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Iran, If You're Listening... · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I want to be frank, like, yes, like, send me the emails.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: I will read through them.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: I will publish the ones that I think reflect poorly on Donald Trump.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: And then a week or so after that, I'll just put them all on the internet.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: And I will be, frankly, more responsible than the media was in 2020.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: You're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: We're in a brief campaign lull between last week's running mate announcement,
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Tim Walz joining the Harris ticket,
0:32
SPEAKER_00: and next week's Democratic National Convention.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And so we wanted to survey the periphery of the news for various black swans or
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Chekhov's guns that might knock us out of this holding pattern that we're in.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: So the Trump campaign's emails have apparently been hacked.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: There is also apparently classified evidence that Trump accepted a $10 million
0:56
SPEAKER_00: bribe from Egypt during the 2016 campaign.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the press corps' palpable frustration with Kamala Harris for not
1:05
SPEAKER_00: submitting to a hostile interview or press conference on their schedule.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: All of these things could turn into something.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: So we wanted to survey them.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoy the conversation.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to hear the whole thing, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matthew Glacius.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: So we've been in this sort of steady-if-she-goes phase of the election,
1:33
SPEAKER_00: I think really since Kamala Harris began her campaign,
1:37
SPEAKER_00: but for at least a couple weeks,
1:38
SPEAKER_00: right,
1:39
SPEAKER_00: where she has sort of gained steadily in the polls.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: She's built a lead.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And so most of the news coverage of the election is in some way about that.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, how did she upend the race?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: How is Donald Trump reacting to the upending of the race?
1:55
SPEAKER_00: He's reacting poorly.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: But eventually the fact that other things are happening in the world will probably break through.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And we wanted to at least put a pin in some of them so they don't catch anyone listening by surprise.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And we have no particular order to go in, but...
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Should we start with Trump's hacked emails or the Egypt bribe that he maybe took?
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Or the economy?
2:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think – well, let's talk about the economy because we kind of had a plan to discuss this later.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Usually there was a Financial Times poll came out showing –
2:32
SPEAKER_01: a small advantage for Harris on the trust on handling the economy question.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Which,
2:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:40
SPEAKER_01: that's,
2:41
SPEAKER_01: I think we've seen a lot of polls showing that Harris has a modest lead over Donald Trump.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: So you would expect her polling on very specific questions to, you know, also be improving.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: But that was obviously a critical area of weakness for Biden across the
2:59
SPEAKER_01: probably a two or three year span at this point.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: So a very noticeable sort of turnaround for Harris.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, also in her case, you know, we're going to talk later, I think, about
3:10
SPEAKER_01: you know, does Harris need to answer questions?
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Does she need to have a policy agenda?
3:15
SPEAKER_01: But part of what's interesting about it is that it's a kind of diffuse optimism
3:19
SPEAKER_01: about a Harris presidency.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: I think you can't say that like Harris's inflation messaging has been incredibly
3:27
SPEAKER_01: successful because it's like,
3:28
SPEAKER_01: what has the messaging even been?
3:29
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
3:30
SPEAKER_01: She just like appeared on the scene as like,
3:33
SPEAKER_01: oh,
3:34
SPEAKER_01: she's a tough,
3:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:36
SPEAKER_01: and like they chant USA at her rallies and she gives good speeches.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: And people like it.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: She does talk about the cost of goods needing to come down.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So she is like...
3:45
SPEAKER_00: I think we can see what direction she's going to go.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't want to like overblow it.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: I just mean there wasn't some,
3:52
SPEAKER_01: I think there probably will be this week,
3:55
SPEAKER_01: like official Kamala Harris cost of living plan.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: But like that has not, the polling turnaround occurred before.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: The plan.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Seemingly, essentially instantly, like as fast as the public can reconsider a question or,
4:12
SPEAKER_00: this issue inverted where like Biden trailed Trump badly on trust to handle the economy.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And Harris is now narrowly out polling him.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, the FT poll suggested to me that she has room to grow.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, they were both low, right?
4:28
SPEAKER_01: She was like 42 when he was 40.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: So the way the FT did it is there's a line for Trump, a line for first Biden, now Harris.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a line for people who are like, I don't trust either of them on the economy.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: So there's like the double haters.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And Trump's trust numbers in the Financial Times poll are flat.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: And then from when Biden dropped out to when Harris took over,
4:51
SPEAKER_00: that line goes up just about as fast as the line of people saying neither goes down.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: So what's happening is the double haters are reassessing the race and deciding that
5:02
SPEAKER_00: where they didn't trust Joe Biden and didn't trust Donald Trump,
5:05
SPEAKER_00: they now say they do trust Harris,
5:07
SPEAKER_00: but not Trump.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: So what's your interpretation of this?
5:10
SPEAKER_01: What do you think is happening?
5:12
SPEAKER_00: I think basically that we've been living under a Joe Biden age tax for much longer
5:19
SPEAKER_00: than it feels like we have been,
5:20
SPEAKER_00: like really since 2020.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And that there are some number of people in the electorate, so not
5:31
SPEAKER_00: hardcore partisans, but people who are not Republicans and people who are not Democratic base voters.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: So you can think left-wing people and also swing voters who tend blue,
5:44
SPEAKER_00: who were just like checked out of politics because they had lost confidence in Biden.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: And that translated into ways they would talk about the economy, who they trust.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And even, I think, and this is where we're headed,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Whether they're confident in the state of the economy,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: whether they think the economy is good or bad or improving or whatever.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And so just by taking over from Biden,
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Harris in this FT polling has managed to claw half of the of the double haters into
6:15
SPEAKER_00: into her camp.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, Trump has managed to get none of them.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And I don't suppose it follows that she will convert all of them,
6:24
SPEAKER_00: in which case she's going to win the election in a landslide.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: But there's no reason to think that the trend that we've seen since she took over has peaked.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And so though they are both below 50% in trust in the economy, I could see her inching to 50%.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: I could even see her getting...
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Above there.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's one indicator,
6:49
SPEAKER_00: but one indicator of consumer confidence shot up faster in the past two weeks than
6:56
SPEAKER_00: it ever has in its history.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is not really a reflection of...
7:04
SPEAKER_00: people looking around and realizing they have money in their pockets and responding
7:08
SPEAKER_00: to the material conditions they observe in the world,
7:11
SPEAKER_00: but just feeling less abysmal about politics and that translating in their heads
7:18
SPEAKER_00: into just a,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: like a happier sense of things overall.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's especially interesting because this is like where it becomes a
7:25
SPEAKER_00: sort of black Swan situation for Harris is that I
7:29
SPEAKER_00: That is happening as the economy is seemingly weakening and possibly headed into a recession,
7:37
SPEAKER_00: and we just don't know.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Obviously,
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I think if there is a recession between it affecting people directly and it being
7:43
SPEAKER_00: something that the news covers,
7:45
SPEAKER_00: this will change.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I find it really hard to believe that Trump won't benefit politically if –
7:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a recession called in October, whenever it would be possible to call a recession.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: But until then,
8:04
SPEAKER_00: she is,
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I think,
8:05
SPEAKER_00: kind of demonstrating that a lot of public opinion about the economy forms
8:11
SPEAKER_00: downstream of people's sense of politics,
8:14
SPEAKER_00: whether they're optimistic or highly partisan or whatever.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think that – basically, Matt and I are waiting one more week to decide who's right about this.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Well,
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
8:25
SPEAKER_01: I think we want to see – so on Friday,
8:29
SPEAKER_01: we're going to get the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey,
8:33
SPEAKER_01: which is the kind of –
8:35
SPEAKER_00: It's a gold standard.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the blue chip survey of this.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: If that pops a lot,
8:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
8:41
SPEAKER_01: I think it definitely supports...
8:43
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot of questions you could ask here,
8:46
SPEAKER_01: right?
8:46
SPEAKER_01: And just like one of them logically is,
8:49
SPEAKER_01: does the greater trust for Harris reflect a rosier assessment of the status quo,
8:57
SPEAKER_01: right?
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Or does it reflect a...
9:02
SPEAKER_01: rosier assessment of Harris as a change agent relative to Biden, right?
9:07
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
9:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:08
SPEAKER_01: getting a University of Michigan number will sort of help us understand which of
9:13
SPEAKER_01: those things exactly is happening.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: It's also, it's interesting, you know, is the economy getting better?
9:19
SPEAKER_01: like stronger or weaker, kind of on the fundamentals.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: I think like some indicators have started pointing down over the past month or two.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: There's elevated risk of recession.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: At the same time,
9:34
SPEAKER_01: those exact same factors are like increasing the odds of Federal Reserve interest
9:40
SPEAKER_01: rate cuts.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: The producer price index survey that came in today showed that like...
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Building tradespeople in particular have had to really cut the prices that they're offering.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: All this stuff,
9:55
SPEAKER_01: when you're in an inflationary dynamic,
9:57
SPEAKER_01: it's actually not obvious to me which is the good one or not.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're a carpenter,
10:04
SPEAKER_01: obviously it's bad news that building tradespeople are being forced to cut their prices.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: But also if you're worried about inflation, that's literally what inflation is, right?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, it could cut both ways.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: If it increases demand for your services-
10:19
SPEAKER_00: you know, you make it up in volume.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just, it depends, right?
10:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
10:23
SPEAKER_01: there was another,
10:24
SPEAKER_01: there was a McDonald's,
10:27
SPEAKER_01: which is not important to the economy,
10:29
SPEAKER_01: but I think we have learned is quite important to the discourse because there's a
10:35
SPEAKER_01: lot of McDonald's in America,
10:36
SPEAKER_01: right?
10:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, McDonald's like gasoline stations is just something that
10:42
SPEAKER_01: is ubiquitous.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: And so everybody can have an opinion about.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: And so like on their latest earnings call,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: the CEO said they were going to extend their like $5 meal deal combos.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: And some of the franchise owners were saying,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: well,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: we don't like that idea because it's going to reduce our profit margins.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And so that again is like a, you know, there's a good news story to it, which is like,
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Restaurant profit margins are heading downward.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Prices are going downward.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: The reason that that's happening is that McDonald's is seeing weaker demand.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's like all...
11:24
SPEAKER_01: Kind of one thing feeding into another.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I realize that this is not like an economic environment that either of us has been
11:32
SPEAKER_00: a professional journalist for.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: We were teenagers when there was full employment last time,
11:37
SPEAKER_00: and we haven't experienced inflation ever,
11:40
SPEAKER_00: right?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Because that's just our age.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: But you nose around these surveys a lot, much more so than I do.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: I covered the jobs numbers very extensively when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were
11:52
SPEAKER_00: running against each other,
11:53
SPEAKER_00: and I know how to
11:54
SPEAKER_00: like read the PPI survey or whatever.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: But like in the old environment,
12:02
SPEAKER_00: I would have had an intuitive sense of recession risk on the basis of what was
12:07
SPEAKER_00: happening with job growth numbers and GDP numbers.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if you have a sense,
12:13
SPEAKER_00: because this is where we get into the question of like what surprises may be in
12:17
SPEAKER_00: store for the candidates in the election,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: obviously for the people who live in this country.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: What is your sense of the possibility that the country will tip into a recession
12:28
SPEAKER_00: before the election or that conditions will deteriorate significantly enough that
12:33
SPEAKER_00: it becomes a thing?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: The number of jobs created in the last survey that came out a couple weeks ago was pretty low.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think that obviously like it can go below zero and you're still not technically in a recession.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You have to wait another couple months.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: But like if the economy loses on net 100,000 jobs in August-
12:56
SPEAKER_00: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, like that's going to be disastrous for.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, so there's two things here, right?
13:02
SPEAKER_01: One is that,
13:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: I feel like the media coverage of the economy has,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: this is just like one reason I have some skepticism about,
13:13
SPEAKER_01: about the story you were telling is that to me,
13:15
SPEAKER_01: it seems like the media coverage of the economy has actually continued to be quite
13:18
SPEAKER_01: negative as the candidates have swapped.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: There's just like,
13:22
SPEAKER_01: less coverage of the economy because people are like, ooh, who's the new vice presidential nominee?
13:29
SPEAKER_01: Even slightly negative stories about Tim Walz are not stories about McDonald's.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: It's all stuff.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: When inflation was on its way up,
13:40
SPEAKER_01: I was inclined to say,
13:41
SPEAKER_01: look,
13:42
SPEAKER_01: you guys are complaining about the high price of hamburgers,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: but the reason restaurants are raising prices is that people have all this money in
13:50
SPEAKER_01: their pockets.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Now we're seeing that in the reverse,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: which is people are spending less,
13:56
SPEAKER_01: which is causing inflation to go down.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: I have just torn feelings about it.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: On recession risk,
14:07
SPEAKER_01: if I could be completely detached,
14:10
SPEAKER_01: if I was,
14:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what,
14:11
SPEAKER_01: an investor living in Malaysia,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: I would say,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: look,
14:17
SPEAKER_01: there's some risk of recession,
14:19
SPEAKER_01: but also interest rates are well above zero at this point.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: And the Federal Reserve just has really easy tools to put a floor under the economy.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: they're smart people, you know, like Jay Powell and all these guys, like they know what they're doing.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: They don't want there to be a recession.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: So- Are you sure?
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Almost certainly won't be a recession.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm here and I'm like, oh, okay, Republicans are like threatening the Fed.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Like, don't you dare cut interest rates before the election, no matter what happens.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: And that creates recession risk.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Like if you're saying to yourself-
14:57
SPEAKER_01: I can't just make the right decision.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: I have to put a thumb on the scale in favor of higher interest rates to prove that
15:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm not being political.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: That creates really large recession risk because,
15:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
15:12
SPEAKER_01: people disagree about this,
15:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:13
SPEAKER_01: and some like Jason Furman and Larry Summers and some people in the Republican camp,
15:19
SPEAKER_01: too.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: actually put very little stock in Federal Reserve decision-making.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: And they would be like, Matt, who fucking cares?
15:29
SPEAKER_01: 5.5% federal funds rate, 4% federal funds rate.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: The long-term bonds go up and down in the market.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: This isn't that important.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: I disagree with that, though.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: I think it's actually very important.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: I think that the Federal Reserve signaling...
15:46
SPEAKER_01: There's not going to be a recession caused by low demand.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: We know how to fix low demand with interest rate cuts.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: We cannot promise you when interest rates will go down or how far they will go down,
16:00
SPEAKER_01: but they will go down enough,
16:02
SPEAKER_01: fast enough,
16:03
SPEAKER_01: to prevent a recession.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's enough to do it.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know exactly what's going to happen,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: but like people are going to keep buying Happy Meals,
16:25
SPEAKER_01: like one way or the other,
16:27
SPEAKER_01: right?
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Either spending volumes will stay high and the fucking carpenters will go to
16:31
SPEAKER_01: McDonald's or the carpenters will cut their prices and their customers will go to McDonald's.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: But like one way or another, there's going to be hamburgers.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: And that way, you keep opening restaurants.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, you keep saying, you keep looking at all these downtowns that are ravaged by COVID.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And you're just like, you're calling the landlords every three weeks.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: And you're being like, you want to offer me a good deal?
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, I'm in the market.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: I'll buy some shit, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Or you could have like a panic that's like, Republicans have paralyzed the Fed.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Their credibility is shot.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to cut rates.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, there might be a stock market crash.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: And you could be in a bad,
17:07
SPEAKER_01: situation um i i i think i believe in in jay powell um i didn't love like harris
17:18
SPEAKER_01: when she was asked about the fed in a in a sort of rare you know except for any is
17:23
SPEAKER_01: common she leaned like way into federal reserve independence to try to be like more
17:28
SPEAKER_01: responsible than trump um
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Democrats need to bring probably not Harris personally,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: but like Democrats in Congress need to bring like a little heat to the party.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: It's just Elizabeth Warren and a handful of others who are,
17:43
SPEAKER_01: who are sounding like honestly not Elizabeth Warren,
17:46
SPEAKER_01: who has an unrelated polarizing effect.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, no, she, she just, she has an unrelated beef with Jay Powell about bank regulations.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Just like somebody normal needs to be like,
18:00
SPEAKER_01: you're going to get people mad at you politically one way or the other.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, I feel like now it should be lame duck Joe Biden.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: Joe Biden,
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Janet Yellen would be a good person to do this since she has had that job to just
18:16
SPEAKER_01: be like,
18:18
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be political criticism of decisions, but what you have to do is do the right thing.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: I know Jay Powell.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I work with Jay Powell.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: I think he can find his way to the right thing,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: but the Fed cannot let congressional Republicans tank the economy.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: She's not a very political person, but it's like Mark Warner can do this.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Just like anyone...
18:42
SPEAKER_01: can just like bring a little bit of heat to the fire because that's like one of the
18:47
SPEAKER_01: big kind of known knowns that's out there,
18:52
SPEAKER_01: right?
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Is if the people with their hands on the wheel of the economy feel like they have
18:57
SPEAKER_01: to cheat toward driving us into the ditch,
19:01
SPEAKER_00: we could easily get there.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Well,
19:02
SPEAKER_00: and this is like a generalized point that we should make about the difference
19:05
SPEAKER_00: between Democrats and Republicans.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's like at the core of my criticism of the Democratic Party is
19:11
SPEAKER_00: is that Republicans play this same game,
19:13
SPEAKER_00: not just with the Fed,
19:14
SPEAKER_00: but with the news media,
19:15
SPEAKER_00: with social media,
19:16
SPEAKER_00: with the FBI.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: It's why there was such uneven coverage of the Clinton versus Trump race.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's why there was such a disparity in how the FBI handled its twin
19:31
SPEAKER_00: investigations into both candidates.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's arguably why
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Jay Powell did what he did in 2020 during COVID.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
19:42
SPEAKER_00: I think he would have done something similar without Trump pressuring him,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: but Trump hauled him into the Oval Office,
19:47
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:48
SPEAKER_00: like browbeat him.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he, like, explicitly threatened him, you know, right?
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, you will lose your job if you don't give me what I want.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want Democrats to go around corrupting institutions that are meant to
20:03
SPEAKER_00: operate on some kind of neutral or empirical basis,
20:06
SPEAKER_00: but...
20:07
SPEAKER_00: like to the extent that these are like actors making political decisions,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: editors or investigators or bankers or whatever.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And they're contemplating their futures and they're human.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And they, it makes no sense for Democrats to seed the ref working terrain to, to Republicans.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's what,
20:27
SPEAKER_00: like what Harris said signaled to me is that they want the public to appreciate her,
20:35
SPEAKER_00: like,
20:38
SPEAKER_00: ethical conduct and reward her for it.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's a little naive, to be honest.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, I especially think that that's true on a congressional level.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that Democrats who voted for Powell's renomination
20:56
SPEAKER_01: are the people who have the most ability to speak up now.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: But should we talk about the media?
21:05
SPEAKER_01: I think we've gotten a really striking example of that,
21:09
SPEAKER_01: actually several over the past couple of weeks that have been masked by the fact
21:14
SPEAKER_01: that Harris has been doing well.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Look, when your candidate is down, there's a tendency to whine about the media.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: When your candidate is up, you talk about how amazing your candidate is.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: But there's been some interesting media decision making around coverage of Trump
21:32
SPEAKER_01: over the past two weeks while Harris has been gaining in the polls that I think has
21:37
SPEAKER_01: not quite received the full level of scrutiny that it deserves.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: So I guess like let's bracket the question about whether Harris is going to be
21:48
SPEAKER_00: dragged down by a weak economy.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: I think you're referring specifically to two things.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: One, a Washington Post, like, really incredible piece of reporting about an apparent...
22:05
SPEAKER_00: bribe that the government of Egypt paid or intended to pay or offered to pay to Donald Trump.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, before the 2016 election, it was structured sort of as like an IOU.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: If your campaign needs money, we will be able to provide $10 million.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: But Trump...
22:25
SPEAKER_00: then donated his own $10 million to his campaign with the idea being that this
22:29
SPEAKER_00: money from Egypt would come to make him whole.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: The post-story details this as being supported by what it referred to as jaw-dropping intelligence.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And it ends up being a complicated story because,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: in part,
22:48
SPEAKER_00: it turns out the Justice Department under Donald Trump
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Bill Barr and other prosecutors Trump appointed blocked investigators from
22:58
SPEAKER_00: scrutinizing Trump's finances after he became president,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: which is when – where they would have been able to find proof that he accepted this money.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: That story came out and –
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, right?
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And again, a lot of this is fucking Democrats, right?
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Republicans in the House are still cooking up investigations about Biden's age and
23:23
SPEAKER_00: who covered that up and whatever they can find,
23:26
SPEAKER_00: they will do some digging on.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And there seems to be no interest among Senate Democrats to look into,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: was there a crime here and was there a cover-up?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: But also-
23:37
SPEAKER_00: there has been like this question of like,
23:40
SPEAKER_00: okay,
23:41
SPEAKER_00: what did the campaign reporters do with this information?
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And Donald Trump held like this endless press conference at Mar-a-Lago and nobody asked him about it.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so there's sort of two angles to this, right?
23:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, one, you know, take the Senate Democrats, right?
23:57
SPEAKER_01: Because if you step back, what was the deal with Hunter Biden?
24:04
SPEAKER_01: And what was the deal with Hillary's email server?
24:07
SPEAKER_01: And in both cases,
24:08
SPEAKER_01: what happened is that Democratic Party presidents did not shut down investigations,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: right?
24:16
SPEAKER_01: They felt that it would be better to let an investigation go forward knowing that
24:23
SPEAKER_01: there were political risks.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: You know,
24:26
SPEAKER_01: what Trump did here is exactly what Democrats didn't do with the Hillary Clinton
24:31
SPEAKER_01: email server investigation or with the Hunter Biden investigation,
24:35
SPEAKER_01: right?
24:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Obama and Biden both had the power to just kind of choke off investigations at
24:42
SPEAKER_01: their root and avoid damaging stories coming out,
24:47
SPEAKER_01: damaging investigations,
24:49
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: But they knew they would have taken a lot of heat
24:52
SPEAKER_01: from Republicans in Congress about a cover-up.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: And they believed,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I think,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: accurately that,
24:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:58
SPEAKER_01: if Joe Biden had shut down an investigation into his son and had just been like,
25:03
SPEAKER_01: this is political bullshit,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: you're not pursuing it,
25:07
SPEAKER_01: That not only would congressional Republicans have gone hard after him,
25:10
SPEAKER_01: but the whole conservative media would have gone hard after him and that the
25:14
SPEAKER_01: mainstream media would have gone hard after him.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: And that then Democrats in swing races would have flipped and said,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: like,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: this is inappropriate,
25:22
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: He would have been taking on more and more water.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: So you let the prosecutions go forward.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Trump just cauterizes this shit.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
25:30
SPEAKER_01: He's like,
25:31
SPEAKER_01: no,
25:32
SPEAKER_01: you're not going to do a phishing investigation into this bribe that the Egyptian
25:36
SPEAKER_01: government tried to pay me.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And it works.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no investigation.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: There's, you know... You don't even find out about it until after he's out of office.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, there was a CNN report about it.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, but then this big Post story comes out that, like, this cover-up happened.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, Sheldon Whitehouse has a statement.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Robert Garcia in the House, a couple of other people do.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Alex Wagner does a segment at MSNBC.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Rachel Maddow does a segment at MSNBC.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't become an important part of politics.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, at all.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Like you look at what left-wing Democrats are talking about, they don't care about this.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: What moderate Democrats are talking about, they don't care about this.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Frontliners, not talking about this.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: Safe seat Democrats, not talking about this.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: And the mainstream press doesn't ask Trump about it,
26:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:31
SPEAKER_01: at his big question,
26:33
SPEAKER_01: even while they like hassle Kamala Harris about how she needs to do more press
26:39
SPEAKER_01: conferences so that they can give her a hard time.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Um,
26:43
SPEAKER_01: and it's,
26:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:45
SPEAKER_01: it's a,
26:46
SPEAKER_01: it's a gaping,
26:47
SPEAKER_01: I think it's the biggest asymmetry that exists in politics.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: You wrote, you, you, you coined the term hack gap like 20 years ago, right?
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And this is the, this is what it is, right?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Like, and, and I mean, I would love to hear Harris say like one or two things about like her politics.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: trepidation or the pace at which he wants to do media along the lines of two things.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: One is when you care about giving honest information to reporters asking you questions,
27:19
SPEAKER_00: you take time to prepare.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you can just ask Donald Trump any old time to appear before the
27:25
SPEAKER_00: cameras and he'll show up and spout off whatever's at the top of his head and lie.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And you'll just
27:31
SPEAKER_00: cover it and you'll carry it and you won't ask the question, why did he lie?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to do that.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: But that means that in addition to picking a vice president and reworking the convention,
27:44
SPEAKER_00: I need to sit down with my briefers and ready myself so that when we do this,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: you can take to the bank what I say.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that would be good.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Something along those lines.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing would be like,
27:56
SPEAKER_00: how about I'll give you a press conference when you go ask Donald Trump about the
27:59
SPEAKER_00: bribe he took from Egypt?
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Although,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: the point about the hat gap,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: though,
28:08
SPEAKER_01: which I think is bigger than this,
28:09
SPEAKER_01: is like,
28:10
SPEAKER_01: if you just ask a Democrat,
28:12
SPEAKER_01: like,
28:13
SPEAKER_01: why do you object to the idea of Donald Trump winning the election?
28:16
SPEAKER_01: The fact that he may or may not have,
28:19
SPEAKER_01: the fact that he definitely covered up an investigation into potential bribery by
28:25
SPEAKER_01: the government of Egypt just isn't high on the list.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
28:29
SPEAKER_01: Like if you ask sincerely, like Bernard Sanders, like why do you object to Donald Trump's election?
28:35
SPEAKER_01: That's just like not that high in his list of priorities.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: And also,
28:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:39
SPEAKER_01: I think if you ask Gary Peters,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: right,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Mark Kelly,
28:44
SPEAKER_01: like people from different walks of the party.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: if you ask the head of the Center for American Progress,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: you ask the head of Third Way,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: like,
28:52
SPEAKER_01: just none of them are that deeply and sincerely motivated by the question of
28:57
SPEAKER_01: whether or not Donald Trump oversaw the procedural integrity.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: That's too narrow a way to look at it.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of them would say that his corruption... Yes, yes, yes.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: But, I mean, I want to, like, widen it out.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: But, like, the thing that Republicans are very good at doing, there's two parts to it.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: One is, like,
29:16
SPEAKER_01: people getting motivated about these specifics, you know what I mean?
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Like Republicans will stand up on any given day,
29:24
SPEAKER_01: whether we're talking about Hunter Biden's paintings or Hillary Clinton's email
29:28
SPEAKER_01: server or whatever else.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Or Tim Walz's retirement rank.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: They will represent themselves as like sincerely highly motivated about this, right?
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Like the way I put it is,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: right,
29:39
SPEAKER_01: it's like Republicans pretend to care and then journalists in the mainstream media
29:43
SPEAKER_01: pretend to believe them.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: And part of that is like on any given day,
29:48
SPEAKER_01: like actually most Republicans aren't talking about Hunter Biden's paintings.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: But the Republicans who,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: for whatever reason,
29:56
SPEAKER_01: don't feel like working themselves up into a lather about this thing,
30:01
SPEAKER_01: don't like backstab the ones who are.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Like they don't come up and be like,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: why are we talking about paintings when we should be talking about,
30:10
SPEAKER_01: you know...
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Kitchen table issues.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, or like whatever ideological concerns motivate them.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Like every time... There was... Back when the sexy thing to do was talk about
30:25
SPEAKER_01: calling J.D.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Vance weird.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: There was like this Bernie Sanders interview where he was like,
30:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't really think we should call Republicans weird.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: We should be talking about, you know, Medicare for all or something.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: And it was like, I sort of agree with Bernie about that.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: But also it's like this very weird Bernie thing
30:45
SPEAKER_01: tick you know it's i think like really widespread among democrats to like just like
30:52
SPEAKER_01: get just like get mad um all the time and say like no you need to talk about my
30:58
SPEAKER_01: thing right like whatever whatever my thing is of all people joe mansion got this
31:03
SPEAKER_00: one right he was like yeah man they're fucking weird that was the more sure yes
31:06
SPEAKER_01: even even even mansion
31:09
SPEAKER_01: But I think one reason that Manchin was more open to this is that Manchin sincerely
31:14
SPEAKER_01: doesn't particularly want the Biden-Harris administration to do anything.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: He also likes Tim Walz.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I mean, he does.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: But it's like,
31:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:28
SPEAKER_01: you have all these outfits and they have all these grants and they have all these
31:33
SPEAKER_01: donors and board members and they need to...
31:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, to be, not to be self-critical, because I am flawless, but to criticize my allies.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: Like, housing costs have become a big issue on people's minds.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: And I and other people have been working on land use reform, like, forever.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: And so now,
31:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
31:57
SPEAKER_01: every time,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: like,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: the Biden administration puts out a press release about housing costs,
32:02
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:02
SPEAKER_01: all the housing people get really excited about,
32:04
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:04
SPEAKER_01: oh,
32:05
SPEAKER_01: we're going to build.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: And they're all, like, stressed out.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: They're like...
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, can Kamala talk about this?
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, will she talk about HUD code reforms?
32:13
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, who cares if Kamala Harris talks about HUD code reforms?
32:18
SPEAKER_01: You know,
32:18
SPEAKER_01: I would be very upset if she,
32:20
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:20
SPEAKER_01: fires all the good people at the Biden administration,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: Department of Housing and Urban Development.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: I would love it if,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Daniel Hortung,
32:28
SPEAKER_01: who is the,
32:29
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:29
SPEAKER_01: deputy assistant something at the NEC,
32:32
SPEAKER_01: like,
32:32
SPEAKER_01: he should get promoted.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, I like that guy a lot.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Nerd.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Nerd.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: But that's the point.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: This is nerd shit.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: And I would be thrilled,
32:41
SPEAKER_01: I will say,
32:42
SPEAKER_01: I have not received private assurances from the Harris campaign that she has for
32:46
SPEAKER_01: legit on housing supply.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: But that's what I would like to see.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make sense for a national political campaign to focus on the super
32:56
SPEAKER_01: specific hangups of various...
33:00
SPEAKER_01: political obsessives you want to talk about stuff that um people who don't have
33:08
SPEAKER_01: strong convictions about politics might care about and like this bribe shit you
33:15
SPEAKER_01: know is squarely in that i i like i i think harris has done like a pretty good job
33:23
SPEAKER_01: of capturing sort of
33:25
SPEAKER_01: generic resistance vibes and like not getting dragged into too much like, what about this?
33:32
SPEAKER_01: What about that?
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Kind of thing, but
33:37
SPEAKER_01: But we haven't seen her really drive a message, you know, like at all.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: Because she's been getting so much sort of like general process positivity.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: And that is where this question about interviews and press conferences is going to come in.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, the press corps is clearly getting cranky.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: with, like, her just wanting to do her rallies and talk about the crowd sizes.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: And you're not going to put in a stump speech.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, how come you don't ask any questions about the whatever whatever?
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Like, you've got to engage.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: You have to give a little to get some.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be interested to see what she does.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I expect her to go that route.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm not actually confident that a Democrat couldn't at this point get away with
34:27
SPEAKER_00: something like,
34:29
SPEAKER_00: you know...
34:32
SPEAKER_00: vaguely Trumpy ref working,
34:34
SPEAKER_00: like obviously not like they're the enemy of the people and sneer at them and
34:37
SPEAKER_00: threaten them and stuff like that.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: But just like our so-called friends in the mainstream media,
34:43
SPEAKER_00: like say they wanna hurt my campaign because I won't sit for an interview with them.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Like,
34:49
SPEAKER_00: hear me when I say I will sit for an interview with them when they get to the
34:52
SPEAKER_00: bottom of Donald Trump's bribe that he took from Egypt.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not certain that wouldn't work.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, but it's just not really in the DNA of the Democratic Party and especially, like,
35:06
SPEAKER_00: members of the mainline elite to do that.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And so I expect that she is just going to go about this the normal way,
35:13
SPEAKER_00: either right before the convention or in the immediate aftermath.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: She'll just do a standard interview and she'll hope to ace it so that it takes the pressure off.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: But look,
35:23
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we're being a...
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I realize that it's weird for me to be the one saying this,
35:28
SPEAKER_00: but we're being a little bit fatalistic about this question.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: We're treating the Egypt question like it's already...
35:35
SPEAKER_00: over.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: The Post put out this story.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: It generated no consequences in Congress or among the rest of the media.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Nobody seems to be chasing it other than the Post.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And so we expect that it's just going to be a blip and forgotten.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: And I want to put a pin in the possibility that either because
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Reporters are continuing to investigate and like the piece lands and it's got a
36:06
SPEAKER_00: bunch of like tantalizing unanswered questions.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's the sort of piece that can draw that kind of information out of the woodwork.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: So there could be more reporting on it that kind of forces.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: the press to treat it like a drip,
36:19
SPEAKER_00: drip,
36:19
SPEAKER_00: drip scandal instead of just a,
36:20
SPEAKER_00: hey,
36:20
SPEAKER_00: here's a weird thing that happened under Trump that we can't seem to get to the
36:23
SPEAKER_00: bottom of thing that gets quickly forgotten.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: And- It's supposed to be a hidden cache of Trump campaign emails.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes,
36:30
SPEAKER_00: let's get to that just in a second on the other side of the paywall because the
36:33
SPEAKER_00: other half of this is that the investigation into this bribe was based on this
36:38
SPEAKER_00: quote unquote jaw-dropping intelligence.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And like who controls the jaw-dropping intelligence in the possession of the United States?
36:44
SPEAKER_00: It's Joe Biden, right?
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: I feel like at this point,
36:49
SPEAKER_00: especially given everything that's happened,
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden should feel more than free.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: He should feel obligated to declassify stuff like this and just put it out there.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Here, the statute of limitations on what the crime would be, the illegal donation from Egypt, has lapsed.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: There is no Justice Department process that
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden would be interfering with if he just put the information out there.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I feel like he should do this across the board.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: If his intelligence apparatus knows that Donald Trump has been colluding to extend
37:22
SPEAKER_00: the war in Ukraine or in Gaza to make things worse for the incumbent administration
37:31
SPEAKER_00: and Kamala Harris now,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: he should put it out there.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: He should just stop
37:37
SPEAKER_00: like following the rules that Republicans refuse to adhere to.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Um,
37:43
SPEAKER_00: and like,
37:43
SPEAKER_00: I kind of,
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I,
37:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:46
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say that I'm,
37:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that's where things are headed,
37:49
SPEAKER_00: but it's,
37:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:53
SPEAKER_00: it's what,
37:53
SPEAKER_00: like three months till the election.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: And if, you know, if push comes to shove, um,
38:01
SPEAKER_00: if it seems like this is too close for comfort and there's things that the public
38:05
SPEAKER_00: deserve to know about Donald Trump before they go to vote,
38:08
SPEAKER_00: I kind of wonder if he'll just start doing that.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
38:12
SPEAKER_00: one thing about this Egypt story is it got me wondering whether,
38:18
SPEAKER_00: and I'll probably never know because the reporters who wrote the story are good professionals,
38:22
SPEAKER_00: but like whether it coming together after Biden had dropped out of the race was
38:28
SPEAKER_00: was a coincidence.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Was there any sense in which the reporting or their ability to confirm the story
38:37
SPEAKER_00: had something to do with Biden deciding to retire?
38:41
SPEAKER_00: It's highly speculative of me to throw that out there, but the timing is what it is.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And surely the US government knows a lot more about what Donald Trump has been up
38:53
SPEAKER_00: to over the last eight years than
38:55
SPEAKER_00: We do, and now it's kind of up to Joe Biden whether we learn about that shit in time.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or if you just want to turn to the
39:03
SPEAKER_00: fact that the media is also not reporting that.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: This is challenging because,
39:07
SPEAKER_01: of course,
39:07
SPEAKER_01: they have not shared the classified intelligence with me,
39:10
SPEAKER_01: so I can't say whether revealing this would reveal sensitive sources and methods,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm stuck on, you know, not total fatalism about it, but that, like,
39:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:26
SPEAKER_01: again,
39:28
SPEAKER_01: there's like a mainstream media version of the like,
39:30
SPEAKER_01: where's Kamala's interviews,
39:32
SPEAKER_01: bitching and moaning.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: But there's also this kind of like progressive version of it where they're like,
39:38
SPEAKER_01: how dare she not like tie herself to the mast of a very specific policy program.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
39:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I like policy.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: I like articles about policy specifics.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: I would love Kamala Harris to tell me her 17-point plan for health care costs,
39:57
SPEAKER_01: and then I could write some stories about it.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: The boring truth,
40:02
SPEAKER_01: though,
40:03
SPEAKER_01: is that if you swapped out Joe Biden for a Democratic Party statewide elected official,
40:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:11
SPEAKER_01: senator,
40:12
SPEAKER_01: governor,
40:12
SPEAKER_01: fucking attorney general,
40:14
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
40:14
SPEAKER_01: and just,
40:15
SPEAKER_01: like,
40:15
SPEAKER_01: randomly dropped one of them into the Oval Office,
40:18
SPEAKER_01: the changes in policy direction would be,
40:20
SPEAKER_01: like,
40:20
SPEAKER_01: pretty minimal.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's a large, systematic, partisan...
40:27
SPEAKER_01: political disagreement in the United States of America.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: And I think that like something that like almost all stripes of conservatives get
40:33
SPEAKER_01: is that like,
40:34
SPEAKER_01: that is basically true and it is not worth spending like 85% of your energy
40:42
SPEAKER_00: just like being paranoid.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: There's also like this path dependency to policy and an inertia to it, right?
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Like,
40:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:51
SPEAKER_00: in our,
40:51
SPEAKER_00: one of our earliest episodes,
40:52
SPEAKER_00: we talked about how the early net roots and the early wonka sphere,
40:57
SPEAKER_00: like spent a lot of time pressuring people
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Democratic presidential hopefuls to put out detailed policy platforms.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: And how that in hindsight is just sort of a misread of how the whole system works, right?
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Because eventually somebody wins the presidency.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this question like, what does the country need?
41:16
SPEAKER_00: And when Obama became president,
41:18
SPEAKER_00: it turned out it did not need like everyone to focus on universal healthcare,
41:24
SPEAKER_00: although I'm glad they did.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: There was a huge recession and like,
41:28
SPEAKER_00: The right thing to do would have been to fix that so that it didn't drag on for eight years.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: And if Barack Obama had taken leave of the Oval Office and you had dropped some
41:40
SPEAKER_00: random governor and instead he would have inherited all of Obama's aides and would
41:44
SPEAKER_00: not have had a very easy time just –
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Pulling the rug out from under them and saying we're going to do a different thing, right?
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden decided when he came into office he was going to really juice the economy
41:59
SPEAKER_00: because it was in the doldrums from COVID.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: And that he was going to do something more like an industrial policy presidency
42:06
SPEAKER_00: rather than a safety net expanding presidency.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: And-
42:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Harris is going to,
42:13
SPEAKER_00: if she wins the election,
42:15
SPEAKER_00: have to decide whether she wants to continue doing what they were doing or do
42:19
SPEAKER_00: something very different.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, but ultimately like all she can do is like make the edict.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: If she decides she wants to switch to,
42:31
SPEAKER_00: uh,
42:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:33
SPEAKER_00: passing a universal childcare benefit or something like that.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Um,
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Congress is going to determine what that looks like.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
42:41
SPEAKER_01: that's just the main thing I want to say is that whether a Harris administration
42:45
SPEAKER_01: delivers progressive policy achievements or consists of givebacks of things Biden
42:52
SPEAKER_01: achieved is like 50% a question of what happens in the Montana Senate race.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: And then like 40% a question of what happens in frontline house races.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: And like 10% a question of like, what does Kamala Harris decide she wants to do?
43:13
SPEAKER_01: Which is just like, that's why it's in everybody's interest.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: Take that last 10% and break it down.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: Because you're right.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: That last 10% is on her.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: But-
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Your returns on detail are highly diminishing.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: If she says,
43:30
SPEAKER_00: my first priority is I'm going to do a child tax credit,
43:32
SPEAKER_00: that gives you a pretty clear sense of where she's going.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: If she or the press decides she needs to put out more detail on that,
43:39
SPEAKER_00: she could talk about how big the benefit would be,
43:42
SPEAKER_00: or how they're going to pay for it,
43:44
SPEAKER_00: what the impact on the long run budget or labor market will be.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Or she could do what...
43:52
SPEAKER_00: the Obama,
43:53
SPEAKER_00: John Edwards,
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Hillary Clinton campaigns did in 2008 and put out a substantial white paper on it.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like Donald Trump doing it this way is like dirty pool because he's a liar.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: But I think that Democrats could basically be like, you know me, you trust my values.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm going to apply my values to, this list of 12 objectives and in this order.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: And we are going to work out the details with Congress,
44:22
SPEAKER_00: so I'm not going to,
44:24
SPEAKER_00: like,
44:25
SPEAKER_00: bore you with tons of technical crap.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: I think in that 10%,
44:29
SPEAKER_00: like,
44:30
SPEAKER_00: if I were advising the Harris campaign,
44:32
SPEAKER_00: I'd be like,
44:33
SPEAKER_00: say what you want to do,
44:34
SPEAKER_00: but that's it.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: Like,
44:36
SPEAKER_00: don't provide blueprints to the whole machinery because that's not what you're
44:41
SPEAKER_00: going to end up with anyway.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: And it's really just like...
44:49
SPEAKER_00: grist for people who want to nitpick away at your campaign.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying to advocates, because this is how we get back to Egypt, and we'll take a break.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: You have to care more about who wins the election and a little bit less about what
45:07
SPEAKER_01: exactly they say along the way.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Because it's like, if you don't give a shit about... If you care about...
45:17
SPEAKER_01: care agenda.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: You're just going to vote for Kamala Harris.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: It's like people who don't really care about that stuff.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: That's what the contested margin is here, right?
45:29
SPEAKER_01: People who like, I mean, whatever.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: People you might reach by talking about how the other guy took a bribe from
45:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and, you know, he's weird and, you know, and it's like a little, right.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just like where you got to go.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so after the break, Ifran.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're going to get really mad about this.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: If you're listening.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to T.S.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: up?
45:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really sure how to say this without blowing a gasket.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: Basically,
46:00
SPEAKER_00: the New York Times,
46:00
SPEAKER_00: The Washington Post,
46:01
SPEAKER_00: and Politico are sitting on troves of Trump campaign emails that have been hacked
46:05
SPEAKER_00: by somebody.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: And rather than just telling us what's in those emails like they did in 2016, they are sitting on them.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's outrageous.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to get into it on the other side.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear that part of the conversation, go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.