Latest / Pod Save America / "The World Rallies Behind Ukraine."

Transcript

"The World Rallies Behind Ukraine." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It's good to have you back, Tommy.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: It's very good to be here. I missed you guys.
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: And, uh.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I want to start with some far worse topics first,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: but at the end, maybe I'll talk for a minute
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: about where I've been and what's been going on.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, good.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: Good.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Well, before that, on today's show, Joe Biden prepares a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: State of the Union as war rages in Ukraine. Melissa
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Murray joins to talk about Supreme Court nominee Katonji Brown-Jackson. See,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: there's some good news.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And also, a look at the good, bad, and ugliest
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: moments from this week's Conservative Political Action Conference. More bad news.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was not a good one.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Just a Brief moment of joy there. But first, two
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: crooked shows for you to check out. What a Day
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: is our daily news show that breaks down all the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: latest headlines in just 20 minutes every morning starting at
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: 5 a.m. Monday through Friday. And on this week's America Dissected, Dr.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed talks to neuroscientist and author Shane O'Meara about
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the power and health benefits that come with taking a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: walk and why so many of us rediscovered it during
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the pandemic. Yeah, I mean, of course we did. What
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: else are we going to do?
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a lot of walking.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Walking now more than ever.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: New episodes of America Dissected drop every Tuesday. All right,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: let's get to the news. President Biden will deliver the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: State of the Union on Tuesday night, and the backdrop
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: couldn't be more different or dramatic than it was just
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: two weeks ago. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has already
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: led to hundreds, if not thousands of casualties, but it's
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: been met with stiff resistance from the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian civilians,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: much of the global community, and even Russian civilians still
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Even though Russia has been hit with severe sanctions, has
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: been isolated from most of the world, and has begun
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to engage in ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine, Putin continues to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: wage a relentless assault on the country that now includes
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: bombing residential neighborhoods. And on Sunday, he told the world
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: that he's putting his nuclear forces into a heightened alert
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: status known as, quote, special combat readiness.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Yeesh.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Lots to cover, but let's start with Putin's nuclear saber rattling,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: which understandably freaked out a lot of people. Me included.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: It's one of the best kinds of rattling.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Put my toilet on DEFCON 2. Just cut that. I'll
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: leave it in.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: It's funny.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: That's funny.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Tommy, can you explain what Putin's pronouncement means and talk
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: about how the Biden administration has responded?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Sure, I'll try. So basically, he called in the Secretary
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the equivalents,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: sat them at the end of a very long table
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: and told them to go into special combat readiness, which
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: In practice, I don't know that we know what the
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: specifics are. I think it's an incremental step in the
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: chain of events that you would need to conduct to
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: ultimately lead to a nuclear launch. So sort of like
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: a heightened alert. But it seems like the real goal
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: was just to scare the crap out of everybody. So
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: mission accomplished. It seems like he was mad that the
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: West had just put in place the swift banking sanctions,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: central bank sanctions, and he was trying to wave around
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: the nuclear trump card and say, like, don't even think
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: about doing more. I think we should take it seriously
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: for a few reasons. One, My loose understanding of Russian
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: military doctrine is that it does include a strategy where
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: at times they escalate to deescalate. So like use overwhelming
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: force to quickly end a conflict rather than drag it out,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: even potentially nuclear weapons. So it's just worth noting.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say that's worth noting. Yeah.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: And I also just think like stepping back, like any
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: talk of nuclear weapons is a big deal. Biden, to
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: his credit, I think, chose not to respond in kind.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: But if he had, that would have meant going to
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: DEFCON 3. It's like we're in the movies all of
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: a sudden and basically saying, okay, the Air Force, you
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: can now mobilize in less than 15 minutes to respond
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: to a nuclear attack. And that means like parking planes
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: on runways with nuclear bombs on them and opening missile
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: silos and just like serious stuff, deadly stuff. And finally,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I think this is the biggest challenge to a lot
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: of this is we have zero insight into what this
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: guy is thinking, right? There's all this reporting that he's isolated.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: He's kind of lost it. Like, who knows? We don't know.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: No experts know. We don't have that great intelligence into
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: what he's doing. But I do think it's safe to
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: assume that he's thinking about this war in existential terms.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And he's thinking like, not only does he want to
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: win this war for Russia, but he has to win
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: this war to not seem weak and not get deposed
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and not get killed. And I just don't know how
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: that changes his calculus or like all the traditional thinking
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: about nuclear deterrence. So I don't want to alarm anyone.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think that this means he's going to nuke us,
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: but like he wants to scare the shit out of us.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: And he's surprised a lot of people with his willingness
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: to be militaristic.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Not to bring it all back to Trump all the time,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: but as you were talking just now, I thought, can
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you imagine if Donald Trump had been president when Vladimir
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Putin starts talking about special combat readiness for nuclear weapons?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: That would have been a bad tweet.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: We kind of saw it, right? I mean, with Kim
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Jong-un in Fire and Fury.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just the other thing I'd add to that
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: is any step closer, any step towards readiness is a
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: step that puts an accident further in reach.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly dangerous.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Tommy, having watched this war and the global response unfold
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: over the last several days. What's been going better than
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you expected? And in addition to obviously the nuclear issue,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: which we call the nuclear issue, what are you most
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: concerned about?
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: I think the better category is Zelensky's leadership, in particular,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: like his messaging and ability to rally people. The bravery
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: of the Ukrainian people, like we probably shouldn't be surprised
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: that they are fighting this fiercely. They have like a
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: a proven history of nationalism and identity and a willingness
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: to fight for their country and really have been fighting
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: since 2014 in this low-grade combat with Russia. But their
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: bravery is pretty astounding. I think Biden deserves a lot
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: of credit. They kind of put Putin on his heels
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: by calling out all these moves before he could do
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: them by releasing intelligence. They've rallied the world. The biggest
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: surprise for me is how strong the Europeans have been.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: They cut off Russia from the swift banking process. system.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: They took action on Russia's central bank. These are major,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: major steps. You have Germany, of all places, is sending
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: military support to Ukraine. They're canceling a natural gas pipeline.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: They're increasing their defense spending. Sweden is sending military aid.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Finland's talking about joining NATO. So those are some of
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: the positive things we've seen.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Switzerland, the famously neutral Swiss, decided to impose economic sanctions too.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: They got too much credit for being neutral as if
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: that was good.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: It's evil. Yeah, it really was.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: It was an evil thing they did.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Which makes it all the more surprising.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: What's happening right now. So that's all in the better
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: than expected category. What is concerning you right now?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I would say there's sort of three buckets of concerns.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: One is just continued escalation. More Russian troops are coming
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: towards Kiev. Belarus is sending in troops. We're sending more
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: arms to Ukraine. There's more sanctions. There's not a lot
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: of off ramps or diplomacy happening that we're seeing at
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: least publicly. Like there's some failed efforts with Ukraine. in
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Belarus when the Russians were talking there, but nothing's happening.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: It's like, what context can we create that allows Putin
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: to potentially climb down and save some face here so
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: he doesn't view this as existential? So that's the thing. One, time.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Time and numbers are just not on Ukraine's side. The
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Russian army is massive. The vast majority of them have
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: not been involved with fighting yet. They've been sort of
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: in transit to the fight. But they're getting closer every day,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: and odds are they will encircle these cities in and
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: it will get harder to resupply Ukrainian forces. And there's
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: a real risk that the tactics become more aggressive. He
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: starts bombing more civilian areas. There's sort of, you know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: close combat in cities. And if this keeps going, it's
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: going to get worse. And people should be ready for that.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: And so the last thing is like, you know, you've
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: all these innocent people are dying. You've got half a
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: million refugees fleeing Ukraine. And look again, on from the
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Russian side, like most Russian soldiers didn't sign up. There
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: were conscripted And there's reports are that they don't even
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: know where they are. Some of them thought they're on
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: a fucking training mission somewhere in Ukraine. And so they
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: get captured outside of Kiev and they're like, what happened here?
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: And it's just a reminder that the whole system is
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: really fragile. And, you know, a bunch of Russian citizens
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: are seeing their economy collapse because their leader is a
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: madman who made this choice. And even if Putin calls
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: off this invasion right now, what has happened is going
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: to be catastrophic and impact the world for generations. So
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: it's just like, There's no unringing this bell, and that's
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: really scary.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: There's a troubling... I haven't known exactly how to put
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: my finger on it, but there's a troubling way in
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: which people are embracing what is genuinely heroic and brave
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: video coming out of Ukraine without acknowledging that this isn't
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: a movie, and sometimes the most heroic countries get crushed
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: with time because... it's not up to them ultimately how
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: bad this gets. It is up to Vladimir Putin. There's
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: one person in control of how terrible the situation gets.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: And what is, you know, put aside the kind of
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: easy narratives, there is two things seem to be true.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Everyone is acknowledging that this is in many ways irrational,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: that this is further than people thought he would go,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: that he is isolated, that he's been especially isolated over
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the last two years. And that it is the goal,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: the maybe the righteous and correct goal for the West
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: to isolate him, pressure him further. And no one seems
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: to be talking honestly about how many bad places that
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: can go that will not depend on the heroism of
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: groups of people fighting for their country, fighting for self-determination.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: It's just the reality of it.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: One thing that worries me is that as Putin escalates,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: becomes more aggressive, and more people die, and the rest
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of the world's it because of social media, there's going
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to be a natural desire to do more, which is understandable.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: But once we have taken all of these steps in
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: terms of imposing very severe economic sanctions, isolating Russia, isolating Putin,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: what else is there to do short of military options,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: which could very well start World War III if the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: United States or NATO allies got into an actual military
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: conflict with Russia.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: And what it seems like Putin does, like I'm no
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: military expert, I just like I've read a lot of
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: smart people. And it seems like what Putin did was
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: he broke off small pieces of his army and tried
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: to race them towards major cities in hopes that that
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: would scare the local Ukrainian military commanders to death. They
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: would give up. Zelensky would capitulate. It would be over fast.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: And he could basically beat the sanctions from happening so
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: there wouldn't be a real cost. That was catastrophically wrong.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: But what comes next is, you know, the 40 mile
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: long convoy of Russian troops gets five kilometers closer to
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Kiev every day. And this just gets worse and worse
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: and uglier. So I agree with you. I mean, the
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: images we're going to see, the cost of civilian lives
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: in Ukraine, it's going to get worse and worse.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned that convoy headed towards Kiev. You know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I saw on Twitter today, Richard Engel from NBC News
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: tweeted something about, you know, the U.S. and NATO could
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: destroy that convoy soon if they wanted or something like that.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, moral dilemma, massive Russian convoy is about
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: 30 miles from Kiev.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: U.S.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: And NATO could likely destroy it, but that would be
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: direct involvement against Russia and risk everything. Does the West
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: watch in silence as it rolls? That was the tweet.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And it's just like, I mean, if we didn't watch
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in silence and we did something, wouldn't, then we'd be
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in war with Russia.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Well, we're not watching in silence.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Because how many fucking times do we have to go
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: through this? The options aren't nothing or war. And I
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: have such admiration for the way in which the Biden
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: administration has defiantly defended that view, that we have other
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: powerful options. And I think I personally, it seems that
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of people are surprised by just how effective,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: just how unified, just how much force these sanctions and
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: these sort of diplomatic and economic and non-military actions, like
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: how much of an effect that they've had to push
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: back on this invasion. And to call that silence is
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: to go back to Bush-era nonsense. There's only two things
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: you can do. There's bombing and there's nothing. Diplomacy is
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: not real. Sanctions aren't real. Finances aren't real. None of
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: it's real. The only thing that's real is bombs. And
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like we've done that already.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Reminds me of cut and run.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't need to pick on angle or
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: like act like one tweet is the entirety of his
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: views on this, but you hear this stuff all the time.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not directing that at him. I'm directing that at
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: his attitude.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: But there's no discussion of casualties, legal authority, the risk
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: of casualties, nuclear war. And like, you saw this in
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: ostensibly straight coverage of Syria, Afghanistan, and now in Russia,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: in this fucking moralizing tone of like, are we going
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: to do something? Or are we going to stand on
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: the sidelines? Like it's celebrated and it gets praised. And
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know what Biden should do or NATO should do.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: I'm not pretending to, but the journalists covering this have
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: got to stop framing this choices between like military involvement
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: or watch and silence. It is so irresponsible. It creates
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: political incentives that push us towards war. And it also
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: ignores the reality that if you look at a lot
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: of the wars we just fought, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, sometimes
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: the best thing America can do is not get involved,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: especially military. We have done a lot more harm than
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: good in places. And we should at least... make that
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: part of the discussion.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about what a no-fly zone would entail?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Because that idea has been floated by some Republicans, some others,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and the administration was asked about it today, and they
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: said that they would not be setting up a no-fly zone.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: People talk about it like it's a grounding at O'Hare.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Right. I mean, I think people talk about the no-fly
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: zone like it's a middle ground between full war and
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: sanctions or some sort of softer option. It is absolutely not.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: It would mean It would entail U.S. planes or NATO
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: planes shooting down Russian planes in certain airspace that you
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: decide is inside the no-fly zone. It would also mean
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: destroying all the anti-aircraft weapons that the Russians have on
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: the ground in the region and potentially across the border
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: in Russia because you're not going to fly a bunch
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: of F-35s into an area if the modern Russian air
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: defense systems are live there and could shoot them down.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: This is why no-fly zone in Syria was a big
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: deal because the Russians had armed them with all these
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: systems that were incredibly modern and lethal. And so it's
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: a big deal. It's starting a war.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's talk more about how Joe Biden is handling
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: this crisis. Lovett, here's a lead from the Washington Post
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: that would strike fear into the heart of any speechwriter
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: just 24 hours before a big speech. Quote, President Biden's
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: team has revised his State of the Union address to
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: emphasize Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as a major crisis
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: facing the West. While not a wholesale rewrite, the new
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: version will reflect the way the crisis has added urgency
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: to his longtime theme of defending democracy's I can tell
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you guys that they are actually still in the process
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of making these revisions. The Washington Post sort of made
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it frame like it was in the past tense. Unfortunately
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: for the speechwriters and Joe Biden, that is not true. Lovett,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: how do you think Biden should handle Ukraine in tomorrow's speech?
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's where you would start. I think it's
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: where you would start by talking about the bravery and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: unity of the Ukrainian people in the face of this
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: assault on their country. And then I think it's an
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: opportunity to talk about the fact that freedom is precious.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Self-determination is not guaranteed. And as we lead the world
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: in a response to an unjust war, we ought to
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: affirm our obligations to each other. So we see democracy
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: threatened in faraway places, but he's giving a State of
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the Union in a chamber that was assaulted to overturn
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: our democracy a year ago. And I think you should
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: point that out. I think you should make that connection.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: So it's about, I think you you highlight the leadership
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: that he has shown, because I do think it is
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: worth highlighting, a unified global effort in support of Ukraine.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: But we don't just need to protect our values. We
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: need to live by them. That means defending voting rights.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And that means also demonstrating that democracy is not just
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: a nice thing. It's not just a delightful good. It
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: can deliver. That you don't need to turn to autocrats.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: You don't need to talk to thugs or oligarchs. That
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: people can come together and disagree and make noise and
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: have friction, but ultimately resolve their differences and take on
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the biggest challenges we face and that that is ultimately
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the fight the U.S. has to lead in the 21st century.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: And it's a fight that America can win. Now let's
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: talk about what we're going to do about gas prices.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: God, this is one where I really feel for you speechwriters.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was tough for me in the comm shop,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: but like the reality is Biden could handle this situation
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: perfectly and it could still end up being the most
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: unpopular thing he is ever a part of as president.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: And it's like, okay, speechwriters go craft the right frame.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think Love it. I think that's all great.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I agree with all that. Thanks, boss. I think when you're...
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I have nothing to add.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: No notes.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to go on my own little rhetorical
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: thing here. I'm not going to do it. What I
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: am going to do is just be a fucking hack
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and give me some polling.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Give me some hack.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Because I've been looking for polling on what people think
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: because I think polling from a couple weeks ago is
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: now useless, right? Of course. We have now watched the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: invasion happen. Everyone around the world has seen it happen live.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Opinions change, right? So you're writing a speech. Your most
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: important thing, the primary audience for the speech is the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: American people. Your first job in a speech is to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: meet the audience where they are. So where are they
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: right now? Yahoo News YouGov poll from just the last
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: few days is from over the weekend and yesterday. 70%
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of Americans are following the news closely, 30% very closely.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: That's a lot. That's a lot of people following the news.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 40% of them are lying, but yeah, keep going.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: This one surprised me. Ukraine now ties inflation as the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: top issue people say Biden should prioritize with 23% of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: people saying Ukraine and 23% saying inflation. Third in the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: list is immigration at 12% with COVID at 7%. That's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: also a very big shift. Again, will it last? Is
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it about the fact that people have been watching this
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the last couple of days? Who knows, but that's where
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: it is right now. 47% say it's in America's best
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: interest to stop Russia and help Ukraine. 26% say the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: conflict is none of America's business. And 27% still aren't sure.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: In terms of the steps that Biden has already taken,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: 56% supported Biden's sanctions, only 9% opposed. 56% also agree
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: with Biden's promise to not send troops. Only 15% disagree.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And yet, just 34% of people approve of how Biden
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: is handling the conflict. with 48% disapproving, and his overall
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: approval is 4,153. So you have an audience that is
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: overwhelmingly pay attention, cares about the issue, supports Ukraine, overwhelmingly
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: disapproves of Putin and Putin's invasion, supports the steps you've taken, sanctions,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the steps you haven't, sending in troops, but some of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: them still aren't sure why it's in America's interests, what
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: our goals are, and a plurality doesn't think you're doing
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a good job handling it. So I think that's what
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you have to answer for in the speech. when it
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: comes to defending democracy against autocracy in Ukraine, like Lovett
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: was saying, I think he also has to answer, what
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: are we willing to do and why, and what are
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: we not willing to do and why not? And I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: think answering those questions very specifically when you, I mean, now, again,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: in terms of the structure of the speech, you could
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: start with some big thing about democracy and then get
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: into it. You probably want to come back to it
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in a foreign policy section. And then I'm sure you
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: also want to end the speech with sort of a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: stirring oration about this as well.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Um, What I hear when you say those numbers, though,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: is when people say they don't approve of the job
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden is doing on this issue, I think you
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: have to put that in the broader context of months
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: of just brutal coverage, brutal congressional negotiations, COVID news, economic news,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: inflation news. So I take all that and what I
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: see as just to be purely cynical is this is
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to just demonstrate command. And that's really ultimately
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: all the proof points of what he's doing versus not.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I think they're important. You're right. You should talk about
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: the things that are popular. You talk about why he's
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: not doing things that are unpopular. But ultimately, I think
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: this isn't this issue. being purely cynical, has presented him
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to show kind of leadership in the parts
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: of his job that he is in control of, unlike Congress,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: unlike COVID.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just so tough. You see people trying to compare
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: this to Bush post 9-11 and whether there's sort of
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: like a rally around the president, rally around the flag
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: moment here. It's just so different. We weren't attacked. We're
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: not responding. We were not asked to make any sacrifices
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: in 2001, 2002. We were told to go shopping, right?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, there could be real economic costs from these
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: sanctions for Americans, gas prices, commodities, you know, like things
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: could get really turbulent here and we're going to have
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: to show some resolve and, and stick with the sanctions
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: for a while if we want it to work and
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: like put a cost on Putin. It's just going to be,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: it's so tough.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: We're also not in charge of, we're also not in
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: charge of what happens in Ukraine.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: That's the biggest, that's one of the biggest problems. And
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to add to all these challenges, right? So there's a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Quinnipiac poll that came out today too. To your point, Tommy,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: 59% are worried that a long conflict in Ukraine will
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: hurt them financially. And then 57% think the Biden administration
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: hasn't been tough enough. 29% say just right. And 3%
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: say too tough, which makes me think.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: But John, that survey ended Sunday, which made me wonder, like,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: how much of this captured what he's actually been doing
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: since the big stuff was Sunday.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But that's very possible. I think the larger issue here
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: is the public tends to have a just fix it
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: view of both national and international challenges when there's a problem.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: They want the president to fix it. If he does, great.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: If he doesn't, they don't tend to care whether or
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: not it's beyond the president's control to fix it. And
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: what I worry about here, and look, the Biden administration,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I think they do have, you know, Joe Biden has
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to talk about this. There's no question about that. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: they're doing all the right things, I think, strategically and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: also communications wise right now. But as they increase the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: salience of this issue and talk about it more, the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: challenge is if this goes poorly, Ukraine, which a lot
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of military analysts and foreign policy observers think that it
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: ultimately will, then people are going to say, oh, why
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: didn't Joe Biden fix Ukraine? I don't understand.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Republicans will just go back to saying he was weak.
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Then you'll get that.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And I do think this is sort of part of
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the life in a politics where no one admits to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: trade-offs ever, right? I think a lot of what the
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: polling has revealed is the news is awful. People have
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: a moral outrage. They feel it is dangerous. It is destabilizing.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: They're all correct. They don't want this to be taking place.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Are they willing to sacrifice? Well, I think that's an
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: open question. But so far, the answer has been a
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: lot of suspicion about any efforts that might hurt. The
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: gas prices might hurt their economic position. And then now
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: that is normal. That is okay. In a normal functioning,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: working politics, there'd be a debate about those trade-offs and
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: there'd be an honest, there'd be a a hard policy
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: conversation about how far we're willing to go or not.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: But when There's going to be an entire propaganda apparatus
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: that says a different person could have stopped all of
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: this without any of the trade-offs. Everything he's doing is wrong.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: I would have done everything better. And what I would
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: have done would have worked.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Won't say why or how.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Won't give you any details.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: My mere existence, my presence. Trump said my presence essentially
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: would have prevented this.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Because they all know that none of them would want
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to say, oh, I would have sent a bunch of
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: troops in because they know that's not popular. But also
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: they'll just say there was something magic that I could
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: have done.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And they want it to be tougher.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: A set of words I could have uttered that would
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: have like brought Vladimir Putin to his knees.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Right. And it's not even just a Trump thing. It's
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: all these Republicans. So it's like, he's weak. Okay, he's
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: being tough with tough sanctions, but those are hurting people.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And I wouldn't have done it that way. Like, you
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: don't even have to get to a different president to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: get to the kind of pure bad faith attacks that
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: are coming in the administration's direction. And so I don't
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: know how you have a sophisticated policy response that is sustainable,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: even if it does get ugly, even if it doesn't
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: work right away, even if it just It has this
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: huge cost on Russia while Putin goes into Ukraine and
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: stays in Ukraine. Anyway, I don't know how you have
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: that kind of difficult conversation in a country just drowning
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: in bullshit.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One interesting thing is that over the last few days,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: even some of the Republican Party's Putin apologists, have started
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to change their tune. Here's Tucker Carlson.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin started this war. So whatever the context of
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: the decision that he made, he did it. He fired
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: the first shots. He is to blame for what we're
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: seeing tonight in Ukraine.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that's certainly a change from last week when he
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: was like, what did Vladimir Putin ever do to you?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Did he call you racist? Did he eat dogs? Whatever
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the fuck that was, that clip that we played on Thursday.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Did he ever poison you for running as an opposition candidate?
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I think it was all a really racist attempt to
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: say China is worse.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But also, like, what do you think? What do you
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: think happened to Tucker? You think he just was like, oh,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: now I have to I have to backtrack and blame
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin?
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, this humiliated a lot of people from the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: people who said there's no way Putin will ever invade.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: You guys are being alarmist and militaristic to the people
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: on the right who are apologizing. But I think there
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: are a few different flavors of kind of Putin fan,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Putin apologist. I think there's the ones who just like
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: use Putin or anything to portray Biden or Democrats as weak.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: And it's just sort of like the crass political version
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: you were talking about, who will say I would have
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: stopped Putin with tough sanctions, but I would have approved
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the Keystone Pipeline. So gas prices would have stayed down, right?
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Just like bullshit. There's some, I think, who view criticizing
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Putin as a proxy for like the 2016 election and impeachment.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: And so those are the dumbest people and the debate
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: just kind of gets caught in there. And then I
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: think Tucker genuinely likes Putin because he is a right-wing,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: like Russian orthodox, white nationalist authoritarian. And I think Tucker
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: likes that. And they want the U.S. to be more
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: like Russia. And the reason I think Tucker likes that
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: is because he also likes Viktor Orban, who is the
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: right-wing quasi-dictator of Hungary. They are proudly open about this
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: sort of like right-wing religiosity, bigotry that they will espouse.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon has been saying this, right? On his podcast
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: last week, he was like, well, Putin is anti-woke. Love Putin, anti-woke.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: They've combined... They've combined the culture war here with Vladimir
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Putin's war abroad into one big piece of shit.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think sometimes it's like everyone's like, what's
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: going on with these Republicans? They're fascists. They like fascism
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: and they're in favor of it.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: They like autocrats. But what's interesting in that polling again,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: only 9% of Americans have a favorable view of Vladimir Putin,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: which shouldn't surprise us. But when you hear... Tucker and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Bannon and all these people, you think, well, you know,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: 9% of Americans have a favorable view of Putin, including
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: just 14% of Republicans. So obviously the number is higher
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: with Republicans, but still only 14%. And only 6% say
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the invasion is justified, including just 9% of Republicans. So
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: it is a good, you know, it's interesting that I
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: think some of these right-wing media stars have realized that
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: as much as they've been trying to pull the base
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: towards them and their views, they haven't quite done it yet.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they have failed. And the images we're seeing over
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: the last week are going to hurt that effort enormously.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: We're human beings. We don't want to see kids dying.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: So one more note on Tuesday, State of the Union.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: We will be covering this speech on the Crooked Media
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: group thread. We're bringing it back.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Group thread is back.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Group thread is back. So come join us at YouTube.com
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: slash Crooked Media on Tuesday night right as the speech starts.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Watch with us.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Watch with us.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: You can watch with us.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: And when we come back, Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray talks
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to Lovett about Ketanji Brown-Jackson as well as the legal
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: implications of Republican politicians targeting gay and trans kids.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: It's been a week of high highs and low lows
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: on the judicial beat. On Friday, President Biden announced his
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: pick for the Supreme Court, Justice Katonji Brown Jackson, who
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: would become our country's first black female Supreme Court justice.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: But as we seek to elevate this judge to the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: highest court from deep down, way, way, way down from
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: the pit of Republican animus, we see emerging multiple attacks
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: on gay and trans kids, which will almost certainly find
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: their way into the courts. Here to talk about all
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: of it. We are once again joined by Melissa Murray
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: from your favorite legal pod, Strict Scrutiny, which we are
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: thrilled to say is part of the Crooked Network. Melissa,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: welcome back.
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: Thanks for having me. And thanks for making me part
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: of the family. This has been great.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: So exciting. So exciting. You happened, it has coincided with
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: a surfeit of legal news, if I can.
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: So much.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: So much.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I've been listening to Strict Scrutiny and I feel
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: like surfeit is a word that I could throw in there,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: you know, just to prove I can hang.
• 28:30
  Speaker 7: You know, I invite you to the pod at any
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: time to use all of your $ 50 vocabulary words.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: You're always welcome.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: So first of all, just stepping back, what was your
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: reaction to President Biden's reaction of someone we are calling KBJ?
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: So I was absolutely thrilled. This is a brilliant, brilliant nomination.
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: I know that President Biden said he was going to
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: pick a black woman. And I actually think that the
• 28:56
  Speaker 7: whole lead up to this and how like basically almost
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: every black woman lawyer in the world was on the
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: incredibly long short list. But that too was amazing because
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: it showed everyone that there was this amazing crop of
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: legal talent that had really gone unrecognized and untapped for
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: a really long time. And at the top of it
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: is Ketanji Brown-Jackson, and she's just the most fantastic nominee.
• 29:18
  Speaker 7: She has deep, broad experience in so many different facets
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: of the legal profession. She has been a judge at
• 29:25
  Speaker 7: the trial court level, at the circuit court level. She's
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: been a clerk at all three levels of the federal judiciary.
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: This person is tailor-made for this moment. It's a fabulous,
• 29:34
  Speaker 7: fabulous nomination. I was delighted and literally all the black
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: women in America are in formation.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: We are part of the K-Hive. We're ready.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I get nervous when K-Hives are brought up because I've
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: tangled with the K-Hive in the past, but I appreciate
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: what you're saying.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, the other K-Hive. The KBJ-Hive. I'm sorry. I didn't
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: mean to trigger you. The KBJ-Hive. Apologies.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So on Strict Screamy this week, you had a discussion
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: about what it meant to that Biden defiantly repeated, I'm
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: going to choose a black woman for the Supreme Court,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: despite the human cry from conservatives. And one point that
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I believe Kate made, which I found fascinating, hadn't heard before,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: which is that it wasn't just a good thing to say,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: it was a legal argument. Can you talk a little
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: bit about what that means?
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: Sure, I agree with you.
• 30:23
  Speaker 7: This was one of the most astute and I think
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: underappreciate observations. And Kate's just a smarty pants, so good
• 30:30
  Speaker 7: for her for bringing this up. But she characterized it
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: as a kind of presidential constitutionalism. And it's this idea
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: that it's not just the courts who make constitutional meaning,
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: but other actors, including the president do. And her point
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: was in this moment where the court is poised to
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: take up a really consequential challenge to affirmative action in
• 30:50
  Speaker 7: the next term, President Biden's insistence that he was going
• 30:54
  Speaker 7: to name a Black woman to the court really stood
• 30:57
  Speaker 7: in stark contrast to this court, which really seems poised
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: to dismantle affirmative action. And it seemed to be a
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: statement that as the court is considering in what circumstances
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: the use of race can be permissible, it seems like
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: this court thinks that there's no use of race that
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: could ever be permissible. The president was making a point
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: that not all uses of race are tantamount to Jim
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: Crow segregation or white supremacy, that in fact, the use
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: of race in circumstances where it's intended to remedy past
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: exclusion or underrepresentation can actually be appropriate. And his insistence
• 31:33
  Speaker 7: on this was not just about semantics or campaign promises,
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: but in Kate's view, and I think she's exactly right,
• 31:39
  Speaker 7: it was a moment of constitutional meaning making.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: So now we head into a confirmation process. What worries you?
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Does anything keep you up at night about this process?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: The different Republican lines of attack feel like pretty thin gruel.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I don't even know if you would be able to
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: call it broth. She went to Harvard. That's unacceptable to
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: us when it's not the other four members of the
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: court who went to Harvard. What worries you about the
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: coming fight?
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: I don't lose sleep over this because I'm planning to
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: look 35 for the next 25 years. So I don't
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: lose sleep over the Republicans. They're going to do what
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: they're going to do. But I think we're already seeing
• 32:22
  Speaker 7: a kind of coalescing set of objections, none of which
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: really stick, but I think they will try it nonetheless.
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: So I was on another show this morning and a
• 32:32
  Speaker 7: caller called in and literally just sort of peeled off
• 32:35
  Speaker 7: a set of Republican talking points. She's a radical leftist.
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: She's soft on crime. She's been funded by dark money
• 32:41
  Speaker 7: and George Soros. And You know, I don't even know
• 32:45
  Speaker 7: where you get this from. I mean, the whole point
• 32:47
  Speaker 7: about her being soft on crime, this person linked to
• 32:49
  Speaker 7: her being a public defender. But we all know that
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: being a public defender is not about being soft on
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: criminal justice. It is about a clear commitment to the
• 32:59
  Speaker 7: rule of law and this constitutional value we have that
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: every person in the criminal justice system who is a
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: defendant has to be represented. Like that is a value
• 33:08
  Speaker 7: that the Constitution actually represents.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Protects.
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: And so, again, calling her soft on crime because she
• 33:13
  Speaker 7: has represented indigent defendants seems like a real stretch. But
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: if that's what they have, I mean, I guess. But
• 33:20
  Speaker 7: I just think these attacks on her are not going
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: to fall really well. And it seems like a political miscalculation,
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: given how many people are excited about this historic nomination,
• 33:32
  Speaker 7: how many people recognize that this isn't going to change
• 33:35
  Speaker 7: the composition of the court in a And it just
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: seems churlish to kind of deny people the opportunity to
• 33:43
  Speaker 7: be really excited about what is a major milestone in
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: the American legal landscape.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: The ideological makeup of the court is not changing through
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: this appointment, as you just pointed out. But what are
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: your hopes for the ways in which Justice Jackson can
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: wield power, maybe in ways that were different than what
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Stephen Breyer could.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Or would do?
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: What's actually quite brilliant about her selection, like, I mean,
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: she's a lot of different things. She has been a
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: circuit court judge where she's had to work in multi-member
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: bodies and, you know, much was made at her nomination
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: introduction about how she's very much a consensus builder in
• 34:21
  Speaker 7: all of these different institutions of which she's been a part.
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: But she's also been a district court judge where you're
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: kind of solo and, you know, you kind of read
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: the law in your way. And if you're appealed, you're appealed.
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: But many times district court judges aren't appealed. So what
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: you say sort of stands. And I think that bodes
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: well for her in the short term as someone who
• 34:40
  Speaker 7: will be prepared to write really cogent, entrenching dissents. And
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: I think she will be dissenting a lot given the
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: nature of this court. But if the landscape changes and
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: the composition of the court changes, and maybe there are
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: more moderate Republican appointees, maybe there are more Democrats, I
• 34:58
  Speaker 7: think there will be an opportunity for her to exhibit
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: some of these consensus building strengths that she has and
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: really sort of be in the mold of her mentor,
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: Stephen Breyer, who very much was a pragmatist, very much
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: was insistent on consensus, even though the moment was probably
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: a little far gone for consensus. But In that sense,
• 35:17
  Speaker 7: she really could be a nominee for all seasons, like
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: in this moment where dissents and pushing back is necessary,
• 35:24
  Speaker 7: but maybe also looking to the future where conciliation is likely.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Last question on this. I was very troubled to learn
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: that Judge Jackson did original oratory and dramatic interpretation as
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: part of the Speech and Debate Club as a forensics champ,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: as a former extemporaneous....
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: That was your event?
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I did extemp and I did oratory. I feel as
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: though I worry that forensics kids are theater kids adjacent.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I feel like this is a little too close to
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: having a theater kid on the Supreme Court. Does that
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: worry you at all?
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: So I too was a forensics kid. My initial.
• 36:10
  Speaker 7: event was declamation and then original oratory and then student
• 36:13
  Speaker 7: Congress where I was a.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: National champion too.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I just brought that out there.
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: I think we should have theater kids on the Supreme Court.
• 36:21
  Speaker 7: I want to see jazz hands on the bench. We
• 36:23
  Speaker 7: haven't had any flair since Justice Ginsburg passed away with
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: those jabots and collars. Like I'm ready for it. We've
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: got Neil Gorsuch, we've got Sam Alito. They're not bringing
• 36:35
  Speaker 7: anything with flair to the table. I mean, Justice Alito's
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: got that great skin, as I've remarked about in the past.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: You're always talking about Justice Alito's skin, famously.
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: I'm telling you, he's thin-skinned, but it's so dewy and moist,
• 36:50
  Speaker 7: and I think we have to acknowledge that.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: He's doing something right.
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: I mean, he's always doing something on the right, but
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: he's also doing his skincare right, and I think we
• 36:58
  Speaker 7: have to give him props for that.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: But I love the idea of a theater kid.
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: And I love that she did some kind of improv
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: thing with Matt Damon, which makes her Jennifer Lopez adjacent.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: She's like two steps away from Jennifer Lopez, which is
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: also kind of amazing too.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: I like that we both did a declamation and then, Oh,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I like that. That was our, we both.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: Were on a similar natural progression. That is the natural progression.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. All right.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: So I did want to before before we thank you
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: for taking the time before we let you go. There
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: were two very serious and dangerous developments, one in Florida,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: one in Texas. There is the don't say gay bill
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: in Florida. Twenty other states already have anti-gay curriculum laws
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: in the books. But this bill goes further. I'm going
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: to ask you a question. I know that you can't answer,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: but as this looks like it could pass and Governor
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: DeSantis has said he will sign it. What happens when
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: this law hits the courts?
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: I think this law and the Texas anti-trans law both
• 37:54
  Speaker 7: have really big issues. And the thing is, their issues
• 37:58
  Speaker 7: are sort of organized around this one single constitutional principle
• 38:02
  Speaker 7: that parents have a right, a fundamental right, but not
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: an unfettered right, to raise their children in the manner
• 38:07
  Speaker 7: of their choosing.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: I think that augurs poorly.
• 38:11
  Speaker 7: For the Texas bill because this whole idea that parents
• 38:14
  Speaker 7: cannot authorize gender-affirming treatment for their children seems to fly
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: in the face of that idea of parental rights. On
• 38:20
  Speaker 7: the other hand, the point that parents do not have
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: an unfettered right, like they have to send their kids
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: to school, they may have to submit to a particular
• 38:28
  Speaker 7: kind of curriculum, that I think may create a dicier
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: question in the Florida situation in terms of what the
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: state can mandate in terms of public education.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: It's a general matter.
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: Public schools are free with some limitations to sort of
• 38:44
  Speaker 7: craft a curriculum that is available for the entire collective.
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: And it seems here that Florida has done this with
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: particular anti-gay animus in mind. And I think the real
• 38:55
  Speaker 7: issue is how a court, whether it's a federal court
• 38:58
  Speaker 7: or a state court, thinks about this. Do they understand
• 39:00
  Speaker 7: the underlying anti-gay animus? How do they treat that? Is
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: it a question of a suspect class? It wouldn't be
• 39:06
  Speaker 7: in a federal court. Perhaps it might be in some
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: state-level courts. But they all sort of turn on this
• 39:11
  Speaker 7: question of parental rights, which have really gotten a lot
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: of attention this year because of the mask mandates. But
• 39:17
  Speaker 7: that's really what's orienting all of this. And these two
• 39:20
  Speaker 7: laws are really two different sides of this same principle.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: I want to come back to the Texas part of it.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: But on the Florida side, so There is the parental
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: rights argument, but critics point out that the law is
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: written so broadly that it might lead teachers to feel
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: as though they can't even refer to the fact that
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: they have a same-sex spouse.
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: I think that's the point. It's vague by design. It's
• 39:43
  Speaker 7: not a criminal law. Generally, criminal laws can be struck
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: down as being unconstitutionally vague. Civil law is Not so much,
• 39:50
  Speaker 7: but I mean, I think you do have a broader
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: question of whether the law is so vague as to
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: chill what would otherwise be constitutional or permissible conduct. And
• 39:58
  Speaker 7: that is, I think, an open question that would have
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: to be litigated. But I think the vagueness is by
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: design because the law is actually intended to, one, chill
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: conduct to deter people from doing these things. and more importantly,
• 40:15
  Speaker 7: to cultivate a culture of shame around this. And so
• 40:19
  Speaker 7: in that sense, it has been remarkably successful, even if
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: it is ultimately invalidated.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: On the Texas front. So this is the governor affirming
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: his attorney general and saying he believes the law means
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: that gender affirming care can be constituted as child abuse.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And therefore, parents who are supportive of their trans children,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: listen to the best medical advice, are in some ways
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: are liable under this law, and that nurses, doctors, teachers,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: that people who have a duty to report, right, as
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: part of their obligations, they have to report when they
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: see something wrong. It's not just that they are legally obligated,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: now have a legal obligation to report parents for supporting
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: their trans kids. What was your reaction to this letter?
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: And what happens now? We've seen district attorneys in, say,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Austin say they're not going to enforce this. What happens next?
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: I think, one, the first thing I thought when I
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: read this directive undergirded by this letter drafted by Attorney
• 41:26
  Speaker 7: General Paxton is like, this is terrible constitutional analysis. I mean,
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: we have recognized in the Constitution, or not in the Constitution,
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: but inferred from the Constitution, this principle that parents have
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: this right to raise their children in the manner of
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: their choosing, including things like medical treatment. And this really
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: flies in the face of that. But it is of
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: a piece, I think, with other kinds of conservative legislation,
• 41:49
  Speaker 7: for example, the use of child endangerment laws against pregnant
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: women who, quote unquote, endanger their fetuses. So this is
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: sort of the same idea, like using existing child abuse laws,
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: but expanding their scope to include this other kind of conduct.
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: I think it's unlikely that it would survive a legal
• 42:07
  Speaker 7: challenge for a lot of different reasons. The whole issue
• 42:09
  Speaker 7: with the doctor's reporting seems to fly in the face
• 42:12
  Speaker 7: of the patient and doctor privilege. Although doctors do have
• 42:17
  Speaker 7: reporting requirements for actual child abuse, but I think a
• 42:20
  Speaker 7: lot of people would say that this is quite far
• 42:23
  Speaker 7: of an extension of those principles. But I don't think
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: that the ultimate litigation and invalidation of this law is
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: the point. I think the point is ultimately to chill conduct,
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: to make parents afraid, to stop them from offering this
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: treatment to their children, and to cultivate, again, a culture
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: of shame, to express symbolically that this is something that
• 42:48
  Speaker 7: Texas thinks is inappropriate, it's problematic. it can have enormous
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: collateral consequences. For example, if you are a parent and
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: you are being sued for custody of your child, for example,
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: and you are actually offering this gender-affirming treatment, it could
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: be used against you if this law remains on the books. Again,
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: I think the law is likely to be challenged and
• 43:09
  Speaker 7: will be invalidated. But just that kind of fear, the
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: thought of losing custody of your children, the thought of
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: a child endangerment suit against you, I think is enough
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: to chill the conduct.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: And I think that's the point.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: There's something also about both, we've seen this in a
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: few different proposals from Republican politicians around kind of deputizing citizens, right?
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Trying to get neighbors and nurses to report the bounties
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: around the abortion law in Tennessee. There was an effort
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: to deputize as law enforcement, anyone who owns a gun.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And there does seem to be also some kind of
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: admission of weakness in this, that their efforts to do
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: this down the middle have somehow failed. The letter from
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Governor Abbott, it's like a fit of pique because it's
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: basically saying, I don't agree with the consensus of doctors.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: I don't have control over that. The medical profession, I
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: see it a different way. I'm not a doctor, but
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: I've decided I know better. And so I'm going to
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: use the tools I have to try to subvert this
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: consensus that as a governor, I reject. There does seem
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: to be a kind of admission that their previous efforts
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: have collapsed.
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: So I'm going to make a connection that does not
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: seem obvious, but think about all of those laws, those
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: religious objection laws where people can say, you know, I'm
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: not going to perform a same-sex wedding because I am
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: religious and it violates the tenets of my faith.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: To do so.
• 44:31
  Speaker 7: I have argued in a lot of the articles that
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: that's a kind of privatization move. Like you don't like
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: what the public sphere is acknowledging as sort of majoritarian
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: sexual mores.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: And so you.
• 44:44
  Speaker 7: figure out this other way using religion or something else
• 44:47
  Speaker 7: to basically create your own private Idaho where it's 1954
• 44:51
  Speaker 7: and you don't have to recognize same-sex marriage or black
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: people or whatever. I think it's a similar kind of
• 44:56
  Speaker 7: move to the private sphere, as you stated, like, you know,
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: majoritarian norms favor equality, favor inclusion, diversity, and that's not
• 45:06
  Speaker 7: where you are. So instead you have sort of depth,
• 45:08
  Speaker 7: like when the state won't step in and enforce your
• 45:10
  Speaker 7: vision of what's appropriate, you've now deputized it to private
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: citizens who like you are alarmed and want to enforce
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: this kind of vision. And so I think we're seeing
• 45:19
  Speaker 7: that in a lot of different venues, like this sort
• 45:22
  Speaker 7: of shift to private means of enforcing norms that may
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: be bygone norms in a lot of ways.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you also see that in some of
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: the protests around mass policy. I think you saw this
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: as well, because when parents show up at a school
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: board and say, I have rights, it is my child,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: you do, of course you do. But we all come
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: together and have a system for how we each reflect
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: our own rights and responsibilities and values. We come together,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: we debate it, we elect the people that are on
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: the school board or who select the school board. And
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: then as a democracy, we recognize that we all have
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: disparate interests, but it's only one school building. And so
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: we give that authority to a school board that makes
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: the best decision they can. And if you don't like it,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: that's life. But there's this kind of anti-democratic aspect to this,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: which is I will agree to the democratic decisions that
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: fit with my worldview, and I won't with the ones
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: that don't. But that's not how it works.
• 46:17
  Speaker 7: I mean, you're preaching to the choir, but I mean, again,
• 46:21
  Speaker 7: and the whole, like the whole, like my way or
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: the highway, like I'm all for democracy until I don't
• 46:27
  Speaker 7: like democracy and democratic deliberation. I think we're seeing this
• 46:31
  Speaker 7: in so many different facets of public life right now.
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: It's not just these questions about sexuality, about I mean,
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: we're seeing it with CRT, like, you know, I mean,
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: where are Black parents in the whole debate over CRT? Like,
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: why don't we have a voice in terms of what
• 46:47
  Speaker 7: these curricula look like? I mean, no one asked us,
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: like for the last 20 years, we've been, our children
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: have never really had the opportunity to have a full
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: fleshed out view of American history. And yet, you know,
• 46:57
  Speaker 7: suddenly these other parents get to say what gets taught
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: and their points of view are credited.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: So again, you're preaching to the choir. I don't know
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: what to say about that.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I'll keep preaching. Yeah, it's the also I mean, look,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: it's the same. It applies to the to the don't
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: say gay bill, too, because these are parents that grew
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: up at a time where sexuality in terms of sexuality
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: was discussed ad nauseum in school, but not gay sexuality.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: And that should be cordoned off. It shouldn't be heard
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: from because I'm straight and I didn't have to hear
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: about it. I got to grow up in a straight
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: white experience. And I want that same thing for my
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: children not to be confronted by these other ways of living.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: while ignoring the fact that some of those kids are black,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: some of those kids are gay, some of those kids
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: are having an experience in that classroom.
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: I think one thing that gets said about it, which
• 47:45
  Speaker 7: I think is a fair point, is like, are you
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: sure that the teachers are equipped to actually present this
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: information in ways that are credible, that are understandable and accessible.
• 47:55
  Speaker 7: And I think that's just a bigger question of like,
• 47:58
  Speaker 7: if we actually did this more frequently and better, we
• 48:00
  Speaker 7: could actually get good at it. But if we don't
• 48:04
  Speaker 7: do it, we're never going to get good at it
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: at all.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Well, if the objection is we don't believe schools can
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: translate curricula into good teaching, we have a bigger problem.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: And the answer isn't to only teach the parts of
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: history we like.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: It's one concerned parent for another.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Final question. Somewhere out there, there is a person who
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: lost in the final original oratory competition to Kataji Brown Jackson.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: They feel pretty good today, huh? It's good to lose
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: to this person. Don't you think? They've carried around for
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: a long time, that number two spot. And today that's like,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I lost. Yeah, but I lost to a Supreme Court justice.
• 48:43
  Speaker 7: That person is definitely telling, like, I lost to a
• 48:45
  Speaker 7: Supreme Court justice, for sure.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Yeah. Good for them. Good for them. If you're
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: going to be number two, this is the person.
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: Better to be like number two to Katonji Brown-Jackson than
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: some other person.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely. Melissa Murray, thank you so much for taking
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: the time. Everybody go subscribe to Strict Scrutiny. It is
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: a great way to keep up with the Supreme Court
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: and the legal culture around it. It's a great show.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you.
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: Talk to you later. All right.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: So before we go, all your favorite Republican goofballs descended
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: on Orlando this weekend for this year's Conservative Political Action Conference,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: or CPAC. We've got Madison Cawthorn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump Jr., J.D. Vance, and of course... former President
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who had this to say.
• 49:35
  Speaker 8: They're going to find out the hard way starting on
• 49:38
  Speaker 8: November 8th and then again even more so on November 20, 24.
• 49:44
  Speaker 8: They will find out like never before.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: We did it twice and we'll do it again. We're
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: going to be doing it again a third time.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: How many more times does he have to say it?
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: How much more specific does he have to be before
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: everyone starts treating him as the 2024 Republican frontrunner? I mean,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: the guy's fucking running. Unless he's dead or in jail.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: And even in the in-jail scenario, I don't know.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dan hit him with a take-him-seriously-not-literally joke on Twitter,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: which is a great comeback. I think we should never
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: forget the infamous Selena Zito running. Yeah, I mean, look,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: it's exhausting that no one enforces the rules on this guy.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: I also feel like the whole exploratory committee process is
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: such a joke that I can't get myself that worked
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: up about it. But yes, he just announced.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Technically, he's activated several rules that will change the way
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: he has to conduct his campaign.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: It would be cool if they did that, though.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what are they going to do?
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: We're going to do the FEC to save us? I
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: don't think it's going to happen.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: He did pretty well in the CPAC straw poll.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: He did.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Of course, again, this is a straw poll of the
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: most hardcore right-wing activists.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Trump, then Putin, then DeSantis.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Well, 40% of them are from Florida that voted. They
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: said that last time too, though. 85% chose Trump as
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the nominee. 97% said they approved of his presidency. Again, Putin,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Kim Jong-un-like numbers there. And he did beat DeSantis in
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: a head-to-head 59 to 28. So the whole, you know,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: that's strike one against Trump's losing his grip on the party.
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I think you got to run against Trump to eventually
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: beat Trump. You know, you got to show some strength.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: You got to show you'd be a better candidate that
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: you could win. Like take a message against the guy.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Come on, DeSantis.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: I will say that I don't think it's great for
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Trump that Joe Biden has rallied NATO and other countries
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: to turn Trump's pal Putin into an international pariah for
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: launching an unprovoked invasion. I think that's back to our
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: conversation earlier. That's also one reason I think Republicans aren't out.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: talking about this a lot. Ukraine wasn't mentioned much during CPAC.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: And I think it's partly because, look, lest we forget
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: what the first impeachment was about, Donald Trump threatening to
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: withhold military assistance to Zelensky unless he dug up dirt
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: on Biden. And then tried to blow up NATO and
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: said the United States was going to get out of NATO.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Look, Republicans experience occasional bouts of of self-preservation and even
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: occasional moments of shame, but they never last. And this
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: thing drags on, there's economic costs, they will be out
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: in force parodying whatever nonsense Trump says about it. So
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: we should be ready for that.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: And in the short term, I mean, I think like
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: global events and really like governing generally doesn't really animate
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: this crowd. They like the culture war stuff. They like
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: talking about cancel culture and owning the libs. And unless
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: we're fighting a culture war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, like
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: they're not going to be that into it until they
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: can make it about whatever bullshit.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I do think that's a little bit why someone's on
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: the right side of the culture war well i think.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: That's why some of them have gone to that point
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: like i actually think putin's a christian unlike these liberals
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: in the white house i.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Think that's putin doesn't use pronouns it's it's uh.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah you can't put they them on a tank the
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: uh fucking idiots the uh but uh absolute idiots but
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: uh i think it's because it's like they don't know
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: how to culture it's hard to culture war this real
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: world scary real it's real this is.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Well again the people on their side of the culture
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: war are the ones launching an invasion that's killing people
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: in front of the entire world for the whole world
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to see. That's why I think it's not that popular
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: for them to talk about. Speaking of the culture war, though,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: let's listen to some of the greatest hits from the
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: other CPAC speakers.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: The paperwork's already been filed.
• 53:28
  Speaker 9: I have introduced articles of impeachment to impeach Joe Biden,
• 53:33
  Speaker 9: impeach Kamala Harris, get Nancy Pelosi the heck out of.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: There, and save our country!
• 53:40
  Speaker 10: And we are in the process of getting money from
• 53:43
  Speaker 10: the legislature so that if Biden is dumping illegal aliens
• 53:47
  Speaker 10: into Florida from the southern border, I'm rerouting them to Delaware.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: We'll do some in D.C. and Hollywood as well.
• 53:55
  Speaker 9: Homeland Security sent out a memo saying if you hear
• 54:00
  Speaker 9: anybody speaking against the covid policies, education policies, of this
• 54:06
  Speaker 9: administration report them.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: To the authorities. It was a slap in the face.
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: We got to hold Democrats accountable, everybody, right?
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Fire Fauci.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: We've got to investigate Hillary Clinton's campaign.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Lock her up. Lock them all up.
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: Why should Americans have to pay the cost of freedom
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: elsewhere when our own leaders stand up for our freedom here?
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: I'm not for sending Americans to Ukraine. except maybe one.
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: If Russia wanted to destabilize Ukraine, Putin didn't need to
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: send tanks. We could have just sent Dr.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Fauci.
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: You were wondering where that was going to land. In
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: a place that makes no sense.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: When are they going to let Hillary Clinton just live
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: out her days? Like 20 years from now, they're going
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: to go to some very fancy nursing home and be like,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: we're here to fucking lock you up. We're finally doing it.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know. She gave a big speech last week.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I watched the Trump speech live for some reason, and
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: it was very low energy. Like, he was just not
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: into it. He was not feeling it.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: The crowd liked it, but like... Even that super cut. Like,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: talk about playing the hits. They're sort of stale. It
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: was like, we're talking about investigating Hillary Clinton.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: You know what's interesting?
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: What was that Homeland Security that Marsha Blackburn was talking about?
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, that was Marsha Blackburn.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: It sounded like her. Correct me if I'm wrong. It
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: sounded like Marsha. I hate that I know the sound
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: of her voice, but.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: You know, they got a little too comfortable with Trump
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: as the news director for the country. They got a
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: little too comfortable waiting for him to tell them which
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: way to go. You know, they're a little out of practice.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: It's tough to do programming on your own.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Jeff Zucker of the conservative movement
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: has gone and they're beside themselves.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: One more thing to note from this weekend. There was
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: another event in Orlando that took place at the same
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: time as CPAC. the American First Political Action Conference, a
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: white nationalist event orchestrated by Nick Fuentes, who also attended
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Here's what he
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: had to say right before he introduced Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: And now they're going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: is Hitler and they say that's not a good thing.
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have said that.
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: You know, they say about America, they say, diversity is
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: our strength, you know. And I look at China and
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: I look at Russia. Can we give a round of
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: applause for Russia?
• 56:44
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: Putin! Putin!
• 56:51
  Speaker 8: Putin!
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: Absolutely.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Those are Putin chants in Orlando. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: at this event. Paul Gosar sent a video at this event.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: He's doing like a brain-dead Norm MacDonald voice.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what was that?
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: Really, that guy's a foul person.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Here's a headline from the New York Times, February 21st, 1999. 22,000
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Nazis hold rally in Garden. Police check foes. Scenes as
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: German-American Bund held its Washington birthday rally last night. What's
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: old is new again. You know what I mean?
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: So Green says she didn't know that Fuentes was a
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: white supremacist. Yeah, sure. And that she only spoke there
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: because the gathering had a very large and young following.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not true, by the way.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: So Mitch McConnell responded by saying, quote, there's no place
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism. Really?
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: And Kevin McCarthy called Green's appearance unacceptable and said that
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: he'll be meeting with her this week. What do you
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: think that's going to lead to, guys?
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think. One, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a liar
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: and an idiot, and she knew exactly what she was doing.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: Two, the damage is done. Every time these guys get attention,
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: even if it's negative, they win. Their message gets out.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: People hear about them. They see their views. They get
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: more followers. This is bad. What happened is really bad.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: And I think last thing just on CPAC is the
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: story of CPAC for me is that what is fringe
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: this year becomes mainstream next year. Trump pulled out of
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: CPAC in 2016 because he got a shitty time slot
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: and a bunch of people were going to protest him
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: or walk out of his speech. Now the whole thing
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: revolves on him. And so it's not just a question
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: of like, OK, do Republicans have the guts to condemn
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: this version of anti-Semitism, literal Hitler praise? It's do they
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: have the power to rid the party of this group
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: of people that they have tacitly welcomed in over the
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: course of many years by embracing their fucking 4chan and
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: 8chan memes and like playing footsie with the MTGs of
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: the world and being OK.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: With this stuff? Some people on our team were asking
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: us right before the show, why do we think that
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell like responded so strongly to this?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: And it's a great question. And I was thinking about
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: it like I think what McCarthy is doing here is like, OK,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: there's furor about this right now. I'll say that I'll
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: meet with her next week. He'll meet with her. She'll
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: be like, well, you know, I she'll issue like a
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: half apology that isn't a real apology. and then by
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that point everyone will turn to the next thing yep
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: but i do think it's like incumbent upon everyone else
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: reporters democrats or else to be like no no no
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: you have a member of the republican caucus who attended
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: a white nationalist event where this was said at a
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: moment where vladimir putin is like.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: This is a Klan rally.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: It's a fucking Klan rally. This guy was at Unite
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: the Right. He was in Charlottesville. We see where this leads.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And like, you've got to kick her out of the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: fucking caucus and hold them accountable because clearly McConnell and
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: McCarthy know that they don't want to embrace it.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: They're worried about it. So don't let them forget about it.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Jim McCarthy's a huge fucking coward. So,
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: no hope there.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: Just the worst.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: No hope there.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: And also, like, you know, he's going to try to
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: run for Speaker, if they win, he's got to keep
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: the whole right-wing fringe with him. He's just a pathetic
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: human being.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Remember when Marjorie Taylor Greene had to go to stand
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: in front of the Holocaust Museum and apologize the last
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: time she participated in anti-Semitic bullshit?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: I think this is the worst one for sure.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: It's a prone Hitler rally. You should be expelled from
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: the house.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: Quite, quite bad.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: It's not that. This is an easy one if we
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: didn't have a fucked up society that made it a
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: hard one.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Get out. Well, that's CPAC for you. Another CPAC is
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: in the books. And that's our show. Tommy, we are really,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: really happy that you're back. It's so good to have
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: you back at the table.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: It is good to be back. Thank you guys for
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: giving me some time away. Just to talk about like
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: a minute for like about the last month and kind
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: of what we've been, my wife and I, Hannah, have
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: been through. Listeners may or may not have noticed that
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: I've been gone for about a month. We were expecting
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: a baby girl in May. Unfortunately, there was a knot
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: in her umbilical cord and our daughter Margo was stillborn
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: in late January at six months. And the broader context
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: that made all of this so much harder is that
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: Hannah and I have been trying to get pregnant for
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: a couple of years. We had several miscarriages over the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: past few years and we had like just gotten past
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: the point where we thought we were out of the
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: woods with Margo. And then this freak accident happened and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: we lost her and it was just completely devastating. And so,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: you know, we are, it's a, it's a weird mix
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: of feelings. I am genuinely grateful and Hannah's genuinely grateful
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: that we got to meet her and hold her and
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: just be with her for a few hours. But leaving
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: without your kid is gutting. And it's just, it's not
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: an exaggeration to say that it upended every plan we
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: have for the future and that the next steps are
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: incredibly daunting and As is just the sort of general
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: shift from this phase of like acute grief and time
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: off and focus and to just like living with this
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: forever in the finality of it all. And so, you know,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: that kind of manifests in ways like every day, big
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: and small. Like we spent part of Valentine's Day picking
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: up our daughter's ashes from the morgue. That was rough.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: But then there's also just little stuff like very nice,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: well-meaning people will say, oh, do you guys have kids?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: And the answer is yes. You know, we are parents.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: We have a daughter.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: Her name is Margo. We love her. We'll love her forever.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: She means everything to us, but her time with us
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: was brief, you know, and your options in that moment
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: are like lie or rip your guts out in front
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: of some fucking stranger who was just like making small talk.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, we spent this last month, like
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: trying to work through this stuff and reflect on what happened.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: And like, we're obviously very sad and I'm really angry sometimes,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: but I also did come away feeling incredibly grateful for
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: what I have in my life and the people around me.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: And there's kind of like a counterproductive way to have
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: this fight with yourself, which is to like scold yourself
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: and be like, look what's happening in Ukraine. Nothing you
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: went through compares to that. Like that's not useful. I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: don't think there's any value in like ranking or dismissing grief,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: feelings or feelings. But I think mourning is different than self-pity.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: And I think gratitude and perspective has really helped me
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: in this process. And it's come from people and from
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: books and just for like reading and learning. And so
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: the thing I am most grateful for is Hannah. You
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: guys know her well. She adores you both. Listeners don't
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: know her because she's a pretty private person. She'll remain
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: that way. But she has been so strong through this.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: She has sacrificed so much over the last couple of
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: years for me and for our family. And I just
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: couldn't imagine life without her. And to state the unbelievably obvious,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: the burden of pregnancy is not born equally, but neither
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: is the burden of a miscarriage. We shared the emotional
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: pain of losing Margo. But The physical burden was entirely
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: on her. And I hate that so much and just
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: would have done anything to change it. But I, you know,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: I'm just so lucky to like walk through this hell
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: with her. And I wanted to just talk about this
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: stuff today for a couple reasons. The first is because
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: I think that miscarriage and difficulties with pregnancy have got
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: to be one of the most frequently occurring and traumatizing,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: but least discussed things that happen to people. And I
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: don't know why, because that makes it harder. Um, we
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: had some good friends, Ashley and Steve, you guys know
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: them well, who have been through similar experiences. Like, thank
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: God we were able to talk to them because they
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: were enormously helpful. There are celebrities out there who have
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: done this, who dealt with this. John Legend, Chrissy Teigen
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: have been incredibly open and were fucking attacked for it.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: And by the way, if you attack them, you're monsters.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: But hearing about their experience really helps like a shocking amount.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: It really matters because there's no playbook. for how to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: handle the loss of a child. And like losing Margo
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: hit me like a ton of bricks and it impacted
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: us equally. But Hannah and I felt and we grieved
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: the previous several miscarriages very differently. And that in itself
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: can be hard, but it's also normal. And if you're
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: not prepared for it, because no one talks about it.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: So I just think we need to like normalize talking
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: about this shit, especially for men. Because like, I don't know,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: it felt, it feels weird to talk about it. It's
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: not my body. I'm not autonomous here. And also just,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: I think, Talking about this stuff this time, talking about
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: Margo this time has been helpful for me personally, because
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: only a handful of people knew about the challenges over
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: the past few years and how it impacted me. But
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: what happened manifested in me in every interaction I had
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: with the world. And that was hard to keep in.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure it made me like angry and shitty
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: in situations where there were days where I was having
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: a tough time and no one knew why. And like,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: that's just hard. And I'd actually, I had made my
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: first ever appointment with a therapist a few months back
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: because I wanted to just like prepare myself to be
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: a father and be a better husband and more patient
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: human being. And it's like introductory call in December. It's like,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: what do you want to work on? It's like, uh,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: problems at work. And then I get on a call
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: with this guy. The first appointment is the day after
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: we get back from the hospital from losing Margo. And
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest. Uh, I thought it was very funny
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: to jump on a zoom with this guy and be like,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: Remember all that shit we talked about before?
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, do I have something for you?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: I got an update. We're going to take this in
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: a different direction. So, last two thoughts. One, people have
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: just been so nice. I'm so grateful to the Crooked
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: Media team and you guys for letting me step away.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: I'm stepping away for a month. That's not easy. I'm
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: so grateful to the listeners of this show who are
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: so kind to us because I am normally very cynical
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: about social media. I think it's bullshit 90% of the time,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: but the words and the love and the people that
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: reached out, it really, really, really mattered. It really, there
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: were periods where those interactions, just reading that stuff, even
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: if it was one way, like sustained me when I
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: had nothing else to cling to. And so thank you.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: And it's a good reminder to me. And I think
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: hopefully anyone listening that if you have a friend who's
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: having a hard time, it's not what you say, it's
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: that you said something. So default to trying. And then
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: just last, last thing, like, I just want to say
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: thank you And then I'm so grateful to our family
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: and friends. You know, just people like reached out to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: us and supported us in ways that I didn't know
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: were possible that I wouldn't have known to think to
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: ask for. And it's just like such a blessing that
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: Hannah and I have found a way to surround ourselves
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: with these like kind, good people who were doing things
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: for us behind the scenes in front of us that
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: we'll never even know. And I want you all to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: know that we are keeping score. And that there's a spreadsheet.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: And the best heavily weighted variable is financial. So just
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: bear that in mind going forward. And so that's it.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: I'm back. Missed you guys a lot.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: We love you guys. We would do anything for you.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: And look, I know it's one thing to think that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: speaking about this publicly is a good thing and helpful.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: And it's an entirely other thing to actually have the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: courage to do it. Especially because... you're both private people,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: especially Hannah. And the courage it took for you guys
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: to post about it, to speak out about it is incredible.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: And I can tell you that from reading all of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: the comments on social media too, it has meant the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: world to a whole bunch of people, listeners to the
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: show and otherwise. And so I hope you guys are,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys are grateful for that as well.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: And I'll just say, serious point is I have been
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: I've seen you try so hard to understand how you
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: were feeling as you were going through this. And it
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: was so moving to see the work you were doing
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: to try to be the best person you could be
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: for Hannah during this time. I've had that to be
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: one of the most moving things I've seen a person do.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: And also, I just think people need to understand that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Shameik brought really shitty bagels. And I brought much, much
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: better bagels. The bagels I brought were so much better
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: than the ones Shamik brought. Those were shit bagels. And
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: I think we should, they were terrible.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: And everyone should know.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: And they were, and it was, and honestly it was
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: an insult, but I'm glad I could fix it.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: He's still trying to make up for it. Talk about
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the score sheet. He has, he's slipped a few places.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: What's the name of that bagel place?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: Courage Bagels.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: It's, I've, legitimately the best pickle I've ever tried in
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: my life. I can't believe I'm doing an ad right now. Um, look,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: I've sort of, you know, there's, I've dealt with sort
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: of like two moments of like really extreme grief in
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: my life. There was this, and that was losing my
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: father to cancer. And I think the speed with which
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: this happened, you know what I mean? Like the 24
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: hours between no heartbeat to delivery is, just like left
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: me no choice. I was just like a frayed nerve
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: when I got home. And like, I like just, I
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: woke up that morning. I was like, I have something
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: in me that I just have to say. I cannot
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: not talk about this stuff anymore.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: It's like the first couple of times I was like, Hannah,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: you take the lead, whatever you want to say about miscarriage,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: everything else in life, I will follow suit. So I
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: was like, I just like have to kind of tell
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: people what's going on because I'm just going to fucking die. And, and,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: you know, so I think it's a good lesson for
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: me that That's the better path for almost everything in
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: life is trying to address stuff and talk about it.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: Anyway, real uplifting episode today, guys.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: We started with nuclear saber rattling.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: There's no good time for the theme music to start.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Katonji Brown-Jackson, next Supreme Court justice.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: That's exciting.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: That was good. How about that? That was good. We
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: love you, Tommy. We're happy. Thanks, guys.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: Love you back. Appreciate you.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.