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“Fire sale on Cuomo books.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden gets closer to passing the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: most progressive economic agenda in modern history. Former Obama economic
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: advisor Austin Goolsbee helps idiots like us understand the debate
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: over inflation. And we say good riddance to New York
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Governor Andrew Cuomo. But first, check out Hysteria, where Aaron
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco have been killing it with interviews lately.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: They've talked to Amanda Knox. Yes, that Amanda Knox. Senator
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Tammy Baldwin and Akilah Green of Black Lady Sketch Show.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: New episodes of Hysteria drop every Thursday. And don't miss
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: America Dissected this week where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed talks all
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: things Delta with one of my favorite COVID Twitter follows,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen. Check it out. All right, let's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: get to the news. The normally useless Senate took a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: break from fucking up democracy this week to pass a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: trillion dollar infrastructure bill and the $ 3. 5 trillion budget resolution
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that includes the rest of Joe Biden's economic agenda, climate,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: health care, education, and more. Infrastructure got 69 votes, nice,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: including Mitch McConnell and 18 other Republicans. The budget resolution
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: barely squeaked by with 50 votes, all Democrats. But now
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: comes the hard part. The Senate has until September 15th
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to turn the budget resolution into a final piece of legislation,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: which will require all 50 Democrats to agree on every
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: detail and dollar amount. But already, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Sinema have said they have serious concerns about the $ 3. 5
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: trillion price tag. And to make things even more complicated,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi has said that until Senate Democrats agree on
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a final budget, she won't hold a vote on the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: infrastructure bill in the House. So Joe Biden isn't signing
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: shit until every Democrat from AOC to Joe Manchin is happy,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: or at least happy enough that they don't blow up everything.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: And while everyone gets their shit together, the Republicans are
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: blanketing swing districts with a few million dollars of negative
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: ads and threatening to tank the global economy by refusing
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to raise the debt limit. Dan, have I missed anything here?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I think you got it. That's a really good summary.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: You got a very sharp attack on the Senate as
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: an institution in there.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I mean... Look, it's a softball over the plate.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Next, if you ever go back to D.C., you show
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: up at the Monocle, you're going to get booed by
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Senate aides.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Can't go wrong with shitting on the Senate. All right,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: we talked about this on Monday, but I do want
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to quickly hear your thoughts on why Mitch McConnell gave
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden the bipartisan win that he's been craving. Very
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: unlike Mitch McConnell. I imagine you would have said at
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the beginning of this process, there's no way Mitch McConnell
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: will do that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, if people check the tapes, I'm sure I did.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It's out there on the internet, John. We can't get
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: rid of it.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Nailed it again, Pod Save America. Nailed it again.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: You know, every once in a while, Holly has TimeHop
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: on her phone and she gets, it's been happening this year,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: five-year reminders of my tweets, uh, which is free services
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: in 2016 tweets that I should scrub from the internet. So,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, people, a lot of people have asked
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: me this question. Um, like what is the grand strategy here?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: What is Mr. McConnell trying to do? Is this some
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: sort of brilliant plan to undermine democratic arguments for getting
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: rid of the filibuster by, you know, sort of giving,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: showing that bipartisanship is not dead. Um, I think more
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: likely Mitch McConnell was the caboose, not the engine on
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: this train. He just had a bunch of members who
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: wanted to do something on infrastructure. There's been sort of
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: a pent-up desire to do something on it. It's relatively non-controversial.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It's a chance to do something that doesn't really fire
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: up the base. I mean, even Donald Trump could barely
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: muster any energy behind opposing it. And so he just
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: sort of got on board with it at the end.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I think the original thought was it was unlikely to succeed.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: and would blow up at some point. And if it
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: blew up, he could blame Biden and he would just
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: eat up clock. Like this is main goal is make
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: things as slow as possible. So Biden can confirm as
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: few judges as possible, pass as few laws as possible,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: make the democratic base get disenchanted, but they were able
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to pull it together and it got done. And there
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: really wasn't, I don't think there was a lot he
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: could do about it. So he just ended up voting.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And the, and I will say there were the thing
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that is always interesting about infrastructure, which is why people
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: have had sort of, um, some optimism about it over
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the course of many, many years about it is that
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of traditional Republican interest groups like
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the Chamber of Commerce who are very strongly behind infrastructure.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Corporations are really behind it. So it sort of had
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: a logic to it that allowed it to get done.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: It also, it didn't end up raising taxes. It wasn't
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of social spending. It wasn't a ton of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: new spending at all when you really dig into the numbers.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: So like you said, relatively non-controversial with Their base is
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: becoming less concerned about sort of economic policy anyway at
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: this point. What really motivates them is the culture wars,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and that's where the Republicans want to focus. So I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: almost think it's like taking an economic issue off the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: table so they can go back to focusing on culture
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: wars and also tell voters, oh, by the way, we're
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: not complete obstructionists. Even though we obstructed the rest of
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's economic agenda, we did agree with him on
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: this one thing. Yeah, it does.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I don't think this was part of some giant plan,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: but it probably strengthens their argument a little bit. against
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the $ 3. 5 trillion in the budget bill, which I just
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: violated one of the rules that I have about not
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: mentioning the total every time you talk about it. But
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: it just makes it easier to say, yeah, we're fine
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: to do things with them. Look at this thing we did.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: But this is way too far better other than the
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Democrats saying, you obstruct everything, you oppose everything. So I
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: understand why there's some political moderate modicum of political upside
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to this.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what's next in the Senate. Manchin voted
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: for the budget resolution, but then released a statement saying
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that he has, quote, serious concerns about the budget's price tag,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: adding that, quote, rising inflation rates are, quote, not indications
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of an economy that requires trillions in additional spending. Of course,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: every time Joe Manchin releases a statement or talks to reporters,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you have to pick apart each word, translate it from
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Manchin speak to words that the rest of us can understand.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I saw that statement and I thought it was a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: little more worrisome than prior statements he's made about the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: budget bill where he's just said, you know, I want
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to be careful that we don't spend too much, that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: we pay for it, but I'm still behind a pretty
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: significant bill. This seems a little more cautious than he's
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: been before. And when he said not indications of an
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: economy that requires trillions in additional spending, it makes me
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a little more nervous that he's going to try to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: take that price tag down from 3.5 to less than
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: we had hoped. But what do you think?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: I generally, I share all those sentiments. We should just
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: be perpetually worried about Joe Manchin. I sort of think
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: a couple things here. One is we should stop paying
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: a ton of attention to what Joe Manchin says. It
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: seems relatively disconnected from what he actually does. And there
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be a lot of precision in the
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: tonality of his remarks. Sometimes he sounds super worried. Sometimes
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: he seems fine. He has been very pro certain things.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I think it was just, here's what matters. He voted
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: to advance the budget resolution at $ 3. 5 trillion. So we
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: are starting at a very good number. Two, I think,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: of course, of course, he and Sinema and some others
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: who were hiding behind Manchin and Sinema are going to
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: want to take that number down. And if I were
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: a betting man, I'd say they're going to take it
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: down to 2.9 because senators are easily fooled like car buyers, right?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It's like 2.9. 2.99. Yeah, 2.99 is a lot more
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: than one cent less than three, right? But I think
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a couple of things about it. One– As progressives and
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: activists and everyone we're focusing on this bill, we should
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: start worrying more about what's in it than the price tag.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: So composition, not cost. Obviously, there are some points at
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: which you can't do things you want to do if
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: it gets too low, for sure.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, even if it ends up at 2.9,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: that's $ 600 billion. That's some real money and some real
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: sacrifices you're going to have to make in terms of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: progressive priorities.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: But there is a $ 2. 9 trillion bill that is better
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: on the things we care about in terms of climate.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Does it have a clean energy standard in there? Can
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: you get immigration in there? So there's a very progressive $ 2. 9
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: trillion bill that is better than some versions of a 3.1
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: or 3.2. So we just have to get away from
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: this that more spending is better. How it is spent matters.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: And we don't want there to be this definition, this
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: set where it's like the amazing thing with the extension
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: of the child tax credit, the clean energy standard, all
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: this really important climate stuff, child care, but it's 2.9
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: instead of 3.5 or 3.3 and therefore it's a giant disappointment. No.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: The other thing about this is, of course, like you
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: have been making this point for a long time. It
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: is a frequent tweet subject of yours that, of course,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin is going to cut this. Like he's always
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: going to do that. And that's the absolute importance of
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: moving the Overton window. And like progressives and like Sean
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: McAvoy and others talk about that all the time because
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: now the quote unquote centrist position is $ 2. 9 trillion in
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: progressive spending on climate change and child care and.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: Stuff like that.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: More than we would have ever dreamed of during the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Obama administration, even with huge majorities, even with filibuster-proof majorities
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: in both houses.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And the fact that Manchin and Sinema are most likely,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: there's no guarantees here, but are likely to be for
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: something of that size and scope is just another proof
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: point to the idea that centrism is an identity, not
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: an ideology. All they want to be is two steps
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: closer to the center than wherever the party is at
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: that time.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: They want to take their pound of flour.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Look, if they think that voting for a $ 3 trillion
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: or $ 2. 9 trillion or whatever it is, hugely progressive piece
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: of economic and families legislation will get them rapturous applause
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: at the next No Labels Conference, great. That is a
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: win for us.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Here's what I don't understand, and maybe this is happening
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: or maybe it will happen soon. This is basically about
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: what Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin can agree on. Why
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't Bernie just go over to the houseboat have a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: nice dinner, talk with Joe Manchin. They hash out all
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the details. I mean, this is what it's going to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: come down to. Bernie's the budget chairman. He's not going
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: to support something that's too far scaled back. Joe Manchin's
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: not going to support something as it is right now.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So the two of them just need to sit down
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and hash it out.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And I am sure that there are lots of conversations
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: that have been happening, at least at the staff level
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: between Schumer staff, Bernie staff. As we said, they did
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: not pick that $ 3. 5 trillion number out of a hat.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: That was not something that Bernie cooked up with a
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: sunrise movement at a DSA meeting. It was something that
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: they knew could get 50 votes.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Moving over to the House, what do you think about
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Pelosi's strategy of holding the infrastructure bill until the Senate
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: sends over a final budget?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Smart. And her only option. This is her one piece
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: of leverage over the Senate. Like her task is so
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: difficult because she needs to find a way to get
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a house that is on balance, more progressive than the
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Senate to support something. And she, and if she just
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: passes the Biff and then, which I think we should
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: start calling the budget reconciliation, the build back better bill,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: which would be the BBBB.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: Brutal.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: You don't even, I can't even imagine what the, the
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: official name will be when they do it.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: It'll be, I don't– yeah.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Some terrible acronym.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: That could be good.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: But is– this gives her leverage. So if Joe– she
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: knows that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema care passionately about
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the bipartisan infrastructure.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: A biff in the hand, right?
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I'd have the pod title because nothing drives down loads
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: like a bipartisan infrastructure reference. Well, the pod description would
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: be a biff in the hand. Senate passes a bipartisan
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: infrastructure bill and a treaties on inflation with an economist.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: That's what we're here for, to get those downloads going. No,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: but I do think... Sorry, sorry, I interrupted your very
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: smart train of thought here. Well, I'm sure. But she
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: actually said, I think, this morning in a press conference,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: or someone reported that she said to her caucus on
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a call, she doesn't really have any options. This is
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the only way to get votes for both the infrastructure
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: bill and the budget, because she's got a whole bunch
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of moderates that she needs... who were a little wary
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: about voting for the budget. And she's got a bunch
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of progressives who are a little wary about voting for
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the infrastructure deal. So once again, the theme of all
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of this is you need to make all the Democrats happy,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: which sort of brings me to my last question on this. Like,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: who do you think has more leverage in these negotiations,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Democratic moderates or Democratic progressives?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I think they have equal leverage.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of do too.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a math game, right? There are more
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: than five moderates in the Problem Solvers Caucus or whoever
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: else in the House, and there's more than five progressives.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: So same thing, right? I mean, in the end, you
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: need 50 votes. So you need Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and you need Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, right? In
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the House, you need Josh Gottheimer, Stephanie Murphy, a bunch
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: of others, and you need AOC and Ilhan Omar and
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Ro Khanna and a bunch of other progressives. And so
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: this is an incredibly challenging thing to do, to pass
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: a bill that keeps everyone happy with no margin of error.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: When we passed the Affordable Care Act in the House,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: a bunch of the blue dog Democrats, the moderates in
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the House, voted against it because they could because we
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: had huge margins. That is not available. That is not
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: really an option here. And I think the one positive
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: side about all this is I think there is some
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: unanimity that, one, politically failure is a fucking disaster. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: so we all got to figure this shit out. And two,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: this is– and I think moderates and progressives agree on
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: this– this could be the last best chance for the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: foreseeable future to do some real good for a lot
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of people. And so we got to figure it out.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say the only thing that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: could change the calculus and who has the upper hand
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: on negotiations is if Democratic moderates decide that doing nothing
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and letting it all fail is better than spending too
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: much money. And it just doesn't quite seem that they're
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: there yet because they have to, especially in the House,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: they all have to face re-election. And what are they
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: going to run on if they don't have either an
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: infrastructure bill or a budget and all of the good
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: stuff in both of them to talk about?
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: When you look back at the politics around Republican legislative
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: efforts in the Trump administration. When you look at Republican voters,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: failure to repeal Obamacare, a big, huge, prominent, on display
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: national television failure was much more damaging to them than
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the either passing the tax cut bill helped them or
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: passing tax cut bill hurt them with independence. Yeah, that's right.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Failure would be a disaster. There's all this talk of
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: when you look back at the Democrats lost the House
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: in 2010 because we passed health care. You know what
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: would have been a thousand times worse and we would
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: have lost the Senate too if we'd failed to pass
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: health care. So failure is not an option here.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: The only thing I think the moderates could be thinking
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: too is if we wait long enough and this budget resolution,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: this budget bill falls apart, then we'll be able to say, well,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the only game in town is the infrastructure bill. So
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: let's just pass that because we just lost the budget thing.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: You could imagine the moderates. I mean, I think that's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: what they're thinking right now.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: There is a couple of troublemaking moderates and everyone knows
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: who they are in the House. But for the most part,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: you know, folks like Stephanie Murphy are very constructive. And
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the progressives across the board, whether it's Bernie in the
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Senate or the folks in the squad have been very,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, they've been strong about their, the leverage they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: have and they've tried to exercise it, but they've been productive.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And I, I, that has, that could change, but it
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: has not changed on either side of that. And I
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: hope it doesn't.
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: And I think they all do understand that they rise
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: or fall together on this one. So, um, all right,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the Republican strategy here. Um, Some of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: them might have voted for Joe Biden's infrastructure bill. None
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: of them are voting for Joe Biden's economic plan. In fact,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: they're doing whatever they can to either kill it or
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: run against it in 2022. Senate Republicans like Josh Hawley
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and Ted Cruz kicked things off by forcing Democrats to
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: vote on a series of budget amendments the other night,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: like hiring 100,000 new police officers, defunding cities that defund
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the police, banning critical race theory in schools and federal
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: workforce training. prohibiting universal pre-K and child care, and barring
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: immigrants from entering the U.S. without a negative COVID test.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Very specific on that one. Meanwhile, a right-wing super PAC
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: known as the American Action Network launched a $ 5 million
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: ad campaign that attacks 21 swing district Democrats for the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: cost of the reconciliation bill. Take a listen.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: First, D.C. liberals spent trillions. Now Americans face record inflation,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: paying more for gas and groceries, a hidden tax on
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: the working class. Now Nancy Pelosi and her liberal allies
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: are pushing new tax hikes, trillions and more spending, and
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: another socialist health care plan to control what medicines you
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: can get. A socialist prescription we can't afford. So call
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Carolyn Bordeaux. Tell her to oppose Pelosi's socialist agenda.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: That was a real journey, that ad. You got a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: lot in there. How much does that ad worry you?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I think that is an absolutely hackish, miserable execution of
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: a pretty decent political strategy. Like there's some– like it's
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: always over-torked. Like Republican ads come in at a 12
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: and they should come in at a 7. But hidden
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: tax on the working class is a very good way
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: of explaining inflation. Like that seems compelling. And one thing
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: we know from our time dealing with– during tough economic
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: times when in the Obama administration was people just look,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: money comes in their account, money comes out of their account.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: They just look at the cost of things and how
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: much money they have left over at the end of
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: the month. And so it's not really clear where all
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: that's coming from. And so there's no question that the
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: rise in cost of gas and a few other things
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: are eating away at some of the cushion that they had.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: And Republicans can put that, you can always put other
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: people in charge. So like, but it's going to depend
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: on what the conditions on the ground are in the
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: run up to the election. We're a law like for
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: that message to work, you're going to need the inflation
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: to be not temporary as a lot of economists think
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: it will be and be something that is prolonged in
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: the 20, well in the 2022.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I do think in terms of how Democrats should respond
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: to that, if the debate is okay, if we spend more,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: there might be inflation, which is problematic for a host
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: of reasons you'll get into with Austin, I presume. Um,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And if we don't spend more, maybe there won't be inflation.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I think that's a hard fight for that's a hard
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: debate for Democrats. Right. It does feel like and you
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: mentioned the surplus. we sort of need to take this
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: debate out of the frame of how much money we're
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: spending on something. And I think talk about the benefits
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: of what is in the budget bill and how we're
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: going to pay for, which is taxing the 1%, big corporations,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: corporate polluters, in order to save the planet and make
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: people's lives better, right? We have to stay on that
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: message and make sure that that gets out there through
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: our ads, through our conversations, and not allow this to
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: devolve into a debate about numbers and figures and how
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: much we're spending. I don't know what you think.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I also think that
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: we should be hitting the Republicans for the things that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: they are opposing that would help. So a very specific
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: thing is Republicans are trying to stop Americans from receiving
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: checks that will help them afford the increased cost of goods.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: They want to take money out. Do you like that
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: child tax credit check you're getting every month? Well, the
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Republicans are trying to stop that. They're trying to take
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: money out of your account. Why are they opposing? Why
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: would this party that says they're a blue collar populace
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: oppose giving money to working class people? Because they do
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: not want to ask Jeff Bezos and Amazon and Exxon
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to pay one cent more in taxes. And when we
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: tend to win big policy fights with Republicans, it is
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: when we talk as much about the bad things they
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: are doing or the good things they are stopping us
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: from doing as we're just sort of talking about what
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: we have done or what we are planning on doing.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And I think that there's been a shortage of that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: from Democrats and from the White House. You know, like
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I do think if the White House messages, you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: shots in arms, checks in pockets, look at Joe Biden,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: he's improving the economy, he's improving your life, which is great.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But I think what it's probably missing– and again, it's early.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You get closer to the midterms, you'll probably get more
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: of this message– is the contrast with Republicans like you're
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: talking about. I think that's probably essential, especially in selling
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: these two bills.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: We know this from the election. Joe Biden is never
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: going to be as punchy with Republicans as we perhaps
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: want him to be. But that's obviously part of his
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: political success. He received millions and millions of votes because
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of it. But I– his ability to have that conversation
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: or to draw that contrast was certainly limited while Shelley
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Moore Capito was just beating a path to his office
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: every day. So with the bipartisan bill behind him, we're
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: now going to, as you head into, as we will
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: talk about a battle on the debt ceiling and over
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: this budget bill, I think I expect them to get
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the Biden White House to be more aggressive in drawing
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: that contrast.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: What do you think about all those amendments that Cruz
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and Hawley and everyone else offered during the Voterama this week,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you know, critical race theory, the defunding stuff, you know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of mischief making. It doesn't have a
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: real effect on the bill itself, but it is, I think,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a preview of some of the messages they believe will
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: help them in the midterms.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: So two takeaways from that absolutely absurd exercise that happened.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: One is it's pretty clear Republicans, despite that ad, do
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: not yet have a very good argument against the Biden
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: economic agenda. Almost all of those amendments that they really
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: pushed were about something other than the plan. That's because
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: the Biden economic agenda is incredibly popular, but it's also unhatable.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: That's the big problem for them is even the people
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: who disapprove of it don't disapprove of it strongly. It
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: does not fire them up. So they have to go
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: find other issues to fire them up. And the second
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: takeaway is it's pretty clear the Republicans are watching way
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: too much Fox News. And they are making a fundamental
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: mistake the Republicans have made over and over again in
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the last decade or so, which is they are running
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: against the Fox caricature of Democrats on actual Democrats. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: this is the thing where Republicans look at Fox and
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: they think it's a window, but it's really a mirror.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And they're off, right? And you saw that in the
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: amendment where Tommy Tuberville, America's dumbest senator, in fairness, I
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: don't want to discount Brian Johnson's dumbness, but they're in
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: a battle.
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, easy.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Wow. I'm going to call him for a correction.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. You know, he does this amendment where he's like,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get the Democrats because I've been watching
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson and they tell me Democrats love defunding the police.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to make them all vote. And they're like, great.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you. You just all gave us a plate now
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: where we can run in ads that we voted against
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: defunding the police as a response to the inevitable Republican
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: attack ads.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: You Yeah, we should say that every single, all 50
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Democratic senators voted against the amendment, which would have defunded
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: cities that defund the police. Every single Democrat voted against that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Or voted for that amendment. Whatever it was.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Either way, Tom and Tom were wrong. We were right.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: He's dumb. We're smart. Move on.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: All right. So the final bit of Republican strategy we
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: should talk about here involves the debt ceiling or debt limit.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: For those of you who don't know, the vote to
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: raise the debt ceiling is a vote that Congress has
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: taken for over a century. It does not authorize more spending.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It merely allows the Treasury Department to pay the bills
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: for the spending that Congress already authorized. It is a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: completely artificial mechanism that would be utterly meaningless, except for
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the fact that if Congress ever failed to raise it,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: which they never have, the United States would default on
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: its debt and cause a global economic meltdown. Which, of course,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: means that Republicans regularly use the debt limit to extract
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: political concessions from Barack Obama and indeed almost plunge the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: global economy into chaos multiple times. Those were some good
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: memories we had in the White House, weren't they? Now
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that we're close to hitting the debt ceiling again, Senate
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Republicans are back at it, saying they won't raise it
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: unless Democrats agree to not only drop their reconciliation bill,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: but to cut Medicare and Social Security as well. So
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: here's what I can't figure out, Dan. Maybe you can
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: help us. I know you wrote a message box on this.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Democrats can raise the debt ceiling on their own in
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the reconciliation bill, but they are choosing not to. Instead,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: they plan to essentially dare Republicans to vote against it
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: sometime in late September. Why do you think they're doing that?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: That is a great question, John. But let me read
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: you something from our friend, as close as a friend
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: of the pod as anyone in the Senate is, Brian Schatz,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: who said- Okay, yeah. I am predicting with absolute certainty
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: it will resolve itself uneventfully because it always does.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Wow. That is some supreme confidence from Senator Schatz.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It's also not true. I think Senator Schatz got to
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: the Senate in 2014, so he was not around for
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: the death ceiling battles of 2011, 2014.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, he was being sarcastic there. I missed the sarcasm.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: I don't think he was being sarcastic.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, okay.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think he, I mean, I'm reading it.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: We should ask him.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: If he is being sarcastic, I apologize, but it didn't
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: seem that, the way the reporter wrote it in the
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: article seemed that it.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Was a very- Oh, so yeah, you were saying he
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: got to the Senate in 2014, so he missed our
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: 2011 blues.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: For those of you who weren't paying attention to politics
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: in 2011, boy, did it suck. Just so you, I mean,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: because it's hard to sort of understand why the debt
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: limit is so dangerous and then people throw around things like,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you know, catastrophic economic meltdown. And you're like, really, because
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of a debt limit? Like, what are you talking about?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I had to write a draft of a speech, um,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: that the treasury secretary, Tim Geithner worked on with me, um,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: in case we breached the debt limit where the president
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: United States had to go out and talk about how
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: we would pay for certain bills and what would happen
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to the economy. And it was one of the scariest
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: speeches I've ever written. And we didn't have to use
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: it because we didn't breach the debt limit. But if
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Congress ever failed to raise the debt limit and we
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: defaulted on our debt, it would be a fucking catastrophe
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: like we haven't seen in our lifetime.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Even coming close to breaching the debt limit in 2011
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: did massive damage to the economy. The market lost trillions
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of dollars. Companies stopped investments because of the uncertainty. The
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: US credit rating was downgraded for the first time in
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: history just because we came close to it. I mean,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: this is a huge deal. And sort of just a
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: little history of this is In 2011, Republicans had control
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: of the House. So there was no lifting of the
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: debt limit unless they put one on the floor. And
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: they were refusing to do that unless there was some
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: sort of agreement on spending. Obama went down a long, torturous,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: ultimately misguided path with Speaker Boehner to try to cut
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: a deal that would include some long-term cuts to be
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: paired with some short-term help for workers in a tough economy.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: That did not work. We ended up having to cut
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: an unfortunate deal. After that, President Obama Said, I'm never
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: negotiating on the debt limit again. Ted Cruz and a
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: coalition of really dangerous House members got together in 2013
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: and said, we're going to shut down the government and
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: not lift the debt limit unless you repeal the Affordable
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Care Act. A bill that had been in law for
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: three years, was about to start offering coverage to millions
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: of people, and had been validated in an election that
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama had won less than a year earlier by
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: a very large margin. And that one ended quicker. It
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: was not as damaging. But just the mere– like we
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: are trying– Joe Biden has made tremendous progress in growing
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: this economy, putting it on stronger footing from what he
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: inherited from Trump, getting us out of the pandemic-related economic problems.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And all of that is at risk if we end
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: up in a giant showdown here. And I would say
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I take this very personally, and this is why maybe
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I reacted to Senator Schatz's comment, which is these battles
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: are so brutal that– When I say the 2013 debt
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: limit battle almost killed me, like that is a literal statement.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: That is very true. That is very, very true.
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And you had to rush to the hospital. So all that,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: now that we have all that context, what the fuck
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: are Democrats doing?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: So I think... there are a couple of possibilities here.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: One possibility here is passing this budget reconciliation is incredibly
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: difficult already. And if you put the debt ceiling in it,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: which is a challenging vote for Anyone, because it always
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: ends up in, it's a stupid vote. It means nothing,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: but it ends up in ads because it, the people think,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: and it means you, you were spending more money when
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: you're just paying bills for spending that already happened.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It's a political problem because of a misunderstanding that no
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: one has corrected because Republicans like the misunderstanding and the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: media has not done a great job of actually letting
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: people know what the real truth is. And it's complicated,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: so it's hard to explain.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: And up until the Republicans actually came close to breaching
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: it in 2011, there was just a general rule that
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: was the party of the president had to give every
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: vote to pass it. And if they did not have
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: the 50 or the majority, then they would give all
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: of their members. And then the other party would give
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: just enough to get it over the line. So you
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: would have as many people in the president's party as
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: possible would have to take that bad vote so they
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: could have as run against them. Obama sort of famously
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: vote was part of the Democrats who voted against it
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: in 06. It was never in danger of not passing.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: It's just how you do the math to get there.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And so there's no damage to the economy. I think
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: there is this fear that if we add, this could
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: be one brick too many to the load to get
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: the budget records to the ocean.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Of the line.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: The other argument for not doing it, there were two
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: related arguments. One is Mitch McConnell in the Senate are
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: not the lunatics in the House.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: All you need is 10 Republicans to work with Democrats
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: to pass it. And we just had 19 Republicans vote
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: for the infrastructure deal. You can theoretically find 10 Republicans
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: who are not going to do something so fucking dangerous
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and crazy as put on the line. The other thing,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: and I don't think this is why they're doing it,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: but if you were to say, like, what's the political
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: case for forcing this confrontation with Republicans? It's In the
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: words of Kevin Cramer, the senator from North Dakota, we're
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: not going to agree to the deadline without structural reforms.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Structural reforms means Medicare and Social Security cuts. And so
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: are the Republicans really going to run on a message
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: that says, if you do not cut Social Security and Medicare,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: we're going to blow up the economy? And so there
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: could be a sense from Schumer and Biden and others
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: to just simply call their bluff and really see if
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: they will do it. There are some real risks to
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: that strategy that we can talk about, but I think
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: that may be the reason that got us here.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because look, One thing that is true is that
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Republicans were at their lowest levels of popularity during the
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: debt limit fight with Obama. So them trying to play
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: chicken and threatening to blow up the global economy was
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: not very popular. You know who else was at his
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: lowest level of popularity during the debt limit fight? Barack Obama.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: So this thing, like the political fallout hits everyone when
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you have a bunch of voters in the country looking
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: at Washington and seeing all they know is that Democrats
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and Republicans at odds over the debt limit, global economic
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: meltdown possible. They're going to blame everyone for that. And
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: they're going to blame the party in charge, even if
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: it's not Democrats' fault and Republicans are the hostage takers.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: The way I would think about this if I was
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: the Democrats is every Democrat is going to have to
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: vote for this. whether we do it in the budget
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: reconciliation bill or you do it on its own. They're
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: going to have to take that vote.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: To me, the politics of it are much worse if
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it happens under the glare of the hottest spotlight as
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: we're staring down the default of the United States, whether
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: then it's one line in a much larger Build Back
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Better bill. Think of all the coverage of that. It's
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: going to be about child tax credits and What's in,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: what's out, and the debt ceiling is in there. That's
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: going to get so much less attention. It's going to
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: be less politically painful. But I think there's a chess
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: and checkers argument here, which is we have to look
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: not at this vote, but down the line. So they
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: will lift it. It'll be for some period of time.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: But you're going to have to confront it again. But
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: think about a world in which it's 2023. The Republicans
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: control the House. It is a majority dominated by big
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: lie-believing insurrectionists. And there is no way to get the
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: debt limit raised without Kevin McCarthy's agreement. So what the.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Democrats should do– Then we're really fucked.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is– so like what– can you even imagine
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: what their demands will be? Yeah, no.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: It will be resign. Joe Biden resign or we're not
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: going to– And Kamala Harris. Both of you resign. Reinstall
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Donald Trump gets reinstalled or we blow up
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the world economy. Only partial jokes here.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's all on the table to be very clear.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: What Democrats should do is either just eliminate the debt
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: ceiling mechanism, which it's stupid. It'd be easy to do.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Or just raise it so that Joe Biden won't have
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: to deal with it again in his first term. We
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: need to take off the table the idea of a
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: cataclysmic debt limit confrontation in the run up to the
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: 2024 election. The other thing that would worry me from
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: a Democratic perspective of the regular order is are you–
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: and maybe Schumer is. Like maybe Schumer has this agreement
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: in stone and Manchin was a fucking stalwart in the
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: previous debt limit fight. But what would really worry me
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: is Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema– showing up at a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: press conference with the rest of the G10 or whatever
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: they call themselves, saying, we're going to work on a
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: debt limit deal, right?
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: Oh, shutter.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that gets really risky really quickly.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's not give them any ideas. All right,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: when we come back, our friend Austin Goolsbee answers all
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the questions you were too afraid to ask about inflation.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: As Democrats prepare a $ 3. 5 trillion budget deal and the U.S.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: hurls closer to reaching the debt ceiling, concerns over inflation
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: are circling President Biden, with Republicans criticizing the administration for
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: spending too much and Joe Manchin issuing warnings about the
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: risks of overheating the economy. Here to break it all
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: down is my old friend, University of Chicago professor... and
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Austin Goolsbee. Goolsbee,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: how are you, buddy?
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: Hey, man, we're getting the band back together.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. All right. I want to start
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: with the Labor Department report yesterday, which showed that consumer
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: prices are up 5.4% over last year. Can you help
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: us understand that report and put in some context?
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: So the consumer price index, they keep track of a
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: of a bundle of goods, they call it, and they
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: just follow the prices of that bundle over time. Now,
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: we had a surge of prices, but if you kind
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: of peel back the onion a little and look at
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: the report, a lot of people were sort of relieved,
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: even though it was a big headline number, If you
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: took out the categories that are obviously pandemic related, like
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: rental cars and airfares and stuff like that, the inflation
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: rate is coming down. And so there's an argument going
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: on among the economists. Is this a sign of permanent inflation?
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: And we're kind of going back to the 70s, or
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: is this just a temporary thing, not unlike when we
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: had a shortage of toilet paper and we had a
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: shortage of hand sanitizer and stuff like that. I've been
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: more on team temporary, they call it, which is to say,
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: it's the virus that's doing this. These are bottlenecks and
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: they're gonna get sorted out over a couple of months.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: But we definitely saw a burst of price inflation, especially
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: concentrated in these pandemic categories.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: What is the specific part that's pandemic related, that's driving
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: those specific categories?
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: Well, the biggest one by far is cars. And cars
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: is a big component. If the car component is 2%,
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: 5% of total spending, I'd have to guess it was
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: at least 20% to 25% of the increase in overall
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: prices was just from that one category. And that's for
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: a couple of reasons. One of the main one being
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: they can't get computer chips, so they can't make new cars.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: If you go out to a new.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Car dealership, you know, they're they're parking the cars with
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: two or three spaces between each one to make it
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: look like they have more cars than they have. And
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: so the rental car people who normally buy a bunch
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: of new cars, they can't get they can't get.
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: Cars for the rental fleet. So rental car prices are up.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: All the travel related stuff is up. And then that's
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: spilling over onto used cars, which are up even more
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: than the new cars are up.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Are we a victim of our own success in some
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: way here in the sense that the economy has come
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: back faster than at least these businesses thought they would
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: in terms of their production lines and things like that?
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's kind of an interesting idea. That's a nice
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: way to think of it. I think we are a
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: victim of our own success in the sense that We
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: came back fast. And when you come back fast, there
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: was a fundamental shift of what people were spending their
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: money on. And that's what went wrong at the start
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: of the pandemic. When the toilet paper crisis, it wasn't
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: primarily because people were.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: Hoarding toilet paper.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: It was mainly because there's two totally different manufacturers of
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: toilet paper. There's office toilet paper, which comes on a
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: big roll. And there's residential toilet paper, which is like
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: fluffy Charmin. And suddenly a third of the workforce decided
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: that it was going to be working from home all day.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: And so there's no residential toilet paper. and they're having
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: a great depression of the bathroom in the office toilet
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: paper business. That's the same kind of thing that's happening now.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: And so I do think we're a little bit cursed
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: by our own success. Now, in business, there are people
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: who use a phrase, I think it's a dumb phrase,
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: but they say the cure for high prices.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: Is high prices.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: And what they mean by that is nothing gets the
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: supply chain fixed quicker than being able to make so
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: much money because the prices are this high. So if
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: you want to rent a car, I was going to
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: take my son to Yellowstone for graduating from high school.
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: To rent a.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: Car in Montana was going to be $ 700 per day. OK,
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: so Yellowstone's not going anywhere. So we're going to go
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: to Yellowstone a different time. But at $ 700 per day,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: there's people, I know a guy who lives in Montana.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: He was like, $ 700 a day, you can rent my car.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: I'll drive over to the airport and pick you up.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: So that's the sense in which I think that within
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: six months, we're going to have sorted out most of these.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: But it's still a little hairy. It's kind of disturbing.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: You go to go fill your car. It's like 55
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: bucks to fill your car.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: And is the gas prices pandemic or is that something else?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Because I saw the Biden administration called on OPEC to
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: produce more oil. And as anyone who's ever been in
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: politics knows, gas prices is a huge driver of economic
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: sentiment because it's the one thing you can't cut back on.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: You cannot go to Yellowstone.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, right.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: But you've still got to fill up your car and
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: drive your kids to school and drive to work every
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: day and go to the grocery store, et cetera.
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's a very public price.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Though maybe with so many people working from home, maybe
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: it will be less impactful than it always was when
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: we were thinking about it.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: I think there is more going on with the price
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: of gas.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: In OPEC, the countries are fighting with each other, and
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: some of them don't want to produce because they want
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: the price to go up more. But there is a
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: pandemic component, which is we've been cooped up for a
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: year and a half, and people are like, I'm going
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: on a trip. And so they're packing up, and we're
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: setting records on car-based vacations and that usage before you've
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: gotten the refinery capacity back up.
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: And while the people.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: In OPEC are not playing ball, it's going to drive
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: up prices in short run for sure.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: After the Senate passed the budget resolution the other night,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin put out a statement where he talked about
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: concerns about the size, the $ 3. 5 trillion size of the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Biden economic plan and saying that we were on the
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: verge of overheating the economy. That's something Republicans have been saying.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: What does that mean when they say that? And is
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: that something you see as a risk with the amount
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: of money being put in the economy if all these
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: things pass?
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: I guess I would say two things.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: The first thing that I would emphasize there, the Republicans
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: keep saying, ah, the $ 3.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: 5 trillion is But remember, that's over 10 years.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: And that's about an 8% increase in the budget. So
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: the 3.5 trillion number sounds like something quite different than
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: what it is. The root of the problem, when you
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: think about overheating as an economist, you're asking, OK, what's
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: the potential? And are we going to get? so much
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: money and so much activity that we exceed our potential.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: If you exceed the potential, you probably would start.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: Driving up prices because the data has nowhere else to go.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: I have not really viewed this as us getting much
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: above potential for the reason that if you look in
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: the last 30 years, three different times, we've gotten the
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: unemployment rate down.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: Much lower than where we are now.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: So if you look at the end of the 90s,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: if you look in the mid-2000s before the Great Recession,
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: and if you look from 2017, when the unemployment rate
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: was 4.5%, and then we cut taxes $ 2 trillion on
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: top of it, all three of those times, we didn't
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: see sustained inflation. Now, the unemployment rate, if properly corrected
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: to be apples to apples.
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: Is around 6%. So it's well above.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: The 3.5% or 4% that it got down to and
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: didn't generate inflation. So I think we're not really in
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: danger of overheating. That's just the matter of this thing
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: of is this a temporary bottleneck or is this sustained overheating?
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: I'm on the temporary bottleneck side.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: There was a period earlier this year when the first
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: inflation numbers or the price of consumer goods went up
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: where There were some who were pretty dismissive of this
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: as a very, very temporary thing. It's just about the pandemic.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about it. In the last, and even people
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: who still believe it's temporary, there's been a shift in rhetoric. Particularly,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: our old colleague Larry Summers talked about it. A lot
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: of people were very dismissive of his view that inflation
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: was going to be a big problem. The rhetoric around
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: inflation has changed among Democrats. President Biden said he was
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: going to use every tool available to help people manage
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: the cost or mitigate these spikes in prices. What are
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: the sort of tools that the federal government has to
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: help people? Because even if it is temporary, there are
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: families in great need and people who hurt, and this
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: affects their lives. And the stimulus checks are going less far.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: things like that. What are the tools in the toolbox?
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: So you could think of, there are some tools that
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: are about, we're going to get you checks and we'll
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: make up for whatever is happening on prices by shoring
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: up your incomes. And if you look at the Build
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Back Better agenda, there's a bunch of things in it,
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: which are good economics, good investments, In my world, they're
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: about expanding the supply side, which would reduce inflation. But
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: on the ground, if the government's going to help you
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: with education, it's going to help you more with health care,
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: it's going to pay for pre-K, things like that, that's
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: going to make up for a lot of the price tools.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: On the other side, everything that the government can do
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: to ease the supply chain burdens is and foster manufacturing,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: and I hope reconsider some of the crazy trade policies
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: that the Trump administration put in that drove up the
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: prices of a bunch of the supply chain.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: I think all of that's important.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: And it's still in the context that I always say
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: that the virus is the boss. That's the number one
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: thing about the economy. If the Delta variant or some
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: other variant starts raging out of control in the United States,
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: the economy is going to stall. And nobody's going to
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: be talking about overheating in that case. They're going to
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: be talking about what are we going to do to
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: try to get the growth rate back up, not unlike
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: what happened at the very end of the Trump administration
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: in November, December, January. The virus spirals up again, and
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: you see the jobs numbers go from being big positives
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: to actually being negative again. And so I think we've
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: really got to keep an eye on that. And whenever
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: people are saying, why should we consider something big? I
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: think you should consider something big because there's still a
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: bunch of dangers. We're not out of this mess.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: The Biden administration, Office of Management and Budget, and Council
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: of Economic Advisers, your old stomping ground, put out a
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: report earlier this week making the case, a very similar
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: case you just made, that instead of... Increases in cost
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: is not an argument against doing big things. It's an
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: argument for doing big things. They actually focused on the
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: sorts of things that– like childcare where the cost has
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: been going up at a rate much faster than the
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: increase in wages over a long period of time. Now,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: these are costs that are separate, somewhat disconnected from the
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: pandemic-specific spikes. Did you get a chance to see that
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: paper and do you have thoughts on their argument about that?
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: Look, I, my personal bias, of course, I'm favorable to that, uh,
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: to that argument. They, they kind of had me at
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: hello from the council of economic advisors.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, what did you think about
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: the council of economic advisors from 2017 to 2021?
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: So, so, so look, the thing is, I think they
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: highlighted three specific areas, healthcare, uh, well, they highlight more
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: than three areas, but I will highlight healthcare, education, childcare.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Those are three places where prices have been rising over
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: the long run, much faster than other inflation, faster than
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: incomes even. And so if you get some relief on that,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: that would be a great help to a lot of people. Now,
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: the other thing I would say about the 3.5, 3.2,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: whatever trillion you want to call it. In addition to,
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: but wait a minute, don't you mean an 8% increase?
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: That's spread out over 10 years. OK, so the amount
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: that that's going to juice the economy in the immediate
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: run of the next six months is not going to
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: be that high. And the Biden administration's committed that they
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: want to pay for it, that they're going to raise
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: taxes on high income people. and big corporations to pay
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: for the spending that's in that increase.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: And if you pay for it, it doesn't overheat the
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: economy at all.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: So I think the rhetoric on this pretty different from
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: what most economists think will be the economic impact, which
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: they view as pretty positive so far.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: Are there particular elements of that bill that you think
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: are absolutely essential? There's obviously going to be a lot
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: of negotiating and fighting back and forth with Joe Manchin
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: and Kyrsten Sinema and others in the House about what
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: stays in and what stays out. Are there things that
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: you think are essential elements for the economy?
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: I think over the medium run, the investments in the
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: skill base and the investments in people.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: Are critically important.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: That's how we got to be the richest major economy
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: in the whole world.
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: And that's where we we've got to do that.
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: So I think the, the stuff on community college, I
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: think it's great and vital and the early, the pre-K
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: and early education, the research is now saying that that's
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: got a, uh, benefit to cost ratio five to one,
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: that you get $ 5 for every $ 1 you.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: Invest in that. That space, I think, is super important
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: in my world.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Back in the old days when we worked together, I
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: was looking out over the horizon on Barack Obama's chances
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: for election or political prospects. It was so intricately tied
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: with the economy. So I was always asking people like
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: you and Gene Sperling or others, like what is the
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: thing you were worried about? So other than the pandemic,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: is there something you see on the horizon that gives
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: you pause about this economy? Or do you feel like
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: if we can keep the virus under control, we are
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: on a very good trajectory for the foreseeable period here?
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: Well, first of all, you remember us working together. I
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: remember me working and I remember you relaxed.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: That is how I was always known. It's just super relaxed.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Always just, um, You know.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: I just cannot get past this. And I have a
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: bunch of research. My thing is that the number one
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: rule of virus economics is that you must control the
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: virus to help the economy. It comes from research that
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: I did using a bunch of data on people's economic
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: activities that kind of tracks where they go with their phones.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: And it shows that governments are not in charge. It's
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: not about lockdowns. It's not about rules and that sort
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: of thing. What happens when the economy goes wrong is
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: that people get afraid and they don't want to catch
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: the virus. So if they start looking out their window
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: and they're like, holy cow, the hospitalization rate in Florida,
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: is the highest that it's ever been in the crisis,
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: that's going to have a negative impact on the economy.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: And so this recurring cycle of we're going to ignore
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: the virus, it's going to come raging back with a
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: new variant, we've got to break that cycle. People got
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: to go get vaccinated. If you want the economy to
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: come back, you've got to do that. And so I
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: just can't get that part out of my head.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Well, ending on a pro-vaccination message is a good place
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: to stop. Austin Gouldsby, thank you so much for joining us.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: It's great to talk to you as always.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, great to see you again, Dan.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave his two weeks notice
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, announcing his resignation just seven days after New
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: York Attorney General Letitia James concluded in a 165-page report
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: that Cuomo groped, kissed, grabbed, flirted with, and made inappropriate
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: comments to 11 female employees. Those findings quickly led to
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: calls for the governor's resignation from just about every elected
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Democrat in America, including President Biden. The New York State
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Assembly opened an impeachment investigation. Prominent members of Cuomo's inner
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: circle resigned, including top aide Melissa DeRosa and Time's Up
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Legal Defense Fund co-founder Roberta Kaplan. But it wasn't until
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Tuesday morning that Cuomo himself gave a confusing speech where
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: he defended his actions... denied the allegations, took responsibility for
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: his actions, apologized to the women who came forward, and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: finally said this.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: The best way I can help now is if I
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: step aside and let government get back to governing.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: And therefore, that's what I'll do.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think changed over the last week?
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Why did he finally step down after trying so hard
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to hang on despite mountains of evidence that he had
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: harassed staffers?
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: He resigned to avoid being fired. There was no path.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: He was going to be impeached and removed. He had
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: no allies. Everyone had left them and it was over.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: It's actually says a lot about what a absolute historic
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: delusional narcissistic is. It took him seven days to figure
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: that out.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: In, in those seven days too, there were reports in
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the New York times that at one point he thought about, um,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: running TV ads, person on the street TV ads featuring
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: New Yorkers saying how Cuomo was doing a great job.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: That's how much he was ready to try to cling
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to power no matter what. And the fact that it
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: all fell apart, I think you're right. He knew he
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: was going to get impeached. The state assembly basically said,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: we're not cutting any deals with you. We're going forward
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: with this investigation. Don't think you're getting out of this.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: So that was probably, but I think also public opinion
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: had shifted. Like I remember when these allegations first aired,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: there were some polls and they're like, oh, people still
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: like Andrew Cuomo. Nevermind these allegations, blah, blah, blah. Well,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Quinnipiac last week, 70% he should leave office. 63% said
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: he should be impeached if he didn't resign. I do
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: think what gave these allegations further credibility was the fact
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: that there was an independent investigation conducted by another New
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: York Democrat. And they were able to sort of like
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: look through these allegations, come up with a report. So
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: this was not something that was, you know, where Cuomo
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: could just deny, deny, deny and said it was he said,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: she said and litigate through the media. Like there was
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: a process and an investigation that gave the allegations even
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: more credibility. Of course, they should have had credibility at
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: the outset. But when you have an investigation like this,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: it just it adds to that credibility. And I think
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I think he couldn't he couldn't avoid that.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: This story can't be told. These stories are always told
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: in the.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Fall of.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Purportedly great men and the scion of the most famous
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: political family in New York. But ultimately, this is also
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: a story of women who held him accountable and protected
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: other women from his behavior. Whether it is Letitia James,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: it's the victims that spoke out. It's Kathy Hochul, the
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: soon-to-be governor of New York. And that is a part
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: of this story as well that would not have happened.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: And it does show that things have changed. And he
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: was held accountable for this in very powerful and important ways. Yeah.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Soraya Chamali, who's the director of the Women's Media Center
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Speech Project, wrote in the Washington Post, so what changed
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: in the past week that made him suddenly realize he
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: had to resign? The past 60 years did, which I
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: thought was a great way of putting it. There's a
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: recent study The Atlantic reported on. Democratic voters were more
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: likely than Republicans to believe claims of sexual harassment against
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: a politician in their own party and to believe that
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the politician would abuse their office in other ways. Those numbers,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: even among Democrats, have changed significantly, I think, over the
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: last several years. That is not to say that we
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: don't have ways to go here. But I think you
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: would not have seen, I think you would not have
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: seen Cuomo ultimately resign, which he still took a much
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: longer time to do than he should have, but you
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: would ultimately not have seen him resign had you not
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: had the last few years of the Me Too movement,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And so I think that things have changed
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: even if there's a long way to go.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Another element of this is just, even before we learned
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: all of these things, Andrew Cuomo was known by virtually
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: everyone who had ever met him, worked with him, interacted
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: with him as one of the worst humans on the planet.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Just a historic asshole. Corrupt as can be.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: I've known a couple people who've worked for him, who've
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: been in his orbit, and I hadn't heard anything about
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: sexual harassment, but I had heard just the abuse of staff,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: verbal abuse of staff. It was just those stories were everywhere.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Also like potential corruption. I mean, those stories were everywhere.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Constant criminal investigation. Like it's been, it's been a long
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: years and there's obviously some very like important things that
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: happened in the state of New York while he was
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: governor and, you know, legalizing marriage equality, a huge thing.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: But like we had, like there is this thing that
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: bad people should not be in positions of power. And
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: we're like, well, he's, you know, this is, Every, you know,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: everyone loved Cuomo cause he gave us, you know, these
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: straight talk and press conferences, but he, like you knew
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: before that, you know, and it was pretty interesting to
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: people who sort of touted, I mean, it was the
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: imagine was just a year ago that people were like,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: we should replace Joe Biden with Andrew Cuomo on the ticket.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: That that was the thing, but you could tell the
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: people who made that case are people who have never
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: been around Andrew Cuomo. People who know about Andrew Cuomo
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: were absolutely like someone that corrupt, that terrible, that abusive person.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: That vengeful should be as far away from the levers
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: of power as anyone, right? Forget whether he was progressive
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: on a couple of you know, on some civil rights
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: stuff or some other stuff or done a good job
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: managing this or managing that. He was a terrible fucking person.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: And we should not back people like that just because
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: they are, we think they're, they're good on our issues
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: or they, they're good spokespeople or something like that.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Plenty of people out there who are good on the issues,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: plenty of other people. Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul is set
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to become the state's first female governor. What do we
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: know about her and what kind of challenges she'll face?
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, she's obviously coming in at a very tough
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: time with the pandemic, you know, sort of resurging here.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: You know, crime is up in parts of New York.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: It's a, you know, New York is a very hard
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: state to manage. I think you're coming in after, you know,
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: almost three full terms of Cuomo and sort of picking
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: up the pieces is going to be very hard. But
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: she is someone who when she was a member of
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: the House, was incredibly well thought of, has real roots
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: in New York. And the real advantage she has that
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: does not often happen, even though Cuomo picked her to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: run with her, she is not, they actually, I think
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: she said this, they have not spoken in months.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's not tied to, she's not part of the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Cuomo political machine or Cuomo legacy or been part of
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: any of these, you know, disgusting machinations to try to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: get him out under the accountability he should face. And
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: so I think For a lieutenant governor, she starts with
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: as fresh a slate as someone possibly could in this position.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Someone interviewed former governor David Patterson, who of course was
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: New York's lieutenant governor and then became New York's governor
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: after Eliot Spitzer resigned in scandal. And former governor Patterson said,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: I always tell people don't run for governor, run for
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: lieutenant governor. It's easier that way.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: But it brings up a larger point. And I was
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: reading in The Nation's Effort Teachout, who ran against Cuomo
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: in 2014, wrote this piece. And she talked about how
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: it is no coincidence that we've had several governors of
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: New York sort of resign and disgrace now, and that
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: the office of the governor of New York actually has
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: too much power over appointments, over the budget process. And
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: it tends to, you know, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: there may be an issue with actually the structure of
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the governor's office in New York. In addition to just
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the person who holds that office, which I thought was interesting.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: I think Andrew Cuomo would have been a corrupt dog catcher. Like,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, he just like, like I'm like, there's.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Definitely, I mean, and we haven't even, yeah, we haven't
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: even talked about Ronan story, Ronan Farrow story, which, which
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: came out right before he resigned, which was about Andrew
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Cuomo calling Valerie Jarrett at the white house to yell
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: about Preet Bharara investigating him. to call Preet's boss at
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: the White House and, if not explicitly, try to pressure
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: them to lean on Bharara to stop investigating, at least
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: certainly insinuating it in a call that was so inappropriate
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: that Valerie walked down to Kathy Rumler's office and had
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: to tell her about it.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: The idea that a sentient, theoretically rational human being would
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: think they should call the White House, a political person
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: in the White House, to complain about a federal criminal investigation,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: It just shows how sort of powerful and untouchable he
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: thought he was. That is the textbook example of the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: thing you do not fucking do. It's like he read
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: All the President's Men as a fucking to-do list. He's like,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: follow Nixon. It's not your plan, but that's what he's doing.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Well, it sort of brings up my last point on this,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: which is you tweeted this the other day. You said
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: the national infatuations with Giuliani after 9-11 and Cuomo during
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: COVID suggest that maybe we shouldn't pick our heroes based
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: on their press conference demeanors. Say a little bit more
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: about what you mean by that.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Both Giuliani and Cuomo became these national celebrities because at
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: a time in which Americans were feeling scared and vulnerable,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: they put on this sort of strong authoritarian persona, right?
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: That they're going to protect us from terrorism or the virus.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: And So there's two answers. One is we have to
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: think in a more complex way about what we value
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: in politicians and what they say and how they say
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: it is much, much less important than what they do.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Because this is not– there are times when we find
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: out things you never possibly could have imagined. Andrew Cuomo
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: was a well-known crooked asshole before– We even knew that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: he was exponentially worse than we thought he was. Yet
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: we still deified him because he made us feel strong.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: And that is actually why authoritarianism rises around the world
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: because at a time when a populist feels weak and scared,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: there is someone who comes and speaks to that. But
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: the other– someone responded to that tweet that I thought
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: was really thoughtful and said, maybe don't deify politicians.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: They are not– Don't stand politicians was one of the takes.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is– They are imperfect humans. Some of them
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: are good people who make mistakes. Some of them are
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: horrible people who do horrible things. But let's focus on
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: how they do their job, not how they make us feel. Yeah.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: And I do think your point about the reason that
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: people started flocking to Cuomo or talking about him as
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: a possible president was because of these qualities of toughness, right?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: There was this whole cycle in the last primary in
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: 2020 that everyone said, oh, Democrats need someone as tough
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: as Trump who can hit back as hard as Trump, right?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: And there is this belief- The Michael Avenatti Democrats?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Right, the Michael Avenatti Democrats. There was a little bit
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: of that with Cuomo as well, right? Like that the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: only way we can defeat this bully is with a
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: bully of our own. And it is just such a
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: fucking stupid- sexist, just backward way of thinking. And it
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: does lead you to the type of authoritarian leaders that
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: we're trying to run away from right now.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: It pushes you to bad men. That's what it pushes
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: you to.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, you don't know.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: We don't need someone as tough as Trump. We don't
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: need someone like that. And it wasn't just that, like,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Cuomo got people through the pandemic by being calm and
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: reassuring and stuff like that. It's that they knew that
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: he could hit back. And that was what was appealing.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: And that is, we should maybe rethink why some people
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: think that that's an appealing quality because it shouldn't be.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: We have to rethink what strength is, right? It can
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: be quiet, decent strength, like Joe Biden demonstrating to be
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: the sort of strength that allowed people like Elizabeth Warren
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: or AOC to overcome things in their lives and succeed.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: There's lots of different ways to think about it, but
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: just being a big asshole or being a tough asshole
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: puts us in a position we're going to have with
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: more people like Andrew Cuomo in office than we absolutely should.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: And just to end this, you know, real strength, of course,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and real courage is coming forward when it's really tough,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: which so many of these women have done. And one
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: consequence of the Harvey Weinstein scandal was that so many
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: more women came forward after that. After Christine Blasey Ford
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: came forward during the Kavanaugh hearings, so many more women
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: came forward as a result of that. Um, so, you know,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't by just saying, you know, if you or anyone,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: you know, is a survivor of sexual assault, you can
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: call the national sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-4673. So, uh,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: that is an important thing to mention as well.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: That is our show for today. Thank you, Austin Goolsbee, uh,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: for making us so much smarter about inflation. I feel better.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you. Um, Everyone have a fantastic
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: weekend and we will talk to you next week.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez. It's
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: and Nar Melkonian, who film and share our episodes as
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: videos every week.