Latest / Pod Save America / “America’s Next Top MAGA.”
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
- 0:02Speaker 1: restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening
- 0:06Speaker 1: our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on
- 0:08Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors,
- 0:12Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
- 0:14Speaker 1: headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's
- 0:17Speaker 1: more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these
- 0:20Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
- 0:22Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
- 0:25Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- 0:49Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- 0:52Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
- 0:53Speaker 2: On today's show, Democrats try to govern while Republicans fight
- 0:56Speaker 2: each other over Lauren Boebert and vaccine requirements. Law professor
- 1:00Speaker 2: Leah Littman joins to talk about the Supreme Court case
- 1:03Speaker 2: that may end Roe versus Wade as we know it.
- 1:06Speaker 2: And Dr. Mehmet Oz shakes up the 2022 midterms by
- 1:09Speaker 2: carpetbagging his way into the Pennsylvania Senate race. But first,
- 1:14Speaker 2: if you're in the market for a quick, smart, hilariously
- 1:17Speaker 2: written rundown of the news every night, Subscribe to Crooked's
- 1:21Speaker 2: What A Day newsletter at crooked.com slash newsletters. And if
- 1:26Speaker 2: you're binging movies, television, and comic books over your holiday break,
- 1:29Speaker 2: then don't miss out on new episodes of X-Ray Vision
- 1:32Speaker 2: with Jason Concepcion. This month, Jason will revisit the Spider-Man
- 1:36Speaker 2: franchise ahead of the release of the much-buzzed-about Spider-Man No
- 1:40Speaker 2: Way Home. You can catch episodes of X-Ray Vision every
- 1:43Speaker 2: Friday wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get
- 1:47Speaker 2: to the news. We talked on Tuesday's pod about what
- 1:51Speaker 2: President Biden and Democrats in Congress are focused on right now,
- 1:54Speaker 2: avoiding a government shutdown and a catastrophic default, passing an
- 1:58Speaker 2: economic plan that would lower costs for most people, and
- 2:01Speaker 2: bringing an end to the pandemic, which Joe Biden just
- 2:03Speaker 2: gave a speech about this morning, talked about providing more
- 2:08Speaker 2: cheap at-home testing, more vaccinations, more boosters, etc. But today
- 2:14Speaker 2: we thought we'd check in on what Republicans are up to,
- 2:17Speaker 2: which is doing their best to fuck this all up
- 2:19Speaker 2: and fight culture wars so they can win the midterms.
- 2:22Speaker 2: To wit, House Republicans are fighting with each other over
- 2:25Speaker 2: what to do about Congresswoman Lauren Boebert suggesting that Congresswoman
- 2:29Speaker 2: Ilhan Omar is a terrorist because she's Muslim, and Senate
- 2:33Speaker 2: Republicans are fighting with each other over whether to shut
- 2:36Speaker 2: down the government unless Joe Biden stops trying to get
- 2:39Speaker 2: people vaccinated. Let's start with Boebert's hateful garbage and Congresswoman
- 2:45Speaker 2: Omar's response. Here's a clip.
- 2:47Speaker 3: And there she is, Ilhan Omar. And I said, well,
- 2:52Speaker 3: she doesn't have a backpack.
- 2:53Speaker 4: We should be fine.
- 2:55Speaker 5: So we only had one floor to go.
- 3:03Speaker 6: And I was like, do I say it or not?
- 3:05Speaker 3: And looked over. And I said, oh, look, the jihad
- 3:07Speaker 3: squad decided to show up for work today.
- 3:10Speaker 6: But the most pervasive is the constant suggestion that that
- 3:14Speaker 6: all Muslims are terrorists and should be feared. So when
- 3:19Speaker 6: a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague member of
- 3:23Speaker 6: the jihad squad and falsifies a story to suggest that
- 3:30Speaker 6: I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just
- 3:34Speaker 6: attack on me. but on millions of American Muslims across
- 3:39Speaker 6: this country.
- 3:40Speaker 2: So that was the first clip was, of course, from
- 3:43Speaker 2: a fundraiser that Boebert had attended in September. She's also
- 3:48Speaker 2: reportedly said it a few other times. This is something
- 3:50Speaker 2: she enjoys saying because she's fucking nuts and an awful person.
- 3:55Speaker 2: Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar have both been
- 3:58Speaker 2: kicked off all House committees for promoting violence against Democrats.
- 4:03Speaker 2: You think the same thing should happen to Boebert here?
- 4:06Speaker 3: I think we should just start out by saying how
- 4:09Speaker 3: dangerous this rhetoric is. The Republican Party is a political
- 4:13Speaker 3: party that has normalized violence as a legitimate political solution.
- 4:18Speaker 3: That's what happened in the Capitol in January. That is
- 4:21Speaker 3: what happened when– and we know that people take the
- 4:26Speaker 3: words from Republican politicians and right-wing media figures and act
- 4:30Speaker 3: on them. It's what happened in Texas where someone took
- 4:34Speaker 3: an assault rifle to a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood because they
- 4:38Speaker 3: were afraid of replacement theory, something that a number of Republicans,
- 4:41Speaker 3: including but primarily Tucker Carlson, talk about. We saw that
- 4:45Speaker 3: with the pipe bombs that a Trump supporter mailed to
- 4:47Speaker 3: a group of people who also happened to be the
- 4:49Speaker 3: exact same group of people that– including reporters that Donald
- 4:52Speaker 3: Trump attacks all the time. So this is dangerous and
- 4:56Speaker 3: this is putting someone at risk and not just Ilhan Omar,
- 4:59Speaker 3: every Muslim. This idea that she points out that a
- 5:02Speaker 3: Muslim is a terrorist is very, very dangerous and has
- 5:07Speaker 3: gotten many people already hurt and killed in this country.
- 5:12Speaker 3: I think the question about the committees is complex. I
- 5:19Speaker 3: don't think Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have any option
- 5:22Speaker 3: other than to kick her off her committees because you
- 5:25Speaker 3: simply cannot allow a member of Congress to direct violence
- 5:30Speaker 3: at another member of Congress without sanction. The system cannot work.
- 5:35Speaker 3: And in a normal world with a normal Republican Party,
- 5:37Speaker 3: this would be an overwhelmingly bipartisan move. It was only
- 5:41Speaker 3: a couple of years ago that they all kicked, Republicans included,
- 5:44Speaker 3: kicked Steve King, the white supremacist congressman from Iowa, off
- 5:49Speaker 3: his committees. Now, a decade too late, and only when
- 5:52Speaker 3: he became a political problem, not because they had a
- 5:53Speaker 3: moral opposition to what he was saying. But here we are.
- 5:57Speaker 3: Even though it's the right thing to do, I think
- 5:59Speaker 3: there's a problem. Here's the rub, which is Lauren Boebert
- 6:03Speaker 3: isn't a relevant human being, but she is the picture
- 6:06Speaker 3: of relevancy. In a normal world, there's something interesting about her.
- 6:10Speaker 3: She's got no idea, no platform, no story. She is
- 6:13Speaker 3: just a junior member of Congress. And in a normal world,
- 6:16Speaker 3: she would wander the halls of Congress for a decade
- 6:19Speaker 3: in anonymity until one day she was fortunate enough to
- 6:23Speaker 3: chair a subcommittee, right? That's what her life would be.
- 6:26Speaker 3: But that's not the world we live in anymore. We
- 6:27Speaker 3: live in an attention economy. And what she has figured
- 6:31Speaker 3: out is the way to have relevance, to have importance,
- 6:35Speaker 3: have political powers to gain attention. How do you gain attention?
- 6:38Speaker 3: In right-wing circles, you do horribly outrageous and offensive things.
- 6:42Speaker 3: And you're doing it for the specific purpose of provoking
- 6:45Speaker 3: a response. And the harsher that response, the greater validation
- 6:50Speaker 3: your action is of your importance and your relevance. And
- 6:53Speaker 3: so while I think Democrats absolutely should kick her off
- 6:56Speaker 3: her committees, we should do that knowing, I think knowing
- 7:00Speaker 3: full well that it's not a deterrence. It's going to
- 7:02Speaker 3: mean that more Republicans do what she did because this
- 7:06Speaker 3: is their only path to power. And this is, I mean,
- 7:11Speaker 3: this is the, I mean, it's a sad statement about
- 7:13Speaker 3: our media ecosystem as a Republican party, but this is
- 7:15Speaker 3: sort of where we are. Yeah.
- 7:17Speaker 2: I think the broader question is what is the best
- 7:20Speaker 2: way to prevent the Republican politicians, Republican pundits, more and
- 7:25Speaker 2: more people in the Republican Party from inciting violence against Democrats.
- 7:30Speaker 2: That's what we're talking about here. And I do think
- 7:32Speaker 2: that as we're trying to figure out, okay, if we're
- 7:34Speaker 2: going to kick people off committees, what's a fair standard?
- 7:37Speaker 2: I don't think it's calling people names or just purely
- 7:41Speaker 2: offensive language. And I don't think that's what we're talking
- 7:44Speaker 2: about here. We're talking about language that incites violence. That's
- 7:48Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Greene has uttered that kind of language. Paul
- 7:51Speaker 2: Gosar by posting an image, has tried to incite violence.
- 7:55Speaker 2: And I think that the Lauren Boebert situation falls into
- 7:58Speaker 2: that category as well. Another thing that Ilhan Omar did
- 8:03Speaker 2: this week at her press conference is she played a
- 8:05Speaker 2: voicemail of a death threat that she received just about
- 8:09Speaker 2: an hour or two after these comments from Boebert surfaced.
- 8:13Speaker 2: And when you listen to that, you realize how scary
- 8:16Speaker 2: it must be for her and how scary it must
- 8:19Speaker 2: be for Muslims across the country. when they hear a
- 8:23Speaker 2: member of Congress who has some position of authority, even
- 8:27Speaker 2: if she's quite junior, saying that all Muslims are terrorists
- 8:32Speaker 2: because they're Muslim, because of their religion, which is the
- 8:34Speaker 2: most anti-American thing that I can think of. And so
- 8:37Speaker 2: you're right. Here's the thing. Republicans take the House. Are
- 8:41Speaker 2: they gonna kick Democrats off their committees? Yeah, probably. Probably
- 8:46Speaker 2: a lot more than just a few Democrats. They might
- 8:48Speaker 2: kick them all off their committees. I mean, who knows?
- 8:52Speaker 2: Who the fuck knows? But, like, I don't know that
- 8:55Speaker 2: we can sort of change our behavior or base our
- 8:59Speaker 2: behavior on what they might do. I do think it's
- 9:01Speaker 2: important for us to have a fair standard. I think
- 9:03Speaker 2: if members of Congress are calling each other fucking assholes,
- 9:06Speaker 2: that's probably not enough to get them kicked off the committee.
- 9:09Speaker 2: I really do. You know, like, I think that we
- 9:11Speaker 2: can't take it too far. But incitements of violence, yeah,
- 9:14Speaker 2: that should fucking qualify. That should qualify.
- 9:16Speaker 3: I mean, John, Republicans are trying to kick members of
- 9:18Speaker 3: their own party off the committees for the mortal sin
- 9:21Speaker 3: of supporting a bill that Mitch McConnell supports.
- 9:23Speaker 6: Roads.
- 9:24Speaker 2: Yeah, roads.
- 9:25Speaker 3: So I'm getting the sense they're probably going to kick
- 9:27Speaker 3: some Democrats off.
- 9:28Speaker 2: I think you're exactly right. Inciting violence by supporting roads.
- 9:32Speaker 2: Roads and bridges.
- 9:33Speaker 3: Like right beneath inciting violence is supporting bipartisan roads and bridges.
- 9:38Speaker 3: Those are the two things that get you cut from
- 9:40Speaker 3: your committees.
- 9:41Speaker 2: So there is exhaustingly another angle to the story, which
- 9:45Speaker 2: is the intraparty feud that erupted when Republican Congresswoman Nancy
- 9:49Speaker 2: Mace called Boebert's comments disgusting. Marjorie Taylor Greene then tweeted
- 9:55Speaker 2: that Nancy Mace is trash. And Nancy Mace then called
- 9:59Speaker 2: Greene bad. crazy by tweeting a bat emoji, a poop emoji,
- 10:03Speaker 2: and a clown emoji. I'm saying these words. I can't
- 10:07Speaker 2: believe I'm saying this. Here we are, 2021. Here's your
- 10:11Speaker 2: political analysis for the day. It, of course, went on
- 10:15Speaker 2: from there. I believe there were some Twitter dunks over
- 10:17Speaker 2: a misspelling of the word yore. which is always a
- 10:20Speaker 2: sign that you really fucking nailed someone on Twitter. If
- 10:23Speaker 2: you're getting them over the grammatical error about your, that's
- 10:27Speaker 2: always the best dunk. Kevin McCarthy met with both Republicans
- 10:31Speaker 2: in a failed attempt to stop the fight, but of
- 10:33Speaker 2: course still refuses to say anything publicly about Bovert's comments
- 10:36Speaker 2: because he needs the support of every deranged monster in
- 10:39Speaker 2: his caucus in order to become speaker. Dan, do you
- 10:42Speaker 2: have a reaction to either the emojis, the grammar mishap,
- 10:47Speaker 2: Or what this entire fight says about the internal dynamics
- 10:50Speaker 2: of the Republican Party?
- 10:51Speaker 3: Well, I would like to give you some credit first,
- 10:54Speaker 3: which is because our lives are so boring. At a period,
- 10:59Speaker 3: I'm sure before 6 a.m. recently, I texted you the
- 11:03Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet. And you said, haven't been on
- 11:06Speaker 3: Twitter yet. Has everyone started dunking on her for confusing
- 11:10Speaker 3: your– with an apostrophe– and Y-O-U-R? And then lo and behold,
- 11:14Speaker 3: then we all had a good chuckle at how annoying
- 11:16Speaker 3: people can be. And lo and behold, here comes Nancy
- 11:18Speaker 3: Mace in her response, which I'm sure there was a
- 11:21Speaker 3: whole committee of Republican staffers who worked on this to
- 11:25Speaker 3: dunk on her for grammar.
- 11:26Speaker 2: And now you got her. You got her.
- 11:28Speaker 3: There's nothing on this planet that would make me side
- 11:32Speaker 3: with Marjorie Taylor Greene. If I had been in a
- 11:34Speaker 3: desert for a month, I would not accept a glass
- 11:36Speaker 3: of water from her. But Nancy Mace, you almost put
- 11:39Speaker 3: me there by responding with the grammar dunk. Was there
- 11:45Speaker 3: something bigger here than that?
- 11:48Speaker 2: There's the Kevin McCarthy of it all.
- 11:49Speaker 3: Yeah, he's an impotent loser. He has no control. The
- 11:57Speaker 3: way this played out for Kevin McCarthy is the product
- 12:00Speaker 3: of how Republican leaders in the House have been doing
- 12:02Speaker 3: this since the Tea Party folks showed up in 2010.
- 12:06Speaker 3: John Boehner catered to these people. Paul Ryan catered to
- 12:10Speaker 3: these people. Kevin McCarthy became Speaker only because he proved
- 12:13Speaker 3: himself the most willing to appease the most extreme flank
- 12:18Speaker 3: of the party. And so this is why the tail
- 12:20Speaker 3: always wags the dog of the party. Kevin McCarthy is
- 12:22Speaker 3: a caretaker of this crazy caucus, nothing more, nothing less.
- 12:27Speaker 2: You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene said the other day, we're
- 12:30Speaker 2: not the fringe of the party, we're the base. And
- 12:33Speaker 2: she's right. Yeah. Totally agree with Marjorie Taylor green.
- 12:35Speaker 3: My God, this is almost, this is one and a
- 12:38Speaker 3: half agreement with Marjorie Taylor green.
- 12:40Speaker 2: But it's like, I do think not to dive back
- 12:43Speaker 2: into the Virginia results. We're not going to do that,
- 12:45Speaker 2: but like.
- 12:46Speaker 3: I have that later. So it's good.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Okay, good. What Glenn Young can pulled off there. I
- 12:51Speaker 2: do not think will be easy for the party as
- 12:53Speaker 2: a whole. Uh, like, and look, voting is different than
- 12:57Speaker 2: internal Republican party dynamics within the house, of course, but like,
- 13:01Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is going to do whatever it takes to
- 13:03Speaker 2: keep these people happy. The Marjorie Taylor Greene's and the
- 13:05Speaker 2: Lauren Boebert's and the Paul Gosar's and all the crazy
- 13:08Speaker 2: in his caucus, because otherwise he will lose his job
- 13:11Speaker 2: or he'll lose his chance to become speaker if Republicans
- 13:14Speaker 2: take the House. And you know what that means? That
- 13:16Speaker 2: means we'll get an even crazier leader. We've been saying
- 13:19Speaker 2: this for a while. We lost John Boehner. We got
- 13:21Speaker 2: Paul Ryan, who was further right. We lost Paul Ryan.
- 13:23Speaker 2: We got Kevin McCarthy, who was further right. We lose
- 13:25Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy. I mean, we're just We're on an inevitable
- 13:28Speaker 2: path until Marjorie Taylor Greene is fucking speaker here.
- 13:30Speaker 3: Or Trump. So can't forget that.
- 13:33Speaker 6: Right.
- 13:33Speaker 2: And so I think what it says about that is
- 13:35Speaker 2: like you see people like Nancy Mace and good for
- 13:37Speaker 2: Nancy Mace for going after Lauren Boebert on this and
- 13:41Speaker 2: standing her ground. Like, I applaud that. But what does
- 13:44Speaker 2: that mean? It probably means Nancy Mace is going to
- 13:45Speaker 2: get a primary challenge. And if she doesn't, she's still
- 13:48Speaker 2: probably going to be, you know, marginalized within the caucus,
- 13:51Speaker 2: much like Liz Cheney has been or Adam Kinzinger, who's
- 13:54Speaker 2: now retiring.
- 13:55Speaker 6: Right.
- 13:55Speaker 2: Like, this is just... You might get a few exceptions
- 13:58Speaker 2: here and there that stand up to these people, but
- 14:00Speaker 2: they're going to be marginalized or they're going to be
- 14:01Speaker 2: beaten in a primary eventually. It's just that's not where
- 14:04Speaker 2: the party is headed.
- 14:05Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 14:05Speaker 3: In the Republican Party, you're either siding with Marjorie Taylor
- 14:07Speaker 3: Greene and Donald Trump or you're auditioning for a cable
- 14:10Speaker 3: job on MSNBC. Those are the two things.
- 14:14Speaker 2: How should Democrats handle these divisions aside from watching with
- 14:18Speaker 2: a mix of amusement and horror?
- 14:21Speaker 3: Well, it's been a long year, John. 2021 has not
- 14:25Speaker 3: been great. Is it 2021?
- 14:27Speaker 2: I thought it was still 2020. I feel like we've
- 14:29Speaker 2: been stuck in 2020 for five years now.
- 14:31Speaker 3: I mean, whatever year it is, it's not an awesome year.
- 14:35Speaker 3: It's almost over, which I can't really believe. Can we
- 14:38Speaker 3: just have some fun here? Do we have to spin
- 14:40Speaker 3: this into some bigger strategic conversation and just.
- 14:43Speaker 2: We definitely don't. No, we definitely don't.
- 14:45Speaker 3: I mean, that's probably... People probably don't tune in for
- 14:48Speaker 3: us to just have our own personal therapy, but... Ultimately,
- 14:53Speaker 3: what Democrats have to do with this, and I'm sure
- 14:56Speaker 3: everyone wants to do with it, is to use all
- 14:59Speaker 3: of these things, a series of data points of Republicans
- 15:02Speaker 3: being out of the mainstream, irresponsible, extreme, dishonest, crazy, whatever
- 15:09Speaker 3: it is you want to use to paint a picture
- 15:10Speaker 3: of a party that cannot be allowed anywhere near control
- 15:15Speaker 3: of government again. And sort of one way to think
- 15:17Speaker 3: about it is we have been living for a long
- 15:20Speaker 3: time now in a state of chaos. all the Trump
- 15:23Speaker 3: presidency was chaos. Then we had a pandemic and now
- 15:26Speaker 3: it feels like we're just swerving from crisis to crisis.
- 15:28Speaker 3: And some of that is real. Like we're like, before
- 15:31Speaker 3: we started to record this, you and I were talking
- 15:33Speaker 3: about like the latest tweets we've read about Omicron or
- 15:36Speaker 3: Omicron or however you pronounce it. And we're just going to.
- 15:39Speaker 2: Keep, we're just going to keep mispronouncing it just to
- 15:41Speaker 2: spite the variant.
- 15:43Speaker 3: That'll show it. Your, your.
- 15:46Speaker 1: Cool.
- 15:48Speaker 3: And, And Biden won in part because he was seen
- 15:53Speaker 3: as a person to manage that crisis, right? And I
- 15:55Speaker 3: think there is a way to which you can probably,
- 15:57Speaker 3: this has to be fine-tuned, but you can, if you
- 16:00Speaker 3: want normalcy and steadiness and end of the pandemic and
- 16:04Speaker 3: an end to inflation and end to whatever else, that
- 16:07Speaker 3: this group of people is not the people who are
- 16:08Speaker 3: going to help you get that. I think that there's
- 16:10Speaker 3: a chance to at least use some of these things
- 16:11Speaker 3: to tell that story.
- 16:13Speaker 2: Also, if you look back at 2020, you know, we
- 16:15Speaker 2: had the conversation that we always talked about how Trump
- 16:18Speaker 2: was like, different than the Republican Party and that he
- 16:21Speaker 2: was much worse. And one of the things that might
- 16:24Speaker 2: have done is given some voters permission to say, OK,
- 16:26Speaker 2: I want to vote against Trump, but I want to
- 16:27Speaker 2: vote again. I want to vote for Republicans in Congress.
- 16:30Speaker 2: And I do think that holding up more of these
- 16:33Speaker 2: Republicans in Congress and elsewhere in the country, other elected
- 16:37Speaker 2: officials that are Republicans, some of the crazier ones as
- 16:40Speaker 2: proof points as to why it's not just Trump, but
- 16:43Speaker 2: it's the entire party and actually showing what Boebert and
- 16:47Speaker 2: Green and Gosar are doing and making them the faces
- 16:50Speaker 2: of the Republican Party, which, as Marjorie Taylor Greene said,
- 16:53Speaker 2: they're the base, not the fringe. Like, let's show people
- 16:56Speaker 2: why that is. And I do think that's probably important
- 17:00Speaker 2: to communicate to voters in the next few years. Meanwhile,
- 17:05Speaker 2: in the Senate, Republicans Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Ron
- 17:08Speaker 2: Johnson want to shut down the government unless Democrats agree
- 17:11Speaker 2: to defund President Biden's vaccine requirement. All 50 Republican senators
- 17:15Speaker 2: oppose the vaccine requirement, but most of them don't think
- 17:17Speaker 2: it's worth a shutdown. Some of them telling Politico it would, quote,
- 17:20Speaker 2: reflect poorly on their party. They all fought about this
- 17:24Speaker 2: during their caucus lunch on Wednesday. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy
- 17:28Speaker 2: told reporters Mitch did not say a word. He ate
- 17:31Speaker 2: his chicken. He ate two pieces. Why do you think
- 17:34Speaker 2: Mitch was so quiet and not that hungry?
- 17:36Speaker 3: I do not believe this story.
- 17:39Speaker 2: You think he had more than two bites?
- 17:40Speaker 3: No, I think he was.
- 17:41Speaker 2: You think he really went after that chicken?
- 17:43Speaker 3: No, I think he drank the chicken's blood. I'm just
- 17:49Speaker 3: going to beat these Mitch McConnell vampire of democracy jokes
- 17:52Speaker 3: into the ground for at least the rest of 2021.
- 17:54Speaker 2: Again, yeah, he was a turtle. Then he was an
- 17:56Speaker 2: old crow. Now he's a vet. We're just sort of
- 17:58Speaker 2: all over the place on Mitch McConnell. We can't even
- 18:00Speaker 2: fucking get a message on Mitch McConnell, let alone the
- 18:03Speaker 2: Republican Party.
- 18:04Speaker 3: Why do you think we can't win elections against a
- 18:06Speaker 3: party personified by Marjorie Gellergren? I mean, Mitch McConnell obviously
- 18:10Speaker 3: knows that this is a doomed effort. They would obviously
- 18:14Speaker 3: make the party look bad because vaccine mandates are popular.
- 18:17Speaker 3: The Politico Morning Consult poll, which tracks this, the support
- 18:21Speaker 3: for vaccine mandates, they test a whole series of them
- 18:24Speaker 3: about where people would accept mandates. Government employees, majority support. Employers,
- 18:28Speaker 3: majority support. Businesses, majority support. It has majority support. And
- 18:33Speaker 3: so shutting down the government over something that is not
- 18:36Speaker 3: popular is never– A great idea. And it's not going
- 18:40Speaker 3: to end with the end of the vaccine mandate. It's
- 18:42Speaker 3: just going to end with Republicans looking bad over a
- 18:45Speaker 3: period of time. And so he's trying to avoid a
- 18:47Speaker 3: bunch of Ted Cruz types from forcing that situation from happening.
- 18:53Speaker 2: The last morning console poll that asked voters about this question,
- 18:58Speaker 2: it was November 10th. So it wasn't that long ago.
- 19:01Speaker 2: only 39% of voters do not think that vaccine should
- 19:05Speaker 2: be required for employees of businesses with at least a
- 19:07Speaker 2: hundred workers, federal contractors, or healthcare workers, 30% of Republicans
- 19:11Speaker 2: support it. So, um, I will say, you know, by
- 19:14Speaker 2: the time you're all listening to this, either Thursday evening
- 19:17Speaker 2: or Friday, um, Biden just told reporters that he talked
- 19:20Speaker 2: to Schumer and McConnell and there will be no shutdown
- 19:23Speaker 2: over this quote, unless somebody decides to act totally erratic. Yeah. Hey, man,
- 19:29Speaker 2: have you met the Senate Republican caucus? You got fucking
- 19:32Speaker 2: Ted Cruz in there. Mike Lee. Who knows? So I
- 19:35Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, it looks like they may avoid it.
- 19:37Speaker 2: But all it takes is one loony tune Republican senator
- 19:41Speaker 2: to gum up the works.
- 19:42Speaker 3: There are a handful of those.
- 19:44Speaker 2: So there are a handful of those. So we will
- 19:46Speaker 2: see what happens. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention
- 19:49Speaker 2: the story from yesterday. here that former White House Chief
- 19:52Speaker 2: of Staff Mark Meadows' upcoming memoir reveals that Donald Trump
- 19:55Speaker 2: tested positive for COVID three days before his debate with
- 19:59Speaker 2: Joe Biden, a time period in which he exposed his staff, reporters,
- 20:03Speaker 2: Gold Star families, and everyone at the debate to a
- 20:07Speaker 2: deadly illness. What a cool guy. What a cool guy.
- 20:12Speaker 2: This story has outraged many people, rightly so, myself included.
- 20:16Speaker 2: What do we even do with this information?
- 20:19Speaker 3: We write it down. We pin it on a board.
- 20:23Speaker 3: We put it on the mirror. We get it tattooed somewhere,
- 20:26Speaker 3: memento style. And we remember that every time we're annoyed
- 20:31Speaker 3: at Joe Manchin or Joe Biden hasn't delivered on this
- 20:34Speaker 3: promise or that or We're frustrated and sick of politics
- 20:38Speaker 3: that this guy is looming in the wings to be
- 20:41Speaker 3: the next president of the United States in a few years.
- 20:43Speaker 3: We never forget that.
- 20:44Speaker 2: He's a front runner. Front runner for the nomination. He's
- 20:46Speaker 2: almost a lock. It's not about looking backwards. It's not
- 20:51Speaker 2: about what happened in the past. This is the guy
- 20:53Speaker 2: who wants to be the next president.
- 20:55Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 20:56Speaker 2: Most likely. And what he did was knowingly expose people
- 21:01Speaker 2: to a deadly disease is what he did. Including his
- 21:06Speaker 2: political opponent. And Gold Star military families who he blamed
- 21:14Speaker 2: for potentially giving him COVID.
- 21:16Speaker 3: That's the underwritten part of this. He knew he already
- 21:19Speaker 3: had COVID when he met with them and blamed them anyway.
- 21:21Speaker 2: Because they wanted to hug and kiss me. And he
- 21:25Speaker 2: had fucking COVID. The man is... I don't think he's
- 21:29Speaker 2: a good person. I do not think so.
- 21:31Speaker 1: We....
- 21:33Speaker 2: Well, we've talked a lot about how Democrats should focus
- 21:35Speaker 2: on defining the Republican Party head of the midterms. How
- 21:38Speaker 2: would you weave everything we've just covered from Boebert to
- 21:42Speaker 2: Green to Mace to the vaccine requirements to Trump giving
- 21:47Speaker 2: people COVID? Is there any way to weave that into
- 21:49Speaker 2: some kind of coherent narrative about the Republican Party, aside
- 21:52Speaker 2: from the fact that they're all fucking nuts, which I
- 21:54Speaker 2: don't know if... Maybe that's– Yeah, I mean that is
- 21:58Speaker 2: super coherent. It's believable. I don't know if disengaged swing
- 22:02Speaker 2: voters will buy that, but I think it's a start maybe.
- 22:04Speaker 3: If you expose them to this information, they just might.
- 22:07Speaker 3: I mean I think it– we talked many years ago
- 22:11Speaker 3: about potential frames for running against Trump pre-pandemic. One of
- 22:15Speaker 3: the ones that we talked about was chaos and corruption
- 22:18Speaker 3: because we looked at a lot of focus groups which
- 22:20Speaker 3: showed that what drove people crazy– was the constant chaos,
- 22:24Speaker 3: the tweeting. He was always in our face. And then
- 22:27Speaker 3: when that was magnified by a deadly pandemic and a historic, gigantic,
- 22:32Speaker 3: immediate recession, that brought the cost of that before us.
- 22:36Speaker 3: And I think there is something about chaos in the
- 22:39Speaker 3: Republican Party. And maybe it's not we need this super snappy,
- 22:44Speaker 3: paragraph-tested message that folks don't want, but more just the
- 22:48Speaker 3: idea of Republicans have branded Democrats not with some specific slogan,
- 22:54Speaker 3: a way in which they've just thrown a bunch of
- 22:57Speaker 3: stuff out there that buttressed a narrative that made some
- 23:02Speaker 3: voters think Democrats were out of touch and not American.
- 23:06Speaker 3: And so is there something we can do that is chaotic, incompetent,
- 23:10Speaker 3: and dangerous? Something like that. We're going to just constantly
- 23:13Speaker 3: see these data points because people aren't reading the stories,
- 23:16Speaker 3: watching the long segment on CNN or the NBC News.
- 23:20Speaker 3: They're just seeing a bunch of stuff. Do we have
- 23:23Speaker 3: the capacity to elevate enough things that give people this
- 23:25Speaker 3: broader emotional response to the Republican Party that is negative?
- 23:29Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the challenges, I think, is the chaos
- 23:34Speaker 2: in these last couple of years, or ever since Joe
- 23:38Speaker 2: Biden has become president, is not necessarily only from the
- 23:41Speaker 2: Republican Party. It's from sort of external circumstances in the world,
- 23:44Speaker 2: the pandemic, the economic challenges, inflation, et cetera, not caused
- 23:49Speaker 2: by Biden and the Democrats, but it's out there. And
- 23:54Speaker 2: I wonder if, I mean, what is true? We talked
- 23:57Speaker 2: about this a little on Tuesday's pod, but what is
- 24:00Speaker 2: true about the Republicans? What's true about them right now
- 24:02Speaker 2: is that they hate Democrats more than they care about
- 24:07Speaker 2: the country, that they only want to fight for themselves
- 24:11Speaker 2: and their own power and not fight for the actual
- 24:14Speaker 2: people who they're supposed to represent in this country, be
- 24:17Speaker 2: them Democrats or Republicans. And they're wasting time, you know,
- 24:23Speaker 2: in fights, yelling at people, inciting violence. They're trying to
- 24:29Speaker 2: like stop people from being protected by vaccines. All of
- 24:32Speaker 2: this shit just so that they can like hold on
- 24:35Speaker 2: to power and own the libs. That's basically why it
- 24:39Speaker 2: seems like they want to have power as opposed to
- 24:42Speaker 2: what Joe Biden and the Democrats are doing, which is
- 24:44Speaker 2: fighting as hard as they can to fix all of
- 24:47Speaker 2: these problems. And they aren't fixed yet, and nothing's perfect,
- 24:51Speaker 2: and we're not there yet. But at least voters can
- 24:54Speaker 2: know that Biden and Democrats are focused on these problems
- 24:57Speaker 2: and focused on fixing them, while the Republicans are only
- 25:00Speaker 2: focused on trying to win.
- 25:01Speaker 3: So, you know, there are two ways in which this
- 25:03Speaker 3: plays out. One is inflation gets better, economy strengthens even more,
- 25:08Speaker 3: pandemic is behind us by the time people start voting
- 25:10Speaker 3: next fall. And then it is, do you want normalcy
- 25:13Speaker 3: or do you want to be taken back to what
- 25:14Speaker 3: we had before? Do you want to take the car out,
- 25:18Speaker 3: put the car.
- 25:18Speaker 2: Back in the ditch? No, please don't start.
- 25:21Speaker 3: Something that is relevant to no one. Or things are
- 25:26Speaker 3: still bumpy and tumultuous and turbulent. Maybe that's some pandemic.
- 25:29Speaker 3: Maybe it's some other thing that's happening in the world.
- 25:31Speaker 3: And if the world is on fire, do you want
- 25:34Speaker 3: to hire a bunch of arsonists to be in charge?
- 25:36Speaker 3: That's sort of how you're thinking about it. And I
- 25:38Speaker 3: think these aren't knowable propositions, but there's a lot more
- 25:41Speaker 3: information we can learn based on changing circumstances on the
- 25:44Speaker 3: ground and talking to voters about what they're actually looking for.
- 25:48Speaker 3: And ultimately, all of this is about trying to make
- 25:51Speaker 3: it more of a choice and less of a referendum
- 25:53Speaker 3: when people go to the polls, which is actually more
- 25:55Speaker 3: possible than people think because of polarization.
- 25:58Speaker 2: We could certainly benefit here from some quantitative data polling,
- 26:02Speaker 2: qualitative data focus groups. Again, focus groups are different than polls.
- 26:08Speaker 2: They give you a little more context, a little more
- 26:10Speaker 2: richness to what people are actually talking about, and then
- 26:12Speaker 2: you match them up.
- 26:13Speaker 3: I'm going to use my gut in Twitter to substitute
- 26:16Speaker 3: for those things.
- 26:17Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fine, too. It's either the best social science
- 26:21Speaker 2: we have available, even though it's not perfect and can
- 26:24Speaker 2: be wrong, or your gut in the Twitter comments. Either one, totally.
- 26:28Speaker 2: They're both the same. When we come back, Dan will
- 26:32Speaker 2: talk to Professor Leah Lippman about the Supreme Court oral
- 26:36Speaker 2: arguments in the Mississippi abortion case that happened this week.
- 26:48Speaker 3: Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a major case
- 26:51Speaker 3: that will determine the future of abortion rights in the
- 26:53Speaker 3: United States. Joining us now to break down what happened
- 26:56Speaker 3: is Michigan Law School professor and co-host of the podcast,
- 26:58Speaker 3: Strict Scrutiny, Leah Littman. Leah, welcome to the pod.
- 27:01Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
- 27:03Speaker 3: So a lot of the commentary and reporting from folks
- 27:07Speaker 3: who observed the arguments yesterday was quite pessimistic about the
- 27:10Speaker 3: future of Roe. What was your take on what happened?
- 27:13Speaker 1: Roe is going to end. The only question is when
- 27:16Speaker 1: and how. There's no question that the Supreme Court is
- 27:19Speaker 1: going to uphold the Mississippi statute, which prohibits abortions more
- 27:22Speaker 1: than 15 weeks after a person's last period. And if
- 27:25Speaker 1: and when they uphold that statute, they will be eviscerating
- 27:28Speaker 1: the core of the protections in Roe versus Wade. Roe
- 27:31Speaker 1: held that states cannot prohibit women before viability, before the
- 27:36Speaker 1: point at which a fetus is viable outside of the womb,
- 27:39Speaker 1: from deciding to have an abortion. And Mississippi's statute concededly
- 27:44Speaker 1: prohibits abortions before viability. So no matter whether the Supreme
- 27:47Speaker 1: Court issues the words Roe versus Wade is overruled, they
- 27:50Speaker 1: will be eviscerating the protections of that decision when they
- 27:53Speaker 1: uphold the Mississippi statute. Now, I think a lot of
- 27:56Speaker 1: people thought the Supreme Court was going to try to
- 27:58Speaker 1: avoid issuing the words Roe versus Wade is overruled because
- 28:02Speaker 1: they didn't want to provoke backlash. But it's not clear
- 28:06Speaker 1: that the conservative justices actually care about that. I think
- 28:08Speaker 1: they are comfortable enough with their position of power that
- 28:11Speaker 1: five of them might pull the trigger in this case.
- 28:14Speaker 3: So because there had been, as you point out, there's
- 28:16Speaker 3: been a lot of discussion about a world in which
- 28:19Speaker 3: Roe is eviscerated but not overturned, much as they have
- 28:22Speaker 3: done with the Voting Rights Act over a long period now.
- 28:26Speaker 3: Were they to go the route of eviscerating but not overturning,
- 28:29Speaker 3: what would that look like? How could you even have
- 28:32Speaker 3: the pretext of upholding Mississippi and claiming that that is
- 28:36Speaker 3: consistent with Roe or Casey?
- 28:39Speaker 1: So Sam Alito et al have said a lot of
- 28:42Speaker 1: ridiculous things. So they could certainly issue an opinion under
- 28:46Speaker 1: the pretense of we're upholding Roe while also invalidating the
- 28:49Speaker 1: Mississippi statute. And here's what that would look like. They
- 28:52Speaker 1: would say we're not formally overruling Roe versus Wade and
- 28:56Speaker 1: saying that women have no liberty interest whatsoever in deciding
- 29:01Speaker 1: to obtain an abortion. Right. But what they would do
- 29:04Speaker 1: is erase what is called the viability line. And the
- 29:08Speaker 1: viability line was the core of the protection in Roe
- 29:12Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court reaffirmed in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
- 29:17Speaker 1: And what those decisions said was before viability, before the
- 29:21Speaker 1: point at which the fetus is viable outside the womb,
- 29:23Speaker 1: the woman must have the ultimate decision about whether to
- 29:27Speaker 1: end her pregnancy via an abortion. And if the Supreme
- 29:30Speaker 1: Court erases the viability line... then it would be opening
- 29:33Speaker 1: the floodgates for states to prohibit abortions earlier and earlier
- 29:38Speaker 1: because they would be removing the clear line that they
- 29:41Speaker 1: had established in previous cases beyond which states couldn't go.
- 29:46Speaker 1: And so then all of a sudden the question would be, well,
- 29:49Speaker 1: at what point before 15 weeks can states prohibit abortion?
- 29:53Speaker 1: And states have tried to weeks from a person's last period,
- 29:58Speaker 1: 12 weeks, eight weeks, six weeks in the case of Texas.
- 30:02Speaker 1: And once the Supreme Court erases the viability line and
- 30:05Speaker 1: says states can prohibit some number of abortions before viability,
- 30:10Speaker 1: then all of a sudden we don't know at what
- 30:13Speaker 1: point states can prohibit abortions. And so it would just
- 30:16Speaker 1: be open season on abortion access.
- 30:20Speaker 3: And so let's say Roe is either overturned or this
- 30:23Speaker 3: case has upheld the viability line as a race. What
- 30:26Speaker 3: is that? How does that go into effect? How are
- 30:28Speaker 3: people affected around the country? Who is impacted immediately? Does
- 30:33Speaker 3: it matter where you live? Help explain sort of, it's
- 30:35Speaker 3: been 50 years we've been living under this reality. How
- 30:38Speaker 3: does that change theoretically potentially the day after this ruling?
- 30:41Speaker 1: So there are two ways in which this will immediately
- 30:44Speaker 1: affect people. One is many states have on the books
- 30:47Speaker 1: what are called trigger laws, laws that say, if and
- 30:51Speaker 1: when Roe versus Wade is overruled, we criminalize abortion with
- 30:55Speaker 1: limited exceptions. So if the Supreme Court issues an opinion
- 30:59Speaker 1: that overrules Roe versus Wade, all of a sudden those
- 31:02Speaker 1: laws would go into effect and abortion access would be
- 31:04Speaker 1: dramatically curved. And second, even if they don't formally overrule Roe,
- 31:10Speaker 1: but they say states can prohibit abortions at some points
- 31:12Speaker 1: before viability, then all of the laws that had previously
- 31:17Speaker 1: been invalidated because they prohibited abortions before viability, all of
- 31:22Speaker 1: a sudden states would seek to try and reopen those
- 31:26Speaker 1: cases and get courts to say, maybe you can enforce
- 31:30Speaker 1: those laws after all. So this would be a problem
- 31:33Speaker 1: in red states, but it would also be a problem
- 31:35Speaker 1: in purple states. where you have heavily gerrymandered state legislatures.
- 31:42Speaker 1: And so those legislatures aren't going to repeal the trigger
- 31:46Speaker 1: laws that are on the books or the restrictive abortion
- 31:49Speaker 1: laws that would all of a sudden possibly be allowed
- 31:52Speaker 1: to come back. And so many, many people in many
- 31:56Speaker 1: different states will be immediately affected. Obviously, the people who
- 32:00Speaker 1: will be most in danger are poor women who lack
- 32:04Speaker 1: the socioeconomic resources to, on a dime, just go to
- 32:07Speaker 1: another state where abortion is legalized, and younger women who
- 32:12Speaker 1: might not know they are pregnant, people who are using
- 32:17Speaker 1: contraception for the first time and contraception fails. I mean,
- 32:20Speaker 1: all of these groups who are historically disadvantaged and have
- 32:26Speaker 1: fewer resources are going to be the ones who immediately
- 32:29Speaker 1: feel the effects of this decision.
- 32:33Speaker 3: And just to make sure I understood this correctly, if
- 32:36Speaker 3: a state had passed a law that had been struck down,
- 32:38Speaker 3: do they have to pass it again?
- 32:41Speaker 1: So it's actually unclear. There will be litigation about whether
- 32:45Speaker 1: states would be allowed to enforce a law that had
- 32:49Speaker 1: been effectively what's called enjoined or the states were prohibited
- 32:53Speaker 1: from enforcing for a long period of time. And if
- 32:57Speaker 1: that law hadn't been enforced, had been laying dormant for
- 33:00Speaker 1: let's say, 50 years since Roe was decided, there will
- 33:04Speaker 1: be some arguments that it would be unfair or potentially
- 33:07Speaker 1: violate due process for states to all of a sudden
- 33:10Speaker 1: bring it back and start prosecuting people. But formally, states
- 33:16Speaker 1: could seek to enforce those laws without actually reenacting them.
- 33:22Speaker 3: Both in the discussions around the changes in Supreme Court,
- 33:26Speaker 3: the Texas law, the Mississippi law, there has been a
- 33:29Speaker 3: push at the federal level to try to pass a
- 33:32Speaker 3: federal law that would be, as I think is sometimes,
- 33:35Speaker 3: I believe, incorrectly described as enshrining the principles of Roe.
- 33:39Speaker 3: I reckon, just I want to stipulate for our listeners
- 33:41Speaker 3: that there are a lot of problems that mostly involve
- 33:43Speaker 3: Joe Manchin and the filibuster to get such a law passed.
- 33:46Speaker 3: But just from a theoretical perspective, is that now out
- 33:50Speaker 3: the window as a solution if Roe is overturned or eviscerated?
- 33:54Speaker 3: How would that law interact with this, if at all?
- 33:58Speaker 1: So formally, overruling Roe would not eliminate Congress's ability to
- 34:04Speaker 1: enact some protections for abortion access. Realistically, however, if this
- 34:11Speaker 1: court is actually willing to overrule Roe versus Wade, I
- 34:14Speaker 1: think people need to be prepared for the possibility that
- 34:17Speaker 1: they are also more than willing to invalidate any federal
- 34:20Speaker 1: legislation that a Democratic Congress and Democratic president would sign
- 34:24Speaker 1: to that would try to safeguard abortion access. So the
- 34:27Speaker 1: arguments that the conservative justices were throwing around at argument
- 34:31Speaker 1: yesterday were so outlandish and so outrageous. It kind of
- 34:38Speaker 1: suggests that basic logic, basic precedent, basic respect for institutional
- 34:43Speaker 1: legitimacy are not really constraining them and they feel emboldened
- 34:49Speaker 1: to pursue the conservative anti-abortion agenda you know, law, reason, facts,
- 34:55Speaker 1: women's health, dignity, notwithstanding. So formally, overruling Roe wouldn't limit
- 35:03Speaker 1: Congress's ability to enact abortion protections, but realistically, this court
- 35:08Speaker 1: will find other legal avenues to limit Congress's ability to
- 35:12Speaker 1: safeguard abortion access, whether that's limiting Congress's power to enact
- 35:15Speaker 1: legislation under the 14th Amendment or other constitutional provisions.
- 35:21Speaker 3: Was there anything in particular that stood out to you
- 35:24Speaker 3: from the arguments or the lines of questioning from the
- 35:26Speaker 3: justices that you found particularly outrageous or alarming or interesting?
- 35:31Speaker 1: So I think in some ways the most outrageous thing
- 35:35Speaker 1: came from Justice Barrett, who suggested that the fact that
- 35:38Speaker 1: women can drop off children at police stations or firehouses
- 35:45Speaker 1: actually eliminated the need for Roe versus Wade because they
- 35:48Speaker 1: could remove the obligations of parenting and undergoing the emotionally
- 35:55Speaker 1: and physically grueling processes of childbirth and pregnancy were somehow
- 36:01Speaker 1: not meaningful to her if they could just put the
- 36:03Speaker 1: children up for adoption. She seemed to envision a world
- 36:07Speaker 1: in which every kind of adoption ended like the ending
- 36:13Speaker 1: of Juno, singing happy songs with Michael Cera, and that
- 36:17Speaker 1: the pregnancy was just not significant. And that moment was,
- 36:23Speaker 1: I think, very astonishing, especially given that women in Mississippi
- 36:28Speaker 1: face something like over 70 times greater a medical or
- 36:31Speaker 1: health risk from delivering a child than from having a
- 36:35Speaker 1: pre-viability abortion. Those medical risks seem to be meaningless to her.
- 36:41Speaker 1: And many women will lack health insurance coverage for the
- 36:45Speaker 1: medical costs associated with pregnancy that too seem to be meaningless.
- 36:50Speaker 1: Women are not entitled to paid family leave either at
- 36:53Speaker 1: the federal level nor in Mississippi specifically. So they could
- 36:57Speaker 1: lose their jobs while they complete an unwanted pregnancy and
- 37:02Speaker 1: undergo forced childbirth. And all of these costs seem to
- 37:05Speaker 1: be completely de minimis to her. In fact, in her question,
- 37:09Speaker 1: she equated those interests and women's interests in bodily autonomy
- 37:15Speaker 1: with the bodily autonomy for not getting a vaccine, the
- 37:19Speaker 1: idea that it's an equal infringement to have a life-saving
- 37:22Speaker 1: shot jabbed into your arm, that it is to undergo
- 37:26Speaker 1: nine months of unwanted pregnancy, it was astonishing. And she
- 37:30Speaker 1: did that not once, but twice. So that was definitely one,
- 37:34Speaker 1: I think, very alarming moment. And then there were other
- 37:36Speaker 1: moments when some of the justices suggested that maybe they
- 37:40Speaker 1: should and would regard fetuses as persons or people, in
- 37:45Speaker 1: which case Congress would definitely lack the authority to protect
- 37:49Speaker 1: abortion rights. But it wasn't clear five justices were on
- 37:55Speaker 1: board with that notion.
- 37:57Speaker 3: Leah, thank you so much for joining us and helping
- 37:59Speaker 3: us understand this very disturbing hearing in the very scary
- 38:03Speaker 3: future that may be before us.
- 38:05Speaker 1: Of course.
- 38:15Speaker 2: All right, before we go, we want to talk about
- 38:17Speaker 2: some developments in the 2022 Senate map. Gerrymandering has made
- 38:21Speaker 2: holding the House quite a challenge for Democrats, but if
- 38:23Speaker 2: the political environment improves... We may not just hold our
- 38:27Speaker 2: Senate majority. We may actually be able to grow it
- 38:30Speaker 2: by flipping some Republican-held seats, the most likely of which
- 38:34Speaker 2: is the one held by retiring Senator Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.
- 38:37Speaker 2: This week, the race to replace him got a bit
- 38:40Speaker 2: more crowded when celebrity physician and longtime New Jersey resident Dr.
- 38:44Speaker 2: Oz announced that he's running in the Republican primary. Dr.
- 38:48Speaker 2: Oz spent years pushing phony weight loss supplements on his
- 38:50Speaker 2: television show before pivoting to COVID quackery as a Fox
- 38:54Speaker 2: News contributor. where he pushed hydroxychloroquine and said things like this.
- 38:59Speaker 5: First, we need our mojo back. Let's start with things
- 39:01Speaker 5: that are really critical to the nation, where we think
- 39:03Speaker 5: we might be able to open without getting into a
- 39:05Speaker 5: lot of trouble. I tell you, schools are a very
- 39:07Speaker 5: appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The
- 39:11Speaker 5: Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost
- 39:14Speaker 5: us 2% to 3%. in terms of total mortality. And,
- 39:17Speaker 5: you know, that's any life is a life lost. But
- 39:19Speaker 5: to get every child back into a school where they're
- 39:21Speaker 5: safely being educated, being fed and making the most out
- 39:25Speaker 5: of their lives with a theoretical risk on the backside,
- 39:27Speaker 5: it might be a trade-off some folks would consider.
- 39:29Speaker 2: You know the best way to get our mojo back?
- 39:32Speaker 2: Kill some kids. That'll do it, Dr.
- 39:35Speaker 1: Roth.
- 39:35Speaker 2: I mean, that... I listened to that a couple times
- 39:38Speaker 2: and I was like, what? Did he really? He apparently
- 39:40Speaker 2: apologized for that later.
- 39:42Speaker 3: Do you remember this Twitter outrage?
- 39:43Speaker 2: I'm sure it was sincere. I remember this very well. Look,
- 39:46Speaker 2: there's 25 Twitter outrages a day. I can't keep track
- 39:49Speaker 2: of all of them. That was 2020. It was the
- 39:51Speaker 2: heyday of Twitter. We were outraged about everything all the time.
- 39:54Speaker 2: Not that it's improved. But yeah, that was bad. That
- 39:57Speaker 2: was bad. And by the way, we have talked about
- 39:59Speaker 2: COVID in schools here. This was not like, okay, Cases
- 40:05Speaker 2: are down. We have vaccines. We have good ventilation. We
- 40:09Speaker 2: have great testing. And now we'll be able to open
- 40:12Speaker 2: schools safely for kids to make sure that they're in
- 40:15Speaker 2: class and not just remote. It was not that debate.
- 40:17Speaker 2: This was like height of the pandemic. Let's open up
- 40:20Speaker 2: the schools and see what happens. Two to three percent mortality. What?
- 40:28Speaker 2: So he announced his candidacy with a statement in the
- 40:30Speaker 2: Washington Examiner, as one does, where he focused mostly on
- 40:33Speaker 2: the pandemic, writing, quote, Elites with yards told those without
- 40:36Speaker 2: yards to stay inside where the virus was more likely
- 40:38Speaker 2: to spread. And the arrogant, closed-minded people in charge closed
- 40:42Speaker 2: our parks, shuttered our schools, shut down our businesses, and
- 40:45Speaker 2: took away our freedom. What do you think of Dr.
- 40:48Speaker 2: Oz as a primary candidate and a potential general election
- 40:52Speaker 2: candidate in Pennsylvania?
- 40:54Speaker 3: I would note that the– you could summarize his entry
- 40:59Speaker 3: in this race as celebrity New Jersey resident announces for
- 41:02Speaker 3: Pennsylvania Senate in Washington, D.C.
- 41:04Speaker 1: Paper.
- 41:04Speaker 2: So it's like– Yeah, there is that.
- 41:09Speaker 3: I think– I really have no idea how this will
- 41:12Speaker 3: play out in the Republican primary. That field is still
- 41:16Speaker 3: shaping up a little bit now that Sean Parnell, Trump's
- 41:18Speaker 3: chosen candidate, is out of it. It's very hard to
- 41:22Speaker 3: predict what Republican voters will do, but I think as
- 41:25Speaker 3: a general election matter, Democrats should absolutely not dismiss this candidacy.
- 41:30Speaker 3: He is incredibly famous, and famous in a Trump-like way,
- 41:36Speaker 3: where he is famous for- In.
- 41:38Speaker 2: The good way, the politically beneficial way for him and
- 41:40Speaker 2: for Trump.
- 41:41Speaker 3: Yeah, the way Trump before this, which is he is
- 41:42Speaker 3: associated in the minds of millions and millions of Americans
- 41:45Speaker 3: who've been watching him for years with- expertise, medical expertise
- 41:52Speaker 3: while running for Senate in a pandemic. That is going
- 41:54Speaker 3: to be a very powerful thing. And lots– sometimes we
- 41:58Speaker 3: look at these things and we're like celebrity candidates tend
- 42:00Speaker 3: to flame out, right? And you look at Wes Clark,
- 42:03Speaker 3: General Wes Clark who ran for president. You– an array
- 42:08Speaker 3: of people like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina and others
- 42:11Speaker 3: who were– but being– there's a special kind of famous
- 42:15Speaker 3: person who was very good at running for president. And
- 42:18Speaker 3: those are famous people who are famous largely for being famous.
- 42:21Speaker 3: That is what Donald Trump was. People who are good
- 42:24Speaker 3: at being famous. Because being a person whose business and
- 42:28Speaker 3: livelihood is based on maintaining their fame is someone who
- 42:31Speaker 3: is very skilled at maintaining the public attention. And that's
- 42:35Speaker 3: really what politics is in this day and age. I'm
- 42:36Speaker 3: not saying he's going to win. There are some very
- 42:38Speaker 3: good candidates on the Democratic side. Being from New Jersey
- 42:41Speaker 3: is definitely not an asset when running for Pennsylvania, for
- 42:44Speaker 3: Senate Pennsylvania. But I think we shouldn't dismiss it because
- 42:46Speaker 3: he comes into this with a real brand and name
- 42:52Speaker 3: ID that could give it, particularly in what is likely
- 42:57Speaker 3: to be a good Republican year, a very, very legitimate
- 42:59Speaker 3: shot at this.
- 43:01Speaker 2: I think we have learned by now that there is
- 43:03Speaker 2: a rather large constituency for con men TV hosts who
- 43:08Speaker 2: rage against the establishment. which is what he does. I mean,
- 43:12Speaker 2: like you said, people are going to remember him from
- 43:14Speaker 2: he became famous first on the Oprah Winfrey show. People
- 43:18Speaker 2: trust Oprah quite a bit. He's on a lot of
- 43:20Speaker 2: mainstream like morning shows before, aside from his own television show.
- 43:26Speaker 2: So there is probably a level of trust that a
- 43:29Speaker 2: lot of Americans have in him. I mean, it does
- 43:30Speaker 2: give me a lot of Donald Trump on The Apprentice vibes.
- 43:34Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 43:34Speaker 2: Where much of the country were big fans of The
- 43:37Speaker 2: Apprentice and that's how they knew Donald Trump and Donald
- 43:39Speaker 2: Trump did not seem extreme to them. He seemed like
- 43:42Speaker 2: maybe an asshole, but he didn't seem extreme to them
- 43:45Speaker 2: while he was the host of The Apprentice.
- 43:47Speaker 6: Right.
- 43:47Speaker 2: And I think people probably see, a good chunk of
- 43:51Speaker 2: people probably see Dr. Oz that way. And I will
- 43:52Speaker 2: also say that he has a message about the pandemic
- 43:56Speaker 2: that may unfortunately resonate with a lot of people who
- 44:00Speaker 2: are tired of the pandemic. And I wish people weren't.
- 44:05Speaker 2: And but like, you know, talking about closures and what's
- 44:08Speaker 2: done to people as we head into year two of
- 44:10Speaker 2: the pandemic with potentially another variant that's going to cause
- 44:14Speaker 2: us trouble. And you have him running around there talking
- 44:17Speaker 2: about pretending to be an expert, talking about why this
- 44:21Speaker 2: or that, you know, non-pharmaceutical intervention is wrong or this
- 44:25Speaker 2: or that vaccine is wrong or whatever else it may
- 44:27Speaker 2: be like, you know, I totally agree that Democrats should
- 44:30Speaker 2: take it seriously. I do wonder like how a Democrat
- 44:34Speaker 2: would approach Dr. Oz and his message, um, uh, in,
- 44:38Speaker 2: in this race. Do you have any thoughts on that?
- 44:39Speaker 3: I mean, it's going to depend a little bit on
- 44:41Speaker 3: who the nominee is and how they do it. Um,
- 44:44Speaker 3: I think corporate bagger is a, has always been a
- 44:48Speaker 3: relatively successful strategy. Um, it's oftentimes it's not work as
- 44:52Speaker 3: well on famous people. Um, Robert Kennedy, New York, Hillary
- 44:55Speaker 3: Clinton in New York. Um, maybe it's New York specific.
- 44:58Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 44:59Speaker 3: Um, But I think you're going to want to make
- 45:03Speaker 3: him seem not serious, not in it for the right reasons.
- 45:11Speaker 3: Almost in some ways, your best candidate is going to
- 45:12Speaker 3: be someone– he's not running against Bob Casey, but Bob
- 45:14Speaker 3: Casey would sort of be the perfect person to run
- 45:16Speaker 3: against Dr. Oz because it is someone who is serious
- 45:21Speaker 3: and can run counter to that sort of celebrity. It's
- 45:24Speaker 3: going to be interesting to see. I imagine– the immediate
- 45:30Speaker 3: instinct of a lot of Democratic operatives is going to
- 45:32Speaker 3: be to try to say he's just like Trump. And
- 45:35Speaker 3: I think that's going to be a lot harder to
- 45:36Speaker 3: do than people think.
- 45:39Speaker 2: I think that's correct. I think you have to, look, he,
- 45:43Speaker 2: one of the times we've seen him in the public
- 45:46Speaker 2: eye before COVID was in 2014 in front of a
- 45:49Speaker 2: Senate committee when he got a lot of criticism, you know,
- 45:53Speaker 2: as he should have, for pushing quackery, for pushing all
- 45:58Speaker 2: kinds of supplements that were supposed to, you know, make
- 46:00Speaker 2: you lose weight that didn't really make you lose weight.
- 46:03Speaker 2: And I think working to, at least at the beginning,
- 46:06Speaker 2: expose him as someone who's put his own financial gain
- 46:08Speaker 2: before the public's health is important. Exposing him as a fraud,
- 46:11Speaker 2: exposing him as a con man is probably going to be,
- 46:15Speaker 2: especially a con man from out of state, you know,
- 46:18Speaker 2: a con man from out of state who, like, that's
- 46:20Speaker 2: going to be probably, I think, easier to do and
- 46:24Speaker 2: maybe more effective than just calling him a Trumpy extremist.
- 46:27Speaker 3: Yeah, I think calling people Trumpy extremists is not going
- 46:29Speaker 3: to be a particularly successful message.
- 46:31Speaker 2: Unless they are, unless it's like Lauren Bovert, unless it's
- 46:34Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Greene, right? Like it might work for some people,
- 46:36Speaker 2: but you just have to know who the person is
- 46:38Speaker 2: and you can't over-exaggerate the traits of the person that
- 46:42Speaker 2: you're running again. I think that's been the problem.
- 46:45Speaker 3: Yeah, there's something that I dug into in the message
- 46:48Speaker 3: box a few weeks ago that I think is a
- 46:51Speaker 3: longer conversation we can have is, it is really interesting
- 46:54Speaker 3: to compare how Gavin Newsom use Trump against Larry Elder
- 46:59Speaker 3: and how Terry McAuliffe used Trump against Glenn Youngkin. Now,
- 47:04Speaker 3: Elder and Youngkin are very different, but- But that's the point.
- 47:07Speaker 1: Right.
- 47:07Speaker 3: I mean, it is the point, but then also, and
- 47:10Speaker 3: obviously it's going to work better on someone like Larry
- 47:12Speaker 3: Elder than Glenn Youngkin, but there was more nuance to
- 47:15Speaker 3: the message, which was they used Trump as an example
- 47:18Speaker 3: to show that Larry Elder was extreme, not to just
- 47:21Speaker 3: say he is Trump, right? It's the difference between Using
- 47:25Speaker 3: Trump-ism as an effort, making them part of this extreme
- 47:29Speaker 3: thing you're uncomfortable with and just saying you are the person, right?
- 47:32Speaker 3: Just Glenn Trumkin, right?
- 47:34Speaker 2: Nuance and subtlety, while lost arts in our political debate today,
- 47:38Speaker 2: are still important for political campaigns.
- 47:41Speaker 3: Don't treat voters like they're idiots.
- 47:42Speaker 2: And Terry McAuliffe has never been accused of.
- 47:46Speaker 3: Subtlety?
- 47:47Speaker 2: Subtlety. Nor has many of the Clinton campaigns, to be frank.
- 47:51Speaker 3: Okay, then.
- 47:54Speaker 2: Just saying. That's sort of what they do. It's a
- 47:57Speaker 2: tough rapid response world over there, and they just sort
- 47:59Speaker 2: of hit everything with the hammer. It's just something to
- 48:02Speaker 2: be mindful of. Something to be mindful of. Trump hasn't
- 48:05Speaker 2: made an endorsement in Pennsylvania since the last candidate he
- 48:07Speaker 2: backed dropped out over allegations of child abuse. That was
- 48:11Speaker 2: Sean Parnell that you mentioned. But he has endorsed a
- 48:13Speaker 2: slew of Trumpy Senate candidates with so far mixed results.
- 48:18Speaker 2: Herschel Walker is currently leading in Georgia by a wide
- 48:21Speaker 2: margin and he's leading in fundraising. But in Alabama, Congressman
- 48:25Speaker 2: Mo Brooks is being outraised by Katie Britt. In Alaska,
- 48:30Speaker 2: Kelly Chewbacca is nearly 20 points behind Lisa Murkowski. Ted
- 48:35Speaker 2: Budd is polling behind Pat McGrory in North Carolina. And
- 48:38Speaker 2: Blake Masters is polling behind Mark Brnovich in Arizona. Those
- 48:41Speaker 2: are all Trump-backed candidates. What's your take on this? Too early,
- 48:46Speaker 2: or is it possible that the Republican Party is not
- 48:49Speaker 2: as enamored with Trump as we think?
- 48:52Speaker 3: A little bit of both, probably. I think the takeaway
- 48:55Speaker 3: you can have from this and from some of the
- 48:56Speaker 3: other special elections we've had, where either Trump's candidate has
- 48:59Speaker 3: performed less well than you thought or not won the primary,
- 49:03Speaker 3: is that as it stands, and sort of contrary to
- 49:05Speaker 3: the public wisdom, is Trump is neither kingmaker nor kingbreaker.
- 49:10Speaker 3: His endorsement is not enough to give someone, no matter
- 49:14Speaker 3: how bad a candidate they are, to give– to sort
- 49:17Speaker 3: of push them in office as it was when he
- 49:19Speaker 3: was president. Like it's what he– he destroyed candidacies by
- 49:22Speaker 3: endorsing people's opponents. He put Brian Kemp and Ron DeSantis
- 49:27Speaker 3: in office by endorsing them. But I think he has
- 49:30Speaker 3: less influence now. And that's impartially related to he's out
- 49:33Speaker 3: of office, but also he's out of the– even– Maybe
- 49:37Speaker 3: for the– like if you're a Fox viewer, you only
- 49:39Speaker 3: see a little bit about Trump. You have to be
- 49:41Speaker 3: like deep in OAN and Newsmax to get a lot
- 49:44Speaker 3: of Trump in your life. So for the broader Republican
- 49:47Speaker 3: Party electorate, Trump is not really– he is also in
- 49:50Speaker 3: the background. Even if they want him to come back
- 49:52Speaker 3: to the foreground, he is not dominating their lives and
- 49:54Speaker 3: perhaps their decision-making process here.
- 49:57Speaker 2: I was going to say the same thing. He's just–
- 49:58Speaker 2: it's too early and Trump's been too– I don't want
- 50:01Speaker 2: to say he's been too quiet because he can't shut up.
- 50:04Speaker 2: but people haven't heard from him as much because of
- 50:07Speaker 2: the lack of Twitter account there and the fact that
- 50:10Speaker 2: he's just not out there enough. So a lot of
- 50:11Speaker 2: Republican primary voters probably don't know which candidate Trump has
- 50:14Speaker 2: backed if you get a call from a pollster right now.
- 50:17Speaker 2: Some of these races are, of course, a proxy battle
- 50:20Speaker 2: between Trump's preferred candidates and McConnell's preferred candidates. Who are
- 50:24Speaker 2: we supposed to root for there?
- 50:25Speaker 3: I think there is a natural sense from a lot
- 50:31Speaker 3: of people that We would much prefer the MAGA Fox
- 50:36Speaker 3: News candidate to win the primary because they will be
- 50:38Speaker 3: therefore easier to beat. I don't think that is always
- 50:43Speaker 3: the case. In some cases, it very well may be.
- 50:44Speaker 3: It depends on the candidate.
- 50:46Speaker 2: It depends on the place.
- 50:47Speaker 3: Because one of the things we have to recognize is–
- 50:50Speaker 3: sort of look at this and you're like, well, Glenn
- 50:52Speaker 3: Youngkin won and he was not a quote-unquote Trumpy candidate.
- 50:55Speaker 3: What Glenn Youngkin was, in addition, I think, being a
- 50:57Speaker 3: relatively skilled candidate and a very adept liar in a
- 51:00Speaker 3: lot of ways, is he was an outsider. And in
- 51:03Speaker 3: many cases, and he was an outsider running against the
- 51:06Speaker 3: ultimate insider in Terry McAuliffe. And so in some cases,
- 51:11Speaker 3: the Trump-backed MAGA candidate is going to be so out
- 51:15Speaker 3: of the mainstream that it's going to be harder for
- 51:18Speaker 3: them to win. In some cases, the person you're going
- 51:20Speaker 3: to run against is the person who is more closely
- 51:22Speaker 3: associated with Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment. Because Mitch McConnell,
- 51:26Speaker 3: less popular than Trump.
- 51:27Speaker 2: Not popular.
- 51:28Speaker 3: Republican Party, less popular than Trump. And people who have
- 51:32Speaker 3: been associated with mainstream Republican policies for cutting, been voting
- 51:38Speaker 3: to cut taxes for the rich and pay for it
- 51:40Speaker 3: by cutting Medicare and Social Security, those people may be,
- 51:42Speaker 3: in some cases, easier to beat. Just because there's this
- 51:45Speaker 3: thing as we see these like, Super MAGA-friendly, like Ted
- 51:49Speaker 3: Budd has one that we did on Campaign Experts React
- 51:51Speaker 3: a while back, like intro videos when they announce their candidacy.
- 51:56Speaker 3: We're like, these people are nuts because they're packing guns
- 51:58Speaker 3: and they're driving pickup trucks and they're smashing a TV
- 52:01Speaker 3: with CNN on it or whatever, right? All this insane–
- 52:04Speaker 3: we're like, these people are nuts. Run against them. But
- 52:07Speaker 3: that may– we should– it may be that that is
- 52:09Speaker 3: a better– message than we think, or that it is
- 52:13Speaker 3: that person may be a little bit harder to beat
- 52:14Speaker 3: than the other person in that state who's a more
- 52:16Speaker 3: traditional Republican politician.
- 52:19Speaker 2: I think I agree with that. And I'll just add
- 52:20Speaker 2: to go back to what we said about Lauren Boebert
- 52:23Speaker 2: and Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's not really about who you're
- 52:25Speaker 2: rooting for. It's about making the most, again, highlighting the
- 52:28Speaker 2: most extreme people in their party and making them the
- 52:31Speaker 2: face of the Republican Party. And that it's important that
- 52:35Speaker 2: voters know who the Republican Party is in 2021. And
- 52:40Speaker 2: it's not just Trump that they may dislike, but a
- 52:43Speaker 2: lot of other people who have equally abhorrent positions as Trump.
- 52:47Speaker 3: All politics is national.
- 52:49Speaker 2: That's right. Last question. One of the key Senate races
- 52:52Speaker 2: we have to win is in Georgia, where Reverend Raphael
- 52:55Speaker 2: Warnock will run for reelection. This week, Stacey Abrams jumped
- 52:59Speaker 2: into the race for governor. Here's a clip from her
- 53:01Speaker 2: announcement video.
- 53:02Speaker 4: Leadership that knows how to do the job. Leadership that
- 53:06Speaker 4: doesn't take credit without also taking responsibility. Leadership that understands
- 53:11Speaker 4: the true pain folks are feeling. And has real plans.
- 53:16Speaker 4: That's the job of governor. To fight for one Georgia.
- 53:20Speaker 3: Our Georgia.
- 53:22Speaker 4: And now, it's time to get the job done.
- 53:26Speaker 2: Man, it's nice to get some good political news, huh?
- 53:30Speaker 2: Do you think it helps Warnock to be on the
- 53:32Speaker 2: ticket with Abrams? And in general... What do you think
- 53:35Speaker 2: about her chances and her announcement video?
- 53:37Speaker 3: It absolutely helps to be on the ballot with Stacey Abrams.
- 53:40Speaker 3: Like that's sort of a question that answers itself, but
- 53:42Speaker 3: it's going to– you're taking both, I mean, Warnock and
- 53:46Speaker 3: Abrams who ran incredible races, one in 2018 and one
- 53:49Speaker 3: in 2020, and did an amazing job in not just
- 53:52Speaker 3: turning out Democratic voters but actually having more broad-based appeal
- 53:55Speaker 3: than people would suspect and doing it across the state
- 53:58Speaker 3: of Georgia, right? Reducing some of the margins or increasing
- 54:02Speaker 3: Democratic turnout in rural parts of the state. Um, so
- 54:06Speaker 3: absolutely having them both on the ballot is going to
- 54:07Speaker 3: help both of them. I think that is, that is great.
- 54:10Speaker 3: I thought that that intro video was incredibly interesting and
- 54:14Speaker 3: it made me think about something that our old friend
- 54:16Speaker 3: David Axelrod used to say back in 2008. Remember when
- 54:20Speaker 3: things would be, we'd be flying high and you know,
- 54:24Speaker 3: low to the ground.
- 54:24Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 54:25Speaker 3: I mean, that's what Axelrod would always say. Sometimes, you know,
- 54:28Speaker 3: we do these, these, you know, big rallies and huge
- 54:31Speaker 3: iconic videos and ads and Ax would say, we have
- 54:33Speaker 3: to get low to the ground because People vote for
- 54:35Speaker 3: the person, not the persona. And when Stacey Abrams ran
- 54:39Speaker 3: in 2018, she was the former legislative leader who ran
- 54:42Speaker 3: this grassroots, no frills campaign. And since then has become
- 54:50Speaker 3: an icon in Democratic. So she was a resistant celebrity.
- 54:53Speaker 3: She is supported by Oprah and she was rightly credited
- 54:58Speaker 3: along with a lot of other really important organizers. to
- 55:02Speaker 3: help win Georgia and make Joe Biden president and do
- 55:04Speaker 3: all of these things. I mean, she has written a
- 55:06Speaker 3: number one bestselling crime novel in the period. And so
- 55:09Speaker 3: how do you get back to your roots? How do
- 55:10Speaker 3: you swerve against that celebrity, which anyone who has talked
- 55:14Speaker 3: to Stacey Abrams knows she's not super comfortable with? That's
- 55:17Speaker 3: not who she is. And like this video went very
- 55:21Speaker 3: far out of the way to be Stacey Abrams, the person,
- 55:23Speaker 3: Stacey Abrams, the organizer, Stacey Abrams, the state legislator, and
- 55:26Speaker 3: not Stacey Abrams, the liberal icon or democratic.
- 55:29Speaker 5: Icon, I guess.
- 55:31Speaker 2: I thought it was a masterclass in what Democratic messaging
- 55:35Speaker 2: should be, that video. I think, you know, in one scene,
- 55:39Speaker 2: she's saying a prayer. In another, she's talking about rural Georgia.
- 55:44Speaker 2: She's talking about one Georgia and unifying people. And these
- 55:48Speaker 2: are messages that you would not necessarily associate with liberals
- 55:53Speaker 2: on Twitter or resistance heroes. But it's not just that
- 55:58Speaker 2: she has sort of I don't think she's reframed a
- 56:01Speaker 2: message just for this race. When you talk to Stace Abrams,
- 56:04Speaker 2: this is her style of politics and has been forever.
- 56:07Speaker 2: And it's one of the reasons that I've always really
- 56:11Speaker 2: admired progressive politicians who've come up in red states because
- 56:16Speaker 2: they understand that to win in those states or even
- 56:19Speaker 2: to come close to winning in those states, you do
- 56:22Speaker 2: have to spend most of your time talking about how
- 56:24Speaker 2: you're going to materially improve people's lives. That's what they
- 56:28Speaker 2: care about. They don't actually care about all the fucking
- 56:30Speaker 2: things that we fight about on Twitter or talk about
- 56:33Speaker 2: in the national discourse all the time. They care about
- 56:37Speaker 2: how are you going to improve my life? And she
- 56:41Speaker 2: has always been squarely focused on that. And not just
- 56:44Speaker 2: in her voter registration efforts that she's been leading for
- 56:46Speaker 2: the last several years, but the other thing she's done is,
- 56:48Speaker 2: you know, she's been out in Georgia trying to get
- 56:51Speaker 2: people vaccinated and trying to fight against vaccine hesitancy by
- 56:54Speaker 2: going like door to door and making sure that people
- 56:57Speaker 2: who are hesitant to take the vaccine are getting vaccinated,
- 57:00Speaker 2: not yelling about it, not screaming about it, just like
- 57:02Speaker 2: trying to improve that situation, improve people's lives. And I
- 57:05Speaker 2: think if she can sort of detach herself from the
- 57:09Speaker 2: national debate as much as possible and really focus on
- 57:13Speaker 2: Georgia and Georgians and how she's going to improve their lives,
- 57:16Speaker 2: she'll she'll do quite well in what is going to be,
- 57:19Speaker 2: as we know, an incredibly difficult environment. Do I wish
- 57:23Speaker 2: she was running in 2018 again? Yeah, of course. Like there,
- 57:27Speaker 2: she's facing a lot of headwinds in 2022, just like
- 57:30Speaker 2: most Democrats are. So I think it's going to be
- 57:32Speaker 2: harder than when she ran in 2018, even though she's
- 57:35Speaker 2: more experienced, but, um, I'm glad that she's doing it.
- 57:38Speaker 3: Absolutely.
- 57:40Speaker 6: All right.
- 57:41Speaker 2: Well, that is all the time we have for today.
- 57:43Speaker 2: Thank you to professor Leah Lipman for joining us. And, uh,
- 57:46Speaker 2: Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk to you
- 57:48Speaker 2: next week.
- 57:49Speaker 3: Bye everyone.
- 57:54Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
- 57:57Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
- 58:01Speaker 2: Our producer is Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez is our
- 58:04Speaker 2: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
- 58:08Speaker 2: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
- 58:11Speaker 2: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
- 58:15Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
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