Latest / Pod Save America / “Charm city offensive.”

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“Charm city offensive.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, Tommy talks to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: our friend DeRay McKesson about his hometown of Baltimore, which
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the president called disgusting over the weekend. Before that, we're
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: going to talk about how the Trump campaign is now
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: admitting to reporters that they're using racism as a political strategy.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We'll also talk about how the Judiciary Committee is kind
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of moving forward on an impeachment inquiry. And we'll preview
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the Democratic debates this week. Speaking of debates, we are
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: bringing back our group thread this Tuesday and Wednesday night.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: For this one, we won't be live streaming the debate
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: itself because CNN's legal department whined about it.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: So.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a very nice email from their
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: head of global comms.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was fine.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It was fine.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Don't sue us. So it'll be more of a second
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: screen experience. Whatever. You watch it on TV, you look
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: on your phone, you see a funny group thread. It's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: going to be great. It's going to be great. The
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: three of us, Dan Priyanka Arabindi and Cricket Political Director
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Shaniko McClendon, will be discussing the debate in real time.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And we'll take audience questions and comments, too.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: As you know, Shaniqua has an ongoing feud with Lovett,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: so look for some attacks coming within the group thread
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: and on the debate stage.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We brought Shaniqua onto the live stream last week to...
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: It got a little.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: It got heated.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So come watch the debate with us and join the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: group thread when the debates begin at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Shaniqua knows what she did.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: If you prefer to get the highlights from the debates,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: we'll be recapping everything you need to know in our
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: What a Debate newsletter. You can sign up at votesaveamerica.com
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: slash subscribe for that. Love It, tell us about Love
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It or Leave It.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Great Love It or Leave It. We had Matt Walsh
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: from Veep. We had Diallo Riddle. We had reporter Emily
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Jane Fox. It was incredibly funny. Also, I put Emily
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Jane Fox on the spot, and I said, tell us
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: something that we don't know. And she described life in
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: prison for Michael Cohen, which was fascinating. And we treat
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: some federal prisoners too well. Jeffrey Epstein. There's actual tennis.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: What?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Really? Yeah. Like with courts and rackets? They're not grass courts,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: are they? They better be fucking grass or clay. They
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: put an upkeep into the grass and clay. You gotta
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: sweep that thing.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: What an outrage. Also, don't miss my interview with Bernie
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Sanders that we released on Friday. He's the 18th candidate
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: who sat down with us and we're in the process
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of scheduling the last few remaining candidates with the glaring
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: exception of Joe Biden.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: If your name rhymes with Smiden, what are you doing?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Come on in.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Hello, people on his campaign.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: We know you all. We have a lot of listeners.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Please write back to our emails. Your boss is literally
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the only one who has not scheduled to sit down
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: with us.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: Here would be the question I would have. Why do
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: you think millions of progressive listeners shouldn't.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Hear from Joe Biden?
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: We interviewed him before. To quote Donald Trump. It was fine.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: What the hell do you have to lose? Anyway, but
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the Bernie interview is great. Check it out.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Bernie was fun in the office, too. You know, just
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: right to type. Great group picture. The whole thing was fun.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: He literally wandered off while I was trying to tell
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: him about my deceased grandfather who loved him, but he
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: did it in very charming ways.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It was fun.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Good for him. All right, let's get to the news.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: The president spent his weekend trashing an American city of
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: more than half a million people because one of its
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: representatives is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee who's
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: investigating evidence of Donald Trump's corruption and criminality. In retaliation,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: for Congressman Elijah Cummings criticizing the administration for its treatment
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of immigrant children being held at detention facilities so bad
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that the Department of Homeland Security own inspector general called
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: them a ticking time bomb. The president called the congressman's district,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: which includes part of Baltimore, a, quote, disgusting rat and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: rodent infested place where, quote, no human being would ever
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: want to live. The president went on to call Cummings,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: who's the son of a South Carolina sharecropper, a racist
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and demanded that he be investigated. Guys, I'll start with
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the first question that I asked when I saw these tweets.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Where did this all come from? Which of his friends
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: from the television told him a story that made him mad?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Two different questions.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Where this came from is he grew up in a
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: household in which racism was taken as a fact of
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: life and an assumption that black people were less than
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: white people and the only acceptable black people were those
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: that showed incredible amounts of deference to white people. Misogyny
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: and racism were the only two consistent features of Donald
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Trump's worldview since the time he was a boy. Where
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: it came from was a clip of Fox News idiots.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, little Fox and friends.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Fox News did a segment on Baltimore, in certain
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: parts of Baltimore, where they basically just found some garbage
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and decided to film it and say that that was Baltimore.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: But I think what's getting lost in all this today,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: now day three of this fucking thing on Monday, is... Like,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the reason that they're all criticizing Baltimore and Cummings is
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: because he dared to speak out about the fucking detention
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: facilities and the treatment of children on the border.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was upset that children were being forced to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: sit in their own filth for days on end, something
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: that should outrage all of us.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And so he brings that up, something that Donald Trump
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: has direct control over, and Donald Trump's like, oh yeah? Well,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: your city fucking sucks and is poor. I saw it
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: on TV. That's where this came from. So all these
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: conservatives now, once again, as you always say, Levitt, the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: intellectual Zambonis are coming by like, well, you know, Baltimore
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: has a lot of poverty and crime and so do
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of American inner cities and Democrats have been
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: in charge of them. And this has been the case
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: for years. And now we're not supposed to bring that
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: up without being racist. Like. No, no, no, no, no.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: That's not how the whole fucking thing started.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you also go back and say, well, actually,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: you can do the well actuallys. Well, actually, many of
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: the Republicans that he's been praising this week come from
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: districts with higher unemployment rate and higher crime rates. And also,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: by the way, Kentucky has a higher unemployment rate than
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: the district that Elijah represents, but nobody directs that at
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell. But, of course, that's beside the point. As
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: many have noted, when he wants to call a place infested,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: it's because it is filled with people of color. When
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: he says no human being would live there, It's because it's.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: A place where black people live. Yeah, there's an obvious
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: racial element to this. And it is so exhausting and
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: so frustrating every time he does something like this that
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: we're forced to examine the words alone in abstraction like
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: it's the Rosetta Stone. It's the first time he's uttered
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: a racist statement. And not like there's a clear pattern
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of him making these kinds of statements of targeting black communities.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a fact that he's a racist, right?
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It's been established. He's 73. He lives in Washington. He's
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: a racist. That's Donald Trump. Let's stop debating that piece
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: of it and just call it out every time we
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: see it.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, does anyone also want to spend a few
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: seconds on what's wrong with the president blaming a congressman
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: for the crime and poverty in a city that he
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: partly represents?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's clearly like it's not the role
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: that Congress plays. He's not the mayor of this city.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Hopefully he understands how the government works.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Also, this is important because it goes to a broader
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: issue of Trump running for re-election. You know, someone found
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a clip today of Trump in 2015 saying Baltimore is
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a mess and if I'm president, I'll fix it. you know,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: which is what he said about literally the whole country.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So now Donald Trump's been president for four years. Last week,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: two weeks ago, I think, we had a report that
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration is cutting three million Americans off their
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: food stamps. They've been trying to take people's health care
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: away for four years. They've cut housing aid by double
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: digits in their budget. They've cut transportation funding. There's no
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: infrastructure bill. The federal government has enormous power to help
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: American cities, to help poverty, to help crime. Donald Trump
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: has done Nothing. His economic agenda is passing tax cuts
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: for rich people and hoping that, you know, everything else
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: is great.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: And more than that, by the way, hurting urban areas
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: and other high tax areas across the country by tilting,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: you know, by making decisions that rewarded. Republican areas of
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: the country through this tax bill. So it's more than
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: just neglect. It's purposeful harm.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Well, let's point out that Republican areas of this country
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: used to be Republican areas of this country, wealthy people
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: living in. There's plenty of rural white areas, Republican areas
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: of this country. That aren't doing so well under Trump either.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, of course. I'm talking about the tax cuts.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I think you guys are being unfair. He does employ
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Jared Kushner, who owns, I believe, 9,000 rental units in
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Baltimore that have been singled out for having pretty awful
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: conditions at times. So he's employing someone who's directly part
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of the problem. But if you go back, remember during
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: the inauguration when John Lewis dared to say he would
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: not attend it, he attacked him and said he should
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: is in horrible shape. and falling apart, which was not
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: true in any way, shape, or form. But clearly, he
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: called him out and targeted him with that language because
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: of his race. Because we talk about urban areas in
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: African-American communities as if they're at fault for the conditions
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: in those areas. And we talk about West Virginia and
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: the opioid addiction. The people there are always white and
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: victims of their circumstances. It's a clear pattern with Trump and, frankly,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of Republicans.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I also think, remember last week, when, or two weeks ago,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: when the squad, when AOC, and when Trump was attacking
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: them and telling them to leave America, he said, well,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't racist. I told them to leave America because
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: they criticized this country, because they dared to attack and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: trash America. Stephen Miller went on, you know, Chris Wallace
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and started talking to him about, you know, AOC once
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: said that some policy plan was garbage, and he used
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that to say that she said America was garbage. Well,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So now, according to the Trump White House, you're not
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: supposed to say America's garbage, but Donald Trump can say
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: any part of the country is garbage and trash that
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: he wants to say. Right. Donald Trump can trash the country,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: but other people can't trash the country.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Well, right. It's a simple thing, too. You represent the
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: people of Baltimore, too. But, of course, he doesn't see
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: it that way. And, you know, to Tommy's point and
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: to your point, it is part of a larger cultural,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: political problem about how... we describe different parts of the country.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: It is simply accepted that you are allowed to vilify.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Cities, right?
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Scott Walker can make fun of cities. Republicans can make
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: fun of cities. Sarah Palin can describe the real America
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: or the state of California or the state of California
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: or Massachusetts or what have you, that is sort of
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: an accepted part of like an of a very old
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: trope in American politics of the kind of dirty sophisticates
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: and cosmopolitan elite with their trickery and their ways of
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: abusing the real country, which is rural areas and suburban
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: areas to some extent. And so it is Trump. It's
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: always the same conversation. Is he unique? Is it a culmination?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: It is both.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: He is taking a longstanding trope and dialing it up
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: to 11, showing you the full racist, purely divisive version
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: that exposes the rhetoric Republicans have used all along. You know,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: you saw Rand Paul basically going up to the cameras
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: and providing an intellectualized, less vulgar version of go back
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: to where you came from around Ilhan Omar, because this
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: is part of the instinct of Republican politics that has
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: been around for decades.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I would also just want to point out that The
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: governor of Maryland is a Republican named Larry Hogan, who's
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: very popular and relatively moderate and apparently considered voting against
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Trump in the primary. What a guy. His response has
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: been pathetic. Absolutely.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Has he finally said something yet?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: As of right now, in this recording, I haven't seen anything.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: It's been feckless and pathetic. And I just want to
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: remind everybody about a time in 2010, in the depths
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: of the financial crisis, when Barack Obama had the nerve
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: to say, quote, you don't blow a bunch of cash
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: in Vegas when you're trying to save for college. And
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Nevada officials... had a meltdown like you've never seen before,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: including Harry Reid. You would have thought that he kicked
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: their dogs or singled them out personally. They had this
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: performative over the top NIMBY response, which is frankly kind
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: of how politics should be played, right? You should defend
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the area you represent, the people you serve, the folks
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: who elected you. But like even Larry Hogan, a guy
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: who was talking about primary Trump is just caving and
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: scared to respond. And it is so sad to watch.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So a few weeks ago when Trump, uh, told four
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: congresswomen of color to leave America. His White House staffers
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: went on background to tell reporters that they thought that
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the president's racism was a bit too far, or at
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the very least, some White House staffers and Republican senators said,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: was a politically dumb move. Now, according to the Washington Post,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the president's advisors say his racist attacks are good for
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: him because they're galvanizing support with, quote, the white working
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: class voters he needs to win reelection in 2020. So
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I guess points to them for just finally admitting that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: getting white people to be angry and afraid of black
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and brown people is the president's central political strategy? Is
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that where we are now? They're just open about it?
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: It is the opposite side of, you know, we had this,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: remember we talked about the difficult challenge before Democrats of
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: kind of like having to navigate through the laser beams
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: like Catherine Sata Jones. You know, Donald Trump does have
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: his version of that, which is the opposite of our task, right?
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Because he does need to, you know, this is reductive,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: but there are people who are inclined to hate Trump
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: but feel good about the economy, he needs them. And
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: there are people who are inclined to like Trump, but
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: feel terrible about the economy, and he needs them too.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: And so whenever he is bragging about the economy, it's
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: in part about, look, am I a piece of shit?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: But how bad are things for you? Not so bad.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: But this is the other side of that, something he
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: also needs to do, which is convince people who are
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: not doing well, who wanted more change in the system,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: who were sympathetic to Trump on trade and immigration, especially
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: to say, see, I'm still fighting for you by using
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: these kind of racial tropes and these battles as a
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: stand-in for the battle they're looking for him to wage,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the kind of cultural battle they're looking for him to wage.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's very clear what... he's
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: trying to do here. It's been clear for a long time.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Republicans have tried to do this for a long time.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: The people who live in rural America and ex-urban America
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: have been left behind in many ways by the global economy.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: They're not doing that well. And, you know, what Trump
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: is telling them is, it's not my fault. It's the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Democrats' fault. It's the Democrats' fault because they care. They
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: spent all this money on these cities. These cities are
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: getting all this money for what? That's partly why Trump added,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: because this wasn't in the Fox News segment, Trump added,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: We should investigate, Elijah Cummings. We should investigate because somehow
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: all of your tax dollars are going to help all
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: these city people and they're still trash. And you, the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: hardworking people of rural America, are getting nothing. Because what's
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: not going to be good for Trump is if the people,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the hardworking people in rural America, realize that his only
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: two policies in his economic agenda are to cut taxes
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: for rich people and have trade wars all over the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: world that are fucking them over.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Just a quick update. I just Googled Larry Hogan
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: and he has called the comments outrageous and inappropriate, which...
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: is better, but I would argue still completely feckless and
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: there's absolutely no reason that should take this much time.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: So Larry, comment still stands. The political whitewashing of this
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: racism is deeply frustrating to me. Obviously, there is historical
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: evidence that racist political ads and attacks work and purely
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: nativist sentiment can be effective. We remember the Willie Horton ad.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of difference between that and the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: caravan stuff we saw in 2018. But I do think
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: right now Trump is in a situation that's completely the reverse.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: If he would stop being racist, if he would stop
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: tweeting this racist nonsense, he could probably do better with
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: suburban women, which are the key to Democrats winning in
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: 2020 and are key to why we took a bunch
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: of House seats in 2018. So when it gets spun
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: as some sort of political strategy or political brilliance, it's
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: deeply frustrating because we also know that this nonsense usually
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: arises because his dander gets up because of literally a
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Fox and Friends segment. It's every time it's the same
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: exact thing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And what I think this is interesting, too, you know,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: his Trump's nativism and racism turning off college educated voters.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: You know, we saw that in 2018 in a huge way.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: But Ron Brownstein had a piece in The Atlantic a
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: couple of days ago where he notes that polling throughout
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Trump's presidency has indicated that his belligerent and divisive nature
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: raises concerns among white working class women who've been drifting
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: away from him since 2016. And a new set of
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: focus groups from Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg shows that this
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: gender gap among the white working class is hardening in
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: small town and rural communities. So Trump's support, again, among
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: non-college educated white males, as strong as it's ever been,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: if not stronger. But non-college educated white women might be
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: some of those voters who are cross-pressured, right? Who might think,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: you know, the economy overall is doing okay. My life
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: is not doing so great or I'm not, you know,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: financially better off. But Trump starting all of these fights,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: picking all these battles, going on these, all these racist
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: tirades isn't just offensive to some of these voters and
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: some people. It's also like, dude, why aren't you working
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: on fixing everything in this country? You're not governing. You're
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: not making anyone's lives better. All you're doing is just
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: getting into these fucking arguments.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: 63% of voters said the tweets attacking the squad crossed
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the line. 57% said they do not think he respects
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: racial minorities. I mean, that's a pretty overwhelming number in
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the Trump era. That would worry me if I were
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: his advisor is trying to spill, spin some nonsensical strategy
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: about this being a preplanned strategy to win over voters
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: or get his base excited. Like we're, we are a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: little far out from the election to be having a
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: get my base excited strategy with pure racist tweets. That
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: is absurd on its face. Yeah. Love it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Did you have something on it?
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, no, I think that's I think that's right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: It's also a little bit like, you know, you these
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: the Republicans are, you know, they're going to go into
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: this campaign with Trump and they know that they need
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: they have this this vice grip between the fact that
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: a generic Republican would be performing much better because of
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: the basic economic realities in the country right now. trump
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: loses a lot of those people so they have to
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: make it up somewhere how are they going to make
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: it up well i think they're going to make it
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: up by shoring up his base but of course shoring
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: up the base costs him amongst the voters who would
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: otherwise vote for a generic republican in an economic situation
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: like we're in so they have they have this kind
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: of uh you know they're trying to get.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: To lose three get three lose two and uh It's,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: you know, Democrats have the opposite challenge. I just think
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: you can sure up the base without this sort of
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: double edged sword type messaging. They're much more. They're much
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: more palatable message like on immigration policy or whatever. There's
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: a million different ways you could go at this and
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: they just choose not to for some reason. One thing
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: I want to point out that really pissed me off
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: this weekend was. The Washington Post had a long profile
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: of Jared Kushner, and that's fine, whatever. It was about
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: how he's now, on top of failing to accomplish anything
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: policy-wise in the White House, is now basically running the campaign.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: He was supposed to be this moderating force with Ivanka.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: We've all mocked that narrative for years and sort of
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: long ago abandoned it. But he didn't get pressed on.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: now being in charge of a White House and a
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: campaign that is openly spinning that their approach is going
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: to be over racism. And that's frustrating. And I think
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: you should be.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Remember when Jonathan Swan pushed him on this during their
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Axios interview? Is the president racist? That was right before
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: these two very, you know, direct racist tirades.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: It was like putting cotton candy in a bucket of water. Yeah,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: and I'm not criticizing the reporters or the piece. I
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: thought it was interesting. But like, well, yeah, I guess
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I am. It should be front and center of what
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: we're talking about here. That was great reporting by Swan.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: When Chris Wallace over the weekend pushed Mick Mulvaney, the
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: chief of staff, on these racist tweets, he did a
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: great job of trying to hold him accountable. That should
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: be a piece of every story written on these goobers.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Don't give them some whitewashed take on their role.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Well, what Republicans want to do with this is say,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: if you disagree, if the president criticizes anyone, or if
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you disagree with anything that the Democrats say, you're called
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: racist or sexist. That's what they want this campaign to
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: be about, right? So we talked a lot about the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: need to condemn this president's racism, call it out as
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a strategy, and then sort of talk about Trump's failure
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: on a whole host of issues. Well, according to a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: report released by the Commerce Department on Friday, the economy
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: only grew by 2.1% in the second quarter this year,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the weakest increase since the first quarter of Donald Trump's presidency.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: The new report also includes revised data for last year
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that found the economy never reached the administration's 3%. growth
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: target for 2018. This was a favorite talking point of theirs.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: So is it time or is it smart for Democrats
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to start talking about the Trump economy? And not just
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the Trump economy, but specifically, I think, the Trump economic agenda,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: which so far has been tax cuts for the rich
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: in trade wars and nothing else.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, yes. I mean, I think we should be
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: calling him a failed president on basically every front. I mean,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: and I don't think that means criticizing... his inability to
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: reach 3% GDP. I don't think those are the terms
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: we want to talk about it. And I think it's like,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: you're a failed president. The country is succeeding in spite
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: of you. Americans are working harder to overcome your trade war,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: to overcome your tax cut for billionaires, your corporate giveaways
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: that have hurt them. Jason Furman, who we used to
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: work with at the White House, pointed out that business
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: investment outside of oil and mining is actually slow during
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: That was really interesting.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He trumped Chris Wallace again over the weekend. reminded
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: us all that Trump promised that he was going to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: balance the budget in five years. He's utterly failed on
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: that front. So everything he said he would do, he
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: has failed to do. He's lucky that he inherited a
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: strong economy with a lot of tailwinds from Obama. Now
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: his only economic policy is to browbeat the Fed into
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: cutting rates, and we should call him out.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree with that. So, meanwhile, the other
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: potentially big piece of news from the weekend was announced
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: by the House Judiciary Committee with almost no fanfare whatsoever
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: on a Friday afternoon. Chairman Jerry Nadler announced that they're
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: formally asking for access to secret grand jury information related
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to Robert Mueller's investigation, a step that Nadler says is basically, quote,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: in effect, the launch of an impeachment investigation. Here's what
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: he said to George Stephanopoulos, quote, we have impeachment resolutions
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: before the committee. We are conducting investigations to determine whether
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: we should report those impeachment resolutions to the House or
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: direct our own and report those to the House. Pushed
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: again on whether that qualifies as an impeachment investigation, Nadler said,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: we're investigating whether to approve articles of impeachment before the committee.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Since Mueller testified on Wednesday, more than a dozen Democrats,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: including a member of Pelosi's leadership team, have announced their
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: support for impeachment, which now makes 107 of 235 House Democrats,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: only 11 short of a majority of the caucus. Not
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a majority of the House, but of the caucus. Guys,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: what's going on with this one? Is this progress? Is
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: this semantics? What do we think? Yes.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: So there was a bunch of really interesting arguments made
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: after this or sort of around this, around what it
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: means to say we are seeking information to see if
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: we should have an impeachment inquiry. Because there is a
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: kind of paradox at the heart of a lot of
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: this conversation, which is in order to decide whether to
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: launch an impeachment inquiry, in some sense, you have to
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: have an impeachment inquiry, right? So when, you know, there's
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: all this debate about, oh, you know, why should we
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: do impeachment?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: It's not going to succeed. It's not going to succeed.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Well, one of the reasons you do an impeachment inquiry
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: is because it is widely recognized that through the power
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: of impeachment, Congress has a stronger hand than its usual
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: regulatory oversight because it's a power vested in Congress to
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: investigate the executive and they would have greater access to
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: materials and it might be easier to hold the administration accountable.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: But then the question becomes, well, when does Congress get
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: those powers? When does Congress gain the powers that come
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: with an impeachment inquiry? well, there shouldn't really be a paradox.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: You shouldn't have to impeach the president to determine whether
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: or not the president should be impeached just to gain
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: the powers of impeachment.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: So, right? No, that's right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: So I think that's why Nadler is doing this little
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: dance about in effect. But I think the reason I
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: think it's ultimately a good thing is that it is
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: signaling to the country, to the Congress itself, to the administration,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: to the courts, that this body is going to begin
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to use the inherent powers of vested in Congress to
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: investigate the president with regard to impeachment, whether or not
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: the word is officially invoked in a committee vote.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: So I want to separate, because I think this might
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: help people understand this, sort of the legal argument for
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: this versus the political argument for this. I think legally
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: there could be, we'll see with the courts aside, an
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: argument for doing this. Because what they're trying to do
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: basically is get the versions of the Mueller report that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: are currently redacted because they have to do with grand
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: jury proceedings unredacted. So how do you do that? Well,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: during Watergate, the way that they were able to get
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: grand jury information is argued to the court that they
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: need it because not for investigative reasons, but because grand
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: jury information is needed for a judicial proceeding. And in
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the past, courts have only given out grand jury information
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: when it's connected to another judicial proceeding. So during Watergate,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: The House judiciary voted to begin an impeachment inquiry. But
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: basically they argued, we're in a judicial proceeding. It's called impeachment.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So give us the grand jury info. So Nadler is
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: trying to do this now. So Nadler wants to argue
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: to the court, we are in a judicial proceeding right
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: now called impeachment. He doesn't want to just say we're investigating. Now,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: he didn't formally vote for it, but he's hoping the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: court will. side with them anyway on this. Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I, I personally feel I've read a
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: lot about, uh, the ways that starting an impeachment proceeding
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: may or may not help our legal standing and our
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: ability to get documents. I believe those who think we can,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: but I don't totally understand it all. I, it, this whole,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: this conversation does, uh, underpin for me how bizarre the
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: narrative was coming out of the Mueller hearings themselves. I mean,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: like a dozen members of Congress came out in favor
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: of impeachment after Mueller testified. And you were reading stories
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in Politico. They were like, Donald Trump had a great week.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: What planet do we live in? The need to be
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: able to give him a win every once in a
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: while for some faux balance is so absurd. So who
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: knows where we'll end up here? I mean, the people
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I've talked to, some journalists, some people who work in
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: government say, Pelosi sincerely believes that impeachment would tear the
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: party apart and is just terrified of it politically. I
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: do not know what they're basing that on. I have
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: not seen any polling or evidence. But if that's where
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: they stand, it does feel like they're going to be
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: a massive roadblock for a long time. But it's the
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: fact that Jerry Nadler is like pretty publicly moving in
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the in the path of impeachment is interesting.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Well, and you touch on the political reasons for this. So.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you might ask, why not just vote within the Judiciary
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Committee to open an impeachment inquiry so that it strengthens
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: your court case even more to say that it's part
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of a judicial proceeding? Well, clearly, there's still some anxiety
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: about holding a vote in the Judiciary Committee. Nadler is
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: clearly for this, but he has apparently worked out the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: language and everything he was going to say on Friday
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: with Pelosi, with Pelosi's blessing. So she's on board with
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: this whole thing where you get to start an impeachment
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: inquiry and you get the legal power that comes with that,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: hopefully without making anyone take the vote that could sort
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: of in her mind, at least hurt politically.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I actually think, I also think it's, there's a
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: flip side to that too, which is, I think part
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: of the reason they want to do it this way
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: is they understand that once the, once, once there's an actual,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: whether it's articles of impeachment or whatever, a motion to
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: proceed to impeachment, whatever process they, they land on, uh,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Very hard to vote no for a Democrat right now. Very,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: very hard. Democratic voters believe that Donald Trump should be impeached.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Everyone recognizes, even those who aren't in favor of impeachment,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses. From a moral
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: point of view, I believe nobody wants to go on
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: record being against this thing. So I think a little
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: bit there's an understanding that there's a big snowball at
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: the top of a very snowy hill.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: This is what Schiff said to me last week.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And once you push it, That's it. It's going to
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: roll all the way to the bottom.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And so they have a few more bites at the
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: apple this way before that process starts, because once that
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: vote happens and they signal to the country that they're
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: pursuing this, every Democrat will have to go on record.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: It will end up in the House floor, and then
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: every Democrat will have to go on record again. And
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: they may get there, and they may ultimately be okay
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: with getting there, but they're not there yet.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: There was some polling out of the hearings that showed
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: that it didn't really change people's minds one way or
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: the other, and no surprise there. It was one day
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: of testimony. But 54 percent of people who, I guess,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: watched or had understanding of the Mueller hearing said they
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: don't have any confidence in the U.S. 's ability to
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: defend itself against another electoral attack. If you're looking for
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: pretty firm ground to stand on when it comes to
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: an indictment of Donald Trump, there's a path. Why don't
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: we demagogue that? Demagogue's the wrong word. Why don't we
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: lift up this critical issue about our ability to have
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: a fair and free election from foreign interference and talk
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: about that all day? I mean, that should be part
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: of impeachment.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I was just going to bring this up. At some point,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: we have to stop talking about the process of impeachment
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and all the legal processes. I realize I have to
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: go through that now, but the reason that all of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: us here are for impeachment is not the moral case,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: not purely the moral case, as we've said, and it's
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: not because we believe he's going to get convicted in
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the Senate. It's because we believe that Democrats will have
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the attention of the nation on them to tell a
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: story about the president's corruption and criminality that will hopefully
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: assist in removing him from power in the election of 2020.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: So you've got to start telling the story. And we've
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: got to start talking about the issues where he has
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: been very corrupt or when he's broken the law and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. You've got to tell the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: story and start talking about fucking process.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: All the time.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: And given that out of the Mueller hearing, we had
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: several more Democrats come out in favor of impeachment, a
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: pundit narrative that says it lacked drama, but a recognition
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: that a lot of the substance was quite bad for Trump,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: we're literally a Hans Zimmer score away underneath.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: An impeachment inquiry.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Ooh.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a now this video. From being able to
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: tell the story we have to tell. We just need that.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: We just need a kind of just a solid orchestral hum.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: And I will say, you know, we have wondered aloud
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: if Pelosi is just trying to drag this process out
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: so that, you know, we can get to the 2020 elections.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: She said, well, now it's too late to do impeachment.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: She said over the weekend, the decision will be made
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: in a timely fashion. This is not endless. So. she could,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll, we'll take her at her word, right?
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: She said that it's, that it's not going to be
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: a dragged out pressing mainland. So, you know, maybe she's, uh,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: maybe she's got something. It's just a tale of two parties, right?
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Like Democrats in the house are having a good faith discussion,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: a debate about the process that would lead to impeachment.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: The 2020 candidates are talking about like Medicare for all
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: or a public option. Trump's attacking major American cities. And
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: today he said that again, that he was down at
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: ground zero on nine 11, helping out and basically compared
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: himself to a first responder. I mean, they are just
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: full crazy and we are still having these same conversations.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I was, I was driving into the office today and
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: I had NPR on, uh, and it was, I laughed
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: because it's, you catch, you catch yourself.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Forgetting the timeline in which you live.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: And then the, the, the news starts and it's, and
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: it's like, it's one of the anchors saying Donald Trump
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: continued his attacks on the city of Baltimore today.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It's, it's, it's like we're living in a fucking bad
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Veep episode. Um, One more thing on the polling, because
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that ABC poll that showed that it didn't
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: really change people's minds. Fox News had a poll last week.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: 47% of the country favor either impeachment or impeachment and removal,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and only 45% oppose impeachment. That's a Fox News poll,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: so Nancy Pelosi, take a look at that one. All right,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the primary. 20 Democratic presidential candidates will
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: meet in Detroit on Tuesday and Wednesday nights this week
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: for a second round of debates. The first night of
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the debates, which are being hosted by CNN, will include
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O'Rourke. The
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: second night will put Joe Biden back on the stage
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris and also include Cory Booker and Julian Castro.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: For all the other presidential candidates, their performance at this
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: debate may determine whether we ever see them on this
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: debate stage again. You guys want to talk about why?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Because the next debate has much stricter rules. I believe
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: as of right now, five to seven have qualified.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Six. Six have qualified.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Six have now officially qualified. Booker just qualified, right?
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Not yet, but he's close. He's going to qualify because
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: he's almost at the number of donors. He got the polling.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's all right.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Just to let everyone know, it is 130,000 individual donors
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to qualify for the September debates. 130,000 individual donors and
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: at least 2% in four national polls. So qualified are Bernie, Biden, Kamala, Warren, Pete,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and Beto. Cory Booker's very close. He's got the polls.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: He's almost there on the donors. He might have done
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it last night.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: I think he qualifies for that.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And so then the only other people who are close
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: are Klobuchar. She has the polling, but not the donors.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Yang and Castro, who has the donors, but not the polls.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: And I think Yang doesn't have the polls yet either,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: or maybe the donors either. But no one else is close.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: So that would be, even if all of those make it,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: that would be 10 people on the debate stage. That
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: would get us down to one stage and one night.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's a big deal that people are not
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: focusing on.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: It's also a big deal for me because if it
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: goes to two nights, the second night is during Radio
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: City Love It or Leave It, which is very frustrating.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: My God.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: So a lot of things are at stake here. These
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: debate rules are interesting and I'm glad we're about to
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: hit a winnowing period. You are starting to see reports
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: about the money Democratic candidates are now spending on acquiring donors.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Which is such a funny thing.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: It's like a tech company.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Spending money to get people to give you money.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: It's multi-level marketing. No, it's more like you're like Uber
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: or Lyft and you're entering a new market and you
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: have these massive acquisition costs to get a user. But
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: it's just so stupid.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: So in this debate that we're about to have this week,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: what do you do to get noticed and If you
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: are one of these candidates who have not qualified for
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: September yet, and you've got a couple months to do this.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Even you asking that question is making me feel nervous
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: on their behalf.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Because, you know, this isn't... You know, launch a broadside
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: against another candidate that is so sophisticated and sharp, it
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: attacks them and makes you look like a president with
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: a unique case for.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Why you should be in that job. You know the scene.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Well put.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: You know the scene in Airplane when there's a passenger
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: sort of having a mental breakdown, and then one of
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: them slaps her to try to calm her down, and
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: there's a whole line of people, including a professional boxer,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: and then there's a woman with a gun. That's everybody
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: lining up to go after Joe Biden. That is how
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: this one is going down right now. You're seeing some
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: amazing sort of mini-opposition research about how Gillibrand staffers.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: I was going to check the Gillibrand one.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: They've been like, what was it, like newspapers.com or something
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: like that? They've been like, flagging all these articles about
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Biden's record, preparing to go after him.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Apparently there's this hit on Biden that Gillibrand has been
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: previewing or quietly previewing that he had voted against the
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: expansion of the child tax credit, which on a policy level,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: of course, you should say that that's a contrast. But
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: what Gillibrand said publicly was some Democratic candidates, quote, do
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: not believe necessarily that it's a good idea that women
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: work outside the home. There's a slight difference between that
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: and opposing the child care tax credit, which I am for.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: You should be for expanding the child care tax credit.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: But I don't know if that's a fair hit on
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: that one. A number of other candidates have previewed contrasts
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: with Biden over the last weeks. Booker on criminal justice reform.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Castro on immigration, which is an interesting one. Castro may
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: try to do to Biden what he did to Beto.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: It's interesting Castro saying some of us have learned the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: lessons of the Obama administration on immigration. Biden hasn't. Castro
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: is saying that because he knows that other people are
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: going to, if he's going to go after people on immigration,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: other people are going to say, well, you not only
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: were part of the Obama administration on immigration, you never
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: had any problems with it while you were part of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the administration, and you testified on their behalf at times
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: about their immigration policies. So at least he can tell
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a story like, yeah, I did that, and I've come
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to see that some of them were bad. I mean,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I was part of the administration. I think that, too.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Sure. And Biden would just sort of, figure out some
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: version of that answer to to pivot away from some
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: of these policies themselves. You'd be in a much better place.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Like you're allowed to evolve. You're allowed to learn new
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: things and improve your understanding of policy from the 80s
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: until now.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Embrace it. That would be a good answer from him.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think Biden should do at
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: this point? Like what what what would you be telling
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the vice president knowing that all these hits are coming?
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, I would say just take the hits and then
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: ask for someone else to speak. He's got to be
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: ready on the substance to respond substantively and defend his
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: own record or at least offer some explanation for how
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: he's maybe evolved or learned more over time. But I
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: think what a lot of voters are looking for is
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: for him to punch back really hard. And given that
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: half of these attacks have now been previewed, I would
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: want to tee him up to look like a fighter
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: because I think everyone wants someone who will get in
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: a debate with Donald Trump and be ready to punch
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: him in the mouth rhetorically.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he did say he was too polite. In
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: the last debate.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Jokes aside, if I were looking at someone like Biden,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: what I would be saying is you need to respond forcefully,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: but put it in a frame of I've been in
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: the arena for 40 years.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I've gotten a lot right. I've gotten some things wrong.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I've evolved and I've changed like any person has. But
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: here's what I would do.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: And here's the experience I bring to do these things
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: that we need to do to fix this country. And
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: we can spend all day going over our records, you know,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: And then attack, attack, attack, attack, attack.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: But we need to talk.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: About what we'll do to fix this country because this
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: election is so important. That would be the argument I
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: would be making if I were Joe Biden.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I wonder what someone like Kamala Harris
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: does to keep up the momentum that she gained from
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the last debate. I was wondering about that. And then today,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: on Monday, she released her own Medicare for All plan,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: which I was surprised that she did. But she was
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: one of the first co-sponsors of Bernie Sanders Medicare for
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: All bill. She stood with him at the press conference
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: when he announced it. She has been, I would say,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: unclear on various aspects of Medicare for All.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Like eliminating private insurance.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Eliminating private insurance. So she's been going back and forth.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: At times clear, then unclear, then clear again.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so today she decided, okay, I'm going to put
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: my own spin on the plan. And her plan would
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: basically say there's a 10-year transition to single payer in
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: addition to the four-year transition that is envisioned in Bernie's plan.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: She also would maintain a role for private insurance companies
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: who are tightly regulated by the government, like Medicare Advantage
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: plans under Medicare. So basically, at the end of all this,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: hopefully everyone's on one Medicare plan. But if there are
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: private insurance companies that want to do a version of
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the government's Medicare plan that are tightly regulated, the government
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: still sets the pricing, the government still has all these restrictions,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: then you can play in our system, but only if
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: you play by our rules is basically what it is.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: And the other key thing she does is on financing.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders basically says that Anyone who makes over $ 29, 000
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: a year will face a tax increase to pay for
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: his plan. His argument is, well, you might have a
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: tax increase, but you won't be paying premiums or co-pays
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: or deductibles anymore, so it'll be a wash at the end.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris says the only people who will pay higher
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: taxes are those who make over $ 100, 000, and then she
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: makes up the difference by taxing stock trades a small
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: amount as well. Why do we think she did this?
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: I think she could say she was full-throatedly behind Bernie's plan.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: She could say she was against Bernie's plan. But I
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: think she could no longer do this sort of tightrope
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: without telling people where she was walking towards. Because there
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: was a lot of, is she going to raise her hand?
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Is she not going to raise her hand? Where is
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: she on private insurance? She said she was for it.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: She said she was for getting rid of it. Then
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: she said she wasn't. She raised her hand. Then she
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: said she didn't understand the question. She was getting attacked
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: for her positions. And so she needed to say, here's
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: my view of here's where I have landed, so that
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: she could actually articulate not just a kind of abstract position,
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: but like lay out a policy.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, also some recent polling suggests that eliminating private
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: insurance is a very unpopular position. I've seen other anecdotal
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: evidence that it's particularly unpopular with African-American voters. I think
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: CNN reported that. So this new plan seems to account
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: for a lot of the political deficiencies that people see
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: in Bernie's plan. Okay. I mean, maybe that will help,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: but entire elections have been fought and lost over being
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: for something before you were against it, for being perceived
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: as flip-flopping on an issue. I mean, look at John Kerry.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Look at every race before John Kerry, basically, when politics
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: went crazy these last few years. I mean, so it
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: will be interesting to see if Democrats or people on
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: stage go after on these policy changes during the debates,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: because how she deals with that will say a lot
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: about how she would deal with that against Trump.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, on the substance, I find myself more
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: in line with Kamala's new plan, with Medicare for America,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: which is Beto's plan, some of the more robust public options,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: but I still think Medicare for America and Kamala Harris's
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: plan are better just because, not because I'm against single-payer ultimately,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: but because I think the transition is so difficult, not
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: just politically difficult, but substantively difficult, that it should be
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: handled in a gradual way. Not gradual in saying, oh,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: we'll pretend to get there someday, but wink, wink, we won't. Like,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: really gradual. Like, making sure that if we're having everyone
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: in the entire country on one government plan, that it
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: is a good plan, that people like it, that it works,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: that it's proven to work, right, and so that we
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: have some time. I mean, You know, four years, which
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: is what Bernie's plan envisioned, it seems like a long time, but,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: you know, we had a couple years to get the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act together, and that wasn't enough time, honestly. Like,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: we still, you know, healthcare.gov launched, and there was all
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: these problems. So it takes a long time to transition
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to some of these plans. Now, Bernie's argument, and maybe
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren's, because she's on his plan, too, their argument
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: would be, you know what, it's easier if we just
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: do this at once, all hold hands and jump together.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: And also, the longer you have private insurers involved in
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: this shit, the more money government's going to spend and waste,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and it's not going to be as efficient. But I
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: think the biggest point here on the politics is we
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: are now headed into a phase where relatively small differences
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: between these candidates' health care plans are going to get
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: blown up into these huge fucking fights. And I do
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: want everyone to make sure that you're going to hear,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're already hearing Sanders attacked Kamala Harris's plan.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Biden attacked Kamala Harris's plan. Kamala Harris attacks both of
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: their plans. I think the attacks are going to seem
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: like a bigger deal than the actual details, the difference
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: in the details of the plan, right? We are all
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: headed towards universal coverage with heavy government regulation of prices
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and costs. That's what they all want. How fast you
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: get there, how generous it is, all these are details
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: worth debating, but let's not lose sight of the fact
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: that all of these candidates are in a very good
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: place on healthcare.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I'm also just interested in how the debate over the
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Kamala plan goes, because it is actually a genuinely kind
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: of new offering into the public, you know, the Biden
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: cap public option, very robust public option, some with automatic
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: enrollment for, say, children into a public plan versus.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And she has that newborns and uninsured are automatically enrolled. Yes.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: And then you have the kind of the Bernie.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: medicare for all plan and there's a variety of single
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: player plans but that's sort of the alternative it's interesting
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: how this does seem to sit between the two in
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways and i'm curious how it ultimately
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: is perceived right because you know one of the gaps
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: you know the public option focused plans they try to
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: bridge this gap between the 40 or so americans who
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: say they want medicare for all versus the 70 of
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: americans who support a medicare for all who want it
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: type plan uh and uh this seems to kind of
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: sit between both of those ideas while preserving private insurance,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: but in a much more restricted way. So I'm just
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: curious how it ultimately is perceived by other Democrats on
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: the stage, by Democratic voters, by political journalists covering it,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: because it is, I don't know, it's an interesting plan,
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: that's all.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, when we come back, Tommy, we'll talk to DeRay McKesson.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: On the line is DeRay McKesson. He is an activist.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: He's the host of Pod Save the People. He's got
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: a great book out that you should check out called
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: The Other Side of Freedom, The Case for Hope. DeRay,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: good to talk to you, man.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: It's been a while, Tommy.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: It's good to be back.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: It's been a while. We miss you. I wish it
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: was under better circumstances based on my first question, which is,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: you know, based on the president's disgusting racist tweets. I mean,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: So you grew up in Baltimore. You worked for the
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Baltimore City Public Schools. You ran for mayor. You clearly
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: loved the city. How did it make you and the
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: people you know in Baltimore feel seeing the president of
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: the United States single out and attack your hometown in
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: this unfair, bigoted way?
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: You know, Tommy, when I think about it, I was
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: disgusted but not surprised, right? Because we've heard this rhetoric before.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: We have seen the actions that support the rhetoric before.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: We've seen him talk about immigrant communities. We've seen him
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: trash the city of Chicago. We've seen him put kids
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: in cages. We've actually seen this come from him. So
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: continue to be disgusted, but just not surprised. I think
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: what was really troubling was to see people participate in
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: the logic of the racism that he espoused. So there
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: were people who were like, yeah, Baltimore is a good
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: place and still made these statements about poverty as if
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: poverty is a result of personal choices. and not the
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: result of systemic things that have happened in communities. Or
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: you hear people talk about addiction and they talk about
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: it as like moral failings and not as a public
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: health crisis. And that's sort of what I kept hearing
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: when I heard the Trump thing. It's like it was
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: well-meaning people who were still sort of participating in this
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: underlying logic. And I think part of our work is
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: to push people so they understand that that logic is
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: racist and they actively work against that logic. And Trump
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: just continues to create space for that logic to take hold.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: And there's no way to talk about the poverty of
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: the city of Baltimore without talking about the policies that
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: enabled it. There's no way to talk about the crime
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: in the city of Baltimore without talking about the conditions
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: of the city that have not alleviated the crime. So
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: what does it mean that the school system is still underfunded?
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: What does it mean that the police department, our whole division,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: got indicted for corruption? These are structural things, and there's
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: no way to talk about the city without talking about
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: what they have done to the city and, frankly, the
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: lack of investment from the state and from the federal government.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, totally agree. And I want to get into some
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: of those policies in one minute. But I saw you
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: tweeting about this and it frustrated me as well. The governor,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Larry Hogan, he belatedly responded to Trump this morning and
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: called the tweets outrageous and inappropriate. But like he's a
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: popular governor. He reportedly considered primarying Trump. The state itself
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: leaned left. What do you think took him so long?
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Why is Larry Hogan, of all people, scared to call
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: out Trump when he does things that demean a city
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: he represents.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: You know, good question as to why Hogan is seemingly scared.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: You know, he didn't even call Trump by name. What
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: did he say? He said something like, people in Washington.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: He wouldn't even name Trump, right? And that is the
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: weakness and cowardice of the Republican Party. It took so
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: long for any of them to say anything about that tweet,
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: let alone condemn it, which we didn't even see in Hogan.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: You know, one of the reasons why Hogan didn't condemn
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: it is that Hogan actually participates in the same logic.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: He just knows if he was as overt about it,
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: people would deem that unacceptable in the state of Maryland.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: But Hogan is the same governor who wanted to send
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: the National Guard to the city of Baltimore, the same
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: governor who refuses to fund the school system in Baltimore
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: City in an adequate way, and the same person who
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: makes similar disparaging comments about crime and drugs in the
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: city of Baltimore. Got rid of the red line, which
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: would have been an important public transportation addition in the city.
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: So Hogan actually participates in the same logic as Trump.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: He just knows that to say it as clearly and
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: overtly as Trump would be a political problem for him.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned some of the policy needs earlier. I mean,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: clearly there are some challenges in Baltimore like there are
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: in every city or every town. Have any of the
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: presidential candidates on the Democratic side talked about or proposed
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: ideas at the federal level that you feel might significantly
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: help people who live in cities like Baltimore or need
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: better schools or need some extra help?
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: You know, Tommy, that's a hard question because so many
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: of the candidates still have not committed to anything in writing, right?
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: It is still a very lukewarm space. So I think
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: that the policies around wealth redistribution or loans that have
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: come from Warren, that have come from Bernie, I think
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: that Kamala just put out something that I'm still trying
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: to wrap my head around. I think that those sort
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: of plans are actually really important. I think that Corey's
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: plan around marijuana is an important plan. It would have
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: a huge impact on places like Baltimore. I think any
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: of the stuff around college would be important. So BCCC,
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: the Baltimore City Community College, It graduates around 1%, 2%,
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: 3% of people every year. And part of the problem
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: with the graduation rate at BCCC is that people are
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: saddled with loans. It's people who are poor who get
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: these loans or just cannot pay off community college credit.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: And we should just make community college free or we
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: should make college free for people. So I think that
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: those plans would actually have a huge benefit. I think
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: infrastructure is not very sexy, but the city of Baltimore
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: would benefit immensely from an infrastructure project. And, you know,
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: the reality is a lot of the candidates have given
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of really cool speeches that when you go
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: to the website to see what they've committed to, you
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: are still struggling to see a commitment. So I'm hopeful.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: I'm hopeful that it'll get better, you know? And I
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: think there's some people still playing in the middle. I
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: think that Kamala's playing in the middle with a lot
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: of things. She's given a lot of speeches, and you
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: are like, what does she believe? And it's a question mark. Pete,
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: the same thing. You know, I still live in the
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: city of Baltimore, and I'm interested to see how these
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: campaigns will continue to grow to actually... create something meaningful
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: for people in cities, you know? Yeah.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Well, so, okay, you lived in Baltimore, you worked there,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: you ran for mayor. When you were walking around, like
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: canvassing voters, talking to people, what things did you hear
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: from them? What were people looking for from the local
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: or federal government that they felt like they weren't getting?
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: You know, when I ran for mayor and when I
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: was the chief of human capital in the school system
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: in Baltimore, It's like when you talk to parents, when
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: you talk to people in communities, nothing was particularly revelatory, right?
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: It's like, I want to live in a safe city.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: I want to live in a city where my kids
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: can learn how to read and write, and it is
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: not an uphill battle. I want to live in a
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: city where people get treatment and services when they're in need,
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: and I want to live in a city that I'm
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: generally healthy in, right? Those were the buckets of things.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: I think the hard part about the city of Baltimore
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: is that we have just seen leadership time and time
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: again fail at the city level. We've seen some glimmers,
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: but a lot of struggle. And we've also seen a
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: continued lack of investment from... the state of Maryland. Like
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: you just haven't seen the follow through that you would
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: need to actually like make a meaningful investment in the
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: state of Baltimore. So those are the things, but like
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: talking to people in neighborhoods, it was actually really simple.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: And that's what we say as organizers that most of
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: the things that will change people's lives are simple, but
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: not small. It's a simple idea to say that we
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: can have treatment for everybody who needs treatment around addiction
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: in a city. That's not a small thing. That would
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: be huge thing. So how do we start to normalize
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: a simple but not small? And that's what I heard
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: when I hurt people when I knocked on doors and
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: when I worked in education in the city of Baltimore.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. So we talked a bit about this today. I mean,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: it's frustrating when Trump tweets something like he did over
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: the weekend that's so nakedly racist. And the media kind
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: of does this dance where we talk about whether it's
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: called racially charged or whether they directly call him out.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, how do you want to see Democrats, the
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party, Democrats running for president respond when Trump does
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: these kinds of things?
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, when Michelle Obama said, when they go low,
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: we go high, that was not about passivism. It was
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: this idea that we actually return to our convictions, right?
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: That's what it means to go high. Like you go
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: high into the things that called you into the work
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: in the first place. And in moments like this, people
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: should be like even more defiant. Like people, there should
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: be more AOCs. There should be more of the squad.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: There should be more people with structural power fighting back
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: and saying like, no, we just won't do this. There
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: should be people forcing the Republicans to actually use their
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: structural power to hold him accountable. Like that's what should
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: be happening in moments like this. The good news is
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: that most of the change that we want to see
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: is local, happens at the local and state level. So
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: there still is a lot of good work that can
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: happen there that people can fight for and press. And
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: what everybody can do is force people to not participate
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: in the logic of racism that Trump has espoused. Yeah.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Agreed with that. All right. Happier question. The second round
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: of Democratic debates are this week. How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Somewhere in between?
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: Tommy, I honestly feel like there are some there's still
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: too many candidates. So I went in person to Miami
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: and it's just like it's just so many people, you know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: you're like, I don't really know what is going on.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of people. So I'm interested to see,
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: you know, what was what was really interesting about Kamala
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: and Biden going back and forth with each other. is
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: that Kamala has yet to have to account for her
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: own record, however you feel about it. She just hasn't
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: been pressed about it yet in public. And I'll be
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: interested to see if somebody goes after her record in
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: this next one, because she went so hard after Biden.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: And then you've seen that weird back and forth between
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: Corey and Biden.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, that was very strange.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like, I just don't know. I don't know what
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: to make of that. And like, honestly, I didn't even
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: know the debates were happening until somebody told me and
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: I think I'm pretty plugged in.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: So Yes, you are.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: It'll be interesting to see if people even like watch
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: this because it's still a lot of people. And Marianne
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: Williamson is I am interested to see what she says
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: this go around.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's interesting that these debates are taking place
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: in Detroit. I wonder if they'll have at least a
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: section where they talk about the fact that a city
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: right down the road in Flint still doesn't have clean water.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: And there was a public health crisis, the likes of
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: which our country hasn't seen maybe ever. That would be
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: a good thing for the moderator to ask about.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that, you know, I think that they'll
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: pander to that question. I think that everybody's going to
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: say it's a travesty. I think nobody's going to talk
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: about accountability. I think Warren and Bernie actually might. They
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: might say that somebody should be held responsible. But I
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: can see a lot of the people, a lot of
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: the people on the stage giving lip service to Flint
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: and then just sidestepping the like, how do we avoid
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: this in the future? And what do we do to
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: do any sort of. uh, like redress for the harm
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: that the citizens of Flint faced, you know?
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I totally agree. I guess I at
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: least have been excited that there has been a really
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: substantive conversation about policy, particularly on healthcare so far on
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: the democratic side. I do think it's a pretty stark
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: contrast to what the Republicans are fighting about, which is
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump being the worst person on the planet.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that, uh, I
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: think that the healthcare debate is good. I think the
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: college debate is good. I think that the wealth debate
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: is interesting. I think what we can never forget, and
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: you appreciate this because you also know politics well, is
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: that there are a lot of people who keep making
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: these statements but have not really committed to anything in
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: a policy stance, right? Pete is a really good example.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: He answers a question in the debate. You go to
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: the website. You're like, well, let me just understand what
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: you say. And there's nothing there, right? Mm-hmm. And I
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: just don't know how long we'll let people get away
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: with that. I think that's also Kamala. Kamala has committed
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: to things in talks. And then you go and you're like, well,
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: what do you stand for? And it's like there's not
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: really a plan yet. And I don't know how long,
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: especially with Warren showing us that there can be plans,
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: you know, how long that'll last.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. We are now well into
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: this primary process. Everyone has had an awful lot of
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: time to formulate and roll out plans in substantive ways.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And if I were them, I would advise them to
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: get going on that front.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I agree.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Well, everybody listening should subscribe to Pod Save the People. DeRay,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: great to talk to you. Look forward to seeing you
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: in person soon. And that's all I got, man. Hopefully
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump will stop tweeting disgusting shit. But we'll keep
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: talking about it if he does.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: And hopefully we will just remember this dark four years
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: as a bygone era and we'll get somebody in there
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: to fix it pretty quick.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Amen to that. All right, buddy. Great talking to you.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Boom. Thanks to DeRay for joining us today. Tomorrow night,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night, we will be on our group thread talking
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: about that debate, watching it with you, and we'll be
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: doing the same on Wednesday night. And then on Thursday,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: all four of us will be in studio for a
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: debate recap episode. So we'll talk to you then.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: Thank you.