Latest / Pod Save America / “A-holes in the Outfield.”

Transcript

“A-holes in the Outfield.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: And here's a quick message from a leading Republican.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: How many Merlots deep do you think he was there?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: That was John Boehner, for anyone who didn't recognize his
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: dulcet tones. And we're going to have that clip just
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: at the ready throughout Pod Save America forever, just in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: case we need it.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I agree with that.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And we'll just have Kyle hit play whenever we talk
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: about Ted Cruz. Let's test it out. Ted Cruz.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: I think the response time could have been a little
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: bit faster.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We're working on it.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Latency issues with the Zoom. That's what it is.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, the battle over voting rights intensifies as
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball pulls the All-Star game out of Atlanta.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The push to legalize marijuana gets a lift from Chuck Schumer.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: And Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wickler talks to me
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: about how we can flip the Senate seat currently held
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: by America's dumbest senator, Ron Johnson.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Ben.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: Ben.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Tommy helps us break down the championship game of our
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: March badness tournament.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: You're welcome.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: How was love it or leave it this week?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Josh Gondelman.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: Hilarious. Josh Sharp played the devil to talk about his
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: video with Lil Nas X. Hilarious. Great conversation with Theo Henderson,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: who has a podcast called We The Unhoused. And we
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: talked about the housing crisis in the country and about
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: why we need more conversations that hear from unhoused people directly.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: It was a great conversation and everybody should support We
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: the Unhoused.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Cool. Also, don't miss Rubicon, our series about Biden's first
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: hundred days with Crooked editor-in-chief Brian Boitler. He just talked
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to FiveThirtyEight's Perry Bacon about what Biden can do to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: curb voter suppression.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Sizzling conversation. Yeah, it was really good. Perry is very smart.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: He said it was a sizzling conversation.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. What?
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, God.
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: That's brutal.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, my.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Save that for the ads, man.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I support it.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: It's been a long year. It's been a long year.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: We need some more puns. I don't want to lard
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: out the intro, you know? Oh, my God.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Sorry, Perry. And he recently talked to Representative Ruben Gallego
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of Arizona about border politics. Great show. Check it out. Finally,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: something to keep in mind as we talk about voting
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: rights on today's show. This week, activists are hosting a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: For the People Week of Action that includes virtual advocacy
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: visits with senators and democracy teach-ins where you can learn
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: more about issues like gerrymandering, voter suppression, and how to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: get big money out of politics. Check it out. VoteSaveAmerica.com
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: slash For the People.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. On Friday, Major League Baseball
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: announced that they're moving the All-Star game and the draft
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: out of Georgia as a result of the Republicans' new
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: voter suppression law that restricts ballot access and essentially gives
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the GOP legislature control of the state's elections. The Republican
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: reaction was predictable. Governor Brian Kemp blasted cancel culture. Mitch
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: McConnell threatened corporations who speak out with, quote, serious consequences.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump called on Republicans to boycott Coca-Cola, Delta,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and a long list of other companies before wishing everyone
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a happy Easter. The Democratic reaction was a little different.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Voting rights activists and national leaders like Joe Biden and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama praised the decision. But Georgia Democrats like Stacey Abrams,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: John Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock had a more nuanced reaction,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: best summed up by Terry Inulwitz, a state representative from
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Cobb County, where the All-Star Game would have been held.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: She said, quote, I'm disappointed that the game was moved
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: from Georgia. I'm also intensely frustrated by our GOP leadership
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: here in Georgia. I hope other major events don't leave Georgia.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: This only hurts working Georgians. We talked a bit about
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the possibility of boycotts last week. Lovett, what's your reaction
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to MLB's decision here?
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: I feel like Stacey Abrams is trying to strike a
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: really delicate balance because it is ultimately, I think, it
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: is bad for people in Georgia to that businesses are
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: going to not do business in Georgia or leave Georgia.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: It is bad politics for Republicans. We've seen this in
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: other states when Republicans create these kinds of controversies and
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: people see it as harming the economy, especially when it's
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: not actually solving the problem. And I do think, though,
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: on the whole, we have seen that this kind of
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: like big corporate response does matter. It impacts politics. It
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: impacts people's perceptions. And also, I think it just reflects
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: the fact that you don't, gerrymandering the electoral college, the
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: outsized power of rural white voters, that may be true
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: in our democratic system, but it's not true in our
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: economic system. And I think a lot of Republicans are
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: quite frustrated to see that while they have been able
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: to successfully limit the power of cosmopolitan, younger, more urban America,
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: they have not been able to do the same in
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: terms of that group's economic power, both inside of corporations
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: and as consumers in the economy. And I think that
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: is the fundamental dynamic here, which is that the political
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: system is behind the culture and these corporations better represent
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: what America actually looks like.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think? I mean, I think it's
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: just really good that we're having a sustained conversation about
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: voter suppression in this country, because the Georgia bill is
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: just the beginning of what will be a bunch of
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: sustained Republican efforts to use the big lie about the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: 2020 election, that there was some sort of major electoral fraud.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: They're going to use that to try to make it
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: harder to vote in lots of states. And I'm glad
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that corporations are are being forced to view this as
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: a moral issue. And I find it very funny when
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Republicans act like the all-star game's not going to happen
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: this year. I mean, they're all criticizing corporations now, but
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Republican state legislators in Georgia immediately tried to penalize Delta
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Airlines when they spoke out about this loss. So there's
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: hypocrisy all over this conversation. Boycotts can be very effective
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: when sustained, right? The Montgomery bus boycott, boycotts of South Africa,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the boycott of North Carolina's so-called bathroom bill that target
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: LGBT people. Sometimes boycotts are less about a long-term fix
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: than they are short-term press attention. Time will tell what's
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: happening here. But I have a list for you guys
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: of things that Donald Trump has called on his supporters
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: to boycott if you want to hear it briefly.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Ready to rock?
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. Major League Baseball, Coke, Delta, Woke Companies, Goodyear Tire,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Harley Davidson, Apple, all Apple products, CNN, AT & T,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Megyn Kelly's show on Fox, Macy's, Rolling Stone Magazine, HBO, Mexico,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the entire country, Italy, the entire country, Glenn Fittich, the Scotch, Oreos,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Bic pens. One of those is fake. Can you tell?
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Oreos.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Oreos.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Bic pens?
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: John Lovett wins with Bic pens.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: No.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Oreos, he called on a boycott of Oreos because they
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: were moving operations to Mexico at one point. So yeah,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, these guys are against- Is Donald Trump
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the king of cancel culture? He's the cancel culture king.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: They're against cancel culture when it's against their interests. The
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: hypocrisy is old. And so look, bottom line, often these
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: voter suppression bills happen under the radar. We don't talk
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: about them. And then we see the consequences in an election.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: It's good we're talking about it now.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my view is everyone who can should speak out
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and draw attention to this law and put pressure on
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Georgia Republicans. I think that some of these companies were
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a little late to the game on this. They sort
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: of spoke out after the law had already passed. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: think if you want to prevent the legislature from passing
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: some of these laws, you speak out beforehand. But I'm
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: glad they did belatedly. And I do think, Tommy, as
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, this is just the first of many, many
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: voter suppression bills that could come into existence. They're happening
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: in states all across the country. There's a particularly onerous
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: one in Texas being debated right now. I think other
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: states could have second thoughts on passing these bills after
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: what has happened in Georgia. It is tough. You can
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: see Stacey Abrams and a lot of these Georgia Democrats,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: John Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, sort of walking this line because
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: these boycotts do end up hurting people in the state.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: North Carolina lost about $ 4 billion in business because of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the boycott in that state. Indiana lost billions in business.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: After there was a boycott in that state, after there
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: was a, you know, they basically legalized discrimination against gay
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: couples in Indiana. But, you know, they can have an effect. Eventually,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina, they repealed the so-called bathroom bill, though
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: it was only a partial repeal that didn't really please anyone. But,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it still took a lot of time and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: it still sort of sucked a lot of money out
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of the state. I think the important thing is, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: you see this in sort of Stacey's comments and some
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: of these other Democrats, what they're saying is Georgia Republicans
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: are the one driving businesses away because they're trying to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: take control of our elections just months after their presidential
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: candidate tried to steal an election. So it is unfortunate
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that businesses are boycotting the state. But whose fault is that?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: It's the fault of the Republicans who passed the voter
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: suppression laws.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that's why you see Kemp
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: trying to blame Democrats for this happening.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: That's why I think it's actually.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: like lamenting the situation being the position of Georgia Democrats
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: seems like the right one politically, right? Because they're not
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: owning the fact that these companies are taking business away
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: from the state. They're saying basically Republicans created a controversy
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: over a lie. They're not solving a problem. They're creating
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: a problem. And I think that's what has the most
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: in common with North Carolina, because ultimately I think Republicans
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: in that state were punished in part because they created
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: a giant controversy. They cost the state a lot of
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: money and it wasn't to solve a problem. It was to,
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: kind of draft on a controversy. And if voters in
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: that state look at this and say, these Republicans are
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: hurting us, and they're not addressing anything I see in
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: my life, like They're solving a lie. They're trying to
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: use a lie to do something that's going to hurt
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: the state. And ultimately, I think that's why you see
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: also Republicans coming out and saying, like, we're going to
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: need to do consequences. We're going to need to punish
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: these corporations because they're looking at the situation and seeing
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: that these corporations are deciding in their own self-interest, their
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: amoral self-interest, that they'll do better to side with people
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: who are angry about this law than siding with Republicans
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: trying to restrict voting rights.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So Georgia Republicans, strategists, politicians, all of them are saying
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that the boycott helps Governor Kemp fend off a primary
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: challenge that he might get because he refused to help
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Trump overturn the election in Georgia. They're saying this unifies
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the Republican base. Some are saying it's going to hurt Democrats.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I saw Eric Erickson tweet, oh, Brian Kemp just won
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: reelection and Raphael Warnock lost in 2022. We obviously don't
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: know what effect this will have on 2022. But Tommy,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: did the politics of this give you any anxiety or
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: do you feel like the politics are on Democrats?
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: A Pinochet fan, Eric Erickson, who when not tweeting about
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: this is dreaming about throwing liberals out of helicopters because
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: he's that good of a guy. I have zero anxiety
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: about this. for a couple of reasons. One, Brian Kemp
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: and his likely primary opponent, Doug Collins, both suck. I
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: would be equally unhappy with either of them in office.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: In some ways, I think you could argue that Kemp
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: winning this primary would be a rejection of Trump and
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: a rejection of Trumpism because Trump is going to go
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: after him so hard. So you could spin a whole
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: bunch of like 4D chess takes on the outcome of
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: this election. When it comes to the general election, it's
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: just a lifetime away. You know what I mean? And
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I am personally far more worried about the impact of
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: this bill and the likely outcome of suppressing black voters
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: that I am right now about how it's playing for
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Trump or whether it's bringing the Republican Party together. It's
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: just like if we've learned nothing in these past few
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: election cycles is that assuming what's happening now is going
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: to be relevant in a month or six months or
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a couple of years is just it's ridiculous.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think there's three things. One, what
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: is the political impact of this controversy around the boycotts?
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: To Tommy's point, we have no fucking idea and election
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: is a long time away. Two, what is the impact
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: of the actual vote suppression inside of the law? We
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: can debate that and what the impact will be and
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: the fact that when you have a lot of attention
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: on vote suppression, you can organize and overcome it and
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: educate people about what they need to do to vote.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: And then three, I think the part that is the
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: least examined is what is the impact of the parts
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: of the law that change who is responsible for elections
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: and who decides the outcomes of elections. And I think
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: like those are the three areas I think we need
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: to talk about. And I am actually right now most worried.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: We talked about this before. I'm most worried about the
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: parts of this law that actually have nothing to do
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: with stopping people from voting or from this controversy. I'm
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: talking about like the parts where they take away the
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: power from state officials and give it to the legislature
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: may change the outcome of elections. And that part's the
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: most terrifying.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I think substantively, it is incredibly
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: important to fight this bill with everything we have for
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: all the reasons you mentioned. But even if you get
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to the, like, you know, Republicans are trying to take
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: this issue and frame it as part of their culture wars,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: as they are with everything else, even if you take
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it to that plane, I think Democrats being on the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: side of more people voting, more people having easier access
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: to voting, no matter who they are, no matter which
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: party they're from, is just a more popular position than
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: than Republicans driving a bunch of businesses out of the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: state because they're curtailing voting access. So like even if
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: they want to run around saying it's a bunch of
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: woke corporations, you know, listening to national Democrats and trying
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to cancel this and that and the other shit. If
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Democrats maintain the message that we are for voting for everyone,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: we are for easier access for everyone, we are for
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: nonpartisan elections for everyone. And by the way, the Republican
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Party's last presidential candidate tried to steal the last election
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and incited an insurrection because of it. Then I think
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: we're on pretty good political ground. And if we're not
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: on politically good ground there, I don't know what else
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: we can do. Right. Like there's nothing else we can
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: do at that point. So, you know, we should talk
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: about the fact that Democrats and voting rights activists are
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: also being accused of exaggerating the dangers of the new law,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: not just by Republicans, but by some reporters and analysts.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Nate Cohn wrote in The New York Times on Saturday
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: that Georgia's law is, quote, unlikely to significantly affect turnout
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: or Democratic chances. He argues that while the Republicans intent
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: might have been to make voting harder and while the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: law succeeds at making absentee voting harder, Republicans Research shows
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that making voting more convenient doesn't necessarily translate into more votes. Tommy,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: what's your reaction to Nate's argument?
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: The first thing I just want to say is I
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: fundamentally agree with Levitt that the scariest piece of this
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: bill is this unprecedented power grab by the Republican legislature
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to steal a bunch of power from local elections officials.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: But setting that aside, because it's sort of a related
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: but separate issues, a few thoughts on that analysis from Nate.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: A lot of the stories about the Georgia bill include
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: some line like, you know, at the end of the day,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: this bill might motivate Democrats and help them win and
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: drive turnout. That take drives me crazy because I think
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: it normalizes racist voter suppression tactics like it's just politics
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: rather than a truly immoral act, which is, I think,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: what it is. And I think Democrats shouldn't have to
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: organize to overcome this stuff. Second, like, with all due
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: respect to the data journalism gurus, they are not very
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: good at predicting the future.
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: Why?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Because none of us are. So I don't know that
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: we should try here. What we do know for sure
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: is the intent of these kinds of laws and what
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: they are based on. It's based on the big lie
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: that there was voter fraud in 2020 when there was not.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And the intent is to hurt Democrats by making it
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: harder for the Democratic base, mostly black voters, to vote. Now,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the final version of this bill is not as brazen
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: as earlier drafts, but it is still bad. The Atlanta
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: area will go from having 94 ballot drop boxes to 23.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: They won't be open 24 hours a day. You will
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: have less time to get an absentee ballot, and elections
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: officials are no longer allowed to send out applications to
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: every voter. Clearly, that's a reaction to the fact that
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Biden got 65% of absentee votes In 2020, the runoff
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: time is shortened. Absentee votes now require a driver's license
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: of some sort. Republicans have gotten sneakier over time about
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: how they scope and pursue these bills. But if you
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: look at recent history, even in Georgia, in 2005, Georgia
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: passed an anti-fraud bill, quote unquote, that exempted absentee votes
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: from ID laws because they argued it was more secure
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: than in-person voting. Now, at the time, you'll be shocked
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: to hear that absentee voters were mostly.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: White, right?
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: So that bill was so bad that Bush's DOJ recommended
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: that it be struck down. And at the time, the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: chief sponsor of the bill said that if black voters
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: in her district, quote, are not paid to vote, They
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: don't go to the polls. So I guess that context
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: is just to say we can't ignore the history of
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: voter ID laws and laws like this in Georgia or
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: North Carolina, which was even more egregious. And these bills
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: have been like incubated for so long that there are
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: now best practices. Basically, they're getting traded around by Republican
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: groups in Washington. So the intent is clear. They want
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: fewer Democrats to be able to vote. I don't think
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: we should look at political science data and be okay
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: with that. I think we should fight about the moral
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: elements and the clear intent of these legislators.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I would say three things about Nate's argument. He has
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a paragraph in that piece where he says, quote, that
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean the Georgia law or other such laws are
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: without consequence. Perhaps the disenfranchisement of even a single voter
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: merits outrage and opposition, especially if the law is passed
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: on dubious or even fabricated grounds. And with Jim Crow
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: mass disenfranchisement as a historical backdrop. Yes, it does merit
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: outrage and opposition. We don't know how many voters will
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: be disenfranchised by this law. It is possible that even
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: by making absentee ballots harder to come by and harder
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to cast and early voting, essentially, maybe that's unchanged. Even
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that you still could get some voters who are disenfranchised.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: who are more likely to be voters of color, and
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: even a small number, even a small number that doesn't
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: affect the outcome of the election is just wrong. To
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: go back to the point that both of you have
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: been making about the elections administration, this is what it
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: looks like. This is what it could look like when
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Republicans control the state board of elections. So they can
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: appoint whoever they want. They can appoint a majority members
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to the state board of elections, right? They say that
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the people can't have held elected office or donated to politicians,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: but they could find some partisan hack who hasn't donated
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: to run that board. Not only does the board have
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: power over sort of the state elections, they have the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: power to fire county officials. So if there are county
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: officials in DeKalb or Fulton or any of these big
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: democratic counties, now the state board, when Donald Trump or
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the next Donald Trump says there's been fraud in this county,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the state board without any reason can just fire those
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: county officials and install some hack. It is incredibly dangerous.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And I also think like, we can't forget that this whole,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: this bill was in response to a fucking lie. Republican
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Brad Raffensperger, the current secretary of state, said that Georgia's elections, quote,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: have never been more safe and secure. This is what
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a Republican said about the last set of elections in Georgia.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Never been more safe and secure. And then they passed
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: this bill.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Like you, I think you can't divorce the intent from
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the whole.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: They lost their power.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, the other piece of it too is like,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: you know, Nate goes to this data and say, look
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: at how minimal the impact is on turnout. And the
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: two problems with that, beyond just the fact that it's wrong,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: even if it doesn't affect the outcome, is what about
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: close elections, man? We have a lot of them, and
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: they matter. And the outcome- Especially in Georgia. Especially in Georgia.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: We just went through one. It was incredibly close. The
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: other piece of this is, look at Pennsylvania. Republicans in
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: Pennsylvania were hell-bent on dismantling a lot of people. They
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: sought ridiculous rules around absentee ballots. Remember, there was a
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: whole thing you had to... If you signed the wrong place,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: your ballot was invalidated. You had to put it inside
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: the secrecy sleeve or it wouldn't count. Democrats and activists
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania did an incredible job educating people to make
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: sure that didn't matter.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So I imagine.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: In the data, you would find that that effort to
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: suppress the vote didn't matter, quote unquote, didn't matter. Why is,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: if you create an incredible hurdle and you have to
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: force a bunch of people to figure out how to
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: overcome that hurdle just to vote, that's not a success story.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Again, it's creating a hurdle to solve a problem that
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist. It's to solve a problem that was made
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: up by the last presidential candidate that the entire party
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: went along with and ended up causing an insurrection. That's
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: what the fucking law is designed to do.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: And the Republican rejoinder is basically, well, in 2020, Democratic
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: state legislators changed all these laws to make absentee voting easier.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: It's like, guys, there was a global pandemic. We wanted
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: to make it so you that voting wasn't a death sentence.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: That's why this happened. But, you know, if you look
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: at the history of these voter suppression laws, I mean,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the North Carolina law that was passed in 2013 that
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: was eventually struck down was preceded by staffers for Republican-controlled
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: legislatures sending emails to the board of election, asking for
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: data about turnout by race, by type of vote, early
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: versus election day. They asked for data about a breakdown
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: by race, which voters did or didn't have a driver's license.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: And then surprise, surprise, the eventual law they passed found
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: all the ways to manipulate that data to suppress black votes.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: That is what's happened time and time and time again.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And in the suggestion that we should just organize through it, like, yeah,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: ultimately that's what we'll do. But first, we have to
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: talk about the moral element of what's happening here. And
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that that's why the language here has been very,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: very clear. It's been very direct.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, Kemp and the Republicans, they love saying, oh, well,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: you know. As far as early voting is concerned, we've
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: actually expanded early voting hours in some places.
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: You know where?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Rural counties.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: It's gaslighting.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: You know who's in rural counties? Fucking Republican voters. So
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: even like they were playing with turnout in this law.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: You can tell. And like you said, some of the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: more onerous restrictions were included in the bill. But what
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: they wanted to do is make sure that their voters...
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Could have easy access to voting in this bill. So
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: it's like the turnout voting access stuff you have to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: look at carefully, like it's not clear, of course, who
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: it helps. But what they definitely want to do is
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: take control of the elections, the Republicans, because they want
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to make sure in another close election that they can
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: fuck around and make sure.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: They steal it.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: A few big developments last week on an issue that
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: hasn't gotten much attention lately. On Wednesday, New York became
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the 15th state to legalize recreational marijuana. The same day,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: New Mexico's legislature voted to allow recreational marijuana use, a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: bill the Democratic governor said she'll sign. And Virginia Governor
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Ralph Northam said he's pushing the statehouse to pass legalization
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: by July 1st. Voters in New Jersey, Arizona, Montana, and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: South Dakota all voted to legalize weed in November. And
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Mississippi voted to legalize it for medical use. The big
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: question now. is whether President Biden and the Democratic Congress
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: will take action since marijuana remains illegal under federal law,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: which leaves people who sell it and use it vulnerable
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to federal prosecution, even in states where it's legal. On
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: that front, Chuck Schumer made news last week when he
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: said that the Democratic Senate will move forward on legalization
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: with or without the president. Okay, so before we dig
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: into the politics, what have we learned about the benefits
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of legalization from the states that have passed these laws?
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And have there been any drawbacks? Tommy?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, Look, Phish album streams are way up. Maureen
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Dowd had a rough weekend in Colorado, but she seems
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: to have recovered. I am not aware of some increased
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: incidence of marauding bans of edible users, like breaking laws
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: or increasing crime rates. The New York law is expected
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to raise $ 350 million in revenue. It's going to create jobs.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: So I think a lot of these states have seen
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: an economic benefit from legalization in that I suspect that
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: their neighboring states are jealous of at this point.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Lovett? I mean, aside from all
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the people who want to enjoy legal weed, like, why
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: is this such an important thing to get done?
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I would just add to, like, there
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: is now data because we've had a number of states
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: that have legalized it, even though it remains a federal crime.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: And two of the fears is, one, you'd see more
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: under the influence driving, and two is that you'd see
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: an uptick in kids using it. And the data is
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: kind of murky, in part because... They started looking for
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: drivers using weed after they legalized it. But even still,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: you don't see the kind of increase I think people
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: were worried about. The same thing with use of the teens.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: They haven't seen some big spike. And in fact, some places,
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: for some reason, it's gone down. So I think that
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: some of the fears have not come to pass. And
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: it's a popular issue. It's an issue that has like,
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: it's a 70-30 issue in this country. It is supported
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: by virtually everybody except Republicans and even among Republicans, it's
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: almost at a majority in terms of support, uh, everywhere
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: it's on the ballot, it passes, uh, medical marijuana in Mississippi, legal, uh,
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: legal marijuana in a lot of other places. So it's
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: a winning political issue and is also correcting a deep
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: injustice of a lot of people of color who have
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: been arrested for using weed while millions and millions of
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: people who have not been ensnared in our judicial system, uh,
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: have used it, uh, as if it were legal for
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: a very long time.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So, you know.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: To me, that's the most important aspect of this. I mean,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of the states who have legalized marijuana have
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: also engaged in expunging criminal records and sometimes pardons for
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: people who are in prison because of this. In 2018,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: 40% of all drug arrests were for cannabis. 40%. In 2017,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: there were more arrests for marijuana possession than arrests for
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: all violent crimes combined. Like you mentioned, Lovett, black Americans
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: are four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: violations than white Americans, even though both use it equally.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And more than 200,000 students have lost federal financial aid
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: because of a drug conviction. There are people serving life
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: in prison right now for something that's legal in some
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: form in 33 states. It is an outrage that we
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: arrest people for this right now, an outrage, and that
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: people are in jail and people have this on their records.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I think you have to understand the history of the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: war on drugs. This is a quote from John Ehrlichman,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: who is Nixon's chief domestic advisor when he announced the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: war on drugs in 1971. I think this quote came
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: out in a book in the early 90s. Direct quote.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: The Nixon White House after that had two enemies, the
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: against the war or black. But by getting the public
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Of course we did. That is the genesis and the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: legacy of the war on drugs. And now it wasn't
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: just Nixon. It wasn't just Reagan. It was a bunch
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: of Democrats too, including Joe Biden, who passed a whole
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: bunch of draconian drug laws over time. But I think
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: it's incumbent upon all of us now to right those
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: wrongs because yes, it is an outrage that you have
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: black and brown men mostly, or black and brown communities
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: sitting in jail for activities that are now legal in
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: 40% of the country. Love it.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: What do we know about Joe Biden's evolution on this
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: issue and where he is now?
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: He's just, well, he's currently thinking about it. He's in
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: a thought. He's thinking about it. You know, he is
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: he is a older, more moderate Democrat. He is behind
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: the country. He's even behind Chuck Schumer. But like ultimately,
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: this issue is sort of moving faster than he is.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: And like, you know, Chuck Schumer was interviewed about this
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: a couple of days ago and basically asked, like, are
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: you going to move this forward regardless of Joe Biden?
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: He basically said yes. Kamala Harris, one of the lead
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: sponsors of of legalization when she was in the Senate.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: I don't believe Joe Biden is going to issue his
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: first veto on marijuana legalization or decriminalization. I find that very,
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: very hard to believe. So, you know, I think he'll,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: as always, you know, as often as the case, Joe
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Biden is a consensus figure. He will be where the
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Democratic consensus is. And the Democratic consensus is no longer
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: for allowing states to legalize a drug while pretending to
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: There's no law against it at the federal level, even
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: though it continues to be a Schedule I drug punishable by,
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: you know, serious jail time if you're caught with it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so he hasn't had a great record through
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: his career, but he's now pretty close. Here's where he
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: ended up during the campaign. He, you know, this is
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: a statement he released like well into the campaign in 2020.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: no one should be in jail for marijuana use, decriminalize
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: recreational marijuana use, and automatically expunge prior convictions, legalize medical marijuana,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: allow states to legalize recreational marijuana, and reschedule marijuana so
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: researchers can study its health impact. So he is basically
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: for everything, but he's not yet for legalizing recreational marijuana
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: on the federal level, though, as you mentioned, Kamala Harris
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: certainly is the vice president of So he's getting close.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You know, this sort of came back into the news.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And Tommy, I know that you and Ben talked about
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: this on Pod Save the World the other week because
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of the White House drug policy. At least five staff
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: members lost their jobs because they used marijuana in the past,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: even though the White House told incoming staffers that prior
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: use wouldn't disqualify them. So not what the Biden administration
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: wanted to be. in the news for in terms of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the debate over marijuana legalization, certainly. And I think it
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: is incumbent upon them now, like if I were them,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I would not get dragged into this because Chuck Schumer said,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm going with or without you. I would
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: as Joe Biden did back in the day on gay marriage,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: go out and make a really strong statement about this,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: that this is a culture issue that you're ready to
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: put in the past and that we've moved on from
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: at this point.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I do think getting to legalizing recreational use
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: is really important. And look, you're right. Biden has shown
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: a willingness to evolve and grow on a lot of issues.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Hopefully that'll continue here. And I do think he should
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: maybe feel an obligation to sort of repair some of
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the damage from these these older laws. But if you
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: can get to allowing recreational use, you can then use
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the tax dollars from that money to go to drug treatment,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: to go to supporting ownership of cannabis businesses for communities
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: of color that were disproportionately hurt by these laws. You
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: should expunge all these records. It's nuts. But it's not
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: just marijuana where Biden's policies can feel little dated. Ben
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: and I talked about this on Pod Save the World,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: but Biden also supports a program by the to spray
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: cocoa crops from the air with crop dusters. And these
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: programs have been around forever. They're totally ineffective. They tend
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: to hurt small farmers, not the cartels, because you're just
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: spraying Roundup, the weed killer, all over everything. So it's
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: killing all kinds of crops. It's like these are subsistence farmers.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: So I do think we need to move past these
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: kind of 80s and 90s era war on drugs laws
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: that have just utterly failed by any measure.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: So there's a couple of ways that this can get done.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: The Moore Act passed the House, which is legalization in December.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: It died in the Senate at the time because McConnell
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: ran the Senate. Now the Democrats are in the Senate.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: So Schumer could take this up. So you could pass
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a bill through the Senate. Of course, you would need,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: you can't do it through reconciliation. You would need 60 votes.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So you need a couple of Republicans on this. You
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: also need someone like Joe Manchin. We don't know necessarily
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: where he stands. But if I was Schumer, I would
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: definitely put on the floor, like you said, Levitt, this
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: is an excellent, political issue. I mean, we've talked about
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: why morally it's the right issue, but it's a great
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: political issue for Democrats because you have almost half Republicans,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: half Republican voters in the country who are for this.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: You have very deep red states passing legalization, fucking South Dakota.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: So I would make sure that every one of these
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Republican senators were on record, whether they wanted to be
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: fought against it and some of the more conservative Democratic
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: senators as well.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I'd also just say too, like, The position that like
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: marijuana should be left up to the states, but we
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: shouldn't decriminalize it at the federal level is like completely incoherent.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Totally. It's nonsense. It's nonsense.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: And, you know, haven't we like, are we not going to,
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: we should learn from what happens when you give power
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: to a president, even if they don't use it. Like
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: we are fortunate that Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump did
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: not decide to target marijuana use, but they had the
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: power to do it. They're free to do it at
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: any moment. It is a power that currently is in
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: the hands of the federal government. The other thing I
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: would add, too, is there's a lot of evidence that
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: marijuana is something that can help people who have opiate addiction.
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of evidence that this can do real
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: good for people. And a lot of these laws make
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: that harder. So we're not in the prediction business, which
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: has been good for us because we would have been
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: wrong a lot. But I think this is one of
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: those things where you could see a lot of Republicans
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: get on board.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's possible. Yeah, I do too.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: So there's a couple other possible strategies there. Some people
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: have suggested that this could get done if you fold
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: it into a larger criminal justice reform bill because you
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: do have a lot of these Republican senators who've been
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: on the record and even in the Trump era were
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: for some kind of criminal justice reform. So maybe you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: sneak it in that way if just passing the Moore
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Act in the Senate doesn't work. There's also, by the way,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: executive action that Biden can take himself. He can try
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: to start the process of descheduling or rescheduling marijuana. so
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that the criminal penalties are not as high. So that's
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a different schedule. Now, that is actually somewhat complicated, too.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And it's not like he can just wave a magic
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: wand and get that done. But again, this is about
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: if he went out and made a clear statement about
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: where his administration stands and says that he believes it
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: should be legalized, he could at least start the process
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: of some of these federal agencies looking at this. And
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: he could maybe make some progress on this through executive
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: action if you get a roadblock in the Senate because
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of some of these Republicans. So there is But the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: point here is it's great that Schumer gave that interview
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and it's great there's a lot of Democrats on board
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and that the House has passed this, but there's a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: lot more that Democrats and especially Joe Biden can do
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: on this issue before you get to any kind of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Republican blockade.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Also, I just want to, you know, look, I don't
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: want to press our luck, but we should probably get
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: mushrooms in there too. I'm not kidding either.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: That's starting to happen, right? I mean, in some states.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: A couple of states have done this already.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: There's serious problems with addiction in this country and, you know,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: punitive schedule one. rules around a bunch of different drugs
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: based on a completely outdated notion of drug use and
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: how you can stop it. Like we should stop acting
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: like that's, we know it's morally wrong. We know it's
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: bad policy. It's not good politics. What are we doing?
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And people are being, people are in prison right now
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: for this, which is just makes no sense whatsoever. And
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: it's a horrible injustice.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: All right, Tommy.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the championship game here in March Badness.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: We've come so far.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Here we are, guys. This is at the moment everyone's
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: been waiting for, the national championship game. For those of
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: you who have not been listening to our March Badness
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: tournament so far, shame on you. You've let us down.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: But here's the gist. So we had a list of
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: eight Republicans. This is all a joke, so don't take
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: it seriously, but it was the eight worst Republicans. We
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: narrowed that down to a fascist four, and now the
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: final two are competing. Speaking of which, how'd you guys
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: like that Gonzaga-UCLA final? Great buzzer beater, huh?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: That was an incredible game. I'll be honest, I did
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: not have a chance to watch too many games in
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: this tournament and I watched that one and wow.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Love it. Great shot or lucky shot? What's your take?
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: So I was actually, and this is not a joke,
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: watching a Scandinavian film called Babette's Feast while this game.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Was going on.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: It's the story of a group of puritanical, isolated Danes
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: who receive a visit from a French woman asking for help.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: and the story of how their lives intersected over 50
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: years and two French revolutions. It's a beautiful film and
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: I recommend it.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Sounds like something I might watch at Baylor.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: So here are two finalists. We have Senator Mitch McConnell,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: cocaine Mitch. Nobody wants to see Mitch in March or
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in this case, early April. When it comes to confirming
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: unqualified Republican judges, Mitch plays an uptempo game So much
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: so that it's led to rumors that he might get
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: a little assist from time to time, if you know
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: what I mean. But speedball is not just his style
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: of play, guys. No, what do you mean? What do
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: you mean? What do you mean? Speedball is not just
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: his style of play. Like Gonzaga, Mitch is chasing perfection
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: this year. All of you guys have supported him throughout
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: the tournament. And the question is, is a person coming
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: out of the U.S. Senate just used to inferior competition?
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Or can he step up his game on the big stage?
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: So that's what we're looking at for Mitch. Now, thanks
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: to the results of our very scientific Twitter poll, Mitch
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: will go up against Fox News' primetime white nationalist, Tucker Carlson.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Carlson beat out Mark Zuckerberg for this spot. Tucker's career
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: has been Rick Pitino-like in that he's achieved the highest
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: heights and the lowest lows after being fired and humiliated
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: and having his banner ripped down at CNN. But this
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: is a big moment for Tucker here. So that's it, guys.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: This is the final game. Mitch McConnell, stalwart defender versus
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson, hapless, blow dried white nationalist who was born rich,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: got fired and rejected by the CIA, by CNN, filled
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: his way up to Fox prime time. What is your call?
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: You know, it's difficult. It's difficult because I don't want
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: to talk about Tucker Carlson anymore, but he makes it
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: so hard not to. So, uh, I'm thinking about it.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about it.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I think this is a very competitive championship. I don't
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: even know. The spread has to be really tight on this.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I think that as much as I've been sort of
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: promoting Tucker through this as a real threat, especially in 2024,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I could see him being the Republican nominee. That's not
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: out of the question. At the end of the day,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I still don't think he's proven himself as much as cocaine.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell has. And, um, that guy is sinister. He
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: is scheming. He's got a track record, like you said,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: on judges and other things. That guy is that he's
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the most cynical person in politics and he is the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: most powerful elected Republican today. So at the end of
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the day, I'm going to give it to Mitch.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that has to
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: be right because you know, Is Tucker Carlson a great
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: player or is there a system that helps shits like
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson look good?
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: System quarterback, yeah.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: The rules that help someone like that win. And who
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: created those rules? It's Mitch McConnell.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: So Tucker's young legs are defeated by Mitch's decaying hands.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: That's it. Our national championship in 2021 is Mitch McConnell.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: One shining moment.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Great work, everybody. Thanks for, you know, wasting five minutes
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: an episode with us. It's been fun.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: I feel a little like Babette looking back on her
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: time in the village.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: When we come back, when we come back, we will
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: have the Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, friend of the pod,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Ben Wickler. He's the chair of the Wisconsin democratic party
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: and a good friend of the pod.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to pod. Save America.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Great to be with you, John. Always a pleasure.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: So, uh, I haven't really had a chance to catch
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: up with you since the election. So the polls in
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin were wildly off again, but I remember that every
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: time I talked to you during the campaign, you would
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: tell me it feels really, really close here. Um, What
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: were you picking up that the polls didn't? And do
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: you see Wisconsin remaining basically a 50-50 state for the
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: foreseeable future?
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: So I see Wisconsin as a state that is democracy enchained.
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: It's a state that would be a bluish shade of
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: purple if we didn't have these hideous voter suppression laws
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: in place that make it harder to register voters, make
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: it harder for people to get ballots, make it harder
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: to cast your vote. When we win a democratic trifecta
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: and change the laws and make this a pro-voter state,
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: I think that we could become more like a Colorado
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: where you don't have to freak out about it every
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: election night. But for the foreseeable future, for the moment,
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: we've now had four presidential elections out of the last
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: six come down to less than one percentage point. We've had,
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: you know, the blue wave of 2018, we swept every
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: statewide office, but we won by like 1.1 percentage points
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: in the governor's race for Governor Evers. In 2019, we
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: had a state Supreme Court race that came down to
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: less than 6,000 votes. So it's on a knife's edge.
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: And you could see across Wisconsin, Trump came here 10
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: times in 2020. He came over and over. He held
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: mega rallies despite the COVID pandemic, dominated every local newscast,
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: which is still the main way most people get their
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: news here. And you could just see that there was
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: a ton of energy on the other side. And what
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: we saw on election day was that the Trump vote
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: jumped 15% from 2016 to 2020. After everything that happened
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: in the midst of this deadly pandemic with Wisconsin having
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: one of the worst outbreaks in the country, he got
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: 15% more votes than he did the previous time. And
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: we won because with folks, I mean, we had 30,000
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: volunteers who were throwing their backs into it in Wisconsin
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: and with help from across the country. This massive effort
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: drove up the number of votes for Biden relative to
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: Clinton in every single county in the state. And we
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: jumped 18%, and that is how we won, by a
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: hair's breadth. But it took everyone and everything.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: To be able to do it.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Two questions on that. One, do you think the energy
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: on the other side, how much do you think it
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: was connected to Trump himself? Or do you think that
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: in 2021, 2022, and beyond, it's still going to be there?
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: So they're sort of separate questions. So to how much
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: it was connected to Trump himself, it was deeply connected
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: to Trump. There was a poll we were involved with
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: after the election, that found that like 90% of the
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: voters for Trump said that they were voting for Trump,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: not against Biden. This was a referendum on Trump for them.
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: For voters on our side, half said they were voting
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: for Biden, half said they were voting against Trump. So
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: this was like Trump effect.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: In full effect.
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: And you can see it at the warrant level. You
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: can talk to voters and see it. But we just
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: don't know how many of the anti-Trump voters are going
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: to come back when Trump's not there and how many
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: of the pro-Trump voters are going to come back when
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Trump's not there. The history is 12 out of the
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: last 14 midterms under a new president, the president's party's
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: lost ground. So we have to defy political gravity to
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: make gains in 22. I think we can do that.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: I think Biden and Harris and the Democratic Senate and
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: House are delivering the kinds of changes in people's lives
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: that you can actually run and went on in a
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: midterm election, even when, you know, conditions are normally so unfavorable,
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: but it's going to take, you know, once again, all
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: of us doing everything we can do to not have
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: this go down the way things usually do in history
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: and instead actually make gains.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: You made the point that on our side, you know,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: organizing everyone everywhere is how we ended up winning. Obviously
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: it was 20,000 votes was the margin. Are there specific
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: places and regions and groups of voters who, that you
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: think put Democrats over the top that you're looking at
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: for future elections?
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: So it's interesting.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: The answer is yes, but the answer is each of
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: the groups of voters who had different kinds of challenges.
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: So Republicans target voter suppression in Wisconsin and everywhere, specifically
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: against black and brown voters and young voters. Those are
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: voters that they think will vote for Democrats who they
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: don't want to have the franchise. So in Wisconsin, You know,
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: if you look at the places where the most Black
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: people live in our state, it was a huge fight.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Like early voting was cut.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: Access to get IDs that you need for voting ID
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: laws was made harder by the COVID pandemic.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Transportation was harder for folks.
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Like there were all these barriers in people's way and
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: they fought and they like held steady and went up,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: notched up in terms of turnout in the face of
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: these intense barriers. The voters Republicans tried to make our
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: voting system perfectly suited to were a lot of the
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: suburban like areas that in Wisconsin are traditionally very red
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: outside of Milwaukee, those swung enormously. And the barriers in
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: front of those voters were much lower. So there was
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: a tremendous swing in public opinion polling. And also it
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: was easier for folks to turn that swing into votes.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: That's where the biggest margin changes were. Madison and the
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: area surrounding it had this, where I am joining you
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: from right now and where I grew up, had this
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: enormous wave of turnout, like mind-blowing numbers of voters and
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: margin but also in rural areas across the state. I
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: was talking to the chair of Vilas County, one of
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: the reddest parts of Wisconsin, and we had an improvement
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: of three percentage points in the margin towards Biden, much
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: larger than the swing in the state overall in Vilas County.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: And so I think it's easy to look at the
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: map and say, oh, look at all these red rural areas,
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: but actually we got more votes in every single county
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: and we increased our vote share in 65 out of
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: 72 counties. And if it hadn't been for the organizing
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: efforts in some of the reddest places, the fact that
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: they were like state ledge candidates fighting in totally gerrymandered
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: districts to turn out extra voters, we would have lost
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: the 20,000 votes we needed to flip the state. So
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: as we look forward now, we're doing a kind of
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: all of the above strategy again, and we're building a
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: coalition's team to keep up the kind of outreach and
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: partnership building work in the black community, the Latino community
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: with Asian American Pacific Islanders in Wisconsin, there's a significant
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: Hmong population. We also just launched a rural advisory council
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: that's working with a bunch of rural leaders across the state.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: We're building our partnerships and relationships with tribal governments. The
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: highest jump in turnout in Wisconsin came from Menominee County,
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: which is also the location of the Menominee Nation Reservation.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: They had an.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: Explosive jump, and they had also the highest margin for Biden.
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: It was 84% Biden in Menominee County.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, and it's like, that's the story.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: What do you think the overall balance was between performance
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: due to bringing out new voters and turnout and sort
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of converting voters who backed Trump in 16? Because you
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: talk to a lot of Democratic strategists nationally and data nerds,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: and they say, Wisconsin's one of these states that's more
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: of a persuasion state. Like, both sides have really sort
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: of registered all the voters they're going to register, mostly,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: and it's all about sort of changing minds there. But
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: it seems like Clearly, in some of these counties, you
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: guys just smash turnout records.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's I think it's clearly both in Wisconsin.
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: There's I mean, you know, there's there's the idea of
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: the mythical swing voter. There are swing voters in Wisconsin.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: There are ticket splitters in Wisconsin who vote simultaneously. Like
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: Ron Kind was elected to Congress in a district that
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: went for Trump and people there.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: That wouldn't be possible if there weren't a bunch of
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: people who were.
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: Voting for a Democrat for Congress and and and Trump
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: for president. And the reverse is even more true. So
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: you really do have to do both. And I think
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: my ideal messages are ones that actually are both mobilizing
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: messages and persuasion messages. And I think the stimulus bill
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: is a great example of that, that that really does
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: energize our base. And it's something that's a concrete reason
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: for people to vote for Democrats. If you look at
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: Ron Johnson, he voted against the American Rescue Plan. He
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: voted against your stimulus check. He voted against your child
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: tax credit. And- getting rid of him is something that
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: motivates just about everybody. So I look for things that
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: have both of those qualities, but I think you just
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: can't win here with a pure, a pure mobilization play
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: and you can't win with a pure persuasion play.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: And the other side knows that too, and acts on
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: that also.
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: Like it's, it's a, it's so, it's so incredibly closely
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: divided more than any other state in the country. This is,
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: Three states have had two elections out of the last
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: six come down to one percentage point or less.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: I'm going to work four. Because of that, you just
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: have to play with every tool at your disposal.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Speaking of America's dumbest senator, two questions on Ron Johnson. One,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: what do you think the chances are that he actually
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: runs again?
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  Speaker 3: So if I'm Ron Johnson, which to be clear, I
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: am not.
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  Speaker 1: You're not Ron Johnson.
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  Speaker 3: So deeply not Ron Johnson. But if I were Ron Johnson.
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  Speaker 5: I imagine what I'd be thinking is, I got elected,
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna switch to the third person tense actually. He
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: got elected on the Tea Party wave in 2010, when
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: there was this like backlash, you know, resurgent right attack on,
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  Speaker 5: on Obama.
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  Speaker 3: And he coasted, he rode.
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  Speaker 5: That to victory in 2016, he got elected on the
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: Trump wave turning out. And like both times, everyone counted
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: him out. He said, they said he couldn't win. And
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  Speaker 5: then there was this kind of right-wing insurgency that he
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: was able to grab onto and ride to victory. I
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  Speaker 5: think he's looking for that in 2022 and he plans
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: to ride that to victory again.
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  Speaker 3: And he is like waving both hands.
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  Speaker 5: And saying Mercer family, Steve Bannon, you know, Oh, and
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: like America's one American news network, whatever I'm your dude.
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  Speaker 5: And his hope is that then when this, you know,
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  Speaker 5: red wave crashes over our state, he's going to be
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  Speaker 5: the guy waving from the surfboard on top of it.
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  Speaker 3: And that's his big strategy.
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  Speaker 5: And so he doesn't want to decide until he knows
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  Speaker 5: whether that wave is happening or not now.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: I also think he's not very good at reading the room.
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  Speaker 5: So he might believe that it's there because everyone he
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: talks to tells him that it is, whether or not
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  Speaker 5: it is. But I would guess that he's not going
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  Speaker 5: to decide until sometime in 2022. And I would guess
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  Speaker 5: right now that he will conclude that he's had thousands
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: of people telling him that they're too afraid to say
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  Speaker 5: it publicly, but they totally support him. And he needs
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: to fight for them and make sure that they're heard
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: in the Senate. And so he's going to go for it,
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: especially given that he promised not to run for a
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: third term when he ran for a second term. And
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: now he's saying things have changed. I never thought total
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: Democrat control of the government would be at stake. So
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  Speaker 5: he is the white knight, if you will, for this
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: right-wing movement that he thinks that he's the guy for.
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  Speaker 1: So I know you guys are already fundraising against him,
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  Speaker 1: organizing against him. I see you've got billboards up, which
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  Speaker 1: I love. I'm interested in the messaging. The billboards sort
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: of focus on him voting against the stimulus checks. You
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: talked just about him voting against the stimulus checks. I'm
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: interested in your decision to go with that message over the,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: you know, Ron Johnson is a crazy ass conspiracy theorist message.
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  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that choice?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I will say that after.
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  Speaker 5: The insurrection and when he was, you know, full of
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  Speaker 5: apologies for it, after he fomented it and held a hearing,
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  Speaker 5: you know, conspiracy mongering, we ran the first TV ad
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  Speaker 5: of the 2022 election cycle in the country. statewide on
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: local TV channels across the state of Wisconsin, hammering him
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: for his role in the insurrection.
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  Speaker 3: And that was a moment when.
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: People were calling us and saying they were lifelong Republicans
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: who wanted to join the Democratic Party. People were infuriated
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: by it. Some people were excited in the most terrible
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: way on the far right. But a lot of people
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: saw that and reeled back in horror. And we wanted
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: to make sure people knew that he was, as Chuck
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: Todd put it, he was the arsonist who set the fire.
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  Speaker 5: Like this is so, so it's not, it's not just
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: that we want to talk about his votes and their
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: relationship to people's concrete lives. But I do think that
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  Speaker 5: it's really clear that there's a message that resonates, you know,
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  Speaker 5: across race, whether you're white, black, or brown across geography
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  Speaker 5: in rural areas and suburbs and cities alike, that the
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: help that people need that they're now going to get
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: Johnson tried to do everything he could to stop it
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  Speaker 5: from happening. He was objecting to stimulus money when Trump
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: was president. He demanded that they read this phone book-sized
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: legislative text in order to delay just a few more
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: hours from these texts going through. And our strategy is
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: we look for these things that he does that are
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: so inflammatory for folks that we want to sear in
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  Speaker 5: their memory, Johnson is against you.
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  Speaker 3: He is showing you who he is, and we want
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: to make.
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  Speaker 5: Sure that people remember that and be able to repeat
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  Speaker 5: it often enough that when it comes to election time,
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: we're not introducing new information suddenly in the last few weeks.
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: that we're reminding people of memories that they already have
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: when they looked at this guy and what he's doing
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: and said, him being in office hurts me because he does.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: He actually does make life worse for people. He's not
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: going to win.
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  Speaker 1: We talked on Thursday's pod about the Republican effort ongoing
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: to rebrand themselves as the working class party, which to
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: them involves embracing a Trumpian cultural populism that tells people,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Immigrants are stealing their jobs. China's stealing their jobs. Coastal
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: elites are canceling them. You know, all the science nerds
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: are COVID lockdowns, you know, hurt working people. The media
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: is lying to them. Big tech is censoring them. What
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: do you think the best response to sort of that
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: populism is? Because I know you just mentioned part of
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: the message about Ron Johnson is he's not on your side.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Their message, of course, is going to be for a
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: number of reasons. Democrats aren't on your side. They're fighting
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: for all these other entities and people who don't look
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: like you.
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  Speaker 5: The Republican playbook that they go back to every time
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: and they do it every time in Wisconsin is to
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: try to divide people by race so that they can
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: pick the pockets of people of every race. And Johnson,
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: you know, he's pretty intentional with his kind of racist gaslighting.
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: He goes out and he says, I wasn't afraid of
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: the protesters and the insurrection, but if they'd been Black
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: Lives Matter protesters, I would have been afraid.
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  Speaker 3: This is, that wasn't, why would you call me racist?
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: People are calling everything racist.
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: And his goal is to polarize people by race and
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: make white people think that he's on their side.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: And that other people aren't.
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: And I think being explicit that that's his strategy and
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: that Republicans try to divide people by race in order to,
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: as Heather McGee said, on the pot, let's drain the
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: swimming pool economics to pull money out of the public sphere,
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: out of the goods that people need as a way
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: to benefit people at the very top, they wield racism
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: to do that. And so we have to be race explicit,
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: like speak to the fact that they're doing this, because
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: if Democrats and progressive just try to run away from
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: talking about race, it gives the right total control of
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: that conversation. But you also, you can't stop at pointing
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: out that they're being racist. You have to explain why
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: they're doing it, which is always that they're attacking white
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: working class people as well as black and brown working
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: class people, And trying to take benefits and move them
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: to people at the very top, people like Ron Johnson,
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: for example, who benefits enormously from this due to the
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: company that his family bequeathed to him. So this is like,
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: you know, the essential thing is that people get why
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: Johnson's doing it and get how it hits them.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: And if you do that, he doesn't have a path
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: to win reelections.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Republican legislatures all over the country are responding to losing
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: the last election by redoubling their efforts to try to
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: steal the next one. What kind of trouble is the
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin legislature been up to and what do Democrats have
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: to do to avoid danger in 2022? What other races
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: are you looking at even between now and then?
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: So the first thing I'll say is Wisconsin has an
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: election on Tuesday. So if you're listening to this on
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: Monday and you are in Wisconsin, then.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: You need to vote. You need to vote tomorrow.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: Horton, go vote.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: Go vote. I am wearing a vote t-shirt right now.
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: I actually turned in my ballot, absentee ballot today, which
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: was a very satisfying experience right after getting my vaccine jab.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Governor.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Look at that.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: Congrats. President Biden.
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: If you're not in Wisconsin, you can go to wistems.org
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: slash volunteer and you can get on our virtual phone
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: banks to mobilize voters. This is an election for the
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: head of public schools in Wisconsin for superintendent of public instruction.
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: And Jill Underly is our candidate. It's a nonpartisan race.
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: She is the one candidate in the race who consistently,
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: strongly champions public education. There's another candidate who was endorsed
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: by Scott Walker in the primary and Betsy DeVos's super
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: PAC has been running ads to support who is mouthing,
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: you know, national right-wing talking points about education stuff. And
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: that's the person we don't want to win. So I'm
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: going to just say Jill Underly's name a couple of
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: times because Jill.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: Underly is the one you want to vote for.
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: That race is, it's both a kind of, a lab
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: test for Republican messaging about whether they can weaponize a
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: bunch of school-related issues to go after Democrats on the
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: culture war front, on the COVID front, all this stuff.
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: But it's also this opportunity to organize and reconnect with
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: this huge number of voters we had last year. There
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: are two special state legislative elections. Melissa Winker is running
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: for state Senate and Carl Yeager is running for state assembly.
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: And we're supporting both of them. There are judicial elections,
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: city council elections, all these local races. I think Democrats
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: everywhere should work on every race in every place. Like
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: that's how we build the muscle of democracy and also
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: show people who have the courage to put their name
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: on the ballot that they will have backup when they
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: do that.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: That lays the groundwork.
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: It's our last statewide election until 22. And then we
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: have this one race alongside Ron Johnson, This one race
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: in Wisconsin that is actually a hinge point for American democracy,
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: which is the race for governor in Wisconsin. We have
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: Tony Evers, who's a terrific governor, who's one of the
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: top vaccinators, governors in the nation right now. But he's
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: our last line of defense against voter suppression. And Republicans
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: in Wisconsin, they just love what they're seeing out of
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: Republicans in Georgia. They have, Wisconsin Republicans have 10 different
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: voter suppression bills that they've already proposed in our state legislature.
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: If Wisconsin Republicans can grab the governorship. If they can
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: beat Tony Evers, then they will pass voter suppression bills
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: in Wisconsin in 2023 to tip the tipping point state
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: in the electoral college in 2024. And that's why the
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: Republican Governors Association is targeting Tony Evers. It's why the
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: combined might of the right-wing machine will come at us
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: in our state, in Wisconsin. And it's why, whether or
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: not you live in Wisconsin, reelecting Tony Evers has to
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: be a massive priority. Because his ability to veto Republican
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: voter suppression bills is the thing that stands between a
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: 2020 where we win the presidency and 2016 where Wisconsin
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: goes the other way and it gets really dark.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: As nervous as I was all through the 2020 campaign,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: knowing that you were the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Party made me sleep a little easier, not much, a
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: little easier because I was up all night anyway. But
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: every time I thought of Wisconsin, I was like, all right,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Wickler's there, so we got it covered. Thank you for
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: all the work that you did and thank you for
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: all the work that you keep doing. And thanks for
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: joining us on PSA.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I love the chance to join.
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: And I will say I'm running for chair again.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: My chair reelection is in June.
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: And I hope folks will, if you're in Wisconsin, join
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, get involved. It's all hands
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: on deck every year because democracy is what we make
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: of it.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: It's not a spectator sport. Thank you, John.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ben Wickley for joining us today. Thanks to
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Tommy for taking us through our March Badness Tournament. And
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: thanks to all of you for participating and giving us
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: your thoughts. We will talk to you again soon.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: And I'll just say, you know, I think one of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: the lessons from Babette's Feast is really it's about art
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: and its value, right? Are you going to make art
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: for the purposes of capitalistic success or for the decency
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: and good it can provide?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Where'd they go?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producers are Jordan Waller,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: upload these episodes as videos every week.