trump, the
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: debate is already out of the news cycle. Patient Zero
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: did a phone interview with MAGA pundit Maria Bartiromo, where
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: he twice called Kamala Harris a monster, attacked his attorney
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: general and FBI director for not yet indicting Barack Obama,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, and blamed Gold Star military
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: families who've lost loved ones for giving him COVID-19. Trump
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: also announced he will not be participating in the next
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: presidential debate because the Commission on Presidential Debate's has chosen
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a virtual format in order to protect people from a
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: potentially infectious Donald Trump. So Biden campaign released a statement
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: saying they were prepared to accept the virtual format. But
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: now that Trump has pulled out, Biden will find a
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: way to take questions from voters on October 15th and
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: has asked the commission to move the Biden Trump town
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: hall debate to October 22nd, which is the date of
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the third and final debate. Then the Trump campaign came
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: back and said, OK, we'll do that. But we still
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: want the third debate now on October 29th, which is
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a few days before the election. And the Biden campaign said,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: fuck off. Do the virtual debate if you want. What
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: do you guys think of this move? What do you
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: think of Trump's meltdown this morning? Love it.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: What do I think of it? Like he's spinning out.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: He obviously is refusing to say yes to the virtual
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: debate because it highlights the fact that he is sick
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: and contagious because of his recklessness and incompetence in controlling
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: a pandemic, not just nationally, but in his own home.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: So obviously a virtual debate would be an advertisement for
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: his failures. That's not the commission's fault.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Also the mute button. Got that mute button.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Well, right.
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: The mute button is deadly to him. He can't be muted.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: So it's embarrassing to admit reality. I mean, you know,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: that's not the commission's fault. That's not Joe Biden's fault.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: So I think all in all, I think he's.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Seeing the polls.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: He is seeing reviews of Mike Pence favorably compared to
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: his own performance. He is seeing the fact that his
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: tax returns are being exposed in legal proceedings in New York,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: and he is lashing out unhelpfully.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Tommy, I feel like the Biden campaign is on pretty
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: firm ground here saying that like, look, they came up
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: with a virtual debate. You said, no, we're not going
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: to do your fucking October 29, three days before the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: election final debate, do the debate that the commission asked.
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: He has COVID and they, and he probably had it
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: at the last debate and they lied about it. Like
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: the Biden, the Biden people should never walk in the room.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: With him again. He is an unhinged, unhealthy person. old
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: man who.
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: Should go get bed rest or do whatever he needs
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: to do to get healthy. And like, just for like,
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: I think the Biden campaign is doing exactly what they
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: should do.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Just to just.
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: Step back for one second about how ridiculous the Trump
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: campaign strategy is. He spent like 30 minutes, 45 minutes
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: on the phone with Maria Bartiromo on Fox business. How
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: many people watch that show? 200,000, 300,000. Like that was
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: how you spent your time today. He also attacked Mike
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: Pompeo for not releasing Hillary Clinton's emails. He said, Don jr,
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: his son, couldn't win in New York City. It was
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: just like your classic.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump ranting, raving nonsense.
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: He sounds to me like a man who knows he's
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: going to lose and he doesn't know how to fix it.
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: And he's just going to bitch and moan until the
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: votes are cast.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Dan, isn't it in his interest to do two more debates,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: to accept two more debates? Like he's behind, right? Why
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you try?
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: If he wasn't an incoherent, raving lunatic- Right? I mean,
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: that's the problem. The best thing for Trump to do
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: to have any chance to win this election would.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Be to stop talking.
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: Yeah. Right?
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: His presence on that stage was a disaster for him
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: the last time. His presence on the stage the next
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: time will also probably be a disaster for him. And
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: even if he were to be able to do an
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: okay job and then have Biden make some sort of mistake,
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: which I can't really fathom what that would be that
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: would overcome the fact that Donald Trump gave himself COVID
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: after failing to respond to a pandemic that killed 210,000 Americans.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Throw some salt over your back. Dan, you can't just say,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I can't fathom what it is and then just leave
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: it there. You got to throw some salt behind you.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: You got to do something.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: We're actually going to have to edit. We're going to
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: have to edit that out for karma's sake. Sacrifice that
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: for karma.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: Let's say he did make a mistake. Like Donald Trump
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: would just call Fox and Friends the next morning and
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: draw attention back to himself again. And so like just
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: when you read the summary of what Donald Trump said
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: on Twitter, Maria Bartiromo this morning, which I did not like.
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: Waking up to that in midstream was really jarring this morning.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I loved it.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: And seeing the tweets about it.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I dove in.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: But you read that list of things. And it reminds
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: me of something.
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: Many, many, many years ago, Ron Klain, who's one of
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: Biden's top advisors, and I were advising a candidate at
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: the same time. And the candidate did something absolutely insane.
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: And I called Ron to tell him what it was.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: And Ron said to me, Dan, that is an A-plus
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: answer to a political science question of how do you
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: lose an election?
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: And so that's what that was.
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: And it's truly mind-boggling that he would do those things.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: And it actually says a lot about how totally fucked
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: up the American political system is, that this race is
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: still not over yet, despite Donald Trump doing those things
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: on a regular basis.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I was thinking about that too. I think there's
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: so much noise. There are so many crazy trump statements
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: he's putting out these fucking videos from the white house
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: that you know just before we started recording he's he's
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: he did he did a direct address to seniors where
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: he called them vulnerable and then promised them a free
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: cure like everyone like you get a regeneron you get
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a regeneron you get a like he's promising he's promising
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: treatments to everyone he like in that paragraph i just
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: i just read like blaming the gold star families for
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: giving him covid even though he met with them the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: day after the rose garden ceremony so it's very likely
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that he infected gold star families with covid 19 in
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the same breath as he's calling on on his attorney
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: general to fucking indict barack obama hillary clinton and joe
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: biden which is like something that because he's done it
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: so many times now we just were like oh yeah
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: there he goes again calling for the imprisonment of all
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: his political opponents ha ha crazy trump.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Well it's um look i i I think the serious
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: part about all of this is this person has always
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: been unfit. He's always been monstrous. It's just sort of
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: fully revealed now. There's nothing else left. There's just failure
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: and the kind of purest and worst form of Trump.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: And it ultimately is a reminder that this election isn't
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: really about him. He is who he is. He is monstrous.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: He can't shift. He has no strategy. He can't fix it.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: The only question is, is the brokenness in our system,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: is the propaganda all around them, is the rot that
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: allows them to be taken seriously and treated as though
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: there's an actual political debate in our country? Is all
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: of that enough to overcome democracy and the basic virtues
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: of politics in which we claim to have a debate
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: about our differences that we adjudicate in front of the
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: American people? Are those forces of brokenness and institutional decline
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: able to overcome the good work and the democracy that
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: everybody is fighting for? And I hope the answer is yes,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: but I don't think anyone should pretend it's a sure thing.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: I might take away from this.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: Morning is like, look, anything can happen. He could still win.
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: We all need to just do the work. But like
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: the first debate, the VP debate, this call this morning,
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: it just reminds you how much they have lost the thread.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: Like in 2016, he had a message. It was like,
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: I'm not a Washington insider. Crooked Hillary's emails are bad.
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: He used to hit her on trade all the time.
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: Now they're just flailing. And like Mike Pence is flailing
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: along with him. That closing bit he did about the
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: Russia probe and the, you know, spied on my campaign
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: like that nonsense is for an audience of one that
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: is designed to make Donald Trump happy. It is not
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: designed to win a campaign. So they are just like
• 49:58
  Speaker 6: they're not doing anything right. to help themselves win. Meanwhile,
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: they're pulling down ad buys in like every state that matters. Like, look,
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: I'm not trying to be cocky or I'm not predicting shit,
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: but like they're not setting themselves.
• 50:10
  Speaker 7: Up for success.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: No, there, there, there's no message. You're totally right. They're flailing.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Obviously we all look for things to be anxious about
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: all the time because of 2016 and because of who
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: we are. Like, You know, it is it's October 8th.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: There are well, there'll be three weeks left next Tuesday.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: So a little more than three weeks left. That is
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of time left on the clock for Donald Trump.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe he can come up with some closing message. Maybe
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: he can be a little more coherent. Maybe, you know,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: he's trying to mail seniors $ 200 drug cards or at
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: least say he's going to. paid for by them, paid
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: for by taxpayers. So he's going to try to like
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: every trick in the book, every abuse of power he
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: can think of, he's going to try it out the
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: next three weeks. And I do think, you know, I
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: think to myself, like last Monday was the tax story,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: the tax story before the debate, before the COVID diagnosis
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: that all happened in the last week.
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: In the last three weeks has been the Atlantic story,
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: the Woodward story, the taxes, two debates, and Trump getting COVID.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Three weeks.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Not to mention a Supreme Court seat opening.
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the other thing. Democrats are going to do
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: whatever they can to stop Amy Coney Barrett from being nominated.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: But again, like we've said before, Mitch McConnell has the votes.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: He changes the rules. He can do whatever he wants
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: as the guy that runs the Senate. So we should
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: You know, we should fight like hell, but we should
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: not kid ourselves that it's very possible they could seat her.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: And then that's another win for Trump or whatever. So
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: stay vigilant in these last three weeks. But like you said, Tommy,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: there is there is no closing message or argument like
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: there was in 2016.
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: Did you see that Mitch McConnell today said he hasn't
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: been to the White House in two years?
• 51:48
  Speaker 7: Yes. Yes.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: He said he hasn't been there because they don't do
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: social distancing like I want. That's basically what he said.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: Trump's going to hate that.
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: He knows he's the last line of defense for a
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: minority rule, and he cannot put himself at risk. He's
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: basically the designated survivor. So he can go nowhere near Trump.
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: But also today we learned that Mark Meadows in May
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: hosted a 70-person wedding for his daughter where no one
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: wore masks, no one socially distanced, and they did this
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: in Atlanta. So rules for thee, not for me. It's
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: just plutocracy assholes.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a shock that didn't happen in the
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: Rose Garden.
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah, seriously.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Another story. Another scandal. It's just there's too many.
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: When we come back, I will talk to Beto O'Rourke.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I'm now joined by former Texas congressman and the founder
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: of Powered by People, Beto O'Rourke. Welcome back to Pod
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Save America, Beto.
• 52:50
  Speaker 7: John, it's so good to see you. I wish this
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: were in person, but it's still good to see you
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: across the screen.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: It's good to see you, too. First question. Saw some
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: pretty wild polls in your state this morning. Is this
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the year we're turning Texas blue? Is it going to happen?
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: It is. So it's been 44 years. Last time it
• 53:07
  Speaker 7: happened was in 1976, almost half a century since a
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: Democrat won the Electoral College votes in Texas. But the
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: poll I saw this morning, probably same one you're referring to, Biden, 48, Trump, 48.
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: And it doesn't mean that Biden's going to do it.
• 53:23
  Speaker 7: It just means that it is fully possible and within
• 53:26
  Speaker 7: our power to make it so. And so there are,
• 53:29
  Speaker 7: as you know, so many amazing state house candidates in Texas,
• 53:33
  Speaker 7: congressional candidates in Texas, a revived Texas Democratic Party, you know,
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: so many people doing what they can to make the
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: most of this opportunity. And I really think that we
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: have no better shot of ending this on election night.
• 53:48
  Speaker 7: given the fact that Pennsylvania will take maybe days or
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: weeks to count their ballots. Then for Texas, 38 electoral
• 53:55
  Speaker 7: college votes the night of November 3rd to come in
• 53:57
  Speaker 7: for the Democrat for the first time in a half century.
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: And mathematically, and then maybe more importantly, psychologically, it becomes
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: impossible for Trump to move forward. And we turn the
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: page on that and start something new and ambitious and
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: perhaps the most progressive administration in the history of this country.
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: So a lot, I believe is riding on Texas.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk all about the state legislative races,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: but just before we get there from a statewide perspective,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: your race against Cruz, you got to 48%. Like how
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: does a Democrat in Texas get that extra 2%? If
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: you had to do it over all over again, if
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: you were running statewide again, where would you look for
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: those votes?
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: Well, a couple of things. One, since I ran, uh,
• 54:45
  Speaker 7: anywhere from eight to 900,000 Texans have become registered to vote.
• 54:51
  Speaker 7: So there's almost an entirely new electorate in the state.
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: It tends to be young. Uh, it tends to be
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: incredibly diverse and tends to be concentrated in North Texas
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: around the DFW Metroplex and Southeast Texas, uh, around Houston.
• 55:05
  Speaker 7: So connect with those young voters and those new Texans
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: who've moved here from other states and those new registrants. Um,
• 55:13
  Speaker 7: You know, I don't know, John, going to 254 counties
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: and making sure no one was written off, no one
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: was taken for granted. We ran that pretty hard. And
• 55:23
  Speaker 7: not only did we have the best turnout in the
• 55:25
  Speaker 7: midterm since 1970 in the state of Texas, not only
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: did I win more votes than any Democrat had ever won,
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: you had half a million people, 500,000 vote for Greg
• 55:36
  Speaker 7: Abbott for governor, voted for me for U.S. Senate, which
• 55:40
  Speaker 7: has something to do with the campaign we ran, may
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: have a lot to do with Ted Cruz and just
• 55:45
  Speaker 7: how vile a human being he is. And I think
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: that we're actually working with a similar dynamic here. Unfortunately,
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: more than 16,000 of my fellow Texans have lost their lives.
• 55:56
  Speaker 7: Most of them did not need to do that. We
• 55:59
  Speaker 7: represent 4% of the world's population as a country. We're
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: a fifth of the world's deaths. This is 100% attributable
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: to Donald Trump. those who have enabled him, like John Cornyn,
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: and those who are following in his footsteps, like our governor,
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: Greg Abbott. And that is not lost on the voters
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: of this state. They are connecting the dots. And so
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: I think that poll that shows what is possible, if
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: we all are doing our part, connecting with those voters,
• 56:27
  Speaker 7: if Joe Biden follows up on this really impressive investment
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: he's made, $ 6 million, which is probably $ 6 million more
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: than any Democratic nominee for president has spent in Texas,
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: at least on the air, in decades, we could really
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: come through for the country. So I think building upon
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: the great work that everyone did in 2018, the great
• 56:49
  Speaker 7: contrast we have with Trump and the Republican Party, and
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: then making sure that people know what the consequence of
• 56:55
  Speaker 7: another four years of Trump is, and then what's possible
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: with the four years of Biden and Harris.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about why you started Powered by People
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: and what kind of work you've been doing since last fall?
• 57:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the most exciting level of government, especially
• 57:12
  Speaker 7: in Texas right now, is the state legislature. This is
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: where the rubber meets the road when you're talking about
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: access to health care. We're the least insured state in
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: the country. Number one provider of mental health care is
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: the county jail system. Largest inpatient mental health care facility
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: is the Harris County Jail. We elected not to expand
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: Medicaid when the federal government was going to pay 100
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: cents on the dollar to in order to do that
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: and therefore many Texans are far sicker than they otherwise
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: would be, are dying and they don't have to. That
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: state legislature in democratic control could expand Medicaid and therefore
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: the ability to see a doctor and save somebody's life.
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: We are on the front lines of climate change here
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: in energy rich Texas that could be the leader in
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: renewable energy and that would be a decision for the
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: state legislature. We are at the front lines of gun violence.
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: El Paso, Midland Odessa, Sutherland Springs, Santa Fe High School,
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: so many mass shootings have taken place here in Texas.
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: We expanded the ability to carry guns on campuses and
• 58:15
  Speaker 7: in churches and in businesses in the wake of those shootings.
• 58:18
  Speaker 7: Having gun sense candidates who can appeal to gun owners
• 58:23
  Speaker 7: and non-gun owners alike, that becomes possible with the Democratic majority.
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: And then this, and you all have been so focused
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: on this and we are grateful You know, Greg Abbott
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: last week closing down all of the absentee ballot drop-off
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: locations in the 254 Texas counties, save for the one
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: at central headquarters in each county. That compounded by the
• 58:45
  Speaker 7: most rigorous voter ID laws, 750 polling place closures, most
• 58:51
  Speaker 7: of them located in black and Latino neighborhoods over the
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: last eight years. The racial gerrymander that is Texas, and
• 58:58
  Speaker 7: those are the words of a federal judge, not mine.
• 59:02
  Speaker 7: You get a Democratic majority with a seat at the
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: table in 2021 when we redistrict this state and draw
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: in three new congressional districts thanks to our population growth.
• 59:12
  Speaker 7: And you get a democracy that begins to work again,
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: not one that has drawn Black Texans and Mexican-American Texans
• 59:18
  Speaker 7: out solely based on the color of their skin or
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: their country of national origin, but one that reveals its
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: true genius through its diversity. We have been held back
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: for so long. not a red state, not a Republican state,
• 59:31
  Speaker 7: not a blue state, just a non-voting state up to
• 59:33
  Speaker 7: this point. And winning the state legislature changes all that.
• 59:38
  Speaker 7: And one other thing, I think there is, my theory
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: of the case, to use a phrase I often associate
• 59:43
  Speaker 7: with you, is that instead of top-down coattails, you know,
• 59:48
  Speaker 7: a big spend from the top of the ticket, lots
• 59:50
  Speaker 7: of organizing statewide, and the votes trickle down, we're gonna
• 59:54
  Speaker 7: have all these great state house candidates, who, by the way,
• 59:57
  Speaker 7: most of them are women, women of color, and many
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 7: black women among them. They are enlarging the electorate. They're
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 7: registering new voters. They're exciting these new voters. They're bringing
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 7: people in who otherwise would not vote. And those voters
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 7: and votes will travel up ballot to the congressional races,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 7: to the U.S. Senate race, where M.J. Hagar could beat
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 7: John Cornyn. And I think they, more than any other
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 7: factor or force, will help Joe Biden win this state.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: So Powered by people is really just a bunch of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: us volunteers, more than 6,000 of us, making phone calls,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: writing postcards, texting. Pre-COVID, we were knocking on doors to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: reach the voters in these competitive state house districts that
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: can decide the outcomes of these elections. And it is
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 7: pretty thrilling. It reminds me a lot of the 2018 campaign,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: just very grassroots, folks taking the matter into their own hands,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 7: calling complete strangers and bringing them in, And hopefully producing
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: the largest turnout we've seen in a presidential election cycle ever.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: And how are voters responding to this? Because traditionally, at
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: least for the last decade, last several years, it's been
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: really hard to get people to focus on sort of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: down ballot races, local races. Like how much sort of
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: education do you have to do when you're talking to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: voters about like this is a state legislative race that's
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: really important that you should focus on?
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm on all these phone banks that
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 7: we do. And I got to tell you, and you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: know this from doing this kind of work, it's not
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 7: necessarily fun and it's certainly not easy.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: You might be getting a lot of hangups.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah. You might be getting somebody in the middle of dinner.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: You may just have somebody who doesn't want to talk
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: about this with a complete stranger on the phone. But
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: when I get the right person at the right number
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 7: and they take the time to talk with me, the
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 7: most gratifying response I get is I didn't know. that
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: Elisa Simmons was running for state house here in Arlington.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: I didn't know about Akilah Basie or Kiki Williams. She
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 7: is running just outside of Fort Hood in a community
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: that hasn't been represented by a Democrat. And I don't
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 7: know how long. 24 year army veteran running this tenacious campaign.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: And when I connect with voters in her district, they
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 7: are thrilled that she's running. They didn't know a Democrat
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: was running. They didn't know that they had a 24-year
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: Army veteran to choose. And that's when I know that
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: these calls make a difference, that you might otherwise have
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 7: had somebody in a state that just ended straight ticket
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: voting for this cycle. You might have people who vote
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: for the presidential race, maybe the U.S. Senate, and then
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 7: go home. They're now going to stay on that ballot
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: six pages later and vote for that state rep candidate.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: So I know that this works. I know it is tough,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 7: but if this stuff were easy, we'd be a blue
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: state already. And it's going to take this kind of
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: work to bring it home.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: And just from a numbers perspective, how close are you
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: guys to flipping the legislature? How many seats? How close
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: is it?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so we are, thanks to the great work everyone
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: did in 2018, where we picked up 12 state house seats,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 7: we are only nine down. And the great thing is
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: in nine of those districts we want to win, I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: actually won more votes than did Ted Cruz. So in
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: that case, in that year, in 2018, folks just didn't
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: complete the job and go down the ballot. So we
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: know we can turn out Democratic voters in sufficient numbers
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 7: to win these races. So we've got to win those.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: We've got to hold the ones that we picked up
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 7: in 2018. But what's so exciting is that we are
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: contesting everywhere. And I just think it's beautiful. There's a guy,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: Jason Rogers, running, a Democrat running in East Texas. in
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 7: a seat that hasn't seen a Democrat run in like
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 7: 20 or 30 years. He is an Army veteran. He's
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 7: a retired public school teacher, and he's currently a diesel mechanic.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 7: And he's talking to the people in his district in
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: a way that they can understand that kind of transcends
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 7: party or ideology or your pre-held conceptions about what a
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: Democrat is or is not. And I don't know if
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: Jason Rogers is going to win. I think he's got
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 7: a shot. But what he is going to do is
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: he's going to bring in more voters than would otherwise
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 7: turn out because there hasn't been a contest there in decades.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: And those voters are going to go right up the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 7: ballot to Joe Biden. So it's pretty cool to see
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: what's happening across the board and across the state in
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 7: Texas right now.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: You guys are hosting a million voter phone bank on Monday,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: October 12th. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: Yeah, this is going to be really fun. And I
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: think the biggest voter phone bank we've seen in Texas,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: certainly that I've been a part of. We're gonna try
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 7: to call a million voters that we have already identified
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: because powered by people, the Texas Democratic Party, the candidates
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: themselves have made tens of millions of voter contact attempts.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 7: We've identified our voters. Now we gotta turn them out.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: So on Monday, the 12th of October, which is the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 7: eve of early voting, which starts the next day on Tuesday,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 7: We're gonna try to call a million known Democratic voters
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 7: and get them to make a commitment to vote on
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: the first day of early voting, thereby avoiding any long
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: lines on November 3rd, making sure that they get their
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: votes in. We're gonna be joined by Oprah Winfrey, Willie Nelson,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: Bernie Sanders, Stacey Abrams, Julian Castro, Andrew Yang, and a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: bunch of other amazing people.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: What a crew.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 7: What a crew.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: I'm so pumped to be a part of this and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: so grateful that these folks who have such a large
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: following and are so concerned about the state of our
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: democracy and the need to vote are willing to lend
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 7: their names and their time to this as well. So
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: the Million Voter Phone Bank on Monday, the 12th of October.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: So you guys have had a number of obstacles to overcome.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: You've talked about some of them. Pandemics made it harder
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: to organize and register voters. You know, you mentioned like
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: every other day, I see a story in the news
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: about some other Republican voter suppression tactic in Texas. How
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: are you dealing with all this shit, both from like
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: a tactical perspective and also from a psychological perspective for
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: voters to feel like, oh, everything's stacked up against us.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: What can I do?
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah, great question. I mean, You gotta go in eyes
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 7: wide open. You have to acknowledge that voter suppression is
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: alive and well in Texas so that you know what
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 7: you're walking into. I mentioned the polling place closures and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 7: the voter ID laws. You can use your license to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 7: carry a firearm in Texas to prove who you are
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 7: at your precinct. You can't use your student ID as
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 7: an example. And this latest move by Greg Abbott to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 7: close down the absentee ballot collection sites is just more
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: of it. But if we leave it there, then all
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 7: we've done is kind of depress people and inadvertently and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 7: unwittingly help those Republicans suppress the vote. So let's talk
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: about this. In Harris County, which is home to Houston, Texas,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 7: which has more people in it than the state of
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: Colorado or the state of Nevada, has 2,000 square miles,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 7: mas o menos. They've got 24-hour voting. They have voter
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 7: super centers where you can keep safe distance and very
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: convenient and can accommodate voters. A lot of people, they
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 7: have drive-through voting, so you don't have to leave your car.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: And Chris Hollins, who is the county clerk there, has
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 7: implemented a ballot tracker for those who want to entrust
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: their absentee ballot to the U.S. mail. So they'll track
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: that and confirm when they have received it. So many
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 7: of these counties, most of them led by Democrats, are
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: making it incredibly easy for people to vote nonetheless. And
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 7: that's how we're going to overcome this. this desperate attempt
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: to suppress or intimidate voters. We're not going to allow
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 7: them to do that. And so I think we have
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 7: to keep continuing to share that message about how easy
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 7: so many in so many counties have made it to vote.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: And then we've got to also, beyond voting, beyond expressing
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: our outrage about voter suppression on Twitter, we've got to
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: do some of the hard work, the grind of a
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 7: voter phone bank. I mean, this stuff is not fun.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: And it's not easy, but it's necessary. And it's the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: only way, certainly in the midst of COVID, the only
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 7: sure way we have a connecting with those whose votes
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: will decide the outcome of these elections. And so we
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: certainly encourage anyone who's interested. You can be a Texan,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 7: you can be outside of the state of Texas to
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 7: join us on Monday the 12th on the Million Voter
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 7: Phone Bank and reach those Texans who, folks, will not
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 7: only decide whether we have a Democratic majority in the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 7: state house, will not only decide the most competitive congressional
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 7: landscape in Texas in my lifetime, but will also potentially
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: decide whether this election is over on the night of
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 7: November 3rd and whether Joe Biden becomes the first Democrat
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: to win Texas in 44 years. That's how important these
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 7: phone calls are.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: So when you're on these phone calls, when you're talking
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: to voters and you're talking to people who are either
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: undecided between candidates or uncertain about whether they'll vote at all,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: what have you found to be the most persuasive arguments?
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 7: You know what? This is one of the toughest conversations
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 7: I have because it's hard for me, given everything I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 7: know and have witnessed and have participated in, to believe
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: that anybody could be undecided at this point.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: But they're out there. They're out there.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 7: And I had an experience with a voter. Congresswoman Veronica
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 7: Escobar organized a series of phone banks that were calling
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: voters along the U.S.-Mexico border. So you know, communities that
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: are 90, 95% Mexican American voters who may prefer to
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 7: speak in English, may prefer to speak in Spanish. And
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 7: I caught one guy who was at work. He was
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: at Circle K convenience store. And in Texas, the minimum
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 7: wage is $ 7 and 25 cents an hour. So this
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: may be his second or third job. And he said,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 7: I'm undecided. I don't have time for this shit. You know,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 7: I've got to get back to work. I've got a
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: lot going on in my life right now. And that,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 7: that help me understand how some don't have the luxury
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 7: to get as engaged as I've been able to get
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 7: engaged in the news, in politics, in democracy. And then
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 7: I have to also acknowledge that as a Mexican American man,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 7: I mean, his vote has been actively suppressed for a
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 7: very long time. And in some ways we've got to
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: work to help him to overcome that. So that outreach,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 7: and he mentioned to me, you're the first call I've
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 7: ever had from a candidate or a campaign or anything political.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: So I will at least think about it. That was important.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: And then part of why I think it's so critical
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 7: that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their surrogates campaign in
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 7: Texas is that I am hearing from a lot of
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 7: Mexican American voters, a lot of black voters in Texas
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: who aren't sure that they're going to vote. And some say,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 7: you know, I feel like I'm supposed to vote for
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: the Democrat because I'm black and that's what's expected of me. But,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 7: you know, if someone doesn't come and ask for my vote,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 7: And I'm not so sure that I will. And as
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: great a job as the Texas Democratic Party and our
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: candidates and volunteers are doing, nothing will beat Joe Biden,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 7: the man who will be in the position of public
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 7: trust that will determine the future and fate of this country.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 7: Nothing will beat him coming to Texas and making that
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 7: case here. So we are so grateful for everything that
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: he is doing so far, this investment that they're making,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: the fact that Doug Emhoff was just in the Rio
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 7: Grande Valley, which is It's not an easy place to
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: get to, but it is so critically important that we
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 7: show up in places like McAllen or Harlingen. But to
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 7: have more of that is just going to improve our
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 7: chances of winning. These voters know what they can vote against.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 7: These voters desperately want something and someone to vote for.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's been my experience talking to these same voters.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: So I follow you on Twitter. I notice you've been
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: laser focused on organizing in Texas. You haven't commented a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: ton about Trump and the race, which kudos to you.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: That's a lot more productive what you're doing. But what
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: is your I've been curious, like, what's your reaction been
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: to the last several weeks of this race from the
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: debate to the COVID diagnosis to the insanity that we're
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: dealing with right now?
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I was I don't know another word to put
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 7: on it. The the night of in the morning after
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 7: that debate, I was just depressed and not depressed about
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 7: our chances, just depressed that this is what the country
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 7: has come to and that something like that could even
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 7: take place. And it is a very defeating feeling. I mean,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 7: it's hard to motivate yourself to get out there and
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 7: move and do something. And, you know, I almost thought
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 7: maybe that's the mad genius of Donald Trump, that it
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 7: is just such a blizzard of bizarre behavior, just such
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 7: an awful train wreck that it depresses us from from
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 7: moving and getting past it or getting through it or
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 7: getting over it or getting beyond it. And it really
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 7: wasn't until we, we had a phone bank that night and,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: you know, I always kind of, you know, have to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 7: kind of gear up for those phone banks. Cause you know,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 7: not only am I calling strangers, but sometimes, you know,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 7: as Beto O'Rourke, you know, people want to give you
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 7: a piece of their mind and I'm going to receive
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 7: that for two and a half hours on the phone. Um, but, um,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 7: but I finished that phone bank and man, I felt
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 7: so much better. You, the, you feel a sense of
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 7: agency and purpose and, and you're, you're not a witness.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 7: You're not a bystander. This isn't happening to you. You're
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 7: going to happen to it. You know, you're, you're, you're
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 7: going to change the dynamic and look, you're, you're one person.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 7: Maybe over the course of that phone bank, you made 115,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 7: 120 phone calls, but in the aggregate, when you're joined
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 7: by four or 500, 600 other people doing it at
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 7: the same time. And then Kate on our team gives
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 7: us the rundown of, Here's how many calls we made.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 7: Here's how many voters we talked to. Here's how many
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 7: commitments we got for Biden or for the Democratic State
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: House candidate. Man, that feels so good. And I got
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 7: to remind myself of that. Whenever I get down or
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 7: distressed or on the verge of despair, go out and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 7: do some work. And if you can find a safe
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 7: way to knock on doors, I know the Biden campaign
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: is going to start doing that. Or if you can
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 7: join one of these phone banks, or if you can
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 7: talk to someone in your life and gain a commitment
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 7: from them, to make a plan to vote as soon
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 7: as early voting starts in their state, then by all
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 7: means do it. It's the only way, John, I know
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 7: how to respond to that because it is just too bizarre.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 7: The roid rage of the president these last couple of days,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 7: the walking away from literally hundreds of millions of Americans
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 7: who need help getting through the deadliest pandemic of the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 7: last 102 years, the millions of Texans who lost their
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 7: jobs Twice as many Texans filed for unemployment in the
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 7: first two months of this pandemic as did in all
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 7: of 2019. And man, they are struggling and suffering. The
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 7: Rio Grande Valley, so many people have died so quickly
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 7: of COVID that they are stacking the dead bodies in
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: refrigerated FEMA trailers because there is no more room in
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 7: the morgues and the funeral homes. Donald Trump walked away
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 7: from each and every single one of them, everyone who
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 7: needs our government to come through for us at this moment.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 7: And I can't control that. And I don't know the
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 7: effective response in real time except to make sure he
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 7: is not our president on the 21st of January 2021.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: I said the same exact thing the day after the
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: debate to our staff is that like his bet is
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: that you will be so disgusted with politics that you
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: will just tune out and stay home. And we have
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: to remember that we have the power. to change that,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: that we have agency in the outcome of this race,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: that we don't have to let him have the last
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: word by making us so disgusted about politics that we
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: stay home because we have the power to change it
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: by going to vote and volunteering and making those phone calls.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: On that note, if people want to help, if people
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: want to be part of the Million Voter Phone Bank
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: on Monday, October 12th, they want to help Powered by People,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: what should they do? Where should they go?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 7: So the website is poweredbypeople.org. It's spelled a little funny.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 7: It's powered and then X. people, poweredxpeople.org. You go there,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 7: you can sign up for any number of shifts on
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 7: the Million Voter Phone Bank. You can sign up for
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 7: the shift with Willie Nelson, with Oprah Winfrey, with Andrew Yang,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 7: with Julian Castro, with Stacey Abrams, with Bernie Sanders. All
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 7: of these great people who understand how important Texas is
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 7: for the future of our country, you can get on
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 7: the phones with them. So it's poweredbypeople.org. And we would
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 7: love to have you making phone calls with us on Monday.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: Outstanding. Beto O'Rourke, thank you so much for coming back
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: to PSA. And thanks for all the wonderful work you're doing.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: And good luck out there.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 7: Thank you, man. Thanks for having me on. And thank
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 7: you for what you all are doing.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Beto for joining. And, you know, after listening
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: to him talk about how important it is to flip
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: the Texas state legislature. We're making a big addition to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: Fuck Jerry. We're going to add Texas. As Beto mentioned,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: to flip the Texas House, Democrats need to just flip
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: nine Republican seats and not lose any Democrats. And they
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: can do it entirely with districts that Beto won in 2018.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: So to support the most flippable Texas House seats, we're
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: working with Future Now Fund, to ensure that your contributions
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: are spent in a way that can support as many
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: candidates as possible. And so you can go to votesaveamerica.com
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: slash fuckjerry and donate today.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 6: Also, if you haven't made your fly joke by now
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 6: on Twitter or social media, it's like 12 hours too late.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: Just don't do it. That's just a PSA for everybody
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: out there. What about the title? Do we want a
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: fly title for this, guys? Find out. Find out what
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: we decide. Bye, everyone.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 8: Bye.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: Quinn Lewis, Brian Semel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: episodes as videos every week.