Latest / Pod Save America / “The clouds have not lifted.”

Transcript

“The clouds have not lifted.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Later in the pod, my conversation with our friend and
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: former senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett about her new book,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Finding My Voice. Also, after my interview with Valerie, stick
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: around at the end of the podcast for another excerpt
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: of our weekly Pod Save America Q & A. Have
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: a few questions there. We've got a lot of news
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: to get through today as well, from Trump's plan to
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: make the next election about health care, to the House
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Democrats firing up those subpoena cannons.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: To all the latest 2020 news.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Also, the next installment in our Pod Save the Candidate
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: series will be out on Friday. Tommy will be interviewing
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: former HUD Secretary and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: right here in Los Angeles. Also, the paperback version of
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Ben Rhodes' book, The World As It Is, went on
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: sale Tuesday, April 2nd. It is a fantastic book, one
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: of my favorite Obama books. Go buy yourself Ben's book
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: if you haven't already. Finally, we talked to you a
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: few weeks ago about Organizing Corps 2020, a program that
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: will recruit and train 1,000 field organizers. who will go
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: to work in seven key 2020 battleground states for the
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Democratic ticket. The deadline to apply to that program is Monday,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: April 8th. So if you're a college junior who's interested,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: or if you just want to support the program and
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: sponsor an organizer, please go to OrganizingCore2020. com. You can apply.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: You can donate. It is a great cause. We need
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: to get field organizers in the field now. so that
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: when we have a Democratic nominee, there's going to be
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: a staff in place, and there's going to be a young,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: diverse field of organizers who know what they're doing. This
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: is a really important program, so please.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Check it out. All right, let's get to the news.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Last week, Donald Trump promised that he was moving forward
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: in courts and legislatively to replace the Affordable Care Act.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: This week, the president reversed himself and said, that he was, quote,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: never planning a vote prior to the 2020 election on
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: the wonderful health care package that some very talented people
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: are now developing for me and the Republican Party. It
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: will be on full display during the election as a
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: much better and less expensive alternative to Obamacare. This will
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: be a great campaign issue.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Will it, Dan?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Will campaigning on repealing the Affordable Care Act be a
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: great campaign issue for Donald Trump? And why do you
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: think he backed off his earlier promise to come up
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: with an Obamacare replacement before the election?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Well, these two questions are very connected. No, it will
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: not be a good issue. And we know that because
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: it was the centerpiece of the 2012 election, which the
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Republicans lost. It was a centerpiece of the 2018 election,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: which the Republicans lost. And so were you to make
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: it a centerpiece of the 2020 election, it probably does
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: not bode well for Republicans. The reason Trump backed off
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of it, and backed off is not the right word.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: He pretended he never said the original thing, which is
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: always a favorite Trump tactic, is that the Republicans had
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: no interest in following Trump off this cliff, which is
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: unusual for them, I know. But Mitch McConnell said that,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: not that this was impressive in its dickishness, but that
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: he said he would be happy to look at any
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: healthcare legislation that Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump could agree on.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: That was a funny joke for Mitch McConnell.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell is not known for jokes.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, my.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Question about this is like, First of all, the idea
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump has been coming up with a health
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: care plan or is going to come up with a
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: health care plan or that Republicans are going to put
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: forward a health care plan. I mean, we've heard this
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: now for how many years? Like since 2010, they've been
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: coming up with Obamacare alternatives. Like, why do they think
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: they can get away with continuing to say that there's
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: going to be some magical alternative to Obamacare.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: That basically does what people like?
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: About Obamacare, protects pre-existing conditions, all that good stuff, and
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: yet somehow we never see this.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Well, it's impossible. That's the thing. It is an impossible
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: policy problem to solve because you can't get rid of
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: the parts of Obamacare that the Republicans hate and keep
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the parts that they profess to like but don't actually like,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: protections for pre-existing conditions. You have to.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Get as many people into the pool as possible in
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: order to make it affordable to protect people with existing
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: conditions for insurance companies. So it's an impossible policy problem
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: to solve. I listened to you guys to talk about
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: this on Monday before Trump backtracked off of this. There's
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: two elements of this. One is I do think he
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: hears all the time that healthcare is the Republicans' biggest problem,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Democrats' biggest advantage. And so he's sort of drawn to
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: it like a moth to a flame. But then there's also,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: he just has this politically self-destructive instinct, which is, he
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: insists on always following what seems like his best day
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: with his worst day by, I think as you said
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: this on Monday, grabbing the third rail. And I think
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: there was like, oh, I'm doing really well post Mueller report,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: according to all of my friends on Fox News. What
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: can I do to mess that up? I'm going to
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: grab onto healthcare again.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, the other thing too is he does have
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: a healthcare plan. They laid it out in Trump's budget
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: a few weeks ago. His administration did. I'm sure he
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: doesn't know that or didn't read it. But The Congressional
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Budget Office, nonpartisan scorekeepers in Congress, looked at the proposed
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: policy that's in Trump's proposed budget right now. They estimated
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: the plan would cause millions of people to lose coverage.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: It would give states the option to let insurers return
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: to discriminating against patients with preexisting conditions. And it would
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: allow states to give insurers the flexibility to decide what
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: gets covered. Maternal care, maternity care, you know, anything that
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: they want.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So... Basically, he does have a plan that he's proposing
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in his budget, and it's shit. It's a bad plan.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: So, like, how excited are Republican politicians to make this
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: a central issue in 2020? I mean, didn't Trump basically
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: end up with the worst of all options here? Because
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: he brought up health care. He pretended that they were
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: going to have a vote on it, you know, sometime
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: in this year or early next year. And then he said, no, no,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I'm going to punt this until after the election, thereby
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: ensuring that the election itself... will be about whether or
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: not people want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: we know they don't.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I always get the sense that McConnell treats Trump like
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: parents treat toddlers, which is he basically just promised him
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: that Trump's like, I want healthcare, I want healthcare, I
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: want healthcare. And McConnell's like, you can have healthcare after
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the election. We'll deal with it after the election, right?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: It's easier to do that. It's easier to delay gratification
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: than to deny it. And Trump, being a toddler, decided
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: to tell everyone that that's what the plan was, which, yes,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: it's the worst of all worlds, which is to say
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: that if the Republicans take the House and Trump wins re-election,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the exact immediate result of that is the repeal of
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: health care. That's an argument that Democrats would make and
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Republicans would try to elide. But now Trump has embraced it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: And so it is in some ways, if Democrats play
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: their cards right here, a bit of a reprise of
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: what McConnell– very deviously did with the Garland nomination, which
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: is to say to hang out this vote over the
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: election so that Republicans who were uncomfortable with Trump could
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: give themselves a rationale for voting for Trump, which is
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I don't like Trump. He seems terrible. He seems racist.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: He seems wholly unfit for this job. But if he wins,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the next immediate result is we get to protect the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: balance of the court. And so this is the Obamacare
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: version of the Garland effect of 2016. But it will
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: be up to Democrats to make this argument and keep
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: this story relevant for a very long time, which is
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: challenging considering the fact that collectively as Americans, we were
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: unable to hold last week's impeachable offenses in our heads
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: for more than five minutes.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I mean, I think you're absolutely right.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: And I forget which story it was, but there was
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: some focus group of Obama-Trump voters And one of the
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: people said, you know, I really like Donald Trump, but
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: I might not vote for him in 2020 just because
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: I'm really worried that if I do, I'll lose my
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: health care again. You know, like there's there's sort of
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: a a preconceived notion from a lot of voters, rightly so,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: that Republicans and Donald Trump are just bad on health
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: care and Democrats are good, however they feel about the
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: parties and the individuals otherwise.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a strength Democrats have.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: But as you say, they have to figure out how
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: to capitalize on that strength. And to that end, you know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: somewhere in the Twitter stream of Trump's verbal diarrhea on
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: health care was also an attack on Democrats. He said, quote,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Everybody agrees that Obamacare doesn't work. Premiums and deductibles are
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: far too high. Really bad health care. Even the Dems
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: health insurance. Dan, how worried should Democrats be about this
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: line of attack and what can we do to counter it?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I don't say this often about Trump, but this is
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: not unclever, right? There is sort of the healthcare debate
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: in 2020 sort of operates around the following axes. There
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: is the Trump plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: either by lawsuit or by legislation. There is the Democratic
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: plan to protect the ACA. There is a debate around
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: what comes after the ACA, whether that is a Sanders-like
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Medicare for All plan, whether that is something like Medicare
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: for America, which offers a buy-in, or something like a
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: public option. What is the next step beyond that? And
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: then there is the Trump plan to cut Medicare. by
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: nearly a trillion dollars to pay for his tax cut
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: for corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy. And so which
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: part of that argument you can draw the most attention
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: to determines how Democrats will be successful. And if it
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: is ACA versus no ACA, that is good for Democrats.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: If it is no ACA versus Medicare for all versus
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Medicare cuts, Democrats are going to have to argue the
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: right point. I think personally that the Medicare cuts in
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the budget gave Democrats a huge advantage here, which is,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I think it should be easier to argue about giving
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Medicare to some people who don't have it than to
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: cut Medicare from the people who do have it. And
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: if Democrats can focus on that, then there's real chance
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: for success here. But it is a lesson for Democrats
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: that regardless of whether you're for a Sanders plan or
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: something less, quote unquote, lesser, then Trump is going to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: say you're going to kick all 180 million Americans off
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: their health insurance. That is what Trump will do, it's
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: what Fox will do, it's what the Koch brothers will do.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: That will be the outer bounds of the debate.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: And look, we should stipulate here that 180 million Americans,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: where he's getting that number from is, that is the
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: number of Americans who get health insurance through their employer
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: right now. So those Americans will not lose their health
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: insurance under Bernie Sanders' plan unless their private insurance plan
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: would go away and instead they would be enrolled in Medicare.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: And by the way, not just the Medicare that we
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: know of now, basically sort of a Medicare Plus version
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: where there aren't premiums and there aren't deductibles and there
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: aren't co-pays.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's free health care. That's what it is.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: But it would require a transition away from the plans
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: you have now into that plan. Now, Medicare for All
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: advocates would also say that, you know, if you get
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: your insurance through your employer today, Your employer can change
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: your insurance plan at any time and often does. So
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: it's not like when you have your current plan now,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: you are in control of what that plan is. And
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: when it changes, you are not your employers in control
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: of that. So there is an argument to be made there. But,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: you know, there's also an argument to be made if
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: you're for one of the other Medicare for all plans
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: that offers a slower transition or offers a choice that, OK,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is proposing massive cuts to Medicare and to
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: repeal health insurance for 20 million people. What Democrats are
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: proposing is, if you like the health care you have now, great.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: If you want to enroll in Medicare, like seniors have
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: been enrolled in Medicare for decades and decades, you can
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: do that.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: No problem.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: If you're an employer that wants to enroll your employees
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: in Medicare, you can do that, too. And no charge.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: You just enroll right into the program. If you don't
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: want to do that, that's fine, too. That seems to
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: me like a pretty strong message and also a way
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: to enroll a whole bunch of people who don't have
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: health insurance or have health insurance that's not working for
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: them into Medicare.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I think that's great. I also think that there are
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: some things that Democratic candidates can sort of agree on
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: that would help win this argument over the long run, right?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Which the first is every candidate can and should say
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: every day on the trail that what this election is about.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: is healthcare, that it is about if Trump wins, the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Affordable Care Act is gone. We should repeat that every
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: single day. It is to the benefit of every candidate
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: who says it, and it's important to make sure that
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: that sinks in over time. Let's use the long runway
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: we have to the election to our advantage here by
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: drilling it into the public consciousness. Second, I think we
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: should also be highlighting Trump's plan to cut Medicare, right?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: That is the best argument against his argument about Medicare
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: for all. But I also think... Democrats should not demagogue
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: each other's Medicare for All proposals. We should disagree about them.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: There should be a battle around the policy details. But
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: if more moderate Democrats use right-wing talking points to describe
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: the Sanders plan or Medicare for America, I think that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: just does Trump a huge favor. And for people on
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the left, characterizing someone's position for a A slower transition
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: period or a buy-in or whatever else is somehow being
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: in the pocket of pharma or insurance companies also does
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Trump's business for them. We should have a good faith
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: debate on the policy issues without making Republicans arguments against Democrats,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: either that we are captive special interests or are trying
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: to kick people off their health care or whatever that is.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Let's have a real debate around the issues and that
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: will get us in a better place. But if we
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: do Trump's dirty work for him in the primary, that's
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a huge problem.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: And again, this all happens to be true, not demagoguing
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: each other's plans, right? Because on one end, you're talking
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: about automatic enrollment of everyone in this country into a
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Medicare program that just takes place over a transition period
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: of four years. On the other end, you're talking about
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: giving people the choice to enroll in Medicare if they want.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: And then in the middle, which is where Medicare for
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: America is, you're talking about automatically enrolling about half the
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: folks who currently aren't in Medicare and giving the.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Other half of the folks a choice.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: So that's what it is. And it's, you know, they're
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: different programs. There's benefits and drawbacks to each of them.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: But they are all about giving more people the ability
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: to enroll in Medicare and to get health insurance and
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: to get affordable health insurance. That's what these plans are about.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: But yeah, Democrats should be talking about this every fucking day. And,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: you know, it's funny. The people who have, like, the
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: one person who gets this message right all the time
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: is every time Elizabeth Warren talks about health care and
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: talks about health care plans, she always makes sure to say, Well,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: before we talk about all of our plans and all
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: the different plans that Democrats have, let's just remember that
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and the Republicans are out there every day
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: trying to take our health care away. She starts every
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: single health care answer like that. And I think, you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: every other Democrat should probably do the same thing before
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: you start talking about your plan.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: And when you go back to 2016, I think one
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: of the things, the many reasons that led to the
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: horrible result we got was also that there was this
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: assumption that the Affordable Care Act was safe. It survived
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: multiple elections. It survived a Republican Congress and multiple challenges
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court. So that is sort of the
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: law of the land. And the salience of that issue
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: was diminished in voters' minds. We have the opportunity to
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: make sure it's at the top of the agenda this
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: time because it is at the top of the agenda
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: this time because the Affordable Care Act will be gone
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: if Trump wins and the Republicans take the House. It's
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: that simple. That is a reason for voting.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: That is a.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Reason that even if you don't love the Democratic candidate
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: that we have, you can understand how it can affect
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: your life and the lives of members of your community
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: or your family or whatever.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: And people should know, by the way, too, it's not
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: like if Trump wins again, if Trump wins again, there
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: is a very, very high likelihood that if he wins
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: 270 electoral votes, it means he also had enough votes
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: and Republicans had enough votes to take the House back.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Because a lot of these House seats we took by
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: very small margins in a very good year for Democrats.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And so if it's a bad year for Democrats and
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Trump wins, It's very possible that Republicans win the House back.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: And then you're absolutely right. The Affordable Care Act goes away.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: That is what is on the line in 2020.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the most openly corrupt and incompetent administration
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: of our lifetime and what a Democratic House is finally
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: doing about it. Earlier this week, the House Oversight Committee
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: issued subpoenas for information regarding the growing scandal over the
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Trump White House handing out top-secret security clearances to staffers
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: who were determined to have security concerns. by national security officials.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: The House Intelligence Committee is investigating potential illegal foreign donations
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: to Trump's inaugural committee. The House Ways and Means Committee
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: is now mobilizing to obtain Trump's tax returns from the IRS,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: and the House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena the full, unredacted,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: totally exonerating Mueller report, which we learned last night from
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: the New York Times and the Washington Post is apparently
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: far more damaging to the president than was suggested by
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: the four-page letter written by Trump's hand-picked attorney general.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Surprise, surprise.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: According to Mueller's own team, the report contains, quote, alarming
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: and significant evidence that the president of the United States
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: obstructed justice.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Ooh, boy, Dan. The subpoena cannons are out. The fuse
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: is lit.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Where did the subpoena cannon thing come from?
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I have no idea. I have no idea where it
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: came from. I don't know if I saw it on Twitter.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know if Lovitz said it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: Who knows?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: It's either some random person on Twitter or Lovett are
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: the two most likely answers to that question.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where I get all my crazy things to say.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Let's start with the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: the security clearance scandal, as well as the administration's decision
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: to add a citizenship question to the census.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Forgot to mention that one.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Why do you think House Oversight, chaired by Elijah Cummings,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: started with these particular issues?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know why. And I think they're totally fine issues.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I think in general, Democrats have been a little too
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: wrapped around the optics axle about all of the stuff
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: that we, you know, it really matters what order the
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: letters go in or when we do things. And I
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: think we're spending too much time worrying about how people
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: interpret the requests for information than we are about how
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: they're going to view the responses to those requests, to
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the actual information. I think these are totally good. The
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: citizenship question on the census is a huge problem, and
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: it is a potentially massive undermining of democracy in a way.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: It's a political power play that will last a decade
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: by denying representation to mostly democratically-needing communities all across the country.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So that's a huge deal. The security clearance thing, also
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: a huge deal. But still, we are in April here,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: and we've had the House for three months, and I
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: think we are moving slower than we need to be.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Democrats have to recognize that the underreach, if you will,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: about oversight of the Trump administration is of greater political
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: peril than quote-unquote overreach.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: So let's take through some of these different issues, starting
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: with the security clearance scandal. As mentioned earlier, a whistleblower
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: from the White House Office of Personnel named Tricia Newbold
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: recently told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: that the White House handed out top-secret clearances to at
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: least 25 staffers, including Jared Kushner, who national security officials
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: had already disqualified over security concerns they discovered during their
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: background check, including, quote, foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: personnel conduct, financial problems, drug use, and criminal conduct.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Drain that swamp, baby. Just drain it.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Did you say Jared Kushner, or did you say... Official one,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: as he is known in the memo.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Official one.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Directly related to his father-in-law. Individual one. He married into
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the one family.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: How big of a deal is this scandal? And are
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: you persuaded by the official Republican response that actually only
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: four or five of these security clearances had been denied.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: For, quote, very serious reasons?
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: The rest of them were just sort of serious reasons
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: not to give an individual with security concerns their background.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: This whole thing is a little bit of a microcosm
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: of Trump scandals in general, which is it's this huge
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: problem that is beyond anything we've ever possibly seen. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the answer is no, actually, it's not as bad as
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: you think. It's just normally one of the biggest scandals
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: you've ever seen. And so the fact that if the
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: original story was five White House officials had been granted
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: security clearances over the objections of career professionals, it would
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: be a massive scandal that would dominate the news for
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: six months. Instead, that is the, quote unquote, exculpatory talking
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: point for the Republicans. I mean, this is a giant deal,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: and it should be the subject of massive amounts of investigation,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: both the process of of politicizing the security investigation process,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: but also what it is in Jared Kushner's background, a
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: person who has access to the most closely held secrets
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: in the American intelligence community. What is it that caused
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: such alarm? That is, for someone who is the right
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: hand of the president, we need to know that answer.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: And again, just so people know this, the reason that
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the FBI and national security officials and the White House
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: do a background check on their employees is and try
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: to find out about, you know, things like drug use, debt,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: financial problems, personal conduct, all this stuff, is not because
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: they want you to be an upstanding citizen, though they do,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: but they are worried that you will be subject to
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: blackmail by foreign officials, foreign influence, foreign agents, who say
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: to you, okay, well, you know all these secrets, well,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I know something about how much debt you owe, or
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: I hold the debt that you owe, or I know
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: a secret about you, and unless you tell me the
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: secrets that you have access to in the United States government,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I will release the secrets that I have on you.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: That is one of the primary reasons why people conduct
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: such thorough background checks, and also why if during your
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: background check you are honest about some of the issues
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: you've had in your life, sometimes the FBI and the
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: White House say, okay, well, at least you were honest
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: about it on the security clearance, on the security forms,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: and because you're honest and it's out there, then it's
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: harder for them to blackmail you, so we'll, you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: we'll let you get.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: The security clearance.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: But the fact that there was a bunch of people
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: who probably lied on their fucking SF-86, which is the
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: form that you fill out when you're trying to work
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: and get a security clearance, and they had all this
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: concerning stuff in their background, foreign influence, criminal conduct, etc.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: that clearly set off a bunch of flags in the
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: national security apparatus, and they're pretty worried about it. And
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: they didn't want to give those people access to the
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: most sensitive information that the United States government holds.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, just to put a very fine point on
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: it when it comes to Jared Kushner, Jared Kushner filled
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: out his SF-86, and he quote-unquote forgot to include a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: meeting with Russians to explore a secret back channel that
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: would allow Jared Kushner and the Trump administration to communicate
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: with Russia outside of the eyes and ears of the U.S.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: law enforcement intelligence community, that slipped his mind when he
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: was filling out his form where you list your contacts
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: with foreign governments or foreigners. And so, yes, there are
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: a red flag or two in his file, I imagine.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: And again, it's like Jared Kushner also has a lot
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: of financial interests and a lot of financial interests abroad.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: And the question is, When Jared Kushner is trying to fucking,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: you know, forge Middle East peace, which he's doing a
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: great job on, or talk with the Saudis or talk
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: with the Russians, you know, we have every right to
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: know whether he has any financial benefit to making certain
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: deals or certain agreements with these foreign powers. Like, the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: American people have the right to know that.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: That's why you go through a security clearance background check. Un-fucking-real.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: So let's talk about the House Judiciary Committee. finally voting
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: to give its chairman, Jerry Nadler, the authority to subpoena
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Robert Mueller's full report. Nadler, who had previously given Attorney
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: General William Barr until April 2nd to release the report,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: is now saying that he won't use the subpoena right
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: away and will be giving Barr time to change his mind. Dan,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: what do you think the strategy behind this is? Why
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: would you give Barr more time?
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I was originally ready to fire off some hot tweets
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: about this just out of pure frustration. And then I
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: saw a tweet from Andy Wright, who was an attorney
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: in the White House Counsel's Office when we were there
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: working on these very issues. And he explained that the
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: reason why the subpoena was authorized but not issued yet was,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and this is his conjecture based on his experience working
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: on both sides of these conversations, both in the White
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: House and on oversight committees on the Hill, is that
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: there will be a legal battle over this. And it
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: is important for the congressional committee to show that it
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: did everything it possibly could short of the subpoena before
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: they get to the subpoena. So that's why there was
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: always a process of negotiation, of sort of potentially compromise
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: on how these things are done. But you have to
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: show that you tried to do everything before the subpoena.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And if you just issue the subpoena right away without
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: that sort of preparation work, then it's likely that you're
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: not going to win in court. So this is, Andy
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: at least believes, and he's very, very smart about these things,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: that it is about ensuring that if there were a
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: legal challenge to this, as there probably will be, that
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Nadler's committee has the best chance to succeed. So I
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: didn't send the tweet.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: You didn't? But it was going to be good. It's
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: going to be very angry.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: I'm sure Brian Boitler sent them anyway, because I know
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: he's annoyed about this. So the Republicans on the Judiciary
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Committee voted against giving Nadler the power to subpoena the report,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: which is odd, because every House Republican voted to make
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: the report public just last month. Trump has also backtracked
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: on his initial willingness to release the report that he
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: says totally exonerates him.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Very weird, huh, Dan?
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: What could they possibly be worried about in releasing this
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: full report? What do you think is going on?
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It seems suspicious. And it is notable
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: that Republicans both pre-, during-, and post-Trump feel essentially no
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: obligation to be burdened by the position they held previously.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: three days ago. So it doesn't matter. It makes no
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: difference to them that they said, release it last week,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: this week. They say, don't release it. Now they're going
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: to be against the release of it. It's just sort of,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: it's all part of being Republican is you have to
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: have the part of your brain that emits shame surgically
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: removed prior to party acceptance.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, what do you think about the New York
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Times and Washington Post reports last night that Mueller's team
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: has been telling people that they are quite annoyed and
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: displeased with William Barr's four-page letter that tried to summarize
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: their report when, in fact, what we learned from these
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: reports is that Mueller's team had already written summaries of
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: their report in front of each section. And they wrote
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: them believing that they would be released to the public
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: almost immediately. And yet, William Barr did not do that.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: William Barr said that even their summaries, the Mueller's team's summaries,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: somehow had grand jury information or classified information in the summaries.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: But it's sort of weird, like, why would Mueller's team
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: write a summary that they believed would be released to
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: the public that contained classified information or grand jury information?
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Seems a little odd.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of thoughts on this. I really do.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, first, let's just stipulate that we yelled at
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the press for... writing the Mueller clouds clear over Trump,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: best day of Trump's life, without ever having read the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: report and basing it on the four-page summary of a
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: man who did not believe the special counsel had the
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: authority to investigate the president on questions like obstruction of justice.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: So we yelled at them for that. So let's not
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: go completely the opposite direction, not having read the report,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: but the general take is no shit. Like we, this
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: was so obvious at the time that there was at
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: least something more damaging to Trump than was in Barr's
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: letter because Bob Mueller, who is a man very careful
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: about in the words that he says and writes, said
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: he did not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice. So
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: that would lead you to believe that there's a high
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: likelihood that there's a lot of evidence to suggest that,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Congress, for instance, would want to look
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: at it and see and make their own judgment. And
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: then there's this part of the letter that drives me insane,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: which is Barr essentially himself, not Mueller, clears Trump on obstruction.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And everyone was like, well, Trump's in the clear, despite
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the fact that that is Barr's opinion. It is Barr's position,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: his position at the Department of Justice, that Trump cannot
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: be indicted for this president of the United States. So
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: if you cannot charge Trump, then you cannot clear him.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: You are simply offering your opinion on the evidence, and
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: your opinion means nothing. The only people who can render
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: a fucking judgment on this is Congress, and Barr is
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: currently denying Congress access to the evidence to make said judgment.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: So the other thing I would say about this is, hey,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Mueller team, where were you last week? Like, why did
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: it take you a week to let your concerns bubble
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: to the top? You are free men and women. Now
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: you can speak. You can leak like it would have
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: been better to not let us get however many weeks
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: it's been since this came out for the bar summary
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: to sink into the public consciousness before you decide to
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: express your concerns.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: And even now, I should say, the sourcing on the
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Post and the Times stories is not Mueller's team told
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: the Times or told the Washington Post.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: There's an intermediary.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: It's Mueller's team has spoken to officials who have spoken
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: to the Post and the Times. So they're clearly very
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: nervous about leaking Mueller's team still. I mean, it very
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: well might be that they thought, well, you know, Barr
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: can have this four-page stupid letter come out, but this
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: thing's going to Congress soon anyway. And then as the
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: days tick by and Barr continues to withhold the report,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: they're starting to think, oh, fuck, maybe this isn't getting
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: to Congress as fast as we thought it would be.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: And now this guy is going to, has already framed
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: the narrative and our work is going to be seen as,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: you know, our work is going to be buried, which
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: seems like it's happening right now.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And look, again, you said, let's not go overboard in
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the other direction. And I agree.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: It seems unlikely that, that the report actually says, you know,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Trump did conspire with the Russians and he did obstruct justice.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Like it's not like Barr is smart enough to know
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: that he couldn't get away with too much of a
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: cover up. But he's also smart enough to realize that
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: if he frames that if he framed that letter in
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: just the right way and, you know, by omission left
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: out a whole bunch of really damaging information about Donald Trump,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: and potential criminality and evidence of criminality, then by the
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: time the report comes out, if you can just slow
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: walk it long enough, the narrative about Trump being exonerated
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: would already be set. And that once the report does
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: come out and Democrats start screaming about it, which we
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: will if there's bad shit in there, then everyone will say, oh,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: just fucking sore losers, those Democrats, just complaining about this report.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: The president's already been exonerated. Why can't we just move on?
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: That is very likely that Barr could have done that.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Very likely.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: This is a very esoteric and painful sports reference, but
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: do you remember in the playoffs last year when my
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Philadelphia 76ers were getting their ass kicked by your Boston Celtics?
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And in one of the games, the Sixers hit what
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: they thought was the game-winning three-pointer as the clock was
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: going out. And whoever runs the confetti cannon at Wells
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Fargo Arena fired off the confetti cannon, only to then
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: find out it was a two-point shot and a three-point shot,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: which meant it was a tie, then the Sixers lost
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: in overtime.
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: That is how I feel about the exoneration parties that
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: all of the Trump people had afterwards, which is like
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: there was the hug between Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: There was that nauseating New York Times story that we
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: talked about a few weeks ago about how they had
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: all these parties and celebratory dinner parties. Well, maybe it
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: was a little early for those parties is what I'm saying.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: A lot of confetti on the court right now, Dan.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: A lot of confetti. All right.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about some 2019 elections before we get to
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: the 2020 elections. In a special election on Tuesday, Democrats
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania flipped a state Senate district in suburban Pittsburgh
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump carried by six points in 2016. Pam
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Evino won that seat that opened up when the incumbent
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Republican left to run for Congress last year. Unfortunately, Democrats
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: got much tougher news in Wisconsin, where a conservative state
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court candidate declared victory in a race that could
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: have a significant impact on that state's politics for years.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Brian Hagedorn is a Koch Brothers-backed candidate who's called Planned
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Parenthood a, quote, wicked organization, the NAACP a, quote, disgrace
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: to America, and founded a school that bans gay students
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: and teachers. His liberal opponent, Judge Lisa Neubauer, still hasn't
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: conceded because the race could be within the margin for
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: a recount. But regardless of how things play out, she
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: underperformed significantly in a state that's critical to the party's
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: chances in 2020. Dan, first, before we get to what
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: it means for 2020, what does this mean for Wisconsin
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: now and in the future?
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: It's terrible. This one was a real gut punch on
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: a whole host of levels. And Tuesday night was a
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: little bit of what it's been like to be a
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Democrat in the Trump era, which is really exciting good
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: news followed by some sort of devastating bad news, like
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: right back to back. And I was super excited about
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: the Pennsylvania win. And then I started tracking the Wisconsin
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: race and I saw Neubauer was up and then she wasn't.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: And I was waiting for Broward County to come in.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: And then I realized there was no Broward County. And
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I recognize it's not fully done yet, but prospects don't
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: look great. And it affects the ability of Democrats to
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: take control of this court, which has been, in the
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin Supreme Court, has been a huge problem for progressive policies,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: access to the polls, union organizing, everything that Democrats care about.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: There's been this backstop at the Koch-funded Wisconsin Supreme Court,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and we needed the seat to have a good chance
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: to reverse the balance of that court in 2020, when
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: you would hope and expect that there would be a
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: more Democratic-leaning electorate than there was in the midterms and
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: in the special.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: People know there's a 4-3 conservative majority on the court
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: right now. This will make it 5-2 conservative majority, which
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: means that... So there's another seat open in 2020, and
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: the election is on the day of the Democratic primary
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: in Wisconsin, so you have a better electorate. So what
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Democrats were hoping is win the one on Tuesday... win
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: the one on 2020, and then they have a progressive
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: majority in the Supreme Court. Now we won't have a
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: chance to flip the Supreme Court until 2023. A liberal
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court in Wisconsin, what it could have done is
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: it could have upheld Governor Evers' veto over whatever gerrymandered
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: maps the legislature draws in 2021. So you have a
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: conservative legislature in Wisconsin, and the reason it's conservative is
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: because the state districts are very gerrymandered. And so they
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: would come up with a new map in 2021. Evers
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: would just say, fuck it, I'm going to veto that.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: It would go to the court.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: And if there was a liberal majority, then the liberal
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: majority probably uphold the veto. Now that probably won't happen,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: which means we will have a gerrymandered Wisconsin for quite
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: some time. And that legislature has already tried to take
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: power away from the Democratic governor.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: It is very, very bad. So what happened in this election? Like,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: what do you what do you what?
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Why? People thought that Neubauer was going to win. There
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: wasn't really a lot of polling, but she actually outspent
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: her conservative counterpart. And yet, you know, he still pulled
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: it out.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: It's, I just, everything I was hoping to see that
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: would make me feel better about what happened, of the
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: political environment whereby this happened, make me feel better about
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: that as opposed to 2020... implications were so painful. It
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: was like, first, Koch brothers' funny candidate must have dramatically
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: outspent the Democrats. So I go look that up. The
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: liberal spends $ 2 million more than the conservative in the
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: sense that these are quote-unquote nonpartisan races. Then I was like, oh,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: maybe it was just Democratic turnout. We're not as good
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: in special elections. And Neubauer performed very well relative to
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: previous judicial races. The problem was turnout among the Republicans
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: was through the roof. And there was not a equivalent
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: surge among Democrats like the one we saw in 2018
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: to counteract that. And so it is very worrisome. And
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: it is a reminder that what happens in a midterm
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: is interesting, but not necessarily indicative of what's going to
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: happen in 2020. And we have a lot of work
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: to do if we are going to win Wisconsin in
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: 2020 and all these other States, We have to presume
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: through-the-roof conservative Trump-based turnout. And we're going to have to
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: counteract that with through-the-roof Democratic turnout and winning a good
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: number of independents and up-for-grabs voters.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: I think that's extremely important. I mean, if this was
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: in a situation where you know, Democrats just stayed home
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: and they didn't care about the race. They didn't come out.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: You know, you could say, all right, we just boost
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: our turnout to the levels that, you know, it was
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: in the midterm. And that does not seem to be
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: the case. It seems to be the case that, you know,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Democrats turned out like they did in last April's special election,
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court seat election in Wisconsin. And Republicans just, they
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: came out. The margins, the margins in the suburbs of Milwaukee,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: the Republican margins were huge. And we cannot, we cannot
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: you know, bet on the fact that any Trump voter, uh,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Trump fan is going to stay home in 2020. We
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: have to assume that they're all coming out and we
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: have to get our base to turn out, but getting
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: our base to turn out is absolutely necessary, but it
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: is not sufficient. We have to win over independent voters.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: We have to win over swing voters. We cannot win
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: the election without doing that.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: We cannot.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: And this is the important, this is the important caveat.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: So people don't take this out of context on Twitter
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: is that winning over swing voters is is not a
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: call for more centrist or quote-unquote moderate ideas. That's not
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: actually what we think. I actually think a compelling, progressive,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: populist policy platform and message is the best way to
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: accomplish those two goals. But if we were in a
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: popular election situation, we could win by simply turning out
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: more Democrats because there are more Democrats in the Republic
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: of this country. But unfortunately, and it's really stupid, but
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: we have an electoral college, and therefore in these Midwestern
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: states where the Democratic base is actually shrinking because young
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: people are moving out and the state's population is getting
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: older and whiter. We have to do both. And that's
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: just how it is.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And you're right.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, I believe, too, a populist progressive economic message
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: can win over these independent swing voters. It did win
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: over those voters in 2018 because we made the election
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: about health care. But that is the message those voters
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: have to hear from us. They have to hear about
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: health care. They have to hear about how fucking J.P.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Morgan just got $ 4 billion from Trump's tax cut. Those
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: messages have to come from the mouths of Democratic politicians
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: to the ears of voters. And there's a lot of
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: shit in between that that can screw up the message.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: And they can't hear about Democratic infighting, and they can't
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: hear about people complaining about this and that and all
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: the fucking bullshit that we talk about every day. They
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: have to hear about health care, about the economy, about jobs,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: about tax cuts.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: They have to get that message.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: And as Democrats, we have to do everything we can
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: to make sure that message is directed to those voters
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: and that it actually breaks through the noise.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Very important.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: A lot of people were tweeting about the need for
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: less coverage of 2020 and more coverage of down-ballot races
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: between now and 2020.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that? Sure.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Like, yes, there needs to be much more coverage of
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: down-ballot races. I'm hesitant that the answer is to yell
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: at the press until they cover 2020 less for two reasons.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: One, 2020 is important.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Like who the Democrats pick to run against Trump is really,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: really important. And it should be part of an important conversation.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: But also the answer to a political problem identified by
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Democrats cannot be some sort of change in how the
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: press does their job. We have no control over that.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: So we're going to have to find a way both
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: as Democratic operatives, as people who have a podcast at
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: a progressive media company you guys have. As Democratic voters,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: how can we find ways to drive the conversation around
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: the things we care about and to shine a spotlight
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: on the things that get less attention from the traditional
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: media and funnel the activist energy into both? Winning in 2020,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: picking the right nominee, allowing people to be passionate about
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a Democratic primary candidate they care about, and win in Wisconsin.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: I think we had races like the one we just
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: had in Wisconsin. So we have to spend some time
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: thinking about that, but just like simply Like yelling at
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: the New York Times that they should cover Democratic presidential
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: candidates less is, I think, not the right prescription to
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: what is a very real problem.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, the most important thing is, you know, nominating
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: a Democrat who can beat Trump in 2020. And it's
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: not going to matter much what happens down ballot if
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: we don't get that right. At the same time, it's
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: absolutely correct that if all we do is figure out
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: who to nominate and concentrate on the presidential election... that
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: we won't pay enough attention to the down-ballot races, and
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: then that Democratic president could have a real problem on
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: their hands when they finally get into office and try
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: to pass shit. So both are important, and we have
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: to do both. But I do think the most important
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: thing is whether we're talking about presidential level, whether we're
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: talking about Congress, whether we're talking about the states, talking
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: about the message we want to get through, being positive
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: as possible as opposed to trying to eat each other
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: alive here, is going to be very important to winning
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: in 2020 up and down the ballot. So with that,
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: the big piece of 2020 news you've probably been hearing
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: a lot about lately is the first quarter fundraising totals.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders is leading the field with $ 18. 2 million raised
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: since declaring his candidacy on February 19th, and that came
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: from 525,000 individual donors and without holding any fundraisers. Kamala
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Harris is second. She raised $ 12 million from 138,000 donors
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: in a little more than two months, and about half
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: of her total came from online donations, the rest from
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: holding fundraisers. Beto O'Rourke is in third with $ 9. 4 million
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: raised over 18 days from 218,000 individual contributions. Don't know
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: the number of donors yet, but that's also all from
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: online without holding any fundraisers. Pete Buttigieg is in fourth
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: with $ 7 million raised from 158,000 donors. over a little
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: more than two months. And Elizabeth Warren's campaign said it
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: reached its goal for the quarter, but hasn't yet announced
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: its total. And we have not heard from the other
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: major candidates. Dan, what's your reaction to these numbers? And
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: did anything interesting pop out at you?
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: All very good numbers, right? I think all of them
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: should feel very good about what they did, both in
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: a short period of time, like Beto O'Rourke did, a
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: more constrained period of time, like Bernie did. Kamala Harris's
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: numbers are very good. I think we will have a
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: sense of how good they are when we see everyone
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: else's numbers. And it's probably somewhat telling that no one
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: else has put their numbers.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Out, right?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: If you think your numbers are great, you put them
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: out at a time and they'll get the most coverage.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: And if you think they're not great, you wait till
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: everyone else puts their less ideal numbers out and you
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: try to be stuck in the same story with them.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And so I'm curious as what the difference is between
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Pete Buttigieg's number and you know, a Kirsten Gillibrand or
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: a Cory Booker, because that tells you something, right? And
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: so that's one. Two, I think the thing that sticks
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: out in my mind is Bernie Sanders' cash on hand number,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: which he has $ 28 million cash on hand, which is
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: a mind boggling sum, which means not just that he's
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: raised a bunch of money, but he has been able
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: to spend it efficiently because they've done a bunch of
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: big rallies. They've hired a lot of staff. They've been
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: spending money on digital list building and stuff like that,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: but they've been doing it in a way in which
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: they still have a lot of cash. And the question
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: will be, theoretically and historically, the second quarter numbers are
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: more interesting than the first. Because people get a huge
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: bump on their first day. They have some set of
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: supporters who who can write max-out checks. Kamala Harris raised
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: $ 6 million over $ 12 million offline, if I remember correctly.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: But how much more is her offline base? And can
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: you sustain that level of fundraising success going forward? So
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: that will be interesting. But all of these campaigns in
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Canada should be very pleased with their results. It is
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: notable that Kamala, Bernie, and Beto all have, heading into
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: this race, the largest email list by far. They clearly
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: benefited from that. from being smart enough to develop and
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: nurture very successful fundraising lists heading into a presidential campaign.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: What do you think about, I saw some people talking
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: about this, you know, first quarter of 2007, Hillary Clinton
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: raises $ 26 million. Barack Obama raises $ 25 million. John Edwards
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: raises $ 14 million. Some people are saying, well, these numbers
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: this time around aren't as impressive as those numbers back
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: in 2007. Two reasons I guess they might not be
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: as impressive that don't have to do with, you know,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: dampened enthusiasm or whatever else is, one, there's many more
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: candidates in the field this time sort of splitting up
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: the hall. And two, you know, Obama and Hillary did
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: do a lot of those offline high dollar fundraisers back
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: in 07. And this time around, you know, the emphasis
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: is on online grassroots giving.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I also think, if you remember correctly,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: back in 07, there were a lot of people in
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: the traditional Democratic donor bundler world who would give to
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: both Obama and Clinton. They would max out in primary
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: dollars to both. Now there are so many candidates that
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: it is much– I don't think you have people giving–
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of people giving to multiple candidates. Like big donors.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I'm sure there are small donors who have given– $ 10, $ 20,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: $ 50 to a bunch of different candidates in the sense
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: that you want to support them. Or in the case
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: of Pete Buttigieg, he made a very clever play to
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: get people to give to him to get him into
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: the debate. which he clearly had no trouble getting into
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: because he had $ 7 million. So I think there's less,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: and this is a good thing, I think, where there's
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: less big money going around this time. And you have
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: two of the three candidates who, as far as I
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: understand it, have not held a single traditional fundraiser where
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: you go to some chicken dinner and shake hands with
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: rich people and take photos with rich people. They've done
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: it basically all online or maybe direct mail, but not
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: the sort of in-person fundraising that has been a hallmark
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: of campaigns forever, basically.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: And that's new, right?
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: The fact that you basically have Bernie, Beto, and Elizabeth Warren,
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: even though we don't have her total yet, have not
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: held a single high-dollar fundraiser yet. That doesn't usually happen, right?
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: No, never. It never happened. I don't know what sort
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: of fundraising Bernie did in 2016. I imagine.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe Bernie... I kind of.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Remember there being like a small handful, but I mean,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: I know the overall amount of his money was online.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: The ways in which campaigns are being funded has changed
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: dramatically and for the better, right? I think we talked
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: about this a few weeks ago about Biden, that he
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: has this massive Rolodex of donors and he's very worried
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: about being outraised online by people like Bernie, Beto, and
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Kamala who have larger lists. And I think that's great.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: The democratization of campaign funding is a step in the
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: right direction towards a more equitable, better, cleaner system. I mean,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: obviously we have to get to public financing and something
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: better than what we have, but it is better than
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: relying only on people who can write $ 2, 000 checks to
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: support your campaign.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: So at the risk of lighting our mentions on fire,
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: I have a question. Bernie is leading the pack in fundraising.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: got half a million donors, polling at about 20 to
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: 25% nationally in Iowa and in New Hampshire, while everyone
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: else is in single or low double digits, except for
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden, very big exception, who hasn't yet entered the race.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: As of right now, is Bernie Sanders the front runner?
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: It has to be. Absolutely has to be. And he
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: has a very clear path to through the early states
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: in the sense that he almost won Iowa last time
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: and crushed in New Hampshire. So he's got tremendous strength.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: And you cannot discount the idea that he could win both.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: And when you win the first two, you get a
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: pretty big head of steam to head into the other races.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: He has clearly the money to compete all across the
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: country and a very fired up, engaged donor base. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: I say donor base, not just in terms of People
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: giving him $ 5, but people showing up, engaged supporters showing
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: up at rallies, volunteering, etc. So he would have to be,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: at this current moment, the frontrunner or a frontrunner. How
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: do you think about that? But he has tremendous strength
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: and it should not be discounted by anyone.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he also has very, very high favorability ratings among
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Democratic voters. He's more voters' second choice than any other
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: candidate right now, according to polls. You know, there was
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of talk in 2016 and there are a
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: lot of truth to it that he had problems with
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: black voters. This time around, he's winning about 20 percent
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: of the African-American vote in a far more divided field
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: in 2016. And importantly, it's about the same amount of
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: vote that he's winning overall. So those are all the strengths.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: The counter argument Nate Silver made yesterday, he said Bernie
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: is back down to polling around 20 percent. That's not
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: that strong for someone with 100 percent name recognition. In
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: my opinion, he's one of the four most likely people
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: to win the nomination, but he's certainly not an odds
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: on favorite or really a traditional front runner.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Especially given he trails Biden. What do you think about that?
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: And what are the other obstacles you see to Bernie
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: capturing the nomination?
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, Nate is right and that Bernie has, we believe,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: a very high floor on his support in a low ceiling.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: And I say low ceiling only because he has 100%
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: name ID. So your room for growth is theoretically lesser
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: than someone who has 30% name ID or 60% name
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: ID in the sense that people, if they know you,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: they've theoretically made a decision about you. It's easier to
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: win someone over who doesn't yet know you than to
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: win someone over who knows you and has already decided
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: to support someone else. The counterargument to that counterargument is
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: that in a multi-candidate field, his high floor is more
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: than enough to win. He has two twin challenges, I think,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: one of which every candidate has, which is polls, at
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: least at this point, have indicated that Democrats want someone
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: who can win. And can Bernie make an argument that
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: a 70-something-year-old self-identified Democratic socialist from Vermont is the most
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: electable Democrat? And he has an argument to make. He
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: is making it already on the stump. His team has
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: actually been making it since the 2016 election and the
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: argument that he would have won over a lot of
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: those Obama-Trump voters that left the party in 2016 because
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: of his populist economic argument. And so he's got to
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: win that argument. The second one is the same thing
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: that contributed to his defeat in 2016, which is he
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: is doing well, as you point out, with African-American voters,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: but can he do well enough to not get blown
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: out in the delegate race in a two-person race. And
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: so this is an important thing to understand about how
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: you become the nominee, which is Democratic delegates are allocated
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: proportionally by congressional district. And in most cases, a lot
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: of districts have even number delegates. And so in a
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: 52-48 race or a 53-47 race, you're going to most
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: likely in any individual district, split those delegates 2-2, right?
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: But there are a lot of districts because of gerrymandering,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: population trends, et cetera, that are heavily African-American. And what
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: happened for Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: is Hillary Clinton was winning those African-American districts by 30, 40,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: in some cases, 50 points. So she's taking most of
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: the delegates there. So if Bernie can't do better than
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: he did against one individual Democrat among African-American voters, he's
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: going to run into a wall that will prevent him
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: from getting a delegate lead in a two-person race. Now,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: in a multi-candidate field, that could be very different. But
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: if a Democratic opponent of Bernie Sanders has a similar
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: lead among African-American voters, I don't think Bernie Sanders can win.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: And so that he's going to have to be able
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: to do better. There are indications he can, and they
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: seem to be focused on it, but that still remains
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: the challenge when it comes to the actual work of
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: getting the delegates you need to win the nomination.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think Bernie Sanders also, by the way,
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: has probably the highest unfavorable ratings among Democrats of anyone
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: in the field, even though he's got very good favorable ratings.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: And this is also what comes with having nearly 100%
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: name ID in the field. People have made up their
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: minds about Bernie Sanders.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: And.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: In the general election, when you poll general election voters,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: he's got one of the higher unfavorable ratings as well.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: So he has those challenges. And that is, I think,
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: one reason why you see him. He's basically one of
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: the only Democrats out there right now who's running, who's
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: really focusing on this electability argument, which is interesting from
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: the sort of lefty socialist candidates out there making the
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: electability argument all the time. He's talking about how many
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: of his donors are registered Republicans, how many of his
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: donors are registered independents. He's tweeting out polls of general
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: election matchups against Trump that show him beating Trump by
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: a few points. Like, he's really trying to hammer home
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: this electability message because I think the Sanders people realize that,
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: you know, there is an unfavorable ratings issue both among
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Democrats and among voters in the general electorate. But I
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: also think, by the way, that it's like it has
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: been very underestimated or at least not talked about that
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: much by pundits how so much of this race.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: This primary race, could be dependent on the sheer composition
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: of the number of candidates in the field, right?
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Like, who wins?
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders is hanging on to 20% in a 10-person field.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: He's doing a lot better than Bernie Sanders hanging on
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: to 20% in a 4-person field, right? That's very obvious,
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: but it's interesting that the number of candidates that are
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: actually competitive for this nomination really does matter because if
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: you have Joe Biden jumping in the race and he's
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: sitting there at 25%, around 25%, Bernie's sitting there around 25%.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: And if there was like another candidate who was getting
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: all the rest of the votes, then, you know, both
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: of them might have trouble winning, but instead there's like
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: four candidates, five candidates who are splitting up the rest
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: of the vote. Therefore you could see possibly like Bernie
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: and Biden go in the distance.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: But again, it is very early.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: And sort of two more things about this. One, I
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: understand exactly why Bernie Sanders in his campaign are making
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: the electability argument so aggressively. I do think that electability
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: is something that is better shown, not told, in the
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: sense that you demonstrate electability in the things you do,
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: not by telling everyone you're electable. I think that when
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: your argument becomes electability, then you're not really making a
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: true argument for yourself. It seems almost offensive in my view.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: And then the second thing is, to your point about
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: the size of the field, The reason why– like there's
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: been some comparison to the Trump– to the Republican 2016
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: field in the sense that you had all these candidates.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: They stayed into the end, that allowed Trump to succeed.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: But there is a difference in how Democrats and Republicans
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: allocate delegates and pick their nominees. Republicans do winner take all.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: So Trump benefited from all these other people being in
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: the race, taking 2%, 3% away from a Rubio or
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: a Cruz or whoever else were the Trump alternative candidates.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Democrats is different in the sense that you have to
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: reach a threshold to get delegates in a lot of places.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: And so there could be 18 people in the races,
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: but if only two or three of them are polling
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: at a decent number, then it's really only a three-person
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: race as it becomes delegates. That's important. Obama and Edwards
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: were able to get any real number of delegates out
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: of Iowa. And so you have to, like, the question
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: will be not how many people are in the race,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: but how many people are doing well enough to be
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: in some sort of top tier to actually get delegates
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: and where those delegates come from. Does that make sense?
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get, we're going to spend a lot
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: of time next year being pretty nerdy about delegates, but
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: I sort of front ran that today.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: It's important.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: And look, that's why, you know, some of these campaigns,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: I remember Kamala Harris's campaign touted this, you know, are
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: talking about like even hiring people who know delegate math, right?
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: Like having someone in your campaign who knows the party,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: knows the party rules, knows the delegate math is extraordinarily important,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: even though it sounds like a nerdy math thing as
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: this race goes on, because this becomes a, you know,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: this could become, you know, trench warfare for delegate by
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: delegate in all these states, and it could go on
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: for a long time. And so knowing, like you said, which,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: which congressional districts you can sort of score the extra
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: couple delegates out of becomes of the utmost important as
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: this race continues.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I loved the, as a small side here, I loved
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: that staff release from Kamala's staff. It's like, here's our
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: campaign manager. Here's our communications director. Here's some guy. It
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: was like Robert quote unquote delegate, Bob Smith, just in
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: case there was any question of who he was, his
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: nickname included the word delegate. So we should hire him.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure he's great, but it, It's a sense
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: of savviness, both that they hired that person and that
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: they thought to make sure we knew that they hired
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: that person.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: Last question in terms of what we were just saying,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: that showing electability might be better than talking about it.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: Fox News announced this week it will host a town
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: hall featuring Bernie Sanders on April 15th in Pennsylvania. The
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: event's going to be moderated by Brett Baer and Martha McCallum,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: and its focus will be about the economy and jobs.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Why would Bernie do this, and is it a good idea?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: I presume the answer is electability, that he can show
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: he can go anywhere to make his argument and that
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: his argument can be persuasive to Fox viewers, which is
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: a proxy for rural white people who supported Trump. I
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: assume that's the reason. I mean, my personal view is
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: it is a huge strategic error for Democrats to grant
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: an imprimatur of legitimacy on a Trump propaganda network that
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: fuels political division and white nationalism in this country. I
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: am 100% against doing that. I think it was right
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: for Democrats not to do a debate there. I frankly
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: don't think Democrats should waste their time on it. A
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: lot of people in the party disagree with me on this,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren included, who has done some stuff on Fox.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: Clearly Bernie does. So there is a debate on this.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: There is another side to it who thinks it's the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: right thing to do to go into the lion's den
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: and try to reach these Fox News viewers through Fox.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: I personally think those people are wrong, but, you know,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: let the world decide.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with you.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: I do think there's a slight difference between, you know,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: granting Fox News a Democratic debate, which, as we all know,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I think is a fucking terrible idea, going on a
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: typical Fox show, signing up as a contributor for Fox News.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: I think all of that is garbage.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: I think there's a difference between spending a couple minutes
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: with Tucker Carlson, if you're a Democratic candidate, or fucking
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: Sean Hannity or any of those losers, and having a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: town hall where Brett Baier, who's still pretty conservative, asks
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: you some questions.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: He's a six on the Trump loyalty scale, if I
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: remember correctly.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: That's right. He's a six. Yeah, he's not quite a
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: 10 yet. He's a six.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: But having Brett Baier ask you some questions, but then
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: getting to... getting to answer questions from a town hall,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: even if the town hall is filled with a lot
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: of Republicans and being able to get your message out to,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: you know, a bunch of viewers, most of whom are
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: Trump fans that are never going to vote for you.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: But yeah, there may be a few people who voted
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: for Trump and are like, eh, not so much about
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: him in 2020. Maybe you can reach a few people.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: I still think generally I would, you know, like as
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: you've said, the most precious resource on a campaign is time.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: I might use my time in other ways if I
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: was on a campaign, but I see less harm in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: holding a Fox news town hall than doing the typical
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Fox news circuit.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think like Pete Buttigieg went on Fox
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: news Sunday, did an interview with Chris Wallace, you know,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: maybe that did him some good too.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: It's, it's, I don't know if I would send my
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: candidate on that, but I don't think it's quite the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: same as, um, hosting a fucking democratic debate on that network.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. I don't like that. Those are, uh,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: two of those are great, huge gradations of difference. Um,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: If I were to make the strategic argument for Bernie,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: why he would, why you would do this is every
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: candidate is doing a CNN town hall and MSNBC town
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: hall with Chris Hayes, which are getting good attention. I
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: think they're great things that both those networks are doing
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: to expose Democrats to their candidates, to give them a
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: chance to have a longer discussion about the issues. It's like,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: obviously serve some candidates very well. Kamala Harris's was the
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: most watched of all of them. Pete Buttigieg, obviously, uh,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: got a chance to extend his pot safe America bump
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: by doing said town hall. But by Bernie doing Fox,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: he's going to get more attention from it. It's going
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: to get more coverage. I'm sure it's going to get
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of eyeballs just because there's a spectacle of
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: a Democrat on Fox. In the early years of Obama,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: this is a trick we used to use. I was
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: a huge advocate of it. I talk about this a
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: lot in my book, but I came to realize it
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: was a terrible mistake. But there is an argument, which
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: is You're not doing this just for the Fox viewers.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: You're doing this for an event that will be covered
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: by lots of press. And lots of press will cover
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: this because it has that lion's den atmosphere to it.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: And so that is why you, as a campaign, you
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: may decide to allocate those valuable resources to this.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: Right. Okay.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: When we come back, we will have my interview with
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: Valerie Jarrett, author of the brand new book, Finding My Voice.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: On the pod today, former senior advisor to Barack Obama
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: and the author of the new book, Finding My Voice,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: My Journey to the West Wing and the.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Path Forward, Valerie Jarrett.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: Well, hello there.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: It's so nice to have you here.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: I can't believe you're here and all this. I know.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: Anyone who hasn't seen this studio, you've got to really
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: take a peek.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: It's like a real thing.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: It's like you guys are all grown up.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: We are all grown up.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: I feel like I've known you since you were young once.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: Sort of. Sort of all grown up.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: You've even got like a touch of gray hair there.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: There's too much gray. It's really getting there now.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: That's okay.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: So you've written this wonderful book. The book actually starts in,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: you talk about your childhood in Iran, where you were
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: born and spent time as a kid. How did your
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: childhood there shape your views of what it means to
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: be an American and also of that country?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: Profoundly. And I lived there until I was five, but
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: then we went back pretty frequently until I graduated from
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: high school. And when we were there, it was in
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: the mid-50s, and we lived on a hospital compound with physicians,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: families from around the world. And it was a time
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: when obviously the United States had far better relationships with
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: Iran than they do today. And their health department was
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: trying to recruit physicians to help share best practices. Back
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: and forth, not a one-way street, but both ways. And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: my dad really couldn't find a job in the medical
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: field at a teaching institution in the United States where
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: he was making what his white counterparts were making. And
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: he and my mom were both a little crazy, I think.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: And so they take off for this other part of
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: the world. But what I learned there, Favs, is this.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: Number one, that I could walk into a room and
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: find something in common with anyone in the room. I
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: played with children where we didn't share a language. We
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: weren't from the same country. We worked it out. Play
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: is play with kids. And so I have that expectation.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: So that's one thing. The other thing I learned that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: people who haven't lived out of the United States don't
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: fully appreciate is how much we have going for us
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: here in America. My mom had to boil everything I drank.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: She had to peel everything I ate. I mean, the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: diseases that you could get there were deadly compared to
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: what we have here. The poverty was such that we've
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: never seen here in America. And so I think that
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: it gives you a better appreciation for what we have,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: not to mention the civil liberties that we have here.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: And then the final thing I would say is I
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: believe the United States is already the greatest country on earth.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: It's not the only country on earth. And we can
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: actually learn a great deal outside of our shores. And
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: I think that perspective on the world I gained at
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: a very early age, and it's actually the first conversation
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: I had with Barack Obama in 1991. He talked about Indonesia.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: And we had very similar experiences, and I think it
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: shaped our outlook of both domestic policy and foreign policy.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: So you say that you had not really considered a
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: career in government or politics.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: No. um when did that change and why did it
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: change well.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: It changed because i was miserable uh-huh nothing like a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: little good misery to get you motivated to think about
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: what am i going to do next so and what
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: were you doing at the time i was practicing law
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: at a big law firm okay I went from one
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: big law firm to another in Chicago. I was on
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: the 79th floor of what was then the Sears Tower.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: Magnificent view of Lake Michigan. Sailboats, the whole nine yards.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: And I would turn my back to the door and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: I would cry. And I would say, what in the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: world am I doing here? And at the same time,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: I was in the middle of a dreadful marriage. I
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: had had my daughter, best thing I ever did. And
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: I would stare at her.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: She's breaking news all the time. Every time I turn
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: on CNN.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: She is breaking news on CNN. I'm so proud of her.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: And she also did a swirl in her career away
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: from the private law firm. And I just would think, well,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: am I actually doing something in the course of the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: day that's going to make Laura proud of me? And
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: the answer was a resounding no. I wasn't really good
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: at my job. I hated those timesheets. I hated everything
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: about it. And Harold Washington had just been reelected mayor
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: of Chicago to a second term. And with that, he
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: also now had control of the city council. And I
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: had a really good friend who'd left his law firm,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: gone to work for the city. And he said to
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: me what I'll never forget. He said, You'll feel a
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: part of something bigger and much more important than yourself.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: And you love Chicago, so why don't you want to
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: do something to give back to Chicago? And it resonated
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: with me. And so I take this big leap of faith.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: I leave behind the big paycheck and the fancy office.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: I walk into City Hall. My boss takes me to
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: my office, which is really a cubicle with a window
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: facing the alley. And I thought, you know, this is
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: where I belong.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I felt like it was the right place to be.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Now, you first met. Michelle Obama, then Michelle Robinson, when
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: you interviewed her for a job in Mayor Daley's office, right?
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: What were your first impressions of Michelle and her husband?
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: So my first impression of her when she walked in
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: is she's obviously quite striking. She had on all black,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: her hair pulled back, barely any makeup, looks me right
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: in the eye, shakes my hand, and sits down, and
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: she saw my resume on her desk, and she never
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: mentioned a thing that was in it. And she told
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: me her story about growing up on the south side
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: of Chicago, her father, working class family, his disability, being
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: a precinct captain, how that kind of piqued her interest
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: in public service, and that she faced the same thing.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: She was bored to tears at her law firm, and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: she thought there must be something more for me in
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: life than this. So I gave her a job on
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: the spot. I was so blown over. I didn't have
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: any authority to give her a job, but I just said, you,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: we have to hire you.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: What was the job for her?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: To be an assistant in the mayor's office. I was
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: deputy chief of staff. And so we were staffing up
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: the mayor's chief of staff's office. And so a few
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: days later, I was talking to her and I said, well,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: now that I have got permission to actually give you
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: the job offer, what do you think? And she said, well,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: my fiance doesn't think it's such a hot idea. So
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: I said, well, who the hell is your fiance and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: why do we care what he thinks? And she said, well,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: his name is Barack Obama and he started his career
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: and And he's concerned, like, here I am going straight
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: from a fancy law firm into the fire, no stop
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: in the frying pan the way I had, because I'd
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: practiced law for the city for four years before going
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: to the mayor's office. And she said, he wants to
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: know who's going to be looking out for me. So
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: would you have dinner with the two of us? And
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: I wisely said yes. And that was a really important dinner.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: And she did eventually come and work with me.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: And you and Barack Obama became fast friends from that
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: first dinner?
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: The three of us became friends.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: And- had different things in common. Michelle's parents were very
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: much like mine, deeply in love, very supportive of their children,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: happily married. And what Barack and I shared was really
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: this kind of unusual childhood that had taken us around
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: the world and back, but led all three of us
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: to the south side of Chicago.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: So fast forward to the 2008 campaign.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: Where I met you.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's where we met.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: What was the most difficult part of that campaign for you?
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: And do you remember.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: The moment when you thought, I think we could really
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: win this. Like, I think he could really pull this out.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: I remember exactly that moment. So I think the, I'll
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: do the most difficult part first, get that out of
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: the way. So the most difficult part for me, I
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: think was Reverend Wright. Yeah. Because I considered it an
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: existential threat to the campaign. It was so inconsistent with
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: his persona and what I think had been so unifying
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: beginning when he gave that speech at the convention back
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: in 2004. And I knew he had to explain it,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: and explain it in a way where people could understand
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: and appreciate and hopefully learn a little bit in the process.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: But it was painful, and we fretted about it, as
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: you will remember, a great deal.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder how it was from your side of things,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: because from my side of things, it was, I remember
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: seeing everything break on Friday. I remember where I was,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: I remember every second of that. And then I remember
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: him doing all those cable appearances that Friday night, and
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: it was also when he was, it was like the
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: same day he was meeting With the editorial.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Board on Resco.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: It was the same exact time.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: It was a bad couple days.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: And then I remember just waking up Saturday and getting
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: on the senior staff call and Axe saying, oh, he
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: wants to do this speech on race and he wants
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: to do it by Tuesday.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: Did your life flash before your very eyes?
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I was yelling at everyone.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: And then I remember, you know, Axe was like, well,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: let's try to work on it ourselves and we'll go
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: to the office. And the two of us sat there
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: and I was like, we can't do this.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: He's got to do it.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: And then I remember talking to Obama that Saturday night
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: for like an hour. And he sort of, you know,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: he's like, oh, I have stream of consciousness thoughts about
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: what the speech should say. And then he had like one,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: one A, two, two B. But then I remember he said,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: you know, I have a great story I'm thinking about
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: ending it with that Valerie.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That Valerie told me. So how was that from
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: your end?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: Well, it was the perfect fit. And he had used
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: that story once before, as you'll remember, when he spoke
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: Martin Luther King's birthday. And it was a story of
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: one of his campaign workers from South Carolina who'd grown
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: up in Florida, a young white woman who told a
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: story about her mother having cancer and ending up in
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: bankruptcy because she couldn't pay her bills and didn't have
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: adequate insurance. And how she'd hoped that Barack Obama, whose
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: mother had a similar illness, would really fight for people
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: like her mom and his mom. And so she tells
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: this story in this room and we're going around the
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: room and everybody was supposed to tell their story. So
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: I would address my comments to meet their interests. And
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: we get about two thirds of the way around. And
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: this older black guy said, I don't need to hear
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: from you. I'm here because of Ashley. And it was
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: such the perfect symbolism of what the campaign was all about.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: People who would never ordinarily meet coming together and developing
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: these bonds of trust, which is why I think our
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: field organizer effort was so important because it Those people
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: in the room knew Ashley. I was a stranger. I
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: may have been a senior advisor to the campaign, but
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: they were going with someone they trusted. And so the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: symbolism of that, I think, was really important.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: And so then when did you think, okay, we might
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: win this?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: Oh, so I thought we would win it. And I
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: actually never looked back other than that deep gulp in
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: New Hampshire when he won Iowa because I thought Iowa
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: was a stretch. And if Iowa, a state that's like
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: 90 plus percent white, would go for this African-American named
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: Barack Hussein Obama in the midst of really the Hillary
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: Clinton phenomenon.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: I thought that's pretty darn good. Right. And so I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: figured if he could do that. that it would really
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: signal to the rest of the country that he was
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: credible and electable. And I will say I was stunned,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: as I know we're here with New Hampshire. We were
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: all in that hotel together going, what the heck's going
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: on here? But I remember, and I think you were there.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: We got in the elevator and Michelle Obama was very unhappy.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: And he looked at her and he said, you know,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: it can't be too easy.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: It can't be too easy. And I thought, yeah, good luck, buddy.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: And it was not.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: And it was not, but.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: And then seven months of primary later.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but out of that came, yes, we can. And
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: the enthusiasm later that night when he spoke to our
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: volunteers and then the next day in Boston, it actually
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: was a shot in the arm and it was a
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: kick in the pants, which I think we needed.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: So we get to the White House. We're in the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: middle of two wars, potentially a second Great Depression, crises
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: every day.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you felt this, but suddenly, you know,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: we're in these rooms with all of these very experienced experts, right,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: who've been dealing with this stuff for a while. Were
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: you ever reluctant to speak up and make your voice heard?
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: And how did you find the confidence to basically say,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I deserve to be here and my opinion deserves.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: To be heard?
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: Well, you're right.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: We had the smartest people he could find. And I
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: think he'd be the first to say going into that crisis,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: he knew he needed to surround himself by the best
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: and the brightest, but I also knew that he was
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: interested in hearing from a variety of different perspectives. So
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not an economist. I have run a business, though,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: and I know how important certainty is to the business community.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: And I know how important it was that if we
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: thought that the economic crisis was going to have a
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: bad impact on business, that people who have always been
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: suffering and vested in were going to suffer even more so.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: And so thinking of them and keeping them top and center,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: I knew was important to him. And so I think
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: tone starts at the top. And I think he set
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: the kind of tone where all voices are important. And
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 4: I think also, obviously, having a pre-existing relationship with him
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: gave me a comfort level. But as you'll remember, there
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: was a time when the women were shying back. And
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: I think, look, as you said, two wars, economic crisis,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: a lot going on. And then there was a lot
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: of testosterone flowing. And I often wonder whether the guys
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: were feeling slightly intimidated by it as it as well,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: but it did have more of an impact on the women.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: And he seized on that. And what he said to them,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: I think, is an important message, which is, if you're
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: not speaking up, then it's not about you. It's about
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: your ideas and what your ideas add to the equation.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: And even if I don't agree with you, you're going
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: to make me think about it from a perspective I
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: didn't have before. Yeah. And so him reinforcing that for,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: I think, all of us was helpful. And I never
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: tried to profess to be, you know, an expert in
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: a field that I'm not an expert in. But I
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: also know that it's not all about, you know, research
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: and evidence. And some of it's about how you feel.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I remember he was great at going around
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: the room and making sure that every single person in
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: the room, he'd say, what do you think?
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: And he would go to someone in the back. What
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: do you think?
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: I think that's that law professor in him.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: And he could also read the room. So I can
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: remember so many times you'd see a young person and
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: they were like, they'd be on the other seat and
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: they wanted to say something, but they didn't feel it.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: And he would just lean in. Yeah. And then he
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: would give them positive reinforcement. And it sent a message
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: to everybody. This is a safe place. And I will, I,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: he being the president, will make better decisions if they
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: are informed by a whole variety of views. Yeah. And
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: I think that also added to the integrity of the
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: decision-making process. So even if we didn't start out agreeing
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: with where he ended up, you felt good about the process.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: You felt like your voice was heard.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: What do you say to people who argue, you know,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: President Obama didn't do enough, right? Like we didn't get
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: the public option or no one went to jail for
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: the banking crisis or we didn't do enough on housing,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: knowing that when we were there, We were trying our hardest.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: But how do you talk to people about that?
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 5: You know what?
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 4: Look, first of all, he did not let perfect be
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: the enemy of the good. Seven presidents before him had
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: tried to get health care passed and failed. And we
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: simply didn't have the votes for the public option. And
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: he's a pragmatist. And so his view is, all right, yeah, sure,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: we might want that. But if we can't get it done,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: do we do nothing and just kind of hold our
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: breath to get what we want and let 20 million
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: people go without health care and people not be covered
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: for preexisting conditions and all the other benefits? Or do
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: we say... Let's make progress where we can and come
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: back and fight another day. And I think he was
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: very good at seeing the art of the possible, pushing
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: the envelope, because there were people who said, forget about
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: it altogether, if you'll remember, right?
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when Scott Brown won that seat.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: We're like, oh, well, it's all over. And there were
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: people who said, just do children. And he was determined
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: to try to push for as much as he could
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: possibly get. And I think that's important now. For people
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: who say, and I get, yeah, nobody went to prison.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: Why didn't you get immigration reform done? Why didn't you
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: get criminal justice reform done? Why couldn't you keep guns
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: out of the wrong hands? And what I say is, look,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: we had eight years and we ran full speed ahead.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: And I think never lost sight of why we were there.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 4: He never put his short-term political interests ahead of what
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 4: he thought was good for our country, which is why
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: he was willing to use political capital to get the
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: health care bill passed. And so you just say, look,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: When you're in those jobs, you know that people are
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: going to always wish you could have done more. We
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: wish we could have done more, but I feel very
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: confident that we did the best we could. It was
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: a tough deck.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: It was a very tough deck.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: So I had Cory Booker on the other day, and
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: we were debating whether to get rid of the filibuster
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: because he had previously said that he thought it was
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: important and we should keep it. And my view is
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: I came into that White House believing– you know, Barack
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: Obama's message that we could work together, we could work
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: with the other side. And then eight years of watching.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: The- The fever never broke.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: The fever never broke. I know.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: And I wonder how you think about that now and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: what you think, like, does the next president have the
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: ability to work with the Republican Party? Or how do
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: you deal with this Republican Party going forward?
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: Well, this Republican Party is like nothing I've ever seen before.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: I know Republicans who don't recognize their own party. It's
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: been hijacked in a sense. I think the only way
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: we deal with the current situation is by everybody realizing
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: their responsibility to engage and vote. And not just vote,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: but be informed with your vote. Hold people accountable. Don't
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: just fall in love with a candidate, but really find
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: out what's their metal? What are they made of? Will
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: they blink? Will they waver? Will they forget why they're there?
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: And I think it was important that we got caught trying.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: Because Barack Obama did come in and say, I am
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: going to reach across the aisle and I'm going to try.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: And look at all the amendments we made to the
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: Affordable Care Act trying to get one Republican to vote
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: for it. And they wouldn't. But I think it was
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: important for his inclusive vision of America to show that
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: he wasn't just the president of the people who elected him.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: He was the president of the entire country. And I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: think that still resonates with people. The majority of the people.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: The problem is so many of them who feel that
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: way don't vote. And so a big part of what
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: I want to do over the next well, several years,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: not just the presidential election, is to help people understand
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: why they have to engage. Our democracy is only going
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: to be as good as we demand that it be,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: and that if we don't, then the special interests will
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: come out. The only reason why we haven't done anything
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: to have universal background checks passed through Congress is because
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: the NRA put so much money on the table. And
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: unless members of Congress feel as much heat from their
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: constituents as they feel benefit coming from special interest groups
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 4: like the NRA, then they're going to sit on their hands.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: And in states where people have galvanized and organized, you've
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: seen change. And we need to bring that change to Washington.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: What specific qualities and character traits are you looking for
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: in the next president?
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I believe, still believe, that we need a president
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: that governs for all of America, that has a message
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: that's an inclusive message, where We appreciate the richness of
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 4: our diversity, and we don't try to focus on our differences,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 4: but focus on what we have in common, and that
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: we're looking to have a better understanding of each other.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: The way our country has always improved, as that arc
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: of the moral universe has moved, is when we've understood
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: each other better. If you look what happened around rights
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: for the LGBTQ community, something I'm very proud of on
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: his watch, and I remember the day that marriage equality
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 4: was announced by the Supreme Court, and he gave a speech,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: and he said, you know, Moments like this feel like
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: a thunderbolt, but we have to remember the decades of
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: hard work that went into it. And so I'm looking
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: for a candidate who appreciates the fact that it is
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: hard work. It's not a popularity contest. You do need
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: to win. But after you win, you have to do
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: what you think is right. And it is hard to
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: do what is unpopular once you're president. And it is
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: tempting to just play to your base because you get
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: the positive reinforcement from your base. But that's not the job.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm looking for somebody who, yes, can inspire and
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: motivate people to want to participate in their democracy, but
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: who is also prepared to make some very tough calls.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: And as you know, President Obama used to always joke, like,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 4: how come I don't get the easy decisions coming across
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: my desk? And we're like, oh, no, we took care
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: of those. We just bring you the stuff.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: We're like, whoa, that's terrible. Hard things are hard.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: As Zach said, hard things are really hard. And it
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: takes a certain internal constitution to deal with that in
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: a way– where your temperament is steady. And it's a
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: lot harder to not react in anger than it is
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: to pop off. And I'm looking for somebody who has
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: some self-control and a temperament and an inclusive nature and
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: who's going to really try to make sure that our
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: country is a land of opportunity for all Americans. And
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: I don't see that happening right now.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: Obviously, you write in the book about finding your own voice.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: What advice would you give to candidates running about finding
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: their own voice.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: You know what? Be authentic. Don't worry about looking at
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 4: every single thing and how it protests before you. Leadership
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 4: is about moving people, not just mirroring back what you're hearing,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: particularly not mirroring back what you're hearing, which is not aspirational.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's kind of easy to meet people where
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 4: they are if they're in the doldrums. Your goal should
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: be to lift them up and inspire them to move
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: our country And so my advice, and I met with
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: several of the folks who were running, and I've said
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: two things to them. Number one, be authentic to yourself
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 4: and be prepared for people to criticize some of what
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: they learn about you. But even those who are critical,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 4: and certainly Barack Obama got this. There were a lot
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 4: of people who said, I might disagree with you, but
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 4: I like you. I feel like I know you. I
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: respect you. You are authentic, so you've got to be that.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: And then the other thing I'd say is, I have
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: said is, keep your eye on the prize. Do not
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: beat each other up so much in the primary that
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: we go into the general election bloodied. And one of
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: the advantages of so many of them being cohorts in
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: the Senate is that they're actually friends. And I think
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: that that has a natural, creates a barrier to trying
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: to beat each other up. But I think we have
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 4: to really keep our eye on the prize. And that's
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: the general election.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: You think you'd ever run for office?
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 4: I don't think so. No? No, I've been tempted in
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: the past.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: I haven't said very often, but when Mayor Daley was
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 4: trying to decide whether to run for a third term,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 4: if he hadn't run, I'm pretty sure I would have.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to run against him. I love him.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: He was my boss and I couldn't beat him.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 4: But I might have run for mayor there. And when
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: I first met Barack Obama, people often say, like, what
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 4: was your impression of him 28 years ago? And I thought, my,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 4: he's so talented. Maybe just maybe one day he'll be.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 7: Mayor of Chicago.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: That was like the ceiling I could ever have imagined
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: for him. So that was a goal. And then I
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: toyed ever so briefly with throwing my name in the
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: hat to take his place when he left the Senate.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: But at this stage of my life, really what I
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: enjoy is helping the next generation. And I've had a
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: lot of experience, both at the state, local and federal level,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: both in politics and more importantly in public service. And
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: so if I can help people who are thinking of
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: running for office get inspired to do so and help
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: them with the benefit of these years of experience, I
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 4: find that really exciting. And it doesn't have to just
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: be The youngest of the people. I mean, I was
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: very active in Stacey Abrams' campaign and also Andrew Gillum.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: I think they're just superstars. Lauren Underwood from my hometown of, well,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: the Chicago area.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just had her here last week. She was here.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: Naperville.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: Isn't she a rock star? Oh, I'm so proud she
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: was in our administration as well. And HHS.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: Ronnie Cho was running her campaign.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 5: The whole crew.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: The whole thing.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 4: Just made perfectly good sense. And so that just makes
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: me really happy. Running for office, I don't think, is
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: in my cards. But I learned never say never because
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: I also said I would never, ever, under any circumstances,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: work for the federal government.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: And then here we are.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 4: And there we are.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: The book is Finding My Voice, My Journey to the
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: West Wing and the Path Forward.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: Please go buy it. It's a fantastic read. Valerie, thanks
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: for coming by.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: Thanks a lot. And congratulations to everybody around the studio.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: You rock.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, as promised, an excerpt of our weekly live Q
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: & A.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: This week it was Tommy and me.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: And as always, the questions were asked by Priyanka Arabindi
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: of What A Day fame. And you can check out
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: our live stream Q & A every Wednesday at 1 p.m.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: Pacific.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: You can go to YouTube.com slash Crooked Media and check
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: it out.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: Smash that subscribe button. Ask us some questions. We'll give
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: you some answers.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 7: Our first question here is about debates ongoing between Democrats
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 7: over policy implementations. There's health care, environmental policy, etc. How
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 7: do we as voters and non-experts evaluate who has or
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 7: what is the best plan for going forward?
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: It's a great question.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 5: Vox.com.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: But, you know, honestly.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: Read stories at places like Vox and, you know, the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: New York Times will do stuff, Washington Post, BuzzFeed, all
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: kinds of places will have good deep dives into what
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of these policies mean. I would say as
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 3: a voter, you sort of evaluate two different things. One is,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: do I like this policy? Do I feel like this
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 3: is a good idea? Like after, you know, figuring out
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: what it is and understanding it. And then I think
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: the second big thing is, what is the likelihood that
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: this can be achieved? And has this candidate offered a
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: path to achieve this policy and to pass this policy, right?
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, there's different ways of doing that.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: Some of these candidates will say, I can achieve this
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: policy goal through an executive order, so I won't even
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: need Congress.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that's great.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: That'll happen pretty fast as soon as that person gets
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: elected president. Others will, you know, most of the policies
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: they'll put forward have to be passed through Congress. And
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: then you have to ask yourself, how is this policy
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: going to be passed through Congress? If Democrats control it, like,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: We'll be able to get Republican votes. If not, will
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: we be able to do enough?
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 5: John, do you think the filibuster could be an issue?
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: And so where this is leading me... No, it's like
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: if you're out there saying, I'm going to pass Medicare
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: for all, but you also are not willing to eliminate
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: the filibuster, for example, that's Bernie Sanders' position, you're not
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 3: really going to pass Medicare for all.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 5: You know, and also.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 6: Cory Booker in his conversation with you seemed to suggest
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 6: he would get rid of the filibuster.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 5: But then I feel like he might have kind of
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 5: backtracked later.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: He's going back and forth. He's a little worried about it.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: In fairness to these candidates, because I've been tough on
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: all of them on the filibuster thing, a lot of
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: this is up to the Senate Democrats, right? The president
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: can't order the Senate to get rid of the filibuster.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: So talk to Chuck Schumer. Talk to the rest of
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: the Senate Democrats. Because, you know, if they don't get
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: rid of it, then... then nothing's happening.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 6: But Mitch McConnell, I think, is on the floor today
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 6: shrinking the amount of time that you're asked to deliberate
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 6: a judge from 30 hours to two so that he
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 6: can just ram as many conservative judges through the Senate
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 6: as possible, right?
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: Yep, that's correct.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 5: So they seem to be cool with making some of
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 5: these changes.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, and then the other thing that you should use
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: to evaluate these policies is does the candidate have a
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: plan to finance these policies, to pay for them? Because
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: I think we would all agree that Democrats have probably
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: cared too much about deficits over the last several decades.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: And so we shouldn't worry about, you know, if we
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: are investing in an important policy, whether it's teacher pay,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: whether it's health care, and we think we're going to
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: get a good return on that investment, it's fine for
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: the deficit to go up a little bit. But there's
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: a point where you actually have to finance something. You
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: have to pay for it. You can't just increase the
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: deficit forever. We could be in some trouble there. So
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: figure out how they're going to pay for it. Some
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: of them are going to pay for it with raising
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: taxes on the wealthy. Some of them aren't going to
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: tell you how they're going to pay for it. But
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: I think that's another way to evaluate these policies.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 7: This next question is from Nathan. He wants to know
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 7: what changes you would make to the format of primary debates.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 7: His idea is to get rid of the audience so
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 7: candidates don't have to play for applause or pull questions
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 7: directly from campaigns, publish platforms rather than horse race. What
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 7: do you guys think would make primary debates more effective,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 7: especially looking at ours where it's like the first one
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 7: I think is billed to 20 candidates. It's like kind
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 7: of going to be crazy.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I'd say Nathan's idea about getting rid of the audience
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: is a great one. I love that. I love that idea, Nathan.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: Playing to the applause is just.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 5: Nathan for DNC chair.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: See, because it's not just that the candidates play to
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: the audience, but then if you're watching, just naturally, if
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: you see a lot of applause for one candidate and
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: another one doesn't get as much applause, then you think, oh,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 3: the other candidate did better, but all they might have.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: Done is just like.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 5: They packed the fucking thing.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or they might have delivered a dumb zinger about
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and that doesn't fucking matter, you know?
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: I think... Having the.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: Moderators be policy experts, activists even, could improve upon some
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: of these debates because sometimes... Some journalists do a fantastic
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 3: job at these debates, I should say. But sometimes the
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: questions tend toward, what are you going to do now
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 3: that you only raised $ 2 million in Q1?
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: And they're more horse-racy questions.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 5: Ask questions. It's good when moderators encourage.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 6: debate among the candidates but it would be great if
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 6: they tried to do that on policy to the greatest
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 6: extent possible and not like I don't know horse race
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 6: personality personal attacks or yeah whatever watch the latter stage
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 6: Hillary Clinton Obama debates to see what not to do
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 6: and then we'll just reverse.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: It just the debate in South Carolina between Barack Obama
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: and Hillary Clinton and John Edwards was so nasty and
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: none of us and I'm sure our friends in the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: Clinton campaign would have said the same thing left that
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: debate feeling good about what happened.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 5: What was the one that spawned the YouTube sensation?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: Gibson.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 5: Oh, that was Charlie Gibson.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: That was Charlie Gibson and Stephanopoulos and Clinton.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 5: I'm going to put that in the stream.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: That was also a nasty one. Nasty debates in 2008.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 7: This is in the fun section, but it's a little,
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 7: it's like also kind of serious.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: Where do you guys go to get your news?
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 7: How do you stay informed?
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: Twitter.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: That's why I'm on as much as I hate Twitter.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: I'm addicted to it because it is the best... I
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: think it's the best way to get news up to
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: the minute every single second.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: There's that.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: There's Nuzzle, which is actually a better way of still
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: using Twitter. Nuzzle, I've talked about this before, gives you
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: the top news stories that are being shared by most
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: of your followers. But you don't have to have the
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: scrolling anger of Twitter. You can just see the stories
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: listed out.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: I like that for what a day. And then, of course,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: our Slack channel about news.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 5: 24 hours a.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: Day, everyone's just putting in news stories on our Slack channel.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 7: Sorry, can't join that Slack channel.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we can't let you join it.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 6: I personally or Crooked Media pays for the New York Times,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 6: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. I think we pay for
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 6: the New Yorker. We pay for Boston Globe online. Because
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 6: we're assholes. So yeah, I mean, we try to scan
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 6: the best articles on a weekly basis.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 6: I don't long for the days of newspapers because I
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 6: never was a real newspaper reader. But it was helpful
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 6: sometimes to get a sense of proportion When you would
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 6: like have the New York Times, you see what's on
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 6: the front page and you flip open and that's the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 6: international section first. There's a bunch of shit you wouldn't
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 6: necessarily have read and then you get to politics and
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 6: you get to domestic and then opinion. I think that's
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 6: a good way to do it.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 3: And the place where I don't get my news anymore
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: since I've moved to Los Angeles is television.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 5: No, I never watch TV.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: We have televisions in the office. We, Unless there's a
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: big event, we rarely have them on.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 7: Unless there's someone funny who's going to show up on
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 7: TV and do an interview.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we watch the CNN town halls.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we do that.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 7: I was thinking Omarosa.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: That was a while ago.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: Omarosa.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 5: We airplay various PowerPoints.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: That's what we use the TV screens for.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 7: And the Ariana Grande music video.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: Remember that?
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 5: Ariana Grande, yeah, we did.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: That was a big event in our office.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 6: A brief aside for all the people out there. The
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 6: showrunner for Veep, tweeted about how in the first episode
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 6: they accidentally land in the wrong city. And he said,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 6: does this story sound familiar? Barack Obama, we barred a few.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 5: Yes, that happened. Remember that event? Were you there for that?
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 7: Someone just asked on Twitter.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: I was on the plane.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: I heard about it because I was in Chicago. But
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 3: as soon as I saw Veep on Sunday, I thought
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: that that was based on us.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 5: I was sitting in Cedar Rapids in the middle of
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 5: a fucking snowstorm. And you're like, oh, he's wheels down.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 6: And then Marvin and Reggie get off the plane with
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 6: Obama and they look around and they're like, where is everybody?
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 5: And they landed in Des Moines. How the hell does
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 5: that happen?
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that happens. That would be a...
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: That happened today. Twitter. Big gaffe. The person wouldn't recover.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: Be the end of the campaign.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you to Valerie Jarrett for joining us today, and
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: we will see you next week.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 3: Thank you.