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“No Climate, No Deal.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump fails to stop Republicans from
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: making a bipartisan infrastructure deal. Joe Biden and the Democrats
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: look to reconciliation as their last best chance to fight
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: climate change. Crooked's own Shaniqua McClendon joins to talk about
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: how you can start winning the next election now. And later,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Lovett talks to Shira Frankel, tech reporter at The New
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: York Times and co-author of An Ugly Truth. All right,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: let's get to the news. This is the biggest week
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: yet for Joe Biden's economic plan, known in the White
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: House as his Build Back Better agenda. The Senate is
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: set to pass a $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill by a
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: huge bipartisan margin that will include all 50 Democrats and
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: maybe around 20 Republicans, potentially including Mitch McConnell himself. This,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: despite a Saturday statement from Donald Trump, where he called
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the bill a gift to Democrats, attacked McConnell as foolish
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and threatened to withhold his endorsement from any Republican involved.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: votes for the bill. We talk all the time here
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: about Trump's grip on the Republican Party. Lovett, why do
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: you think they seem ready to openly defy him on
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: this one?
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: I would say that I actually just think it's because
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: this isn't about him. This is just not about Donald Trump.
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: And even Donald Trump's heart has not really been in
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: this fight. He mentioned it once at a speech he
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: gave a couple of weeks ago. He said, I don't
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: do it. And this statement doesn't say he won't endorse anybody.
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: He says it's going to make it very hard. It's
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: clearly his own McConnell politics, you know, he knows he's
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: supposed to have this fight, but he doesn't seem that
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: invested in it. And beyond that, I think these Republicans
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: are more interested in just they want to do this.
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: There is they many of them actually do want to
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: say they passed one fucking thing. And that is more
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: important to them right now than what is ultimately a
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: kind of lukewarm little fight through a statement that Donald
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: Trump is using.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Tommy, do you think this is indicative of any larger
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: sort of moving away from Donald Trump and the Republican Party?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Or do you think this is just a one off
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that's hard to extrapolate to anything else?
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: I would love to think that. I think it's probably
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: unique to this. I mean, the main negotiators in the
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Senate were on the Republican side were Portman, Mitt Romney, Murkowski,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Collins and Cassidy. So Portman's not running again. Romney doesn't
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: care about Trump, right? He's opposed him on many different things.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: And he has unique politics in Utah. Collins and Cassidy
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: just won reelection. And they're probably assuming that no one
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: will care about this bill in six years. Then Murkowski
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: is the one who could be in some interesting political
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: trouble because Trump is trying to float a candidate to
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: her right to primary her when she's up in 22.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: But I also think that as funny as it sounds,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: I think these senators know that Trump doesn't really care
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: about policy.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: The things he gets really mad about are something about himself,
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: if you criticize him personally, feeling like an alpha, wanting
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: to be a winner. If this bill passes, he'll say, well,
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: I always wanted to do infrastructure and no one will
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: really care. If he'd really tried over the last few
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: months to kill this bill instead of talking about the
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: big lie that he was somehow really reelected president. It
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: might be a different conversation, but this has been late
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: and half-hearted, this opposition to the BIF or whatever we're
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: calling it.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially he doesn't care as much about– if
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: it's a cultural issue, if this was about immigration, if
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: this was one of the culture war issues, that would
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: be one thing. Economic policy doesn't usually get Donald Trump
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: all that riled up anyway. Trump aside though, Mitch McConnell
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: did everything he could to obstruct Barack Obama's entire agenda,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: including stealing a Supreme Court seat. He has even said
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: about Biden– His job is to sort of obstruct as
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: much as possible. Why would McConnell give Biden the big
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: bipartisan win he's wanted since taking office?
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: I don't know that he does want to give him
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: a win, but it does seem as though he had
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: way over 10 members of his caucus saying, be for
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: what's happening. We want to do this. I don't know
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: that it has to be more complicated than that. Like,
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: you know, these negotiations were ongoing. At first, it was
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: a way to stave off a partisan reconciliation bill.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Maybe they still have some.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: Hope that that could fall apart because of pressure against
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: the moderates or the kind of the Venn diagram of
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: the liberals in the House not overlapping with the moderates
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: in the Senate. But by the time you're at a
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: point where they're walking out to the podium and there's
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: a bipartisan deal and you have a dozen Republicans who
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: have their own local politics that says they want to
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: pass infrastructure, it's a rare place where spending money on
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: roads is a place where Democrats and Republicans have traditionally
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: been able to work together no matter what else was
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: going on.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the theories where people think that maybe McConnell actually
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: has some grand plan that he's implementing are give Biden
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: a limited win on this, block a much bigger reconciliation
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: bill that might include pay-fors like tax increases for corporations,
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: the thing he really gets upset about. There's also the
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: theory that by passing this bill, McConnell can say, look
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: at all the stuff we've gotten done, your arguments that
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: the Senate is broken, that we should get rid of
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: the filibuster now seem even more ridiculous. My gut is,
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: along with what you said, Lovett, is that members of
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: his caucus think that some of these projects in the
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: bill are important to their states. You know, like Rob
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: Portman's retiring. He really wants to get some things done
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: for Ohio before he does. McConnell's good at obstruction, but
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: I think we all sometimes give him too much credit
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: for being this master strategist and genius when really he's
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: just an obstructionist prick during the Obama era. And the
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: last four years have shown that he actually had quite
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: little control over the Trump iteration of the GOP.
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: I also just say, too, you know, we talked about
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: this months ago and it was like, how can they
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: come to an agreement without a way of paying for it?
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: You know, because the Democrats wanted to raise taxes, the
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: Republicans wanted a gas tax and Democrats wanted to increase
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: IRS enforcement and Republicans obviously didn't. Well, we got to
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: the end of another bill and they just did nothing.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: They found like payfors, they moved some money around. Some
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: of it isn't paid for. They claim it is paid for.
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: And, you know.
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: Democrats and Republicans coming together to spend money without worrying
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: about the consequences.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: They agree to not care.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: They don't care. So he got rid of the stuff
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: they hated.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I do think that he and other Republican leaders and
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Republican candidates and strategists do want at least one talking
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: point for the midterms where they can say, we are
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: not completely obstructionist. We work with Joe Biden and the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Democrats on issues where it made sense, like infrastructure. We
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: oppose them where they tried to, and what they will
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: say is overreach, Like this huge, big reconciliation bill, we're
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: not as obstructionist as you think. We're trying to audition
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: here to govern ourselves, so this is part of that
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: audition to voters. Look, we can actually govern responsibly, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: we can still fight the Democrats on things that we
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: care about.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: We're reasonable, and we're saving you from socialism.
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, stop the steal, big lie.
• 6:50
  Speaker 7: Blah, blah, blah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It's not really coherent. I'm not saying that.
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: Mitch McConnell's governing the Senate. Kevin McCarthy's impeaching in the House.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: That's what we're heading towards.
• 6:59
  Speaker 7: Right, yeah.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So the rest of Joe Biden's agenda must be passed
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: through Democrats budget reconciliation bill, a process that starts with
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: both houses of Congress voting on a budget resolution, which
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: basically lays out the top line policy goals of the bill,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: not numbers and details, which get filled in later. That
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: resolution was released today. It taxes big corporations, the richest
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: one percent and corporate polluters to pay for, among other things,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: universal pre-K, free community college, the child tax credit, universal
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: paid family and medical leave, expanded Medicare, home care, lower
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: health care premiums, lower prescription drug prices, affordable housing, permanent
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: legal status for some immigrants, and the big one, funding
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: to meet Biden's goal of reducing carbon emissions 50% by 2030,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: which seems particularly important in light of this morning's report
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which paints
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: a pretty bleak future for the planet if all countries
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: don't stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2050. Tommy,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: let's start with this climate report. What has changed since
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the last IPCC report in 2013? And how do you
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: think it should shape Democrats' strategy around this budget reconciliation process?
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: I think every new piece of information we have about
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: the impact of climate change should make us tackle the
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: issue with more urgency. That's the takeaway. We have more
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: better data. The climate models are better. And we're learning
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: that climate change is further along than we think. Basically,
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: this new report says we cannot stop. the warming intensifying
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: over the next 30 years, what we can do is
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: stop something worse from happening. So all the droughts we're seeing,
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: all the hurricanes, all the extreme weather, what we can
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: do is prevent that from becoming catastrophic. I think one
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: of the best parts about this report is that we
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: are now better able to say climate change is having
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: an impact in this specific way. So we can point
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: to the record heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: say that is directly tied to climate change. That might
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: sound obvious to a lot of listeners, but unfortunately, a
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: lot of media coverage doesn't close that loop. The conversation
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: doesn't become about how the California fires are in part
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: because of a hotter planet, because of climate change. And
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: think about the coverage you see in your own life.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: California right now is experiencing the second largest wildfire in
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: the state's history. Last year was the biggest. Do a
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: mental inventory of fire coverage versus cicada coverage and get
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: really mad with us, right? So I do think that's
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: one of the important pieces of this. Everyone just needs
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: to raise this issue in your priorities list and act
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: more urgently.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think one thing the report will
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: help do is connect weather coverage and climate coverage, which
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: are still really separate in a lot of places. A
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: lot of news coverage around the heat waves, around the fires,
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: around a host of other climate-related weather changes are covered
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: like weather and they need to be tied back to
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: climate change and they need to use these kinds of
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: reports to make that just sort of the part of
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: the routine. like whether people covering local news need to
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: make climate change a part of how they talk about this.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: I will say, so the report basically paints with certainty
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: that things are going to get worse for a while.
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: We are headed towards a kind of medium bleak scenario
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: of 1.5 degrees warming. But One other piece of this
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: is that another thing that's happened since 2013 is governments
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: have made all kinds of promises. Now, they're not necessarily
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: on track to meet those promises, but you can look
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: at this and say, all right, if countries like the U.S.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: and China hit the goals that they have set, whether
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: it's by 2050 or 2060, we are headed towards 2% warming.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: That is cataclysmic. That's catastrophic.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: But it shows you the actual problem we need to solve.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: We need to keep that to 1.5%. not to what
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: do we need to get there. And so I think
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: what the report is actually now providing is more and
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: more certainty and clarity on exactly what has to happen
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: in the next few years in a way that wasn't
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: as clear or wasn't as direct in 2013.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, climate scientists say this all the time, but climate
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: change and catastrophic climate change is not an on-off switch here.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: It's not like once it hits above 1.5, it's over.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And once it goes below 1.5, it's fine. It is
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: more gradual change. And, you know, this report does say, like, right,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: it's going to be very hard to keep it under 1.5,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: but we are going to have, we're going to feel
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the effects of a hotter climate no matter what. Here
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I know we're already feeling those effects, right? But that
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that we shouldn't do absolutely everything in our
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: power to stop an even more cataclysmic result from hitting 2, 3, 4.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: So it's not an on and off switch here. And
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I do think your point, Lovett, about... covering weather events
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: as climate events is really important. I can remember, I'm
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: sure you remember when you and I were writing speeches
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: in the White House and we'd write climate speeches and
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: we'd say climate change, you know, causes severe drought, severe hurricanes.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: All of the policy wants would say, well, the links
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: aren't definitive yet with extreme weather. And we could get
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: dinged for that by the fact checkers mobile. And what
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: this report does is say, no, no, They're absolutely linked.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: All these crazy weather events are absolutely linked to climate change.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: This is where Washington's just the tendency to both sides
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: every issue and treat both sides of an argument as
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: if they have equal merit has really gotten us to
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: a bad place. Because for a long time, this was
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: treated as disputed science. And now it's not. I mean,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: I saw one thing when I was prepping for this.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: There was a 2014 survey by the Yale Program on
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: Climate Communications. And in 2014, it found that only 48%
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: of people believe that global warming was caused by human activity.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: That number is now closer to 57%, which is good.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: No surprise, states with deep ties to the energy industry,
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: like West Virginia, lag the national average. But only 45%
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: of Americans think global warming will harm them personally. And
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I think that's the communications opportunity you're talking about in
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: basically linking climate change and the weather coverage, because it's
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: not happening in local news broadcasts.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And there's nowhere to hide from this. It's not about
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: coastal cities. Nowhere, no.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Look at Germany. It's had huge floods.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: The smoke being in reaching all the way to the
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: East Coast and happening regularly. I do think part of
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: this is just like, we need to have a collective
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: conversation like, hey, this is new. Like being, thinking about
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: fires all the time, smoke hitting the East Coast, like
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: that wasn't.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Part of our childhood.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: There was no, there was no, there was no summers
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: where you knew that every once in a while you
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: wouldn't be able to go outside even as far all
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: the way to the East Coast. Like the smoke map,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: huge amounts of smoke coming down from Canada and sweeping
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: over the country. Like these are new phenomenon, these heat
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: waves in Seattle and in Portland. We need to just,
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: I think, acknowledge what we're feeling is real. There are changes.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: They are observable. I do think that's another aspect of
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: what this report can do, which is.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: Be a hinge.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: We need to stop. I know we know this and
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: we do it. Climate change isn't a possibility.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: It's here.
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: We say that all climate change is here. And I
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: do think constantly referring to not climate change as some abstraction,
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: but the wildfires from climate change, the heat waves from
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: climate change, the floods from climate change, the storms from
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: climate change. We need to constantly drilled into people's minds
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: that this is happening everywhere all the time.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Even the phrase climate change seems like it's ill-fitting when
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: you think about the actual consequences. It's just climate change.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: These are like climate disasters that are playing out. Things
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: are just changing.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: We had our man Al Gore at the table saying
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: we were calling it the climate crisis.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: That felt.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Well, everything's a crisis. We're over-crisised in the way that
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: we describe things. It is.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Hard to talk about it in the existential sort of
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: language that is the reality that we face at this point.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: Right, it's just more extreme weather. It's worse droughts. It's
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: more extreme hurricanes. It's everything is worse. There was a
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: flood in China a week or two ago where like
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: eight inches of rain dumped in an hour. And there
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: was a bunch of people in a tunnel, like a
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: commuter tunnel that just filled with water. And it just
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: was not built to a standard that could deal with
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: that much water. Once people drowned to death, Imagine being
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: in the Holland Tunnel when something like that happens, right?
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: That's the kind of scenario people need to imagine when
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: they think about how this could impact them.
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: And I do think, though, like, part of what makes
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: this hard as a sort of a messaging communications thing
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: is that, like, this sucks, right? Like, this doesn't make
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: you feel energized and desirous to make changes. Like, hey,
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: like it or not, over the next 10 to 20 years,
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: things are going to get worse. There's literally no avoiding that,
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: even if we do everything. The consequences of action or
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: inaction are kind of, you're right, they're diffuse, they're hard
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: to measure, it will be slow, it will be gradual. But, like,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: The actions we can take, they will work. And we
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: do know exactly what to do to prevent the actual
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: worst outcomes.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: So here's a question about the politics of this. What
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: do you think is more likely to get us a
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: budget reconciliation bill passed that includes most of the president's
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: climate agenda? Biden and other Democrats talking more about the
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: urgency of climate change and framing this as a climate
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: bill or quietly negotiating the climate provisions with Democrats so
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: as not to further polarize this issue?
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: I struggle with this. I'm going to do to you
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: guys what Obama's national security team used to do to him.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Say, Mr.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: President, this is a really tough challenge.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Serious, sir? That's a tough one.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: That's a hard challenge.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that insight. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: No shit, Mr. Secretary of Defense. Look, in terms of messaging,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I just talked about some of the numbers and how
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: they've changed, but there's still this opportunity about explaining to
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: people how climate change will impact them in their lives.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: But we've also learned from COVID that there's a subset
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: of people in this country who will be reflexively opposed
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: and loudly so to whatever Democrats say, even if it
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: kills them. They are often members of the Trump family. But,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: you know, so I do worry a bit about the
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: strain of the Republican Party trying to fight harder against
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: an issue if Biden is more focused on it. That said,
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: I've come down on the side of I think he
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: should probably be talking about it every day because it's
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: an existential problem that we face. And it's also a
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: global problem. What Biden needs is to get a big,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: important bill passed through this reconciliation problem that helps get
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: electric vehicles on the road and gas-burning vehicles off and
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: that transitions our grid to renewables. That means take that
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: accomplishment to this big international climate summit in late October,
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: early November, and say, look at what America did. We're
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: 15% of global emissions, but look at what we did.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: Now everyone needs to do more because Paris was insufficient.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: And that was always kind of by design, right? Paris,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: the Paris Climate Accords put in place a bunch of
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: targets that were designed to be ratcheted down and to
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: get tighter and tighter over time. But Trump lost four years.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: So now he has to, you know, show not tell
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: to the international community because they're not going to trust
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: us that we're going to do the right thing after
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: watching four years of Trump. Like we need to show
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: them that we are doing things.
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: This really may be the last chance for a decade
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: to do a big climate bill. I think we all
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: know the odds of keeping the House, the Senate and
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: the White House in are not where.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: We'd like them to be.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: And so if you think about this as our last chance,
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: it actually becomes less about the long-term messaging we need
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: to do to kind of make sure this issue doesn't
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: become more polarized in the country. It's about keeping the
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: progressive wing of the Democrats in the House on board
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: by making sure it is big and substantive and does
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: what we need to do on climate, while giving whatever
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: sop you need to give to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: Sinema so they feel like they've extracted some blood so
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: that they can claim that this has been moderated in
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: some way. There was a whole kerfuffle with Sinema when
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: she said she wasn't in favor of 3.5 trillion. And
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: I think the response from AOC was both, was like,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: I think fair, but also about laying a marker down
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: because this is a negotiation. This was a negotiation taking
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: place on Twitter. And so to me, it's less about
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: some big public messaging campaign and more like make it
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: about the climate because that is what the house wants.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: That is what most Democrats in the Senate want.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: And then figure out what you need to do, what
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: compromise you need to give somewhere to keep Sinema, to
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: keep Manchin and keep the moderates in the.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Senate on board.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like like Tommy does, which is, you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: it's it's tough, the polarization issue. And I get the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: polarization issue, too. I feel the way I feel about climate,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: the way that I feel about vaccine requirements, which is
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: this really isn't about persuading a bunch of people, a
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: bunch of voters and Republicans or Republicans in Congress to
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: be on your side. Look, the Republicans in Congress aren't
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Biden's audience anyway at this point. None of them are
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: going to vote for the reconciliation bill. So like you said, Lovett,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: it's a question of how do you get moderate Democrats
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: on board with a really big climate agenda? And it's
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: not just Manchin and Sinema in the Senate. You know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: there's now a bunch of moderates in the House, moderate
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Democrats who are saying, we're concerned about this reconciliation bill that,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: you know, in light of all this spending and inflation
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: and blah, blah, blah, we don't want it to be
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: too much money. If the conversation around the reconciliation bill is,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: how much money it spends and debt and inflation and
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: all this bullshit, it's going to be easier for them
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: to pare back the climate stuff in the bill, right?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Which is why I actually think it's important for Joe
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Biden and other Democrats to talk about how important the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: climate provisions are. Because if you're a lot of these
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: moderate House Democrats in swing districts, I guarantee even if
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: your voters may be a little concerned about inflation and spending,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: these are voters who also care a lot about climate change.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: A lot of these suburban districts, you have a lot
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: of college-educated voters who really fucking care about climate change.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: And I don't think you need to negotiate all the
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: details of the spending and provisions, stuff like that, in public.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: But I think you need to remind people of the
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: consequences of climate change that we're all feeling right now
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: and how it could get worse in the future on
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: a daily basis or else it could be forgotten in
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: this bill.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: Also, I have this feeling that suddenly the amount of
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: spending won't be as problematic when they do some sort
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: of deal on the state and local tax deduction for
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: some of these moderates.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're going to be.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: It's going to be like.
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: Oh, suddenly 3.5 trillion is not so bad as long
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: as my kind of wealthier district keeps their tax deduction
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: on their houses.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Suddenly it'll be okay.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, Republicans are trying to slip 50 billion in
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: additional spending for the Pentagon into the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: So obviously these numbers, they don't care about spending. They
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: don't care about debts or deficit. They just care about
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: their pet thing. I don't know. I think all of
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: us who live in California have been particularly seized with
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: this because you just kind of how close you physically
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: are to these fires and the chance that one could
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: actually come to a town you live in. And it's
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: been particularly scary, but I think that's happening to people
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: all over the world. You know, there's fires in Oregon.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: There's floods in Germany. There's floods in China. There's massive
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: fires in Greece and Spain.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Drought in Turkey.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's not just that those fires could burn
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: people to death and kill them. It's that they could
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: lead to famine and mass migration and political instability. I mean,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: there's so much many bad things that could come from
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: what we're seeing. And I think telling that story in
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: a more, I don't know, holistic global way is going
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: to be an important piece of this puzzle. I'm really
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: hopeful that this, um, the UN summit in November will
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: be a place where we can get some big things
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: done because like you said, love it. Like we are
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: running out of time.
• 21:46
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: And I also, you know, they did sneak $ 150 billion
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: of clean energy and climate spending into the bipartisan infrastructure.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: without talking about it much. So I can see Democrats thinking, okay,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: that's a model, right? Like that's a model for getting,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: we got it in there, but this, this is going to,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: this is going to be a lot bigger in terms
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: of climate. This is the, you know, I think Brian,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: our friend Brian Schatz was quoted the other day as saying,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: that was the appetizer. This is the main course. What's
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: going to be in the reconciliation bill on climate.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, just to give you one anecdote, right? Like
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: this bill, the bipartisan bill is 7.5 billion for electric
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: vehicle charging stations. Biden wanted 174 billion to get 500,000
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: of them across the entire country, which is what it's
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: really going to take to make an electric vehicle as
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: convenient as a gas powered vehicle.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: So we've got to get there and we got to
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: get it out of the air.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Got to get it out of the air, too.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Got to get it out of the air.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: The carbon, you mean. The carbon.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Get the carbon out of the air.
• 22:38
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Got to sponge it up. Got to put it in
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: the ground.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, who's doing that?
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Some people.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Smart people, yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: Look, in all of human history, it's never been a
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: mistake to bury things and hope nobody finds it.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: My God. Progressive Democrats in the House have threatened to
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: tank the infrastructure deal if the reconciliation bill isn't progressive enough.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Moderate Democrats in the House and the Senate are now
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: saying they're concerned the reconciliation bill might be too expensive.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: If you're Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, like
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: how do you navigate these politics? How do we get
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: from here to a day where Joe Biden signing not
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: only the bipartisan infrastructure deal, but the reconciliation bill, you know,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: with a bunch of Democrats behind him and he's handing
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: out pens? I mean, it's a.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Frustrating answer, but I do think like he's just going
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: to have to get this bipartisan bill done and assure
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: the progressive members who are making the obvious point that
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: we need to do more, that we will get it done.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's hard. Once again, we're in like
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: Sinema mansion land where no one wants to be and
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: we're relying on their votes. But I do think you
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: just got to get the bipartisan one done first.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's sort of, there's been some like debate, like,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: why are we doing this bipartisan bill when you're just
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: going to come back in with a partisan one after,
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: why did you spend all this time that should have
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: been spent on voting rights and a host of immigration, healthcare,
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: a host of other issues that have been put to
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: the side to get this done. And the reason Joe
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: Biden is doing this is because he has no other
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: fucking choice because the only way he can get mansion
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: and Sinema on the partisan side reconciliation bill is to
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: pursue the bipartisan deal all the way to the end.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: So he has to pursue that all the way to
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: the end. Then he has to make a big, big
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: case for why the country needs these important changes to
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: the social safety net, to our energy policies. He has
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: to make that case big and he has to do
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: it in public while doing a ton of ugly negotiating
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: behind closed doors to get everybody on board. I don't
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: think there's some grand strategy. There's just going to be
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: some horse trading behind the scenes while making the best
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: possible case for the positive aspects of what this.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Bill would do. And, you know, we focused a lot on,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: on Biden and then the Senate and Manchin and Sinema.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I do think Pelosi has some pretty tricky politics in
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: the house, right? Because we don't have much room for
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: error there at all. It sounds like what, you know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: what she's been saying is I'm not going to pass
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: the bipartisan infrastructure deal until we have a reconciliation bill.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I think the plan here is, like we said, they're
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: going to try to pass the budget resolution first, which is,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: you know, you have to pass that before you get
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: into the details of what's in the reconciliation package. I
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: think she will put both the bipartisan infrastructure deal and
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: the budget resolution on the floor of the House and
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: sort of dare the moderate Democrats to vote against the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: budget resolution and dare progressives to vote against the bipartisan
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: infrastructure deal. Believing that, and I think this is sort
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: of the overall strategy, we're kind of all in this together,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: every Democrat. Again, like from AOC to Manchin, you need
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: everyone happy with everything we're doing on economic gender, whether
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: it's the infrastructure deal or the reconciliation package. And we
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: can afford to lose Very few Democrats on any of them.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: You might be able to lose a few more Democrats
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: in the House on the bipartisan infrastructure deal because you
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: could end up getting a bunch of Republicans, as we've
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: already seen. You're getting a bunch of Republicans in the
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Senate on this. But you're really you can't lose almost
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: anyone on the reconciliation deal.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: And it does seem like their interests are aligned. Like,
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: I don't know what person is going to make it
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: like you. if the bipartisan, if the, if the reconciliation
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: bill pass and some Republican wave comes, you being the
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: lone democratic holdout, it's not going to fucking save you.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: And if you part of shutting it down and making
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: this democratic Congress a failure, uh, the wave's coming for
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: you anyway.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: So there's no like, which is why they're all in it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 7: You're right.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: They're all in it together, which is what we learned, uh,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: after passing the affordable care act back in 2010, you know, the, the,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the house Democrats, uh, who voted against the ACA weren't
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: necessarily more likely to survive the Republican wave in 2010
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: than the ones who voted for it. That's just the
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: way it was.
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: I don't know the best political strategy for Pelosi and Schumer.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: I do know that if the entire thing falls apart,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: it is going to be a disaster and no one
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: should want that outcome, whether you're Josh Gottheimer or AOC
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: or anybody in the middle.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: That is correct. I agree with that. All right. When
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: we come back, we have Crooked Media's political director, Shaniqua McClendon,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: who's going to talk to us about our new campaign,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: No Off Years. All right, we've been talking a lot
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: about the threat to voting rights in democracy. At least
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: 18 states have passed laws to restrict voting this year.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: The Census Bureau is set to release data on Thursday
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: that will kick off a redistricting process where Republican-controlled legislatures
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: will try to gerrymander their way to a House majority.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: And in Congress, Democrats are still trying to pass a
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: voting rights bill that can overcome a Republican filibuster. If
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: all this makes you angry and frustrated and maybe feel
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: a little helpless, you're not alone. A lot of people
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: have been asking us, what can we do? which is
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: why our team at Vote Save America has been working
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: hard to put together a brand new campaign full of
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: volunteer opportunities and actions you can take right now to
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: help save democracy before we even get to the midterms.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: It's called No Off Years, and here to give us
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: all the details is Crooked Media's very own political director,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Shaniqua McClendon. Hey, Shaniqua.
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: Hi, how are y'all?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Pretty good.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Good, good to see you.
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: Great, we got a sick new climate report out there,
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: but it's also in a pretty fucking great.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Mood, you know?
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's true.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: That was fun.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: I was going to say something about being sad I
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: wasn't in the office with you all, but then you
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: said the bad news.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, say that. Go back to that. I like that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: We miss you.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: I am sad I'm not in the office with you all,
• 28:03
  Speaker 6: but next time.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us how no off years came to be?
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Well, so.
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, the really, really honest story, EJ and I
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: were talking about the ways that people can get involved
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: other than just calling their members of Congress, because calling
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: your members of Congress does work. That was the last
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: time I was on here talking about that. But we
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: can't actually go into the chamber and vote. And so
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: people wanted to find other ways that they could more
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: actively participate.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: And we started thinking about the January six people tried
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: that approach.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And it turns out it ends poorly for them. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: for the country.
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: It might go to jail.
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Good note.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Extreme door knocking.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Extreme door knocking. Sorry, you were saying, Shaniqua.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: No, it's okay. No, this is all very important to
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: make sure people know the right way to get involved
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: in off year, you know, in off years. But yeah,
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: pretty much we were thinking through like, how can our
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: audience get involved now? And a lot of our volunteers
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: from last year were really eager to continue the work
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: they did last year in the 2020 election. And we
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: knew that a ton needed to be done between now
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: and then. I know we say this a Every year,
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: every election that I've worked at Crooked, we've told people
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: it was the most consequential election of their lifetime, but
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: so is this one. And it's the truth every time
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: we say it. But we knew we needed to get
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: started earlier. We spoke to a lot of activists, a
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: lot of organizations, a lot of political consultants and people
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: just involved. And the thing that they made clear is
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: that we had to get started sooner than 2022 to
• 29:29
  Speaker 6: win in 2022. And so that's how we came up
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: with No Off Years.
• 29:32
  Speaker 7: A lot of.
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: People really think that odd years are years that we
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: don't have to worry about elections but in all honesty,
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: there are elections happening every year. So we should never
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: call them off years. But the work that we are
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: doing and the work that a lot of our audience
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: is engaged in, it can't just happen every other year.
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: We have to keep this work going. Because if we don't,
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: that just leaves more time for Republicans to do things
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: like pass voter suppression laws that make it harder for
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: us to participate and ultimately win during election time.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, it was amazing that people donated
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: so much money at the end of the cycle in 2020.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: But if you felt a little frustrated that most of
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: that went to television ads and didn't come in earlier
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: and allow for deep community-based organizing, this program is for you.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Invest early.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: Get on the ground.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Get grassroots. You mentioned these voter suppression laws. What are
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: some of the tactics and strategies in the face of
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: these laws that we can use to get around some
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: of this voter suppression that are going to be part
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: of no-off years?
• 30:36
  Speaker 6: Last year, a lot of states put laws in place
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: that made it a lot easier to vote. And a
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: lot of people voted for the first time and really
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: liked this expanded access to the ballot. But a lot
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: of the laws that are being put on the books
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: now are actually making it harder. And so making sure
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: people know what they actually can do to vote so
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: that they don't try to follow the same steps they
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: took last year and not have their vote counted because
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: there's some change in the law. We're also going to
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: have volunteer opportunities for deep canvassing, which, you know, when
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: people go out and knock on doors right before an election,
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: ultimately you're asking someone, are you going to vote for
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: my candidate? And like, how likely are you to actually
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: go out and vote? But these conversations will allow volunteers
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: to talk to voters a lot earlier. And it's not
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: about a candidate. It's about what do voters care about,
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: what issues are important to them so that this information
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: can then be a huge part, hopefully, of whatever candidate
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: ends up running and just really centering the voters in
• 31:29
  Speaker 6: these conversations and not pressuring them to vote for a candidate.
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: And then fighting mis- and disinformation. Last year, especially toward
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: the end, we got to see what some of the
• 31:39
  Speaker 6: ads were with mis- and disinformation targeted at voters that
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: we really need to turn out. And we're hoping we're
• 31:47
  Speaker 6: going to start paying attention to that very early, see
• 31:50
  Speaker 6: what those specific messages are going out to specific people,
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: and come up with different ways that people, one, are
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: aware of this mis- and disinformation going out. but also
• 32:00
  Speaker 6: finding ways to combat that. So if we know what
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: people are saying, we can get the truth out there
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: in front of them so they're not more susceptible to
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: those things. And then engaging first-time voters who, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: maybe are confused by everything that's happening right now and
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: making sure they have the information they need to vote.
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: So I feel like a lot of people listening, we've
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: talked to death about how frustrated we are with Joe Manchin,
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: how frustrated we are with Kyrsten Sinema, who I think
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: has been great in White Lotus.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: And that's where she is, right?
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: No spoilers.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: I'm only on episode one.
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: I haven't gotten to that.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Well, no, she was busy.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: She wanted to go on a vacation.
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know where you're going. Not that there's a
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Kyrsten Sinema spoiler somewhere in White Lotus.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: Well, I didn't know that. I've only seen one episode
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: as we discussed right before.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: That was a good joke. That was a good joke.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: It was not.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: That's not what you have to say. You can tell
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: when the joke is good because instead of laughing, you say,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that was a good joke.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: This is actually a thing that happens a lot at
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Crooked Media. I think what happened is, love it goes
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: for the Shaniqua laugh.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: That was a good joke every day.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: I want to tell you something.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I want you to tell you something.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: Obviously, while other people are talking, while other people are talking,
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking about what I'm going to say and not listening.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: That's like what I tend to do.
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: And I.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: was focused on thinking about like, should I talk about
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: Kyrsten Sinema with like a strawberry daiquiri waiting to get
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: out of town? I was trying to rile you up,
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: but the white lotus thing had been planted in my
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: head from before we had talked. And I kind of
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: regret it because I think a simpler joke with fewer
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: steps might not have let John into the briar patch
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: of not knowing what I was talking about. So I
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: think it's a misfire, frankly. How does this fit in
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: what we're doing at the national level? You interrupted me.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Hi, Shaniqua. The question is, what are you watching?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry about Tommy.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry about John.
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: What does this how do we how does what we're
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: doing with no no off years fit into the pressure
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: we need to put on the Congress to pass actual
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: protections as well?
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, all of this goes together. Ultimately, we
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: can't fight the voter suppression head on that is happening
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: at the state level. We're going to need Congress to
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: pass the For the People Act or whatever version of
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: a voting rights bill they come up with that will
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: roll back retroactively get rid of these laws that are
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: being passed at the state level. So it's not going to,
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: you know, this program isn't to be in place of
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: what we need Congress to do. We still need to
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: put pressure on them to pass something because as long
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: as these laws are on the books and we keep
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: having more and more on the books, especially ones that allow,
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: you know, election officials to overturn elections, there's just not
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: really a way to kind of organize around that. But
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: what it does do is allow us to take the
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: action that we're able to take as individuals. It allows
• 34:33
  Speaker 6: us to make sure people know what voting laws are
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: on the books, when they can vote. Some states, you know,
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: early voting, they're taking days away and making sure people
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: know what those calendars look like. And then just, you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: educating people on what's at stake this year. I know
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: that a lot of people are probably sick of us
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: keep continuing to talk about this and like, okay, and
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: you know, is there something else you can be talking about?
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: But I think a lot of people are not realizing
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: how dire things are right now. And so we need
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: to take, one, we need to make sure people know
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: that and then take whatever energy and frustration comes out
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: of that and direct it toward tangible actions they can take.
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: And so, you know, Tommy mentioned this, but investing early
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: in grassroots organizations, it allows them to plan for the
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: next year and a half to see what kinds of
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: things are they going to do? How many voters can
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: they actually engage? Can they engage voters who are not
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: just the ones who typically show up, but maybe people
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: who have never voted in their lives would just need
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: that touch of engagement to show up. So all of
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: this goes together, but we can't let up pressure on
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: Congress and specifically the few Democrats. Republicans are in the
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: way too. They're not doing anything. But as far as
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: who we can put pressure on, who will listen to us,
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: there's a handful of Democrats who need to get going.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Here's the edit.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: Is there anything we can do to get cinema's vote
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: before she heads out to the white Lotus? That would
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: have been cleaner, you know, she wants to go.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. That's very clear. Yeah. That's very clear.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: I would have got that.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Anyway.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for joining.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: What are, um, what are some of the 2021 races
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: that people should be focused on?
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Oh yes.
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: Well, first, first up is definitely the California recall.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: Fill out your ballots. It's going to come to your house.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: People couldn't be easier.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Do you want Larry elder to be your governor?
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: I don't, I don't.
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: It's, it's, it's Gavin Newsom or the Kenosha shooter at
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: Oh my goodness.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Can I say that? No.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Elijah, what do you think?
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Leave it in.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: Leave it in. I think that's right.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Leave it in. Sorry, Shaniqua, beyond California.
• 36:33
  Speaker 7: No, no.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: Um, you know, I want John to have space for
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: his jokes. Got to know.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So Newsom, we've got to help him.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: That's important. Newsom's good.
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: And, you know, it's not even, we just need to
• 36:53
  Speaker 6: let him have a regular election next year. If people
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: don't like Gavin Newsom, they can vote him out of
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: office during a normal election. But this recall is just
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: kind of a roundabout way of going around normal elections
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: to get someone else in. So people should fill out
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: their ballots and mark no for recalling Gavin Newsom. You're
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: making me laugh. That's good, because that's the intent, right?
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: You want people to laugh. Even when you don't say anything. Sorry,
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: one more race, or a few more I have down here. Virginia,
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: there's a gubernatorial election in Virginia this year, but also
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: they are trying to maintain, Democrats are trying to maintain
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: control of the legislature, and so only the House is
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: up this year, but if they don't maintain control of
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: the legislature, even if Terry McAuliffe wins, he's not going
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: to have the legislature he needs to continue advancing progressive policies,
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: so making sure you're paying attention there and we'll have
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: some opportunities and no off years to do that. Um, but, um,
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: a couple of others that people should pay attention to
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: Atlanta is having a mayoral this year. And I know
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: it's like, Oh, Atlanta is going to elect a Democrat,
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: of course, but going in line with our no off
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: years program, if we can get more people registered during
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: this mayoral election, that's less people we have to get
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: registered next year.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah.
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: And then in Seattle, there's also a mayoral race and
• 38:14
  Speaker 6: the two top candidates, you know, they, um, they have
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: kind of similar backgrounds, but are pretty different on two
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: big issues. And so they are on opposite sides of
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: a ballot initiative on homelessness. And overall, the ballot initiative
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: seems fine and it's making investments in housing, but there's
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: a provision in there that will allow the city to
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: basically remove any encampments around Seattle and kind of forcibly
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: remove people if they refuse to take this housing. And
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: so they're on opposite sides on that. And then different
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: stances around housing have funding for police officers and community safety.
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: So elections are happening every year. They're very consequential and
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: people should, um, yeah, pay attention to them.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: Damn right.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Last question. How can people get involved in no off
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: years and what can they expect when they sign up?
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: Well, you should do like I did this morning, go
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: to votesaveamerica.com slash no off years, enter your email address. Um,
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: and then you can actually read on the page about
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: what's at stake this year. But once you sign up,
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: we'll be sending out weekly emails with, um, information on
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: what's going on in the States, and specific calls to
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: action that you can take to have an impact very
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: early on. And so that might be asking you to
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: donate to an organization that's doing good work right now
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: to lay the groundwork for 2022, getting voters registered, starting
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: to talk to voters now, and then helping us fight
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: mis- and disinformation so that next year in November, we'll
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: know we have done everything we could. And then just
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: to finally stop thinking about odd years as off years.
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: We should be doing stuff year-round every year.
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: Amen.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Shaniqua, thank you for joining us. Thank you and the
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: entire Vote Save America team for putting No Offers together.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: And thank you, as always, for telling John that his
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: jokes are funny.
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: And to the cast of White Lotus.
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: Thanks, y'all.
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: Joining us on the pod, she's a New York Times
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: tech reporter and one of the authors of An Ugly
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: Truth Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Shira Frankel, thank you so much for being here.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Love the book.
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: I feel like for years, there's been a lot of
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: reporting about what's going on inside of Facebook, but it's
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: sometimes hard to figure out the difference between the company's
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: positive spin and some of the kind of worst possible
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: readings on their decisions, and then the reality of what
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: goes on inside of a company of just human beings,
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: sometimes being malevolent, sometimes being incompetent. And I felt like
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: this was an incredible window into how Facebook works. I
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: wanted to start by asking about something that's happening right now,
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: which is that Facebook kicked off some misinformation researchers connected
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: to NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project They cited privacy concerns.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: And when I saw the news, what I immediately thought
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: of is that is something Facebook does in your book
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: repeatedly when they're not sure what to do. They just
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: say we can't do anything. There are privacy concerns. Senator
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: Ron Wyden made this point like it's pretty laughable that
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: they would cite privacy as the reason that they're kicking
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: off these researchers who are seeking transparency.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: What was your reaction.
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: To the news about this, about these two researchers being
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: kicked off?
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I just thought that this fits so well into the
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: pattern that was established in the book of what we
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: see Facebook doing again and again, this really sort of
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: almost random piecemeal effort at fixing things, which doesn't ever
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: get to the root of the problem, but just offers
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: these really sort of surface level solutions. So in this case,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: kicking off one group of NYU researchers who happen to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: be conducting fairly interesting and important academic researchers, while not
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: addressing a number of other academic researchers that are doing
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: similar things, a number of commercial groups that are doing
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: similar things. I mean, there are actual groups making money
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: off of collecting data on Facebook the same way that
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: these NYU researchers are. And it's baffling to me that
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Facebook wouldn't address those groups while they would address a
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: group of academic researchers who have been very public about
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: what kind of steps they're taking to safeguard people's privacy
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and what they're actually doing with the data they've collected.
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: So One thing I learned from the book that I
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: was really surprised by. So in 2018, Kara Swisher interviews
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: Mark Zuckerberg. It's a famous conversation because it is the
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: conversation in which he says he would leave Holocaust deniers
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: on the platform because people should just see all the information,
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: including information like that. It creates a firestorm of controversy, obviously.
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: So what I was surprised to learn... was that this
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: was planned. I thought this was Mark Zuckerberg going off
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: script because he believes what he believes and he's prepped
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: to within an inch of his life, but just said
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: something offhand. But this was a planned response. He planned
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: to make this philosophical argument about Holocaust denial, which I
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: found to be shocking. But then by summer of 2020,
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Zuckerberg has changed course completely, orders Facebook to craft a policy.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: To ban deniers. What changed in those two years?
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: So it's funny as a reporter, how you come to something.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: The reason we have that anecdote in the book is
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: because as reporters, we had the same thought you did.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Like surely this was Mark Zuckerberg acting off the cuff.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Surely he just said something without thinking. And then because
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: he was in the middle of an interview with a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: very high profile journalist, he doubled down on it. And
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: it turned out like he just said, no, like this
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: was a planned idea. He came up with it ahead
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: of time. He was actually really into it. He thought
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: it showed just how staunch he was in his beliefs
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: that as a Jewish man, He believed so much in
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: freedom of speech that he would allow something abhorrent like
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: people denying the Holocaust. In his mind, that was like
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: intellectual purism. And I think that tells you a lot
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: about him as a person and how he thinks. You know,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: what changed if you were asking for Facebook's version of this?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: They would tell you that Mark Zuckerberg was shown a study,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: an internal study done in which millennials, people are roughly
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the age of myself and Mark Zuckerberg, were increasingly coming
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to believe Holocaust. theories that denied the Holocaust. They were
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: increasingly coming to gravitate towards some of these antisemitic groups.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: And that really frightened him, the idea that someone his
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: own age would be so persuaded by false information on Facebook.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: It finally caused him to reverse course. I think, in fact,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: it was two years of people wearing down on him
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: and showing him repeatedly that this was a horrible decision.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: This just didn't make sense. And again, I think what's
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: interesting here is that it's really piecemeal, right? He makes
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: a call to reverse his thinking on that one thing
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't get to the bigger issue at play,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: which is that he ultimately is a person that believes
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: that like more speech is better, that good speech will
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: outweigh bad speech. And that if you give people this
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: broad array of ideas, they'll gravitate towards the things that
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: are true. His own platform keeps showing him that that
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: is not the case. That is not what his algorithms
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: push people towards. And instead of being like, okay, so broadly,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: my ideas about free speech are not actually accurate. He
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: makes these really one-off decisions.
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that was, I think, That was also, in general,
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: surprising to me in reading this really great account of
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: these decisions around what they limit and what they don't.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: So you have people like Andrew Bosworth, Bos, writing these
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: sort of like dorm room style memos describing why it's
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: okay to have the harm because connecting.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: People is the good.
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: Clearly, per the book, Mark Zuckerberg has this instinct, as
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: you're saying, this libertarian instinct. But when they realize that
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: that won't apply, that they need to do some kind
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: of a limit, there doesn't seem to be, at least
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: in the reporting you have here, any moment where they
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: really kind of put the same level of thought into
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: how to manage violations as they do into building a
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: new product. In your reporting, have you come across any
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: clear articulation of a philosophy around Facebook's role when it
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: does decide to limit speech on the platform?
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: No, and I think it's because they don't have it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: And as a reporter, I searched for that for years.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: You know, this book, we did over 400 interviews with
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: people who worked at Facebook or still work at Facebook.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: And you ask them, like, what's the philosophical idea driving
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg? Explain it to me. Not a one-off decision
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: on QAnon or conspiracy theorists or COVID misinformation. I don't
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: want one-off explanations. I want to know what is the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: big idea about how you create a social media platform
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: that with algorithms that drive really emotive content. And then
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: you allow what to exist on the platform, right? You allow,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: where's your line? What is the thinking around what it
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: means to have a free speech on a platform like this?
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: And there is no articulation of that. And I think
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that as a reporter, it can sometimes feel fruitless when
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: you search for something and then you learn it doesn't exist.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And then you kind of settle into that and you're like, oh, well,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: how terrifying is that? That that doesn't exist.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: And it does.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: I want to get to Sheryl Sandberg because this does
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: seem to be like where the Mark Zuckerberg philosophy and
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: the Sheryl Sandberg philosophy seem to meet. There was a
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: nickname for the conference room, which was, it's only good news.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Only good news is what Sheryl Sandberg calls her conference room.
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: And there are a few moments in the book where
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: it is pretty striking that she seems to get pretty
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: frustrated that the truth doesn't comport with what she wishes
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: the truth to be. Can you talk a little bit
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: about what happened When Sheryl Sandberg met with, I believe,
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: Senator Mark Warner of Virginia with the head of security, Stamos,
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: John Stamos from Full House in a second.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Very stupid.
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: I'm so sorry.
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: But no, but so so she's meeting with Congress and
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: describing what they have found about Russian interference. But there's
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: a disagreement between what Sheryl Sandberg is saying, what the
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: head of security is saying. Can you talk more about that?
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a fascinating moment because it shows
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: so many of the problems at Facebook. So Alex, not John,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: but Alex Stamos is the head of security. He, for
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: months at this point, has been looking at Russian election
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: interference with his team. They found a lot of really frightening,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: detailed information about how Russia had used Facebook to interfere
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: with the elections. And they're still looking. This is the key, right?
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: They know they haven't found everything there is to find.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: And actually, like his motivations for being at that meeting
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: is to ask for Senator Warner's help. He wants the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: help of Congress to find what U.S. intelligence agencies know, right?
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: He wants them to kind of tap in to the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: wealth of information that U.S. intelligence agencies have. And he's thinking,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: we can go to this meeting. We'll come out of it.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe they'll help us. Instead, they go to this meeting
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and Sheryl Sandberg essentially says to Warner, we found what
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: there is to find. We've got it. It's under control.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: We've wrapped it is kind of the sense she gives him.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: And Stamos is sitting next to her and he's just
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: shocked because he's thinking, what? Have you not read any
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: of my reports? Do you not know that we're still
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: looking for stuff that just, you know, a month or
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: two ago we were helping the French root out a
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: real time attack on their elections? It's not done. We
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: haven't found everything there is to find. And what ends
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: up happening as a result of that meeting is that, well,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Warner walks away from it, not trusting Facebook. Facebook walks
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: away from it, not trusting Warner. And both sides, it seems,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: seem to think, and I think rightfully, that Sheryl Sandberg
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: isn't fully aware of what her own security team is doing.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: And it's not one-off. I just want to add this
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: one note here, which is at this point, it's been
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: six months of the security team looking. And at no
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: point does Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg ask for daily
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: or even weekly meetings to get updated on what the
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: security team is finding.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: That was one of the most, I couldn't believe it.
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: So there's this sequence where we're now, the election is over,
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: we're now months past the election. This internal security team
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: has uncovered basically what will become one of the biggest
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: scandals in modern electoral history. and the way in which
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: Facebook was abused. I was shocked by how much the
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: security team knew, but also about how many people seemed
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: to claim they had no idea when they were told.
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: So you have Sheryl Sandberg saying, why wasn't I told
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: about this? You have Mark Zuckerberg saying, why wasn't I
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: told about this? You have board member Erskine Bowles saying,
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: why wasn't I talked about it? Mark Andreessen, another member
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: of the board, all of them seemingly having no idea
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: this was going on. The head of security, Alex Stamos,
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: claims he reported this up to kind of, in my
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: experience of reading the book, Cheryl's henchman.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: She got two henchmen. Do you believe that?
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: Obviously, if you believed it, you would have put it
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: in the book. You could not put in the book
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: that Cheryl Sandberg knew about this research.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: We put in the book everything we knew, right? So
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: we put in the book that Alex Samuels is filing
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: these reports up to two men, Joel Kaplan and Elliot Schrag.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: And we know that they've told us in previous interviews,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and I think we included this, that they give to
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Sheryl Sandberg the things they think are important and relevant. Now,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: people in the security team have told us there's no
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: way they didn't tell her. There's no way they didn't
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: mention this. But they're very careful to do these in
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: in-person meetings. So whatever was or wasn't said, there's no
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: paper trail of it. There's just what was said in
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: a conference room called Only Good News.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: If you.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Just having, look, I know, I date a journalist. I
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: know what you know.
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: Sorry.
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: No, it's been okay for the most part. It's exhausting.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: But we get through it.
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: I know that there are things, when I read that section,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: what I took away from it was, it seems like
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: you were hunting for evidence that Sheryl Sandberg knew about
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: the interference but was pretending not to and that maybe
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: they misled Congress.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: Do you believe that?
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: Do you believe that there's a possibility that they willfully
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: misled Congress at any point during these hearings or in
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: any of this testimony?
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: So we didn't find evidence that they willfully misled Congress.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: And you're right. As journalists, we were looking. I wouldn't
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: say we were hunting for evidence, but we were trying
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: to figure out how close it got. Right. How close
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: it got to top executives knowing something and not revealing it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And I think what was damning about what we found
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: is that they perhaps didn't want to know. Maybe willfully
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: misleading isn't quite right, but maybe willful blindness is. I
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: think there's a point as an executive where you're two
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: weeks after the elections and your head of security tells
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: you Russia interfered. Your answer is, well, how did I?
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: He says an expletive, Mark Zuckerberg, which is in the book.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I won't repeat it now, but how did I not
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: know about this? And at that point, not asking for
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: regular meetings and updates and being on top of it
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: seems extremely odd to me. And, you know, Facebook will
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: give the regular line, which is these are important people.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: They are, you know, heads of what is now a
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: trillion dollar company. They have a lot on their plate.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: But again, you've just been told that Russia interfered in
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: an election in an unprecedented way and you don't want
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: to be updated regularly on what your security team finds.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: That just seems so incongruous to me even now after
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: several years of reporting on this.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: You do see that place where like kind of the
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: Zuckerberg mentality of connecting people is good. What's good for
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: Facebook is good for the world. And the Sheryl Sandberg
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: mentality of kind of not where the PR strategy ends.
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: It's hard to tell where the PR strategy ends and
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: the actual kind of truth begins, like where everything is
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: about making the best possible case, seemingly even to herself.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: So one thing you say in the introduction to this
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: book is that you did not speak to Mark Zuckerberg
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: but you had several off the record conversations with Sheryl
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: Sandberg until she figured out that this book wasn't going
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: to be, wasn't going to tell the version of the.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Story she would have liked to have told.
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: What do they say to themselves to justify all of
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: this harm, right? What do they say to themselves now
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: when we've had not just the election, not just the insurrection,
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: not just what happened in Burma and their failure to
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: intervene there, not just what happened in France, but now
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: ongoing COVID misinformation, right?
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: What is the kind of conversation they have with God
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: about this?
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I think that, well, first of all, I think they
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: feel bad. And that'll be the first thing they tell
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: you as a reporter is that we feel awful about
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: what happened. We feel so bad. And then they'll say
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: something along the lines of, well, we're doing better. We've
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: hired all these security teams. We've revamped the way we've
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: done things. We're going to make sure the same thing
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen again. That's something I hear a lot of,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: like Russia won't interfere in the elections in the same
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: way they did in 2016. And ultimately, I think their
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: bottom line and their heart of hearts, and this is
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: why we named the book An Ugly Truth, is that
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: they think they do more good than bad. And if
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: they have to break a few eggs along the way,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I think they really believe that connecting the world is
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: a valiant and important, you know, mission and that it
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: is ultimately history is going to see it as something
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: important and good overwhelmingly good. And so that is their
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: parting thought that they do, they do more good than bad.
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: I thought there was sort of like a chilling moment
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: about just how, about how little they've really learned in
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: describing the What happened when they made adjustments to the
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: newsfeed and the kind of news that people saw? And
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: then what happened to engagement? Can you talk a little
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: bit about basically what happened when Facebook adjusted the newsfeed
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: to show people more reliable news and then what they
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: had to do once they realized the effects?
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: So I think you're referring to a moment in time
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: right around the 2020 elections where Facebook kind of sits
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: up and goes, okay, this is a really important moment
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: for democracy. And we don't want to mess it up
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the way we did in 2016. So we're going to
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: we have essentially what you can think of it as dials.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: We're going to dial up the amount of trustworthy news
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: people see, because even though Facebook doesn't advertise this, they
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: rank every single news platform that is on their on
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: their on their site. So you get a really high score.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: if you regularly show people truthful news and you get
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a low score, if you're a place that fact checkers,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: independent fact checkers regularly mark as having stuff that's not
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: factually accurate. And so they turn up the dials on
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: the factual stuff. They turn down the dials on the
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: not factual stuff. And this kind of lasts for around
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: a month before they reverse course on it. And when
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: we brought it to them as reporters, we were like, wait,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: why would you do this? And why would you do
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: it for only a month? And they gave us this
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: weird answer, which was like, well, it was always planned
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: to be temporary. which for me as a reporter at
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: this point, it's like a month after November 6th, I'm
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: watching Stop the Steal take off and I'm watching all
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: these really far right extremist movements use it to rally
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: around a fake idea that the election was stolen. And
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, wait, you think that the jeopardy, the peril
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: to our democracy is done? Like how does anybody watching
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: this scenario right now think we're done being in a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: perilous situation? But then the real reason, as we uncovered
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: in interviews with sources who are not the executives at Facebook,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: but the people actually in the trenches running things, is
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: that they were getting a ton of complaints because the
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: outlets being affected were by and large, really far right-wing
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: extremist outlets that have a very small, but very vocal audience.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: And they were really angry that they were there, that
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: their viewership was going down, that people weren't visiting them
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: as much because Facebook had turned down the dials on them.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: And that ultimately Facebook had a PR problem on their
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: hands of stories emerging of conservative bias. And that is,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: that is again, a theme that runs this book, this,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: this idea that Facebook is really afraid of accusations of
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: conservative bias.
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: Of bias against conservatives to the point where, can you,
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: there's one very funny moment. So where they've decided to
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: remove these pernicious QAnon posts and users, but they had
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: to do something at the exact same time in order
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: to get it through. Can you just talk a little
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: bit about that?
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember this well as a reporter because I
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: actually reported on this for the New York Times and
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: then made it into the book, which I'm thankful for.
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: So their security team had for a long time been
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: working on a list of QAnon pages and groups that
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: they wanted to remove. They'd come up with hundreds of
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: them of really dangerous groups that they knew were. These
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: are the kinds of groups I should just note that
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: are that are driving people to commit acts of violence,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: of real world violence. There was a man who rammed
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: his car into a port in Los Angeles. And I
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: can go on. There's a number of things if you
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: if you look at our reporting on this. So yes,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: their policy team basically says, okay, that's fine, but we
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: need something on the left because if we just take
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: down QAnon, it'll be seen as an attack on the right,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: which in and of itself is problematic because of course,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: left-wing and right-wing people are drawn to QAnon conspiracies, but
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the group kind of sits there in bafflement. I remember
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: the one guy I interviewed was telling me, I had
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: a look of shock on my face because he was like,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: there is no real left-wing equivalent of QAnon. And they
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: figure it out after a few weeks that they're going
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: to take down a bunch of Antifa groups. Because even
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: though in their own words, Antifa and QAnon are not
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: the same, and putting them on par with each other
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: seemed ridiculous to the group itself, it was the only
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: way they could come out with an announcement that seemed,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: in their minds, to have some level of, quote-unquote, balance
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: to it, so that the right-wing wouldn't be upset about
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: this takedown of QAnon.
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: So last question, there does seem to be, as we
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: get to kind of post, we get to 2020 and beyond,
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: there does seem to be a new level of remorse
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: around some of the harm that has been done through Facebook.
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: But you also point out that there has been a mantra,
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: a part of what Mark Zuckerberg has been doing since
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: the very beginning of the company, which was company over country.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: That what's good for Facebook is is what's good for
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: the world, even if it's bad for America, that Facebook
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: is more important than America. Do you think that that
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: is still operating right now? Do you think right now
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: that Facebook is making decisions that will be harmful to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: the country because they believe it's in what's best interest
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: to continuing to connect more and more people around the world,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: no matter what?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: So I can tell you what people at Facebook say, right?
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: If you're talking to the PR wing, they say they're
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a changed company. and that Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: care deeply about democracy, not just here in the United States,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: but all over the world. That's going to be what
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: their executives tell you. I've spoken to a dozen people
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: that work at the company since the book came out,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: and all of them say they feel like the mantra
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: in the company is still very much company over country,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: and that whether it's COVID misinformation or the delay in
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: making a decision on what to do about elected leaders,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump was temporarily kicked off for two years,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: but You're about to have really important consequential elections in
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: countries all over the world, ranging from the Philippines to Hungary.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: And those elected leaders are still using Facebook. And there
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: is no there's no policy. There's no explanation at Facebook
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: for what they're going to allow those elected leaders to
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: do in the time of an importantly consequential election in
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: those countries. They're just kind of kicking this can down
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: the road, it seems, until maybe, you know, they have
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: to make a decision on Trump in a couple of years. So, yes,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: I think people within the country, within the company very
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: much feel like the company hasn't changed and they still
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: put themselves and their success as a company over, not just,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, country being this bigger idea, but really over
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the idea of, you know, helping democracies all over the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: world survive.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: Shira Frankel, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: Everybody should read An Ugly Truth. It is a great
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: read and I found really helpful to understanding this incredibly important,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: powerful company that seems unwilling to recognize how important and
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: powerful it really is.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: So thank you so much.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: All right, before we go, Republicans have been talking a
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: lot lately during the Olympics about how much they just
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: love this country because they're so patriotic, the pride they
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: feel for America. We just wanted to play a compilation
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: of those comments.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: And now it's time for a segment we like to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: call Republicans Loving America.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: But I took pleasure in the men's basketball team, USA's
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: first team loss.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 8: Earlier this week, they unexpectedly lost.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: to Sweden, three to nothing. And Americans were happy about it.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: We don't need any more activist athletes.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: You know, she should be removed from the team. The
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: entire point of the Olympic team is to represent the
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: United States of America.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: That's the entire point.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: Turns out we don't want to watch people who ate
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: our country represent our country.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 7: Imagine that.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 8: I think they're disgraceful. I think woke is really a
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 8: loser's philosophy. And you take a look at what's happened
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 8: with the women's soccer team. They lost to Sweden. The
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 8: woke means lose. And that's exactly what's happening. And, you know,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 8: the sad part is the Americans are rooting for the opponent.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Not on my fucking watch.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: Woke means lose. He's not even trying anymore. That's not
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: a phrase.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: We won the most golds. We won the most medals.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: If we won the most golds.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: We won the fucking most medals.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Okay. It's just like we're not rooting for the American
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Olympic team anymore. That's become a divisive cultural issue now
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: thanks to the right wing.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: Trump has ruined so many things for his people. He
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: ruined football for them. He's ruined baseball.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: He's ruined movies. He just ruins.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: He just wants these people sitting on Facebook just fucking clicking.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: Just clicking.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: It drives me so angry. It really does frustrate me
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: that the political incentives are just so different for both
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: parties that like we can't make them own. and get
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: hurt politically by opposing America in the Olympics. It seems
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: like the easiest thing, the easiest way, like wedge issue
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: I've ever could imagine.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: But here we are.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: We need somebody. Yeah, we just we don't have the thing.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: They have the thing.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's racism, right?
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: They're mostly very proud of not being on the side
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: of America. That's what that's that's what Republicans have shown
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: us through the Olympics. So that's that's great. Thank you
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: so much for thank you so much to Shira Frankel.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: from the New York Times, and our own Shaniqua McClendon
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: for joining us today. Everyone have a great day, and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: we'll talk to you later this week. Pod Save America
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed, and Nar Melkonian, who
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: film and share our episodes as videos every week.