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“Gaslighting gas prices” (with Elizabeth Warren!) · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening
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  Speaker 1: our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on
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  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors,
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  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
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  Speaker 1: headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's
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  Speaker 1: more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
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  Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
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  Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
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  Speaker 4: On today's pod, President Biden hits the road to go
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  Speaker 4: on offense against rising prices and falling poll numbers. Senator
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  Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren joins to talk about passing the Build Back
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: Better plan. And Elijah Cohn is here to help us
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  Speaker 4: take on the week's worst punditry in another round of
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: Take Appreciator.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: But first, but first.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: Check out this week's episode of Hysteria with Alyssa Mastromonaco
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: and guest host Julissa Arce, where they discuss Alex Jones'
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Cuba immigration reform and are joined by Representative Pramila Jayapal.
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  Speaker 4: Julissa is filling in for Erin Ryan, who just gave
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  Speaker 4: birth to a beautiful baby girl a few weeks ago.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Congrats to Erin and Josh. New episodes of Hysteria drop
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  Speaker 4: every Thursday. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
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  Speaker 4: All right, let's get to the news. In a line
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  Speaker 4: that could have easily been about Congress, Joe Biden said, quote,
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: these suckers are something else, as he screeched away behind
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  Speaker 4: the wheel of an electric Hummer at the grand opening
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  Speaker 4: of GM's Detroit assembly plant on Wednesday. The president then
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  Speaker 4: gave a speech where he sold the benefits of his
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  Speaker 4: new infrastructure law, talked up positive economic indicators, and touted
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  Speaker 4: a new independent analysis that says his Build Back Better
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  Speaker 4: plan won't add to the deficit or inflation.
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  Speaker 5: Through the leading rating agencies on Wall Street, confirmed today,
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  Speaker 5: not a liberal think tank, two Wall Street outfits, that
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  Speaker 5: the economic proposals we put forward for the nation, the
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  Speaker 5: infrastructure law we just signed and the Build Back Better
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  Speaker 5: plan are being considered this week, and Congress will not
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  Speaker 5: add to inflationary pressures in the economy.
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  Speaker 3: Won't add to inflationary pressures.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, there is no one America's working class trusts more
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  Speaker 2: than Wall Street.
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  Speaker 3: A couple Wall Street offers. What a funny applause line.
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  Speaker 4: Anyway, so the political backdrop here is that despite really
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  Speaker 4: strong job growth that has actually been revised many months later,
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  Speaker 4: it was even stronger than we thought, despite strong job
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  Speaker 4: growth and the passage of a bill that will create
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  Speaker 4: even more jobs, the infrastructure bill, Biden's approval ratings are
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  Speaker 4: in the shitter, driven by concerns about the economy and
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  Speaker 4: specifically about rising costs. So a new poll from Navigator,
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  Speaker 4: which is a Democratic research firm, shows a 17 point
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  Speaker 4: increase since June in the share of voters who say
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  Speaker 4: they are, quote, very concerned about the rate of inflation,
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  Speaker 4: including a 20 point increase among Democrats. And the top
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  Speaker 4: concerns are the price of groceries, then gas, and then housing. Dan,
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  Speaker 4: how much control does the president actually have over inflation?
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  Speaker 2: A lot less than the president wishes and the public expects.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, there is very little that the president can
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  Speaker 2: do with or without Congress, frankly, to immediately stem inflation.
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  Speaker 2: And we know this because this is not a unique
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  Speaker 2: problem in the United States. Costs are up all over
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  Speaker 2: the world. This is happening.
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  Speaker 3: Global problem.
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  Speaker 2: It's a global problem, so it's not related to the
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  Speaker 2: American Rescue Plan, the Build Back Better bill, which has
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  Speaker 2: not even passed yet, or anything like that. There's very
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  Speaker 2: little that the president can do. I mean, there are
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  Speaker 2: some things on the margin, and the White House is
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  Speaker 2: doing those. You can work and use the bully pulpit
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  Speaker 2: and the infrastructure of the federal government to try to
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  Speaker 2: unclog the ports to get more goods in faster, which
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  Speaker 2: will help with the supply issue. The president just sent
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  Speaker 2: a letter to the FTC trying to encourage an investigation
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  Speaker 2: into price gouging from oil companies and at gas prices.
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  Speaker 2: There are things you can do there on the margin.
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  Speaker 2: But the bigger problem, what is causing all of this
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  Speaker 2: is a truly unprecedented thing. It has been decades since
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  Speaker 2: we have dealt with inflation on a prolonged basis in
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  Speaker 2: this country, really not since the late 70s, early 80s.
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  Speaker 2: But what we've never dealt with before is pandemic inflation,
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  Speaker 2: where people's economic behaviors have changed. The economy in some
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  Speaker 2: places has come back faster than people thought. Other places,
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  Speaker 2: less fast. And you have people buying, I thought Austin
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  Speaker 2: Goolsbee did an amazing job of explaining this in last
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: week's pod. But this is a very, there are several
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  Speaker 2: things interacting here. It's pandemic related. It's the infrastructure, the
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  Speaker 2: economy related. It is stuff happening abroad, like a shortage
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  Speaker 2: of coal in China is impacting gas prices here. And
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  Speaker 2: so this is very, very hard because there are very
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  Speaker 2: few things. There's no magic button to push. There's no
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  Speaker 2: lever to pull that will immediately solve this problem substantively.
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  Speaker 3: Which is always something any White House just loves. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: that's right.
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  Speaker 4: Big problem that you have no power to solve, but
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  Speaker 4: people expect you to. Yes.
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  Speaker 3: That's always just, that is the wheelhouse.
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  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And the one that is most statistically correlated with your
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: political success in midterms and presidential reelections.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Correct.
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  Speaker 4: So- What do you think about the White House's current
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  Speaker 4: approach to addressing people's economic concerns, both from a policy standpoint?
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  Speaker 4: You mentioned some of the things they're doing on supply chains,
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  Speaker 4: on the price of gas, or a messaging perspective.
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  Speaker 2: As I said, on the substantive stuff, I think they
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  Speaker 2: are doing all the things they can do in the
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  Speaker 2: very limited set of tools they have. And it's worth
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: noting that the biggest, most important thing you can do
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  Speaker 2: is get the pandemic behind us. If you get people
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  Speaker 2: going out as Austin said, buying services instead of just goods,
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  Speaker 2: it will relieve the pressure on products, which will lower
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  Speaker 2: their cost. It will solve some of the supply chain issues.
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  Speaker 2: And so ultimately, everything, as it has been true since
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  Speaker 2: the day President Biden was inaugurated, is the best thing
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  Speaker 2: he can do for the economy, for the country, politically,
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  Speaker 2: for the Democratic Party, for the world, is get the
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  Speaker 2: pandemic under control. And they are doing all they can.
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  Speaker 4: I was going to say, and on that note, They
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  Speaker 4: have instituted vaccine requirements everywhere they can. Some of them
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  Speaker 4: are in court now. Those vaccine requirements are working by
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  Speaker 4: all accounts. Companies, cities, places where they institute these vaccine requirements,
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  Speaker 4: you see headlines about a couple of people here and
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  Speaker 4: they're refusing, but as a percentage of a workforce or
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  Speaker 4: a city or wherever the vaccine requirement is, it's extremely high.
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  Speaker 3: These vaccine requirements are working.
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  Speaker 4: They have finally rolled out vaccines for children ages 5
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  Speaker 4: to 11. So that process has started as well, which is.
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  Speaker 3: Really good news.
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  Speaker 4: And then I think the one thing that's been tricky
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  Speaker 4: is the booster campaign. And I think the Biden administration,
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  Speaker 4: I get really annoyed by this, because the Biden administration
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: or the White House, and when I say the White House,
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  Speaker 4: I actually also mean Dr. Fauci, the nation's top health advisor,
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  Speaker 4: and other scientists around the White House, all wanted to
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  Speaker 4: roll out boosters for everyone. And a minority but vocal
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  Speaker 4: minority of public health experts disagreed. And the journalists sided
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: with the public health experts. And there were all these
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  Speaker 4: headlines about, oh, the Biden administration is not listening to
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  Speaker 4: science because they politically want all boosters.
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  Speaker 3: Well, where are we now?
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  Speaker 4: We're in a place where the FDA is about to
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  Speaker 4: approve boosters for everybody, except now it's right before Thanksgiving
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  Speaker 4: when a bunch of people are traveling.
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  Speaker 3: So.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Makes me mad, Dan. Makes me mad.
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  Speaker 4: And it's just to say, I'm sure everyone who's listening
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  Speaker 4: to this has already gotten your booster, but get your booster.
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  Speaker 3: It is open.
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  Speaker 4: Whoever you are, get your booster because the qualifications now
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  Speaker 4: are so broad that just about anyone can get them anyway.
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  Speaker 4: And the FDA is about to approve them for everyone anyway.
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  Speaker 4: Go get your booster. You do not want to break
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  Speaker 4: through infections forever. Don't listen to the fucking public health
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  Speaker 4: nerds that have been telling you, oh, like if you
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  Speaker 4: give up your booster, suddenly that booster is going to
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  Speaker 4: go to someone in a developing country.
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  Speaker 3: That's not true. That's not true.
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  Speaker 4: We have boosters that we've already purchased and we have
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  Speaker 4: boosters that have already gone around the world. There is
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  Speaker 4: no difference between them. Oh, that was just one rant.
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  Speaker 4: But look, I mean, this is important not just to
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  Speaker 4: people's health, which is the most important thing, but like
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  Speaker 4: you said, this is important to getting the entire economy going.
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  Speaker 4: Back on track by making sure that, first of all,
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  Speaker 4: all the unvaccinated people are vaccinated and then everyone who
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  Speaker 4: got their first two doses is fully protected from covid,
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  Speaker 4: which does require a booster at this point.
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  Speaker 2: Because unfortunately, rates are infection rates. Cases are going up again,
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  Speaker 2: as is to be expected in the winter.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: With all the places that didn't get hit in the
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  Speaker 4: first wave that hit the South so badly, now you're
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: seeing it in the Midwest and the Northeast. And that's
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  Speaker 4: what people had feared. And unfortunately, there's a lot of
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  Speaker 4: unvaccinated people, especially in a lot of some of those
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  Speaker 4: Midwestern states, and that's very dangerous. So from a message perspective,
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  Speaker 4: so we talked about substantively, beat the virus, supply chain, gas. Message-wise,
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  Speaker 4: how do you think the White House approach is going?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think just the important caveat in this discussion
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  Speaker 2: is The message matters on the margins compared to the substance, right?
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  Speaker 3: That's true.
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  Speaker 2: Our old friend David Axelrod once was quoted in the
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: New York Times after we, it was either right before
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: or right after we got shellacked in the 2010 midterms.
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  Speaker 2: And it was a lot of experts, people who, frankly,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: if it was a 2021, probably would have had podcasts,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: but offering real advice about the failures of the Obama
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: economic message. And Axelrod said, understanding that obviously we can
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  Speaker 2: and should do better, but you can't spin 10% unemployment.
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  Speaker 2: You can't spin $ 5 gas prices. You can't spin increases
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  Speaker 2: in milk eggs, the things that people need. And so, yes,
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  Speaker 2: you can do better messaging always, but substance is 100
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  Speaker 2: times more important. In terms of message, there has been
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: a real shift in the White House in, I'd say,
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  Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks, sort of in anticipation of
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: the inflation numbers that came out. I think that was
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: last week. And then certainly since then, which is being
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: much more aggressive about talking about the things the president
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: is trying to do to address people's concerns, right? There's
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the stuff at the ports. There is talking about the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: investments in the bipartisan infrastructure deal that he signed on
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Monday that will deal with inflation, framing the elements of
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: his jobs and climate plan as specific ways that will
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: help inflation. So now there's sort of a shift to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: recognize that inflation is here. People are concerned about it.
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  Speaker 2: It could be here for a in our economic plans
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  Speaker 2: as a way to address those concerns, as opposed to
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: sort of kind of dismissing them. It's not necessarily the
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  Speaker 2: White House, but a lot of Democrats have done for
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  Speaker 2: a while, not thinking it was going to pass us
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  Speaker 2: by before too long.
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about that.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, how do you think Democrats broadly should be
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  Speaker 4: talking about the economy right now? Is there any helpful
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: data that you saw in that navigator poll or other research?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think the first and most important thing is
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: except the reality that people care about inflation and they should, right?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: We say inflation and you hear a lot of people
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: on Twitter being like, no one knows what inflation is.
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  Speaker 2: Inflation is a catch-all for the fact that your dollars
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  Speaker 2: go less far than they used to because the cost
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: of the things you need go up.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: And that is- You can say, yeah, rising prices, rising costs,
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  Speaker 3: whatever you want to say. That's fine.
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  Speaker 2: And there's been this sort of this strain of thought,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: particularly on Twitter from Democrats and progressives, arguing that the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: media is hyping inflation and everyone's mad about a CNN
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: story about turkey shortages. And Wolf Blitzer has been going
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to a absurdly highly priced gas station in D.C. and
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: taking a picture of it and tweeting it out. And
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: people are yelling about it. And I get that. But
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: let's try for us.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: Well.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to try. Go ahead.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I know, I know, I know.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: You're very fired up. Despite the fact that I'm pretty
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: sure Jack started teething last night around 2 a.m., I
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: am bringing a generous spirit to this podcast.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Okay, Charlie now suddenly, after being a wonderful sleeper, just
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: wakes up at one in the morning now and just
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: cries just for no good reason.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Ah, it's there.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Whenever that happens, it's like a 16 month sleep regression
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: or 18 month sleep regression. Whenever you Google sleep regression,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: however many months, something comes up.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Whatever age your child is. If you Google that age
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: and sleeping, you'll just get that month, that month. Oh, Three,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: three and a half sleep regression. Oh, that's a thing. Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Very, the internet is very helpful for parenting. Anywho. Well,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: let's try to keep two independent, but related thoughts in
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: our head at the same time. Yes. The media, most
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: of the media has done a terrible job of covering
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: this issue, right? There's no context. There's no explanation.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Like many issues.
• 13:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Like I would say all the issues.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, the media is over-exaggerating something so that it looks
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: bad for a party in power?
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Wow, what a shocker.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, to be fair, this is very complicated.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And there's a great story in the Washington Post that
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: sort of really breaks down all the challenges and possible
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: solutions and the kind of description. Most of what you
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: get is gas prices, egg prices, turkeys, you can't get them,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: and panic. And it's all done through this political framework
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: about is inflation going to doom Biden? It's all terrible.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that people– aren't really feeling it, right?
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: The sorts of things. And I think the part of
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: this that is we need to pay politically more attention
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: to is gas prices. We keep just throwing out the
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: term inflation. And certainly there are things whose prices have
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: gone up at the grocery store, like eggs and milk,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: that people, and I know there's a very large milk discourse,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: which Tommy is very well informed of that I have
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: missed entirely. There is, right?
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: Like, I hear it, yes. Everyone's very mad at that.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Everyone's very mad at that family.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, for drinking milk.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: Remember that 12-person family who is clearly struggling with high prices,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: but they did not have the exact price of milk correct.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: And so fuck them, I guess.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not running for fucking president, George H.W.
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: Bush.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: They should have been thankful for the child tax credit,
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: but they weren't. So get out of here.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Get out of here.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: I guess that's what our reaction to people struggling is now,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: is the Democratic Party.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: But the thing about gas prices, right? And this is
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: why the inflation conversation is sort of hard, is no one...
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: covering politics or really working actively in politics was around
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: the last time inflation was a major political issue right
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: we got a bunch of former carter aides you know
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: up here trying to figure it out you got someone
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: standing outside doing a live shot in front of a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: gas line in.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: 1977 honestly probably it was at the gas station that
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: wolf blitzer took a picture of.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Actually, I take it back. Wolf Blitzer.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Other than Wolf Blitzer. You're right. Wolf Blitzer has been
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: taking that picture for 30 years.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: He takes that picture. He comes back, returns to the
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: cryogenic chamber in the Situation Room, gets out at four
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: every day and does his program. Like, that's his deal.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: That's how you get to look as good as Wolf
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Blitzer while being whatever age Wolf Blitzer is. That's how
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: it works.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: This is why they have the hologram ready for him
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: to last for decades. A lot of people don't even
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: get that reference. That's an old reference now.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Anywho.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Gas prices. But you can really– this shouldn't be surprising
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: when you think about gas prices. You just isolate that
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: for a second, which is if you were to plot
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: increases in gas prices and decreases in presidential approval over
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the years, they line up almost perfectly. Like you will
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: remember in 2012, gas prices spiked. We were heading into
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: our reelection campaign. We were in a meeting between the
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: campaign staff and the White House and the president to
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: do a sort of briefing. And we're going through the polls,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the polling and the funding and schedules for ads and
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: all of this. And at some point, David Plouffe, our
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: 2008 campaign manager and senior political advisor in 2012, just
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: pipes up and says, that's all well and good, but
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: high gas prices are an existential threat to the entire enterprise.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And Obama, who might have been paying passing attention, it's
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: very possible he was checking his BlackBerry at the time. Yes,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: he had a BlackBerry. Sorry, people were old. Looked up
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and said, what? an existential threat to the entire enterprise.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: And he was right like that. People get mad about
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: gas prices because that's the thing you can't cut back on, right?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Like there are certain that like if the prices of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: some goods are high, you can delay those or maybe
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: not go on your vacation, all those things. If you
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: commute to work and because house prices in this country
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: are so fucking expensive, many people live very far from work.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: That is a fixed price in your life. You cannot
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: change it. And you feel it more than anything else.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: And then you add the fact that you have to
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: drive past it and see the price glaring at you.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: No one puts the price of milk on a billboard
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: in front of the grocery store.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: And guess who drives? Lots of fucking Americans. A lot
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: of people are driving.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I want to be.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: as fired up as I am, I want to be
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: empathetic towards people who are tweeting angrily about this.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And I get it.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: I get that it is incredibly annoying to see the
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: media seem like they are rooting for bad news for
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: the Biden administration all the time, which it does seem often.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: And when they exaggerate, when they overhype something, you want
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: to call it out. We do that all the time.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: I totally understand the impulse. But like people aren't concerned
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: about Here's what you have to remember. People aren't concerned
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: about the price of groceries and gas because a family
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: on CNN gave the wrong price of milk or because
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Wolf Blitzer took a picture at an especially expensive gas station.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: They are upset with the price of gas and groceries
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: because they have eyes and cars and a bank account.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: That's why they're upset. And you have to imagine if
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: you were talking to someone in real life, who came
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: up to you and said that they were struggling financially
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: because it's really hard to fill up their car with gas.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: And it's really hard to make the, to pay for
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: groceries every week. You wouldn't respond to that person by saying, well,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: the media is just lying to you. That's not really true.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: You would say, oh, I'm sorry.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I want to listen.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Tell me more about your problems. Tell me about how,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: what your struggle is like. Tell me about how we
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: can maybe fix that. That's how you would talk to
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: someone in real life. You wouldn't start screaming that the
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: media lied to them. And like, we know this not
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: because of anecdotal media reports that these things are high.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: We know this because of economic reports that we're getting
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: month after month about rising prices and rising gas prices,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: which again, any American can see as they drive down
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: the street and pass a fucking gas station.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: I just like, what are we doing?
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: We are supposed to be a party of working people
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: who understand people's struggles, who have empathy for people.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: That is the core of the democratic party.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: And now we're just going to yell at the media
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: about this stuff?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: That's crazy.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is a lesson that everyone in politics
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: can learn from what I assume is the manual for
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: being an Olive Garden manager, which is the customer is
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: always right.
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the other thing you see is
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of people yelling, like, voters are stupid. Voters
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: are you. We're all voters. It's all of us today. right?
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: We are in a democracy.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: The only way this works is if we listen to
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: each other and figure this shit out together.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: That's it. There is no other option. You got to
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: listen to the voters. You got to.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: And again, this is not like, I think Democratic elected officials,
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: including and especially the Biden administration.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Especially the Biden administration.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Totally understand this. Every tweet, every comment from them, every
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: statement shows that they totally understand this. It's just a
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: lot of progressive commentators on Twitter and MSNBC who do not.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm seeing. So there's other into that.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: I want to dig into that Navigator poll, though, because
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: I do think there was some interesting stuff in there.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Like by 51 to 40 percent, voters blame the pandemic
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: for inflation and rising prices over Biden in Congress, which
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: does show that like the message that Biden is saying
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: that like, this is the pandemic, as you were saying,
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: this is global, this is not just confined to the
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: United States. Like that is, it's not an effective message
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: to move people, but at least it's not like talking
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: about people who've been duped, right? It's not like everyone
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: has been duped into thinking that, you know, Biden's been a,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: Biden and the Democrats have been these big spenders in
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: Congress and that's why we have inflation.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: That's not what people believe.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: People actually believe that it's the fault of the pandemic,
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: which I think is a good sign.
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: And they hold the president responsible for fixing pandemic. That's
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: what he promised to do. And although he's made great
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: progress in the economy, there's limits to what he can do.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: He can't force people to get boosters. He can't force
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: there to be responsible governors in large red states. But
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Biden rises and falls with the pandemic, and the economy
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: rises and falls with the pandemic.
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: And the other thing they did is they tested persuadable
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: voters within this sample of 1,000 voters, and they defined persuadable,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: economic persuadable voters as people who disapprove of Biden on
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: the economy, but approve of his economic plans. So they
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: like Build Back Better, they like infrastructure, but they're unhappy
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: with Biden on the economy. And they tested a number
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: of statements about why prices have risen, and an extremely
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: effective statement that people believed was, As the economy reopens
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: and demand surges, big corporations have taken advantage, squeezing consumers
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: for profit and raising costs that everyday Americans face. Their
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: corporate greed is the reason American families and small businesses
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: are seeing their costs go up.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Very popular statement.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: If you show voters positive economic indicators, good jobs numbers,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: GDP growth, jobless claims, The percentage you think the economy
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: is excellent or good goes from 26 percent to 39 percent.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: So it moves the needle a little bit, but not
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: as much. And I do think that that statement about
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: corporations being at fault here does point to a messaging
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: opportunity for Democrats, which you saw with the president's letter
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: to the FTC about the oil companies, which is like,
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: the president and Democrats have to look like they are
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: fighting the forces that are standing in the way of recovery.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: And those forces are greedy corporations and the Republicans who
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: support them.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Like that's something we could say that.
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Politics is not that complicated. People are angry and looking
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: for someone to blame. So point them in the right direction.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Right. And so, and.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, point them at the milk family. And so, and so,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: A very useful place to point them is corporations who
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: they do not like, who are– there is a situation
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: where corporations are making record profits. The stock market is
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: at an all-time high and Americans are paying more at
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the pump, at the grocery store, wherever else. Somewhere, greed
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: is definitely– corporations do not cause inflation, but they're certainly
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: passing the cost on to people instead of taking it
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: out of the massive bonuses and Profits and stock buybacks
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: and all those other things.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Stock market's doing great. They're doing great. Profits are up.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: They are doing better than ever. And no one is
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: pointing it out, which they love.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I want to point one bit of caution at the
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: telling people about the jobs numbers and all of that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: There's real risk in that, which is when you are
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: moving people, moving from good to excellent is with the
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: numbers like this, it means nothing. All you're doing is
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: shifting people already with you to a different category that
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: is also with you. What we're worried about are the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: people in that economically perceivable group or people who have
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: moved away from Biden since the election in part because
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: of the economy. That's who we're interested in. We got
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of crap in 2009, 2010 about why didn't
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Obama do a better job of talking up the economy.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: They're like, well, Donald Trump, art of the deal businessman,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: he got huge economic improvements because he always called it
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the greatest economy in American history. Well, yeah, that's true.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Unemployment was under five. It's easier to do that when
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: it's at 11, right? But that wasn't like a decision.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: That wasn't like a gut call on our part to
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: not talk up the economy. It's We talk to voters
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: about it. We talk to the customers about it. And
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: you know what they would do when we would tell
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: them positive news about the economy while they were afraid
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: of losing their house, of losing their job, while unemployment
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: was at 10%? Throw shit at the focus group moderator, right?
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Well, look, I.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Face this challenge every single speech I wrote in those
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: early years, probably until I left the White House in 2013.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: There is a very difficult balance. If all you talk
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: about is progress and you brag about progress, as you said,
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: you seem out of touch. If all you talk about
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: is people's struggles, you fuel pessimism. And I think the
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: way out of that is not just to see the
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: president's job as reflecting economic conditions, but the president's job
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: should be showing that he or she is fighting to
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: change economic conditions. And if all you are is a
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: barometer of how the economy is doing today, it's never
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: going to work out. You have to be a change
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: agent yourself. You have to show that you are fighting
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: to make things better. That is the way to get
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: out of the do I sound optimistic or do I
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: sound pessimistic trap, which is a trap, I think.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: It is action on behalf of the American people against
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the people causing the problem.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: That can be Republicans. That can be corporations. But if
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: we were sitting in the White House right now and
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: we were looking at the polling we were getting from
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: the reelection campaign of the DNC or wherever else, Yes,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: you want to know what the overall sentiment on the
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: economy is. Yes, you want to know what your economic
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: approval rating is. But what you really care about are
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: some underneath numbers, like focused on jobs. And that would
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: be for us, focused on jobs versus focused on rising
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: costs or inflation, whatever term you use. Is that number
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: going up as you do more stuff? You make it
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: a bigger part of your messaging. That's part of the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: big problem here to date is, for people just passively
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: consuming political news, all they know that Biden's doing is
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: trying and frankly not succeeding to pass a very big,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: quote unquote, social policy bill, which seems you have to
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: dig pretty deep and be pretty engaged in politics to
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: understand how and why that bill would help you deal
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: with the cost pressures that are making you so anxious
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: right now. And so one of the most important things
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: to do in all of this is get that bill
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: done and behind us, because it is a huge message block.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: right now to actually be able to talk about the
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: things that people care about. Once you have done it,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: you can use it as a data point of the
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: things you're trying to do. But as long as you're
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: like fighting with Joe Manchin and we're dealing with the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: rule and all this other stuff, it seems like you're focused.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: This is the jobs and economic bill, the Build Back
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Better bill is in some ways causing the same problem
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: to them that health reform calls for Obama, which is
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: they see the president focused on something and they don't
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: think that thing is the thing that they are very
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: worried about. And you got to sort of close that
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: gap as soon as humanly possible.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: And the one last thing I'd add is that we
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: really should bring Republicans into the equation here and talk
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: about them a little. And they're giving us some some
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: some material. Rick Scott said that this is a goldmine
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: for us about inflation. And, you know, a they are
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: cheering on bad news and they want the economy to
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: tank so that Biden will fail. They are in the
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: pockets of the greedy corporations.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: That are doing this.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: They are voting against any single piece of legislation that
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: might help people and help the pandemic end and help
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: the economy recover. And they want to take power in
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: the midterms and have absolutely no plan, no policies to
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: fix anything. So, like, don't let them off the hook.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: I do want to just talk about this Donald Trump statement.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: that he put out yesterday to attack Mitch McConnell again.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I'm going to read this. This, what I'm about to read.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: Comes on page two, second half of the page of
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: the statement. And I say that because it's very long,
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: but there was a page and a half of bullshit
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: before this, before you get to this part. People with
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: the help of the fake news media have already forgotten
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: about the horrendous Afghanistan withdrawal and economy and jobs that
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: are in shambles and so many other things. The good
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: news is they can't forget about inflation because it's hitting
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: them right in the face. This is the broken old
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: crow's fault. He could have won it all by using
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: the debt ceiling. They were ready to fold. Now the
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: Democrats have a big victory and the wind at their back.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Could have fooled us.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: McConnell is a fool and he damn well better stop their, quote,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: dream of communism bill and keep his senators in line
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: or he should resign now, something he should have done
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: a long time ago. Use the debt ceiling like it
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: should have been used, you old brats. crow to do
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: so would hurt our country far less than this horrible
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: bill thank you and good luck I mean that man
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: he should fucking thank his lucky stars that twitter had
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: a 280 character limit because that guy needs an editor there.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Are two things that I would like to request. I
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: like to make of American journalists. Now I guess these
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: one is I need an origin story of old broken crow.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Like where did that come from?
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: First it was old crow. Old crow was like earlier
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: in the week. And then now he, I guess he
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: didn't get enough attention for old crow. So now he's
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: trying to old broken crow. It's a real cry for help.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: It's a real, he's really zagging where other people's egg.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: There is a well-known well-worn, uh, Animal analogy for Mitch McConnell.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: He's been a turtle on multiple pieces of crooked media merch.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: We all call him the turtle, but we went with crow.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Why does he think he looks more like a crow? Does,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: is Donald Trump oddly favorable towards turtles? Like I want
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: to know.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: He's a, he's a branding and marketing guy. Turtle is old.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: You need something new to keep people interested. He didn't
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: come up with turtle. So it's not his nickname. That's why,
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: you know, he needs his own thing.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Well, like I like that. That's a good theory, but.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Someone get on this, right?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: That's how we have investigative journalists.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Why does Politico have 87 morning newsletters if they can't
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: answer this question? Okay. Second thing I want is I
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: want a profile of the person who gets called into
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: the dining room at Mar-a-Lago and has these statements dictated
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: to them. Like it is like a scene out of
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Mad Men after they've had 17 martinis at lunch. It's
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: just like typing, typing, typing as he says words with
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: no editing and then hits send.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: No, and obviously they know which words to capitalize, which
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: are a lot of words. Yeah, I mean– And the
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: statement are capitalized with no rhyme or reason. There's a
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: lot of air quotes around things for just no reason whatsoever.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Like are there conspiracy theories that the odd use of
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: title case is supposed to like be a code to
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: JFK Jr.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: I like when he just yells at Mitch McConnell, use
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: the debt ceiling, you old broken crow. Anyway, don't forget
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: that that's still out there. That's going on.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Do you mean the current? frontrunner for the Republican nomination
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: and someone who is at worst a coin flip away
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: from being president in 2025. That person, yes.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: We can choose not to amplify his statements, but that
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean that they don't exist, nor does it mean
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: that he doesn't exist, nor does it mean that he's
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: not in the lead for the Republican nomination.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: So that's something to keep in mind.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: By like 30 points.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Good stuff. Good stuff. All right. When we
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: come back, I will talk to Senator Elizabeth Warren.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: By the end of this week, the House is expected
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: to vote on Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan and
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: send the bill over to the Senate, where God knows
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: what will happen, though the hope is to send this
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: thing to the president's desk by Christmas. Joining us to
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: talk about how Democrats intend to finally land this plane
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: and bring down costs for struggling families, one of the
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: very best senators we have and a great friend of
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: the pod, Elizabeth Warren.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Senator, welcome back.
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: Oh, thank you. It's always good to be with the pod.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: Good to talk to you.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: So I know you don't want to negotiate in public,
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: but here's my question. Do you trust Joe Manchin and
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Kyrsten Sinema to help get a bill passed that will
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: make a real difference in people's lives?
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: Can I just slightly reframe that? Because I actually do
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: want to be accurate here. I believe that if we
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: get a bill passed, it truly will affect people's lives.
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: And I mean that in a very good and positive way.
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: Will it be as many things as I would like
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: to get stacked in this bill? No. We already know
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: that from what's coming over from the House. So I'm,
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: you know, look, I worry and I push and I
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: shove and I pull and I do everything I can
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: possibly do to get us over the finish line, to
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: get the plane landed, whatever metaphor we're using here. But
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: I think if we get something landed, the pieces that
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: are in there that I know are locked in there,
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: universal childcare, universal pre-K, home and community-based care, prescription drug negotiation,
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: not everything, but right off the top, insulin. We're gonna
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: bring down the cost of insulin. Do you know how
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: many million Americans that will affect? I used to do
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: town halls where I would say, hold up your hand
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: if you use insulin, if you don't mind. And a
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: bunch of people, you know, you see it scattered around.
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: And I'd say, hold up your hand if you love
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: someone who uses insulin. And then we were like at 90%.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: I said, just hold up your hand if you have
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: a friend, someone you know who uses. And then we
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: were at 100%. So I mentioned that one. And those
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: are huge. And those touch families right where they live.
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: There are others that'll arc in over, it's going to
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: take a little more time, like housing. John, depending on
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: who you want to talk to, we're someplace between three
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: and six million housing units short in America. You want
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: to understand why the price of housing is high?
• 35:06
  Speaker 8: I get it.
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: You know, the folks living in San Francisco say, oh,
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: I can tell you why, you know, what's going on.
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: But the truth is it's happening all around the country.
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: It's happening in urban areas, in rural areas that prices
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: are just through the roof. And it exacerbates racial inequality
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: in our country. If you don't have a family that
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: can help you with the down payment on a house,
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: it's enormous. It exacerbates the generational inequities that what your
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: folks could buy is not what you're gonna be able
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: to buy. And just trying to get in there and
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: make a difference on these. So anyway, I don't wanna
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: go on too long, But yeah, if we do get
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: this thing across the finish line, it's going to touch
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: people's lives.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: I saw you quoted in that Politico piece on cinema
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: saying that you thought that she was at least negotiating
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: in good faith. Do you feel the same way about
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Joe Manchin?
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: I don't think the way to frame the question is
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: good faith, bad faith. I think that they're just different people.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: And that cinema kind of has her laundry list. Let's
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: think of it this way. Cinema has a grocery list.
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: And she says, here are the things I want. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: she goes over to aisle three and picks up what
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: she wants over there. And she goes down to aisle
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: six in the back and picks up. And she goes
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: to aisle nine and says, damn, you don't have the
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: brand I wanted. I don't like this. But they work it.
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: She gets to the checkout counter and she's ready to go.
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: Joe Manchin, it's a little different. You know, he goes
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: over to the aisle, the baking aisle, and says, I'm
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: going to think about the way. And then he's over
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: at the meat counter. And then it's like, wait, where
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: are we going and why?
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: He would not be successful at supermarket sweep.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: He would have a real problem. And again, I'm trying
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: not to be critical because we have got to land
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: this plane.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: But there is a difference between and kind of between
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: being driven toward let's get this done and still kind
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: of having to talk through some real basics.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's what it seems like from the outside
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: is exactly what you're talking about. So that sort of
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: lines up. I want to talk to you about one
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: thing that's driving me crazy that I know is driving
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: you crazy as well, which is why so many Democrats
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: in the House want to use this bill to give
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: rich people a tax cut by restoring state and local
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: tax deduction. I get that it would help some middle class,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: maybe upper middle class families, that part seems fine. But
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: you've said you didn't want to go to Washington to
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: help billionaires cut their taxes. What do you want to
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: see the final provision look like on SALT? What would
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: be like an okay provision aside from obviously not lifting
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: it at all?
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: I'd like to see a section called SALT and then
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: you look under it and what it has under it
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: is it has a wealth tax on billionaires and multimillionaires.
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: Can I do that? I'll call it whatever you want
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: to call it. I'll... You know, I'll call it a
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: Christmas pony. I'll call it anything you want to call it.
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: But damn, I mean, come on. This is our chance,
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: not only to do all the things I talked about,
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: like childcare and make these investments in our future, but
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: also to put just a little more equity in the system.
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: And the way we do that, we've got three pieces.
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: I think of this as a three-legged stool. Part one,
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: is we need a wealth tax on the richest one-tenth
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: of 1% in America. Part two, we need a minimum
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: tax on these giant profitable corporations that tell their shareholders
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: they made a bazillion dollars and then tell the IRS,
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: not really, we were just kidding. And then we need
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: an IRS that has enough money and enough wherewithal to
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: be able to hire people not just to audit the
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: poorest Americans or even middle-class families, but to audit those
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: guys at the top who have all the complex financial
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: dealings and who, according to the commissioner of the IRS,
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: are cheating us out of about a trillion dollars. So
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: we do those three things. It has two effects, John.
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: It gives us the revenue we need so that we
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: can pay for a child. and home and community-based care
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: and expanded healthcare coverage and really take a thwack on climate,
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: really make an investment there. But the second reason we
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: do that is because it helps make the system fairer.
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: The 99% in America.
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: Last year, paid 7.2% of their total wealth in taxes.
• 39:53
  Speaker 6: That top one-tenth of 1% paid about 3.2%. Asking them
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: to pay a little more, that's where this debate should be.
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: That's what it should mean to be a Democrat.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Do you think that at least we can get an
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: income threshold? I saw that Bernie wants to do $ 400, 000.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Do you think we can get something like that in
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: the final bill?
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: So look... Is an income threshold better than no threshold
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: at all? Of course. But do keep in mind, you
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: know what Jeff Bezos' income is?
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: $ 83, 000.
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: Right, right, right. He makes less than a public school
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: teacher does in Boston, Massachusetts. And yet he can live
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: the incredibly lavish lifestyle without cashing any of his stock in,
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: but just by borrowing against his stock and living on
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: that money. And then, you know, I assume his long-term
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: plan is to pass this on to his heirs, where
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: because of another loophole in the tax laws, their bases
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: will jump up and nobody in the Bezos clan will
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: ever have to pay taxes on this ginormous load of wealth.
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: He can just keep growing that wealth and not pay taxes,
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: you know. And somebody has to pay to keep this
• 41:13
  Speaker 6: country running. And evidently, you know, Bezos' view is, well,
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: that's for, you know, that's why you've got to have
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: middle class. They'll get out there and pay this.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: The people who work for me. All my delivery people
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: will do it.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: And you know what?
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: He was gracious enough. Once he actually stepped up and said,
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: thank you, guys. Thank you for making all this possible
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: for me. And my view is, you know what? How
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: about we trade? You don't have to say thank you,
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: but you do have to pay taxes at the same
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: rate as your employees. That's where I want to go.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: That seems fair. Yeah.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: There are some progressive economists who say that even though
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: Fed Chair Jerome Powell is a Republican, he's pursued a
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: full employment monetary policy, should get another term.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: You disagree. Why?
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: Well, let's start with he did something that sounds like
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: a Democrat. Okay. But you know what? We get a
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: Democrat Fed Chair who'll do that. Let's talk about the
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: things he didn't do that sound like a Democrat, or
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: at least the kind of Democrat I'd like to see
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: in that job. And that is pay attention to the
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: other half of the Fed's job, and that is the
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: regulatory part. I still remember those Greenspan years where year
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: after year after year, what did the Fed do in
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: the late 90s into the early 2000s? Were they just
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: never a big one, never one that got a huge headline.
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: They just deregulated a little bit here, weakened the regulation there,
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: opened a loophole a bit more there. And that's what
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: Powell has been doing. And how do I know that? Well,
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: partly by reading the things that the Fed has done,
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: but also the fact that Lael Brainard has gotten out
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: there and dissented two dozen times from Fed actions, each
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: time very calmly, explaining, whoa, You're letting the big financial
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: institutions float up on more risk here. You're making the
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: financial institutions just a little riskier here. And here's the thing, John.
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: It's not like he takes two steps on the deregulatory
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: side and then one step to kind of tighten down
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: a little on regulations. Uh-uh. It's been 100% in the
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: same direction. Every action the Fed has taken has been
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: to deregulate a little bit more. And it's kind of
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: like a giant ocean liner. You know, you move it,
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: it's headed due north, and you move it like one degree.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: But you do that two dozen times, and all of
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: a sudden you're headed off in a very different direction.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: And the reason this worries me is the Fed's job
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: is very much about monetary policy, you bet, But it's
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: about making sure that we don't crash the economy. Right.
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: Because that costs people their homes, their jobs, their savings.
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: And just to give you a little hint about some
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: of the things that are really worrisome out there, the
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: crypto world is growing like crazy right now. And just
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: pick one of the tether, one of these so-called stablecoins.
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: That supposedly is backed up by dollars. So people can
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: use it and say, oh, but I'm, you know, this
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: should remind you of the money markets from the, right?
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: From the, what, two decades ago, a decade ago. The
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: money markets. And the idea was, no, no, there are
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: these assets to back it up. And I was reading
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: the other day that Tether supposedly has something like $ 63
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: billion in assets. Okay, that sounds really good, right? That
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: they're backed up. Nobody can find it. a nickel's worth
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: of what's supposed to be backing it up. If this
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: isn't like a red flashing light.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: I know, I know no.
• 45:09
  Speaker 6: Regulation in this area, pump and dump.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: It's highly speculative.
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah. On and on and on. And the banks are
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: champing at the bit to bring this on book. The
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: big non-bank financial institutions are now dipping into it. And again, it's,
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: It's you need somebody at the head of the Fed
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: who says, hmm, not good for anybody, except the guys
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: who are on the winning end of a pump and
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: dump or some other fraudulent scheme. Not good for anybody.
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: Not to have just some regulation over this, some control
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: over what's happened, some separation between banking and speculating in crypto.
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: And that's not a guy who is a Republican who
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: doesn't want to regulate. So we need somebody in there
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: who says, I'm willing to pick up both tools, monetary
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: policy and the regulatory part. That's what we need.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: You have a few other asks out to Joe Biden.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: One is to use his executive authority to cancel student debt.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: The other is to use his executive authority to pardon
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: all nonviolent cannabis offenses. Why do you think he hasn't
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: done either yet?
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: You know, I hope it's just he hasn't had time
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: yet because these are both really good things to do.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: And they are good things to do. Gosh, I'm going
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: to be an economic nerd for a minute. They're a
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: good thing to do because on student loan debt, for example,
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: it actually holds back tens of millions of people who
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: can't start small businesses, who can't buy their first homes,
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: who can't be full participants in this economy. And it
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: also has a powerful racial justice issue to it. African Americans,
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: more likely to borrow money to go to college, borrow
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: more money while they're in college, have a harder time
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: paying it off when they're out of college. Same thing
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: for Latinx. Let me give you one stat on that.
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: We have a study now showing when you're out 20
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: years from college, if you're white and you borrowed money
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: while you were in school, You now owe, 20 years out,
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: on average, 6% of what you originally borrowed. Part of
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: me wants to say, damn, 20 years and you're still
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: paying on this stuff.
• 47:39
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: But end is in sight, right? If you're black, on average,
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: you owe 95% of what you borrowed when you were
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: in school. And this is the single best opportunity for
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: the President of the United States to to help close
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: the black-white wealth gap for people who have student loan debt.
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: Stroke of a pen. Marijuana? Actually, it's the same kind
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: of issues. I want them to expunge the records. I
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: want them to let people out. If you're a nonviolent offender,
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: all they've got on you is a marijuana charge. Let
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: folks go. States have changed their laws on this. We
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: finally admitted this idea that going after marijuana and a
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: war on drugs, gateway drugs, we just realized it never
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: made any sense scientifically and was a way to really
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: engage in a form of oppression of communities of color.
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: And if we just, let's just let people expunge their records,
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: let's let them out. I'll go back to my first point.
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: Let me be an economic nerd. They get to participate
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: in our economy. They have a better chance of getting jobs.
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: They have a better chance of getting promotions. They can
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: apply for scholarships that would otherwise be denied them. In
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: other words, what's your best resource as a nation? It's
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: your people. These are people who should be part of
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: our economy, part of our society. And the second is
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: the racial justice element. The marijuana enforcement has fallen. much
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: harder on people of color. And it's time for us
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: to acknowledge that and just admit the error of our ways,
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: back it up, turn it loose. So there you are,
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: Joe Biden.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: Two things you can do for our economy, for racial justice.
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: Just need your signature on two different pieces of.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: Paper. It doesn't seem that hard.
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, as as you mentioned, these are policies that
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: would disproportionately help people who are young, black, brown. These
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: are groups that turned out big for Democrats in 2020.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: not so much in the 2021 off-year elections. What lessons
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: did you take from what happened in Virginia and elsewhere
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: a few weeks ago as you look forward to the
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: 2022 midterms?
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: We need to deliver on our promises.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's number one. All right.
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: And number two and number three and number four. No,
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: I'm serious. We need to talk about what we said
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: we would do. And look, I want to be fair here.
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: We have done part of it. Keep in mind, what's
• 50:24
  Speaker 6: the first thing we did out of the gate There
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: are vaccines available everywhere. And yes, part of this is
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: because of the research that was done during the Trump administration,
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: let's give credit, and the CDC folks who were helping
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: make all this happen. But by golly, President Biden came
• 50:43
  Speaker 6: in and he showed we can make government work and
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: push those vaccines out, ramped up that manufacturing, made it
• 50:50
  Speaker 6: available everywhere. You go down to your corner drugstore now.
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: And you can now get a booster, right? You can
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: get it for little kids, all the things you want
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: to do. Second thing is we've cut the childhood poverty
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: rate in half. Can we just stop and say that again?
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: We have cut the childhood poverty rate in half. The
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: child tax credit and making it refundable and making it monthly.
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: And again, also government working. The IRS said, oh my gosh,
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: it'll take us years to put that together. And the
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: administration really bore down on them. And in the space
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: of like two months, they got this. They got it
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: up and running and the checks go out. And there
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: are kids today who can go to school because mom
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: could buy shoes and a winter coat. Kids who get
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: to participate and got in eighth grade band. I mean,
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: it just gives me goosebumps, right?
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: There are kids whose.
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: Families just, They just have a little more margin. We
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: cut the food insecurity rate in this country with those
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: child tax credits. So that's what we've done. Now we're
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: working on the rest of this. We've just passed the
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: infrastructure bill, roads, bridges. We're going to get broadband out there.
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: We should take a victory lap on that. We've got
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: to get BBB, Build Back Better, landed so that we
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: can do child care, so we can get out there
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: and talk about it. But we've also got to make
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: all parts of government work. And that's why I keep
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: pushing forward on the to-do list for President Biden. Cancel
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: that student loan debt. You can do this. And get
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: rid of these marijuana convictions. This is not making us
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: a stronger country. It is undercutting our economy and it's
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: undercutting racial justice in this country.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: I feel like You and I have always been in
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: the good policy is good politics camp, that if you
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: can make government work, if you can deliver on things
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: that will tangibly improve people's lives, the politics will follow. Obviously,
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: the Biden administration and the Democratic Congress has not done
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: everything on the to-do list, as you mentioned. But clearly,
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: the American Rescue Plan, they've sent out checks, they've cut
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: child poverty. You just listed all the wonderful things they've done.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: And it has not done anything for Joe Biden's approval
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: rating or the approval rating of Democrats in Congress. And,
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: you know, some people argue that maybe, you know, running
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: on policy accomplishments is not the way to do it.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Maybe our politics have become all about culture wars and
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: identity and people aren't focused on sort of the economic
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: benefits that they're getting from government.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: Well, look, do I think the Republicans are really good
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: at throwing up culture war? Heck yes. I watch them
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: do it. And, you know, it's almost like we don't
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: learn from having watched him do this. Do you remember caravans?
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: They never really showed up, and then they just suddenly,
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: mysteriously went away after the election.
• 53:59
  Speaker 7: They weren't there at all.
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: Then it's like we get into the countdown to the election,
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: and it's nothing but caravans all the time. New York Times,
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: somebody was telling me they saw something about, you know,
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: like in the, I won't get this right on the details,
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: but like in the 14 days before the election, the
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: New York Times ran a front page story with the
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: word caravans in it like 12 times.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, just all the time.
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: It was everywhere. And then as soon as the election
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: was over, I never heard about it again. So obviously
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: those guys have a skill that we have not been
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: good at countering. Now, part of that may be because
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: we don't stand up and blow the BS whistle often
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: enough and just call them out and just meet it
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: head on and just say, you don't know what you're
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: talking about and you're wrong and I'm sick of the
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: racist dog whistles, call them out for what they are.
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: But I think part of it is we don't beat
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: our own drum enough. And for example, cutting childhood poverty
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: in half, I stand in front of audiences in blue Massachusetts, right?
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: These are my folks, right? My team here. I stood
• 55:13
  Speaker 6: up this summer in town hall after town hall and said,
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: so let's start with what we've already done. And I
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: mentioned the vaccinations and people were like, oh yeah, you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: they knew we had vaccinations, but you forget, where did
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: they come from? And then the second part, I said,
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: we cut the childhood poverty rate in half. And people
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: would look at me like, what? How do we do that?
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: And then you remind them how the pieces fit together.
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: We ought to focus on the things that we think
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: are important and that it means to be a Democrat
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: And then we ought to pound it until they can
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: wake you up in the middle of the night and say, yo, John,
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: what do Democrats do? And you'd be able to say,
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: you know, there's some child care, man. We cut the
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: childhood poverty rate in half. I think when that day comes,
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: then we can have the conversation about whether it's culture
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: wars that really drive the electorate or whether it's good
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: policy that affects people's lives. But don't tell me That
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: a slicko job of selling culture wars versus a we
• 56:18
  Speaker 6: stand back in the shadows and just think people will
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: notice that good things happen to them. A bad job
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: of talking about what we're doing. That is not a
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: fair comparison between which one really matters to people. That's
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: my best pitch.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: What are you and Bruce and Bailey doing for Thanksgiving?
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: Ah, so we're going to be at home. We're going
• 56:37
  Speaker 6: to do family. Bailey is talking about a turkey burrito.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, there you go.
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: He's in there. He's ready for it. We're going to
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: have some family over.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Lovely.
• 56:49
  Speaker 6: Bruce's brother and sister from down in Plymouth. And, you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 6: we'll have different folks and we're going to have our
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: kids in.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: I miss a New England Thanksgiving. I really do.
• 56:57
  Speaker 6: You know, it's really beautiful. I have to say.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: One of these days I'll come back.
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: You're welcome anytime. In fact, If you want to come,
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: I do sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. Remember, I didn't grow up.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right. Sweet potatoes, marshmallows on top.
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: And you've got at least a one out of two
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: chance that when I get ready to toast them, I'll
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: forget about them and set them on fire. And it
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: adds a little extra drama to our Thanksgiving.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: That's some excitement. I like that. I like that.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren, thank you so much for joining Pod Save
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: America as usual. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And we'll talk
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: to you soon.
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: Okay. You have fun too.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: All right, before we.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: Go, we figured it's time to play another round of
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: Take Appreciators with our chief take officer in the studio
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: for the first time, Elijah Cohn.
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: Thanks, John.
• 57:52
  Speaker 8: I really loved your thoughts earlier in the show about
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: how we have to listen to people and can't just
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: bash the media. So on that note, welcome to Take Appreciators.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: No one said we were beyond hypocrisy here at Pod
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: Save America.
• 58:05
  Speaker 7: Certainly not.
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: I'm going to share some notably bad punditry with you
• 58:09
  Speaker 8: The producers have seen these takes. John and Dan have not.
• 58:12
  Speaker 8: They will react in real time and then rate them
• 58:13
  Speaker 8: on a scale of one to four politicos. John and Dan,
• 58:17
  Speaker 8: are you ready?
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: As I'll ever be.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Born ready. All right.
• 58:21
  Speaker 8: We're going to start off with some heat from the
• 58:24
  Speaker 8: New York Times. An article titled, Democrats Shouldn't Panic. They
• 58:28
  Speaker 8: Should Go Into Shock.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: I knew this was coming. I knew this one was
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: going to be here.
• 58:32
  Speaker 8: This is a gloom and doom piece about Democrats' various woes.
• 58:34
  Speaker 8: Here's the quote. The worst thing that happened to Biden...
• 58:38
  Speaker 8: was the Democrats winning two seats in Georgia. It raised
• 58:43
  Speaker 8: expectations among some in his party that they could go
• 58:45
  Speaker 8: left legislatively while the political sun was shining, when in reality,
• 58:49
  Speaker 8: the political math was not there.
• 58:52
  Speaker 7: All right. Any guesses as to who wrote that?
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: So this is what's interesting about this. Hotline Josh tweeted
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: this out, right? But it was not a Hotline Josh story.
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: It was a Tom Edsel story in the New York Times.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: Edsel, who is quite bright, very good on politics. He's
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: been a guest on The Wilderness. But he was quoting
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: some random political scientist somewhere who I had never heard of.
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: Yes, Bruce Kane from Stanford.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Which is even, which.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: Makes it even more egregious as a take because I'm like,
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: you're not some Politico reporter who writes a newsletter for them.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: You're a fucking political scientist. What is that?
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess I guess in in in defense
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: of this take, you would say, well, he was saying
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: what was best for Biden purely politically. Was was this
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: scenario and not from a substantive point of view, which
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: we would all say, well, of course, it's great that
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: we won Georgia because. We have all these judges and
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: we got the American Rescue Plan pass and we got
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: the infrastructure bill pass and we might get Build Back
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: Better pass. So like, yes, of course it was great
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: that we won Georgia. But anyway, Dan, what do you think?
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: I've said too much.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I would give the overall Tom Edsel piece three what-a-days.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: Three what-a-days.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: Wow. That's on the opposite side. That's like, that's a
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: positive take. That quote is incredibly stupid.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: And the.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: And it is one of the problems. And I was
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: a political science major. I have sat in many places.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: I just want everyone to know that Dan had a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: pause after that. He was waiting for applause.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Well, can I be honest about why? Because I will
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: tell you, the applause is always in my head, so
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: that's not a problem. But technically, I was an American
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: government major. That's what Georgetown calls it. But I was
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: trying to just go with the flow here.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, sure.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: So anywho, put that aside. Love political scientists. Read a
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: lot of their books. But asking them to provide analysis
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: of how politics is working in the moment is kind
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: of like getting NFL commentary from fantasy football experts.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Like two separate things.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: Dan is going to get so much hate mail from
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: political scientists.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: I know. And from fantasy football experts. I love fantasy football.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: Fantasy football is a very important thing. I play a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: lot of it. It is over here. And then the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: actual what is happening on the field is over here.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: What is happening in politics in the moment– is hard
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: to be analyzed by people who are looking at it
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: in the broader spectrum of things. And that's how you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: end up with, I think Dave Weigel called this on Twitter,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: green room brain.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Which is, you're trying to think of some like clever
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: take to say, like there are lots of good political
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: science professors, don't get me wrong. I'm already awaiting the
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: hate here, but it's not a great, it should not
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: be the only way to do an analyzing of politics.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Make sense?
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: And I will say for that, for all the reasons
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: we've talked about, I will only give this one politico
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: because I do think that the true spirit of take
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: appreciators is, is to give four politicos to takes that
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: were really intended to trigger in a way. And this
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: one just seems like it was dumb.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: Well, let's see how this one does. Okay.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 8: From CNN analysis, Americans aren't feeling relief from Biden's big
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 8: Washington victory. Of course, Biden just passed the bipartisan infrastructure
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 8: bill on Monday.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: It is currently Thursday. Here's the quote.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 8: Maybe someday Biden will be remembered in the same way
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 8: as ex-president Dwight Eisenhower, the architect of the interstate highway system.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 8: But it won't help his party in time for the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 8: midterm elections next November.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: I have to say that the headline is even worse
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: than the lead, which is not quite as bad. But
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: the headline is, This is the correct way to yell
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: at CNN about the economy. Because the idea that the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: guy signs the bill into law. And they're like, you
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: feeling relief yet? Where are the fucking roads, Joe? You
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: just signed the bill. I don't see new roads yet.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Why are these bridges still broken? I just thought you
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: had the signing ceremony five minutes ago.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's not a good take. Who do we
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: think wrote that?
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who's the author?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 7: Stephen Collinson.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, Stephen. Oh, no. Oh, no.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: We love Stephen Collinson.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: Oh, no.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Bad.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Bad take.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's unfortunate. One of our favorites. I'm going to
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: give this one only one Politico. And here's why. Both
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: things are sort of true, which is it is stupid
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: to say people aren't feeling it yet. It is also
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: going to be very hard for people to feel the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: impact of large scale infrastructure projects. Before the midterm elections,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: which is why the other bill, the jobs and climate bill,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: is so much more important.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: And I'm going to give it to because while Collinson
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: was more responsible in his lead, I do have a
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: vendetta against the headline writers everywhere. And I think it's
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: time that they're held into account. We hold them accountable.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 7: I mean, headlines are part of the game.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: That's true. That's true.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would say we give– you're exactly right.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Headline writers are, in the social media age, 1,000 times
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: more important than the people who write the articles.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: And every time the journalists get really mad that it's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: the headline, they didn't write it, and they yell at
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: everyone getting mad at them, I'm like, go down the
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: hall and talk to the headline writer.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Yell at that person.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: If you want to rank the importance of people in
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: the newsroom in this day and age, it is the
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: person in charge of the social media account first, the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: headline writer second– And then way down the line are
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: the people who write the articles. And that's sad. I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: like the articles, but that's just.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: How it is.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 8: Well, let's see how you guys like this one. So
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 8: this next one is from the Paul Gosar censure story.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 8: There are a lot of takes about this one out there.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 8: For context, Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar tweeted a doctored anime
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 8: video of himself killing AOC and attacking Joe Biden. And yesterday,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 8: House Democrats and a couple of Republicans censured Gosar and
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 8: stripped him of his committee assignments. A common take on this,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 8: including from the Wall Street Journal, was, well, it's just
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 8: a stupid cartoon. But I wanted to go with something
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 8: a little bit subtler. So let's go to Axios, titled,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 8: Democrats Brace for Retaliation over Gosar Censure.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 7: Here's the quote.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 8: Why it matters. The speeches that preceded Wednesday's vote illustrated
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 8: how an effort to hold a member to account only
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 8: exacerbated the divide between congressional Democrats and Republicans.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, Dan, you start this one.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: I love the why it matters section of Axios because
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: it's like an idea they came up with before they
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: even started the publication and they have been stuck with
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: it to re-explain what was in the previous paragraph and
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: the most basic conventional wisdom for going on five years now.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: And it's just amazing. And so this one is, gets
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: three politicos. And there's a real argument if they keep
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: this up, they're, We may need like a separate Axios
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: scale for various things. Like if a take is under
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: a certain number of words, it gets an Axios.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's interesting.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Right for dumb brevity or whatever. Yes. It's just, it's like,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: this is so typical of all punditry, which is a
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Republican tweets out, as you say, a doctored animated, like
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: just even read the words, like let's repeat the words
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: you said. A Republican congressman tweeted out a doctored anime
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: video of him killing Democrats. And the Axios take is
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: why that's bad for Democrats.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: It's the entire story of the last two decades now.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: The Republican Party moves further to the right, gets more
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: and more extreme. And if Democrats don't respond, then Democrats are,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: you know, scared cowards for not responding. And if they
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: do respond, they have exacerbated the divide. Hey, I know
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: who's exacerbated the divide.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: Paul fucking Gosar.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: That's probably who did it. That's probably who exacerbated the divide.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: Also who exacerbated the divide, maybe all of the Republicans
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: minus Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who declined to censure him.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: Maybe they exacerbated the divide by not even saying that
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: what he did was wrong.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: Not even saying what he did was wrong. I don't know.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: Be smarter.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 8: It is worth noting that for the Wall Street Journal
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 8: take that it's just a stupid cartoon, that it's not
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 8: just a stupid cartoon. I mean, Paul Gosar has had
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 8: a crazy history this year, including headlining a white nationalist conference.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 7: It's not like these things happen in a vacuum. John,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: what's your final rating?
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: I'm going to go three and a half.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 7: Strong.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: Half a Politico, yeah.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 8: All right, let's go back to the New York Times
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 8: for this next one. I'm sure you guys saw this.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 8: This was by far the most requested take from yesterday.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: Requested take.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: Titled, Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 7: More Elon Musks. So.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: I miss this.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 7: Oh, you'll enjoy it.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 8: This is a piece about COP26 and climate change. And
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 8: to understand the following quote, you first need to understand
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 8: that the writer sets up a dichotomy between Mother Earth
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 8: and what they call Father Prophet. So here is the quote.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 8: We will decarbonize the global economy only when father profit
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 8: and risk-taking entrepreneurs produce transformative technologies that enable ordinary people
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 8: to have extraordinary impacts on our climate without sacrificing much.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 8: In short, we need a few more Greta Thunbergs and
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 8: a lot more Elon Musks. Any guesses for the author
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: of this?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 6: This is.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it can't be Tom Friedman, can it?
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 6: Correct.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: Nailed it.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: I did it without the cab lead. That's great.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: I have to say, I'm going to give this four
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: politicos because, again, in the spirit of Take Appreciator, this
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: was like to say, you know what, to really solve
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: climate change, we don't just need government action, but we
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: actually need the private sector to get involved. And some
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: of the technology and innovation from the private sector could
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: ultimately make a huge difference in how this ends completely fine.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: I agree with it.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: But It was written in a way purely to trigger
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: people who don't like Elon Musk in a way that
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: only Tom Friedman can do for politicos.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: I will also give it for politicos. Tom Friedman, be better.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: Respect the game.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: And as we know, when you tell someone to be better,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: it works.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: It works. When I hear to be better, I'm like,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: I should be better.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 7: There we go. Love a maxed out politico rating.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 8: And that'll bring us to our final piece of the day.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 8: This may be another one where the title is better
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 8: than the lead. From Washington Post opinion, a Trump candidacy
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 8: in 2024 would threaten his own legacy.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: All right, here's the quote.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 8: If he runs again in 2024, Trump will almost certainly
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 8: capture the GOP nomination, but he risks losing in November 2020.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 8: permanently derailing his movement and cementing a legacy of disgrace.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 8: How Trump is remembered by history hinges on his willingness
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 8: to clear the way.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: What do you think, Dan?
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: Can we do a guess on the author? Yeah. I'm
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: going to guess Henry Olsen.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: That's a good guess.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: Good guess, but no.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: Is it Hugh Hewitt?
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 7: It is not.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: Hmm.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: It's definitely this is this is some fucking, you know,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: 10 dimensional chess here of someone who doesn't like Trump
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: but doesn't want to get in trouble with Republicans and
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: trying something that is not very smart and pretty transparent.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: It can't be Max Boot, right?
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 7: It is not.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 8: Though Max Boot is in the runner's up list for
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 8: this segment today.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: He was he was edged out by this one.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: Is it Mark Thiessen?
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 6: Nope.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: Is it Kathleen Parker?
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: It is not.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: Is it a.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: Regular Washington Post columnist? Does anyone know anyone who's a
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: regular Washington Post columnist?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: It's a contributing columnist.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: Ooh, this is tough. Now we can be anywhere. All right,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: give it to us.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: Who is it?
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: It's Gary Abernathy.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: Never heard of that person.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Not a clue who that is. That's not a real person.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 7: Sorry, Gary.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: What does Gary do?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: That is Hugh Hewitt's burner account.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: Is that Ron DeSantis?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: That's who it is. It's Ron DeSantis. It's Ron DeSantis. Yeah.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 8: If you move the letters around, it's a Tom Riddle,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 8: Lord Voldemort situation.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: That is just, that gets one, one, one political for that.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: That's just, that's a, we'd see what you're doing there.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: It's transparent. It's not even, it's not believable.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Gary, whoever you are. And if you're
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: a real person, try harder because as you know, when
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: you tell me what to try harder, they immediately try harder.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: Good takes. Bad takes. What are you supposed to say?
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 7: Appreciated takes.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: Appreciated takes. Elijah Cohn, thank you for joining us. Thank you,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren, for joining us. Everyone have a.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: Great weekend, and we will see you next week. Bye, everyone.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: Sedlin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: slash crookedmedia.