Latest / Pod Save America / "Ridin' for Biden vs Rootin' for Putin."

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"Ridin' for Biden vs Rootin' for Putin." · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the January 6th committee lays out potential
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: criminal charges against Donald Trump. Joe Biden's State of the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Union gets good reviews from voters. White House Chief of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Staff Ron Klain joins to talk about the president's agenda
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: for the year ahead. And Elijah Cohn has some piping
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: hot takes for us to consider in a special State
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of the Union edition of Take Appreciator. But first, Offline
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is back for good this Sunday on its very own
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: feed with the perfect guest to kick things off, Kara Swisher.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: We cover a lot of ground, including how the Internet
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and social media are shaping the war in Ukraine. Here's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a quick clip about her thoughts on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Why do you think his use of social media has
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: been so effective?
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Because he's this guy in a shirt. He looks good
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: in it. He wears a little thing.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: He looks like he's under siege.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: He looks tired. He looks, he's like, oh, here I
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: am trying to defend democracy with my T-shirt. You know,
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: it's a great shirt. His messages are very simple and
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: to the point. He's got a great, I don't want
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: to say he's got a great narrative because it's true, right?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: But he's definitely leaning into beleaguered.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: He's definitely leaning into beleaguered. I promise the analysis gets
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: even more serious from there, but it was a fantastic
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: conversation with Cara. Please do me a favor. If you
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: haven't yet subscribed to Offline and you're a fan of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the show or you're interested in just hearing really smart
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: people talk about how we stop the internet from breaking
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the world and our brains, Take 10 seconds to search
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Offline with Jon Favreau on your phone and smash that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: subscribe button. The more people who subscribe and rate the show,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the easier it will be for others to find it.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I'm a little upset with your use of smash that
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: subscribe button.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: I have.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Have you and Elijah trademarked that?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Our attorneys are in court right now trying to get
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a little TM on that for Political Experts React. But
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I feel you should definitely– you've earned it. You can
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: use it as a multiple-time guest of Political Experts React.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Go subscribe
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to Offline. Also, check out this week's Hysteria. We're airing
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: an Alyssa Kickoff Women's History Month with presidential historian Alexis Coe.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: who talks about how the male gaze has distorted our
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: perception of history, as well as the often manufactured nature
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: of Women's History Month. New episodes of Hysteria drop every Thursday.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. We start with
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the huge story that broke Wednesday night. The best thing
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: about Wednesday night is that it's not after we record
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: on Thursday. From the New York Times, quote, The House
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol said
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday that there was enough evidence to conclude that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by misleading
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Americans about the outcome of the 2020 election and attempting
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to overturn the results. So, we learned this from the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: committee's lawyers through a court filing here in California where
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: they're trying to enforce a subpoena for emails belonging to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: John Eastman, the right-wing lawyer who advised Trump that Mike
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Pence could overturn the election. Here's the key line from
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the court filing, quote, The evidence supports an inference that
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: President Trump, John Eastman, and several others entered into an
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: agreement to defraud the United States by interfering with the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: election certification process, disseminating false information about election fraud, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: pressuring state officials to alter state election results and federal
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: officials to assist in that effort. Dan, is this it?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Did we get him?
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: It's done.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: We got him. It is done.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: By the time you are listening to this, Donald Trump
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: will be in prison. He will not pass go. He
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: will not collect $ 200. It's a big moment for us.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I think we should thank ourselves. What role did our
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: tweets play in this? Significant. There are lots of people
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: to thank on this huge, important day. The Krasensteins. Michael
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Avenatti did some important work early on that hasn't aged well.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: This is a big day.
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: Occupy.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Occupy Democrats.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Retweet if you're glad Trump is in prison. All of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: our Mueller NFTs are at peak value right now. This
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: is a huge, huge moment. This is probably our last podcast.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Crisis averted. Trump is gone. The pod saved America.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, good stuff. Good stuff, Dan.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: So why did the committee's lawyers have to reveal this
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: in a court filing? Why are we learning about this
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: on a random Wednesday evening?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Because people deeply respect the importance of getting the news
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: out before the Thursday podcast.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: That is correct.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: As you pointed out in your lead into this, the
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: reason for this is that the committee is in court.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: John Eastman, the president's crackpot attorney, who is at the
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: center of all the legal proceedings and legal theories behind
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Trump's attempts to overturn the election, has sued the committee
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: in order to prevent himself from having to release documents,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: including emails with president Trump and his team about the conspiracy.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: He has asserted attorney client privilege. They need to, the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: committee is trying to show that two things, one, uh,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: that Eastman may not actually have been Trump's actual attorney
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: because all Eastman has to prove he was his attorney
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: as an unsigned letter, something you can create in a
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: word document. But also there is something called the crime
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: and fraud exception to, uh, to the attorney client privilege,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: whereas if the attorney himself is involved in said crime
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: and fraud, then obviously attorney client privilege cannot be used.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: That is why they laid out this crime. Eastman testified
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: in front of the committee, but he took the Fifth
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Amendment north of 100 times, I think, over the course
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: of that testimony. And so this is an effort to
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: get those documents from Eastman. It may also be a
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: signal to Merrick Garland, but we can talk about that later.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: OK. Well, I mean, a few other things to note
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: just from the filing. So the the January 6th committee
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: lawyers asked the judge in the case to privately review
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the evidence they've gathered. So there's presumably a lot more
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: evidence to back up this claim than than we have
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: seen so far or that was included in the public filing.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: One thing that was included in the public filing was
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Jason Miller's testimony. Jason Miller, former Trump aide, testified that
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: soon after Election Day, Trump was told by a campaign
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: data expert in, quote, pretty blunt terms that he was
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: going to lose, which suggests that Trump knew all along
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that the big lie was, in fact, a big lie
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and that he was trying to break the law in
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: order to stay in power. And it certainly seems from
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the filing that there's plenty more evidence where that came from.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: The filing also referenced a ruling from a federal judge
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: that we talked about with Leah Lippman a couple of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: weeks ago on the show where the judge said, quote,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: it's plausible to believe that the president entered into a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: conspiracy with the rioters on January 6th. So it seems
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: like they're all taking this pretty seriously.
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And there are three specific crimes that are mentioned in
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: this filing. One is a conspiracy to defraud, which is
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: what you referenced there. Also, an effort to obstruct an
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: official congressional proceeding, which is a crime, if anyone other
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: than Congress obstructs their congressional proceeding.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Congress has been obstructing Congress for years now. That's not new.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: If someone other than Joe Manchin does it, that shit's
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a crime. And then– Common law fraud, which I think
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: is just a great term, which is just– it's just
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: like run-of-the-mill, everyday fraud are all the three crimes here.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And it is– I thought the Jason Miller piece was
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: very notable that Trump was told this. And I'm sort
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: of curious what the Trump defense team– sort of what
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: the Trump's defense argument will be, just that he was
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: too dumb and deranged to understand the evidence or care
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: about the evidence or believe the evidence.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He's going to say that like the campaign data
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: expert was an idiot or something, that he just didn't
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: believe him, I'm sure. Yeah.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: That's also, there'll probably be a mountain of evidence that
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: the Trump data expert was an idiot.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: So what happens if the committee believes that Trump committed
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a crime? What power do they have here?
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: They have the immense power of writing a letter to
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Merrick Garland and asking him to do something about it.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: That is the legal authority.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: It's a criminal, it's known as a criminal referral they
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: can make to the Justice Department, which, as you pointed out,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is a letter to the Justice Department saying that we
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: believe Trump and potentially others have committed the following crimes.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And then the Justice Department, run by Attorney General Merrick Garland,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: will decide whether to charge Trump and others. So that's
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: where the shit really hits the fan.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this has to be factored into the fact
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that there is a large debate among all of our
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: favorite Twitter lawyers about if Merrick Garland is actually investigating
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Trump and the people around him as part of their
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: January 6th criminal investigations. Some people look at the smoke
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: signals from the Department of Justice and say, yes, they're
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: doing it. Others say they are not. If they are,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: what the committee finds would interact with the evidence compiled
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: to date by the Department of Justice. Isn't it a
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: very interesting question about what that will mean and how
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: they will handle that? But thus far, the Justice Department
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: is either Doing nothing or saying nothing, and it's not
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: clear which.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So we are not lawyers. We don't work in the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Justice Department, so we we can't comment on the legal
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: nature of all.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: This i mean we we could but we won't well.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: We will yeah no um but on the politics uh
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: which we can comment on like what does the biden
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: administration do if they get a criminal referral for donald
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: trump a few months before the midterms remember uh the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: committee has said that their report or final report will
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: be out a couple of months before the midterms. This
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: whole thing should be wrapped up before the fall.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Well, they need to get it done before the midterms
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: because of the way the committee is constructed. Were they
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: not finished, if the Democrats were to lose the House
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: and Kevin McCarthy were to become Speaker, he could shut
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: down the committee and all of their authority. So they
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: got to get this done. And the number of Democrats
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: who keep retiring suggests that the general belief inside the
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Democratic caucus is it could be.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: A tough election. Not one of unbridled optimism.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not one of confidence that this committee will
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: be operating at its full authority in 2023. I mean,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: you can't even really talk about the politics of this
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: because the thing we know from Merrick Garland's history and
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: how I think the Biden administration would approach this is apolitically.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Everyone who has any political appointee, any sort of political
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: influence in the administration is going to be walled off
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: from this decision-making process. It will be decisions made by
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: career prosecutors and And it will be done in a
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: way that is both consistent with a case that they
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: believe they can successfully bring to court and one that
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: protects the reputation of independence in the Justice Department. The
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: last thing anyone wants within that building is to make
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: it look like this is just Trump redux, right? Just
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: once again, more political investigations, more political interference. And so
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: this will be– I'm.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Sure that nuance will come through when Fox News reports it.
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: Yes, it will be.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, this will be– I mean, it's a losing
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: battle for sure. But it's– there are two parts of
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: the battle. There is the public part and then there
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: is the– the Justice Department is a building staff by
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: career– largely by career prosecutors who are there in Democratic
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: administrations and Republican administrations. And– They have to manage that
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: workforce as well. And if there is a whiff of
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: political interference, I think that would be very problematic in
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: the ability to do their jobs. And this is going
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: to be immensely frustrating to Democrats. Maybe the result will
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: be frustrating and we will not get what we all
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: hope will happen. But the process of getting there will
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: be less public.
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: It'll be slower.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: It'll be more judicious, no pun intended, than one would hope.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: This is not going to happen on a Twitter news
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: cycle for sure.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I think this is brutal because there's really only two
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: headlines here. Joe Biden charges Trump with a crime or
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden lets Trump go. No. You know, and both
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: have enormous political challenges.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: And neither are accurate.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But again, yeah, you're right. When I mentioned the headlines,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the headlines that people probably consume from
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: either right-wing media or Twitter or whatever, right? Not the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: like carefully written New York Times story about this. that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: will inevitably come out. So it's tough. And I think,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about this before, like what should
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Merrick Garland do? I think you got to follow the law.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: If you think you really have a case, you charge
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the case and you try as hard as you can
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: not to let political considerations enter your decision-making process, either
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: political considerations in terms of, oh, is it going to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: look like this president went after the former president or
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: political considerations where you say, okay, well, If we let
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: him go, are we going to get in trouble for
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that too, right? Like you just have to follow the case.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And if you're going to charge him and you're going
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to charge potentially some of his co-conspirators, you want it
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: to be a case that you think that you can win,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I think also, right? Like some of these, you know,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: charging people for obstructing official proceedings of Congress is not
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: something that happens too often. It's not a very common charge.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So you have to feel like you're on pretty firm
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: legal ground before you bring the charge, I think. I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: think there's a little bit of a you-come-at-the-king-you-best-not-miss situation here.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: All right, Omar. Yeah, all right. With charging Donald Trump
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: with a crime if you're the Biden administration.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is– I mean, even politics, like what
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: that means for a Joe Biden aside, that's the one
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: thing we know is from Trump. the twice impedes Trump
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: is that for every crime he gets away with, it
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: just emboldens him to commit more crimes, right? The January
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: 6th happened because of the Senate Republicans refusal to hold
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Trump accountable for strong arming, denying Ukraine, ironically enough, military
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: assistance in order to try to dig up dirt on
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden. And if you were to try, like it
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: would strengthen Trump's hand politically if the Biden administration went
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: after him and failed for sure.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It's all one story, Dan, from the moment Trump got elected,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: through the first impeachment, through the second impeachment, through right now,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: up into the midterms. What if we're just.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you want to like really dig deep
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: into the vaults here, I mean, Trump is president largely
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: because one Justice Department official decided to allow political considerations
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: to influence their decision to reveal the existence of one
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton, but not the criminal investigation
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: into Donald Trump.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Time is a flat circle.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the midterms, Joe Biden in the White House
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: gave us plenty of clues as to how they see
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the race shaping up during the president's well-received State of
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the Union address on Tuesday night. Even though they rewrote
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the speech at the last minute to start with Putin's
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine, the key political messages came after that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 15:41
  Speaker 8: We meet tonight in an America that has lived through
• 15:45
  Speaker 8: two of the hardest years this nation has ever faced.
• 15:49
  Speaker 8: The pandemic has been punishing. And so many families are
• 15:53
  Speaker 8: living paycheck to paycheck. struggling to keep up with the
• 15:56
  Speaker 8: rising cost of food, gas, housing, and so much more.
• 16:01
  Speaker 8: Inflation is robbing them of gains they thought otherwise they
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: would be able to feel.
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: I get it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 8: That's why my top priority is getting prices under control.
• 16:12
  Speaker 8: One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages
• 16:14
  Speaker 8: and make Americans poorer. I think I have a better
• 16:17
  Speaker 8: idea to fight inflation. Lower your costs, not your wages.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Here's the choice. Make Americans poorer or make them richer.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I choose richer.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: That's good messaging.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: That's a classic.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I'm just turning my dial to the right here.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: That's advanced political strategy right there. No, what did you
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: think of the speech?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Look, I thought it did exactly what it needed to do.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: You're better equipped to talk about the speech writing, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: speech craft.
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Or someone who's very focused, as I know from our
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: text messages, on transitions, the existence of them.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Or lack thereof.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Or lack thereof.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: There's no time for transitions in this speech.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Good for them.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Because there's never been a transition that was not awkward.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And as we resolve our problems at home, we turn
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: our gaze abroad.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: That's literally very close to what Rod's and I used
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to do between the domestic and foreign policy collections.
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Did you have anything more to say about this?
• 17:22
  Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I just say like the way I try to look
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: at this speech is from the very, very beginning of
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: the process that we all went through so many times,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: which is before you start with any words or structure
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: or transitions or not, it's what are the political goals?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: What are the strategic imperatives you were trying to drive
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: in this speech? And I see a couple that I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: think were probably on the whiteboard in Mike Donilon or
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Ron Klain or Jen Psaki's office or whoever was doing
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: this is, you know, one is I think they need
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: to step back and look and say, when we gave
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: this speech a year ago, Biden was in the low 50s. Today,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: as he gives these, he's in the high 30s.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: Not great.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: How do we remind people of what they liked about
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden last year? How do we rebuild some of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: those core character traits? I think those were capacity to
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: handle a crisis. And I think in particular, COVID, the
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: place where there's probably been the greatest erosion in Biden's
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: numbers is on trust to handle COVID. How do you
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: regain some of that view of Joe Biden as someone
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: who wants to make the economy work for you? The
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: middle class Joe, Scranton Joe, that's been lost in this process.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: And how do you just reassert the things that you
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: like about Joe Biden? And I think across those measures,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: they achieved that. And they did it, I think, under
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: what was an incredibly difficult circumstance, which is all of
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: a sudden, as you point out, a few days before
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the speech, you have to rewrite it and spend whatever
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: was a third of the speech on Ukraine, obviously the
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: most important thing in the news, and obviously got him
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of bipartisan applause, but was certainly not on
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: the whiteboard when they sat down to figure out the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: speech a month ago.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll give you the speechwriter's perspective here. You sit down,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you have about an hour to say everything you need
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to say about all of your accomplishments, all of your policies,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and every single issue under the sun. you have a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: few big pieces of business. If you're Joe Biden in
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: this year's speech, inflation and the economy, the top concern
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: of voters, top concern of the American people in every
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: single poll, that's gonna be a huge part of the speech. COVID,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we're still in the middle of a pandemic, hopefully coming
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: out of the worst part of it now. So that's
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a huge piece of business in the speech. So you
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: had those two pieces of business before Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Then you've got that. Now you've got three pieces of
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: big business in an hour-long speech, plus you need room
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: for all of the other shit. that's by the way
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: really important to people and really important to the country
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in the world so i think they got an incredible
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: amount of business done in a speech that was politically
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: astute for some of the reasons you mentioned some of
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the reasons we're going to talk about in a second
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: um And I wasn't at all surprised that viewers reacted
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: positively because I think it was a very politically smart speech.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I think that somewhere in that State of the Union
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: is a shorter, tighter, sharper, and more thematic stump speech
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: for the midterms. And I think that that stump speech
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: could really hammer home the choice between a world run
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: by rich and powerful autocrats like Donald Trump and Vladimir
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Putin and in a world of multiracial democracies where everyone
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: has equal rights and equal opportunities. As I was listening
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to that speech, I'm like, somewhere in there, there's that
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: tight 15, 20-minute speech that really lays out the choice
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that Biden did in just a much longer State of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the Union address.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, isn't that always true, though? I mean, the
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: State of the Union is the organizing principle for the
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: White House for the year. It is where you force
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: every department to come up with their policy ideas. It's
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: how you develop your legislative agenda. And it's how you
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: essentially hammer out and get decisions on core messaging questions.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: We're going to focus on A. We're going to highlight B.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: And then you have to take it and this is
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: like we didn't see a lot of news coverage just
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: because of Ukraine and Russia. But then what happens is
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the next day. President gets on a plane, goes to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: somewhere in the Midwest, does a, you know, remember, this
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: is always your least favorite part was the cut down
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of the State of the Union.
• 21:30
  Speaker 7: You got to cut it down.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: No, that was my favorite part.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: You got to go, well, yeah, but you were pretty
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: tired when you had to do it.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: You got to go for it.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I was tired, but here's the thing. Most
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: beach riders hate the State of the Union because, you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, I don't want it to be a
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: laundry list. It's going to be a laundry list. It's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: always a laundry list. That's not even a criticism at
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: this point. It's just the way State of the Unions are,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: unless you want to be, you know, You want to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: take a risk and do something that no one's ever
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: done before and just say, all right, this year we're
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: not going to do all the policies. We're just going
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to do 20 minutes, and it's going to be all thematic.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And no one has done that yet. But I do
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: think that when you have an hour to include every
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: issue under the sun, you lose the ability, and they
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: did this year especially because of Ukraine, to tie the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: entire thing together with one theme. I think that's what
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you lose in an hour-long address. And I think you
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: get that back when you cut a lot of the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: smaller policy stuff and develop a stump speech that's cut down.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: About 38 million people watched the speech, a number that's
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: comparable to Trump's final State of the Union and much
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: bigger than the 27 million who watched Biden speak last year.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: CNN and CBS polled some of those viewers after the speech,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and our friends at Navigator Research conducted a focus group
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: during the speech of swing voters and soft partisans. Soft
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: partisans are Democrats who are registered Democrats, but maybe don't
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: always vote or don't always vote Democrat. Dan, what jumped
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: out at you from all this research?
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I just want to take a step backwards. The 38
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: million issue point is a very good number. It's very
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: impressive in a world of political exhaustion, disaggregated media, et cetera.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: But it's still 159 million people voted.
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: In 2020.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So it just gives you a sense of the fraction
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: of that. And the people who watch, which is why
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: these sort of instant snap polls are misleading, are disproportionately
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the supporters of the person giving the speech. And almost
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: everyone who's watching is a decided, is almost essentially a
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: decided voter, a Democratic partisan or someone who's hate watching it.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, 7 million people watch it on Fox on
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Tuesday night. I don't think a lot of those people
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: were riding with Biden, if you will.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Would you say they were rooting for Putin?
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: There we go. There we go. There's our title.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, which we have stolen. Anywho, I think my big
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: takeaway from the research is twofold. One, there is real
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: power and appeal in a populist economic message. This isn't
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: rocket science.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: We've known this.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It always has been. But the fact that it tests
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: so well on inflation is really important. Democrats are getting
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: hammered on inflation.
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: It is absolutely.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: It tops every poll list of things people are concerned about. Consistently,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: you see voters say that Democrats and Joe Biden are
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: not focused enough on inflation. They're focused on everything but inflation.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: And so if you have a message that punches back
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: on inflation by hitting– that focuses on corporate price gouging
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and corporate concentration, that could get you off your hind
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: foot and on offense. And I can hear our economist
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: friends taking off their green eye shades to look down
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: their nose at us.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And point out- I can't because I've muted them all. Yes.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Just kidding.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: But no one is arguing, and Joe Biden isn't arguing,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: that the sole cause of inflation is corporate gouging. It
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: is that we are living in a world where corporations
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: are not just passing the costs, the increased costs onto
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the consumer. They're using it as an opportunity to make
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: even more money for stock buybacks and corporate bonuses. And
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: if we focus on corporations, that puts Republicans on the
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: defensive because their natural instinct is to defend- big business.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So I think there's real power there. More broadly, my
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: takeaway is we need more Joe Biden. When he speaks,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: he has the ability and power to shape the narrative
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: in a more favorable way for himself, his agenda, and Democrats.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: People saw it. They were more hopeful.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: People saw it.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: They're more supportive of Democratic policies. People saw it. They
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: thought he was more focused on inflation. And for reasons
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: that are not entirely Joe Biden's fault, it has a
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: lot to do with The media environment, just the never-ending
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: cascade of crises we faced. But too often, someone else
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: is telling Joe Biden's story. And last night, he had
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: a chance to do it. And it's like a huge
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: argument for why he is going to have to, over
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the coming months, go way out of his comfort zone
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: to do more, to be out there more, to be
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: trying to drive the news and drive the narrative. And
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I think, look, it's not going to change the fundamentals
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: of the political environment. but it can help on the margins.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: And the close elections are won on the margins.
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: A few numbers stuck out at me from the Navigator research.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I'm picking that even though it's a focus group, so
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: it's a smaller number of people than CBS and CNN.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: But to your point earlier, these are swing voters or
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: soft partisans. So there may be people who haven't made
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: up their mind.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: And probably wouldn't have watched the speech had they not
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: been paid to sit in a room to do so.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Correct. Correct. So right track, wrong track went from 19%
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: right track, 81% wrong track before the speech to 46,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: 54 after the speech. So big jump there. Pre-speech, more
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: people expected to hear about policies that will benefit people
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: wealthier than them or poorer than them. Post-speech, more people
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: thought the policies in the speech would benefit people just
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: like them. They tested a bunch of attributes about Joe Biden.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: The biggest change was, does he stand up for the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: middle class? A swing of 54 points. towards Joe Biden?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Does he try to bring people together? A swing of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: 34 points towards Joe Biden. There's also a 51 point
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: swing in his ability to handle the crisis in Ukraine.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And then in terms of policies, the most popular parts
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of the speech, the buy American proposals, taxing the wealthy,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Medicare negotiating for cheaper prescription drugs and capping insulin at $ 35. Again,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe not surprising to us who've seen polling like this
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: for years and years and years, but potentially surprising to
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: people who read the news and never hear about this
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: stuff because it doesn't break through. And again, it's to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: your point.
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And more Joe Biden. But the challenge always is, you know,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: we used to say this when Barack Obama delivered a
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: State of the Union as well. You get an hour.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: of delivering your message that doesn't have to go through
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the media filter and doesn't have to grapple with right-wing
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: propaganda so you get a whole stage to yourself and
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: i think the challenge is how do you give the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: president more messaging opportunities like that and not just the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: president but the white house democratic surrogates etc like how
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: do you have more opportunities to get your message out
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: in this kind of media environment that's the real challenge
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: i think um What did the speech tell you about
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the White House's political strategy on economic issues going forward?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Is this going to be just really hammer home the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: message on inflation from now until the midterms?
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: I think so.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I think it is a more aggressive populist approach on inflation.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And the numbers you point out about the shift in
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: people who think the policies benefit the middle class or
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: people like you, that's the metric they have to change.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I think that is probably, if they're looking at one
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: thing that they want to measure progress on. Because the
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: thing people have to understand is we're going to– you
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: and I sit here. We say this is a very
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: successful speech. The polls look great. Like a week from now,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: there will be a political morning consult poll. It will
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: show that Biden's– it's very likely it will show Biden's
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: numbers stayed the same or barely went up and the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: press will be like, what a failure. But presidential approval
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: is a lagging indicator. What you move first are the
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: character traits. I think the character trait around advocacy for
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the middle class is critically important. The more you can
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: move that between now and November, the more of a
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: fighting chance Democrats will have.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I thought it was also helpful that in the section
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: on inflation, they really basically narrowed the entire Build Back
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Better agenda, RIP, to just like four points. Lower the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: cost of prescription drugs and health insurance, lower the cost
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of energy by $ 500 a year for families through investments
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: in clean sources of power. This is the climate change part.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Lower the cost of childcare and then pay for all
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: this by raising taxes on people making over $ 400, 000 and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: making sure the big corporations pay their fair share. Pretty simple,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: pretty straightforward, extremely popular. You go out and you say
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: that message everywhere. It's gonna have an impact. Um, but
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: then of course there's Joe Manchin who told Politico after
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the speech, first he was like sort of given his
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: typical hard to decipher annoying comments. And then he sat
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: down with Burgess Everett at Politico to really talk about
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: what he's willing to do. And he did say he's
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: willing to, he's still willing to cut a deal on
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: an economic package that increases taxes on the rich, allows
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Medicare to negotiate for cheaper prescription drugs, and then uses
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: half of those savings to lower the deficit and the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: other half to fund the climate change and child care
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: portions of Biden's agenda. How do you think Biden and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: other Democrats should handle Manchin on this, knowing that, of course,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: he could drag his feet and change his mind 20
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: more times before they actually get a bill passed?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Let's put aside the sort of abject political and policy
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: stupidity of spending money on deficit reduction at this point
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: in time. That is performative, stupid stuff. But if it's
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the price of getting this bill, then that's a price
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: worth paying. What I think the way the Democrats handle
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: this is they should have a bunch of private conversations
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: with Joe Manchin and hopefully Kyrsten Sinema if they can
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: find her and try– Do not talk about it publicly.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Do not raise expectations. Do not do events about it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I don't say this lightly, but Joe Manchin's sort– the
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: best case scenario was we passed Build Back Better, $ 6
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: trillion of really important spending, child care, everything else. But
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: in the current form, the fact that Joe Manchin has
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: killed Build Back Better– and you notice Joe Biden did
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: not use that word when he did his event after
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: the State of the Union. He did not have Build
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Back Better messaging behind him for the first time. is
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: let's take that gift and come up with something else
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: that is created for this moment in time where inflation
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: is everyone's focus. And you have this cost-cutting bill that
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: also saves the planet and helps lower energy costs. That
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: seems perfect. There are a lot of details to figure
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: out there. And Joe Manchin can be really annoying and
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: slow in this process. But if you can get something
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: done here, that would be a huge boost politically and substantively.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's an inside outside strategy here. The
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: inside strategy is exactly what you just said. You keep
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: your negotiations with Manchin and Sinema and the rest of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the caucus quiet. You don't talk a lot about it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: You don't raise expectations. The outside strategy is Joe Biden
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and other Democrats running in the midterms go out to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the country and say, this is our plan to fight
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: inflation like Joe Biden did in the State of the Union.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: And let's make sure that we have a Congress after
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the midterms that can get that done. And then if
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: it happens before the midterms, great.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: But like you just ignore the whole ignore the fact
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: that there are negotiations going on. No one really cares
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: about that. And there's not a lot that people can
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: do to influence that right now. It's just up to
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin and the Democrats in Congress. But that doesn't
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: mean that you can't go out as a candidate and
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: say this is what the Democrats plan is. What's the
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Republicans plan? And that's the choice in the midterms. After
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Biden spoke about Putin's invasion of Ukraine, his plans to
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: fight inflation, the state of the pandemic, he had to
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: quickly tick through every other important issue from criminal justice
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: reform and voting rights. to immigration and LGBT rights. One
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of the more notable parts is what he said about crime.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip.
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: We should all agree the answer is not to defund
• 33:18
  Speaker 8: the police.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: It's to fund the police.
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: Fund them. Fund them.
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: Fund them with resources and training. Resources and training they
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: need to protect our communities.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Resources and training. Well-known applause line. Why do you think
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: he said that or really emphasized that a couple times?
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: He ad-libbed a couple fund the polices.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is an interesting strategic choice to do so.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: And I don't know that it was the right one,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: but let me at least make what I think is
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: the Let me at least explain what I think the
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: strategic rationale for doing it was. We know that the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: term defund the police, as construed by the right-wing media
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: in its most pejorative sense, is one of the least
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: popular political policies in the country. We know that Republicans
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: have successfully branded a whole host of Democrats from Joe
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Biden on down as supporters of defunding police when they
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: do not support. It is a false allegation. And I
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: don't want to get back into the great AOC, Abigail Spanberger,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Conor Lamb, New York Times debate of November 2020 about
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: what role it played in 2020.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Right. Thank you.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: But we know that it played a role. And research
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: done since the election has shown– at least some research
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: has shown some evidence that it was particularly problematic with
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: black and Latino Democrats. And so you can see why
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: correcting the false impression that Democrats support defund the police
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: is important. And then you say, you're Joe Biden. You're
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: giving your biggest speech of the year. Here's your chance
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: to do it. And you do sort of know that
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: it is a moment that will involve conflict. Republicans will
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: say you're full of shit. People in your own party
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: will be mad about it. The press is obsessed with it.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: It'll generate conversation. And so you're sort of leveraging the
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: press's addiction to conflict to make it get more attention.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: And so that's what I think was, it's a high
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: profile moment to try to solve what people believe is correct,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: a false impression about democratic policies. And they took advantage
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: of it. And I think it had the effect they
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: probably intended because you and I are talking about it
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I think some people might ask, why not just leave
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: this phrase and this debate in the past? It was
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: something that was argued about in the 2020 election. I
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: think the reason he brought it up is, you know,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of that section, he talked about crime. Yes, people,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: what their top concerns are, economy and inflation are far
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and away number one. Now Ukraine is up there as well.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, in a lot of these polls,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: crime is the third, fourth, fifth issue that people care
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a lot about right now. Again, we can argue whether
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that's a perception, whether it's real, it's what, how people
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: feel about crime right now. And You know, in the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Navigator research and in the focus groups, that clip that
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: we just heard, Fund the Police got a huge jump
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: from independent, liberal and conservative leaning voters. But it was
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: liberal leaning voters who rated it the most positively at
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: 85 percent. And this goes back to I think we've
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: talked about this before. There was a Pew poll in
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: late fall about this. Forty seven percent of all adults
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: say that funding for policing should be increased in their area.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Only 15% say it should be decreased. That includes a
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: majority of black Americans, 76% of whom would rather increase
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: funding or keep it the same versus 23% who would
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: rather reduce funding for policing in their area. Again, we
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: should have a whole entire other policy discussion about does
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: increasing funding for policing actually help reduce crime? A lot
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: of evidence to suggest that it does not. But you
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of people in this country, a majority,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: who are a little more concerned about crime and do
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: not want to reduce funding for police in their area
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: at a time where they're concerned about crime. Now, do
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I wish that Joe Biden and Democrats had a more confident,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: forward-looking message where they talk about what they're going to
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: do about criminal justice reform and reforming police departments potentially
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: so that they are not killing black Americans? Yes, of course.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: But clearly, In that speech, Biden and his strategists are
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: trying to respond to the rising concerns about crime in
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: this country and to reflect where public opinion is, which
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: is certainly not in a place where a majority of people,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: white or black, want to reduce funding for policing at
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: this time.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: To the extent I think that there was a mistake
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: or something they could have done better in that situation,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: it would have been to pair that statement with a
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: more forceful call for The George Floyd Police Reform Act
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: for talking just more compassionately about black lives and police
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: reform and all of that, as President Biden did throughout
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that campaign, particularly during– in the aftermath of the murders
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: of George Floyd and Brown and Taylor and others. But
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I just– we also know how this process works and
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that there was probably a paragraph with that
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: in there that somehow ended up not in the final copy.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: But that I think would have made it a more
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: effective move.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you still could do both, right? You pair
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it together, for sure. Why do you think he didn't
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: mention some of the Republicans' favorite culture war issues like
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: banning books or Florida's don't say gay law? He did
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: mention protecting the rights of trans kids, but he didn't
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: get into a lot of the other Republican favorite culture
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: war issues.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: I think there are two factors. The first one is space, right?
• 39:14
  Speaker 7: I think that ultimately....
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: You lose a lot when you have to dedicate a
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: third of the speech to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: So a whole bunch of things that I'm sure were
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: in the original copy prior to the invasion fell out,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: and this may have been one of them. The other
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: one is Biden tended to, both broadly and in this speech,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: sort of allied these cultural wedge issues. That is sort
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: of consistent with his political persona over many years. I
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: tend to think in this instance, it's a mistake. I
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: think the Republicans that don't say gay law, the laws
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: on book banning are huge political vulnerabilities for Republicans. They'll
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: only be political vulnerabilities if Democrats highlight them and take
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: advantage of them. And maybe he will do that and
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: he felt like this speech was not the place to
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: do that and he will do that on the campaign
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: trail going forward. But I think we absolutely have to
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: weaponize the Republicans' culture war against them.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: We believe that parents and teachers... should decide which books
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: are taught in our classroom, not politicians in Washington. He
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: could have said that. You know what I'm saying? You're
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: totally right about just things falling out because it's an hour,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: so I completely have sympathy for that. But I made
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: that point just to emphasize that you don't always need
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to say, and there's a bunch of Republicans who are
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: for banning books and blah, blah, blah in the middle
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: of a State of the Union, which feels weird in
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the chamber. You can still deliver the hit In a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: more oblique way that still shows that you're on the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: side of not banning books in schools.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's, this is like always the, this is
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: like probably way more inside base when anyone cares. There's
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: always the dilemma in the writing of these things, which
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: is if you do not, most people aren't aware of
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: this is happening. If you do not provide context. What's
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: the point? Providing context takes too long or is not
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: sort of appropriate or doesn't feel right in the speech.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: So you could say that line about teachers should be
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: doing this and like that will matter to people who
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: know what's going on, but isn't really informing anyone. So
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: I can sort of feel the dilemma in how you
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: do that. But just to put it.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: The media will give people the context as they report it.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: That's the thing. A light touch goes a long way
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: because the media gets what you're talking about. But you're right.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: People who are just watching the speech might not get it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: But just to get the book banning things in perspective,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Navigator has a poll out this morning on book bans
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: and 16% support banning some books because of how they
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: talk about race and 76% oppose. And when your opponent
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: is doing something opposed by 76% of the public, you
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: want to highlight that as often as humanly possible.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: You sure do.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: When we come back, more on Joe Biden's agenda, the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: war in Ukraine, Joe Manchin and student debt relief with
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. Here to talk
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: more about the State of the Union and what's next
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: for the Biden administration is White House Chief of Staff
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Ron Klain. Ron, welcome back to the pod.
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, John.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: So I have never felt worse for a fellow speechwriter
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: than when I heard you guys were rewriting the speech
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: a few days ago to start with Ukraine. Can you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: talk about why you all made that decision and then
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: what the process was like in the final 24, 48
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: hours before the speech?
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: Well, let me say several times in the past week,
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: I've missed having you and Dan here at the White House.
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: But I can assure you, you did not miss being here. Exactly.
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: You know, I think that, look, I think that we
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: knew for several weeks that Ukraine was going to be
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: a part of the State of the Union.
• 42:46
  Speaker 7: And I think it has been looming on the horizon.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: The president warned the country, warned the world about Vladimir
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: Putin and the invasion of Ukraine over a month ago.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: So it's always been part of the mix for the
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: State of the Union as we approach the state. But once,
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: of course, the Russians actually launched the invasion, it became
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: a larger and larger part. And so We made the
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: decision to take the Ukraine part of the speech and
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: move it to the very front, obviously make it a
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: little bit of a longer part of the State.
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: Of the Union.
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: And that obviously changed the beginning, changed the focus, changed
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: the emphasis at the front, and then required us to
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: kind of compress the rest of the speech to not
• 43:23
  Speaker 6: have it go too long or lose its focus.
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: You know, as you know, the State of the Union is,
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: it's always a work in progress till the 9 p.m.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: Eastern time when the president gets up there, but a
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: little more perhaps, a little more so.
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: This time perhaps than others.
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: But I thought it all came together very, very well.
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: I thought the president did a great job delivering it.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: And I think that we made a strong message on
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: Ukraine and still were able to deliver what we needed
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: to deliver on the domestic agenda, on moving forward, on
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: the economy, on COVID, on crime, the things that people
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: wanted to hear about.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: All in 6400 words, which I will say is very
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: impressive as someone who's done the word count on many
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: of these speeches. So that was good. So in that
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: first section, the president talked about how he has imposed
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: severe economic sanctions on Russia. Some Republicans are now saying
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: that would really hurt their economy and their ability to
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: fight this war is ending oil and gas imports. If
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Russia continues to escalate, are energy sanctions on the table?
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: Well, look, John, I think we start from the premise
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: that the goal is to cripple the Russian economy, not
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: cripple the American economy. And I think we need to
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: be very careful about how these sanctions work. Why are
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: they so successful? Look, this is the largest set of
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: sanctions that have ever been implied against a large country.
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: It's hard to sanction a very large country that's interconnected
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: with the world economy. They've been successful in doing catastrophic
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: damage to the Russian economy because we built this coalition
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: of countries that have participated and all agreed to imply
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: these sanctions. That includes our European allies. It includes the
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: United Kingdom. It includes Japan and Australia, Canada, of course,
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: a wide array of countries. And so as we go forward,
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: we need to keep that unity. The unity is what
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: makes the sanctions work.
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: And I think that's the first principle.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: And that's why, you know, you look at the damage
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: the sanctions have done, devastating damage. The ruble, it's 110
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: rubles to the dollar now. Stock market hasn't opened for
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: days in Russia. So you see the economic damage. We've
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: got to keep everyone together. Once you get to these
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: sanctions on oil and natural gas, it gets more complicated
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: on keeping everyone together.
• 45:38
  Speaker 7: That's the first point. Second point is what you don't
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: want to do is.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: Do anything that drives up the price of gas even
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: more because then whenever gas Putin is able to sell,
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: he just makes as much money. Sells less gas, makes
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: as much money. So we're looking at this very carefully.
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: We're trying to keep the allies together. We're trying to
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: make sure that we don't do things that harm American consumers,
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: that do the maximum damage to Putin and his oligarchs.
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: So that's our focus.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Ron, even in the best of times, the State of
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the Union process is a long, windy road. It includes
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: a gazillion issues, a tour of the world, but it
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: always begins with one theme or idea. What is the
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: one thing that the president wanted to communicate the American
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: people last night about himself or his agenda? What's the
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: one takeaway for the people who didn't watch his speech
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: that you would want the folks who did watch it
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: to share with them?
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: Well, I think, look, I think a big theme in
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: this speech last night was unity. And it kind of
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: began with unity and it ended with unity. It began
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: with the fact that we put together this incredible coalition
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: of countries, united our allies, united a wide array of
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: international partners to bring these sanctions against Russia. And it ended,
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: and we, by and large, Donald Trump aside, By and large,
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: Democrats and Republicans have kind of come together around that
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: agenda in terms of tackling this crisis. And the speech
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: ended with a discussion of unity on the domestic front.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: What are the issues where Democrats and Republicans can find
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: common ground and move forward on things like fighting opioids,
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: dealing with mental health, dealing with the impacts that social
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: media companies have on mental health, helping our veterans?
• 47:18
  Speaker 7: And fighting cancer.
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: And so I think unity was a central theme in
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: the speech.
• 47:24
  Speaker 7: I also think, look, there's.
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: No getting around the fact that thematics aside, we know
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: that economic issues are.
• 47:31
  Speaker 7: Very important to voters.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: We know that when people associate the president and the
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: Democrats with success on the economy, our party does well.
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: And when they don't, our party doesn't do as well.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: So I think a second key theme of the speech
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: was delivering a strong economic message about the success we've
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: had on the economy and acknowledging the problems we're having
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: with inflation, what we want to do about it. So
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: I think kind of unity is a big theme, but
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: the economy is a big part of the core content
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: of the speech.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Speaking of unity, Senator Manchin today made some news where
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: he indicated a willingness to re-enter negotiations, whatever that means,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: around a package that would include raising taxes on corporations
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: and having Medicare negotiate prescription drugs, two things the president
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: has supported as part of his larger Build Back Better agenda,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: then would then use that money split 50-50, I think,
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: by his language, between deficit reduction and climate spending. Is
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: this something President Biden is open to? Is this a
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: good idea? Are you leaving us right now to head
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: immediately to the houseboat to try to hammer out the
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: details here? What do you guys think about this?
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: Look, I think we're always open to conversations with people
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: about how we can move forward parts of the agenda here.
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: And what Senator Manchin talked about today are critical aspects
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: of the agenda. You heard the president last night say,
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: that tax fairness is an important objective. I think it
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: was one of the big applause lines of the speech
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: last night. No one thinks the tax system is fair.
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: If we could fix that, that would be a big achievement.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: We have to deal with the climate crisis. It's one
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: of the most important things we have to do. And
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: I will tell you guys, you guys, I know we're
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: doing dial groups last night looking at it. The part
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: of the speech that talked about addressing prescription drugs and
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: the high price of prescription drugs really connected with a
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: wide array of voters. So I think There's some very
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: powerful ideas on the table there. We obviously have to
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: talk to all the Democrats in the Senate. We're getting
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: every single one of the 50 to have a path forward.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: But I'm encouraged by Senator Manchin talking about this today.
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: And I think it just shows what the president illustrated
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: last night, that there.
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: Is a way to move some of these big ideas forward.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: So one of the most common questions that we get
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: from listeners about the president is, whether he'll take action
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: to provide student debt relief. I know he said that
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: he'd signed legislation canceling up to $ 10, 000 worth of debt.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I know the Department of Education has drafted a legal
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: memo about whether the president has executive authority to cancel
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: debt on his own. What's stopping you guys from either
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: releasing that memo or at least summarizing its findings?
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: Look, I think the president's going to look at what
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: we should do on student debt before.
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: The pause expires or he'll extend the pause.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think Joe Biden right now is the
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: only president in history where no one's paid on their
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: student loans for the entirety of his presidency. And so
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: the question of whether or not there's some executive action
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: student debt forgiveness when the payments resume is a decision we're.
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: Going to take before the payments resume. Right now, people
• 50:32
  Speaker 7: aren't having to pay on their loans.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: And and so I think dealing with the executive branch question,
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: what we should do about that, what his powers are,
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: how much we should do on that.
• 50:41
  Speaker 7: That's something we're going to deal with later on.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Ron Klain, White House chief of staff. Thank you so
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: much for coming on Pod Save America. We appreciate the time.
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 50:48
  Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, guys.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Before we go. We're going to play a special State
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: of the Union edition of everyone's favorite Pod Save America game,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Take Appreciators, hosted by our chief take officer, Elijah Cohn. Elijah,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: take it away.
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: Hey, John. Hey, Dan. Welcome to a special State of
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: the Union edition of the Take Appreciators. I'm going to
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: share some notably bad punditry with you. The producers have
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: seen these takes, John and Dan have not. They'll give
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: their reactions and then rate them on a scale of
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: one to four politicos, John and Dan.
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: Are you ready?
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So ready.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: OK, so if you didn't watch the speech, Joe Biden
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: invited this cute kid who needs insulin to come to
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: the State of the Union in a section of a
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: speech that was about drug prices and health care. It
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: was this kid's birthday the day before the State of
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: the Union and Biden wished him a happy birthday. So
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: with that context, let's roll the clip.
• 51:58
  Speaker 9: The young kid who has suffers from the diabetes and
• 52:01
  Speaker 9: needs his insulin.
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: Love that.
• 52:04
  Speaker 9: But again, even there was a missed moment for humanity.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:07
  Speaker 9: The president says and it was his birthday yesterday. Well,
• 52:10
  Speaker 9: then clue saying happy birthday. That's what we do. Like
• 52:14
  Speaker 9: have a human moment.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: What a monster Joe Biden is, wishing this kid a
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: happy birthday without breaking into song in the middle of
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: his hour-long speech. Fucking monster.
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: John and Dan, any guesses as to who said that
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: and on what program?
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I have one.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you go, John.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I can't remember who I talked to about this shit.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Did we text about.
• 52:44
  Speaker 7: This, Dan?
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: Of course we did.
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: Of course.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: That was former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I actually don't know, the Fox show.
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: It was Tucker.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: I think it was Tucker.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Was it Tucker?
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: Correct. It was Tucker.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I'm worried about your memory because I think your main,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: your text to me was about Tucker nodding along as
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: she got recalled on it.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Even Tucker thought it was so stupid. He was just like, yeah, yeah, no,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. Again, because, you know, the full playbook
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: is for someone who came up with a take that
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: was just specifically designed to trigger people as much as possible.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I think that hers was just sort of stupid, like
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: a stupid thing to say. So I'm going to give
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: it three, three politicos and not the full playbook, just
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: because I don't think the intention was behind it. I
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: think she was just dumb.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: She gets a one from me. It's just, it's stupid.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make a lot of sense. She's confused Congress
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: with a Chili's. Like no one is bringing out a
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: brownie with a candle in it for him. Like it makes,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: it's just, it's just dumb. Not even trying hard enough
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: to get multiple politicos in my view.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: I personally would have loved to have seen Joe Biden
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: start singing happy birthday in the middle of the state
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: of the union.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Would have been memorable. I mean, she's, she's right that
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: it would have been a memorable moment for sure.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, why did no one give this kid a present?
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Doug Emhoff was right there.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Where were the fucking balloons, Biden, huh? Where's the cake, Jill?
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, you know what he should have done? He
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: should have jumped out of a cake to start the speech.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: All right, let's move on to some highlights or lowlights
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: of the live coverage of the speech. This is a two-parter.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: First is a fact check from the New York Times.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: During the speech, Biden said, Quote, our economy created over 6.5
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: million new jobs last year. More jobs created in one
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: year than ever before in the history of America. The
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: Times rated this as partially true because the government only
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: started collecting data on that in 1939. I'll pause there.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: Any reactions to that fact check?
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: You fucking dweebs. Dan, you give him more thought for it.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: You– I mean as a speechwriter, you have a very
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: contentious relationship with overly aggressive pedantic fact-checkers. So I understand that. Look,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: what– I'm going to take a step back. What do
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: we really know? Can we know without– with certainty anything?
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Isn't everything partially true? Is math real?
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: Is history real?
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: Are we living in the matrix? I mean, there's a
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: serious case about how this level of fact-checking actually aids
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: disinformation because it sows distrust in institutions, which creates the
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: vacuum for disinformation. But this is stupid, and I give
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: it three politicos.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'd have to. I just want to speak up for, yes,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the speechwriters have always had a contentious relationship with the
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: White House researchers because they fact check our speeches and
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: they point out inconsistencies just like this one. But you
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: know what? We love them. We love them so much
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: that Cody Keenan, who took over for me as chief speechwriter,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: married Kristen Bartolone, who was the... The head of the
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: research department. So, you know.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Who has fact-checked all of my books and is superb.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: And I actually have a series of outtakes that I
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: will share at some point with some of her most
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: amazing fact-checks.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had some pretty amazing fact-checks too. But again,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: back to this. I give this like two politicos because
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: it was just some fact-checking dweeb at the New York
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Times who couldn't help themselves.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: Well, part two is a live tweet fact-check from a
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: conservative pundit who said, quote, This 6.5 million new jobs
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: line is a total lie. We still haven't regained all
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: the jobs we had in March of 2020 when a
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: disastrous lockdowns happened. Do those jobs just not count?
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: What? Who is that idiot?
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: Any guesses?
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: No.
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: That is Clay Travis, sports analyst who just interviewed President Trump.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, isn't he your former coworker? Wasn't he your boss?
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: I did use to work at Fox sports.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 57:11
  Speaker 7: Yes. Yes.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: Your mentor.
• 57:15
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: I'm going to hold back my comments about Clay Travis,
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: but I'm not a fan.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: No, not a fan.
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: All right. Let's go to the last take. I really
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: wrestled with putting this one in or not. It's kind
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: of shock jockey, but you know, John and Dan sometimes
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: see the takes, even though they don't know what's coming
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: in this segment. They sometimes see them on Twitter as
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: they did with the Dana Perino clip. I confirmed beforehand
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: that they had not seen this and all of our
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: production staff has seen it. So now they have to
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: hear it. And I'm sorry to the audience, you do too. Kyle,
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: play the clip.
• 57:53
  Speaker 10: So you started talking about the pandemic and this is
• 57:56
  Speaker 10: where the lies begin. Because when you're the president of
• 57:58
  Speaker 10: the United States and you've had the worst 14 months
• 58:00
  Speaker 10: of any president of the United States ever, ever, I mean,
• 58:04
  Speaker 10: Abraham Lincoln had a full-scale insurrection on his hands in
• 58:07
  Speaker 10: the beginning of his administration. That wasn't caused by Abraham Lincoln.
• 58:09
  Speaker 10: Everything bad that has happened over the last 14 months
• 58:12
  Speaker 10: is a completely self-inflicted wound. Joe Biden is the Kurt
• 58:16
  Speaker 10: Cobain of politics. He put a shotgun in the mouth
• 58:19
  Speaker 10: of the American body politic and then pulled the trigger,
• 58:22
  Speaker 10: and the brains are on the wall.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: Well, the voice is a giveaway there.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you mean the dulcet tones of Ben Shapiro?
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: What the, that wasn't even, you're right. It was shock
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: jockey because it wasn't, there's so many problems with the metaphor,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like not to get into that because you
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: don't need to, but he's like, he just said it
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: to be a fucking asshole.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that was horrible, Elijah, and I am
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: mad at you for sharing that with me. It's not
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: often that terrible shit happens on the internet, and I
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: manage to miss it, and then here you come. You
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: force-fed me that take, and I am not happy about it.
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: And again, you know what Ben Shapiro wants all to
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: do is like, oh, what a horrible person for doing that.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: And how could he an outrage? It was just dumb.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: It was dumb. Bad metaphor. Not what are you doing?
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: You're an idiot.
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: He's trying to troll us.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is. He's trying to troll us and he
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: didn't do it very well.
• 59:24
  Speaker 7: Zero.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: He gets a zero.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: You get a zero because we do not acknowledge your take.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Your take is unacknowledged here.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: I don't acknowledge the take.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Bonus kicker, do you guys want to talk about the
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: Chuck Todd Ukraine interview that happened right after as well?
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: Any comments for that?
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Do you have that clip?
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: I don't have the clip. The context is that right
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: after the State of the Union, Chuck Todd was doing
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: some analysis and he talking to a correspondent on the
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: ground in Ukraine. And he said, how do you think
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: the Ukrainians responded?
• 59:57
  Speaker 7: To the speech.
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: Yes, to the speech, to Joe Biden's speech. And the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: correspondent said, they're preoccupied right now. They have Russian troops
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: in their country trying to take over their land.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I just don't, I mean, again, don't think that Chuck
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: intentionally meant that, but it's so Washington brain to be like, yeah,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: these people who are hiding in the subway right now
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: is the russians bomb their country you're probably like quick
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: someone uh someone pull up biden's state of the union address.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: 20 of the u.s electorate watch the speech.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Talk about a fucking bubble.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: The correspondent also pointed out that biden's speech started at
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: 5 a.m ukraine.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Time that was probably it it was probably the time difference.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Well, they're going to watch it on tape delay later,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: like any democracy lover would.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Man, good round, Elijah. Good round.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for playing, and I'm sorry.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: No, this is your job. This is your job. Sometimes
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: it's tough. Thank you to Elijah for a wonderful round
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: of Take Appreciators, and thank you to White House Chief
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: of Staff Ron Klain for joining us. Everyone have a
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: great weekend, and we will talk to you next week.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: Bye, everyone.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.