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Transcript

“Veepstakes!” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, my conversation with one of President Obama's
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: top economic advisors, Austin Goolsbee, about how to dig ourselves
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: out of this mess. Before that, we'll talk about how
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the president is trying to rewrite the history of this pandemic.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And we'll dive into the challenges that both the Trump
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and Biden campaigns are facing with just six months to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: go until Election Day.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: Woo!
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But first, Lovett, how was the show this week?
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Great, Lovett, or leave it. We had Ed Helms, who
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: played a game. We had Olivia Nutty.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: Big Ed.
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: Big get big get we had olivia nutsy who talked
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: about uh covering trump from the briefing room we played
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: a game with preppers at home and then i did
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: the monologue on an app called omegle where you uh
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: pull random strangers and then tell them a joke uh
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: and the good news is i saw zero penises i
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: was gonna say i think it's called chat roulette it's
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: also the it is it's it's like chat roulette with
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: fewer regulations uh but the bad news is i didn't
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: see any penises.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I stepped on that joke the first time.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: It's okay.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Looks like we got an episode title. Also, if you're
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: looking for a fun break from the news, check out
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Hall of Shame, Cricket's podcast about some of the biggest
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: scandals in sports history. In their latest two-part episode, hosts
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Rachel and Regina talk about the career of Metta World Peace,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the basketball player formerly known as Ron Artest. Wow, I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: haven't thought about that in a long time.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: They do the whole Malice of the Palace.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: It's a great one.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Listen and subscribe to Hall of Shame now on
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I will say those Hall of Shame episodes pair nicely
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: with the Jordan documentary, which is the only thing I
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: look forward to on a weekly basis now.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's get to the news. As the United
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: States nears 70,000 deaths and well over a million cases
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of COVID-19, the president could be preparing a national testing
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and contacts tracing strategy that would... allow many of us
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to safely leave our homes. He is not. Instead, he
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is working overtime to try to blame his shitty response
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to the pandemic on China. During a Fox News town
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: hall on Sunday night, Trump echoed Secretary of State Mike
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Pompeo's assertion that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan laboratory, saying, quote,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn't
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: want to admit it. So, Tommy, Pompeo said he's seen
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: enormous evidence that this is true. Last night, the Associated
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Press got a Department of Homeland Security report that said
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Chinese leaders, quote, intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in order to stock up on medical supplies for themselves.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: First question, how do we know whether to believe any
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of these people?
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Enormous evidence, like a huge box full of, what does
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: that even mean? So I think it helps to just
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: talk about how the blame China story has evolved over time, right?
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: So Version one was the Tom Cotton version and some
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: others on the far right that suggested that the coronavirus
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: was created by the Chinese as a bioweapon. And I
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: think pretty much every scientist agrees that that is nonsense.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: They believe that this virus jumped from a bat to
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: a human or a bat to another animal and then
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: to humans. We get a lot of deadly viruses from
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: bats like Ebola and SARS, so it makes sense. That's
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: why labs like the one in Wuhan collect samples from
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: wild bats and they do research on them. They want
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: to find the next coronavirus like COVID. So version two
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: is Pompeo and Trump saying scientists at the Wuhan Institute
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: of Virology were studying COVID. Somehow the virus escapes from
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: the lab. Maybe a technician got it. Maybe there was
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: an improper waste disposal. Who knows? So when it comes
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: to that theory, unfortunately, it is not an absurd one.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: In 2015, the U.S. military accidentally shipped live anthrax spores
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: instead of dead ones to other labs for testing. Oops,
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: big mistake. Yeah, big whoops. In 2004- Chinese researchers researching
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: SARS got infected because of their work. And then we
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: also know that The Washington Post reported on leaked State
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Department cables that warned, I think, 2018 that the Wuhan
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: lab had poor safety standards. It's worth noting that the
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Trump administration did nothing to address the security concerns that
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: they were cabling back. And so version three of the
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: of the story of the Blaine China story is that
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: China concealed the severity of this virus to stock up
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: on medical supplies themselves before the rest of us could.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Here's the key point. Show us some fucking evidence.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Because so far we have seen nothing. Trump said it
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: is my opinion that they made a mistake and they
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: tried to cover it up on ABC. Pompeo said China
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: has a history of infecting the world.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: He also.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what the fuck?
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: It's gross. It's a gross thing to say. He also
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: had to admit that the intelligence community hasn't yet concluded
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: that this virus leaked from a lab. And there are
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: all these reports that the White House is directing the
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: intelligence community to find links between the virus and the lab.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And that's dangerous because when you're cherry picking intelligence to suggest, say,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Iraq has WMD, you can get to a bad place, right?
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: We should collect all the evidence, then come to a conclusion.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: So I'm not saying any of this to defend the
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Chinese government, but if your concern is really like lab safety,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: and there are a lot of reasons to be concerned,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: as we just discussed, this would be a good time
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: to increase global cooperation and trust with the Chinese and
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: try to address that underlying concern. But for Trump, this
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: is about raging on China. It's about domestic politics. It's
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: about pretending they're tough on Xi Jinping when we all
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: know that Trump was saying Xi had done a great job.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: So this is just, it's spin. And like, I hope
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: the press will say to them, show us the evidence
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: before we parrot your claims because we just went through
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: this time with Qasem Soleimani, where they said that this
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Iranian general was an imminent threat. He was going to
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: take out U.S. service members on bases in Iraq. And
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: so they assassinated him. And then they abandoned that pretext
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: a couple of weeks later. So we know that they
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: lie about intelligence all the time.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So, Lovett, let's say the virus did start in a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Chinese lab and the Chinese did conceal the severity of
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the outbreak. How does that change Trump's culpability for the U.S.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Response?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Because, you know, as Tommy just pointed out, Trump received
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: warnings that the Wuhan lab had massive security issues.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: I think there's like two questions. One, what mistakes did
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: China make around coronavirus, right? Did it accidentally come from
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: a lab? Did they conceal the spread to protect themselves
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: or because they hope they could deal with it without
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: an international scorn or controversy? And then there's the question
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: of why are they doing this? You know, in the
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: middle of a fire, you don't turn to another firefighter
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: and say, you really fucked up this fire. And I
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: want you to know when this fire's out, I'm coming
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: for you. I'm going to blame you. I'm going to
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: make sure you pay.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: For this fire.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Backdraft two.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: Backdraft two, back to the draft. And so we know
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: why they're doing this. Trump is not doing this because
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: he has concerns about international lab safety. He's not doing
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: this because he wants to make sure that China is
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: held responsible in the long term for their poor practices here. No,
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: he's doing it because he wants a scapegoat. He needs
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: a scapegoat. And he cares more about protecting his own
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: image in the fighting of this virus than doing what's
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: best to combat this virus right now. Because what Tommy
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: said is true. If there is a problem in lab safety...
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: in China, well, that would be something we want to
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: work with them on. That'd be something we want to
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: talk about.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: What went wrong?
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: What are the best practices we need to implement to
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: make sure something like this doesn't happen again? But that's
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: never what they're talking about. It's about punishment.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's about rep retribution. And it's about having a talking point.
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: There was a, uh, a memo that went out last
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: week or the week before last or six months ago.
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: I don't know because time has stopped, but, uh, it
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: said that basically, uh, a Republican strategist was advising Republicans
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: when it comes to coronavirus, don't defend Trump, blame China, right?
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: Don't get stuck on defending Trump's bad decisions and bad behavior.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: Focus on China because they think that's a winning issue.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: And Trump understands that. Tom Cotton understands that. Mitch McConnell
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: understands that. And so that's why Pompeo understands that.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like there's a pretty simple middle
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: ground here, which is blame Trump for believing China, because
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: like how many warnings did Donald Trump have from our
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: own intelligence agencies that China was possibly concealing the severity
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: of the outbreak? Even I think Joe Biden in a
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: debate warned Trump not to listen to the Chinese and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: everything they were saying about this. You know, also Trump's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: National Security Council had intelligence in January that predicted the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: virus would spread throughout the U.S., And they were suggesting
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: keeping people home and shutting down cities in the winter,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: something Trump refused to do until March. And then he
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: had all kinds of warnings like that. Alex Azar, the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Health and Human Services Secretary, said to Trump, this is
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: going to be horrible. This could be a great pandemic.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Trump called him alarmist. So it's like, I mean, he
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: wants to just put the focus on China. And part
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: of this is there's like a parallel track where he's
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: trying to get people to forget China. that he ignored
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: warning after warning. All Trump says when you ask him,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: either at these press briefings or in these interviews about this,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: is he said, oh, I had the travel ban. I
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: put the travel ban in place from China. And he
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: acts like as soon as he put the travel ban
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: in place, everything went swimmingly since then.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: Right, yeah, it's a bit like his position is a
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: bit like China is a dangerous menace and they've defeated me.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: Right. Yeah.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, I thought you were, I thought you
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: were tough on China. I thought you were strongly tough
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and toughly strong on China.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: And listen, like, I don't think any Democrat should go
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: down this rabbit hole, but like Wuhan is a city
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: in a province in China. And there's a lot of
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: reporting that suggests to the extent that there was a
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: government cover up early on, it was the local government.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: And then when the feds came in from Beijing and
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: they saw how badly they were handling it, they cracked down,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: they kicked the shit out of them, made them apologize.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: And so, look, if there were a lab accident in Sarasota, Florida,
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: because of some loose regulations from Ron DeSantis, I think
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: we would all be pretty pissed off if the entire
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: country was blamed for it. And there's just there's a
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: better way to manage China if you really think there
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: are huge threats to the to the planet. And there's
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: a better way to deal with actual lab safety concerns.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: I also do think like a lot of the sort
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: of foreign policy minded senators, Democratic senators have been asked
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: about this, and I think they've all had pretty reasonable responses,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: which are there are serious questions to be asked about
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: what happened and China's behavior. in the outbreak of this pandemic.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: But that's not why they're asking the question. And we
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: should remember that they're scapegoating the WHO and they're scapegoating
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: China because they're embarrassed by their own performance. So I
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: do think people are striking the right balance.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So Washington Post reported that senior U.S. officials are beginning
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: to explore proposals for punishing or demanding financial compensation from
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: China for its handling of the pandemic. Tell me, what
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: are the potential consequences of punishing China for hiding or
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: downplaying the severity of this pandemic?
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, a couple of things like one, you know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: it would be useful to be correct before we start
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: alleging that the Chinese are somehow responsible in some way
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: for creating a world ending pandemic. So on top of that,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: they own, I think, a trillion dollars of U.S. Treasury
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: bonds that if they started dumping those, it could create
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: some challenges for our own economy, for interest rates over here.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: We have to work with them in any number of
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: places at the G20, at the UN to get things done.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I don't think we want to escalate a fight with
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: a country that is potentially going to be the place
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: where COVID vaccines are manufactured one day. There's a lot
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: of reasons you could see this spinning out in a
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: bad direction. And again, that's not a suggestion that we
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: coddle China or we hide the truth. It's just that
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: this war of words is stupid and self-defeating. And it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: not backed up with an actual strategy where we are
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Going to our allies, whether it's regionally with Japan and
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: South Korea and others, or to Europe, and we're bringing
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: all those groups together as a way to push back
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: on China collectively. We're just pissing off everybody at once
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and seeing where the chips land.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So what is the goal?
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: What is the goal?
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: What are you trying to achieve by– creating punishment around
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: the outbreak of the virus against China. What is your
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: actual agenda? Is it because you're so worried about another
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: pandemic that you're trying to disincentivize bad practices around future diseases?
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: Is that really the goal? Are you trying to extract
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: concessions on other issues around trade, around intellectual property? Are
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: you trying to just win a political fight at home? Like,
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: what is the goal of having this fight with China
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: right now? And I have seen no one explain what
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: that goal is.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: No one.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, like, I mean, to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: your point, Lovett, about your analogy about putting out the fire,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: like and you said this, Tommy, China could develop the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: vaccine very easily. We are also very dependent on China
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: for pharmaceuticals. A lot of medical equipment comes from China, right?
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Like as we are battling a global pandemic, we need
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: more global cooperation than ever before.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And we can wait until after the pandemic's over and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: try to sort things out about who caused what and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: who's at fault and who's responsible. But as we are
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: in a race for a vaccine that could save millions
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of lives, you probably want to cooperate with everyone else
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: in the world right now.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, the US, like one last thing, just
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: the US under Trump has left a gaping hole for
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: international leadership. China's tried to step into that hole, okay?
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: And instead of, and in a moment where China's reputation
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: is faltering, where people are looking to blame China for
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: this virus, and China's trying to make up for that
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: by sharing health supplies and trying to prove that they
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: belong sort of as this international leader on a world stage,
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: America could either step up and demonstrate its historic role
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: in leading a global effort. But because Trump is unable
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: to do.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: That- Don't think that's going to happen.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: The only option is to try to tear China down,
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: to try to make sure China doesn't supplant the United
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: States on the world stage because they don't know how
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: to do what the United States used to do in
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: a crisis like this.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Listen, I would just say to Trump, let's start building
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: the gigantic factories we will need to manufacture a vaccine
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: at some point before we start pissing off the countries
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: that have that capability today. That would be my vote.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good advice. All right, so we are now
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: less than six months out from election day. I wanna
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: talk about the challenges that both campaigns are facing. Let's
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: start with the Trump campaign. There was a Washington Post
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: story over the weekend that the Trump folks are still
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: struggling to find a message. Now that we're headed towards
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: depression levels of unemployment and their own internal Republican National
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Committee polling shows the president trailing Joe Biden in the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: battleground states.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: 45 to 48 percent.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Trump's strategist told the Post that their only shot at
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: winning is driving up Biden's unfavorable numbers, but they're also
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: divided over just how to do that. Tommy, what are
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: they struggling with here? What's the internal debate?
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: The debate is basically, do we use a bazooka or
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: a flamethrower to scorch the earth? I mean, they know
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: that's their only path to victory is destroying Joe Biden.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: They want to drive down enthusiasm among Democrats, among young people,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: among suburban women. And the question is how? And the
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Washington Post reported that some people in the campaign, like
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Brad Parscale, the campaign manager, essentially want to say Joe
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Biden is senile. And it seems like Donald Trump himself
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: is on board with that strategy because he is calling
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: him Sleepy Joe. He constantly suggests that Biden doesn't write
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: his own statements or tweets. They talk about him hiding, blah, blah, blah.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: The Washington Post reported that Kellyanne Conway in particular is
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: worried that Trump is already losing ground with seniors, and
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: they worry that mocking Biden's age could exacerbate that problem.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I would respectfully suggest to Kellyanne that The bigger problem
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: with seniors that they might have is rushing to reopen
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: the economy and thus maybe killing them.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I would deal with that first.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: But they're also debating the strategy about whether to call
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Biden soft on China. And the super PACs and others
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: have put big money behind that. And so we'll see
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: if it will work. It seems like a bit more
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: of a bank shot to me. So whatever they're going
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: to do, it's going to be pretty gross. I mean,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: just an aside here, there are a lot of folks
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: on the left, including in the progressive media, who were
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: circulating edited videos and just asserting that Joe Biden was
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: in cognitive decline. And I would just congratulate all of
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: them for helping lay the groundwork for these attacks, even
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: though we've still seen no evidence that Joe Biden is
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: in cognitive decline in any way. And reportedly, when he
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: jumped on the phone with Donald Trump, Trump remarked to
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: his own team, huh, that guy didn't seem senile at all. So,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: you know, great work, everybody.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Trump was like, maybe Twitter isn't real life. No, I mean...
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I think that raising mental fitness in a race against
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump for president is quite a strategy. I would
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: add that as well. No, it's interesting in that piece.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: You know, the other debate they're having is, does Trump
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: wait until the convention or not to start going hard negative?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Which is funny that like now basically Trump is not
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: going hard negative. I mean, I guess he doesn't spend
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: like every day tweeting about Joe Biden like he did
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. So I guess like more could be to come. Um,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: they're also trying to debate like what kind of ads
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: to run when, um, and this week, apparently they're spending
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of money on promoting Trump's response to the pandemic. Um,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: which most people think is just to sort of please
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Trump because they don't think that's going to do any
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: good because they don't think that's really going to resonate
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: with people that he has handled this in a really
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: good way. So it is kind of interesting watching them
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: just sort of like struggle for response. Love it. One
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Trump advisor told the post, Quote, one of the reasons
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: we won in 2016 is because so many people hated
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. I'm not sure people hate Biden that much.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: What did you think of that? And how would you
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: compare sort of the 2016 dynamics with 2020?
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: First of all, I love Kellyanne Conway, you know, putting
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: on her white gloves and saying, like, I am not
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: comfortable with what some of these ads are. What Brad
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: Parscale and these hooligans are trying to do to Joe Biden.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: I honestly, I think it's bad strategy, but it just
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: makes me uncomfortable. So yeah, okay, Kellyanne. I do wonder
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: if a little bit was just about saying, just sort
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: of sending a red flag to all the outside groups saying,
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: destroy Joe Biden now. We need millions of dollars on
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: the air to destroy Joe Biden. A million dollars praising
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: Trump on the coronavirus response is what they've put behind it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: That will not help because if a million dollars of
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: ads praising Trump go up against hundreds of billions of
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: dollars of free media about how bad he's bungled it,
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: I don't think that'll move the needle. It's interesting, the
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Hillary Biden comparison, because we've talked about this. One of
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: the reasons Joe Biden is the nominee is that in
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: a fractured media environment, it is very difficult for someone
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: to gain the kind of reputation and name ID and
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: kind of deep knowledge that Joe Biden has. He's from
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: before when we made people as famous as Joe Biden.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: So was Hillary Clinton.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: The difference between Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton is that
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton stepped into this role as Democratic nominee with
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: 30 years of attacks against her that had really made
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: her kind of a vilified figure. I mean, I think
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: the greatest trick Republicans ever pulled was pretending to like
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: her for the four years she was Secretary of State.
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: So Biden comes in with that inherent advantage, and they're
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: finding it really, really difficult to chip away at that.
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: And I think the pandemic makes their job that much
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: harder because the kind of relentless media coverage Donald Trump
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: relies on to poison the well is just not available
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: to him right now. Brad Parscale in one of these
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: pieces points out himself that Donald Trump is not really
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: attacking Joe Biden from the briefing room. And Donald Trump,
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: without that podium, without that rally podium to kind of
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: start throwing these out there, he's reduced to Twitter. But
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: we've been living with Donald Trump tweets now for four years,
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: and they just don't carry the punch they once did.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there's two major differences. One
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is the candidates, as you point out. And Hillary obviously
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: had 30 years of attacks that she brought to the race.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The other big one is the political dynamics of the race.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not the challenger anymore. Donald Trump is
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the incumbent. As the challenger, Donald Trump is very good at,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you know, trying to burn down the barn and talk
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: about everything that politicians in Washington and government are fucking up.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Now he is the government in the middle of the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: worst crisis of our lifetime, and he is fucking up.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And it is very, look, he knows and his team
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: knows that they have to make this race about Joe Biden.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: It is very hard to make a race about Joe Biden,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: about any Democratic challenger, at a time where the incumbent
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: is presiding over the worst crisis in our lifetimes. It's
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: just gonna be hard to make it anything but a referendum.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: They'll try, but it's hard to do that.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: This was in the Times piece, and I just wanna
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: read this because it was such a, it's such an
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: obvious moment for Trump. In the phone call last week,
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: for instance, Mr. Trump demanded to know how it was
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: possible that a campaign that had been projecting strength and
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: invincibility for two years was pulling behind a candidate he
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: viewed as extremely weak and at the moment, largely invisible.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: The answer, according to nearly a dozen people, they talked
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: to a dozen people to prove this, lies in the
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: factors both beyond the president's control, such as the economic
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: downturn and the spread of the coronavirus, as well as
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: those in his control, namely his playing down of the
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: coronavirus for several weeks, followed by his own performance in
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: the briefing room. So why have your numbers gone down?
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: Why are you in trouble? There's a Great Depression. There's
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: a massive pandemic and you've mismanaged it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: It's not that complicated.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: The best part of that story was he was so
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: mad at Brad Parscale, his campaign manager, when he showed
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: him bad polling in swing states that he threatened to
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: sue them. He threatened to sue his campaign.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Manager for bad polling.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: And then the guy had to come back a couple
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: of days later from his like mansion in Tampa with
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: new polls that he'd cooked to show everything and improved.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: And then they patched the shit up. It's like, of course,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: no wonder he played down the coronavirus response. The guy
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: can't look at evidence that is bad for him without
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: lashing out.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: I also, I also do just, I just love the
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: idea that Trump's looking at these polling and, and his, the, like,
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: His presidency is on the line. There's so many people
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: dead and sick. The country is in crisis. And he's like,
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: I got to get back pay from this Brad Parscale guy.
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: He's not earning that paycheck. I mean, I assume it
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: was the kind of thing where he said, I could
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: see like lashing out in the way that he does,
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: but it's still- It's still pretty amazing.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Pretty amazing.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: What are some of the warning signs for both candidates
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: in this leaked RNC polling? Because the leak was quite
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: extensive in the Post story.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, there is some evidence in the Post
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: story that the China attacks could work. They found that
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I think 51% of voters in 17 swing states blame
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: China the most for the coronavirus. 24% blame Trump. So that,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: you know, you could combine that with trying to call
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Biden soft on China and maybe put something together. I
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: also think that there's some clear evidence that people don't
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: know a lot about Biden besides that he was Obama's VP. And,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: you know, that goes a long way, but you still
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: risk getting defined. Voters also overwhelmingly think that Trump is
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: not your average politician. They think of him as an outsider. Normally,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I would think, oh, that's really beneficial for Trump. I
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: wonder if your average politician starts to sound pretty good
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: in the middle of a botched pandemic. You know, also
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: this whole thing where they're trying to suggest that Biden
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: is senile, like 45 percent saw Biden is more weak
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: and confused. Forty four percent saw Trump that way. So
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: it's basically split. I mean, split along partisan lines. So,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: you know. Maybe a silly one.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I love that question. I love that question. Like who's
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: more weak and confused? It's a tie. So that's our baseline.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: So that's, so that's our baseline.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: I do think like basically the poll from the RNC
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: kind of gives you the contours of the race and
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: it's pretty simple. Trump is an outsider, better at getting
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: things done, better at handling the economy. Voters say Biden
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: better understands average people, more honest, more compassionate, calm, and
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: committed to making healthcare more affordable.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: So you see it like, And he wins on intelligence
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and competence, which is something for a strategy based around
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: his mental acuity.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: Right. Yeah.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So you sort of see that.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: But like in there, you see Biden's strengths and you
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: see Trump's strengths and then you see their weaknesses and
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: you see that that's going to sort of be the axis.
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: That's why you see people like Ronna McDaniel, nay, Ronna
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: Romney McDaniel, on television saying that, you know, Trump built
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: the economy and we're going to need him to bring
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: the economy back because their whole idea is you make
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: the coronavirus something that happened to Trump. not something by
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: his failures Trump did to the country.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will just end on reiterating Tommy's point. Like
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in any other race, the fact that Trump is seen
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: as not your average politician and Biden is seen as
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a normal, typical politician would be like the biggest flashing
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: red light for me if I was in the Biden campaign.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I do think like they're never going to make Joe
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Biden not your average politician on the Biden campaign. And
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Trump's always going to be viewed a little bit as
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: an outsider. And so I think what you lean into
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: if you're the Biden campaign is we tried, not your
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: average politician for four years, and look where it got us.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Don't you want someone in this moment who is competent,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: who is intelligent, who is caring, who is honest, that
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: is going to be there and help guide the country
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: through one of its worst periods? And I imagine that
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: they'll probably lean into that to sort of make that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: contrast between the two candidates work for Joe Biden.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Let's talk more about Joe Biden's campaign. On Friday, the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: former vice president addressed the Tara Reid allegations for the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: first time during an interview on Morning Joe. Mika Brzezinski
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: asked him if he had sexually assaulted Reid and Biden said, quote, No,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: it is not true. I am saying unequivocally it never,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: ever happened. And it didn't. It never happened. He then
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: went on to say, quote, From the very beginning, I've
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: said believing women means taking the woman's claim seriously when
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: she steps forward. and then vet it. Look into it.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: That's true in this case as well. Women have a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: right to be heard, and the press should rigorously investigate
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: claims they make. I'll always uphold that principle, but in
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the end, in every case, the truth is what matters.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And in this case, the truth is the claims are false. Tommy,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: what'd you think of the interview and the accompanying medium
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: piece that Biden wrote?
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: So look, I mean, the interview, it was painful to watch.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, similar to Some of the disclosure to,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: to you and that you and Dan offered last week,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: I obviously worked for the Obama Biden administration. I donated
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: money to Biden after Bernie dropped out and it was
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: clear he was going to be the nominee. It was
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: also like pretty critical of the campaign during the primary,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: not because I thought he was a bad or cruel person.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: My experience was, was the opposite that he could be
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: a demanding boss, but you know, you heard all these
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: stories about him going out of his way to be
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: kind to people.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, that's just a way of saying, you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: it's why reading these allegations has been really hard. Um, And,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: you know, you guys probably heard the interview I did
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: with Amanda Marcotte, uh, back in early April. Uh, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to her because she had really
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: done a lot of work to vet and report on
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: these pieces. And I'm glad we got to this next
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: phase where people got to hear from Biden directly, uh,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: on camera, uh, you know, in an extensive interview. My,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: my hope is that it's not the last interview and
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: that he asked about, uh, the allegations again and continues
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: to address them directly. Um, There were some questions that
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: he wasn't asked that I would have liked to have
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: heard him address because it is a complicated story. I
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: think we're going to talk more about this in a second.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: I'm a little surprised that the conversation was so focused
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: on this document that may or may not be in
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: various archives, either in the Senate or the University of Delaware,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: the Tara Reid file that actually doesn't mention the assault allegations.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: So I'm worried that there might be this big reporting problem.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: process or fight over an archive that may or may
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: not include a document that doesn't actually prove the core allegation. But,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: you know, look, I'm glad he was on camera addressing it. Um,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: it didn't make it any easier to watch. Um, you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: that was my, that was my feeling.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Love it. What'd you think?
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: So there's, there's really, there's like, I think two possibilities here, right?
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: Either the allegation Tara Reid is alleging is true or
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: the allegation Tara Reid is alleging is false. Um, If
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: the allegation is true, I hope we will see more
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: corroboration from reporting, more journalism, more efforts to sort of
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: find backing for her claim. If the allegation is false,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: I do not know what Joe Biden should be saying
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: differently than what he said to Mika and Joe. If
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: he believes the allegation is false, if what he is
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: saying is, to the best of his knowledge, unequivocally true,
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: then I think he's saying the right things, right? He
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: is putting it in the context of what he believes
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: about in general, hearing allegations of abuse, hearing women out,
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: making sure those stories are told. I think he consistently
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: in that conversation said, I'm not going to question Tara
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: Reid's motivations. I'm not going to attack Tara Reid. I'm
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: not going to go after her. I'm going to simply
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: state what I believe to be true and the facts
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: of this case. And for someone in the position that
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: he's in, I'm not sure what he should be doing differently.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: There is this question about opening up the records. But
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: to Tommy's point, we now know based on the AP
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: and a few other interviews Tara Reid has given over
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: the past couple of months that it does not seem
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: that even if there is a document, it will allege harassment,
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: let alone assault. She said that there may be a
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: document that references her being uncomfortable and references some kind
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: of retaliation. Among the things we know, we know that
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: at a certain point she was in charge of the
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: interns and then she wasn't anymore. And then she left
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: the job. Beyond that, it's been very hard to drill
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: down exactly what happened in part because her story has
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: shifted several times throughout this process. That's not to say
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: that her allegation shouldn't be treated seriously. It's not to
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: say that her allegation isn't true. But, you know, I'm
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: looking at this and just thinking, like, how has Biden
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: reacted to this? Is he reacting in a way that
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: I believe is appropriate if he's going to deny the allegation?
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: And I think I think that they are doing their
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: best with a really, really difficult moral situation and a
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: really difficult political situation.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I agree with you. Like, I think
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: there's a temptation when, you know. you have an interview
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: with Biden, and probably the same thing will happen if
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Tara Reid does an interview, which she was supposed to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: do one on Fox reportedly on Sunday, she canceled, she
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: said she's going to do one in the future. There's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a tendency, you know, to sort of judge the performance
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: of the interview. But it really does come down to like,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: at least on the Biden front, like, if the allegations
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: are false, then you're right, then Biden said what he
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: needed to say. And I don't know what else he
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: would have done, right? Like, Brett Kavanaugh went before the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Senate and started screaming and yelling and crying and accusing
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: everyone of a plot against him and his political enemies
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: out to get him and all that bullshit. And then
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: stonewalled an investigation every step of the way. Joe Biden
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: denied the allegations, said that women should still be heard.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It should come forward, but that allegations should be vetted.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: pointed to the reporting and then sort of welcomed more
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: investigation and wanted to get all these records released. So
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what more you do at that point.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: We should talk about these records. You know, in his
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Medium piece, Biden wrote, there's a clear critical part of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: this story that can be verified. The former staffer said
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: she filed a complaint back in 1993. She does not
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: have a record of this. The papers from my Senate
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: years that I donated to the University of Delaware do
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: not contain personnel files. There's only one place a complaint
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of this kind could be the National Archives. I'm requesting
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: the Secretary of the Senate ask the archives to identify
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: any record of the complaint she alleged she filed and
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: make available to the press any such document. So then
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: a number of outlets and individuals, including the New York
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Times and Washington Post editorial boards, called on Biden to
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: open his records at the University of Delaware anyway, even
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: though that's not where personnel complaints like that go. And
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: then this morning, the secretary of the Senate wrote back
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and said they cannot legally disclose any records if they
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in fact exist. So I don't know where this leaves us.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: It's sort of my view that the Times and Post
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: editorial boards, I don't quite understand calling for opening up
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: records in Delaware where just personnel records wouldn't exist there anyway.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And it does seem to me like, you know, a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: fishing expedition that if a bunch of reporters just look
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: at all of his Delaware papers, it's just going to
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: be fodder for a whole bunch of things that are
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: 100% unrelated to anything that has to do with Tara
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Reid or any kind of sexual harassment or assault allegations.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, listen, I spent a lot of time
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: reading and digging into this in preparation for my interview
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: with With Amanda, it drove home how hard it can
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: be to follow this story and how precise you need
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: to be. Because really, there's two different allegations. There's an
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: allegation of harassment, sexual harassment while working in the office.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: And in some follow-up interviews, Tara Reid has specifically said,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: you know, it's more the people around Biden that retaliated
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: to her or created this environment, right? So that's one
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: distinct thing. And then there's the newer allegation of sexual assaults.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: And I think holding those two things as distinct is
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: important because there's also a lot of evidence of corroboration
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: of people she told about these incidents at the time.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: But it's very hard to keep clear in the reporting
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: whether we are specifically talking about corroboration at the time
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: of the harassment allegations or the assault allegations. And I
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: bring that up just because now the New York Times
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: and other editorial pages have started this bigger conversation. about
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: an archive that may or may not contain a document
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: that wouldn't prove the assault allegation, even if it were there.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And it just feels like- Or maybe the harassment allegation, even.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look, yeah, look, that might be, it
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: may not say sexual harassment, but it might describe things
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: that you would, I think, reasonably believe are sexual harassment, right?
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: So I don't want to get wrapped around that axle.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: But I do think it's probably not helpful for those
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: who really want to get to the bottom of what
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: evidence exists where to spark a bigger conversation about an
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: archive that is likely to contain a bill introductions and
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: speeches and almost nothing about personnel. And that we should
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: probably focus our efforts on digging into other places. But
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: as you know, John, like now you have people coming
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: out and saying, well, we can't even give over these,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: these records if they exist. So it, it just sets up, um,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: a challenging, potentially unsatisfying effort to find facts that, And
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: maybe that just speaks to the fact that it's very
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: hard to prove or disprove something that may or may
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: not have happened in 1993.
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I do think that's right. Look, it's a heated
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: political environment. And one lesson I think of, and I'm
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: not comparing, I just want to be very clear that
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: I'm not comparing this allegation to the substance of these issues,
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: but just the political conversation around them. You look at Benghazi,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: you look at email's. And one of the great cudgels
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: that Republicans had through both of those controversies was not
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: a set of facts they were trying to get to,
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: but the accusation that there was some reservoir of information,
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: some key place yet uncovered, some set of facts that
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: are being hidden, that they could press for again and
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: again and again for years. We need the truth on Benghazi,
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: we need the truth about the emails, and it was
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: a sort of an un, an unwinnable fight, right? Because there,
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: you know, Hillary goes before the committee and speaks for
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: 12 hours. That's not good enough.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Uh, they release a bunch of the emails. That's not
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: good enough.
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: And so what, what I think that the Republican operatives
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: aided by editorial boards, creating a, um, sort of an
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: unwinnable political problem of the answer is somewhere deep in
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: some archive, I do think is really politically dangerous and
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: worth putting in the context of a campaign against someone,
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump, who has released nothing, given no inch, and faces, what,
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: two dozen credible allegations of harassment and misconduct and abuse,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: women he has launched endless broadsides against for years and
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: years and years.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and, you know, Tommy, you pointed this out too,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: but what makes this difficult is And it's been difficult
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: for a lot of the reporters who've done a lot
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: of the serious investigation into the story is the fact
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: that there are these two different allegations and sort of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: two different stories she's told about these different allegations. And
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: it's not simply that for a while she talked about
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the sexual harassment and then decided to start talking about
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: an alleged assault as well. It's that while she was
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: talking about the sexual harassment part of it, she said
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: things that seemed to contradict the possibility that there was
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: also a sexual assault. The AP reported over the weekend
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that when they interviewed Tara Reid in April of 2019,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: and she told him about Biden rubbing her shoulders and
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: playing with her hair, she also said this about Biden, quote,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: I wasn't scared of him that he was going to
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: take me in a room or anything. It wasn't that
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: kind of vibe. Um, and so it is, I think
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: it's hard for a lot of these reporters who may
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: have interviewed her in 2019 and then now are interviewing
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: her again, just to sort of uncover what's going on here,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: especially since as has also been reported, she told other
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: people in her life or, or other people say she
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: told them, um, throughout her life, the story about the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: assault as well.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: So there's just a lot of different things going on here. Yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Look, just to be clear, like I want to know
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: all of the facts, even if they are incredibly painful
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: and show the worst to be true. I want to
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: know all of the facts. And I do not in
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: any way criticize Tara Reid for telling her story in
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: the time and place of her choosing. I do not
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: blame her in any way. What I'm trying to talk
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: about is the fact that as you search through the reporting,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: you end up having to read between the lines of
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: of what the journalist trying to get to the bottom
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: of the facts is saying about corroboration at the time
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: or a conversation with Tara Reade's neighbor or a conversation
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: with Tara Reade's brother. And it just gets very complicated. And,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: you know, like all of us, I think, are doing
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: the best. Like we're a liberal podcast. We've brought this
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: up several times now because we care about these allegations
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: and figuring out the truth as best we can. And,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: you know, I want to make sure like my hope
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: is that the media narrative will be focused on digging
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: into the places where those facts can be found and
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: not become a, like Lovett said, like an email style
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: fishing expedition that gets hijacked by the Trump campaign to
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: open up a bunch of notes about policy from the
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: 80s that Biden put forward that they then weaponize.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Yep, I think that's right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: I'll just say one more thing about this. And without
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: speaking to the specifically, you know, I've watched Ronan report
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: on a huge number of sexual harassment allegations, sexual abuse allegations,
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: rape allegations.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: He has done it.
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: Against Democrats. He has done it against Republicans, a bunch
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: of different prominent people. And what I have just learned
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: in observing him over time is it is incredibly difficult,
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: painstaking work that involves an incredible amount of time, which
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: is why there's been real value in the way that
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: he's done this reporting in taking a story and unpacking
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: it really carefully over time, gathering a huge amount of information,
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: huge amount of corroborating information, all the witnesses he could
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: possibly gather, and then you tell the story from beginning
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: to end in one place so that everyone has, and
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: then fact check it, right? And then everyone has an
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: incredibly strong, consistent basis of fact from which to draw conclusions,
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: think about next steps. And I think one additional way
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: in which this has been incredibly difficult for people of
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: good faith to process is that the allegation has been
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: meted out through various publications over the course of a
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: long period of time. And which introduced inconsistencies, confusions, questions
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: about specific uses of words, timelines, corroboration, witnesses, and all
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: of that means we're having an incredibly important discussion. The
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: stakes are total in terms of the election. And I
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: think we're doing it from a broad and inconsistent and
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: confused set of facts, which just makes it all the
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: more challenging.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: It is like Rebecca Tracer's piece on the Tara Reid
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: allegations that you and Dan talked about last week was
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: so good and so well done and so prescient because
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: it was just unbelievably painful over the weekend to see
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Gretchen Whitmer, who is an assault survivor, have to take
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: a bunch of questions about Tara Reid's allegations and whether
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: she believes Joe Biden and like talk about how it's
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: reopening wounds. And like she doesn't feel like she's being
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: allowed to move on for the conversation. It's just, you know.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: It is sad.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: And one of the things that Rebecca Traister has been
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: talking about that a lot of really smart writers have
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: talked about is how these allegations ultimately fall to women
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: to process, women to deal with, women to explain, women
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: to figure out. And it just speaks to how difficult
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: and complicated and sad a situation this is for people
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: who believe two things, that A, we must defeat Donald Trump,
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: and B, we must address these allegations and take them
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: really seriously.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, agreed.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: All right, the other big development in the Biden campaign
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: last week was the announcement of a vetting committee for
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: potential vice presidential picks, a process that Biden said would
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: be finished by July. The former vice president said they're
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: looking seriously at over a dozen women, and the rumored
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: shortlist is said to include Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Stacey Abrams, and Gretchen Whitmer, among others. We will speculate
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: endlessly about this process from now through July. This conversation
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: will just be the tip of the iceberg. But look, Tommy,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: let's start by talking about how much we can and
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: we can separate out sort of substance governing and politics.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: How much does the VP pick matter and sort of
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: in what ways?
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: So starting with governing, I mean, it's not a secret
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: that Joe Biden is older than a lot of presidential candidates, right?
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: Like he is openly ruminated about how maybe he is
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: more of a transition period to a new generation of politicians.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: So In that sense, the person who you choose to
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: be your vice president and to govern with you for
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: at least four years is enormously important, far more important
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: than past vice presidential picks, because I don't know that
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: we've ever heard a presidential candidate talk about a one-term
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: pledge like this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't remember one.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: So in that sense, it's enormously significant. I also think
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: that a lot of people will look at these picks
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: and try to use them as tea leaves for how
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Biden may or may not govern. If you choose Elizabeth Warren,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: that is a signal to a lot of progressives that
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: progressive ideas will be heard on a daily basis, maybe
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: hourly basis in the Oval Office, that there will be
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: someone in that Oval Office fighting for them in a
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: way that they really like. Then you have some of
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: the more moderate voices and you might hear progressive groups
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: feel like they're a little less enthused, right? Like an
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Amy Klobuchar is seen as more of a moderate voice
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: who won't necessarily be fighting for some of the things
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: they care about. Politically, I think it's probably one of
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: the most overthought decisions in the history of politics ever.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? I can't imagine anyone on
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: this list or not on this list that would win
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: or lose you the presidency. I think there was a
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: poll over the weekend where I think a quarter of
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: voters voted really care about the VP pick. Maybe on
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the margins, you can win or lose states. If Gretchen
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Whitmer gets you over the hump in Michigan, that's worth it.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: That's a big deal. That's an important state that we
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: have to win. If Stacey Abrams is able to inspire
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: African-American voters and young voters and turn them out in
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: bigger numbers in 2016, that's a big deal. That'll get
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: you over the hump and maybe win. But I think
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: it's impossible to predict the future. So ultimately, Biden's going
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: to have to do what Obama did, which is just
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: talk to a bunch of folks, figure out who he's
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the most comfortable with and make a choice. And they'll
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: vet those people in advance and they'll try to make
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: sure that there's nothing like politically explosive in their history
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: that hasn't come out yet. And I don't think that
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: it will. But look, you know, I don't I don't
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: really know how you do that relationship or like vibe
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: check with the with the vice presidential candidate over Zoom.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: That really sucks. I can't believe they have to do that.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: You got anything to add?
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: It's just so nice to be talking about this. It's
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: just sort of like, oh, it's like from another time. Like, oh, man,
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: who's the V?
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be? Remember Gephardt on the cover
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: of the Post?
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: You know, like they put Dick Gephardt. The New York
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: Post said it, that Kerry picks Gephardt. And he did
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: not pick Gephardt.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: He did not.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: So, you know, one thing that I was thinking about
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: is basically like, you know, to Tommy's point, right? It's
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: really just sort of a kind of in terms of
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: how it affects the race. It's sort of a good
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: enough thing.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Proposition, right?
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: If you just pick someone who everyone generally recognizes as
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: being up to the job, it sort of stops being
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: as big a story. And then if you pick someone
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: like Sarah Palin or you pick someone like Dan Quayle,
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden that becomes a really bad story
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: for you that you pick someone that might not be
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: up for the job. I mean, all of the people
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: you mentioned are serious national figures. I would say Stacey
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: Abrams is the closest to someone who has a question
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: mark in terms of national politics, but she makes up
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: for any questions about that with her intelligence, grit, and
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: clear competence and her ability to kind of run organizations and, and, and,
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: and do smart politics. Uh, you know, in terms of
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, I vividly remember being told what
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: Tim Kaine delivers Virginia and without Virginia and with Virginia,
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: Hillary can't lose. So I'm also, I'm always a little
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: bit skeptical of the like state play. Um, that said,
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: what a fun list. What a fun, what a fun
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: list of women.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I do think just from like, you know, there's not
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: a ton of evidence on this, but just from a
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: political science standpoint, like there is not that much evidence
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that sort of picking someone from a state or a
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: region necessarily helps you all that much in that state
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: or region. Of course, who knows? Like I said, it's
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: a very limited amount of evidence for this. Um, But
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I do think like what you were saying, Lovett, basically
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: this is a pick with, there's not a ton of upside,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of potential for a downside. So hello,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Sarah Palin, mostly. But I think that Biden's age and
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the fact that we're in the middle of a pandemic
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and an economic crisis does make governing sort of more
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: of a factor than it usually is. Can this person
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: step into the role of president of the United States?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: And I think also after the primary we had for Democrats,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: It really is the major decision that Joe Biden will
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: make before November that sort of gives us an indication
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: of where he sees the party going and where he
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: will lead the party both during his presidency and potentially
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: for his successor. And on that note, there were two
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: recent polls of Democratic voters from Data for Progress and CBS,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and they show that Elizabeth Warren is the top choice
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: among Democrats by double digit margins. Followed by Kamala Harris
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: was second in both polls. And then Stacey Abrams and
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobuchar were roughly tied for third. Now, some of
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: this is possibly due to the fact that Elizabeth Warren
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: of that list is the candidate with the highest name
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: ID of anyone. And that was true in the primary
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: as well. After Biden and Bernie, she was number three
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in terms of name identification among both Democratic voters and
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: all voters. But what did you guys think about those
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: polls and how much value is there in polls of
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: only Democrats for a VP pick?
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, my reaction was similar to yours
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: in that I assumed it had a lot to do
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: with name ID. I mean, like there is value in
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: the sense that if you can pick a VP that
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: excites the Democratic base and makes them more likely to
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: donate to you, volunteer for you, vote for you, tell
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: their friends, you know, like all the things that we
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: encourage people to do on a daily basis. That's really good.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: But does it help you win a general election in
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: a significant way? I'm not sure yet. I'm pretty skeptical
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: of all the polling. I get why people do it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: It's very fun to pull these things it's fun to
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: talk about i would be happy with any of those
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: candidates so i'm sort of you know agnostic almost but
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: um yeah it just it's half the story right i
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: just petered out on my answer there yeah whatever it's
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: uh i mean it's like joe biden in the middle
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: of the debate fucking pick somebody i don't care But
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: it's just that it's half the story, right?
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: Like polling of Democratic enthusiasm tells you, will this person
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: excite people and turn them out? And then you need
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: the other half. Like, how does this person do with
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: the independents? You'll need to build a winning coalition. It's
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: also just to sort of add to what John was saying. Like,
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: it is always the case that when a presidential nominee
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: chooses a vice president, they're in many ways choosing someone
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: that they believe could be the standard.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Bearer of the party.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: But like, It is never more true than right here, right?
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: This is someone who, based on what Joe Biden is saying,
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: and I think actually he's been really smart and deft
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: about how he has introduced this idea of I'm only
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: going to serve one term because I'm old in a
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: way that has a real kind of optimistic bent to it, right?
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: I'm a transition candidate and I'll transition to a younger generation.
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: He is choosing potentially the Democratic nominee in four years.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: That's an incredibly big decision, bigger than most presidents ever
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: deal with because eight years is a long time, right?
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: You don't know what's going to happen after eight years,
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: but four years This person, if this person is going
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: to be the nominee in 2024, God, I want to
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: live in that.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: I want to live in that world.
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: I'm going to knock on things like they're going to
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: have to start campaigning two years into being vice president.
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: So this is somebody who starts off as the presumptive,
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: basically on their way to being the presumptive nominee.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Hey, thought experiment. It's 2008. Hillary Clinton wins the primary.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: She picks Barack Obama as her VP. She wins the
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: general because financial crisis. Remember that was real bad.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Wins reelection with Barack Obama as VP. Obama runs against Trump,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: kicks the shit out of him. We're not here.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: Great for the world. Now, John, for you specifically, you'd
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: be working directly for John Lovett in that speechwriting office.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: So it's something you should really think about. Yeah. It's
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: my GQ profile now, bitch. All right.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: But tell me, the question is, how long would I
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: have been working for John Lovett and how long would
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: John Lovett have been working since Hillary would have been
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: impeached on day 10? That's right.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: And also, by the way, Yeah, and Trump only runs.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: Trump only runs because of the racial backlash to having
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: our first black president. So really, it's a fun hypothetical.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: It's a real slider situation. And I say we jump
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: through until there are dinosaurs.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, people going through the process and candidates always
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: say this, but I think it is true and it'll
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: be true this time. You should pick the person that
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: you feel most comfortable with, the person who you believe
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: can step into the role of president. And it usually
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: will come down to that, though we're also facing an
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: election where it's more important than ever before to win, right?
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Like winning is going to be the huge consideration. So
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I think what the Biden campaign will obviously do is
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: forget just about these Democratic voter polls, go into these
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: swing states and start polling Biden and some of these nominees.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: And just to make sure, like, say Biden likes someone,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: all right, make sure that nominee, that potential VP nominee
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't lose you any voters, doesn't make things worse, right?
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: If she doesn't, if it's either makes no difference or
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: it makes a positive difference, then you pick who you like, right?
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: You pick who you believe in and you pick who's
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: going to be the best president. I think that's pretty clear,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: but I am sure they will do a ton of polling.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: It'll be Biden-Warren versus Trump-Pence in Wisconsin. Biden- Harris versus,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and they'll go so on and so forth.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: And they'll do this a lot between now and then.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: Just having a little moment of fantasy of imagining Elizabeth
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: Warren debating Mike Pence.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: And I'm just going to think about that. For like
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: an hour, just to have it in my heart.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Honestly, it's like Elizabeth Warren debating Mike Pence. I think
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Kamala would do a great job debating Mike Pence. Stacey Abrams?
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Stacey Abrams.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Destroy him. Imagining those three debating Mike Pence is a
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: fun debate to think about.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: He would short out like a Westworld robot doing the
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Reagan impression. It would be incredible.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, when we come back, I'll have my interview with
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Austin Goolsbee. I am now joined by the former chair
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, current professor
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, my
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: good friend, Austin Goolsbee. How's it going, Goolsbee?
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: John, don't you still owe me money?
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Probably. It seems right. I mean, just to start, just
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: so people know, you and I first started working together
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: on the Obama campaign as the world was falling apart
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: during the financial crisis. You helped me translate... economists speak
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: about mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps into simple English,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: which I always appreciated. And in the campaign office, we
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: had this emergency bourbon that we pulled out whenever the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: economy looked really bad. So my first question is, how
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: much bourbon should we be drinking right now?
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, by our old measure, if the market
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: dropped 5% in a day, We were like, ooh, that's terrible.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: And if it was 10%, we were like, we should
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: go get drunk. What are we going to do with ourselves?
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: We would have had many bourbon days on this one.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: But we got to stop meeting like this, John. It
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: seems like every time we have a conversation, it's getting worse.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, how bad do you expect this to get?
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like projections are all over the place. Obviously,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the administrations are quite sunny. seemingly and possibly so. And
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: other people are talking about depression levels of unemployment, which
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: we could see fairly soon or we might already be in.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: I think it's going to be terrible in terms of
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: just what the measure conditions are. I think if you
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: look at these unemployment insurance filings, that's the worst. It's
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: probably the worst five weeks in the history of the
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: American job market. what we've just been through. We've never
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: had anything like that. The most that the unemployment rate
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: has gone up in an entire year was in the
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: depression and is about 8%. The next unemployment numbers that
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: come out, we're likely going to jump something like 12%
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: in a month. So by that measure, it's going to
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: be unbelievable. Worse than anything we saw in 2008, 2009,
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: which was terrifying. Worse probably than any month of the
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: Great Depression. The only thing that we got to hope,
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: and I'm actually somewhat optimistic on this front, is it's
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: not a regular business cycle. So you're going to see
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: numbers like you've never seen before. But the thing that's
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: terrifying about an unemployment rate of 10% or 12% is
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: that in a normal boom, that can come down maybe
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: one to one and a half points per year. So
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: if this is a regular business cycle, we're going to
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: be a decade or more before we're back to anything
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: like what we were before. But I actually don't think
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: that that's true. I mean, if you could just say
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: poof and have a vaccine, I kind of think the
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: economy could go right back to where it was previous
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: to COVID. And so our only difference Dance now is
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: this dance of how do we keep it to be temporary?
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: How do we not let people get evicted or not
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: be able to put food on their table or have
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: their utilities cut off and all of that type of stuff?
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: Small business have to liquidate, bearing in mind that we
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: got some sectors like cruise lines or sports stadiums that
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: is probably going to be a while before they come back.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: Their shock is maybe not as temporary as the others.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: So that's the long version to say, I think it's
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: gonna be real bad, but it might be able to
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: improve at least somewhat faster than it does before.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: So the Trump folks keep talking about a V-shaped economic recovery.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: A lot of other economists are talking about a U-shaped
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: economic recovery. Can you sort of translate that for us
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and where do you fall on that spectrum?
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: Okay, V-shape is it goes down, it comes right back up.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: And U-shape, it goes down and it kind of stumbles
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: around the bottom and then it comes up. And then
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: the L-shape, is like, well, wait a minute, that's not
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: a recovery. And then we're going to argue about Greek
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: letters and Arabic script of what's the shape of the recovery.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: I think the right way to think about it is
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: if you want to think in income terms or GDP
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: rather than unemployment, the next quarter is likely to be
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: the worst number we have ever had in the history
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: of the data. Might be minus 25%, minus 30% at
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: an annual rate. which is unreal. We've never seen anything
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: like that, even for a quarter. And then the next quarter,
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: it might come back, let's say robustly to plus 10.
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: But look, the thing is, if you go minus 30
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: and then plus 10.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: It's not going to feel like plus 10.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: It's like, well, why don't you stop saving me so
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: much money? You know what I mean? I'm like, ah,
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: if we were going to brag about plus 10 and
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: we're still 20 points underwater, It is not going to
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: feel like plus 10, I don't think. The unemployment rate
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: is still going to be double digits, 9, 10 percent,
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: even after that comeback. And that's because it's the comebacks
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: in percent terms outweigh of the basement. And it's harder
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: to fall to injury from the basement window than it
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: is from some higher floor.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: So you wrote a great piece in the New York
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Times over the weekend about how critical it is for
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: the government to maintain public support during an economic crisis.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: What worries you most about the path the Trump administration
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: has taken so far?
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: Look, I'd say, too, there's one practical worry and there's
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: one worry in spirit that has been with us from
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: the very beginning. And that is and let's start with
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: that one. That is absolutely no one can deny that
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: the president has wanted to say this isn't serious from
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: the beginning. They can try to go back and scramble
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: now and say, oh, no, there was a day when
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: he said it was a pandemic or he said, you know,
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: nobody from that flight should come here. But The fact is,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: at every juncture, they've wanted less testing, less documentation of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: the presence of this disease at every juncture. They've said,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: how is the economy, how many people are going to die?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: How fast is the economy going to come back? The
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: president has consistently been on the side of, it's not
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: that serious. You can go back to work. We have
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: 14 cases. It'll soon be zero. People are finding it's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: no worse than the flu. All of that comes from
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: a place in his mind that wants to minimize it.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: And look, I understand that. That is kind of the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: authoritarian playbook. That was the same mentality that the Chinese
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: had in Wuhan when the thing began. And that's deeply
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: troubling because it undermines and blows up the credibility of
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: the United States government and of the president specifically. You
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: know better than anybody, John, we spent so much time
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: on the words used by the president that, that he
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: would be, when he made a statement, a presidential statement
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: was taken with the highest level of seriousness. And the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: best that can be said for the president on, on
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: his worst days is, well, pay no attention to what
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: he's tweeting and pay no attention to what he's saying.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: He doesn't really mean it. And I can't understand that world.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: And it terrifies me because he, Now, let's say we
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: come to the moment where we think it is safe
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: for some groups to start going back out. And the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: president says on Wednesday, everything is safe. OK, well, the
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: thing is, half the country does not believe the words
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: of the president. And if he says on Tuesday, we
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: think it's open and the following industries can go back
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: to work, people won't go back. And that undermining of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: credibility is really seriously problematic. The other is on the practical,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: we just don't have enough tasks. Look, there are multiple
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: economies around the world that have now gotten themselves out
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: of lockdown and are recovering. places like Korea, places like Germany,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: places like Taiwan, soon to be Australia, New Zealand, a
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: couple others. They did enough testing that the only people
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: that have to go out of commission are the people
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: who have the disease. And if you don't test, you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: can't get that. You can reopen the doors, but you're
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: just going to get infected again and everybody's going to
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: have to go back in and lock the doors.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: So imagine you're back in your old White House job,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: the fantastic new Democratic president And let's say there are
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: no political constraints in terms of what could pass Congress.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: What do you do next in terms of economic relief?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: And you can also include sort of non-legislative action too.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: Okay, the first, I always say the number one rule
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: of virus economics is the best thing you can do
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: for the economy is slow the rate of spread of
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: that virus. Okay, so I would throw almost unlimited money
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: at the fighting of that war on the virus with
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: a massive ramp up of testing and a massive increase
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: in medical equipment. And I would subsidize, you saw in
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: New York, for example, Governor Cuomo asked retired medical personnel
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: to come back and he got thousands of volunteers. The
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: federal government should be subsidizing that everywhere. We'll give you
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: a signing bonus. We'll waive all, you won't have any
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: social security penalty. You won't pay any payroll tax. If
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: you'll come out of retirement for a short period to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: help us, we should be trying to expand in my world,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: the supply curve of healthcare. Okay. Then on economic relief,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: once you are doing that to slow the spread of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: the virus, I think preventing people from getting evicted and
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: having their gas shut off and preventing small business from
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: liquidating from temporary shocks, all of that's super important. It
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: is going to keep costing money because it's not regular stimulus.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: It's not meant to get us growing. It's just meant
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: to prevent liquidation. And then I think that this area
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: of money to the state's We saw firsthand in 2009
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: what happens when you have a bad recession and the
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: state coffers get completely depleted is they all have balanced
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: budget rules that force them to raise taxes in the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: face of the downturn or else cut spending by firing
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: the state workers. And it magnified the downturn in 2009.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: And it is about to absolutely magnify this downturn if
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: the federal government does not step in to try to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: prevent that from happening. So I would definitely work on
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: that side too.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: What do you think about some of these proposals that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: sort of go maybe beyond the Paycheck Protection Program from
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: some more progressive members that say, like, let's do what
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: they're doing in Europe, in some countries in Europe, and
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: just literally pay companies to make sure that All of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: their workers are on the payroll and that they just.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: Stay on the payroll. Look, it's kind of interesting. I
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: at heart, I'm a little more sympathetic with that approach
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: than the one we took. We took the approach. Let's
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: up the unemployment benefits when people for people who lose
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: their job. And that's the way we'll deliver relief. I'm
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: a little more sympathetic to the idea that you could
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: use the money paid directly to the employers to keep
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: them on the payroll because I think that way you
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: don't break the employment relationship. And the practical thing of like, well,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: how are they going to refine their workers when this
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: is over? All of that depends on how long it lasts.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: So in sympathy to the view that do it through
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: unemployment insurance was number one, Unlike Europe, we don't have
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: as well set up a system to be able to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: do that. Part of that is, well, how many employees
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: do you have? How will we know if you're keeping
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: them on the payroll or you're just taking the money
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: and using it for executive compensation or something? And two.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: Because we have that system, we could get this out
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: the door more quickly. And that is important. So I
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: am sympathetic with the way we have done it. Eventually,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: we got to decide, like I say, for cruise lines,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: should the taxpayer be paying billions of dollars to keep
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: cruise lines open? A, they're not even headquartered in the
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: United States. 90 plus percent of their payroll are not Americans.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: Should we be paying to keep them open when there's
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: no demand for cruise lines? Questions like that become harder
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: under the European system. The European system is great if
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: this is a short-term thing where everybody goes home, have
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: a furlough, take a nap, come back. They say, oh
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: my God, you have no idea what happened while you
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: were asleep. Please come back to work. Okay, now that
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: is perfect for what we pay you to keep you
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: on the payroll. If what has to happen is several
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: industries have to mostly shut down and those people need
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: to go find new jobs, then the UI system is,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: I think, the better way to do it.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: So, okay, back in our current political hellscape, what do
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: you think the most important things for the Democrats in
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Congress to fight for in the next economic relief bill?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: What would you fight for and why?
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, on the strictly economic side, I think this
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: money to the states is going to be critically important,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: and it's already turned into this red state, blue state football.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: I think that, like I say, the money will always
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: run out. If it's just relief money, the money will
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: always run out. So we're going to be back to
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: the coffers needing to say there are a bunch of
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: people who cannot put food on the table. There are
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: a bunch of small businesses that are about to liquidate.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: And this thing is going to snowball. And so I
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: think money in that style has got to be on
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: the table. But I can't really get away from the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: get the money out there fighting the spread of the virus.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's the.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Testing, tracing, all that.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: Testing, tracing, medical equipment. If doing research... If it's true
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: that all of us putting bandanas over our mouths could
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: slow the rate of spread of the virus by 50%,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: that alone might be enough to allow us to get
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: a bunch of people going back to work.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: And I don't. I don't think that it was crazy.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: Mitt Romney didn't come up with it. There were a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: lot of Democrats who also had the idea, but bonus
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: pay for critical workers. I hope they go fight for that. Yeah. A,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: it should include medical, but it should also include tons
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: of non-medical. I mean, it's crazy.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Delivery folks, food folks.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: Delivery people. We've got people working at these places that
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: we can't live without them doing that. And they should
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: get bonuses.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: So unsurprisingly, McConnell and other Republicans have cited concern over
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: the deficit as a reason to hold up the next
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: coronavirus relief bill. Not a big surprise coming from those guys.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: But to what extent should concerns about the deficit factor
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: into policymaking over the course of this crisis? Zero. Zero.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: Absolutely zero. That is a joke. Look, as I say,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: the last thing you want Dwight Eisenhower to be thinking
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: in June of 1944 is like, hey, let's take half
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: the boats and mothball them because I didn't have a
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: pay for for the landing on on the D-Day beaches.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, come on. Revenue neutrality in a war is
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: the last thing that you need. The debt is specifically
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: for spreading out costs like this, which are critical to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: the survival of the country. And on top of that,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: if $ 2 trillion unpaid for tax cut by George W.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: Bush is $ 2 trillion, or maybe a little over $ 1 trillion,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: plus $ 2 trillion unpaid for war, plus a $ 2 trillion
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: Trump tax cut, all of which happened unpaid for and
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: with no run-up in the interest rate of the United States,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: did not convince you. Let the market right now convince you.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: The debt capacity of the U.S. government is vastly in
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: excess of where we are now. The problem of deficits
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: is not that they create a fiscal crisis for the country.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: It's that ultimately you do have to pay back the money.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: And so what we will be doing by running debt
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: now is we will have higher taxes or a bigger
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: share of what we spend our government money on in
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: the future going to interest payments for this debt than
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: we would be comfortable with. But think of World War II.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: Corrected for inflation, World War II cost over $ 4 trillion.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: and the economy was a lot smaller then, and the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: debt went way up, and the way they paid it
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: back is they raised taxes, especially on high-income people, but
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: they raised taxes post-war, and we grew, and those two
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: things together are what brought the debt-to-GDP ratio down over time.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: To hear the Republicans saying, first, that we had $ 2
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: trillion to spend on tax cut, no problem, Then we
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: have almost $ 3 trillion to spend on the CARES Act,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: $ 500 billion for big business, leverage $ 5 trillion through lending
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: at the Fed. We have money for the PPP program
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: that's supposed to go to small business and real estate
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: investment trusts and big companies and friends of the president
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: got the money. And then when they say, well, you
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: know what we need to do now is make sure
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: that everyone can eat. And they say, oh my God,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: we don't have the money for that. What about the deficit?
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, who are we kidding? What are they even
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: talking about?
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: Classic, classic. Last question, you talked about sort of a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: lot of the money that we're, a lot of the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: policy we're passing now is about relief and not necessarily stimulus. What,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: as we look ahead towards sort of long-term economic stimulus,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: what are some of your favorite ideas? Infrastructure, green infrastructure,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: or do you think it's important? How important do you
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: think it is?
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: Look, I think those are both infrastructure and green infrastructure
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: and health infrastructure. All of that is super important. In
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: my mind, I don't associate that with immediate term stimulus.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: I'm absolutely for big expansion of infrastructure and have been
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: for 20 years. That said, we learned in 2009 when
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: we passed the stimulus that the infrastructure parts, even the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: most shovel-ready of those projects, take a little longer than
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: the advocates want them to. So the notion that, let's
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: say six months from now, we're past the peak of
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: the virus and we're actively wanting to get growth to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: come back. My favorite outcome is have the federal government
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: pay the states to do sales tax holidays because you
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: only get the tax cut if you spend the money.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: And then the other, just go down the list from
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: 2009 of what stuff had the highest bang for the buck.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: There were massive numbers and length of reports, some put
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: out by the Council of Economic Advisors and some by others,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: going through all the different components of the stimulus, what
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: had high bang for the buck and what didn't. There
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: are a lot of direct government programs that had very
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: high bang for the buck in terms of stimulus.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: Austin Goolsbee, thank you so much for coming on Pod
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Save America. It was good talking to you, man.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: It's always fun, John.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Austin for joining us today. And I'll see
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: you guys later.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: Bye, boys.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: My Zoom co-hosts.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: See you guys.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: and Milo Kemp, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: videos every week.