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“Donald Trump, Diplomat.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, Tommy's interview with London Mayor Sadiq Khan,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: who made time for us this morning to talk about
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: President Trump's visit to the UK. by all accounts, going smoothly.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: He's pumped about it. Mayor Khan is.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: You'll also hear a conversation Tommy had with Rebecca Nagel,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the host of Crooked Media's brand new podcast out today,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: This Land.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: I've had so many people text me this morning to
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: say they were listening and loved it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: We're all listening to This Land.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: If you haven't subscribed yet, what are you even doing?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So be sure to listen through the entire podcast for
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Tommy's interview, and then go download that first episode. But first...
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We've got a lot of news to get through from
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Trump's latest trade tax to his trip to the UK
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to all the latest 2020 news. Also, a reminder, we
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: will be on the road this week.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: A lot of T-words.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You're going to be able to hear our Thursday night
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: show in Chicago on Friday and our Sunday night show
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: in Des Moines on Monday. And there's still tickets to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: come see us at those shows and in Minneapolis at crooked.com
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: slash events.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Going home to Des Moines.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Home to Des Moines.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Maybe I'll find the truck that I abandoned at a
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: gas station in 2007.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: That would be wonderful.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Still kicking?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: It was a 1994 F-150 and the tranny went, so
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: I just left it there.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: This happened.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Love it's got a show in Minneapolis. Love it in
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobuchar.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Me in the club. Love it in the club, one
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: night only.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Lots of great stuff going on this tour. Okay, let's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: get to the news. On Friday, Donald Trump announced that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: he will raise tariffs by 5% on all goods coming
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: from Mexico, quote, Until such time as illegal migrants coming
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: through Mexico and into our country, all capital letters stop.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: The president said that if Mexico doesn't comply, he'll raise
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the tariff an extra 5% every month until it hits
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a maximum of 25%. Even Trump's own economic advisor recently
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: admitted that American consumers pay the price for these tariffs,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: which will affect everything from cars to electronics, computers, alcohol.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Lots of different shit. Guys, what are the other potential
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: consequences of Trump's new trade tax?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Amazing leadership. Everything getting better? I don't know. Yeah, it's...
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's going to make.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: People keep saying, oh, avocado prices are going to.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: No, it's like mostly auto parts and all the beers
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: we drink, Coronas, Dos Equis, like a lot of consumer
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: goods that a lot of people like are going to
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: go up. If you live in Texas, a lot of
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: imports from from Mexico are going to be more expensive.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: And so, I don't know, big picture, this makes us
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: look like a pretty unreliable trade partner writ large. He
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: just negotiated the NAFTA 2.0, the USMCA, thought we had
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: that behind us, and he just arbitrarily slaps escalating tariffs
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: on Mexico to deal with a immigration problem that is
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: actually coming from other countries in Central America.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: That seems crazy.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you hear a lot of, when you read about
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: analysis of this, people say, oh, it's going to disrupt
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the supply chain, which is something everyone's like, what the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: fuck does that mean?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Thousands of auto parts.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Here's an example of that. The American auto industry, as
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: you just said, the American auto industry right now is
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: facing the most layoffs over the last four months that
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: they've seen since the Great Recession, which is when the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: auto industry almost collapsed completely. And a lot of parts
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: in American cars are imported from Mexico. And that happens,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that's what they mean by when they say the supply chain.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: There's all these American manufacturers, the head of the American
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Manufacturing Association said there would be devastating consequences for American
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: manufacturers because of this, because so many different parts and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: so many different manufactured goods in this country come from Mexico.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: And not just come from, they go back and forth.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Like we built a big system and it's not a
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: perfect system and there are plenty of reasonable criticisms. And
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: it's interesting that you see some of the criticism of
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Trump's proposed replacement for NAFTA kind of coming at him
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: saying things like, we don't know this would be a
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: good enough deal for American workers. Everybody recognizes that there's
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: been blowback because of NAFTA. But one of the things
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: we built is an international system across our southern border
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: where it's supposed to be open. Things go back and forth.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Products start in Mexico, end up in the US, go
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: back to Mexico to be completed. Products start in the US,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: go to Mexico, come back. Things move across the border
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: as they're constructed. As we built this international system of
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: trade in which borders are supposed to be more open,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: So to introduce this very simplistic notion that we're just
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: going to stick a tax on things coming in elides
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: how complicated international trade has become, in part because of
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the agreements the United States has been privy to for
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the last 30 years.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, on a micro level, we are just making
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: it really hard to do business. Like, for example, GoPro
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: just moved a bunch of its operations from China to
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Mexico to avoid tariffs. And then they wake up in
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: the morning and they read about this new tariff on
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Mexican money.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And how are we going to see what happens when
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a dog goes to the Grand Canyon? Right, exactly.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: On a macro level, this could actually start to hurt
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: the economy. It's been weird watching the trade war unfold
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: because there were a lot of dire warnings and then
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: the markets just kind of absorbed the slow escalation.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: We're all a bunch of boiled frogs.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: But Josh Barrow wrote, a smart piece this weekend where
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: he talked about how some economists think that the latest
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: iteration of China tariffs and Mexico tariffs could hurt GDP
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: up to a percentage point, which is like, that's a
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: big deal. And for someone, if I were Donald Trump
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: and I were trying to run a reelection campaign, I
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: think I'd be a little more worried about the general
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: economic sentiment in the country than whether my base thinks
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I'm mean enough to immigrants. I feel like he's really
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: solidified the case that he's a horrible person to anyone
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: who lives south of the border.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think he understands the economics around trade,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to say the least. But yeah, Joshua's piece was very
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: good because I think up until now, a lot of
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: these tariffs have affected, I think he said like, you know,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: 7% of the imports or 10% of the exports or
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: some low percentage of imports and exports in the country.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So therefore, it's a small percentage of the overall economic output.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: But when you're getting up to, if we get up
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to 25% tariffs for Mexico and 25% tariffs for China.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Which he has threatened to China too. Now you're talking
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a significant chunk of the economy. I mean, already American house,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the average American household has paid about $ 831 more because
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of higher prices due to tariffs. And they think that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: these new, there's an estimate that these new tariffs could
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: cost 755,000 American jobs in Mexico. That is a lot.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: That evaporates any value from his crappy tax cut for
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: the average family. And it also, I mean, yeah, Trump's,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: numbers on trade. I mean, Harry Enten from CNN did
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: a piece on how Trump's approval on trade issues generally
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: are actually down from where he started. So people aren't
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: looking at his track record and thinking this is going well.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, it's hurting.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: How do you think Democrats should talk about this and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: how much should they talk about this? Because I do think,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it's, it's tough. Obviously the consequences could be
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: devastating to the economy. It could erode Trump's advantage on
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the economy that he's had in polls. As you just
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: pointed out with, uh, you know, uh, Harry's analysis on
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: his numbers on trade. Um, But as we also know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: trade is sort of a complicated issue to talk about. And,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you know, what do you think Democrats should do?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's I think it's similar
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: to immigration in that I think you can talk about
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: this as a strategy that's failing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, he's getting some as long as we're
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: in the trade war, he can claim any problem you
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: have with China or any problem you have with Mexico
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: is why he's doing this.
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: But then you go down the list of the things
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: he's trying to achieve with China and and he's just
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: not getting them. He's not getting what he wants out
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: of this trade war. You look at what's happening with Mexico.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: He's now set a goal that I'm going to put
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: a tariff on this unless you deal with a systemic
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: multi-decade long failure of our immigration system. So I don't
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: know how you can look at that. I mean, he
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: may be able to declare some kind of victory if
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: there's sort of a natural trend in a reduction of
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: migrants trying to cross the border because of the seasonal
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: change in the way people come to this country. But
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: For the most part, you know, you look at the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: actual list of things he wants. They're not totally crazy demands, right,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: to have Mexico do a better job securing its southern border,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: to have Mexico– I can't remember. you know, for example.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Well, you're not remembering because he wouldn't, he didn't lay
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: them out in any way. Mexico has no idea what
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: standards it has to reach right now. They're sending their
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: foreign minister to the United States for some emergency meeting
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: to try to figure out what the fuck they have
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Even Mulvaney said when asked, what is the goal of
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: this set of tariffs? He says, oh, we're going to
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: evaluate that on an ad hoc basis. They want to
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: see Mexico do something to reduce the number of migrants
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: coming in, to do something along its southern border, to
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: help them with the asylum situation along the southern border,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: which Mexico has been loath to do. But it's They
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: don't know what they're supposed to do to prevent this
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: outcome from happening.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Mulvaney went on Meet the Press, a bunch of Sunday
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: shows this weekend, to, one, humiliate himself further by just
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: being an asshole and pretending that it's okay to move
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: a ship named after John McCain because your boss is
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: a prick. Two, he said that the catalyst for the
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: surprise tariff on Mexico was there was a video of 1,000 migrants...
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: coming from Tijuana across the border into the US in
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: this major incident.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And that just like- That's how you make your trade policy.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Right, it just got Trump's racist dander up. And so
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: that is, you know, like, so I guess the case
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: I would be making is about immigration, which is, you know,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: the China trade war is a whole separate problem that
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: might create massive economic problems. This incident with Mexico feels
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: like he has set up a situation where he's going
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: to get some minor concession and then declare a win
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: on it. I think we need to be making a
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: case against him that he's been president for a couple
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: of years. and his immigration policies have failed. The maximum
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: cruelty policy have failed. The Democrats need to go after
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: and just hammer him on that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I would link it to a broader
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: economic case against the president. If I were Democrats, I
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: would be doing events with the farmers in the Midwest
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: who've been hurt by this. I'd be going to auto
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: plants right now and doing events with auto workers. I'd
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: be talking about how average families... auto workers, farmers, they're
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: all being hurt by Trump's economic policy while CEOs, big
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: corporations have never done better. You know, there's a study
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: out last week that corporations paid $ 90 billion less in
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: taxes as a result of this tax cut. And, you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: profits are doing better than ever. And they all use
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the tax cut for stock buybacks. And everyone's doing great
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: on Wall Street. And most of the people in the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: middle of the country are getting fucked. And for Mexico, too,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: it will devastate a lot of these border communities, communities
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that deal with a lot of trade from Mexico. They're
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: our number one trading partner. The other question is, can
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the Mexican government stop asylum seekers from traveling through their
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: country to the U.S.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: I don't really know the answer, but I don't think
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: that a punitive reaction that punishes the country of Mexico
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: is going to solve a much broader systemic problem that
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: starts with incredibly unsafe Northern Triangle countries where people are
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: going to leave no matter how mean we are to
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: the Mexican.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Government, period.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's an international right to asylum, to seek
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: asylum that Mexico wants to honor.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It's also, you know, we've seen a few immigration plans
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: from O'Rourke, from Castro that include as part of their
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: plan to help countries in Central America and to help
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Mexico deal with the flow of people. There's a kind
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: of Trump's all stick, no carrot, right? And it's also
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: like slapdash and mercurial. There is a, you could imagine
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: a disciplined, right-wing, revanchist administration that hates brown people with
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: a sophisticated plan to try to kind of punish Mexico
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: if it doesn't help while providing rewards to Mexico to
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: try to help them manage the process to actually achieve
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: apology outcome. But when it comes to trade deals, when
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: it comes to the Iran deal, when it comes to
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: the Paris Accords, there's no It's all stick, no carrot.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: It's all just you shoot the hostage. You punish Americans
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: without a clear plan for how to get out of it.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: You pull yourself out of the deal without a clear
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: plan to replace it with something better. That's what he
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: knows how to do. He knows how to lash out.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: He knows how to walk out of a room. It's
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: what it'll do with Pelosi. It's what it'll do with anybody.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump knows how to walk out. But he doesn't
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: know how to actually make a deal in the room.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Except that, like, there's no, in this situation, there's no
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: room to walk out of.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Like, the border is still there. The problem is still
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: going to happen. You know, so, like, you're right that
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: that's what he's trying to do. Vox suggested that Trump's
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: trying to get Mexico to sign what's known as a
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: safe third country agreement, which says that basically Mexico is
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: a safe place for people fleeing from Central America to
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: just stay. Therefore, those Central American migrants fleeing will not
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: be entitled to asylum hearings.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: That's a pretty devious move.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Cruel way to treat a bunch of people because I
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: don't think anyone's suggesting that just parking in Tijuana is
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: remotely safe. That's an incredibly unfair, unsafe thing to those people.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So in addition to his trade wars with China and Mexico,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: our chief diplomat is doing his best to fuck with
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: politics in the UK during his visit there this week.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: Fun.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: In an interview with the Sunday Times, Donald Trump said
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Britain should be okay with a no-deal Brexit and walk
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: away from the EU if they can't get favorable terms.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister Theresa May is scheduled to step down. The
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: list of those angling to succeed her includes former Foreign
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Secretary Boris Johnson, who Trump praised during his interview. The
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: president also said that Nigel Farage should be involved in
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the Brexit negotiations. Tommy, can you talk about the state
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of Brexit politics right now and what's going on in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the race to succeed Theresa May, just so we have
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: some setup for Trump's visit?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, Theresa May worked for years to try to
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: put forward a Brexit plan and try to get that
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: through Parliament, and it was rejected several times.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: So she finally decided to step down.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: And now there's a race to figure out to see
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: who will lead the Tories after her. So they'll be
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: chosen by, you know.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Let's call it, let's say, superdelegates.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: A older, whiter, more conservative faction will figure out who
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: the next prime minister is on the conservative side. So
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: it's not likely to be someone good. But that's not
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: going to solve the problem of Brexit. I mean, they
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: keep blowing through these deadlines with the EU. And I
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: think the question is whether they'll ever be able to
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: get a deal through, whether they'll have to vote again
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: on Brexit and throw it back to the people and
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: see if they still really want.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It, or have what was called a hard Brexit, where
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: they just.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Haven't negotiated any of the relevant customs or border issues
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: or anything that would, you know, anything you would normally
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: do during a bilateral relationship with another country, which would
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: just be like, an economic catastrophe would just be as
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: much uncertainty as you can imagine. So it's an ongoing
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: total mess.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what are the consequences of a
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: no deal Brexit or a hard Brexit that they're talking about?
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Is that just, I mean, I don't know all of them,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: but like one example is what happens to Northern Ireland, right?
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: And right now between Ireland and Northern Ireland, there's an
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: invisible border. Um, because, uh, Northern Ireland's part of the UK,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: the Republican Republic of Ireland is an independent country and part.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Of the EU. If the UK exits the EU, uh,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: you need.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Some sort of border between the two countries all of
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: a sudden for customs and whatnot, but that's like a
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: incredibly fraught thing to do because the good Friday agreement,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: which ended the, you know, decades of terrorism in Northern Ireland, uh,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: was designed to soften that border and increase access and
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: travel between the two sides. So you could reignite the troubles,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: reignite the IRA and all the things that we saw
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: in the nineties and eighties that.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Were so horrifying.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: So like there's all these second or third order effects,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: There's all these massive economic impacts of a hard Brexit.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: And I don't think anyone can really predict what all
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: of them are. I certainly can't. But no one thinks
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: that that's a good way to run a railroad.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And what is Trump trying to do here, aligning himself
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: with bozos like Boris Johnson and Farage? Now he's interfering
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: in British domestic politics. What's his goal here?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: That's a hard question.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Is he aligning with these people?
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: He's aligning with the people that like him against the
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: people that don't like him.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Is this like, you know, right-wing populace around the world
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: or his buddies kind of thing? Or what's going on there?
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, your guess of what his motivation is
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: is as good as mine. I mean, he basically said,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Nigel Farage came to an event I did.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: He was really nice. I liked him. It was exactly
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: what Lovitch has said. Yeah, I don't think it's very complicated.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: He's sympathetic to people who are nice to him and
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: who are racist. Yeah, that's right. But it kind of
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: works itself out.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Sadiq Khan's op-ed, Mayor Khan, the mayor of London, we
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: talked about, the first question I asked him, really tied
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Trump to other far-right leaders in Europe, like Victor Orban
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: and Marine Le Pen, and sees this as a scary
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: global movement.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I think he's right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: We were talking about this before the pod, Tommy, but
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I find myself very unsettled by Mayor Khan's op-ed, reading it,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: agreeing with all of it, but then realizing that he's
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: writing an op-ed about a foreign leader who is our leader. Like,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: It was very sort of upsetting to see a foreign
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: leader talk about the United States and the leader the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: United States has chosen in a way that is completely accurate. Yeah,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, look. I mean, he said that our president
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: is a global threat, which, you know, I believe too.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But when someone else says it that's not in your country,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: It was a little weird for me to interview him
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: because I agree with what he wrote.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: But it is.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: a strange feeling to talk to a foreign leader about
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: a really rough.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Criticism of an American president.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: That said, I think one of the things that we
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: failed to do is just speak as honestly and bluntly
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: as he did in that op-ed.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Certainly his own party has.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I thought the same thing.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: He made a global case for why nationalism in these
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: far-right parties are dangerous, and I think it was very compelling.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: It was actually a case that I was like, I
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: would love to hear a Democrat make a case this clear.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I'd love to hear Democrats make all kinds of clear cases. Well, no,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: there was a conversation about some of the protests that
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: are happening in London against Trump, and... what I appreciated
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: about one of the organizers is they said, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: we're not doing this because we're not opposing and protesting
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Trump because we don't like America. We feel as though
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: we're doing it because we want to, because we actually
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: like America and we like American values and we don't
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: believe this president represents those values. So I'm glad that
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: that is at least part of this, you know, it is.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And Mayor Kahn made that point as well. And it's
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: not bad.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: And it, you know, it's a, It's shameful. It is
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: shameful to send Donald Trump to represent us. It is
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: shameful that there's a giant balloon baby flying over London
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: of our president in a fucking diaper. It's all embarrassing.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It's embarrassing to have him call Meghan Markle nasty. And
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: it's embarrassing to have him compare Sadiq Khan to Bill
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: de Blasio because no one deserves that. And it's embarrassing.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Just kidding.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Just kidding. I don't know. Just kidding.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Bill de Blasio's response to that though, going back to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the fucking hashtag Condon.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Stop saying Condon. Stop saying Condon.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: What are you, what are you fucking, uh, the Krasenstein
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: brother here?
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: The third, the third Krasenstein.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Look, I, I think that like, and I, and I
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: talked about this in there. I mean, I don't think
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump or Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage is
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: going to upend the historic relationship between the U S
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and the UK. There are cultural ties. Everyone knows someone
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: who lives in the United Kingdom and vice versa.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So that's there.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: But like, Theresa May didn't need to give him a
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: state visit. That was a naked attempt to kiss his
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: ass in Curry favor. And, you know, he's only the
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: third American president to receive the honor of a state visit.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: He's hanging out with the queen at Buckingham Palace today.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: He's got a private lunch with her.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I wonder what the.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Hell they're going to talk about. She doesn't deserve that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: But the parliament was like, no way in hell you're
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: addressing this body because they would have booed him out
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: of the place.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: So, look, democracy is a bitch.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: People are going to say what they think about you.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And that's how it is.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: How does the queen get stuck with that meeting of
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: everyone in that country?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Listen, she survived the fucking Blitzkrieg. she can get through
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: she can get through a lunch with an asshole it's
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: fine it's not she's probably by the way yeah right
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: not the first rich american prick she's had to sit
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: across the table from she's been around for 50 fucking
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: years i think she'll be fucking british yeah we're british
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: um I just, it's, it's, um, it's a small thing.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Obviously these are very big, important issues, but there is something,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: it's a bit, it's a bit like, um, we're, you know,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: we're dating someone and we realized that if we weren't
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: dating them, we'd be just constantly making fun of them.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I don't think we've held back.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: But it's like, it's like, it's, it's, it's sad to know,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: it's sad to know that like, you know, you're sitting
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: at the queen with your, your, your, your, your, uh,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: your boyfriend. And then you just know that when the
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: queen goes back, she's going to make fun of your
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: boyfriend and you kind of agree, you know, you just
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: sort of, listen, I, listen, I, I think he fucking
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: sucks too. I didn't want to, I didn't, you know.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, maybe the tradition of politics ends at the
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: water's edge. I guess it was there for a reason
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: because it kind of feels right. It feels weird to
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: be criticizing him as he's over in London, but we're
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: past the point of no return.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: He deserves it.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: I don't think that we can sit quietly while he
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: tries to spread his brand of far-right nationalist garbage politics.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Like, it's actually dangerous.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Steve Bannon's sitting over there in some European castle trying
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: to get a Russian. Yeah, they are trying to evict
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: him from some castle. They're trying to fund and help
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: these kind of parties get power all over the continent,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: and it's dangerous.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's a shame that the American president
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: is a threat to the global world order and one
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: of the most dangerous and evil people we've ever empowered.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Anyway, on to 2020.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: On to 2020. At least they didn't let him stay
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: at Buckingham.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a win for humanity.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: It's under construction. That's so funny. It's under construction.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: That's a Russian accent. What is a British accent? Can
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: we get Ira in here?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I can't do it. His is worse than mine. Say cheerio.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I did Russian by mistake. It's fine.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Before we move on to 2020, I do want to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: mention the mass shooting that occurred in Virginia Beach on
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Friday where a dozen people were killed and many more
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: were wounded. The shooter, who was a municipal employee, also
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: died and was found with a. 45 caliber handgun. extended magazines,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and a silencer. And just as a reminder about how
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: important state and local elections are, the Washington Post reported
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that in January, Republicans in the Virginia legislature defeated a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: bill that would have banned the sale of high capacity
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: magazines like the ones the alleged shooter used in Virginia Beach. Guys,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: do you think one of the reasons that the coverage
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of mass shootings like these moves on so quickly now
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: is because our politics around gun control is so stuck?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, It did strike me as incredible that this
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: happened on a Friday afternoon and even by Sunday. You
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: didn't see the Sunday shows all about this. You didn't
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: hear many people talk about it.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Democrats at the California convention, which we're about to talk about,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: none of them really... I think Cory Booker mentioned it.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Cory Booker should get a lot of credit because most
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of his speech was about it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: But most people just decided to not talk about it.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: No, they all put out their statements on Friday and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: then that was that. We tend to.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Sometimes get the direction of.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Problems and solutions backwards in that people tend to care
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: about a problem when they believe they can solve it.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: And so I think there is a sense of hopelessness
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: creeping in. There's also just this natural equilibrium, which is
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: a heinous thing, but the more mass shootings there are,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the less deserving they are of coverage in the sense
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: that they are more common and less newsworthy. And yet
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: also at the same time, the more coverage mass shootings get,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: the more that may lead to the inspiration of other
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: mass shooters. So we're in this sort of delicate, murder
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: equilibrium where when they get more coverage, they start to
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: happen more. When they happen more, they get less coverage
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: and we're just sort of trapped in this cycle.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: It's also, it's just hard to, it's hard to shock
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: us anymore. I mean, the Las Vegas shooting killed 58
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: people and wounded 422 or more if you count people
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: harmed in the panic and the stampede that resulted in it.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: It's like if an event that shocking and terrifying doesn't
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: change something immediately in our country, the way New Zealand's uh,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: horrific shooting at Christ church did like, what the fuck will.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: So it's hard for me to even, I just get
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: so angry when I read these stories and I feel
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: incredibly frustrated and, and, and angry about it. But like,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know what, I guess I should focus my
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: rage and say one credit to Cory Booker for making
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: that speech at the California convention, because he, he had
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: the chance to make the case for himself and, uh,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: his campaign to 5,000 devoted activists. And he instead decided
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: to make it about the issue of violence and how
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: we respond as a nation and come together and not
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: about himself. And I really think it was impressive and
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: inspiring and good for him. Two, I think we should
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: talk more about some of the candidates who put forward
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: proposals to take executive actions to deal with gun violence.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: So Kamala Harris has been out in front of that,
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: and it's important. Third, I mean, I think we should
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: thank Mike Bloomberg and Everytown and Moms Demand Action for
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: funding and then working 24-7 on these campaigns. to uh
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: put in place common sense gun safety laws and to
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: go right at the nra because because of them because
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: they're funded and financed and there's grassroots energy behind them
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: we're actually making progress for once and it doesn't feel
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: as shitty as it used to but you know look
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: i didn't necessarily want to talk about this issue today
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: because it is.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: So hard and it does feel really defeating.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: At times yeah and i i do think you mentioned
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: this tommy but the the The good news in this
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: cycle is I think the Democratic presidential candidates are talking
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: more about gun control in general, and more importantly than
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: talking about it, putting out policy proposals to address the
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: issue more than they have in the past. Booker wants
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: to establish a national gun licensing program. Kamala has talked
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: about a series of executive actions. She'd take mandating background
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: checks and banning imports of AR-15s. Swalwell, who's made reducing
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: gun violence a centerpiece of his campaign, has proposed a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: mandatory gun buyback program for military-style weapons. So we have
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: we have a couple of candidates here who propose some
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: pretty far reaching things. I do think, like you said, Tommy,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the ones that are proposing executive actions like Kamala are
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: most interesting to me because, you know, we live through
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the Obama administration and we say this all the time.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: But when a universal background check bill that was sponsored
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: by Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, conservative Republican Senator Pat Toomey,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Couldn't get through the fucking Senate. I don't know what
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: can get through.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: After Sandy Hook.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: After Sandy Hook. After children were murdered. I don't know
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: what can get through Congress. And so I do think
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: that when it comes to executive actions on gun control,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the next Democratic president should have a whole slew of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: them ready. The other thing, and this goes back to
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the Virginia case, is we started this fuck gerrymandering fund
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to help flip state legislatures so that they're Democratic, so
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that we can redraw these districts. But the other reason
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that state and local elections are so important is because
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: some of the most sweeping, effective gun control measures that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: have passed over the last couple years have happened on
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the state level. And in the Virginia legislature right now,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a few seats for Democrats to take
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: control of the whole legislature and then also have to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: take control of the governorship. And imagine what can happen
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: if a Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor can sign
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a bill on universal background checks, on banning high-capacity ammo,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: That makes a real difference. So you can donate to
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Fuck Jerry. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash fuck Jerry.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Fuck Jerry with a G.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the 2020 primary. The Democratic candidates
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: descended on California over the weekend for the state's Democratic
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Party convention and MoveOn's Big Idea Summit. California is obviously
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: home turf for Senator Kamala Harris, who had a big
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: presence at the convention and got a great reception. But
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the biggest applause went to Senator Elizabeth Warren, who also
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: turned out 6,000 people at a town hall in Oakland
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: on Friday night. Warren also appeared to take a swipe
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: at Joe Biden during her convention speech when she said, quote,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: some say if we all just calm down, the Republicans
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: will come to their senses. But our country is in
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: a time of crisis. The time for small ideas is over.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders also took a shot at Biden by noting
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: his absence at the convention and saying, quote, we cannot
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: go back to the old ways. We've got to go
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: forward with a new and progressive agenda. Let's start with
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. Between Polling in the convention this weekend, it
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: seems like she has a little bit of a home
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: turf advantage, but she certainly doesn't seem like the frontrunner
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: here in California. What do you guys think of that,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and what do you think of what she had to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: say this weekend and her presence at the convention?
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Just in terms of hometown, home field advantage, I do
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: think just politics is nationalized. And I just don't think
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that that's as important as it once was.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And of all states, California is a tough one to
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: have a home state advantage in because it's like, you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of people, larger than most countries. So
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it's hard to have a home state advantage, I think,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: as a senator.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that's just going to apply to her.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: I think we'll see a similar, you know, there'll be
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: questions about whether Elizabeth Warren has any kind of home
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: field advantage in New England. And I think that's hard
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: to justify. So I just think in terms of this
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: idea of home field advantage, I think that that's not
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: as important as it once was, just as we're all
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: watching the same news at the same time.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think people were making note of
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the fact that it was also San Francisco-based events, and
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: that's where she came up politically. So people thought that,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: you know, you might have a political organization to really
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: pack those rooms, and it didn't seem like she did that.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: That said, I don't think we should make too much of.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: The enthusiasm or lack thereof from like 6,000 people in
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: her room.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's a small sample.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: What I noticed about Warren's speech that impressed me was
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I thought that She didn't just do a litany of
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Trump attacks and state a bunch of things that every
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: single Democrat in the race stands for. She made a
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: broader case that was about corruption in Washington. And I
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: thought that actually had people revved up and really excited.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: And Booker did a similar thing. He made a much
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: broader speech that was a critique of a brand of politics.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: It was a critique of inaction. It was a critique
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: of thinking small. And I thought that seemed to really
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: impress the crowd.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. We're going to have a lot of these, um,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: they're known, they have been known in the past as
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: cattle calls, um, where you have a bunch of democratic
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: candidates at one event and then everyone compares them.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And, um, so we're going to have a whole bunch
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: of these in the primary. In a field this crowded,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: in a primary that's become this nationalized, it becomes even
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: more imperative to stand out at these events. And the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: question is, how do you stand out? And you can
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: stand out by making a case for your candidacy that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: differentiates you from the rest of the field, that tells
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a story about why you should be running and implicitly
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: talks about why other candidates shouldn't. And you saw Warren, Bernie,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to some extent Buttigieg did this as well. sort of
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: take jabs at Joe Biden or the centrist candidates in
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the field trying to start drawing lines. Kamala sort of
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: went up there and she, you know, she probably had
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the biggest applause line of the weekend when she said,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you know, we need to impeach Donald Trump. But that
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: was an applause line. And you don't you I don't
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: really know what the rest of, you know, the rest
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of her speech was more the standard Democratic fear. And
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of the candidates did that as well.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Um, and so I do think Donald Trump is this
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: point is sort of just something you throw on at
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: the end just to get the crowd.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Amped and she did the energy and she did and
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: she did.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting. I feel like a lot of
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the conversation about the Warren crowd in Oakland was about
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the comparison to Harris, but I think it's actually less
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: important for what it means for Kamala and more what
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: it means for Warren. I do think, you know, I
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: noticed this on the road. They're all, you know, a
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: crowd is a self-selecting sample and it all should be
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: taken with a grain of salt. But I do think,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: there is a kind of enthusiasm for Warren that is
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: growing and maybe not manifesting in the polls, but there
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: does seem to be a kind of excitement about her
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: candidacy that I think is masked by a little bit
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: of the worries about her electability and all those conversations
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: that we've been having. Um, but when you see a
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: crowd that big, I even think when you see the
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: response to like when she talks about pride, when she
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: tweets out a gif of herself at a pride parade,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: there's a kind of love for her, uh, amongst a
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: set of Democrats that I think is interesting and important.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And I think the question is, and I'm always trying
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to figure out, is how big is that set of Democrats? Because,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you know, one of my complaints about Punditry before we
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: started doing this was that it's a bubble, right?
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And our crowds are self-selecting. The people who show up
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: at a California convention are very self-selecting. And, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: like you said, when you look at the polls, it
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: hasn't necessarily materialized, though she's been gaining in the polls.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: So the question is, does the Does the media coverage
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: she's getting, which has been very positive lately, does that
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: start translating into movement among the polls from people who
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: aren't paying attention to the race quite as closely as
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: we are or some of the activists in the Democratic base? That's,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I think, what we have to figure out.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: And I suspect it will because it tends to be
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: a lagging indicator. But I think the elephant in the room,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: or in this case, not in the room, was Biden.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: He didn't speak at the event. And that was certainly
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: noted by some of the speakers. And then The Young
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Turks did an interview with Bernie where they basically said,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: you know, do you think that if Biden is nominated,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: it could lead to a defeat like 2016? And Bernie said,
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I fear that it could be.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I really do.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I fear that you could have.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: A campaign without a lot of energy, without a lot
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: of excitement. And that seems like that's the case. A
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: lot of these guys are going to make against Biden
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: that he is centrism or that he is the safe choice.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: And I don't know whether that's true or not. But
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: I do know that if Biden is not in these
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: rooms making the case in response, he's going to lose
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: that fight. So I'm wondering when they're going to have
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: him out there or what the argument is not to
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: have him at these major events where you're talking to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: some key activists.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I wonder what you guys think about the other dynamic
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: is the Bernie Warren dynamic because they have– They're both progressives.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: They're sort of going after some of the same pool
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of voters, though I imagine both of them would say
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: their pool is much larger than just progressives. But you
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: see them both trying to go after Biden because it
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: benefits both of them to be the one who's taking
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: on Joe Biden because they get more media coverage. But
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: how do they differentiate from each other? Or do they
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: even need to at this point?
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: The thing that I found interesting is I do... That
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: multiple candidates have all at the same moment realized that
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden can serve as a stalking horse for what
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: they're running against is really, really dangerous for Joe Biden. And,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: you know, it is like that is going to be
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: something that you can start seeing chipping away at his support,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: chipping away at his support. And to me, it is
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: actually really effective for them. So it makes sense to
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: me that Bernie and Warren would kind of make their
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: same critique at the same time for a while. I
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: don't know if at some point that shifts, but for now,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: when the biggest pool of voters is sitting in the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Biden number, that just makes a lot of sense.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: And the danger there is, and we've seen this happen
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: in previous races, if you're the one who is most
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: strident going after the front runner, sometimes that could damage you.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Because remember, whether you like Joe Biden or not, his
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: approval ratings among Democrats are very high. And so most
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Democratic voters, if you ask them, even if they don't
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: want to support Joe Biden, they like Joe Biden. And
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: so you have to be very careful at how you
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: attack Joe Biden or how you draw a contrast with
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: It's like, it's like Veep when they just, they're both,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: they just want somebody to launch the negative attack, but
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: neither one of them wants to do it. I can
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: see this ending up though with just like, with kind
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: of using Bernie as a kind of battering ram and
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: they're all kind of like grab onto the back of
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: his jacket and just sort of run forward, pushing him ahead.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Like a, like a, like a, what's that? What's that?
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: The thing at the front of a locomotive called cow catcher,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: you know? just sort of knocking off things. Cowcatcher? Never
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: heard of that before. Isn't that called a cowcatcher, the
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: little thing in front of a train? I don't know.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Cool, cool.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: That's dark.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm salt of the earth. I know what those
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: things are called. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't seem like Warren's very afraid either, though.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: No, she's leading it.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: The cases are different. Warren and Bernie are sort of
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: making cases from the left, although even their cases are different.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Warren's is about the system and sort of Washington and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the system. Bernie's is more about progressive ideas. And then
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Buttigieg's case is more past-future. And it was interesting because
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it made me think of Obama's case in 08 against
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Hillary was sort of a combination of past, future, and
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: running against the system. It was kind of a combination
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: of Warren and Pete's case.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I can see it being very useful to all the
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: candidates to have someone out there saying the Biden electability
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: argument is actually quite weak and dangerous and that being
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: valuable as other candidates are making a more substantive policy case.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: I just think that is a.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It clicked for me as I was seeing this week
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: because that is an assault on Biden in all directions.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: None of the blowback falling on just one of his opponents.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: So that to me, this nominee, he can have it.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: He can go out and win it. It really is
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: there for him. And the Bernie critique to me is
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: so important. What are you going to do to get
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: young people excited about your candidacy? What are you going
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: to do on policy? What are you going to do
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: in terms of the tenor of your campaign to kind
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: of show people that you're not just going to play
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: it safe, that you're going to kind of lead this
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: big movement?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And also, what's your theory of what's wrong with our
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: political system today? HuffPo had a funny story that Joe
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Biden has been saying, this is not your father's Republican
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Party since 2006.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Which it's always been true.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: And he probably stole it from the this is not
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: your father's Old Mobile ad back in God knows when.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: So those things, these things are sticky.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: And he's right. And look, it's better that he's saying
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that than saying Republicans are going to come to their
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: senses and have an epiphany once a Democrat wins and
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: start working with us.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I guess what we're saying is we want You know,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: he can't be our father's Joe Biden. Right. You know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: like he has to, like, come on, man.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: I just have to say what clicked for me this
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: weekend is I just cannot believe that these cattle calls,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: people are going to have to listen to up to 19, 20, 21,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: 22 speeches. That is terrible. Not just for the speaker,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: not just for the people in the room, but for
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: the speakers. If you're dead last, like we need to
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: find a system for grading these people on a curve.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: You can't sit in a room for 10 hours.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: And again, this is, as all these candidates are starting
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to prepare for the debates and honing their debate strategy,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: if you go into that debate thinking that you're just
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: going to go up there, answer questions, be on your message,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: talk about your policies, and that that's going to make
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a difference, you're wrong. At the same time, you don't
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: want to be one of those people who gets attention
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: at the debate by lighting yourself on fire like Donald Trump. Like,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: work for him is probably not going to work for
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a Democrat, right? Like, Condon's not going to get you
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: noticed at a debate or some zinger about Donald Trump.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Or it might in the wrong way.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Or it might in the wrong way. Or some, like,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the best zinger against Donald Trump, that's not
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: going to get you noticed. But you've got to find
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: a way at these debates where there's going to be
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: 10 people on stage every night to differentiate yourself in
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a way that advances your candidacy and separates you from
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the rest of the pack without getting too cheesy or strident.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons that's going to be challenging
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: for many of these candidates is they don't have that argument.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: It doesn't exist. And they will discover it at the
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: fucking debate.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: This is not your father's Oldsmobile ad. Seems to have
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: debuted in 1988. So that was a previous Biden campaign.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Wow. Do with that information whatever you want. There was
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: a quiz on time.com where you had to just type
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: in from memory all the Democratic candidates. And I did fine.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: It was fun, though. It was a fun thing. It
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: was fun, though, that O'Rourke was hard to type. I
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: feel like it didn't register my apostrophe properly, so I
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: didn't really get the credit for it.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a bummer. So the New York Times published
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a piece over the weekend about California's earlier 2020 primary
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: that quotes Democratic strategist Chris Lehane saying that the best
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: strategy for the candidates who want to win California is
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: still a pretty simple one.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Win Iowa.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And I thought this was interesting because another Times piece
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: over the weekend by Jonathan Martin argued that, quote, the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: explosive growth of social media has nationalized the race and
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: made Iowa and New Hampshire less important than they used
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: to be. Jaymeart wrote that, quote, the feedback loop between
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the internet and television news is the most powerful title
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: force in politics. Tommy, who's right here?
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know who's right in this piece. I'm not
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: going to make a prediction.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: I think it will be very hard to argue that
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Iowa is not absolutely critical to whoever wins this nomination
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: somewhere in early February. I mean, like, there's just no
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: way that you can raise enough money to spend it
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: on a real organization on Super Tuesday to win California
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: unless you have a ton of momentum going into it.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: It's also just sort of, it's the kind of thing where, well,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: there's only one way for it to be really shown
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to be a true prediction, and that is if the
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: nominee of the Democratic Party does not do well in
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Iowa or New Hampshire. I find that hard to believe.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I'm sympathetic to the Dan argument that basically says in
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: the effort to make other states like California more important
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: in the process... It's ended up making places like Iowa
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: and New Hampshire more significant because it's so hard to
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: compete in a place like California. It's so hard to
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: get people to knock on doors. You know, there's so
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: many votes at stake after Iowa and New Hampshire that
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: doing well there will have a big impact.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I think Jay Mark makes a good point that social media,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: cable news, and the fact that more people are more
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: engaged than ever before because of Donald Trump and his presidency.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: sort of helps nationalize the primary in a way that
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: it hasn't been before. And so you do see these
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: candidates trying their hardest to find these viral moments. And
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: part of that is because there's an incentive to do
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: it because it helps in the national polls. It helps
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: you raise money among grassroots donors. But I think even
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: if we look back to 2018, some candidates, some Democratic
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: candidates running in some of these Senate and House races
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: had these ads that went viral, had these viral moments,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: were like sensations on Twitter, raised a whole bunch of money,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and did not win. And some of them did. But
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I do think that if you asked a lot of
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: these campaigns, any of the campaigns, Democratic campaigns, they would
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: tell you that there is no substitute for having a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: ground game and having a real organization in Iowa, especially,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: you know, you see Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: have invested in, a ton of money in a lot
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of staff in Iowa. Pete Buttigieg, now that he's going
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to raise a shitload of money, is starting to ramp
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: up and put a lot of staff in Iowa as well.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of these candidates, and Bernie has
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: always had a big organization, I think a lot of
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: these candidates are realizing that if you, you know, it's
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: still early right now in May, and I think it
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: makes sense that right now a lot of them are
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: going around the country, going to these different cattle calls,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: going to California. I think if you, this story is
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: going to look a little different in October, November, December,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: when they're camping out in Iowa for weeks at a time.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: The other piece of this, too, is it's actually maybe
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: not so hard a distinction in the sense that when
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: you're campaigning nationally, you're campaigning in Iowa, too, now. You know,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: that they're part of this nationalization of the politics. So
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Iowa and New Hampshire can remain incredibly important while at
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: the same time competing nationally is part of how you
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: get votes in Iowa. early states when so much of
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: your interactions with candidates are not person to person or
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: face to face, but through Twitter, through social media, through
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: what you see on television.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'd say Pete, Mayor Pete is a
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: top tier candidate because of that CNN town hall and
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: because he did a ton of national press. Beto is
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: a candidate because of social media and that NFL speech
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: that went viral, right? Kamala Harris is known because we
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: all saw her viral moment from various hearings. None of
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: them will be president if they don't do well in
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: Iowa and New Hampshire. And I think that is the
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: key distinction.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, and you've seen this, Tommy, having
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: been in Iowa and worked in Iowa. I wonder if,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a bunch of voters who some viral
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: moment makes them pay attention to a candidate. And if
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a pollster calls them, they'll say, yeah, I saw that candidate.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I see an end town hall and I really like
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: them and I'm interested and I want to learn more
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: and maybe I'd support them right now. Does... Do those
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: opinions change when you start meeting candidates one-on-one in these events?
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Is one-on-one interaction with the candidates still sort of the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: most powerful driver of the vote?
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Depends on the candidate. Well, for better or for worse. Yeah,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think undoubtedly.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, Iowa caucus goers are political junkies.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: You know, they're watching the CNN town halls. They're reading
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: the national news, right?
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: They're just like us.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: But they have this incredible honor. privilege of meeting these
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: people one-on-one. And I do think that like when you
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: see someone in a room, when you get to ask
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: them a hard question, that will help you make up
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: your mind.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: Not just like them, but decide, okay, I'm going to
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: caucus for you.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to volunteer for you. You know, it's also,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: we get a little taste of that here, uh, in
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: the sense that we've had, I think roughly 4,000 of
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: the 6,000 Democratic candidates come through our office.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: We're about two thirds of the way through.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: And, uh, it was like six lined up outside waiting
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: for us to be done.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: But, uh, I see some, I see a man with
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a Condon sign up.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, that's the condom sign. There's actually, scientifically, there
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: is no proven example of an organically existing condom sign.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: They are 100% manufactured and carried with the campaign. But,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: you know, we see that candidates come through here, and,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I think there have been better interviews and
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: worse interviews, and they've been more revealing or less revealing,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: and then we've also seen what they're like when they're
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: interacting with, like, 40 political junkies that are at Cricket,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: excited to meet them, and some of them they'll charm
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: the pants off of you. And some of them, it's like, goldfish.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: You know? It's part of it. We've talked about it.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Tune into this week's Love It or Leave It to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: hear which is which.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Look, there are candidates, the mics and cameras turn off,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: and we're like, that person's super cool. We'd love to
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: hang out with that person. And there's some of them
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: who said like, guys, you gotta take the picture. They're here.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Let's be honest.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Let's not. Okay. When we return, we will have Tommy's
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: interview with London Mayor Sadiq Khan. And be sure to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: stick around After that interview, for Tommy's conversation with This
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Land host, Rebecca Nagel.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: On the line, all the way from London, England, is
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Mayor Sadiq Khan. Mayor Khan, thank you so much for
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: joining us today.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: It's great to be on the podcast. Can I just
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: apologize at the outset? Last year, You guys were in
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: London as part of your European tour, and I couldn't
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: make it. And I'm really sorry for that, but I'm
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: really pleased I caught up with you today. I wanted
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: to reassure you, I'm not in the habit of snubbing Americans.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: It's just one particular one that I snub.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Well, you are incredibly kind to apologize, and it was
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: not necessary at all. But I noticed you have a
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: new pen pal named Donald Trump. You wrote a very long,
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: sternly worded op-ed this morning saying, Why did you want
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: to make this case about Donald Trump before he touched
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: ground in the United Kingdom?
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: Well, the thing that concerns me is, I'm not sure
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: if your listeners realize this, but Donald Trump basically is
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: the poster boy for the far-right movement around the world.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: And he and I first came into interaction in actually
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: during his campaign when he basically decided that he was
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: going to ban Muslims from coming into the USA. But
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: he was going to make an exception for me because
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: I was the mayor of London. And the point I
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: made in a polite, courteous way was there's nothing exceptional
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: about me. I think banning Muslims from going to the
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: USA is a bad policy. I know many Americans who
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: are proud to be Americans but also proud Muslims. And
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: that's not the sort of America those of us who
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: love America know. And over the last few months and
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: a couple of years, we've seen a number of policies
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: that your president has announced, but also some of the
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: things that he has said, which do cause concern to
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: those of us in London, those of us in the UK,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: and those of us in Europe. And you'll know that
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: actually the office of the president of the USA is
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: really special. It's probably one of the most, you know,
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: it is the most unique role in the world. The
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: ripples of what is said by the president of the
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: USA what the president of the USA does are felt
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: all around the world. And I'm afraid a number of
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: things he has said and done are causing problems to
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: those of us, you know, a number of thousand miles away.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: And there are also, I'm afraid, people in Hungary, people
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: in France, people in Italy, people in the UK and
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: across the Western world who are having their views, which
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: are abhorrent, normalized and mainstreamed because of some of the
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: things Donald Trump has said and done. Yeah.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's why that was so interesting about the
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: piece was you make this global case against him and
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: you tied him to nationalists and far-right leaders like Victor
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: Orban or Marine Le Pen. I mean, do you see
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Trump as a piece of a larger puzzle that is
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: tied together somehow?
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: Well, if you study history, not just contemporary, but go
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: back decades, what is the far-right playbook? The far-right playbook
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: is what? You pick on minority communities. You pick on
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: marginalized communities in order to manufacture an enemy. You fabricate
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: lies in order to stoke up fears. And what does
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: that lead to? That leads to a promotion of hatred
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: of immigrants. It also can lead to, we've seen it
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: in the UK, we've seen it in Hungary, France, Italy,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: and in the USA, sympathy for white supremacists. And you'll
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: see other policies which cause huge concern you know, attacking
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: women's reproductive rights, rolling back some of the progress made
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: in LGBT rights. And so the assumption we all made
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: is progress is one way. And our impatience has been
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: the lack of pace towards progress on gender inequality, on
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: LGBT rights, on pluralism. You now have a situation where
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: not simply are we not making progress, but we are
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: going backwards. And so, you know, my piece was articulating
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: the views of not just Londoners, but views of many,
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: many decent Americans I speak to on a regular basis.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: So historically, the US-UK alliance has been viewed as special,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: extraordinarily close. There are reports that a quarter million people
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: are planning to show up to protest President Trump's visit.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: What do you think that says about the state of
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: the US-UK relationship?
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: Well, it's really important to distinguish what we think about
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: Americans versus the views many Londoners and British people have
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: about your current president. It is a fact that not
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: just myself, many, many people in my country love America,
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: love Americans, love the culture. Many of us study and
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: revere some of the things your founding fathers said. Some
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: of us love your contemporary presidents in more recent times
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: from Roosevelt to Eisenhower. from Kennedy to Obama, and of course,
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: the one and only Jed Bartlett. But the point is
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: that you've got a situation where many of the things
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: that have been said and done by Donald Trump cause
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: huge offense. And I'm afraid it is the case that
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: the reputation of America isn't as great as it has
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: been in the past because of the actions of this president.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: That's not to take away from the fact that we'll
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: be commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. You'll
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: have also the Prime Minister of Canada here in our country.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: There are others coming from Australia, from New Zealand, President Macron.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: That's really important. I think the frustration amongst Londoners and
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: other people around the country is that President Trump's been
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: given a state invitation. It's a state visit. There'll be
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: a state banquet tonight. And the view is, and I
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: agree with his view, the red carpet and all that
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: goes with a state visit is not an honor that
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: should be bestowed on this president.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: So, first of all, tough hit on President Santos and
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Smits, who, you know, deserves a.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Shout out as well. So, I mean, in your op-ed,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: you talked about.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: You called on Theresa May to issue a rejection of
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: this far-right agenda and, you know, said that his views
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: are incompatible with British values. And I, of course, you know,
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: agree with the incompatibility point. With respect to the state visit,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean, clearly... Prime Minister May made this
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: choice to try to curry favor with the Trump administration
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: early on. I don't know if she believes it's paid dividends.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I suspect not. But I mean, do you worry at
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: all that some sort of rebuke of him while he's
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: over there could lead to a vindictive punishment in response,
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: like the tariffs he just slapped on Mexico for no
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: clear reason?
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Really good question. Look, my view is this in relation
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: to the USA and the special relationship. We see the
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: USA as our best friends, as our best mate. And
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: my view is that the expectations we have of a
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: best mate, a best friend, are higher than the expectations
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: of an acquaintance or a normal friend. So the expectations
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: we have of each other are higher than we'd expect
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: from other countries who aren't our closest allies and with
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: whom we don't have a special relationship. That means, surely,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: that we must have a relationship where we can call
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: each other out. We can have a relationship of honesty
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: and candor. And that means if we think that you know,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: our best friend is acting in a manner that's not
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: in their interest, not in our interest. We disagree with it.
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: We should say, listen, you know, I think you're wrong
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: on issue A, on issue B. Of course, at times
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: adversity will be with you. But I've got to tell you,
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: I think you're making a mistake here. And, you know,
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: my concern has been that our prime minister, and your
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: analysis is spot on. It was for self-interest because the
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: prime minister thought it would make her look, you know,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: like a world leader, particularly with concerns post-Brexit. And it's backfired.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: And I think what it's led to is a situation
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: where Donald Trump feels he can say and do anything
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: because others will be sycophants. And I think it's important.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: We're not asking for Theresa May. I'm not asking for
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: her to do sort of a Hugh Grant in Love Actually.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: But I think what's important is that, you know, she
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: in robust terms says, I disagree with you rolling back
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: on the rights of women and, you know, abortion. I
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: disagree with your views on LGBT rights. I think it's
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: wrong for you to separate children from their parents. You
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: know what? Muslims can be Westerners and Muslim. By the way,
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: protectionism doesn't work. And I think the concern I have
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: with politicians nowadays who are becoming popular is rather than
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: addressing the fears people have, they play on them. And
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: you see it with Donald Trump. You see it with
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: Nigel Farage. You see it in Hungary. You see it
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: in Italy. You see it in France. And one of
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: the criticisms I have of my side, the progressive left, is,
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: you know, we ought to go on the pitch. We've
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: got to take on these issues. We've got to address
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: people's fears. We've got to educate the public in a
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: non-patronizing way. Public education is really important. But we can't
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: vacate the pitch because we're scared of upsetting Donald Trump.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: You mentioned Nigel Farage. I mean, Mr. Mayor, when.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: President Trump sort of hand-handedly endorses a far-right politician like
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: Do you think it helps them?
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, are British citizens okay with Trump just diving
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: into your most sensitive political debates time after time?
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: Well, it depends. Let me tell you an interesting fact,
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: which is when President Obama made the point, which everybody
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: agrees with, by the way, if the UK leaves the
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: European Union, your power will be less than it is afterwards.
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: And President Obama not unreasonably was saying that you could
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: well be lower down the pecking order because of your
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: size versus the European Union. And the right wing in
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: the UK, including Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, rebuke President
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: Obama for having the audacity to make a perfectly reasonable
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: point about the impact of us leaving the EU. Lo
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: and behold, those very same people who criticized President Obama for, quote-unquote,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: interfering with British politics are now jumping over backwards because
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: President Donald Trump has said that Nigel Farage and Boris
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: Johnson will be wonderful, in Boris Johnson's case, wonderful prime minister.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: In Nigel Farage's case, should be leading UK negotiations with
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: the European Union. And the point I make to those
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: people is what's source for the goose is source for
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: the gander. You can't, on the one hand, criticize President
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: A when he says something about your country, but then
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: welcome what President B says about your country because you
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: may well like him. And I think, look, it's up
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: to the Conservative membership to decide whether it's a good
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: or bad thing having Donald Trump's endorsement. I'm not sure
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: if you're aware, but the next Prime Minister of that
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: country won't be chosen by the British public. He or
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: she will be chosen by Conservative MPs and Conservative members,
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: and their profile is quite elderly, quite right-wing, not representative
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: of The country, as far as the country is concerned,
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm not sure if it is a huge
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: badge of endorsement having Donald Trump, you know, saying that
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: you're his guy.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly didn't help him hawk Trump's stake. So we'll see.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: So I want to go back to something you said earlier.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, what does it mean in your in your
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: view for progressives to get on the pitch? Like what
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: can well-meaning people do in the United States and Europe
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: to stop the rise of these right wing populist movements
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: that seem to be spreading across Europe?
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: Look, we've got to accept that there are decent, genuine
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: people who are voting for Brexit, who are voting for Trump,
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: who are voting for Le Pen in France and on
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: in Hungary and elsewhere. We've got to accept that you
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: can't criticize voters for being racist or being xenophobes. There's
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: a very real reason why they're voting for these leaders.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: And the reason they're doing so is because they're not
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: seeing the fruits of globalization anymore. they're seeing the consequences
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: and they're uneasy about de-industrialization. They're worried about the pace
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: of change in some of our countries. And so what
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: we have to do is understand that their concern is
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: legitimate and then try and address them and meet the
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: challenges head on. So, for example, if politicians are saying,
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: you know what, yes, it's true, the car factory where
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: you worked has closed down, but don't worry, when I
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: become the president or we leave the European Union, I'll
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: reopen them. It's got to be explained in a polite,
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: courteous way that You can't now realistically in the UK
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: build cars and be competitive with the Far East or
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: with countries where they've got a bigger market than we have.
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: And you've got to realize in countries like ours and
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: the USA, low-skilled, low-paid jobs are the future of our economies.
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: We've got to have high-skilled, well-paid jobs. So we've got
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: to think about and work on what are the emerging markets.
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: So the green agenda is very important. So in London...
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: We have policies to meet the needs of not just
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: climate change but poor quality air, and that's leading to
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: jobs being created in relation to low-carbon green jobs. So
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: we want people who are tech-savvy, people who have the skills,
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: to come to London and work with us with the
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: solutions of some of the challenges we have. And the
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: same applies to the UK, the USA, and other countries
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: in the Western world. We can't have a future where
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: our workforce is poorly educated, and is doing jobs with
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: poor salaries, because realistically, we can't compete with those countries
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: that can do these pieces of work much cheaper, particularly
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: with automation. And I don't think we should be afraid
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: of the fourth industrial revolution. We should surf the wave
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: and make sure our workforces are ready. And my criticism
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: of my side is, is we're not engaging with the public,
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: spending time educating them, spending time finding solutions. What we're
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: doing is vacating the pitch and criticizing the voters for
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: choosing people who play on their affairs. And I think
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: we've got to get on the pitch. And that means
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: making an emotional connection with the voter, understanding where they're
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: coming from, and then meet head on. people like Donald Trump,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: Nigel Farage, and others around the world.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we have like three football clubs worth of
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: players on our pitch right now. So if you want
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: to borrow some, we can probably do like a lend-lease program,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: go back in time a little bit. So, I mean,
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: you talked about the economic future that's getting complicated by globalism.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's certainly, I think Brexit could make that
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: economic future even more complicated. How was that debate, fight,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: I don't even know what to call it at this point,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: impacted the people you represent in London.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: And do you think there's an end in sight?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: I think our country is divided. I think our country
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: is unequal. I think there are similarities between the UK
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: and the USA. When you look at the parts of
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: the USA that voted for Trump, we've got a similar
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: comparison in the UK that voted to leave the European Union.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: And that's a problem. And I'm afraid what's happening is
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: unrealistic promises have been made by politicians here, the likes
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, and the public who voted
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: and supported them won't simply be annoyed when those promises
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: aren't met. They're going to be angry. And that's what
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: causes me huge concern. I can't see a short-term prosperous
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: future for my country, bearing in mind some of the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: toxicity of the discussion taking place. Some of the candidates
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: in the Conservative leadership are promising that they will leave
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: the European Union even without a deal. Catastrophic for the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: UK economy. Catastrophic for jobs, wealth and prosperity. Big promise
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: to make. What will happen if it doesn't happen? If
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: we don't leave on October 31st, which is the next extension,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: people are going to be angry. And so what it
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: leads to, Tommy, is the public being further cynical about politicians,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: which makes our life much harder as mainstream politicians, which
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: allows the far right to to exploit this. And so,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: you know, they'll blame the European Union, they'll blame immigration,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: they'll blame mainstream politicians. And what we should really worry
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: about is when you've got office holders criticizing judges, office
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: holders criticizing the free press, office holders who should be
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: talking about, you know, making deals with countries, the importance
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: of multilateralism, walking away from a, you know, Paris accord,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: the climate change agreement, walking away from a deal to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: remove nuclear weapons from Iran, walking away from a roadmap
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: that leads to peace in the Middle East, walking away
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: from the European Union, arguably the most successful trading bloc
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: that the world's ever seen. But also, in the last
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: 70 years, you know what? We've not had a war
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: in mainstream Europe. And so it does worry me, the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: fact that the right part of the spectrum of politics
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: is setting the agenda. But what worries me more is
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: that the fruits of this will be exploited by the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: far right. And these fruits are poisonous.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Final question, and thank you again for your time. I mean,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: we've had this big debate in the United States recently
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: about whether Donald Trump is an aberration of history or
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: just sort of the latest version of the modern Republican Party.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: And certainly it's not the first time that racism or
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: xenophobia has driven U.S.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Politics.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, that's something we've seen time and time again. But
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: the conversation does feel supercharged today. these days by Fox
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: News and the increasingly white nationalist content you're seeing on
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: that channel. Have you guys seen a similar evolution in
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: the media in the UK, specifically from Murdoch-owned news outlets?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, are they exacerbating the problem in your political
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: system the way Fox News is in ours?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: Lots of similarities between the UK and the US. There's
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: a saying we used to have, which is, you know,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: the UK is 10 years behind the USA. So what
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: happened in the USA, we see a few years later.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: And so what you're seeing in the UK is now
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: what you saw in the USA with the Tea Party,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: impacting on the politics of the Republican Party. You're seeing
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: in the UK, the Brexit Party, a new party that
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: Nigel Farage has formed, impacting the politics of the Conservative Party.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: You're seeing the proliferation of social media, completely no checks
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: and balances. We've seen how Facebook can be exploited. We've
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: seen how foreign countries can exploit referenda, can use automation
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: bots to get messages amplified. And so it's a big concern.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: So we've seen, for example, some of the work that's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: happened in the USA, looking at the lessons to be
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: learned from the 2016 election. We know the role now
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: of Russia in that. We're seeing now some revelation about
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: the impact, the consequences of foreign intervention and the impact
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: we know in the referendum in 2016 here. So there
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: are lots of similarities. The challenge we have, somebody who
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: is a mainstream politician, is how we make sure that
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: we reach the public. And one of the things we've
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: got to accept as progressive politicians on the left is
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: the medium sometimes is not a medium we find attractive.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: The reality is many of my voters do read the
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: Murdoch Press. Many of my voters, Londoners, do go on
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: some of those websites that you and I may not
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: find desirable. Similarly, if you want to be the president
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: of the USA and you're a Democrat, it's a fact
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: you've got to accept that many of the voters you
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: need to persuade to vote for you watch Fox News.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: And that's one of the conundrums that we have. And
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: I think we've got to address it head on. And
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: I've got no problem talking to, you know, media groups
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: or journalists who work for, you know, organizations that I
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: perceive as being right wing. I think it's important because
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: it gets me to an audience otherwise I wouldn't get.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: So the medium is important to me because without that
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: we're just an echo chamber. You know, there's no point
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: me simply speaking to my tribe. There's no point somebody
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: aspiring to be the next president from the Democratic Party
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: just speaking to his or her tribe. We've got to
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: persuade people from another tribe, people who stayed at home
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: last time, people who voted for, you know, the the
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: Tory party, the Conservative party in my country, or for
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump in your country, to come back to us.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: And so it's really important we do so. There's a
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: view I have, which is, you know, there's no such
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: thing as our people being a small tent with just
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: our tribe. Our people should be the entire electorate. And
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: so that's why we've got to use the tools we've
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: got to expose where there are lies being told, expose
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: where there's fabrication, interference, expose where laws are being broken.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: but at the same time realize that the conventional tools
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: of reaching voters has changed. Those conventions aren't there anymore.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: We've got to evolve to make sure we continue to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: be relevant to the voters.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: Mayor Khan, thank you for your time, and thank you
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: for making such a clear case about the disconcerting rise
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: of these far-right political leaders. It is one of the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: defining issues of our time that I don't think is
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: talked about enough, and I really appreciate hearing.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: From you about it.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: It's a pleasure. Speak to you soon. Take care, mate.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be here with Rebecca Nagel, the host,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: the creator of our new podcast, This Land. We are
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: here in the Crooked Media Studios in Los Angeles, which
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: we have been describing as 70s cable access.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: That's the vibe I'm getting.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: It's kind of the vibe. Okay, cool. Why did you
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: want to make This Land?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: I think it's a history and a story with really
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: high stakes in the present day that most people don't
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: know about. And so when we're talking about even just
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: this Supreme Court case that impacts the treaty rights of
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: five tribes and half the land in Oklahoma. It's barely
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: been covered by the mainstream media. And then when we
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: get deeper into the story, we're talking about the history
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: of our specific tribes, like what's happened to our land
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: in Oklahoma. It's stuff that, you know, is the foundation
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: of American history, but something that's not taught, that people
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: haven't heard about. And so I think in a bigger picture,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: you know, the wall we kind of hit as Native
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: Americans is that when our cases are in front of
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: the Supreme Court or our issues are being debated on
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: the floor of Congress, it's happening in a country where
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: the public doesn't have a basic understanding of what those
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: rights are and what those legal issues are. And so
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: it makes it really hard for us to drum up
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: public support because we need people to know about these
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: issues and to understand.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: For lawmakers to pay attention, frankly.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Lawmakers would probably rather ignore the very ugly history they're
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: being presented with.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: Or have the same just blanket ignorance as the rest
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: of the country.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: I know you have a deep family connection to this story.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: You're an expert. You're a journalist and activist. But was
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: there anything you've learned that surprised you during the process?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think we went out and I think
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 5: one of the things I'm really proud about about the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: podcast is just all of the voices that we've been
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: able to bring to the table. So from, you know,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: the chief and AG of Muskogee Creek Nation, like our experts,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: our historians, but also like our elders, our first language speakers,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: like our family. And I think just over and over again,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: what I heard from people is just how important our
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: relationship and our connection to the land where we are
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: in Oklahoma is and how much this case means to everyone.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even the music is beautiful.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's made by Chickasaw composer Gerard Tate.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: That's really cool. What do you hope people take away
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: from the show?
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: I mean, like big picture, I want people to kind
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: of have this moment of, oh crap, I wasn't paying
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: attention to federal Indian law. I wasn't paying attention to
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: what's happening in the courts and the rights of Native Americans.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: And I need to be, not just because it impacts
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: Native Americans, but because it impacts everybody. You know, when
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: the far right wants to tinker with a little piece
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: of the constitution, they use federal Indian law to do
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: it because nobody is paying attention.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: And I feel like, There are probably a lot of
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: big muddied interests out there who don't want people to
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: listen to this show.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about who those interests are and what
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: their stake is in this case? Yeah.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 5: And so, I mean, like most things, it comes down
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: to money. But basically the opposition, the people who have
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: lined up against the tribes and don't want the tribe
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: to win are the Trump administration, oil and gas companies
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: and the state of Oklahoma. And then there are also,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: you know, some like sheriff associations and like cattle ranchers
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: that also filed briefs. But those are the big players. And,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: you know, eastern Oklahoma, the land that's impacted by this case,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: sits on one of the country's largest oil and gas reserves.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: And so if your bottom line is money and profit,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: you don't want that land to be tribal land. And
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: so that's one of the big issues that's lining up
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: against tribes in this case, but also in general. I mean,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: a crazy statistic that I think most people don't realize
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: is that our tribes occupy 2% of land in the
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: United States, and that land represents a fifth of all
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: oil and gas reserves in the U.S.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: Tribes also sit on like, I think, is it like
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: a third? Really, I think a third to half of
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: coal west of the Mississippi. And so even though we
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: have a small amount of land, there's a vast amount
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: of natural resources. And there is a concerted effort to
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: open that land up to extraction.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: Do people who live on those lands feel like there's
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: a target on their back from these big oil and
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: gas companies?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think it's a case-by-case basis depending on
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: the tribe. I mean, it doesn't mean that just because
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: land is a reservation, no oil is ever drilled there.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: It just means that it's complicated and it depends on
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: the land. But tribes often have say in what can happen.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: I think the bigger picture of what's going on It's actually,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: it's like tragically basic. I think there's always been a
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: desire for more and more native land. And even though
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: I think people think that that's was like a chapter
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: of history instead of something that's ongoing and happening today.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: And so when you look at some of the theories
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: that the far right is trying to promote in the
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: courts or even some of the policies that the Trump
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: administration is passing, there's this sort of end goal to
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: get rid of tribes and for there to no longer
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: be sovereign nations within the United States that have these
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: land rights.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: It's a great story because this is a complicated case, right?
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: There's a murder that's more recent. There's a murder... happened
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: in the past.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: I feel like justice is a complicated question in any
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: discussion like this, but what does justice look like to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: you in this case?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think one of the things that's interesting
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: about this case, I think people could hear about it
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: where it's like, oh my gosh, like there are these
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: five tribes in Oklahoma. It's like half the land. And like,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: of course the Supreme Court should give that land back
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 5: to the tribes. Of course it should be returned. And
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: that's actually not what this case is about. The truth is,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: is that Our treaty rights, our legal rights to that
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: land was never terminated. It was never ended. It was
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: never dissolved by Congress. And so we're not asking for
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 5: anything to be returned or given back. We're just asking
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: for our legal rights to our land to be acknowledged.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: Do people who are.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: living this day-to-day have faith in the justice system to
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: deliver a just outcome?
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: Oh, man. So overall, our win rate at the Supreme
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 5: Court is about 30%. So if you're a tribe and
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: you're going up to the Supreme Court, you have about
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: a one in three chance of winning.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: Wow. Wow.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: How.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: should we additionally browbeat the shit out of people to
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: subscribe and download this show?
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: So, I mean, if you're interested in the story, you
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: want more people to hear about it, you can check
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 5: it out, thislandpodcast.com, and then subscribe and listen wherever you
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: listen to podcasts. And if you do that, like, extra
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 5: step of leaving a review, a rating, it helps other
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 5: people see it.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: That's great. And I have to say, I've listened to
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: the first episode. My wife has.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: Some select family members have. And it's, like, it's a gripping...
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: amazing story told beautifully by you.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 5: So thank you for, for doing it.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Mayor.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: What is this? The Oldsmobile. Not your father's Oldsmobile. What's
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: funny is now that's from 1988. So it clearly is
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: your father's Oldsmobile. Oldsmobile.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Are any of our father's Oldsmobiles still around?
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: I've never had an Oldsmobile.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Oldsmobile is a retired brand. My parents did.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: Oldsmobile is a retired brand now, right? I don't think
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: you can get it anymore.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Right, I think it's not.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: And also, I don't understand what's going on with Buick.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: I wish Buick... Come on, like, Buicks can be cool.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: Buicks aren't... People don't... I think Buicks are fine. I
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: don't understand why... Buick... Buicks are cool.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, we're ending with a Buick ad. Thanks to
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Mayor Sadiq Khan, and thanks to Rebecca Nagel for joining
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: us today, and we'll see you on the road.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: Bye.