Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s Grand Opening.”

Transcript

“Trump’s Grand Opening.” · 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.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Tommy talks to Salon's Amanda Marcotte about
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: her reporting on a recent sexual misconduct allegation against Joe Biden.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Before that, we'll talk about the debate over when and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: how to open up the country, Trump's blame China strategy,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and the negotiations over the next economic relief bill in Congress.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: But first, Lovett, how was the show this weekend?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: We had a great Lovett Relieve It. Guy Branum judged
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: my monologue. Emily Heller gave us a tour. of her
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: garden that I was against doing, but happened anyway. And Dr.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Joseph Meltzer from UCLA talked to us about what was
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: happening on the ground at hospitals across the country. Plus,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: we talked to some listeners. It was a great show.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Awesome.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: One more note.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: The CDC says we should all be wearing cloth face
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: coverings whenever we leave the house. We've If these have
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: been hard to come by or make, we've got you covered.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: We are now offering three packs of reusable non-medical masks
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: on the Crooked store. 100% of the proceeds go to
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: our coronavirus relief fund. You can find them on crooked.com
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: slash store. I ordered some last night when I knew
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that the link went live. I'm very excited.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Really kind of shaming me for getting some for free.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, how did you do that?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I didn't do it.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going to buy them. I'm going to buy them.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, great. Well, either way. Okay, let's get to the news.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Here's where we are. Over half a million Americans have
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: been infected with COVID-19, and we have now lost more
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: than 20,000 lives to the virus. It is now the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: leading cause of death in the United States. Just to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: put this in context, you know, the Iraq war, which
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: raged on for a decade, we lost under 5,000 American
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: lives in that war. So it is just horrific. In
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: response to this catastrophe, the president spent the weekend on
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Twitter attacking anyone who's ever criticized the government's response, which
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: he then bragged about as follows, quote, for the first
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: time in history, there is a fully signed president disaster
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: declaration for all 50 states. We are winning. So congrats
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: on that, I guess, to him. Trump also reignited the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: debate about when it's safe to leave our homes and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: go back to work amid reports that he's eyeing May
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: 1st or sooner. When asked about what metrics are informing
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: his decision about when to relax the CDC's social distancing guidelines,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the president pointed to his head and said, that's my metrics.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Lucky us. Love it. Trump tweeted this morning that, contrary
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to news reports, this is his decision and not up
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to the states. Is he right? And what powers does
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: he actually have here?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: He's not right. Obviously, that was an easy one. He's
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: not right.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Constitution says so.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: First of all, it's amazing. The suggestion that he's not
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: making every decision really rankles him. It bothers him. And yet,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: any blowback for any decision that has even the slightest
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of negative ramifications, he denies any culpability for. He's evaded
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: hard decisions this entire time. He's left it up to
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: the governor's and mayors. Now, largely, a lot of these
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: authorities resort to governors and mayors, but he's also not
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: even imposed sort of basic kind of leadership of suggesting
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: what he thinks a lot of governors and mayors can do.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis refused to close the beaches in Florida for
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: weeks on end. Mike Pence called him decisive in the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: briefing room and Trump refused to criticize him. So no,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: it wasn't his decision to make any of these closures.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It's not his decision to undo any of these closures.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And there's no one singular big decision for him to make.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: The truth is that we're going to have to make
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of very hard decisions over time to slowly
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: reopen the economy. So on top of it not being true,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's also not preparing the country for just how hard
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the next few months and even the next year is
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: going to be.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, obviously the CDC has guidelines for social distancing,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: but they are guidelines. This is largely up to governors,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: local leaders, businesses, right? But as you point out, he
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: wants the credit for the easy stuff and he doesn't
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: want to make the hard decisions because he doesn't want
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the blame for anything that goes wrong. Tommy, we heard
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: over the weekend that You know, we had heard from
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: public health experts, governors of both parties, even Trump administration officials,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: all saying that the May 1st deadline isn't realistic. What
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: are some of the reasons they're giving?
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, Dr. Redfield, the CDC director, said, I
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: think this morning that reopening would have to play out
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: community by community and county by county even. But first,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: that we would need to substantially augment our public health
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: capacity to do early case identification tests. isolation and contract tracing.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: So that's a quote. And that's the key here. I mean,
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: we did not have a national nationwide quarantine like Levitt
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: was just talking about. Some states and localities move faster
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: than others to enforce social distancing. Some really didn't do
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: much at all. So that means that while New York
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: City maybe is peaking in terms of cases, hopefully, fingers crossed,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Florida could have a rough road ahead. So debating reopening
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: the country is just dumb and it makes no sense.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: And it's like classic Trump to make us talk about
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: something that isn't realistic. But More importantly, like we haven't
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: used this time to adequately ramp up testing or hospital
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: capacity to prepare us for whatever a phase two post
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: early social distancing reopening is. And I think this is
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: the part people really need to understand because reopening almost
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: certainly doesn't mean going back to normal life. It means massive,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: almost unimaginable changes to our own lives. Things like nationwide
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: random testing at the scale of like, Every individual is
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: tested once every two weeks, maybe. That's an idea that's
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: been floated. Huge new digital surveillance capacity for the government
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: or some entity to trace our contacts if we get
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the disease using our cell phone GPS data. That will
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: require tens, if not hundreds of thousands of new employees
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: to actually do this tracing. We'll have to have mass
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: serology testing to see who may have had COVID and
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: not known it or, you know, now has immunity. And
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: there are people talking about plans to basically conscript individuals
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: who have the disease now of immunity into high risk jobs.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, there are also I think we
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: probably need to have improved treatments that are short of
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: a vaccine that would reduce the mortality rate. And so
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: if you don't do all those things, you're just going
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: to lead to a scenario where there's another mass of
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: new infections. Health care workers are overwhelmed. And so I
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: would point to the World Health Organization where an official
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: said that the virus is going to stalk the human
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: race for quite a long time until we have a vaccine.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: And that is the reality probably of the next year
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: or two. And what's dangerous about what Trump is doing
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: is he's giving political cover to a bunch of governors
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: and local officials who want to be able to say
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: we're back to normal, but we're not even close.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I think the important point you make there is this
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is not going to be easy no matter what you do.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: And this idea, this false choice between like, should we
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: protect people's health or reopen the economy is completely absurd, right?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Like sick workers aren't productive workers. Scared consumers don't go
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: buy products, right? Trump could order the entire, say he
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: had the power, he could order the entire economy open tomorrow.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Business leaders could decide our doors are open. Governors could
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: all decide to agree with Trump. And what would happen?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Most people would either not want to go back to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: work because they don't feel safe, or they wouldn't want
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to go to restaurants or buy products or go shopping
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: because they feel like they're going to get sick. I mean,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the latest Fox News poll has 80% of voters favoring
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a federal stay at home order for everyone other than
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: essential workers. So one poll here in LA, 95% of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: people here in Los Angeles agree with the stay at
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: home order. So this idea that it's the economy or
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: our health is so ridiculous. Like, if everyone went back
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to work tomorrow, if all the businesses opened, millions and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: millions of people would get sick and the economy would
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: not get better. Like that would be a worse economic
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: situation than we have right now. If we have millions
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of new infections and hundreds of thousands of more deaths
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: by opening up the economy right now. And Trump doesn't,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: he does, I mean, people are telling him that, but
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to really grasp that. And he doesn't
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: seem to want to make any of the hard decisions
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: to plan for mass testing and serology tests and surveillance
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and all the things that Tommy just mentioned that we
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: need to do in order to go back to normal.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Trump does leave an out for himself. Well, I don't
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: want to do it if we're not going to be healthy.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: He always throws an out inside of his saying, we're
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: going to open back up, we're going to open back up,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: as if there's some possibility that we could open up
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: on May 1st without it being a risk to people's health.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: He always sort of gives himself an out to keep
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: pushing the date back. But even if you look at
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: his behavior recently, right, which involved him saying we'll be
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: open by Easter, then taking it back, having Pence go
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: out there and saying it's 15 days to stop the spread,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and then 15 days later saying it's 30 days starting
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: now to stop the spread.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Even if you take all of that- It's always 15
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: days away.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: It's always 15 days away from stopping the spread.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Even if he doesn't make some calamitous, dangerous decision, saying
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: that he wants governors to do this and blames governors
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: for any economic pain by calling on them to open it,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: even if it's not time, even if he doesn't do
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: something that reckless and dangerous, What's happening right now is
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: reckless and dangerous. Suggesting that we could do it is
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: reckless and dangerous because other than Fauci. occasionally in answer
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to a question saying reopening the economy isn't a light switch,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: it's going to be hard. Other than the epidemiologists and
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: experts who are screaming as they were in February about
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: what the disease could do, screaming now that we have
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: not fully countenanced this, how dangerous this some of this
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: talk is because it doesn't let Americans know, give them
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: a reasonable expectation of what the future is like, what
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: it looks like to begin slowly unfurling the economy to
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: begin coming out, even though we won't be able to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: go to restaurants as much. We won't be able to
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: go to live events. We won't be able to go
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: back to normal. We won't be able to sit in
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the same room with a lot of people. That their
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: inability to set those expectations is going to cost lives
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: because people are going to get tired of being in
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: their homes with all this uncertainty, with all this inability
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: to know what the future holds because they can't trust
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: their leaders and they're not getting good information. People are
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: not going to take this for an entire summer if
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: they don't get real actual guidance from experts about what
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: actually has to happen.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: What's infuriating is that it seems to be a choice
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: between do we all stay home or does Trump get
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: his way and we all go back? And the solution,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you know, as Tommy was talking about, is a plan
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: for massively ramping up testing, massively ramping up surveillance and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: contact tracing. And, you know, we've seen a lot of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: plans over the last week or a couple of weeks
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: offered by policy wonks. mayors, governors of both parties, business leaders.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden just wrote a New York Times op-ed about it.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: What are some of the common themes in these plans
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: and what parts jumped out at you as particularly important
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: or realistic that we should really be pushing the federal
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: government to do?
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we covered the core thing, so
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I don't want to repeat a bunch of stuff, but
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I thought the Biden op-ed was good in that what
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Biden seems to get is that Trump refuses to acknowledge
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: that we are going to be dealing with this for
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: a year or two, and that we're going to have
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: to totally rethink nearly every element of public life to
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: deal with it. So, for example, Biden cites the need
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: to rethink how offices and restaurants and factories are laid
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: out to make them safer so that we could return
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: to them. I mean, we're going to need that kind
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: of thinking on a national, if not global scale. Think
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: about buses, subways. emergency room waiting areas, movie theaters, Uber rides.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Like someone has to be thinking all of those things
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: we do in our general lives before we can resume
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: those activities and call them safe. Maybe there's a way
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: where we are doing, you know, practicing new ways of
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: protecting ourselves and others with masks, wearing gloves all the time.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know, a bunch of shit that makes it
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: acceptable levels of risk, but like, the thinking needs to
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: be that big in that dramatic. And that is after
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: all the testing and serology and surging of infrastructure. And
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: what Trump seems to like more than anything is the
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: drama of it all, right? Like you read that insane tweet.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, imagine FDR treating like, you know, congrats for
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: the first time we've Pearl Harbor has been bombed. Like
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: it makes absolutely no sense to think that that's a
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: thing to be excited about or proud of. But what's
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: frustrating about this conversation, as with so many in the
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Trump era is like, we're debating the wrong thing. We're
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: debating this narrative about him being this big decider when
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: the reality is he has very little control.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: What also comes through all of these different versions of
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: a plan is just how hard it is, just the
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: extraordinary scale of what they're going to say we need
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to do. Contact tracing like they did in South Korea,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: color me skeptical about America's capacity under this president at
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: this time with the mistrust of institutions and the kind
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: of whatever, sclerotic nature of our response so far that
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: we'll be able to ramp something like that up and say, okay,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: so then we're gonna need to test everybody, fine. Okay,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: we need to find out new ways to go to restaurants.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Restaurants are gonna what, half their capacity? Was the restaurant
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: business fun and easy when they could fill up their restaurants?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Like the scale of what we're calling for, a lot
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: of this is like a bunch of different, nearly impossible
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: things that we're gonna have to choose instead of the
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: impossible things. And again, like if we had a Democratic
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: president right now. There would be a bunch of incredibly
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: big and important conversations going on and meetings going on
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: and proposed plans going on. And then Republicans saying the
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Democratic president wants to destroy the economy because they're being
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: specific about X, Y, and Z. There'd be a real debate.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: It would be on a lot of bad faith and
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: lies and deception, but there'd be a genuine debate about
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the really difficult set of decisions that are going to
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: be made over time, which Trump is not interested in.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say like, you know, we
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: had a pretty competent administration. We had a tricky time
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: with healthcare.gov and the rollout. Under the most competent administration
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: you could imagine, this would be the most enormous challenge
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: that government had faced in a century more to try
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to do what we need to do to sort of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: get back to normal, right? Contact tracing. They're thinking you'd
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: need 100,000 workers paid or volunteer to to start doing
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: contact tracing. Surveillance, right? Apple and Google last week partnered
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: so that on your phone using your Bluetooth So it's not,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you know, privacy experts were like more OK with this
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: than usual. If you walk by someone, the Bluetooth will
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: let you know that that person has had that has
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: tested positive. But of course, that's only voluntary.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: To protect people's privacy. So none of these things are perfect.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: All of these solutions are going to require the type
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: of imagination and competence that we have never seen from
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration. And by the way. they all call
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: for a federal response, not a state by state thing, right? Like,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Boston's doing some interesting things. They're already having
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: serology tests here in LA, right? Like individually different states
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and cities can maybe do some of this, but you know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: say everything's going great in California and we're testing and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: tracing everyone still going to be people coming in from
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Florida to California, which isn't doing too great. So what
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: are we going to do about that? This is why
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: you have a federal government and Trump is too incompetent
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: to run that federal government.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: And he just fundamentally does not want to ever condition
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: the public for how hard something is going to be
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: or offer bad news. And look, when you're talking about
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: a best case scenario where the entire country willingly allows
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: the Trump administration to track all of their movements and contacts, like, Hey,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: we all should be pretty freaked out by that. That
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: maybe is something that like civil libertarians will decide is
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: not worth it. And we should think of other avenues
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: because it's a big deal. And it's hard to unwind
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: those powers once you've given them over to a government.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I just, it's like, like, I don't want to be,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: we're not in the prediction business. What planet, where is
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: this happening? Like, are we, are we like.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: A massive surveillance? It's happening in Asia right now.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: We're in the United States of America in this climate. I.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I think the only choice is that or stay home.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: It's that or a lockdown that lasts for a year
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: or 18 months. And I think given those choices, people
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: might be willing to give a little on privacy. If
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: it's the kind of thing where, I mean, what's going
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to happen is if it's voluntary for a lot of
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: these things, it's less effective, but it's better for privacy.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Well, you start to see, right? You start to see
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: how actually you choose parts of all of these things
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: and you muddle through with some opening and then closing,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: with scaling up testing and try to get as much
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: testing as you can, especially for people who are high
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: risk or maybe exposed, some contact tracing in some areas
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: where there's some capacity, like you can conceive of California,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: which has responded incredibly well, having the competence and ability
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: to deploy some of the measures that we won't be
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: able to do nationally. You start to see how this
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: gets to be an ugly muddle, but then you realize
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: why companies like Morgan Stanley, who are just watching the money,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: look at this and say, here's what we think for
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the next year and a half. Here's what's going to happen.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Investors need to know we're going to maybe have another
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: peak next year. We're not going to fully come out.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That won't be done until there's a vaccine. The people
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: in charge of money are able to tell each other
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: the truth about this.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think all of this comes down to every
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: single one of these briefings, reporters should be pressing Trump
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and Fauci and Bricks and everyone else up there. What
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: is the plan? What is the plan for more testing
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and What is the plan for serology testing, for testing
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: asymptomatic people? When is it coming? When is it happening?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Like forget what was going through your mind when you
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: made the biggest decision of your presidency. Where are the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: fucking tests? What's the plan?
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: We know what was going through his mind. It was
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Fox News.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. And the fucking CEOs who have been yelling
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: at him that they want the economy open because, you know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: they can protect themselves, just not their workers. So Trump
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: isn't very focused on plans, but he is focused on
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: who he's going to pin this thing on so he
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: can avoid blame for the response. The Trump campaign ran
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: an ad late last week that blamed China for the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: coronavirus and accused Joe Biden of being too China friendly.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: The Daily Beast says this is now a central strategy
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of the Trump campaign, make China the villain. And some Democrats,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: they say, are worried it might work. First of all, Tommy,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: can you untangle for us the question of how much
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: responsibility China has in the spread of coronavirus in the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: first place?
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, they didn't create the virus themselves. But
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I do think they deserve blame for how they initially
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: handled the coronavirus. China censored news about the spread. I
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: don't think anyone should believe the official figures about the
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: death toll, for example. But I mean, anyone familiar with
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: the Chinese government's handling of incidents like this should not
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: have been surprised by that. And we know that U.S.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: intelligence officials were warning about COVID back in November and
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: that that information was briefed to the White House, the
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Defense Department, and was in Trump's PDB in January. I mean,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: for God's sake, Peter Navarro was writing memos that sort
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: of spelled out the stakes of what could happen in January.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: It didn't take a genius to figure this stuff out. Now,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: in terms of Trump's attack, it's probably effective. Xenophobic racist
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: attacks tend to work with his base. Democrats tend to
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: fight back by calling it racist, which doesn't rebut the
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: core argument that Trump is making. I think the challenge
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: for Trump is that He repeatedly and effusively praised Xi
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Jinping's handling of coronavirus. His secretary of state bragged about
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: sending tons of PPE to China. So Trump was either
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: knowingly lying about China's response or he was too stupid
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: to know what was happening. He was getting spun by
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Xi Jinping. Trying to make this about Biden being soft
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: on China to me is just factually ridiculous. My fear
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: is that Trump has this massive structural advantage of huge
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: social media followings, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: in money that he's raised, and they can flood the zone,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: both in earned and paid media, to tell a story
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: that muddles things. And I think that's something that all
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Democrats should be quite concerned about.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Well, but what did you think of the ad? And
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: why was it a little off?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, it's off because it's, I mean,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: it's full of lies and misinformation. It has a picture
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: of Gary Locke in it, who's just an American. So
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: just sort of like, he's Asian. So that's bad as
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: far as the ad is concerned. But yeah, I mean, look,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: when I saw the ad, what I thought is, oh, wow,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Trump genuinely believes this is a liability for him. When
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Trump and the Trump people view that they have a liability,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: their first goal is to try to get some of
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the stink shared, right? That's what they did with Hillary
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Clinton and and corruption. That's what they're going to do
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: with Biden with China, because they know they have a
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: real liability here. That said, it's like, you know, this
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: is just a it's a classic kind of two things
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: can be true situation, right? Like, I see a lot
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: of Republicans, Kevin McCarthy did it today. They're like, they're
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: trying to scapegoat China, because there are legitimate questions about
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: what China did and didn't do as coronavirus was taking hold.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: None of that detracts from the failure of the Trump
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: administration to to not buy China's spin and not do
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: enough to protect the country. Their one decision they keep
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: hanging their hat on is that he decided to close
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: the borders is a little bit like, you know, saying
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: you close the safe door after the bank robbers got away.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Everyone knows this. Everyone understands this. But he's going to
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: repeat it and repeat it and repeat it because it's
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the one talking point they think they have in the
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: face of their kind of terrible early response.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, Republicans always need an enemy.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Having it be an invisible enemy as the virus is
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: not really good enough. You know, I think back to
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: sort of after 9-11, right, the terrorists were the enemy.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: They had a clear enemy and Democrats were not tough
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: enough on terrorists. And that was basically the that was
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the play for the next decade for Republicans. Trump wants
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: to do this again with China. He used China as
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: a wedge issue in 2016, except it was about trade.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: He tried to say that, you know, Hillary Clinton and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the Democrats weren't tough enough on China. So this is
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: in his wheelhouse anyway. You know, Center for American Progress
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: did some message polling on Trump's coronavirus response. And they
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: found that, you know, the one thing that people are
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: giving Trump a lot of credit for is this travel
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: ban for China. So it is it could be an
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: effective argument. I think what Democrats have to make sure
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: we do is not give him an inch on this.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Like, you know, on February 25th, Trump said and Tommy
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: was talking about how he praised China. On February 25th,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Trump said that China was working very, very hard to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: contain coronavirus, adding that, quote, they're getting it more and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: more under control. On February 26th, Biden rebutted this line saying,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I would not be taking China's word for it. I
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: would insist that China allow our scientists in to make
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a hard determination of how it started, where it's from,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: how far along it is. You talked about how the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: ban itself was both too late and not tough enough. 400,000
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: people came in. from China here before the ban was instituted.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And even after the ban was instituted, 40,000 people came
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: from China because it wasn't a strong enough ban. So
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you've had Trump praising China's response to this back in February.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: You have a ban that was instituted too little, too late.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And so I think what Democrats have to make sure
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: we do is don't let him have this issue. Don't
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: let him be the tough on China guy here and
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: pretend that he instituted this travel ban that did anything
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: or that he didn't just craze and get rolled by
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the Chinese government throughout the whole beginning of this crisis.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Well, the other key on the ban is that all
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: it was going to do ever, even if perfectly implemented,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: was buy time to ramp up our capacity to test
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: and treat people and, you know, get more N95 masks
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: and ventilators. And we pissed away that time. So glad
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: you did the ban, but you squandered all the head
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: start it might have given us.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: If I was the Biden campaign or any progressive groups
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that run ads, I would put together an ad immediately
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of all the times that Donald Trump praised China, give
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: people information about how they shipped 18 tons of medical
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: equipment to China when Trump's own cabinet officials were begging
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: for more protective medical gear, and also talk about how
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the ban wasn't actually as effective as he brags about.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I would put that in an ad very quickly because
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: they are going to make China enemy and they're going
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to say the Democrats are soft on China, they're tough
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: on it, and they're going to make the whole response
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: about that. So I would get on that if I
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: was the Biden folks.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I also just would add too, it's a larger argument,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: but it's an argument that can become part of the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: 2020 conversation around China, which is how this fits into
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: the larger questions about our supply chains, our reliance on China.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And again, you will see Trump try to get better
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: than Democrats on that. And while you've seen over the
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: past three years, Democrats like Sherrod Brown not instinctively argue
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: in favor of certain kinds of trade agreements and what
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: have you, because they understand that there's a legitimate, important
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: place where Democrats need to get some leverage. Democrats just
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: need to be smart on this issue, too. They need
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: to not let Trump own trade with China, too, especially
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: when what we've seen is some of our supply chains
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: and a lot of other economic challenges have been born
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: of our reliance on Chinese manufacturing.
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Since we've had 16 million people filing for unemployment in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: just three weeks and parking lots full of cars in
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: line for food banks, let's talk about the debate in
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Congress over more economic relief. So the original plan was
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to negotiate a fourth stimulus bill, which has earned the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: catchy nickname Phase 4. But then last week, Mitch McConnell
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: said that even before Phase 4, he wants to get
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: another $ 250 billion out the door to shore up the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Paycheck Protection Program. which gives small businesses loans to cover
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the salaries of all employees making under $ 100, 000. And they
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay back those loans so long as
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: they don't lay off their employees or cut their pay deeply.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats are saying, wait, hold up. We like that program.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: We're the ones who fought for it in the first place.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: But if we're going to vote for an emergency relief bill,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: let's make it sure it covers all the real emergencies here. One,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of small businesses in rural and urban
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: communities that can't get big banks to give them loans
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: under this program. So we got to fix that. Two,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: we need more money for food assistance because people are
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: going hungry. Three, we need more money for hospitals and
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: healthcare workers. Four, we need more money for testing because
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: that's the only way we get out of these lockdowns.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: And five, states and cities need money because they're at
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: risk of going bankrupt. McConnell and the Republicans are so
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: far saying, no, we refuse to negotiate and are accusing
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Democrats of, quote, blocking job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs. Tommy,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: how should the Democrats play this?
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, the point of accruing political power is to
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: use it. And that remains true in a time of crisis.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: And that's not a partisan statement. It's the Democrats believe
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: that our policies and ideas are better and will help
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: more people. So we should fight for them. And Mitch
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: McConnell is a disgusting, cynical monster. But voters know that.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: They agree. So I think you should fight a messaging
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: war against him. Politico did this big piece on sort
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: of hardball ideas for the phase four stimulus bill. And
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: it like, you know, kind of crudely, but accurately points
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: out that the conundrum for Democrats politically is that when
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: you help the economy, when you bail out governors like
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Ron DeSantis in Florida, who have totally screwed up the response,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: you're bailing out your opponents, right? And you're helping them politically.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And while that's right, like there's just no way around it.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: So I think Democrats, you know, need to think about
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: the long game here. And I think we need to
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: think about how bad this could be and how long
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: it could last and how many things could spiral out
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: of an economic catastrophe that lasts 12, 18 months. And
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: so that debate needs to be scoped around what do
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: we need to do to help people? How do we
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: fight for it? How long can we extend it without
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: having to come back to Congress? So for example, like
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: an automated sort of data-based extension of unemployment insurance or
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: other payment mechanisms to individuals, that would be a good
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: thing to fight for so that you don't have to
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: go back to Mitch McConnell over and over again. I
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: do think that there was some stupid, silly stuff that
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: was easy to pluck out and demagogue in the last bill.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: No more fucking Kennedy Center funding. Let's force Republicans to
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: pass and accept hundreds of billions of dollars of funding
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: for hospital systems and for testing capacity. They want to
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: make this economic in nature, but I think we need
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: to fundamentally reject this idea that an economic relief bill
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: cannot include huge efforts to fix our healthcare system. It's
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: easy to be worried about these arguments. McConnell says, oh,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: you're blocking critical funding, whatever. I think this is the
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: point of having Nancy Pelosi in charge, and they need
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: to step up now and make this bill better. Otherwise,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: it's going to turn into a giveaway to a bunch
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: of businesses. Yeah.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I want to talk about phase four in
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a second, but just on this sort of interim relief bill,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the politics. So, you know, McConnell starts blaming the blaming
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Democrats and saying, oh, you're blocking job creating measures and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: sky is falling and all this bullshit. And then Mnookin,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: starts talking to Pelosi anyway to negotiate and Trump at
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the briefing basically hints that he's game too because Trump
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: knows that he needs as much economic stimulus as possible
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to make the economy better because he knows that his
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: entire re-election hinges on this so it's not just that
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: like Democrats have leverage which they do and they should
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: use it but they also like Trump needs a better
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: economy he realizes that I don't know what the fuck
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell is thinking but Trump realizes he needs this.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: So I think that gives Democrats even more leverage to
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: ask for what they want. And, you know, a Senate
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Republican aide said to Axios this morning, for as much
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: as we hate it, it's very clear that Dems aren't
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: just going to let the Paycheck Protection Program funding through
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: on its own. You also saw bipartisan governors over the weekend, um,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Larry Hogan in Maryland, a Republican, and Andrew Cuomo in
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: New York wrote an op-ed about how states and cities
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: need funding. So it does, I mean, Lovett, it seems
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: like Democrats should learn a lesson from even how this
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: interim bill is going as they look towards phase four
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: in terms of how much leverage they have.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you look at
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: just this one aspect of it, right, about re-upping these
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: sort of forgivable loans for small businesses. What is the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: argument about even on that one axis? It is that
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: there are some businesses that have relationships with banks. They
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: already have a lot of banking. They have a relationship
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: that's allowed them to get access to loans. Other businesses
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: that are either smaller or haven't gotten loans in the
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: past or haven't built up a relationship with the banks
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: are having more trouble accessing this program. Well, those are
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: businesses that are maybe more on the brink and that
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: need the help more urgently, but are maybe not a
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: natural constituency of the Republican Party. So that's just sort
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: of a good example of where you need to get
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: in there and force Republicans to do something for businesses
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: that need the help most. In the kind of larger
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: context of phase four, you look at what's happening. And
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: so what do we need to use our leverage for?
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's two things. It's one, we need to
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: do the most we can to help people in this emergency.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And two, we need to do the most we can
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: to protect our economy and democracy from future Republican sabotage.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Because what we have learned from this crisis compared to
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: 2008 is that when a Republican is in the White House,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Democrats will do what it takes to save the country.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: When a Democrat was in the White House, Republicans were
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: willing to sacrifice the country for their own political ambitions.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: That will repeat if there's a Democratic president. That will
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: repeat if Republicans are in a minority or if Republicans
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: can sabotage a Democratic effort in the future. And so
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: everything we need to do is not just... Yes, this
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: is about politics, but it's also about our future ability
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to respond to a crisis.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I just think this is.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: This is win-win for Democrats either way, right? You write
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the bill that you believe is what is necessary to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: help people, both can fix the health crisis, the economic crisis,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the democratic crisis, as you said, love it, right? You
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: write the most ambitious bill possible. This is what we believe.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Either you get Republicans and Trump to accept that, and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: then you go say, this wouldn't have happened without Democrats
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: fighting for it, or they don't accept it, And the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: campaign in November that Joe Biden runs and all the
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: other Democrats becomes, here is what we believe America should
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: look like right now. Here is our plan to rebuild America.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: It is focused on helping people. They are about helping
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: their rich friends. They are about, you know, $ 500 billion
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: bailouts with no strings attached. They are about helping the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: biggest companies. We are actually trying to help the people
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: who have been hurt most by this crisis. Um, and
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: so like, I, I, you know, Nancy Pelosi has a majority. Um,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: she can negotiate all she wants with Mnookin and McConnell.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: That's fine. But pass the bill that you want to
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: have passed. I mean, Michael Grunwald in Politico, you know, he's,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: he's sketched out a few different scenarios about what it
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: would look like if Democrats are actually willing to play hardball,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: which I think is a great piece. Um, you know,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: more congressional oversight for any money that's going to businesses
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: since we didn't have tough enough oversight in the first bill. Um,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I think Tommy mentioned this triggers, um, so that future
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: relief payments would automatically go out when unemployment rises to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a certain level, so that if Joe Biden becomes president,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: suddenly the Congress says, oh, we're not giving you any
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: more relief. Republicans in Congress just decide to cut it
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: off like they did to Obama. Funding for the kind
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: of public health infrastructure that countries like South Korea are
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: using to lift their lockdowns, what we just talked about,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: mass testing, all that kind of stuff. And a big
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: jobs program. And then most importantly, as we've been talking
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: about at least, voting protections for November. I do think like,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about this a lot here, but
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: we really, really got to make sure that, that voting is, uh,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that people feel safe when they vote.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: And they also just like, they need to think a
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: little bigger. I mean, I saw some data that like
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: the UK is paying 80% of worker salaries. Denmark's doing 75,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: South Korea, 70. We're like, Hey, here's a one-time check
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: for like 1200 bucks, maybe a little more unemployment insurance.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Like that's not going to cut it. And, uh, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: people are going to be in desperate situations pretty fast
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: because the economy is not going to reopen up. Like
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: things are not going to be normal and we need
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: to plan for that and plan for it over like
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: a two year timeframe.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I'd also just would add to that, like, you know,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: one of the things we certainly shouldn't be worrying about
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: is sort of like the short term claims by people
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: like McConnell and McCarthy and Trump that Democrats are holding
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: it up, trying to, trying to hurt the economy, won't
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: want to help people. I mean, Do we think, like,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: here we are, it's, you know, I've lost sense of
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: time because we're all in our homes, but it's been,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: it's been, what, two weeks since the passage of the
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: previous package that was, that Democrats fought and negotiated for
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: some protections and some changes. During that negotiation, Republicans were
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: saying they were destroying America, they were hurting people, they
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: don't care about the economy. I don't believe voters will
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: be thinking about that in November of 2020, that two-day
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: period of broad sides against Democrats. So the most, I
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: saw it, So as long as Democrats don't lose their nerve,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: and so far it seems like they are at least
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: saying the right things about willing to fight, we have leverage.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, there's been some good ideas out there, too.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Schumer unveiled a proposal called the Heroes Fund that would
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: provide $ 13 per hour hazard payments for frontline health care workers,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: grocery store clerks, truck drivers, drugstore workers, pharmacists. Elizabeth Warren
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and Ro Khanna just released a workers' bill of rights
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: plan today that also has hazard pay, like Schumer's bill, adequate.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: protective gear, protections for unions, universal paid leave, funding for childcare,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: whistleblower protections. I agree, Tommy, that like, you know, Pramila
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Jayapal has a bill that would basically guarantee, you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: like sort of like the program in Denmark and some
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: countries in Europe that would guarantee that you are paid
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: while staying home. You know, some people here say what
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: we did in the last bill for unemployment insurance, which
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: is for the average worker, 100% paycheck Replacement is just
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: as good as that, though, again, you like the difference
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: between unemployment when you have to leave your job versus
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: just being able to still be employed and get paid,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I think is a real difference to talk about. So
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of good ideas here, but I just think
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Democrats need to be as ambitious as possible. We mentioned
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: that we've been focused a lot on the voting part
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of this here at Crooked. A lot of you have
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: asked us what we can do about it. So we
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: are launching a new call tool on Vote Save America
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: that will help connect you directly with your representatives and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: give you a script to help you out with what
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: you need to say. If you go to votesaveamerica.com slash call,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: you can get connected. Here's what you can ask for
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: when you reach out to your representative. You should say
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that Congress should pass a fourth coronavirus relief package that
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: includes at least $ 2 billion in safe election money. They
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: should require states to invest in expanded vote by mail
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and early voting. and they should ensure that in-person polling
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: locations have the resources they need to operate safely and efficiently.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Voting thing is, it's a big one. It's a big one.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: It's sort of the thing that keeps me up at night,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: All right, great. So again, votetaveamerica.com slash call. Check it out. Also,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: before we go, some breaking news here in the middle
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: of the podcast. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Joe Biden. I
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: think it's in a Zoom call.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: I think it is too.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: As all good endorsements happen. So it's great. It's a
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: full-throated endorsement. Basically says, today I'm asking all Americans, I'm
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: asking every Democrat, every independent, and I'm asking a lot
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of Republicans to come together and support your candidacy, which
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I endorse. They also announced a joint task force between
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Sanders and Biden, worked on by their staffs to talk
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: about various progressive issues and policy positions. So that's some
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: good news. Yeah.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Good for Bernie.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Good for Bernie.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Good for Biden. And, you know, it's I think both
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: of them realize this is this is bigger than either
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of them. So that is a that is a good sign. OK,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll have Tommy's interview with Amanda Marcotte.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: I am now joined by Amanda Marcotte, a politics writer
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: for Salon and the author of Troll Nation, How the
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Right Became Trump, Worshipping Monsters, set on rat-fucking liberals, America,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: and the truth itself. That is just a phenomenal book title.
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you for doing the show.
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Appreciate it. So, Amanda, thank you for doing this show today.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: And I just want to warn listeners in advance that
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: what we're going to be talking about are– sexual assault
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: allegations against Joe Biden. So this is a difficult subject matter,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: and I want to warn people in advance. So until
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: this weekend, only you and a couple of other news
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: outlets had reported on these sexual assault allegations. And then
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: on Sunday, there were a series of investigative reports about
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: a former aide to Joe Biden named Tara Reid, who
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: was accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 when
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: he was a U.S. senator and she was a staff assistant.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Can we start with the basics of the story? And
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: could you walk us through the allegations that Ms. Reid
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: is making against Joe Biden?
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so she worked for Senator Joe Biden, or Joe
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Biden when he was a senator in the 90s, like
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: for a few months in 1993, basically. And about, I'd
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: say a year ago, she came out when there were
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: a lot of reports of Joe Biden's like discussion of
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden's kind of handiness, the way he touches people's
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: hair and their shoulders and stuff. And she said that
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: when she worked for him, that he would do things
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: like put his hand on her neck and run his
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: finger on her neck and do other things like that
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: without her permission. Her discussing that really didn't rise to
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: anybody's attention. It was covered by like a local newspaper
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: in her part of California.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: And that was basically it at the time.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: And then I'd say a few weeks ago in March,
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: she started, a few months ago, she started hinting on
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Twitter that there was something more to it. And then
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: in March, she gave an interview to Katie Halper on
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: a podcast called Useful Idiots, where she accused Joe Biden
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: of sexually assaulting her, of pushing her up against a
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: wall and digitally penetrating her.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: Against her will.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: And that's kind of the sum of it. There's not
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: a whole lot more to the accusation.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: So I should read the Kate Bedingfield, who's Biden deputy
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: campaign manager, told a number of outlets that Vice President
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: Biden has dedicated his life to changing the culture and
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: the laws around violence against women. He authored and fought
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Women Act. He firmly believes women have a right to
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: be heard. and heard respectfully such claims should also be
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: this claim? It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: So I just want to read the Biden campaign statement.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: And so you hinted at something that I think is important,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: which is I think following this subject can be confusing
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: for readers because there are these two distinct allegations and
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: they've come out at different times. So this year, most recently,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Reid alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her. Previously, she described
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: separate incidents of sexual harassment. So in April of 2019,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: she described to her hometown paper and the Washington Post
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: these incidents of sexual harassment. Those included things that you
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: described like Biden rubbing her shoulders or neck in a
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: way that made her feel uncomfortable. There was also an
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: allegation that she had been asked to serve drinks at
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: a fundraiser because Biden thought she had nice legs. That
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: was something she said she overheard to other staffers talking
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: about and not Joe Biden himself say that. And so
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: like you noted, this was during a period where there
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: was considerable coverage of what was described as unwanted touching, creepiness,
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: inappropriate behavior given a power dynamic and not sexual assault.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: And so I raise this not because I think one
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: allegation invalidates the other in any way, but I do
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: think that understanding the details of the story including what
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: details were sort of shared contemporaneously can be hard to
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: follow in some of the reporting. And so I was
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: hoping to just lay it out for folks. I mean,
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: can you talk a little bit about the allegations of
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: sexual harassment that were also made?
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So basically at the time, Tara said, told this reporter,
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: and she repeated this to me when I interviewed her,
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: that she just kind of felt like there was an
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: atmosphere in Biden's office of, of, like a kind of
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: madman-type atmosphere, right? That she repeatedly felt pressured to be
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: kind of a pretty girl and a sex object in
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: the office, that she was asked to serve drinks and
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: that she refused to do it. And then she said
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: that she was punished, retaliated against by the staff for
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: refusing to serve drinks. And then she said, throughout this time,
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Biden was... touching her, like her neck and her shoulders
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: and things like that. And she said that she complained
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: about it to multiple people to me. Um, I got
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: ahold of two of them and they said, no, that
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: they don't recall any such kind of complaint. She says
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: that she did not tell anybody in the office about
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: the alleged assault at the time. Um, so that again,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: when I asked her about why she's waited a year
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: between saying that she was harassed in the office and
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: then retaliated against, and then saying that she, uh, she
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: was assaulted. She told me that she got scared basically
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: of saying more.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like she specifically felt like the,
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: I believe the journalist who worked for her hometown paper,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: she said she considered telling the full story to that individual,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: but felt, um, shut down by the tone of the questioning. Um,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: It was also notable that I believe she talked to
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: the Washington Post the day after that story ran. And
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: this was one quote the Post published yesterday that I thought,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: you know, I think that people are, I think we've
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: learned that people talk about allegations of abuse in their
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: own time, in their own way. And that trying to
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: fact check them, I think is unfair. But there was
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: one quote that I thought was different, which was she said,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: talking to the Post, I want to emphasize it's not him,
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: it's the people around him who keep covering for him.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Looking back now, that's my criticism. Maybe he could have
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: been more in touch with his own staff. Do you
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: think that this was sort of a quote that seems,
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: it's hard to interpret given that the assault allegations are
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: very clearly about him? Was this sort of compartmentalized, do
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: we think, about the harassment allegations?
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: It's tough to say because I think unfortunately one of
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: the difficulties in reporting on this case I found is
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: that Tara has said a lot of different things about
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: Biden and her opinion of him over the years and
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: it's gotten increasingly negative and it sounds to me like
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: what she was saying was that she reported sexual harassment
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: to the people in charge and that that was all
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: they were reacting to, if that makes any sense.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: So let's just talk about the evidence that has been
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: cited in these news stories, including contemporaneous conversations about her
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: treatment in Biden's office. So a number of news outlets
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: have talked with Reed's brother, and two friends at the
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: time who say they recall talking with Reid about incidents
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: in Biden's office. Reid, like you noted, says she raised
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: harassment with her bosses in Biden's office. And she said
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: she filed a complaint through a Senate personnel office about
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: allegations of harassment, but not the assault allegations. NBC News
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: reported that If there were such a filing in a
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Senate personnel office, it would require a hearing by an
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: independent board, but they haven't been able to find evidence
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: of that happening yet. Were you able to talk to
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: these individuals who had these contemporaneous conversations? And do you
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: have a sense of whether investigative reporters or others could
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: find these records that Reid says she filed with the
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Senate office?
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: See, this is where it gets really confusing. So on
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: the first part of the question, I did ask Tara
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: to connect me with the people that she said she
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: told at the time, and she did not do that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: I asked on the phone, I asked on Twitter, she
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: didn't get back to me. I don't know if it
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: just didn't rate as important to her or... I don't
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: know why she didn't. I did find her brother's information
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: and I did contact him twice and he also did
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: not get back to me. So I wasn't able to
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: independently verify any of that. It does sound like the
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: New York Times and the Washington Post had more luck
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: than I did. As for the paper filing, I haven't
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: seen any evidence. It sounds like the New York Times
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: and Washington Post reporters did do everything they could to
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: try to turn that up and haven't had any luck.
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: Um, when I talked to.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: Tara, she emphasized more that she reported it in person
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: to her supervisors. So that was what I got out
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: of this story with her was that she was, had
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: meetings with people and asked them to do something about this.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: So that I felt like precluded a paper trail.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: Um, and, and we didn't really talk about a paper trail. Right.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: And so she talks about in some of the interviews
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: talking to a woman named Marianne Baker, who was Biden's
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: executive assistant at the time. Dennis Toner, the deputy chief
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: of staff, and Ted Kaufman, Senator Biden's chief of staff
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: at the time. Three individuals who are obviously very close
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: to Joe Biden, but all three say they don't recall
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: the conversation or deny the conversation.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she told me about the conversations with Mary Ann
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: and Dennis, and they have both denied it to me.
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: So then another update was last week, Reid filed a
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: complaint with the D.C. police. She said she did so
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: because she was being harassed online. She wanted the police
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: to be aware of this harassment, I think, to protect herself.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: What do we know about filing this report or how
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: it could maybe help an individual from harassment?
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess all I would say is it sounds
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: like it was a somewhat different process than what we
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: usually think of when you're filing a police report. And
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: that might just be a result of how long ago
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: it was, but I don't know anything about it, so
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: I can't really speculate.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Sure, totally fair. So, you know, the New York Times,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: I mentioned how there were, you know, a bunch of
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: stories and the New York Times wrote in their piece,
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: which appeared first on Sunday, quote, no other allegation about
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of misread allegation.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: end quote. But I mean, there have been several allegations
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: of unwanted touching or violating personal space, that it's obviously
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: a different allegation than assaults. But I mean, I guess
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: if we're talking about patterns, I mean, how significant do
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: you think that statement is from the times or important
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: it is to evaluate patterns in cases like this?
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: This is a tough one because the fact of the
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: matter is, as I think we saw with the Me
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: Too allegations that have come out over and over and
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: over again, is that Um, usually when you're dealing with
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: men who sexually assault women, they don't stop at one
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: or only do it once. Usually, um, it's a pattern
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: of behavior for most men who do this, um, especially
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: if they're older. Um, you know, I, I, it's not
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: everybody's Harvey Weinstein. I mean, he's an extreme example, but
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: It's pretty rare that there's only one, but I want
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: to be clear that a lot of the time, especially
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: when you're talking about a politician, they've met a lot
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: of people. And so any reporter who's trying to shake
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: the bushes to see if there's another allegation out there
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: is like going to inherently only be able to talk
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: to a tiny fraction of the people that a politician
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: or another powerful man like that's ever encountered. So sometimes
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: what happens is you publish the story And then all
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: these people start coming out of the woodwork. So I
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: wouldn't discount that possibility just because at this point in time,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: they haven't found anybody. So unfortunately, as painful as it
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: is for us all to have to deal with it
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: this way, it's a wait and see kind of thing.
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: And so to the, to the wait and see nature,
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, so I mentioned at the top, like before
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: this weekend, It was noticeable that not a lot of
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: major publications had yet published articles on the story. That
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: changed Sunday when the New York Times, NBC, Washington Post,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: the AP all published these long pieces that they'd clearly
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: been working on for weeks. Many of them talked about
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: how they'd been speaking with Misread for weeks, if not
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: a year. You talked about this in your piece, which
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: emerged before this reporting. Can you talk about why you
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: think it took so long for major outlets to run
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: pieces on this? Should we interpret anything in that lag?
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: And was there any standout detail or reporting that you
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: think sort of advanced the story or taught us new
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: things this weekend?
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: And I said this in my original piece.
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: Like I said, it came out a couple of weeks ago.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: So To sort of give you an idea of why
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: we were able to publish a little faster, it's perversely
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: because Salon, we don't have a lot of resources. I'm
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: like a reporter at the New York Times or the
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Washington Post. I don't have a research assistant. I don't
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: have all these people to help me. It was just
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: me and my editors, me making all the phone calls,
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: me working all weekend. And what I quickly realized after
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: talking to Tara, after talking to the folks at Time's Up,
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: after talking to at least one of the lawyers that
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: Tara interviewed with and some other folks with the Biden
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: campaign and stuff, it became pretty clear to me pretty
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: early on that The chance of actually finding out what
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: actually happened here, especially with our limited resources, was pretty low.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: And so I kind of refocused my investigation on trying
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: to figure out what kind of political eruptions were coming
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: from this and how much I could debunk the sort
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: of conspiracy theories that were out there from both Biden
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: supporters and Sanders supporters, who were the people that were
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: really kind of pushing this story early on. And That
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: was the most I could do with my resources, but
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: luckily that was the kind of work that we could
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: turn around really fast. I think that with the New
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: York Times and Washington Post, even though they have a
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: lot more resources than I do, they were hitting their
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: head against the same wall that I was hitting my
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: head against early on, which was it was very difficult
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: to figure out the truth of what actually happened in
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: 1993 between Reid and Biden. And they, I think what
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: happened is they just spent more and more time just
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: trying to get all the like facts in order and
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: do all the interviews and see how many more people
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: they could talk to just to see if there was
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: any chance of finding something that could tell us the
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: truth one way or another. And that just takes time.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of hurry up and wait, right? You
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: file a FOIA request, you make phone calls, you try,
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: you ask everyone that you can find Um, I didn't
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: have to deal with that aspect of it quite as much.
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: Um, so I think it was a little easier for
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: me to get it out fast. Does that make sense?
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that makes total sense. I think it just
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: speaks to how challenging it is to figure out anything
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: that happened a long time ago. Um, the challenge of
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: reporting generally takes a lot of time. People are being conscientious. Um,
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I guess you talked about the conspiracy theories. I mean, so, um,
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: This is one of them. And frankly, it's like the
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: least interesting part of the story to me, but a
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: lot of attention has been paid to Tara Reid's writings
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: about Vladimir Putin. The very short version is she wrote
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: some effusive things about Putin, like, quote, he's a compassionate, caring,
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: visionary leader, which is obviously not accurate. But, you know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: it's not really relevant, except that there were all these
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: accusations then that she was a Russian agent. And understandably,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: that really bothered her. And it seems like Those accusations
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: became part of why she sought and failed to receive
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: support from the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund in particular.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: So can you talk about the pood piece of this?
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Is it worth anyone's time to care or are people
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: just like scarred and overreacting to 2016?
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: You know, obviously that was a big part of the
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: conspiracy theories that were going on online. So I looked
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: into it. I was able to find the writings. She
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: had written them on Medium and then deleted them. I think, obviously,
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: because it was embarrassing. And she was worried about that.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: When I asked her about it, she was pretty all
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: over the place about what she believed about Vladimir Putin.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: And I'm.
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: I think the truth that's closest to it is that
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: she did watch some Oliver Stone documentary and just got
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: caught up in Putin worship. But ultimately, you have to
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: conclude that if someone was a Russian agent, they would
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: do a better job of hiding that fact.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Seems right.
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: You know, like if you, if Russia was paying you
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: to spread propaganda around the U S you wouldn't like
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: run around like saying things like that because it would
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: just credit you.
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: Right. So I think, I believe her that she just.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: Really got caught up in, um, some Oliver Stone style
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: propaganda about Vladimir Putin. And I think what's most important
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: is I don't really see how that changes what happened
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: between her and Biden in 1993. Like people with bad
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: ideas and bad beliefs can get sexually assaulted. Yeah.
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, frankly, I debated whether even to raise it.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: It's just, there's so much traffic online. If you search
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: for this about that issue that, you know, it's, It's demoralizing.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: So look, we just talked about these allegations, old and new,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: for 25 minutes. I mean, do you have any advice
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: for listeners who heard this conversation or read the stories
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: and they feel like they're despondent, they don't know what
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: to believe, we don't know how to process complicated, painful
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: allegations like this in a way that is fair and factual?
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: Is there any advice for listeners?
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, I would just mostly caution patients. What was
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: heartening for me in seeing the New York Times and
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: the Washington Post and NBC News and all these other
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: places publish pieces about this was that it was true
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: that reporters were actually working on this. Reporters are actually
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: working on this. um we may never know the truth
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: of this and that may be something we just have
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: to live.
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: With um but.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: Like wanting the information right now and just feeling like
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: if we don't have it right now then everything is
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: like hopeless or lost is not the attitude i think
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: Everyone just needs to sort of wait and see. It's
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: okay not to know. It's okay to say, I don't know.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good, that's very good advice. I feel
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: like we will continue following the story. Hopefully there'll be
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: more reporting that offers more clarity. But Amanda, thank you
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: so much for talking with me today. And everyone should
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: check out your book. Again, Troll Nation, How the Right Became.
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: Trump Worshiping Monsters, Set on Rat-Fucking Liberals America and Truth Itself.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to say it again, but thank you.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Amanda, for joining us today. And I'll talk to
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: you guys soon.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: See you later.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:00:17
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• 1:00:20
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