Latest / Pod Save America / “Caught in the Trump trap.”

Transcript

“Caught in the Trump trap.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Rachel Maddow is back on the show.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: She'll be talking to Lovett a little bit later. Before that,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about President-elect Biden's new announcements around his COVID-19 strategy,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Trump's trip to Georgia, and whether the Republican Party will
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: ever be able to quit him. But first, Lovett, how
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: was the show this week?
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Great, Lovett, or leave it. Nicole Byer, we did okay
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: stop with that lovely witness. With Rudy Giuliani, which is
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: very entertaining. We had not yet learned that she previously
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: faced some pretty significant legal challenges due to sending sex
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: tapes of herself with her boyfriend to that boyfriend's ex-wife
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: because she lives out loud and good for her. And
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: then talk to Ari Berman about the coup and the census.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And Kaya Henderson was back to talk about the crisis
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: in education.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Just kind of slipped the coup in there. Like, no
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: big deal.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: What are we supposed to do? The coup and the census.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: You know, failed coup, successful census, I guess, is the hope.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We'll take it. Also, thanks to everyone who's donated to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: our Every Last Vote Fund, which directly supports the work
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of local organizers who are on the ground in Georgia.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You've already raised $ 1 million, but more help is needed
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: on phone banking, text banking, letters, canvassing, digital advertising, all
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the above. So please go to votesaveamerica.com slash every last
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: vote and help out if you can. Finally, if you're
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: looking to do some holiday shopping, check out the Crooked
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Merch store. We've got some great new ornaments, new gear,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: all kinds of fun stuff. Order by the 11th if
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you want stuff to arrive by the 24th. Head to crooked.com
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: slash store and check it out. All right, let's get
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: to the news. The most important story in America right
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: now is the pandemic. We are losing over 2,000 Americans
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: every day now, and hospitals across the country are almost
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: at capacity. White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: remember her? She was on Meet the Press over the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: weekend and said, this is not just the worst public
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: health event, this is the worst event that this country
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: will face. Her boss, Donald Trump, isn't just ignoring the pandemic,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: but according to The New York Times, he's, quote, barely
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: showing up for work anymore. Was he ever? I don't know.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris haven't taken office yet, but
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: are already trying to step into the void. In their
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: first joint interview since the election, they spoke with CNN's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Jake Tapper about how they'll handle the virus. Let's listen
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to what the president-elect said about his conversation with Dr.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Fauci.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: I asked him to stay on in the exact same
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: role he's had for the past several presidents. And I
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: asked him to be a chief medical advisor for me
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: as well and be part of the COVID team. He
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: points out, you don't have to close down the economy
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: like a lot of folks are talking about now, if
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: in fact you have clear guidance and you're able to
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: say to businesses, okay, for example, bars and restaurants are
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: going to close. We're going to provide you the wherewithal
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: to not lose your business like the house had passed.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: And we're going to be able to reopen. we're going
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: to be able to reopen in time and not to
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: close down for long periods of time. We talked about masking.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: It is important that we, in fact, the president and
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: the vice president, we set the pattern by wearing masks.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: And I think my inclination, Jake, is on the first
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: day I'm inaugurated to say I'm going to ask the
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days. to mask,
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: not forever, 100 days. And I think we'll see a
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: significant reduction if we occur that, that occurs with vaccinations
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: and masking to drive down the numbers considerably, considerably.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Love it. Is Dr. Fauci finally about to work for
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the man he just voted for?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: He jumped at the chance. It was an easy yes.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: It was an easy yes. It is still reassuring to
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: see public health professionals express such relief and joy when
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: they see the team that Joe Biden is assembling, the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: new head of the CDC, Vic Murphy, coming back as
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Surgeon General. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, there are
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: parts of the job that Joe Biden is going to
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: have that are really, really hard. It's an incredibly difficult
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: job role that he is stepping into with all these
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: crises taking place at once. But the easy part is
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: not doing the completely unnecessary work anti-science propaganda spreading that
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has been doing for months. So just that
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: small step of saying we should wear masks.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Low bar.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Low bar. He's going to clear the low bar and
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: do much better. But right now, it's just so reassuring
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: just to clear the low bar.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Well, so in addition to naming Dr. Fauci his chief
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: medical advisor, and as you said, Dr. Vivek Murthy will
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: reprise his Obama-era role as Surgeon General. Biden's announcing his
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: entire healthcare team. Former Obama official Jeff Zients will run
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the COVID response. Yale medical professor Marcella Nunez-Smith will focus
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: on health disparities. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: at Mass General, will run the Centers for Disease Control
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and Prevention. In California, Attorney General Javier Becerra will be
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Tommy, what do
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you think about the team? And what, if anything, does
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: it tell us about Biden's approach to health care in
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the pandemic? I mean, I think the.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Becerra nomination is a great one. It's an extremely progressive pick.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: HHS spends, I think I read, $ 1. 4 trillion annually on
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: healthcare coverage for Americans. That includes Medicare and Medicaid. And
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: then they also oversee the FDA and the CDC.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So I was excited about that pick.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: And then I was basically just relieved that I had
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: barely heard of or never heard of the rest of
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: them because they're just wonky scientists who spend all their
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: time in medical journals and not on Newsmax.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And then you couple.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: That with this Biden 100 day of masks messaging, which
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: I just think is exactly the right messaging. And like
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: in fairness to Trump and in fairness to local officials,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: wasn't really available to them six months ago, right? But like,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: because we now have a vaccine and a timeline for
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: when we all might get it, you can say lockdown
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: for a month if there's an acute problem or mask
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: up for 100 days is sort of this bridge to
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: a totally different landscape when there's hundreds of millions of
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: vaccines that have already been rolled out. And you make
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: the the sacrifice field discreet and time limited and about
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: saving lives in the near term, and then a path
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: to normalcy for people that I think might actually work. Now,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: that has to be coupled with Congress actually doing something
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: to help all these businesses and people who are losing
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: their jobs.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: But it's like Biden's getting step one right here.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just to talk about the team for a minute
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and then talk about some of the political challenges. Yeah,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Becerra is a great pick, like helped pass the ACA
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: in Congress, helped protect it as Attorney General in California,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: defended it in front of the Supreme Court. He's been
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a Medicare for All advocate. He also took on opioid makers,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital prices at AG. So
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: great pick there. We have all worked with Jeff Zients
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: in the Obama administration. He's now going to be the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: COVID czar, as they call it. He was at OMB,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: at NEC. He is best known for fixing healthcare.gov.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: But he just turned the government off and then he
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: turned it back on and it was, you know, that was.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: And to your point, Tommy, about like not hearing these people,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: it was funny. I was reading the Boston Globe, our
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: old hometown newspaper, about Rochelle Walensky. And of course, you know,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: their headlines are like, hub woman makes it big. Always, always.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: But they interviewed a bunch of experts at Mass General
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and other hospitals. And someone said, this is the happiest
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stressed out, overworked, and tired infectious disease
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: providers and epidemiologists have been in 12 months over Walensky's appointment.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So you're right. It's like you were saying, Lovett. It's
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: just the fact that we now have competent people who
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: are experts in their subject areas, which we never thought
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: had to be something that we paid attention to. But
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: now we have that. And I think you have a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: good mix of both healthcare medical experts in this group
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and people like Jeff Steins, who doesn't necessarily have a
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: healthcare background, but is really good at management and logistics.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: And that is what this problem is. So let's talk about, Tom,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you started mentioning this, but let's talk about some of
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the political challenges that Biden and his team are going
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to have to deal with fighting the virus. We still
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: got a lot of Trump voters who refuse to wear masks.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: We got a country full of people who are taking
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: risks they shouldn't because they are tired of the pandemic.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: We got a lot of employers and employees who can't
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: afford to close down again. And then we now have
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: polls showing way too many Americans being distrustful of COVID vaccines. Lovett,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: how is Biden already trying to handle some of these challenges?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And what else do you think he should do?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I That interview with Jake Tapper, there were
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: so many pieces of it where it was so reassuring, right?
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: The way that he handled talking about the Justice Department,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the way he talked about the mask mandate, the way
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: he talked about Trump, it's just all... They know what
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: they're doing right now, and they know what their strategy is, right?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: And they really are trying to not give an inch
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: to Donald Trump without trying to rile anybody up. I
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: think it's great that he's talking about, once Fauci says
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: the vaccine is safe, I will take it in front
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: of everybody. I think more people will need to do that.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: My hope is... Once this is not an abstraction but
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: a real thing, we'll see more and more people take it.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I also will say too, Tommy, you said that there's
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: this discrete period of time, like that help is on
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the way, we have 100 days. I do think that's
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: really important. I do think it speaks to just how
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: important this shift in leadership is. All these millions of
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: people that traveled on Thanksgiving, this surge that's ongoing, there
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: is no reason we couldn't be in that conversation already,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: that like, hey, we are on the precipice of the vaccine.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: It is here. The vaccine is being shipped out to
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: the states starting basically right now. We have to get
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: through December, get through this winter, get through a few months,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: and then tens of millions of people will start receiving
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the vaccine and we can get back to normal. We
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: talked about this with Trump. There was this debate about
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: should Trump put in place a lockdown? Should he put
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: in place a shutdown or should he not do that?
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's never been the president's power. That's not the president's responsibility.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: What he can do is provide leadership. He can issue directives.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: He can issue guidelines. So You know, they sidestep this
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: issue of whether they're going to be for lockdowns or not,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: in part because it's just not really their responsibility. What
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: they can do is sort of model best practices and
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: issue a set of guidelines and try to be consistent
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: and clear and transparent in what they're arguing for. And
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: so far, they've been doing that really well.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And it's also, I mean, Trump polarized this and politicized
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: this in such a way that it was either the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Democrats are for full lockdowns and no freedom, and the
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Republicans didn't believe in the virus and thought everyone should
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: run free and thought that the virus was fine. And
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: it was never that dichotomy. And I think Joe Biden's
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: instinct to depoliticize things anyway should help him here. I mean,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: you heard him say, a Biden transition official said the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: other day to CNN, shutdowns or lockdowns are really not
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: on the table. And they're talking about targeted you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a shutting down of indoor dining or shutting down of
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: this here and there, like they're advocating that. But I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: think their message is, look, we have to take some
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: serious steps here and we're all going to have to make,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: you know, some sacrifices. But this isn't an all or
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: nothing proposition here to get us to massive, to get
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: us to a widespread vaccine distribution, right? Like we can
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: actually get there.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: You know, the challenge, like Biden's Biden is very lucky
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: that the vaccine is on the horizon and could be,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: you know, we could all have it in as little
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: as six months. That's an incredible advantage. But he has
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: a disadvantage in that people are just really mad. You know,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: like they're scared, they're isolated, they're worried about their family,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: their friends, like millions of people have lost their jobs,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: millions are still unemployed. And so when the government screws
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: something up, like we've seen locally here in Los Angeles,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: it becomes the easy place for us to target all
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: of our anger and that's about a lot of unrelated things.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: But when you get mixed messaging from a White House
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: or some sort of screw up or, you know, if some,
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: you know, we'll see what happens. But like that's going
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: to be the challenge for them. But, you know, the
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: good news for Biden is, like you said, yeah, like
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Jeff Zients is like a logistics master in the same
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: way that Ron Klain was during the Ebola pandemic. And
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: we'll just understand how to make the government work and
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: how to work across various agencies and how to get
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: funding for things and how to move things quickly. And
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: like that is entire game right now. It's like getting
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: 600 million tiny little tubes at subzero temperatures to people.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: And maybe that sounds easy to you, but it's actually
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: incredibly hard. And that's what they're going to be doing
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: for like, you know, six months, eight months, maybe a year.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. Like I remember in our administration and when
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: we were in politics, oftentimes there would be a policy
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: problem and it would be blamed on pork.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, you remember that? Oh, I remember that too.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as a spokesperson. You being a spokesperson, I remember
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Gibbs used to say that all the time. It's always
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a communication problem. This is the area where public health,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: communication really does matter. And I think to the point
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you're making, Tommy, which is going to be a huge challenge,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: it's easier for Biden now because he doesn't own it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: He's still not president yet. But once he owns it,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: it's going to be on him. And I think it's
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: impossible to communicate too much with the public during a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: public health crisis like this and in too many different places.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And I think the messaging and the communication has to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: be simple, clear. Like some of the problems you're talking
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: about that we're having in LA right now are just
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: that like we get mixed messages every day, right? It's like,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: and part of it is just the way the government works.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: There's a city order, there's a county order, there's a
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: state order, right? And like all the headlines kind of
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: jam together. And so that's kind of hard to untangle.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: But I do think having a team that is going
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: to be willing and able to communicate to the public
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: clearly not too Pollyannish on how everything's going, but also
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: not too dire, right? It's a balance too.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I also, one thing I just don't know
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: the answer to is there's a bunch of what government
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: can do that just hasn't happened over the past year. Yeah,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: obviously it's all the ways in which Trump failed to
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: engage the Defense Production Act and, you know, malign science
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: and all the kind of obvious giant failures. But there's
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the absence of some of the less kind of structured
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: but important things that leaders can do, which is convene,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: elevate best practices, say like, hey, you know, this university
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: found this incredibly smart way of testing people or, hey,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: this school district in Missouri did this really exciting thing.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: We should get that to other schools. Hey, look, you know,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: I talked to Kai Henderson about this on Love It
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: or Leave, and she's like, why didn't we use the museums, right?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Museums were big, empty buildings where kids could have gone
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and learned, like where there were all kinds of steps
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: that could have been taken. And my hope is also
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: that as we're doing better communications, as we have these
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: sort of much more sophisticated and competent people at the helm,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: that We can get back to some of that convening
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: that hasn't happened either at the White House or the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Department of Education or the Health and Human Services or
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: anywhere because they're still like, we're still in this. Every
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: person should have an N95. We shouldn't be in cloth
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: masks anymore. But of course we are. There's so much
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: failure that has become kind of background noise that should
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: not be accepted, even if the vaccine. is coming in
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: the next three to five months.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Because the Trump people, they made a decision early on
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: that their goal was to push the problem to the
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: states and then wipe their hands of them. The Biden
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: administration is going to do the exact opposite. They're going
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: to try to manage it from the White House, from
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: these major agencies. And that's a lot harder, but I
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: think it'll have a lot better impact. And steps we've
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: been talking about forever. I was reading a good Politico
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: story about this. The Biden team has a big plan
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: to ramp up rapid testing and more testing. The Trump
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: message has been, We're doing we're doing more testing than
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: anyone else. And also testing is bad because you find
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: more cases. Neither of those is true.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: And so the Biden folks are looking for ways to find,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you know, and obviously some of the rapid tests have
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: been some of the companies have been plagued by like inaccuracies.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: But we are there is a way to use testing
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: not just to find out where the virus is, but
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to prevent the virus from spreading because you know where
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: it's going to be. And that's one of the things
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: that the Biden team could do. I do think one
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: more thing on the vaccines, too, with like the distrust
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of vaccine is It's great that, you know, Biden said
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: he'd take it in public. Fauci has now said he'd
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: take it in public. Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: all said that they would take it in public, too.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I even think, like, if Joe Biden wants to give
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Trump some credit for the vaccine process so that the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: MAGA people out there take the vaccine because they're happy
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that Trump helped facilitate it, great. I don't care. I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: don't care if Trump gets some credit. We need the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: whole country vaccinated.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: They should ask him to take it publicly. They should
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: ask Mike Pence to take it publicly. I'd like to
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: see Jared and Ivanka take it publicly. If they want
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: to be good citizens going forward, which they probably don't,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: it would be helpful if they did all these things.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: It's also, I think, at least so far, the conspiracy
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: theory Trump has embraced about the vaccine is that it
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: was really good and they hid it, which is better
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: than a lot of the alternative options that are at
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: his disposal. And we'll just see how much he wants
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: to sabotage Joe Biden come January.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, Tommy, even if they
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: don't want to be good citizens, which they definitely don't,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: just in their own personal self-interest, if Trump still wants
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: to be a hero and maybe run again in 2024,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: maybe he wants to be seen taking the Trump vaccine. OK,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: so let's talk about the Georgia runoff. if Kelly Loeffler
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and David Perdue lose, Mitch McConnell loses the Senate, could
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: be the most consequential special election we've had in our lifetime.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: No exaggeration. So the Republicans ask soon-to-be ex-president Donald Trump
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to hold one of his world-famous super spreader rallies so
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: they can juice turnout among Trump supporters. They're probably hoping
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: for a headline about how Trump says Georgians need to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: vote Republican to save the Senate. Let's play a clip
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: of Trump's remarks.
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: We're going to talk about the presidential election a little
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: bit later because We have a big senatorial race going
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: on in Georgia, and we are watching Democrats very, very closely.
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: And remember this, we had this massive race all over
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: the country, so they could cheat in Georgia, and people
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: aren't really watching it like they should. And, you know, again,
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: all I can do is say, I'm running, win, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: then do a good job as President. That's all.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: I don't run the elections.
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: I don't run to see if people are walking in
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: with suitcases and putting them under a table with a
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: black robe around it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I don't do that. That's up to your government here.
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: And for whatever reason, your secretary of state and your
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: governor are afraid of Stacey Abrams.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: They're afraid of her.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: So for those of you who did not tune in
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: to the rally on Saturday, that was really the flavor
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: of the one hour and 45 minutes or two hours
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: or whatever it was. It was Trump continuing to say,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: because they all told him he needed to say this,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I got to talk about the Senate race. The Senate
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: race is important. And then he just goes off on
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a long tangent about how he was wrong.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: John, can I ask you a personal question?
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Did you watch it?
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I tuned in. I started watching it when I caught
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: it right when it started. And then I cut out
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: after about a half hour.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Because I saw you tweet that you said.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I'm stuck in my house, man.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: You saw the rally was embarrassing. And I just thought
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to myself, like, oh, I should turn that on. It's
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: my job. And then I thought, ah, don't want to.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: See here's what you got to do you got to
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: wait till it's over find it on youtube watch on
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the 2x and then you can watch it and then
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: you get the whole thing my favorite part of the
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: rally though was when he called up kelly leffler and
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: david purdue asked them to speak and they both basically
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: got booed off the stage by people chanting like count
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the votes or stop the steal or some stupid stop the.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Steal yeah Guys, he had two separate videos play during
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the rally. He introduced videos. One was about like the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: radical left. He had fucking Reverend Wright playing on the video.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And the next one was like a bunch of MAGA
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: idiots on Newsmax and OAN talking about how the election
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was stolen. He was like emceeing an event. It was
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: like a live Pod Save America show.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: The anti-Warnock, anti-Ossoff ad was basically the message that those
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Republicans are running in Georgia anyway. But no surprise, the
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: election wasn't fair to me ad or video or whatever
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: it was, was like literally three times longer and was
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: just a bunch of crazy people spliced together.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Do you guys think Purdue and Loeffler got what they wanted.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Out of that rally?
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: I kind of do, to be honest. You know, like
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I'd love to say the opposite. I think he might
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: have cleared the bar. Like, you know, he's just trying
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: to get people excited and get them to turn out.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Like maybe grievance will do that. You know, Dave Weigel,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: who writes for The Washington Post, is one of the
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: best reporters in terms of like people who are always
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: on the road, always talking to people, said that all
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: the Republicans he talked to are not planning to stay home,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: that this, you know, suggestion that the election is rigged
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: and therefore we shouldn't vote in the special is not
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: really penetrating and not something people are planning to do.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: So, you know, that makes sense to me. I've always felt,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I said this when we first talked about it, that like,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I just think Republican voters are cynical, not naive, and
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: we should always operate under that assumption.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. I still think on the margin, it could matter.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: There was a, you know, high quality Rasmussen poll that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: it had like 13, 13% of people said, of Republicans
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: that they weren't going to participate. in the election, and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: half of that was they thought it was rigged. Half
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of that was they thought they were dispirited or whatever.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: So it could be tiny, right? I think if you're going...
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: The people that Weigel talked to, if you're going to
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a Trump rally and you're getting psyched up like that,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: you're going to go vote.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Margins matter.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: But this is going to be– 5,000.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: People stay home. 10,000 people stay home.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That's a big deal. But I agree that they got
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: what they needed out of the rally because if you're
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: looking to cut a 30-second ad or a 60-second ad
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: out of Trump's rally, right, and you can absolutely splice
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: enough Trump sentences together– Kelly, Loeffler, Perdue, vote, win. Absolutely.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: You got yourself an ad, you're running, Donald Trump endorsed you.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: That's all you need.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Democrats are crooks. I'm here to support Loeffler and Perdue.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: That's what they need. They call for the resignation of
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the Republican Secretary of State so they could Trumpize the
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: race because the only way they can win is if
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: they have a Trump-like turnout because they have to assume
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: that it's a fight to see who can have less attrition.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Well, on that note, Trump has made it pretty clear
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to Republican politicians that if they don't support his attempted coup,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: he'll turn his base on them. Just before the rally,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: he called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: persuade the Georgia legislature to illegally overturn the results of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the election. When Kemp refused, Trump attacked him and Arizona
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Governor Doug Ducey, who also refused to go along with
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the coup. The Washington Post also surveyed all 249 congressional
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans and found that only 27 were willing to admit
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden won the election. to which Trump responded
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, quote, please send me a list of those rhinos. Tommy,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: what does all this say about the prospects of Trumpism
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: going away when Trump?
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it's not good.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: They're not good.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's about to be the former president. He's
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: likely to be about to be the front runner for
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: the 2024 nomination. And that's going to lead to an
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: inflection point for Republicans and for the press. And I
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: think You know, on the press side of things, like
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I think we all need to make sure we don't
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: let him be the sort of national narrator of the
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: for the country for the next four years worth of events.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And I'm not entirely hopeful that, you know, news organizations,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: especially Fox and other right wing organizations are going to
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: be able to quit him, given how much he has
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: helped them in terms of ratings. But also, I mean,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: you know, the Republican Party, they're going to cling to
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: him because they're all terrified about a primary. Very, very
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: few members of Congress or Republicans have been able to
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: call out Trump's bullshit. Like Congressman Adam Kinzinger is an exception,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Larry Hogan in Maryland. There are a few, but the
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: rest of them are going to hug him because they
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: don't want to get primaried. And the wildest part of
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: this is watching all these Republicans who want to run
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: for president in 2024 go through the same exact collective
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: action failure that they went through in 2016 when no
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: one would call him out. And like the Ted Cruz's
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: of the world were hugging him and hugging him and
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: hugging him until finally Trump is literally attacking his wife
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: and calling his father JFK's assassin, right? And it's like,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: I'm waiting for one of them to figure this problem out,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: but it seems highly unlikely and frankly, historically unlikely I
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: think Republican bases have stuck around with even disgraced former
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: candidates like Richard Nixon and now Donald Trump. So he's
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: just going to be here for a while, guys.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: That's my take.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Here's what I don't get. Like, if the official story
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: in the Republican alternate universe is that Donald Trump rightfully
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: won this election. How do you run against him in 2024?
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Because if he actually won and it was stolen from him,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: then of course he should be the nominee in 2024.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: He was wrong. There's no reason he shouldn't be the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: nominee in 2024. Well, I think.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: The lesson that a lot of them have taken away
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: from 2016 is don't run against him. Don't do that.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, Marco Rubio basically saying like, if he runs,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: that's great and he'll win. Lindsey Graham saying the same.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Josh Hawley, who's- Josh.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Hawley, Rick Scott, all of them.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Those guys are full of shit. They're all arrogant.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: They all think they should be the next president. They're
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: going to say what they have to say to get
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: through it. I don't believe those words at.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: All for a second. I don't believe any of them.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: They think they should have the job. Of course they
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: think they should have the job, but they're deciding now
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: to do the same thing as you said that they
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: did in 2015. and try to hope that what Trump
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: leaves on his own volition that he kind of slinks
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: off into the sunset.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. What's the plan? They're saying that now. Obviously,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: they don't believe it. But when do they stop saying that?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Do they hope that he gets indicted?
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: If I were them, I would make the case, hey, Donald,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: remember when you told us that this guy was corrupt,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: that he was a pedophile, and that he was suffering
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: from cognitive decline?
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: You lost to him. You're a loser.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: That would be my primary argument against him. I don't
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: know that anyone will ever get there.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's hard because look at the factor we
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: haven't talked about yet is the Republican media environment, right?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: At the rally in Georgia, there's people outside chanting Fox
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: News sucks. You betrayed us, which is the most enjoyable
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: thing I've heard in weeks.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's also like, you know, we talk about
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: the role the media plays, but like Fox News sucks.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: only supporting the coup in prime time, right? That's their
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: great compromise. They've lost tons of viewers to the more fringe,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: new upstarts like Newsmax that are doing really well, right?
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: there's an audience that is desperately seeking this stuff. And
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Republicans have spent 30 years acting as though they could
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: just reap the whirlwind, just get the benefits from all
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: of this shit. You know, I was like, what will
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: it take? Like they are, it's a trap. It's a trap.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I was, it's very silly, but I was thinking about
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: like the monkey trap, which is that, you know, you
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: make a little hole in a coconut and you put
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a little banana in and the monkey grabs it and
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: won't let go. And he can't get his hand out
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: unless he lets go. Republicans are in A Trump trap.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: They have reached in to this coconut and they are
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: holding the prize and they won't let go. And all
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: they have to do is let go, but they can't
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: because they want what's inside. And we've been doing this
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: for years. There's no escape because of the collective action problem.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And they have spent decades basically training through right-wing media,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: millions upon millions of people to not accept anything but
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: the most fringiest of point of views is accurate. And
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: they're trapped with them. They are stuck. They don't know
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: what to do.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: You're right, John, that if he gets indicted, the old
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: prisoner's dilemma takes on, I guess, a new flavor.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Or a new meaning.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: But it is so hilarious watching these MAGA guys shouting
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: down Fox News. Basically, what they're saying is, lie to us.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: We're really mad at you for not lying to us.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: And maybe they don't get it. Maybe they just want
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: him to lie or they want Fox to lie in
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: service of their current cult leader, Donald Trump.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: But it's– I don't know. I enjoyed it, frankly.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: What I can't figure out is my instinct is to
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: enjoy it as well. And I have, right? And also
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: there's a political reason I have for this because I
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: think if the party is at war with itself and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: they end up primarying, you know, Brian Kemp and get
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: someone to the right of Brian Kemp and to the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: right of Doug Ducey and all these people, then they're
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: going to have a harder time winning elections. Though we
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: also back in 2016 thought that if they nominated Donald Trump,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: they would have a hard time winning elections. So I'm
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: not sure at this point if like, I know where
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the Republican base is. The Republican base will believe fucking
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: anything at this point. No conspiracy is too crazy. There's
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: no norm too sacred. Like, they are just gone. But,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you know, elections are still won with marginal voters. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: you could argue that even some of the Republicans that,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I think every Republican that won a House seat, that
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: flipped a House seat this time, was either a woman
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: or a person of color. because in the house level,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: they tried to nominate Republicans who didn't talk about Trump
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: too much. Uh, they're still fucking conservative as hell, but
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: they tried not to talk about Trump too much. They
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: tried to have candidates who looked more like the electrics
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: they were running. So like, I do wonder whether we
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: should be rooting for the Republican civil war or worried
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: that's going to produce more Trumps. I, The thing that's
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: fascinating to me.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Is Fox News is sticking with this broadly, even as
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Trump and the allies turn on Fox News. Republican senators
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: are sticking with Trump. Republican members of the House are
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: sticking with Trump, even as Trump turns on Brian Kemp,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: turns on Raffensperger, turns on fucking Bill Barr. as a
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: member of the deep state. Bill Barr may be getting
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: ready to quit. And like, yeah, like, like at some point,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: like when, I guess it'll never happen. They'll have to,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: they'll just be completely obliterated by the kind of right-wing
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: nationalist fringe, which is no longer a fringe, but a
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: control of the party. But it's like, how long until
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: you understand that this thing, they're Bain, you're the guy
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: that Bain puts his hands on and says, do you
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: feel in charge? Like over and over and over again, like,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: You're acting like you're running the show and these people
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: are helping you. At a certain point, don't you understand
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: that you're afraid of them? You won't tell them the truth.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: You defer to them every step of the way. They're
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: in charge.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm not rooting for a Republican civil war.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not cheering like this cult of a party getting
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: crazier and crazier and like the rise of QAnon. I
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: am rooting for and cheering the destruction of Fox News
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: because I think This much concentrated power in the hands
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: of Fox News is a huge reason why we have
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: gotten here today. And, you know, odds are we'll have
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: another Fox News primary in 2024 where the Republicans only
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: focus on those extreme right wing outlets. And maybe like Trump, like,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: you know, the old the old political strategy was you
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: sort of run to the right in the primary and
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: then you tack to the center. If you're a Republican,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: you just never even tack to the center because Fox
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: was so powerful that. that it helped him drive the
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: entire conversation. And I think that's just incredibly destabilizing for
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the whole country.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham the other day said he's basically going to
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: be a shadow president for the next four years. And
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: that if Donald Trump says a deal is bad in Congress,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: it won't pass. Republicans won't pass it. And if he
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: says a deal is good, it will pass. I mean,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that is.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: So like, let's just pause. OK, Lindsay, but that's not
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: even fucking happening right now. That is literally not happening.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump just called.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: For the NDAA to be changed or else he's going
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: to veto it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: The bill that funds the troops because he wanted because
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: he wants it to be harder on social media platforms.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: And Congress told him, no, man, what are you talking about?
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: That's ridiculous. And gave him the Heisman.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Like they constantly ignore him on matters of policy, especially
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: foreign policy. But they do like his messaging can hurt
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: or help them in all of their primaries.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting test, too, because if Trump
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: goes ahead with his promised veto of the defense bill,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: which always passes with big bipartisan majorities because, you know,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: that he wants to make sure that every military base
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: named after a Confederate soldier keeps that name and because
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: he's mad that the Twitter is mean to him. And
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: then Congress overrides his veto. I think it really will
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: mean that like, you know, Donald Trump doesn't have a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: lot of sway. I'm curious how that vote will go.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, they just know what he cares about.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: He doesn't care about the job of being president. He
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: cares about getting the job of being president. And whether
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: or not you veto the NDAA means you care about
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: policy and you're in the weeds and you're paying attention
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: to this stuff. All he cares about is watching cable
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: news all day and tweeting about himself.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: You know, same old story.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: That is all he cares about.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: I do. I will say, though, like, yes, like, okay,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: this internecine fight that takes down Fox News, like, okay,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: you cut off Fox News' head and what pops up?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Dan Bongino's podcast and Newsmax and OAN and all of
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: these fringe right-wing sites that are taking off that have
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: huge reach on Facebook, that have huge reach on social media.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: We have no insight into them. They're, like, completely opaque.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: I know you're a Bongino stan, but I don't think
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: you should be promoting that kind of content here. Like,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: I know you're always saying, like, bring me Dan, bring
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: me Dan, Bongino stan.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: And, like, I don't know. It just seems inappropriate.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Come into Crooked Media. Look, we're trying to get voices
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: from across the spectrum.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't stop talking. I just, you know, huge fan.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Is he using the fucking Axios report that Trump may
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: want to announce his 2024 bid? during the inauguration and
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: have like a split screen as he gets on Marine one.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: And that's actually a really big test though. Like don't,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: if like Fox news will put that on air.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: But like, I don't like, like, If you want to
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: show Marine One taking off, you go for it. But
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: if we're doing if we're cutting back and forth between
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Biden and that fucking rally, I will blow a gas.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Hundred percent.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Hey, Axios, you don't have to pretend that's as important
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: as a new president coming to power.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Give me a break.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: My guess is that most media institutions will be responsible.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: They are not.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: I do, too.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I don't mean it. Fox will probably do the split screen.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: But like you said, love, it depends on what hour
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: it is. If it's daytime, they might not. If it's nighttime,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: you know, Jeanine Pirro will only show that.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just sort of like, you know, libertarian by day,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: fascist by night. I do hope, you know, look, a
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: lot of people are making fun of the New York Times.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Peter Baker wrote a story suggesting that we were in
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: some sort of Shakespearean drama. The one thing I would
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: say is I hope Peter Baker understands there's no Act Six.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: That's it. Once Act 5 is over, we go home.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: I didn't like that.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Story, not because I'm not a fan of historical illusions
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: or good writing. It's just like, stop making what he
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: does seem so grandiose. He watches cable news and he
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: tweets from the toilet all day long. He is a sad,
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: pathetic man whose influence is clearly waning. And like, yes,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Judge Jeanine and her co-host and ice luge might show
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: the entire rally live when Trump announces his reelection. But
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: that doesn't mean the rest of us have to pretend
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: that he's important anymore.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: There's a constant contest about like how alarmed we should
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: all be about how like crazy he is. And you know,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: he's doing something there. It's not normal. It's like, yeah,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: we know it's been like this for four fucking years.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Nothing has changed. He never wants to go to work.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: He never cares about policy. He never like, it's all
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the fucking same. I, That's how I felt when I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: read it.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, is this yet another story about how
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: he doesn't care about the job and is tweeting from
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the bedroom?
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Like, are we?
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: That was actually what I felt when I read it.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, 30, according to 35 sources.
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Or like your fucking eyes and ears. Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: It's just we've been reading this story now for four years.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: And it's like what I actually felt when I was
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: reading about this is like, I am so fucking done
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: reading the news from the psychological perspective of this person.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I am so done with Trump as protagonist. Like I'm done.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Me too.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: But at least the Washington Post version of it was
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: just like it painted him for what he was, which
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: is just sort.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Of like a sad, ridiculous loser. Period.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Right. Which it's him as protagonist versus him is like
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: dry in the background.
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Like the point of that Georgia rally and talking about
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the rally was the runoff and the results of the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: runoff and how he might be affecting it. Not that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: he went down to Georgia.
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Like and I think like to the extent that he
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: is still has sort of the whole Republican Party by
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the throat, which he does. You kind of have to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: pay attention to that because their actions are driven by
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But what Donald Trump thinks, like doing it
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: from his perspective, it just doesn't matter.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: It's just not a Shakespearean tragedy. It's a Bravo show.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: And we're all about to turn it off.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Like, come on. I've been trying to think of some
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: sort of a pun. And the best I've come up
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: with is for Judge Jeanine. She's been launching a coup
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: de titos. I tried so many things in my head.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: That should have been our Crooked Media holiday drink.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's right. That's right.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think we can improve on that.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And so on that note, we will we will go
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: to love its interview with Rachel Maddow when we come back.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Joining us on the pod, she is the host of
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC and co-author of the
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: new book, Bagman. The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up and Spectacular
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House, a
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: new book out December 8th. Please welcome back Rachel Maddow.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: Hi, Sean. How are you?
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: I'm okay. It's so good to see you. I want
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to start by just, I want to talk about the book.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about what it means for this moment,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: but I just want to start by asking you how
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: you're doing because, you know, you spoke on your show
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: in a way that was so much more personal than
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: we'd ever heard you speak before about COVID and how
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: it impacted your family. How are you? How is Susan?
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Thank you for asking. That's very sweet of you. I'm fine. COVID-wise,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: I've been negative the whole time, even though Susan got it.
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: We were really lucky with testing, basically. Um, she knows
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: exactly how she was exposed. The person who exposed her
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: knew within a, like had symptoms the next day and
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: got tested the day after that. And Susan immediately got
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: tested like within the hour. And that allowed us to
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: find out she was positive and separate. And so I
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: got really lucky by virtue of the fact that we
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: had testing and effectively good contact contact tracing. But she
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: got really sick. And it was super terrifying in a
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: way that I will never forget that has changed me permanently.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: And she's better now. She's going to be fine. But
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: definitely having some of those long term the long-term sort
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: of a long tail of symptoms that a lot of people,
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: I think that most people have once they, when they
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: get considerably sick from it, but we're bottom line is
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: we're fine. And we went through a terrible scare. And
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: if anybody is not taking it seriously, just follow my, just,
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: just follow my instructions and take it seriously. And don't
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: deal such a terrifying thing to see somebody that you
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: love that sick and sick in a way that you like,
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: couldn't predict what was going to happen.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad she's out of the woods and you know,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I hope, you know, when you see people like Jim
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Jordan and others, uh, owning the libs by saying that
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: people shouldn't, you know, avoid contact and should do whatever
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: they want for Thanksgiving and Christmas, uh, you know, when
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I saw your sort of wrenching statement, and when I
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: see statements from doctors talking about sitting on the ground
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: in the middle of the ER and breaking down because
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: they feel so overwhelmed, it's a reminder that who you're
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: really owning are people. You're owning people. You're owning doctors.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: You're owning families. But I wanted to talk to you
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: about the book. So first of all, I loved the
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Bagman podcast. It was one of my favorite podcasts, one
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: of the great docuseries podcast. I loved it and I
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: learned a lot about it. And I was shocked by
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: just how corrupt Spiro Agnew was and just how many
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: parallels there are to this moment. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: they gave an interview to Jake Tapper over the weekend
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: in which they said the right things to me on
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: what the Justice Department should do, which is basically the
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Justice Department's independent you know, the next administration should follow
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: the law, the next administration should follow the facts, they
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: won't be influenced by politics. That was a welcome relief
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: because there'd been some murmurings about how we need to
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: move forward and we need to, can't look backwards. And
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you, you know, what are some
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: of the lessons as you were working on Bagman, thinking
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: about this corrupt vice president who was involved in open
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: bribery schemes in terms of this moment about this tension
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: between wanting to hold politicians accountable wanting to have a
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: system where politicians obey the law while there are being
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: political realities and wanting to focus on healthcare and the
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: economy and what have you. How have you been thinking
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: about that?
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: It's funny because... I think part of the reason that
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: Bagman was so well received as a podcast is in
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: part the timing, because it was like definitely not about Trump.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: And it was definitely like not about something that connected
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: directly to today's politics. And so I think it was
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: like more of an unadulterated pleasure because it didn't feel
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: all that news adjacent. when he first put the podcast
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: out a year and a half or whatever it was ago.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: But where the bag man story ends up right now
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: for the book ends up being super news adjacent because
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: he is the first president or vice president who not
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: just committed crimes, but like provably committed crimes and prosecutors
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: had to contend with whether or not to charge him
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: and how to deal with it. And that's exactly where
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: we are right now with individual one. with President Trump.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: And it turns out that his sort of denouement in
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: office is as Shakespearean and weird as any of us
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: could have imagined, but there looms this question of what
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: to do about his involvement in felonies, particularly felonies for
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: which other people have done prison time, right? Michael Cohen
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: did prison time for a felony that not just Michael Cohen,
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: but prosecutors say the president directed him to commit. And
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: that whole hush money scheme, just that alone was a
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: felony campaign finance violation for which other people had to
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: do time. And the question of him getting off from
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: it is weird. And Agnew is the closest contention we
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: have with that in history. And the resolution of Agnew
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: was all about trading justice for safety, right? You traded
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: away the prospect of him going jail for like they
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: had 40 felonies lined up to put in an indictment
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: against him. They traded away that possibility to get him
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: to quit so that he couldn't end up being president
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: when Nixon ultimately fell out through Watergate. There's nothing like
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: that now. And Trump will leave office under the circumstances
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: that we're living through right now. And so that does
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: put us sort of once again in fresh territory in
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: terms of justice. And I don't like the idea of
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: of politicians and past presidents being prosecuted. I don't like
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: the idea of what the Republicans will do with that
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: precedent when they decide that whatever they're going to call
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: a crime from some Democratic president is worth following that
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: same precedent. But the idea that he just gets to
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: walk away paying no price at all with the Justice
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: Department and prosecutors just never contending with what he did,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: it just doesn't, the balance isn't there. The balance isn't right.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's hard to It's hard to talk about
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: a counterfactual, right? Like we, you know, Spirou Agnew launches
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: basically a kind of a fake news campaign against his charges,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: which he ultimately gives up on so that he could
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: kind of make this deal where he trades basically pleading
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: no contest to something, doesn't do jail time. They drop
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: the prosecution. He resigns. Nixon gets a full pardon. The
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: country moves forward. And yet here we are all these
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: years later. And, you know, you can draw a straight
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: line from the when what happens back then to the
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: kind of the gauzy, blurry way we talk about how
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: the law applies to a president. Do you wonder what
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: would have happened if somebody like Agnew had the commitment
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: to the lie of somebody like Donald Trump? Isn't Donald
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Trump really taking what that corrupt person did and taking
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: it to its logical extreme, never giving an inch, never surrendering,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: and having a much even bigger platform to use at
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: his disposal to promulgate the lies?
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yeah. And I think it's a totally good insight
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: into where those paths diverge because there's this amazing moment
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: with Agnew. You have to remember that Agnew and Nixon
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: didn't like each other Nixon is like increasingly on the
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: hook for Watergate, is really trying to survive. Agnew's on
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: the hook for a completely unrelated scandal that has nothing
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: to do with Watergate, but these two things are coincident
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: in terms of time. And there's this amazing moment where
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: Agnew goes to the Speaker of the House, goes to
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: the Democratic Speaker of the House at that point, Karl Alpert,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: who was like four foot 11 and like this incredible
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: little bowling ball force of magic. He goes to Karl
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: Alpert and like basically begs him to impeach him. Says like,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: I want you to bring a congressional investigation of me. Basically,
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: I want you to start impeachment proceedings against me. And
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: Karl Alpert is like, this is weird. Nobody's ever asked
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: to be impeached before. And the funny scene where he
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: gives that, he then shows Agnew's sort of offer to
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: the House Judiciary Chairman, Peter Rodino, who responds to Agnew's lawyer,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: tell him to go F himself.
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: We're not doing you the favor of impeaching you. You
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: are going to get indicted and you're going to go
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: to prison and we're not going to do this other
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: thing in order to get you out of it. That
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: was Agnew trying to play his odds in the House
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: and the Senate. He was like, oh, it's a Democratic
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: controlled House. They'll probably impeach me with the Republican. They'll
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: never get enough Republicans in the Senate to remove me.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: That's fine. Maybe that will talk everybody out of this
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: indictment idea. And They didn't do it. But that's in
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: part because the Justice Department was so stalwart. Elliot Richardson
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: was so ramrod straight and had so much integrity and
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: was so not getting bullied out of this that everybody
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: believed that a prosecution was possible. And the thing with
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Trump is that he's willing to call everybody's bluff. He's
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: willing to double and triple down whatever he's in trouble for.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: He's always willing to do more, more, more of it.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: And he will follow the line until the very end,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: in part because he convinces himself of it. But the
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: difference now is, is that everybody in positions of power,
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: every Republican could potentially hold them to account, especially Bill
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: Barr's Justice Department, right? They can't be trusted to do
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: the right thing. And so the more he pushes, the
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: bigger the envelope gets. And that's the difference. The difference
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: is not bad men holding power. Like that's a constant, right?
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: Agnew and Trump, bad men holding power, doing bad things
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: with it. The difference is whether or not law enforcement
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: can be counted on. and whether or not there are
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: people of principle in positions where they're going to hold
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: them accountable. Bill Barr versus Elliot Richardson is the divergence.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: Trump and Agnew are basically the same animal.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: So I want to talk about how Trump has been
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: using this sort of right-wing propaganda machine, sort of the
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: nascent version that appears in Bagman. We talk a lot
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: about democratic strategy. We talk about fundraising. We talk about messaging.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: We talk about whether to fund the police is an
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: inappropriate slogan. We talk about what Democrats could say. It
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: seems like a lot of times we're looking for our
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: keys where the lights are shining because there's this big, huge,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: there's this festering crisis of misinformation on the right. It
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: is what has led to COVID denialism. It is what
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: has led to Trump remaining popular when someone like Nixon
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: became less popular. How are you thinking about that right
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: now as you approach your job, as you approach this
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: incredible lack of trust in journalism that's part of a
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: strategy on the right?
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: I've been thinking a lot about this, in part because
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: I feel like there's a little bit of a feeling,
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: at least in my part of the news business, that's like, okay,
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: this election was a huge test in terms of dealing
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: with real information versus misinformation and whether or not stunts
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: like the Hunter Biden laptop and all that other stuff
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: was going to get laundered through the mainstream media the
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: way all of that disinformation stuff did in 2016. I
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: think the media did a better job refusing to go
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: along with those reindeer games this time. Not a perfect job,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: but a better job of it. But what happens now?
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's one technological thing that's happening along the
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: same time that we're seeing this huge disinformation push on
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: the right. And that is that we really do have
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: people cutting the cord, people not having access, people not
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: watching television, people not accessing traditional print media in the
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: same way that they do, and people being more online,
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: purely online in terms of their information gathering. Well, there's
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: no purely online daily live news in the way that
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: there is watching TV. And I'm not saying the TV
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: news is perfect, but, you know, podcasts are one thing.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: You know, there's some streaming news, but it doesn't, nobody
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: watches it. There are not many people watch it. There's
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: a lot of interesting like documentaries and people doing weekly
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: series and stuff like that, that's working. But in terms
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: of like flipping on the news at 6.30 or flipping
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: on the news at 9.00 PM and seeing what's going
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: on there, People are getting away from that way of
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: consuming news. And the resulting media landscape is less live
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: news and less remunerative live news and more fractured in
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: terms of the right-wing stuff getting really kooky. And so
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: I don't know what that's going to do in the
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: long run. I don't think people have less appetite for information.
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: but there's gonna be less traditionally curated and edited live
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: daily news sources that are consumed by people under the
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: age of 50 for the foreseeable future. And I think
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: that probably just means that our brains get more sort
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: of Facebook addled in the future than they are even now.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, how do you think about that? You guys
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: have built a really big platform that's news-based and information-based,
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: but it's different.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, you know, Look, I've said this
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: to you in the past. I think one of the
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: great mistakes is saying that Facebook has made us polarized
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: or that our media ecosystem is polarized. My signal example
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: of that is the world would be a better place
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: if Sean Hannity were the Rachel Maddow of the right
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: because he would have integrity and he'd respect his audience. Yeah,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: he'd come at it with a point of view, but
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: he'd be sharing information not trying to trick people, which
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: is fundamentally what he's doing that is different. And so
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I guess part of it is, I think, what I've
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: been thinking about is how do we change the language
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: that we use around this? Because actually, you know, we're
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: no more, you know, when a group of people get
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: on a rocket ship and go to Mars, we don't
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: say the Earth is getting farther away from the astronauts.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: You know, we don't talk about it that way. You know,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: we have a big, vast, flawed, but rigorous news environment.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And actually progressive news is part of that environment and
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: it reaches independents, it reaches liberals, it reaches nonpartisan people
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: to some extent. And then you have this sort of bubble,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: this ecosystem on the right. And once people fall into it,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: it hits sticky, they get stuck inside of it. And Nixon, Agnew,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: it's a good example because one of the reasons we're
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: not talking about, as you say, President Agnew, is because
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: they lost Republicans. They lost Republicans.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: George W.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Bush lost Republicans, right? When they were failing, when reality
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: set in, when they were corrupt, when they had participated
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: in catastrophes of one form or another, they lost enough
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: of their party to lose political power. That isn't happening anymore.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: And so to me, I don't know what the answer is,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: but I do think it starts by having an honest
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: conversation about what's going on. We're not polarized. Something else
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: is happening.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a divergence from reality. And there's an instinct
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: toward that on the right, and there has been for
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: a long time. I mean, one of the little vignettes
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: in the book is when Agnew was really up against
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: the ropes and Nixon was really trying to force him
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: to resign because he was trying to basically split the,
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: he didn't want the impeachment machinery to start up for
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: Agnew because then he thought it would hit him. And
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: so he's trying to get Agnew to resign basically to
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: head off both the potential prosecution and the potential impeachment.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: And everybody's advising Agnew to do that. And he started
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: thinking about it, but then he has this kind of
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: Trumpian moment and he goes, no, I've still got my base.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: They'll believe whatever I tell them. And he goes out
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: to this Republican women's convention in California. And it's this
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: great moment where he says, I will not resign if indicted.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: And then he just says it again, right away. I
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: will not resign if indicted. And the crowd goes crazy,
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: fight Spiro, fight, fight Spiro, fight. Like you're my hero,
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: this whole thing. And the reporters who were covering that
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: moment in LA in 1973 said that the thing that
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: they weren't prepared for as reporters was all the Republican
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: women in that audience turning on them and screaming at
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: them and telling them that they were, I mean, they
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: weren't using the phrase enemy of the people, but basically
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: telling them that. And there's one, I think it was
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: the LA Times, one outlet noted that some of the
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: women in the audience brought their own tape recorders so
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: they could record Agnew's message, so they could circulate it themselves,
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: because they knew the media would take it out of
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: context and do it wrong. Like, there is something that
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: always dovetails between that authoritarian, corrupt, you know, screw the elites,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: you know, populism, and the anti, often anti-Semitic, anti-elite media
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: thing that is... It's a permanent thing. I think they've
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: just figured out a way to monetize it right now
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: in a way that just means that we've got all
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: of these nascent networks as well as the impulse on
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: their side to look for that sort of thing.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a vice, right? It's a vice. We all
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: have it, right? We all have it, this desire to
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: read only things we agree with, to not challenge ourselves,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: to not question ourselves. But it's remarkable what happens when
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: that vice is embraced. It turns out, we talk about
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: the supply problem, right? But it turns out there are
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions of people who really just
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: want to feel good about what they already thought when
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: they woke up in the morning. And we all have
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: that to some degree. But when you build a political
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: movement around it, the answers are simple. The enemies are obvious.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: The enemies are the source of our problems. And you
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: have leaders that accept that, encourage it, or ignore it
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: and try to reap the whirlwind. You end up in
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: where we're at now. It's funny, you know, Richardson, the
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: attorney general in Bagman, He has incredible integrity. I teared
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: up when I listened to it the first time because
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: it was like, here's somebody standing up for it with integrity.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: And you see a parallel now when you have some
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: low level Republican official giving a speech about integrity to
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: certify the vote. What do you do when it requires
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: courage in a system to just be honest? When the
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: incentives are aligned so that being fair, being impartial, doing
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: your job, Requires personal risk.
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I think the nature of the job has
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: to change, right? If you take the personal risk, you
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: do the courageous thing for the right reasons and stand
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: up and say why you're doing it and say, let
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: the chips fall where they may. And you get rewarded
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: for that. that means that you are in a job
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: and you are perhaps part of a movement that is
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: going to be reality-based and that is going to reward
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: integrity and that is going to be meritocratic in that way.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: If you are in that kind of job where you
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: stand up and you do all those things and you
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: get destroyed because of it and you're unemployable and you're
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: seen as a disgrace, then you are part of a
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: movement that is not meritocratic, that in a sense, that
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: is advancing its aims and has as its core values,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: something other than integrity, fact-based advancement and rational argument. I mean,
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: this is why scholars of fascism are well-employed right now, right?
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: Like if it's not about competing, to win the argument
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: with the opposition. And if you have the better argument,
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: then you get power and then you use it to
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: implement those ideas that allowed you to win the argument.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: If you're not doing that, if instead you are trying
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: to rid the world of your opponent and anything is
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: worthy of that, any tactics are worthy of that aim
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: because your opponent needs to be eradicated because they're evil,
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: because they're child eating Satanists or whatever. That's a different
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: kind of thing. It's not politics. It's a it's a
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: power movement rather than a governing movement. And I mean, John,
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: I think it'll be like it'll be really interesting to
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: see if Trumpism does succeed in kind of hurting Fox News.
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: It's interesting when Trump gave his 46-minute weird press conference
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: from the White House, he did that like on Facebook, right?
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: And they're doing all of this anti-election stuff on One
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: America and Newsmax and these even more obscure things. Mike
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: Flynn's first interview after his pardon was with, I can't
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: even name it, like one of these crazy QAnon things. Yeah.
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: And meanwhile, Trump every day, Fox News sucks, Fox News sucks,
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: don't watch Fox, don't watch it. And Fox has taken
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: the hit since the election because of that, both because
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: Trump voters would be moralized, but because he's telling them
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: not to do it. If the Republican Party no longer
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: has a big vehicle like Fox News, telling them what
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: their message is every day, telling them what their values are,
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: telling them who's the hero and who's the goat, the
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: splintering potential within the Republican Party between Trumpism and other
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: types of republicanism and all that stuff, I think it's very,
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: very unpredictable because they have had messaging that held them
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: together more than anything with a very big, powerful media
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: entity that is now sucking wind. If it doesn't come back,
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: I think we're going to see how much republicanism and
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: the individual careers of people trying to decide whether to
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: do the right thing depended on how Fox treated them.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: When that's gone, I don't know what's going to happen.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's interesting, right? What we are now seeing is, look,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Fox has been one of the most pernicious forces in
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: our politics. But inside of Fox, there were people that
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: were actually mitigating some of these incredibly what were fringe
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: right wing fascistic voices. And, you know, talk about supply
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: and demand. The viewers have searched for something that is
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: telling them what they want.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Newsmax is doing gangbusters numbers on the coup beat, whereas
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Fox News has struggled. One last question on this. You
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: said talked about being inside of politics versus being outside
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: of politics, which is which is how I've been thinking
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: about it, too. Do you think the less opinionated journalists
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: at places like NBC News, at the Washington Post, do
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: you think they understand this distinction between when they're inside
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: of politics, when they're outside of politics, when they're covering
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: participants in a debate, and when they're actually defenders of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: a system just by existing, just by trying to kind
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: of tell an honest story? I don't know.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like we have gotten more sophisticated
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: so that I'm not hearing a lot of the same
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: sort of dumb question that I... had been fending off
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: for my entire adult life, which is like, whatever happened
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: to objective news where the person giving you the news
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: had no point of view at all and it was
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: just straight facts and now we don't have that anymore.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: Like, really?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, definitely nobody had an opinion. Walter Cronkite definitely wasn't
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: coming from anywhere, right? Like this idea of this false
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: voice of God objectivity, which was never true. I mean,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: just if you were a gay person who lived in
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: any part of the 80s or 90s and was contending
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: with the AIDS crisis and dealing with the mainstream media
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: around that, like you tell me, that the mainstream media
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: was just the facts and voice of God and not
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: at all taking one side or another in a crisis.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: It's always driven me crazy, that sort of facile, reductive
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: idea about transition and media. I feel like we've gotten
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: more sophisticated about that, that people do sort of realize
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: now that whoever's speaking, they're always coming from somewhere. And
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: you are better off, for transparency's sake, knowing where they're
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: coming from than pretending like they're above it all and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: have no personal experience that colors what they do. That said,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: I think different media organizations have different missions. And the
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: most important thing for me, like the most important litmus
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: test as to what sort of a news organization you are,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: is if you correct things when you get them wrong.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: Like if you are found to have said something factually incorrect,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: not if you had an opinion that didn't pan out
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: the way you said it was going to, but literally
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: if you said something that wasn't true and you find
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: out that it's not true, are you expected to correct it?
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: Are there standards? Is there an editor? Is there a,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: you know... That to me is becoming sort of the difference,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: the important difference between different types of media outlets more
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: than this, this facile idea that, you know, some are,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: some are independent and some are biased.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Rachel, last question. What are you streaming right now? The
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: end of the day, what, what's your, what's your, what's
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: your pleasure viewing, garbage viewing, guilty pleasure, if you will.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: Is Susan awake or asleep?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Uh, I'd like both. I'd like to hear both actually.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: That's actually a great, a great, that's a great distinction.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: It's important because a, she has COVID fatigue and so
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: she's falling asleep and B I don't like to, I don't,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: if we're watching something together, as soon as she's falling asleep,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: I always turn it off and then I'm going to
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: watch something else. So the thing I'm watching, if Susan
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: is asleep is called Cobra.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: Which is a not very good British like situation groom
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: drama about there being a solar storm that knocks out
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: the power in England and the prime minister makes terrible decisions,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: but he's doing his best, but he's a little hot tempered.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Like solar storm. Okay.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: I'm there. When Susan is awake, if it's a bad day,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: we're watching the great British baking show and I make
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: no apologies for it whatsoever.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Nor should you.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: It's the best produced television in the history of television.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: And if it's a good day, we're probably watching the crown.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: You threw season four. Are we in season four?
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: We're taking it slow. We're trying to make it last. Yeah.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: Okay. I just, I get like, it's too good.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: Like you can't like, it's too good. It's too good.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: Literally, if the dog barks, I go back 15 seconds.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: Something might have happened while he was barking.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: And yet, yeah, something in this show where nothing happens
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: might have happened. Look, I don't care. I've always despised
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: caring about monarchy as a good American, but I will
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: say that I did Google, did Charles fall off a horse?
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: I just want to know. Yeah. Rachel Maddow, thank you
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: so much. The book is Bagman. The podcast was absolutely incredible.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to read the book. It's a fascinating,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: incredibly relevant story. Everybody check it out. Thanks so much
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: for being here.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: John, thanks. It's great to see you, my friend.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Rachel Maddow for joining us today. And we'll
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: talk to you guys later.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: Rudy has COVID. Rudy has COVID. Oh, I forgot.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Shout out Bungino. Rudy has COVID.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: Again.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: The least surprising news ever. I'm shocked it took this long.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And hey, Andrew, you really screwed me on
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: that joke. You didn't put the music on my terrible
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: joke until after it was over and I caught it.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Quinn Lewis, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: videos every week.