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Transcript

“Vax On, Mask Off.” · Pod Save America

0:01
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:23
Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:24
Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump and his closest allies look
0:27
Speaker 2: like they have the upper hand in the Republican Civil War,
0:29
Speaker 2: though they also look like they have a few indictments
0:31
Speaker 2: coming their way. Then we'll talk about what the Biden
0:34
Speaker 2: administration can do to speed up COVID vaccinations here and
0:37
Speaker 2: around the world. And we'll do a quick check in
0:39
Speaker 2: on a few under the radar stories we've been following
0:41
Speaker 2: here at Pod Save America for a while now.
0:43
Speaker 4: But first.
0:44
Speaker 2: Two quick Crooked Pod updates. The trailer for season three
0:48
Speaker 2: of America Dissected just dropped.
0:51
Speaker 4: Dr.
0:51
Speaker 2: Abdul El-Sayed sits down with scientists and policy leaders to
0:54
Speaker 2: discuss topics like mental health, climate change, and new scientific discoveries.
0:58
Speaker 2: Guests this season include Representative Cori Bush, Dr. Sanjay Gupta,
1:02
Speaker 2: and more. You can listen to new episodes of America
1:05
Speaker 2: Dissected every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Also, don't
1:09
Speaker 2: miss Take Line this week where Jason Concepcion and Renee
1:12
Speaker 2: Montgomery sit down with director, producer, and comedian Adam McKay
1:15
Speaker 2: to talk all about his new podcast, his upcoming Lakers
1:18
Speaker 2: drama series for HBO. And of course, he'll stick around
1:23
Speaker 2: for a round of Take Survivor. Check it out.
1:26
Speaker 4: I am desperate.
1:27
Speaker 3: For a take survivor invite. But like, I just, I
1:30
Speaker 3: keep refreshing my inbox.
1:31
Speaker 2: Thirsty. Thirsty.
1:33
Speaker 4: I haven't seen one. You know, every.
1:36
Speaker 3: Week I just watch Elijah get his ass handed to
1:38
Speaker 3: him by one of the guests. And I'm just like, wow,
1:40
Speaker 3: could have been me, you know?
1:44
Speaker 2: Now you know how it feels to never be invited
1:45
Speaker 2: on Keep.
1:46
Speaker 4: It, Tommy. Oh, boy.
1:50
Speaker 2: How many years is that?
1:51
Speaker 4: We're mining a vein of hurt here. Love it.
1:52
Speaker 2: What are you mad about?
1:54
Speaker 5: I've never been on America Dissected.
1:59
Speaker 2: Cool, cool, cool, cool.
1:59
Speaker 4: Well, there we go.
2:00
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the news. It was just
2:03
Speaker 2: four months ago that the New York Times reported that
2:06
Speaker 2: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell privately supported impeaching Donald Trump
2:09
Speaker 2: so that it would be easier to, quote, purge him
2:11
Speaker 2: from the party. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy then said
2:14
Speaker 2: that Trump bore responsibility for the attack on the Capitol
2:17
Speaker 2: and former Vice President Mike Pence skipped Trump's departure ceremony
2:21
Speaker 2: for Joe Biden's inauguration. But four months later, Pence gave
2:25
Speaker 2: a speech just over the weekend saying that serving Trump
2:27
Speaker 2: was the honor of his life. McCarthy may be orchestrating
2:34
Speaker 2: a play to kick Liz Cheney out of leadership for
2:36
Speaker 2: voting to impeach Trump. Mitt Romney just got booed at
2:39
Speaker 2: his own state's Republican convention for voting to convict Trump.
2:43
Speaker 2: And last week, the former president did a Fox interview
2:45
Speaker 2: where he urged Republicans to replace Mitch McConnell immediately. and
2:48
Speaker 2: said this.
2:49
Speaker 1: We were a third world country when it came to
2:52
Speaker 1: the 2020 presidential election, which was a totally fraudulent election
2:58
Speaker 1: in many ways, in many different ways, including the fact
3:02
Speaker 1: that they didn't get legislatures to approve the many, many
3:07
Speaker 1: things that they did. The Supreme Court should have had
3:11
Speaker 1: the courage to hear it. They didn't want to hear it.
3:14
Speaker 1: And they knew they didn't want to turn over an election.
3:16
Speaker 1: They didn't have the courage to turn over an election.
3:19
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court should be ashamed of themselves. Mr.
3:22
Speaker 6: President, you're thinking a lot about these elections and what
3:26
Speaker 6: took place then. Are you thinking about.
3:28
Speaker 1: Running again, Mr.
3:29
Speaker 5: President, in 2024?
3:32
Speaker 1: Yes, 100 percent. And the polls show it and everybody
3:35
Speaker 1: wants me to do it. Well, 100 percent, I'm thinking
3:38
Speaker 1: about running and we will, I think, be very successful.
3:43
Speaker 2: Tommy, I know we're a long way off from 2024,
3:46
Speaker 2: but have you seen any evidence yet that Trump is
3:49
Speaker 2: moving away from politics or that the Republican Party is
3:52
Speaker 2: moving away from Trump?
3:53
Speaker 4: No.
3:54
Speaker 3: I mean, 70% of Republicans in the CNN poll, I think,
3:57
Speaker 3: over the weekend say that Biden didn't legitimately win. No
4:00
Speaker 3: one is pushing back on this, on the big lie
4:03
Speaker 3: that this election was stolen from him. By the way,
4:05
Speaker 3: did you guys see some videos that have been popping
4:08
Speaker 3: up where I think Trump just kind of lives at Mar-a-Lago,
4:12
Speaker 3: wanders into whatever wedding or fundraiser is happening and just
4:15
Speaker 3: like does open mic night about all the same grievances.
4:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great. You should check them out.
4:23
Speaker 5: He's entering his Howard Hughes phase, which I think is fine.
4:29
Speaker 5: Just wandering around, muttering.
4:31
Speaker 4: Right, like hopefully this is enough. I don't know.
4:34
Speaker 3: Clearly the base still really likes Trump and the Republican
4:37
Speaker 3: Party is completely... captive of its base. What's very frustrating
4:42
Speaker 3: is Trump goes out to these various events and he
4:44
Speaker 3: does interviews where he just shits all over Mitch McConnell.
4:48
Speaker 3: And McConnell has gone from pushing back and talking about
4:52
Speaker 3: the need to move past him to just declining to comment.
4:55
Speaker 3: And so they're stuck in the same dynamic where like
4:57
Speaker 3: no one is making the counter argument against Trump. So
4:59
Speaker 3: I don't know how they think they're going to win
5:00
Speaker 3: a messaging fight or a battle for the heart and
5:04
Speaker 3: soul of the base of the Republican Party that no
5:06
Speaker 3: one joins except for Liz Cheney, and then they all
5:08
Speaker 3: turn on her. So not that I'm a Liz Cheney fan,
5:11
Speaker 3: but at least she's willing to say something about Trump.
5:15
Speaker 2: Love it. How do you think that this happened? How
5:17
Speaker 2: do you think we went from Republican leadership talking about
5:20
Speaker 2: potentially purging Trump and impeaching him to fully embracing him?
5:27
Speaker 5: There was a moment, it was about 48 hours long.
5:31
Speaker 5: It was right after the insurrection where their own concerns
5:34
Speaker 5: for their personal safety and the actual reality of what
5:37
Speaker 5: Trump had unleashed was enough to overcome their mercenary partisan
5:42
Speaker 5: instincts and the reality that most of the people whose
5:46
Speaker 5: votes on which they rely get their news from misinformation.
5:50
Speaker 5: And in the months since, that hasn't stopped, right? We
5:53
Speaker 5: haven't seen, you know, Fox News has gotten worse. OAN
5:57
Speaker 5: whatever has gotten worse. And the mainstream media Basically, Republicans
6:04
Speaker 5: that disagree see no value in saying so because they
6:08
Speaker 5: just get attacked and it doesn't move the needle. And
6:10
Speaker 5: Republicans that supported the insurrection, Republicans that supported overturning the election,
6:14
Speaker 5: that support the big lie, get to go on television
6:17
Speaker 5: and talk about whatever they want and are never really
6:19
Speaker 5: challenged on it. So there's really no political price for
6:22
Speaker 5: Republicans for embracing the big lie. And there's a huge,
6:25
Speaker 5: huge price for telling the truth.
6:28
Speaker 4: Just quickly on that, I love it. You're exactly right.
6:31
Speaker 3: Although we should just say shout out to Jake Tapper
6:34
Speaker 3: and Dana Bash and the team at CNN State of
6:36
Speaker 3: the Union, which has refused to invite anyone that is
6:39
Speaker 3: part of the insurrection caucus, the people who supported overturning
6:42
Speaker 3: the election on January 6th, since that happened. And I
6:45
Speaker 3: think they're the only Sunday show that has made a
6:48
Speaker 3: principled decision in defense of democracy. So Dana, Jake, thank you.
6:52
Speaker 3: All your production team, thank you.
6:54
Speaker 5: It also, stealing a little bit from my under the radar,
6:58
Speaker 5: but I'll allow it. No, but it's true. And it's actually,
7:03
Speaker 5: it also though, it's good television. Like the idea that
7:05
Speaker 5: like booking Republicans who support the big lie and giving
7:08
Speaker 5: them easy interviews is better than what you see when
7:12
Speaker 5: there's actually tough interrogations on another show. Like confronting people
7:17
Speaker 5: on their lies is good TV.
7:20
Speaker 4: Yeah.
7:20
Speaker 2: I think it's easy to be lulled into a false
7:24
Speaker 2: sense of security for those of us who don't want
7:25
Speaker 2: to see Trump in politics again by sort of watching
7:28
Speaker 2: what's happening right now, because he is sort of fading
7:31
Speaker 2: from mainstream media attention, right? You don't hear about him
7:35
Speaker 2: a lot. Obviously, he's banned from Twitter. Facebook is going
7:38
Speaker 2: to decide by Wednesday whether he's banned from Facebook as well.
7:42
Speaker 2: So it's easy to kind of think, and you know,
7:44
Speaker 2: and like Tommy said, he's running around Mar-a-Lago giving these
7:47
Speaker 2: sort of sad speeches, right? And you can be like, okay,
7:50
Speaker 2: he's kind of done. People are forgetting about him. But
7:53
Speaker 2: the fact that the base of the party is still
7:55
Speaker 2: so in love with this man, and the reason that
7:57
Speaker 2: they are is because they don't believe that he lost
8:00
Speaker 2: the last election, I think is incredibly... dangerous and telling,
8:04
Speaker 2: I mean, you heard him in that interview with Maria
8:06
Speaker 2: Bartiromo on Fox business. Like he is, he does not
8:09
Speaker 2: sound like someone who's a second guessing a run for
8:12
Speaker 2: president in 2024. And I can't figure out unless he
8:16
Speaker 2: is indicted or unless he is just, I don't know.
8:20
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the scenario right now where he doesn't
8:23
Speaker 2: run again. in 2024, but maybe I'm just freaking out
8:26
Speaker 2: about it too much. What do you think?
8:28
Speaker 3: Trump is smart enough to know that the best way
8:30
Speaker 3: to stay in the news is to flirt with running
8:31
Speaker 3: for president. I mean, for God's sake, we had Will
8:33
Speaker 3: Smith on this show, and you asked him if he
8:35
Speaker 3: was considering running for president, and that episode got more
8:37
Speaker 3: pickup than anything we've ever done in the.
8:39
Speaker 4: History of Pod Save America, right?
8:40
Speaker 3: So Trump is just going to play footsie until he
8:42
Speaker 3: decides one way or the other. It helps him raise money.
8:44
Speaker 3: It helps him stay in the spotlight. It helps him
8:46
Speaker 3: bring candidates to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ass. It helps
8:50
Speaker 3: him get the best starburst from Kevin McCarthy.
8:53
Speaker 5: It also helps him in case he is indicted to
8:56
Speaker 5: say that it's a political prosecution.
8:58
Speaker 4: Absolutely. It helps him influence a future jury.
9:00
Speaker 3: So I expected nothing less, but it's been so nice
9:06
Speaker 3: not hearing his voice.
9:07
Speaker 4: All the time. But you're right.
9:10
Speaker 3: It's a future me problem that I'm punting down the road.
9:13
Speaker 2: No, I guess that's my point why I wanted to
9:15
Speaker 2: talk about this first is I think the danger that
9:18
Speaker 2: we faced- after the election, through the insurrection, I think
9:23
Speaker 2: has not really dissipated at all. I think like we're
9:25
Speaker 2: sort of living in these two realities where in one reality,
9:28
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, his administration are trying to like competently govern
9:31
Speaker 2: the country and are doing a pretty good job at it, right?
9:34
Speaker 2: Doing a very good job at it. And they're passing
9:35
Speaker 2: a lot of legislation. We're feeling good about it. In
9:38
Speaker 2: the other reality, we still have a political system that
9:41
Speaker 2: is very broken, an anti-majoritarian system that is not being
9:44
Speaker 2: fixed by H.R. one because fucking Joe Manchin won't pass
9:47
Speaker 2: it yet. And we got Donald Trump, who's still at
9:49
Speaker 2: the top of the Republican Party, has a very tight
9:51
Speaker 2: grip over the Republican Party. There are no alternatives to
9:54
Speaker 2: Trump forming. And if you're Donald Trump, I don't know
9:57
Speaker 2: that knowing how he is, I don't know that you want.
9:59
Speaker 2: sort of your last, you know, moment in public life
10:03
Speaker 2: to be this embarrassment of losing the 2020 election when
10:08
Speaker 2: your whole party, both the official party and the base,
10:11
Speaker 2: wants you to run again and is willing to stand
10:12
Speaker 2: behind you to run again in 2024.
10:13
Speaker 5: I mean, Mitt Romney is the 2012 Republican nominee. he
10:20
Speaker 5: is in Utah, a state that was actually more resistant
10:23
Speaker 5: to Trump than most.
10:25
Speaker 2: Getting booed.
10:26
Speaker 5: Getting booed, but actually, I think more importantly, barely making
10:30
Speaker 5: it out without being censured, basically split 50-50 amongst Republicans
10:34
Speaker 5: who wanted to censure him. And, you know, that Trump,
10:41
Speaker 5: what matters is what has taken hold. What matters is like,
10:45
Speaker 5: Whoever the Republican nominee is in four years, they will
10:48
Speaker 5: talk like Trump. They will sound like Trump. They will
10:50
Speaker 5: do what Trump does because that is the only recipe
10:53
Speaker 5: for success that these people can see. And nobody has
10:57
Speaker 5: mounted any kind of substantial pushback against this, against like
11:01
Speaker 5: fucking Liz Cheney, who previously, to my mind, was one
11:04
Speaker 5: of the most evil people in Congress. And now she's
11:07
Speaker 5: their fucking Serpico. Now she's like the only one not
11:10
Speaker 5: taking the bribe. It's horse shit.
11:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. Cheney and Romney and Adam Kitzinger. Like, how are
11:17
Speaker 2: they all doing? Not well. So there was there was
11:20
Speaker 2: a special election over the weekend in Texas to fill
11:22
Speaker 2: the seat of Republican Representative Ron Wright, who died of
11:24
Speaker 2: covid a few months ago. The late congressman's widow, Susan Wright,
11:28
Speaker 2: who was endorsed by Donald.
11:29
Speaker 5: Trump, died of fake news.
11:32
Speaker 2: He died of fake news. Yeah, it was very tragic.
11:35
Speaker 2: Who was endorsed by Donald Trump. She finished first in
11:37
Speaker 2: the all party jungle primary. So they had one of
11:39
Speaker 2: those jungle primaries open to both parties. The only Republican
11:42
Speaker 2: candidate who campaigned against Trump and the big lie, a
11:45
Speaker 2: Marine veteran named Michael Wood, who was endorsed and funded
11:48
Speaker 2: by Adam Kinzinger's country first pack, finished with just three percent,
11:53
Speaker 2: three percent. And because Republicans finished first and second in
11:56
Speaker 2: the primary, Democrats will be completely shut out of the
11:59
Speaker 2: runoff election, winning a combined 37 percent of the vote
12:02
Speaker 2: against Republican candidates, 62 percent of the vote. in a
12:05
Speaker 2: district that Trump carried by just three points in 2020. Tommy, what,
12:09
Speaker 2: if anything, do you think we can read into these results?
12:13
Speaker 3: I mean, one, like sometimes politics is about a narrative
12:19
Speaker 3: and about optics more than it's about winning. And in
12:22
Speaker 3: knowing that reality, I'm not sure that I would have
12:25
Speaker 3: like put much stock in the Michael Wood candidacy because a, uh,
12:29
Speaker 3: A House primary outside of Fort Worth is probably not
12:32
Speaker 3: the place where you're going to find a little pocket
12:34
Speaker 3: of anti-Trump voters to show that we're moving on beyond him.
12:39
Speaker 3: But this primary, a lot of people are reading into
12:42
Speaker 3: this primary. There were 23 candidates, 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats,
12:45
Speaker 3: a Libertarian, an Independent. Democrats got locked out of the election.
12:51
Speaker 3: And it is viewed as a bad side because Trump
12:54
Speaker 3: won the district plus three in 2020. He won it
12:57
Speaker 3: plus 12 in 2016. So it was seen as trending Democratic.
13:01
Speaker 3: I do think Democrats, we screwed up by running too
13:03
Speaker 3: many candidates in this district. And we split what could
13:07
Speaker 3: have been the Democratic vote. But it's also the case
13:09
Speaker 3: that the Republican candidates got 62% of the total vote
13:12
Speaker 3: and Democrats got 30% of the rest. So it could
13:17
Speaker 3: potentially speak to problems Democrats are having motivating the base
13:22
Speaker 3: in the post-Trump era.
13:24
Speaker 4: I don't know.
13:25
Speaker 3: These specials are always a little weird. We probably should
13:27
Speaker 3: have cleared the field. The DCCC didn't try to do so.
13:30
Speaker 3: I don't think they ran ads because it's expensive to
13:32
Speaker 3: run ads in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And they've gotten
13:35
Speaker 3: a lot of shit in the past for intervening in
13:38
Speaker 3: these sort of these primaries.
13:40
Speaker 4: But, you know, it's not a great result.
13:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, the other thing is So the
13:44
Speaker 2: DCCC didn't spend a lot of money. The reason they
13:45
Speaker 2: didn't spend a lot of money, at least according to them,
13:47
Speaker 2: is that this is a district that has the potential
13:49
Speaker 2: to be redrawn, that very likely will be redrawn in
13:52
Speaker 2: the 2022 redistricting. So why spend a lot of money
13:54
Speaker 2: on it if it gets wiped out? It was a
13:56
Speaker 2: very low turnout election. You know, the guy's widow benefited
13:59
Speaker 2: from name recognition, not just a Trump endorsement. So you
14:01
Speaker 2: can't really tell which is which. But I think you
14:05
Speaker 2: made the point about, you know, splitting the vote. Like
14:07
Speaker 2: you said, the combined vote, 37 percent to 62 percent.
14:10
Speaker 2: Not not very great at all. Yeah. And the fact
14:15
Speaker 2: that all it all it take, you know, that once again,
14:17
Speaker 2: you had the Trump endorsed candidate prevail. And the never
14:20
Speaker 2: Trump candidate not prevail. And then the Democrats losing the general.
14:24
Speaker 2: I don't think it's like sky is falling shit, but
14:27
Speaker 2: it's it's not a great sign.
14:29
Speaker 5: We also, you know, it's not like we have House
14:30
Speaker 5: seats to spare. You know, it's a really. No, we're really.
14:34
Speaker 5: It's really tight. It's getting tighter. A bunch of Democrats
14:38
Speaker 5: are announcing their their retirement. It's 2022 is it's going
14:42
Speaker 5: to be tough. It's looking pretty grim.
14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is. This is us sending up flares here, guys.
14:49
Speaker 2: This is not like the whole, like, you hear a
14:51
Speaker 2: lot of people be like, Joe Biden's president, everything's back
14:53
Speaker 2: to normal. I don't have to pay attention that much.
14:55
Speaker 4: No, wrong.
14:57
Speaker 3: The first midterm for almost every president, except for George W.
15:00
Speaker 4: Bush, is usually not good.
15:02
Speaker 3: You're seeing lots of Democrats decide to resign or not
15:06
Speaker 3: run again in seats that we will be defending now. So, yeah,
15:10
Speaker 3: there's a lot of trends that are looking bad.
15:12
Speaker 4: Three times.
15:13
Speaker 5: Three times. the president's party has picked up seats in
15:16
Speaker 5: a midterm. It's FDR, Clinton's second term, and George W.
15:20
Speaker 5: Bush after 9-11. More likely than not, all other trends
15:24
Speaker 5: being equal, we are going to lose the House unless
15:28
Speaker 5: something very unusual happens. And that's possible, right? The reason
15:31
Speaker 5: someone like FDR is able to build a coalition is
15:34
Speaker 5: because he is doing something extraordinary with the power that
15:37
Speaker 5: he has, and that is possible. But man, The risk
15:39
Speaker 5: of going into 2024 without Congress, meaning without the ability
15:43
Speaker 5: to prevent the election from being overturned, is very fucking real.
15:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:48
Speaker 2: Look, the bright spot here, or I guess the path
15:50
Speaker 2: to victory here, is we start the 2022 election, the
15:56
Speaker 2: 2022 campaign, down probably anywhere from five to 12 House
16:01
Speaker 2: seats just because of redistricting. So now it's like we
16:04
Speaker 2: already lost the House and we need to get it
16:06
Speaker 2: back in the election. In an election where usually the
16:09
Speaker 2: president's party is loses seats. So at that point, you know,
16:13
Speaker 2: you could say that a bunch of these districts that
16:15
Speaker 2: are on the edge are pretty close districts and that
16:18
Speaker 2: Democrats just have to work really hard. And then if
16:20
Speaker 2: the economy is doing great and COVID's, you know, declining.
16:25
Speaker 2: and everything's back to normal, mostly, that maybe Democrats could
16:28
Speaker 2: have some wind at their backs that they don't usually
16:29
Speaker 2: have in the midterms. But either way, it will take
16:32
Speaker 2: an incredible amount of work and organization just to sort
16:35
Speaker 2: of hang on to the House margin that we have,
16:38
Speaker 2: or at least a one-seat majority. Even a one-seat majority
16:41
Speaker 2: will be tough. So a lot of work to do.
16:52
Speaker 2: One thing that could potentially slow down the Trump train...
16:55
Speaker 2: Our federal indictments. which are looking more likely for at
16:58
Speaker 2: least two of Trump's allies after last week. The FBI
17:01
Speaker 2: raided Rudy Giuliani's home on Thursday, confiscating his phones and
17:05
Speaker 2: computers as part of an investigation into whether he broke
17:08
Speaker 2: lobbying laws when he tried to get rid of former U.S.
17:10
Speaker 2: ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. And Congressman Matt Gaetz's legal
17:14
Speaker 2: troubles got a whole lot worse when the Daily Beast
17:16
Speaker 2: revealed that the Florida Republican's indicted friend, Joel Greenberg, wrote
17:20
Speaker 2: a letter to Roger Stone in which he confessed that
17:22
Speaker 2: he and Gaetz paid a 17-year-old girl for sex. and
17:25
Speaker 2: then offered Stone $ 250, 000 in Bitcoin to secure a pardon
17:30
Speaker 2: from then-President Donald Trump.
17:33
Speaker 4: Love it.
17:33
Speaker 2: How screwed are Rudy and Gates here?
17:36
Speaker 5: We actually, I don't know. Rudy is in a bad position.
17:41
Speaker 5: We don't totally know yet what these searches are going
17:45
Speaker 5: to look for. The fucking Gates story, the brazenness of
17:50
Speaker 5: trying to buy a pardon. I mean, it is... Like
17:54
Speaker 5: the thought I had reading the story about Gates was,
17:57
Speaker 5: holy shit, how much worse it would be right now
18:01
Speaker 5: if we hadn't gotten them out. I mean, it just
18:03
Speaker 5: it was pure corruption, pure corruption. Like you give me
18:07
Speaker 5: 250K and Bitcoin, I'll see what I can do with
18:10
Speaker 5: Jared and the lawyers. So there's a lot of really
18:13
Speaker 5: funny stuff. if you read between the lines of what's
18:16
Speaker 5: happening at the White House, of the White House counsel
18:19
Speaker 5: getting wind of these little kind of crimes going on
18:21
Speaker 5: all around it and trying to figure out how to
18:24
Speaker 5: shut down crimes from getting to Trump, which he could
18:26
Speaker 5: only do is whack-a-mole with these people. But no, I
18:29
Speaker 5: would say the evidence is mounting that Gates is in
18:33
Speaker 5: some real serious legal jeopardy here. But he and Marjorie
18:36
Speaker 5: Taylor Greene are going to take their cancel tour They're
18:39
Speaker 5: not being canceled.
18:40
Speaker 4: They won't be canceled.
18:41
Speaker 5: They won't be canceled by the woke mob or the
18:44
Speaker 5: federal laws.
18:46
Speaker 2: Or law enforcement. Yeah, or law enforcement.
18:49
Speaker 5: The woke mob of law enforcement.
18:51
Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think of these stories?
18:52
Speaker 3: I mean, everyone knows that the appropriate way to purchase
18:54
Speaker 3: a pardon is to hire Alan Dershowitz on like a
18:57
Speaker 3: one-day retainer, right? Those are the ways you're supposed to
19:00
Speaker 3: do it. I find it so amazing that Matt Gaetz's buddy,
19:04
Speaker 3: Joel Greenberg, wrote not one, I think two or three
19:07
Speaker 3: drafts of a letter that was basically a confession where
19:11
Speaker 3: he detailed all the stupid shit he did. And then
19:14
Speaker 3: he used an encrypted app called Signal to communicate with him,
19:18
Speaker 3: but took screenshots of his incriminating encrypted texts, which is
19:25
Speaker 3: just like, I'm not like an OPSEC guy. I didn't
19:27
Speaker 3: work at the NSA or something. I worked at the NSC,
19:29
Speaker 3: but I wouldn't do that if I were you, if
19:31
Speaker 3: I were trying to break a law.
19:33
Speaker 4: Giuliani, I don't know.
19:34
Speaker 3: All of the Giuliani stuff seems to hang around whether
19:39
Speaker 3: or not he was inappropriately or illegally lobbying on behalf
19:43
Speaker 3: of a foreign national. If this is just a FARA case,
19:46
Speaker 3: which is the law that governs the way you have
19:49
Speaker 3: to register if you are.
19:50
Speaker 4: Lobbying the government on behalf of a foreign agency.
19:52
Speaker 3: I don't know how worried he should or shouldn't be.
19:55
Speaker 3: The law is kind of opaque. It's hard to enforce,
19:59
Speaker 3: and it's confusing, and a lot of people beat the rap.
20:01
Speaker 3: But it is kind of remarkable that There was a
20:04
Speaker 3: separate search warrant for another Giuliani associate, that lawyer, Victoria Tonsing,
20:09
Speaker 3: who's just like a right-wing goon. And then they're also
20:12
Speaker 3: apparently looking for communications between Rudy Giuliani and John Solomon,
20:16
Speaker 3: who is a horrible right-wing hack. So there's like a
20:20
Speaker 3: right wing news and media nexus to all of this
20:23
Speaker 3: that's swirling around as well. I'm just hoping we get
20:26
Speaker 3: more impromptu press conferences from Rudy's son, Andrew Giuliani, and
20:31
Speaker 3: from his random neighbors who just like go up to
20:33
Speaker 3: the sticks and kind of like.
20:35
Speaker 4: Spout off on what they think. The neighbor was great.
20:37
Speaker 4: The neighbor was fantastic.
20:38
Speaker 5: I love the neighbor. The neighbor just like, my ex-husband
20:41
Speaker 5: called me. He said, look out your window. And then
20:43
Speaker 5: she's given a press conference. The most, I don't know.
20:47
Speaker 5: I assume they're on the Upper East Side, but it's
20:48
Speaker 5: the most Upper East Side woman I've ever seen.
20:52
Speaker 4: It was amazing. It was amazing.
20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to say, Tommy, like, you know, it
20:57
Speaker 2: talks about fair violation. My first thought was when I
21:01
Speaker 2: saw that and was like, You have all these FBI
21:04
Speaker 2: agents sort of raiding the house, like seven FBI agents
21:08
Speaker 2: taking all these laptops and computers and serving subpoenas to
21:12
Speaker 2: the executive assistant, Victoria Tones. And I'm like, it does
21:15
Speaker 2: seem like a lot for a fair violation. It did
21:17
Speaker 2: make me wonder if there are other issues at stake here,
21:20
Speaker 2: legal issues that we don't know about. I mean, the
21:22
Speaker 2: larger issue of what's going on here is. If we
21:26
Speaker 2: can all remember back to Trump's first impeachment, there was
21:29
Speaker 2: a question of whether he tried to force out U.S.
21:33
Speaker 2: Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. And specifically, if Rudy tried
21:36
Speaker 2: to force her out, if Rudy was doing this on
21:38
Speaker 2: behalf of Trump, it's just sketchy and awful. If Rudy
21:41
Speaker 2: was also trying to oust her on behalf of the
21:43
Speaker 2: Ukrainian government, which also didn't like her. then he is
21:46
Speaker 2: basically working for a foreign government without disclosing it, which
21:51
Speaker 2: would run afoul of the law.
21:53
Speaker 3: And the warrants tell us that a judge found that
21:55
Speaker 3: there was some sort of probable cause to believe that
21:56
Speaker 3: a crime was committed and that by conducting this search
21:59
Speaker 3: that they would find evidence of said crime. So they
22:02
Speaker 3: think they're onto something.
22:03
Speaker 4: Who knows?
22:04
Speaker 3: Look, I have big time Mueller let down PTSD, so
22:06
Speaker 3: I refuse to get excited about any of these goddamn stories.
22:09
Speaker 3: I feel like we were treated to one of these
22:10
Speaker 3: like once every two weeks by the New York Times
22:13
Speaker 3: and a third of them panned out.
22:15
Speaker 4: But I don't know.
22:16
Speaker 2: It was real deja vu seeing that New York Times
22:18
Speaker 2: story hit. It was like a deja vu back to
22:21
Speaker 2: the Mueller days. Wasn't it? Didn't it feel like that?
22:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:24
Speaker 5: A lot of times when I see stories about investigations
22:27
Speaker 5: into Rudy Giuliani, it's like when an old celebrity you
22:30
Speaker 5: thought was already dead dies. You're like, I thought I
22:32
Speaker 5: read this already. I was so sure this had already happened.
22:36
Speaker 5: The other piece of this too is just, I find
22:37
Speaker 5: it hard to believe that Rudy Giuliani has been in
22:40
Speaker 5: control of his I don't know what conversations that he's
22:43
Speaker 5: had with law enforcement, but I find it hard to
22:45
Speaker 5: believe that he has been honest in those conversations based
22:47
Speaker 5: on the mendacity that's been on display for now years.
22:51
Speaker 5: And when he thought he had impunity, and he thought
22:53
Speaker 5: that he would be saved by his buddy Donald Trump,
22:56
Speaker 5: even when Bill Barr was the attorney general.
22:58
Speaker 4: So yeah, curious.
23:00
Speaker 3: Obviously, the difference now is Trump is not controlling the
23:02
Speaker 3: Department of Justice and can't dole out pardons or yeah,
23:06
Speaker 3: use Bill Barr to stop investigations, which is kind of
23:08
Speaker 3: what it sounds like happened here for several months at
23:10
Speaker 3: the end of the Trump administration.
23:13
Speaker 2: So one more question on this. James Carville gave an
23:15
Speaker 2: interview to Vox last week. That's worth reading for many reasons.
23:19
Speaker 2: But one of the things he said is that Democrats
23:21
Speaker 2: should be talking a lot more about scandals like these
23:23
Speaker 2: and using them to better define the Republican Party, since
23:26
Speaker 2: that's what Republicans would be doing if Democrats were the
23:29
Speaker 2: ones in trouble. You guys agree with that? Tommy, what
23:31
Speaker 2: do you think?
23:32
Speaker 3: I read James Carville's entire lament article. I kind of
23:36
Speaker 3: disagreed with this set of suggestions the most. He wants
23:41
Speaker 3: Democrats to talk about Denny Hastert all the time, he said.
23:44
Speaker 3: I don't really think that's the path to winning Congress
23:49
Speaker 3: in 2022 or holding Congress. We don't have a propaganda
23:51
Speaker 3: channel like Fox News that can.
23:52
Speaker 4: Help us move these sorts of claims every day.
23:58
Speaker 3: I think it's good that Democrats are out there talking
24:00
Speaker 3: about all the things that they're doing for people, like
24:02
Speaker 3: getting them direct checks and getting vaccines into arms. I
24:07
Speaker 3: agree that sometimes Democrats can be not the best messengers.
24:11
Speaker 3: We have a major disinformation problem in that we don't
24:14
Speaker 3: own our own propaganda channel called Fox News.
24:17
Speaker 4: But I don't know.
24:20
Speaker 3: I'll listen to James Carville. I think it's good to
24:23
Speaker 3: have fights about policy and message out in the open.
24:26
Speaker 3: But I didn't come away thinking that his suggestion of
24:29
Speaker 3: calling cable news bookers And saying, hey, you have to
24:32
Speaker 3: cover Jim Jordan more is really the solution here to
24:35
Speaker 3: our electoral problems.
24:36
Speaker 4: Love it.
24:36
Speaker 2: What do you think?
24:37
Speaker 5: I think whether or not to cover scandals is almost
24:40
Speaker 5: like the wrong question. I think it is beneficial when
24:45
Speaker 5: a scandal allows you to tell a simple story that
24:49
Speaker 5: elucidates a larger issue in our politics. I think of
24:52
Speaker 5: 2006 and Jack Abramoff and some of the corruption that
24:55
Speaker 5: helped Democrats take back the House back then. It was
24:58
Speaker 5: like this perfect storm. And those stories were really effective
25:02
Speaker 5: because they played into the message, the larger message about
25:07
Speaker 5: Republicans being in the pocket of big business, not looking
25:09
Speaker 5: out for ordinary people, that we needed this change. And
25:12
Speaker 5: so I don't know. And I think we should always
25:15
Speaker 5: be looking for those kinds of stories. I don't know if...
25:18
Speaker 5: I certainly don't think Rudy Giuliani is the answer to that.
25:23
Speaker 5: I don't know if Matt Gaetz is the answer to that.
25:24
Speaker 5: But I do think we should be looking for examples
25:27
Speaker 5: of the kind of corruption.
25:30
Speaker 5: The secretary, when, what's his name, Price, had to resign
25:33
Speaker 5: from Health and Human Services.
25:35
Speaker 1: HHS.
25:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, from HHS under Trump. That was a perfect scandal.
25:38
Speaker 5: That was a perfect scandal. Because it was a scandal
25:40
Speaker 5: about the kind of corruption, like, on the axis of
25:43
Speaker 5: looking out for himself and big interests instead of, like,
25:45
Speaker 5: the American people. And in those cases, yes, I think
25:48
Speaker 5: we should, like, find those things, latch onto them, and
25:50
Speaker 5: not let go.
25:51
Speaker 3: It just seems like some of this stuff, like, is, like,
25:53
Speaker 3: great for the Lincoln Project to put into an ad and, like,
25:55
Speaker 3: fire up MSNBC viewers.
25:57
Speaker 4: And get donations.
25:58
Speaker 3: But, like, I came away from both impeachments feeling like
26:01
Speaker 3: the message was that voters weren't all that moved by
26:05
Speaker 3: even like dead to rights corruption allegations.
26:08
Speaker 4: I agree with you on the broader narrative. Love it.
26:09
Speaker 4: I just think like, I don't know, right now, I
26:11
Speaker 4: think we have to.
26:12
Speaker 3: Show some basic competence as a party that we're delivering
26:14
Speaker 3: for people.
26:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's also a question of like the
26:19
Speaker 2: different parties have different strategies to like build their own majorities.
26:23
Speaker 2: And for Republicans, it's like firing up a lot of
26:25
Speaker 2: base voters by saying that Democrats are corrupt criminals, pedophiles,
26:29
Speaker 2: whatever you want to say. And that sort of works
26:31
Speaker 2: for their conspiracy minded voters. And like you said, they
26:34
Speaker 2: have a right wing propaganda machine that helps reinforce that message.
26:37
Speaker 2: I think the marginal voters that we're going for the
26:40
Speaker 2: swing voters that we're going for that go back and
26:41
Speaker 2: forth between parties, sort of already think that both parties
26:44
Speaker 2: and politics in general is kind of corrupt. And they
26:48
Speaker 2: don't hold politicians in high esteem. And how they end
26:51
Speaker 2: up voting is like, who's making a difference in my
26:53
Speaker 2: life who like delivered more, who actually kept their promises
26:57
Speaker 2: and improved my life in tangible ways. And that's how
27:01
Speaker 2: Democrats can win by proving that to people, or at
27:03
Speaker 2: least proving that the other side will screw them and
27:06
Speaker 2: we will not. That's also a really effective message when
27:09
Speaker 2: it comes, whether it's economic, whether it's cultural, whatever it
27:11
Speaker 2: may be. And so I do think that's why, like,
27:14
Speaker 2: it's fine to talk about these stories. We're talking about them.
27:16
Speaker 2: Like if you're running against Matt Gaetz, yeah, sure. Talk
27:19
Speaker 2: about this story, you know, but like, I do think
27:22
Speaker 2: there's a limit to the effectiveness of really hammering these
27:25
Speaker 2: sort of scandal stories over and over again if you're
27:28
Speaker 2: the Democrats. All right, the other big news this week
27:31
Speaker 2: is the Biden administration's ongoing efforts to speed up COVID
27:33
Speaker 2: vaccinations in America and around the world. Here in the U.S.,
27:37
Speaker 2: more than 147 million people have received at least one
27:41
Speaker 2: dose of vaccine, about 56% of the eligible adult population,
27:45
Speaker 2: and we're already seeing the results in declining deaths, hospitalizations,
27:49
Speaker 2: and infections, which are falling in 40 states and are
27:51
Speaker 2: now down to their lowest level since early October. The
27:54
Speaker 2: challenge now is to accelerate slowing vaccination rates and reaching
27:58
Speaker 2: the 20 to 30% of the population that's either hesitant, resistant,
28:02
Speaker 2: or straight up opposed to getting the vaccine. So the
28:05
Speaker 2: Biden administration says they fully expected vaccination rates to drop
28:09
Speaker 2: off in rural communities and among younger people. We're also
28:12
Speaker 2: seeing lower vaccination rates in places with high poverty rates
28:15
Speaker 2: and less public health infrastructure. Lovett, what are some of
28:18
Speaker 2: the ways that the Biden administration can fix, and us
28:22
Speaker 2: in general as a society, can fix both the access
28:25
Speaker 2: and demand issues that we're seeing?
28:28
Speaker 5: On the demand side, it does seem like we're moving
28:31
Speaker 5: into a phase where like some of this, so there's,
28:33
Speaker 5: I feel like it's like, convenience and hesitancy and like
28:36
Speaker 5: hesitancy can be kind of a couple of different things.
28:38
Speaker 5: Like some of the hesitancy is misinformation, either people that
28:41
Speaker 5: have just like genuinely imbibed a lot of misinformation or
28:44
Speaker 5: just people who have heard some things and they're skeptical.
28:46
Speaker 5: And then there are people who are hesitant because they're
28:48
Speaker 5: worried about side effects. They're worried they'll be able to
28:50
Speaker 5: go to work. They're worried about their day. Um, and
28:52
Speaker 5: then there's access both in terms of just people not
28:54
Speaker 5: having access to it and also just it needing to
28:56
Speaker 5: be convenient for people who are super busy. And I think, or,
28:59
Speaker 5: and just like who just don't have in haven't figured
29:02
Speaker 5: out where to go to get it, haven't had the time, whatever.
29:07
Speaker 5: On the hesitancy front, there's actually been a lot of
29:10
Speaker 5: really interesting research on how you reach vaccine-hesitant people. And
29:14
Speaker 5: it definitely is not haranguing people on Twitter.
29:16
Speaker 2: That is not effective.
29:18
Speaker 4: What?
29:19
Speaker 1: Yes.
29:20
Speaker 5: Even before the pandemic, actually, there was a lot of
29:22
Speaker 5: interest in this because anti-vaxxer, it's always been around. It's
29:27
Speaker 5: been around since the existence of vaccines. But there was
29:29
Speaker 5: this group of There's a group of people called the
29:31
Speaker 5: Vaccine Whisperers in Quebec, and they went to vaccine hesitant
29:36
Speaker 5: mothers and they built this little this like group of
29:38
Speaker 5: people to kind of talk to vaccine hesitant mothers about
29:40
Speaker 5: about about vaccinations. And they were able to get the
29:43
Speaker 5: rate up from like the 70s to almost 90 percent.
29:46
Speaker 5: And the way that you do it is you don't
29:48
Speaker 5: tell people they have to get it. You don't tell
29:49
Speaker 5: people they're wrong for not getting it. You basically it's
29:52
Speaker 5: similar to like what we've said around voting, which is
29:54
Speaker 5: like you don't tell people to vote. You tell them
29:55
Speaker 5: that they want to be a voter. And you basically
29:57
Speaker 5: appeal to people and you say like, you care about
29:59
Speaker 5: your community, you care about yourself, you're trying to do
30:01
Speaker 5: the right thing, you're trying to weigh a lot of
30:02
Speaker 5: hard facts, like you're right to have these concerns and
30:04
Speaker 5: you kind of meet people where they are. And actually
30:07
Speaker 5: Republicans put out an ad recently, a group of Republicans
30:11
Speaker 5: in Congress put out an ad that like followed all
30:13
Speaker 5: of these steps, right? You don't tell people they have
30:15
Speaker 5: to get it, you tell them it's their choice, you
30:17
Speaker 5: tell them why doctors are getting it, you tell them
30:19
Speaker 5: why their neighbors are getting it. And I think we
30:21
Speaker 5: basically just have to like do this on a massive
30:23
Speaker 5: scale for a long time and then you'll ultimately end
30:26
Speaker 5: up in a situation where it's doctors talking to individual
30:29
Speaker 5: patients and having it available at doctor's offices and just saying, hey,
30:32
Speaker 5: you're here. Do you want the vaccine while you're here?
30:34
Speaker 5: And hope we get closer to 90 percent than 70 percent.
30:37
Speaker 2: I think the doctor's point is so key because you
30:40
Speaker 2: hear a lot of people saying, well, if only Donald
30:42
Speaker 2: Trump and a bunch of Republican politicians spoke to conservatives
30:45
Speaker 2: who are hesitant to get the vaccine, that would work.
30:48
Speaker 2: It's actually shown in a lot of this research and
30:49
Speaker 2: focus groups that like Frank Luntz and some others have
30:51
Speaker 2: been doing that that doesn't work really well, that's not effective,
30:54
Speaker 2: that it's that it's a message from the medical community
30:57
Speaker 2: that's most effective, especially your doctor. And in that ad
30:59
Speaker 2: that you mentioned, Lovett, they actually say like, it's your
31:02
Speaker 2: choice and go talk to your doctor. See what your
31:04
Speaker 2: doctor says. See what your neighborhood pharmacist says that you trust.
31:07
Speaker 2: See what your nurse, your favorite nurse says, right? And
31:09
Speaker 2: then talk to your neighbors too. Like a lot of
31:11
Speaker 2: this is, and the Biden administration is now saying this
31:13
Speaker 2: is more of a ground game where They're starting to
31:15
Speaker 2: shut down these sort of mass vaccination sites where there
31:17
Speaker 2: used to be long lines because everyone really wanted the vaccine.
31:20
Speaker 2: And now they're trying to in order to improve access,
31:23
Speaker 2: like bringing the vaccine to places that are underserved, where
31:27
Speaker 2: people might not have had access before. And I think
31:30
Speaker 2: it's I almost think of this like how we, you know,
31:32
Speaker 2: divided people who voted for Trump into Trump fans and
31:36
Speaker 2: Trump voters.
31:37
Speaker 1: Right?
31:37
Speaker 2: Like there's a group of people who are anti-vax, very
31:40
Speaker 2: resistant to vaccine. And because those people have the loudest voices,
31:43
Speaker 2: we talk about them all the time and we think
31:45
Speaker 2: they're the only ones that exist. And then there's a
31:47
Speaker 2: bunch of people who just haven't been motivated yet to
31:50
Speaker 2: get the vaccine or who haven't found time yet, who
31:53
Speaker 2: don't have the access. And those are the people that
31:55
Speaker 2: we should be focused on, not sort of yelling about
31:57
Speaker 2: the anti-vaxxers who we may never reach, you know?
31:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
32:00
Speaker 2: So Tommy Politico reports today that some Biden surrogates and
32:03
Speaker 2: health experts have pressed the administration to be more explicit
32:06
Speaker 2: about how fast people will be able to return to
32:08
Speaker 2: their normal lives once they're vaccinated, which could incentivize some
32:12
Speaker 2: people who are less motivated. This is one reason that
32:15
Speaker 2: the CDC eased its mask guidance last week, saying that
32:17
Speaker 2: vaccinated people don't have to wear masks outside, except when
32:20
Speaker 2: they attend a crowded event, and they don't have to
32:23
Speaker 2: wear masks indoors while gathering with other fully vaccinated people.
32:27
Speaker 2: And in Michigan, Governor Whitmer unveiled a reopening plan on
32:29
Speaker 2: Thursday that will tie loosened COVID restrictions to vaccination rates.
32:33
Speaker 2: What do you think of these strategies to get more
32:35
Speaker 2: people vaccinated?
32:35
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's smart.
32:37
Speaker 3: I do think you have to show people that life
32:40
Speaker 3: is getting better, will get better, that the whole point,
32:44
Speaker 3: the thing we've been waiting for for a year and
32:46
Speaker 3: a half, what's this vaccine, because it allowed us to
32:48
Speaker 3: get back to a life that is more enjoyable.
32:51
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
32:52
Speaker 3: And I think there was some debate over the weekend
32:54
Speaker 3: about whether Joe Biden should keep wearing a mask outdoors,
32:59
Speaker 3: what kind of message that sends if the CDC is
33:01
Speaker 3: now saying, well, you don't have to do that. I
33:03
Speaker 3: also think like we should allow common sense to enter
33:08
Speaker 3: into the equation too. If like all available data suggests
33:11
Speaker 3: that it's very, very hard to get COVID outdoors, unless
33:15
Speaker 3: you're in some huge mob of people, then you don't
33:18
Speaker 3: need to wear a mask and that's okay. And like,
33:21
Speaker 3: I don't think people should be upset by that.
33:24
Speaker 2: Right.
33:24
Speaker 3: If we've all been saying we care about the science,
33:26
Speaker 3: we're going to trust the science. I think that should
33:28
Speaker 3: be our mantra on the way out of this, um,
33:32
Speaker 3: pandemic nightmare as well. So yeah, look, I, I'm in,
33:35
Speaker 3: I'm always in favor of like showing people and as
33:38
Speaker 3: well as telling people about a better future. And I
33:40
Speaker 3: think part of that is going to be loosening up
33:43
Speaker 3: on some of these restrictions.
33:45
Speaker 5: Something weird that happened to me is that I took
33:47
Speaker 5: my mask off and then somebody threw beads at me.
33:49
Speaker 4: Beads, beads, beads, beads, Mardi Gras. Try that.
33:56
Speaker 2: Should I try that again? yeah i think beads are
33:59
Speaker 2: funny because.
34:01
Speaker 5: It was a mardi gras is a mardi gras thing
34:03
Speaker 5: uh yeah i mean i actually think that's like yeah
34:05
Speaker 5: everybody uh you know uh what's his name uh yeah
34:09
Speaker 5: um uh doctor uh lunatic uh no no he's the
34:12
Speaker 5: good one uh good doctor uh ran paul ran ball.
34:16
Speaker 2: Uh oh yeah he's very different very different than dr.
34:18
Speaker 5: Ran ball did this interview on one of the one
34:21
Speaker 5: of the sunday uh things. And a couple of weeks ago,
34:25
Speaker 5: and he was like, I think Joe Biden should take
34:27
Speaker 5: his mask off and burn it to show people that
34:30
Speaker 5: they don't need their mask. And I was like, fuck you,
34:32
Speaker 5: Rand Paul, for making a point. I see the wisdom in,
34:35
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Like take the mask off.
34:36
Speaker 5: The vaccines work. We got to get people vaccinated.
34:38
Speaker 2: I'm in, I'm in.
34:40
Speaker 5: Yeah.
34:40
Speaker 2: I mean, look, my view on this is, I don't
34:43
Speaker 2: think he should burn the mask. I don't think you
34:45
Speaker 2: should burn the mask, though. I'm having a mask burning
34:47
Speaker 2: party if you guys want to attend. Look, I think
34:49
Speaker 2: if you if you want to keep wearing a mask outside,
34:52
Speaker 2: that's totally fine. You shouldn't get shamed for that. It's
34:55
Speaker 2: your choice. If you want to continue wearing masks in
34:58
Speaker 2: the winter and the tough season just to like prevent
35:00
Speaker 2: giving cold to people getting cold.
35:02
Speaker 1: Right.
35:02
Speaker 2: Like that's good for you. But I also see some
35:05
Speaker 2: people being like, oh, I see people without masks on now.
35:07
Speaker 2: And I just think I just couldn't be an asshole
35:09
Speaker 2: like that. You're not an asshole if you don't have
35:12
Speaker 2: your mask on outside, if that's what the CDC says.
35:15
Speaker 2: I love taking my mask on outside. Well, if we're
35:17
Speaker 2: going to say follow the science, then follow the science.
35:19
Speaker 2: And I also saw some people say this whole debate
35:21
Speaker 2: is stupid. The reason I don't think it's stupid is
35:24
Speaker 2: because of what we were just talking about, which is
35:26
Speaker 2: It really is an incentive for people who haven't been
35:29
Speaker 2: vaccinated yet to get the vaccine if they know that
35:32
Speaker 2: getting the vaccine will lead to a normal life again
35:36
Speaker 2: where there are no restrictions. Which is why I think
35:38
Speaker 2: Governor Whitmer's strategy in Michigan is so smart and very innovative, too,
35:42
Speaker 2: to tie all the reopening to what kind of rate
35:45
Speaker 2: of vaccination they can get. Because then if you're sitting
35:48
Speaker 2: around in Michigan and you're like, I want to... have
35:51
Speaker 2: life again. I want to go to stores again. I
35:53
Speaker 2: want to see people again. And you're like, okay, well,
35:54
Speaker 2: everything will be open again if we hit this level
35:56
Speaker 2: of vaccination. So everyone should do their part and then
35:59
Speaker 2: your life will be improved.
36:00
Speaker 4: As a result.
36:01
Speaker 5: I also like that West Virginia is giving people a
36:03
Speaker 5: hundred bucks. I think that's cool too.
36:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:05
Speaker 4: I think pay people.
36:06
Speaker 1: Great.
36:15
Speaker 2: So even as COVID rates are improving in the U.S.,
36:18
Speaker 2: things are getting pretty bleak in other parts of the world,
36:20
Speaker 2: especially in South America and in India, where less than
36:23
Speaker 2: 2% of the population is vaccinated, and there were more
36:26
Speaker 2: than 400,000 confirmed cases on Friday. In response, India and
36:30
Speaker 2: South Africa have drafted a proposal to waive the World
36:32
Speaker 2: Trade Organization's intellectual property rules, which would suspend intellectual property
36:37
Speaker 2: restrictions on COVID vaccines and allow them to be produced
36:40
Speaker 2: locally by other manufacturers. There's a ton of pressure on
36:43
Speaker 2: the Biden administration to support this waiver, including from more
36:46
Speaker 2: than 100 members of Congress and 80 World Health Organization members. Unsurprisingly,
36:50
Speaker 2: the opposition comes from Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and
36:53
Speaker 2: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Tommy, I know you guys
36:55
Speaker 2: have talked about this a bit on Pod Save the World.
36:58
Speaker 2: What are sort of the arguments on both sides of
37:00
Speaker 2: this debate over the waiver?
37:01
Speaker 4: Sure.
37:01
Speaker 3: So the one thing, like India is going through an
37:04
Speaker 3: acute crisis right now. Unfortunately, lifting this waiver or not
37:07
Speaker 3: won't materially impact that. There's other things we're trying to
37:10
Speaker 3: do to help. But I think what people are pointing
37:12
Speaker 3: to is right now, you have a scenario where you
37:15
Speaker 3: have like a bunch of mostly white, really rich countries
37:18
Speaker 3: that have the vaccine. I think like 80 to six
37:20
Speaker 3: to 90% of the vaccine doses have gone to high
37:23
Speaker 3: income or middle income countries. And then the rest of
37:26
Speaker 3: the world does not. So you have the situation that
37:28
Speaker 3: is just like unjust, immoral, but also from just a
37:32
Speaker 3: self interested standpoint, this could worsen or extend the pandemic.
37:36
Speaker 3: If you have the virus racing around countless countries with
37:40
Speaker 3: big populations and mutating. So again, you know, when you
37:44
Speaker 3: dig into the timelines to get a lot of these
37:46
Speaker 3: other countries vaccinated, it's scary because you're talking like 2023,
37:50
Speaker 3: like Kenya, top five economy in Africa, they're hoping to
37:55
Speaker 3: get 30% of their population inoculated by the middle of 2023,
37:58
Speaker 3: not 21, not 22, 23. So that's sort of what
38:01
Speaker 3: we're looking at here. So, you know, these countries are
38:04
Speaker 3: asking the WTO to waive these patent restrictions because you
38:09
Speaker 3: have companies in Bangladesh or India that that are saying, hey,
38:14
Speaker 3: we have a ton of manufacturing capacity. We make generic drugs.
38:17
Speaker 3: We could be cranking out 350 million doses a year
38:21
Speaker 3: or taking the sort of big bulk containers of the
38:27
Speaker 3: vaccine and putting into the final use vials and distributing
38:29
Speaker 3: that way to just increase capacity. The drug companies are
38:33
Speaker 3: trying to say, if you do that, we won't invest
38:37
Speaker 3: in R & D in the future. They're trying to
38:40
Speaker 3: say we can meet the current demand with the manufacturing
38:43
Speaker 3: capacity they already have. But I think that's a pretty
38:47
Speaker 3: disingenuous argument because they got a ton of public money
38:51
Speaker 3: already from the US, from Germany, from other countries. And
38:56
Speaker 3: there's also a scenario you could imagine where we will
38:58
Speaker 3: all need boosters to our current vaccine dosages. And then
39:01
Speaker 3: these same companies will be forced to focus on creating
39:05
Speaker 3: those rather than helping the rest of the world. So
39:08
Speaker 3: It's a very complicated situation because people point to the
39:12
Speaker 3: fact that it's not just about like kind of giving
39:14
Speaker 3: the secret code to the vaccine. You need someone to
39:17
Speaker 3: walk you through how you actually execute on that. You
39:20
Speaker 3: need to get all these like precursor materials and chemicals
39:24
Speaker 3: and specialized machinery, specialized machines to be able to do
39:29
Speaker 3: all this. But the reality of COVID is we're talking
39:32
Speaker 3: about a virus that will probably be lingering in many
39:34
Speaker 3: parts of the world until 2022, 23, 24. And so
39:40
Speaker 3: I think it makes a lot of sense to be
39:41
Speaker 3: considering ideas like this that might make it easier for
39:45
Speaker 3: generic drug makers in other parts of the world.
39:48
Speaker 4: To just increase global capacity.
39:50
Speaker 3: I think this has a very unfortunate echo to a
39:54
Speaker 3: similar fight that happened in the 80s and 90s, where
39:58
Speaker 3: mostly US or European drug manufacturers refused to allow generic
40:03
Speaker 3: drug makers to make HIV AIDS treatments. And ultimately, the
40:09
Speaker 3: South Africa and other countries just ended up going ahead
40:11
Speaker 3: with it. And then countries are threatening to sue them
40:13
Speaker 3: and take punitive steps like sanctions. I think this is
40:18
Speaker 3: a good idea. Like, I would love for someone to
40:20
Speaker 3: just sort of lay out specifically where the need is,
40:24
Speaker 3: how this would make it faster, what other avenues are.
40:26
Speaker 3: But it sounds like the Biden team is open to
40:28
Speaker 3: this idea at a bare minimum.
40:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, what what I couldn't figure out is, you know,
40:34
Speaker 2: there is this argument, like you said, that this is
40:36
Speaker 2: not a short term fix, because even if you waive
40:39
Speaker 2: the patent tomorrow or a lot of these countries don't
40:43
Speaker 2: have the manufacturing capacity yet or the know-how to sort
40:46
Speaker 2: of make these make these vaccine companies in a lot
40:49
Speaker 2: of these countries don't have that. But then, as you
40:51
Speaker 2: just mentioned, There are these companies in Bangladesh and elsewhere
40:55
Speaker 2: that are like, yeah, we're ready to go right now
40:56
Speaker 2: if the patent was waived tomorrow. So I can't really
40:59
Speaker 2: figure out what's right here. Maybe it's just the fact
41:02
Speaker 2: that there are some countries with the manufacturing capacity that
41:05
Speaker 2: could go right now, but there are others who desperately
41:07
Speaker 2: need vaccines who don't have it, which is not a
41:09
Speaker 2: great reason to not lift the waiver to me.
41:12
Speaker 1: Right.
41:13
Speaker 5: Like, you know, reporting, right, that there's like a Bangladesh
41:16
Speaker 5: company says they can make 350 million doses. A company
41:18
Speaker 5: in Canada says that they applied for license, couldn't get it.
41:20
Speaker 5: They could do 50 million doses. Does that solve the problem? No,
41:23
Speaker 5: but it does mean more vaccine quickly. And even if
41:27
Speaker 5: it does take six months, a year, 18 months to
41:30
Speaker 5: build this capacity. We're going to need the capacity.
41:33
Speaker 4: Start now.
41:34
Speaker 5: We need that capacity. The world needs that capacity, in
41:37
Speaker 5: part because we just, in the middle of this, the
41:40
Speaker 5: vaccines are a miracle that every scientist is saying holds
41:43
Speaker 5: the promise for treating a host of other diseases over time.
41:47
Speaker 5: We may need booster shots. It does seem as though
41:50
Speaker 5: also the White House understands this too, because they're not
41:52
Speaker 5: denying that the intellectual property rights are part of the problem, right?
41:56
Speaker 5: Because Ron Klain, who is not only the White House
41:59
Speaker 5: Chief of Staff, is one of the experts in in
42:02
Speaker 5: fighting the pandemic, says to face the nation that intellectual
42:06
Speaker 5: property rights are part of the problem and manufacturing is
42:08
Speaker 5: the biggest problem, but that it recognizes that we probably
42:11
Speaker 5: will end up having to do both.
42:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, just look at the situation we're in currently, right?
42:14
Speaker 3: I mean, the US, the Trump administration smartly bought enough
42:19
Speaker 3: doses for two or three times the US population. And
42:22
Speaker 3: thank God they did because Johnson & Johnson shit the
42:24
Speaker 3: bed on their manufacturing, right? AstraZeneca has had some real
42:27
Speaker 3: serious problems that we've talked about. So I do think
42:30
Speaker 3: just logically it makes sense to try to increase the
42:34
Speaker 3: number of manufacturers.
42:36
Speaker 4: Today, right? So that we're just hedged in the future.
42:39
Speaker 3: The argument that I just have no time for that
42:41
Speaker 3: I find so infuriating are the people who say, well,
42:44
Speaker 3: we can't give this technology to Russia and China. What
42:47
Speaker 3: are you talking about? That is the most- Who cares?
42:50
Speaker 3: That is the most unbelievably selfish, stupid, self-defeating shit I
42:55
Speaker 3: have ever heard. One- Russia and China, if they want
42:58
Speaker 3: the technology, they're going to steal it. They're very good
43:00
Speaker 3: at that. So let's just stipulate that. But also, shouldn't
43:03
Speaker 3: we show some moral leadership here and try to help
43:06
Speaker 3: billions of people and prevent millions of deaths? I mean,
43:09
Speaker 3: I find that unbelievable that anyone would even say that
43:12
Speaker 3: out loud.
43:13
Speaker 2: That, you know, it's funny because I kept reading that
43:15
Speaker 2: as a reason against doing it. I was like, that
43:17
Speaker 2: can't be the only reason against lifting this waiver because
43:20
Speaker 2: it is so fucking dumb. Look, I guess if even
43:23
Speaker 2: in the best case scenario, the waiver is lifted tomorrow.
43:26
Speaker 2: There's still a whole bunch of countries that that's not
43:28
Speaker 2: going to have a huge impact on in the near term,
43:30
Speaker 2: which is, you know, this is an urgent problem that
43:33
Speaker 2: these countries need vaccines right now. I have seen a
43:35
Speaker 2: few in a few places that like one of the
43:37
Speaker 2: potential solutions, along with the waiver potentially, is to just
43:41
Speaker 2: start donating a bunch more vaccines immediately to some of
43:44
Speaker 2: these countries because like... whether it's locally produced and manufactured
43:48
Speaker 2: in India or donated to India, I guess it doesn't
43:51
Speaker 2: make a huge difference in the near term when they
43:53
Speaker 2: really just need the vaccine.
43:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the answer is both. I think we
43:56
Speaker 3: should be donating all excess doses. But like, you know,
43:58
Speaker 3: the European Union just cut a deal, I think with
44:01
Speaker 3: Pfizer or Moderna, I forget which one, where they're going
44:04
Speaker 3: to buy something like 1.8 billion doses. So, you know,
44:07
Speaker 3: a lot of these doses are going to just be
44:09
Speaker 3: accounted for. And I think what we need to do
44:11
Speaker 3: is increase aggregate manufacturing capacity. And very smart people who
44:16
Speaker 3: I think mean well will say, well, actually, there's a
44:20
Speaker 3: raw material shortage. It could create bottlenecks there. But ultimately,
44:25
Speaker 3: this is just kind of like an organizational challenge. And
44:27
Speaker 3: I think that we have very smart people at the
44:29
Speaker 3: White House, at the WHO, at various, COVAX, which is
44:32
Speaker 3: this international entity that's been set up to try to
44:35
Speaker 3: get vaccine to low-income countries. We should be able to
44:38
Speaker 3: work this out. We're not talking about a problem that's
44:40
Speaker 3: going to be solved in 2021. We're talking about a
44:43
Speaker 3: problem we have years to work on. So like, why
44:46
Speaker 3: not start proceeding to help generic makers start manufacturing this
44:50
Speaker 3: thing as soon as humanly possible?
44:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:53
Speaker 5: It's also the, like the, it becomes a sort of like,
44:57
Speaker 5: because I think the issue kind of falls along kind
44:59
Speaker 5: of like normal domestic policy lines, but it's actually a
45:03
Speaker 5: different kind of argument. It's like, you see like kind
45:05
Speaker 5: of Democrats saying there must be a waiver. You see
45:08
Speaker 5: like the Wall Street Journal editorial board being like, this
45:10
Speaker 5: is a heist. The vaccine is a victory for property rights.
45:13
Speaker 5: But actually in practice, if you look at what like
45:15
Speaker 5: the leaders of the World Health Organization have said, it's
45:17
Speaker 5: like a waiver, a license, changing the rules. These things
45:21
Speaker 5: all ultimately kind of can look the same. It's just
45:23
Speaker 5: about increasing manufacturing as quickly as possible for as many
45:27
Speaker 5: people as possible. And there's a bunch of ways to
45:29
Speaker 5: get there.
45:30
Speaker 2: Okay, before we go, we wanted to check in on
45:32
Speaker 2: a few under-the-radar stories we've been following for a while now.
45:35
Speaker 2: Mine is an update on what Republicans and both right-wing
45:38
Speaker 2: and mainstream media outlets have labeled Biden's border crisis. Well,
45:42
Speaker 2: it turns out that on Friday, the government reported that
45:44
Speaker 2: the number of migrant children in border patrol facilities at
45:47
Speaker 2: the southwest border has dropped 83% over the last month,
45:50
Speaker 2: and the length of time that migrant children are staying
45:52
Speaker 2: at these facilities has also decreased as the Biden administration
45:55
Speaker 2: has done a better job of quickly finding relatives and
45:57
Speaker 2: for these children to live with. I'm sure this update
46:00
Speaker 2: will be all over Fox News and Facebook this week,
46:03
Speaker 2: right guys?
46:05
Speaker 3: You know, it's a good reminder that so many of
46:08
Speaker 3: the criticisms of Biden in the first 100 days had
46:12
Speaker 3: to do with people wanting him to solve problems faster
46:16
Speaker 3: and not that he ultimately didn't solve the problem or
46:19
Speaker 3: at least make a lot of progress. You know, it's
46:21
Speaker 3: very hard to figure out how to place kids in
46:25
Speaker 3: all these homes safely. That doesn't mean it's not like
46:28
Speaker 3: morally objectionable to see, you know, children sitting in these
46:32
Speaker 3: horrible facilities where they never should be. But, you know,
46:35
Speaker 3: it's like human beings doing their best to help them
46:38
Speaker 3: as fast as they can.
46:39
Speaker 4: Love it.
46:39
Speaker 2: You got a quick take on this?
46:40
Speaker 4: Yeah.
46:42
Speaker 5: Under Trump, cruelty was the point, as Adam Serwer would say.
46:44
Speaker 5: Cruelty wasn't the point when Joe Biden became president. That
46:47
Speaker 5: doesn't mean there are times where our policies haven't been cruel,
46:49
Speaker 5: but that was not the goal. And they're trying to
46:51
Speaker 5: get those kids into something safer and better.
46:55
Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you got?
46:56
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about right-wing media and lawsuits.
46:59
Speaker 3: So listeners of the show may or may not have
47:02
Speaker 3: heard of Newsmax before. You're lucky if you haven't, but
47:05
Speaker 3: it's a right-wing rag. It was founded in the late 90s,
47:08
Speaker 3: propped up by a bunch of right-wing billionaires as all
47:10
Speaker 3: these outlets are. And then they added a TV division
47:12
Speaker 3: in 2014, and that quickly became a Trump favorite. So
47:16
Speaker 3: Newsmax was part of the little cabal of right-wing liars
47:19
Speaker 3: that spread a baseless allegation that Dominion voting systems had
47:24
Speaker 3: rigged voting machines in the 2020 election in an effort
47:27
Speaker 3: to defeat Donald Trump. Specifically, they claimed that a Dominion
47:30
Speaker 3: employee named Eric Coomer hosted a conference call with Antifa
47:34
Speaker 3: where he guaranteed a Biden victory.
47:36
Speaker 4: And look, this is a serious issue.
47:38
Speaker 3: But the idea of an Antifa conference call is just
47:40
Speaker 3: objectively hilarious. I think we need to pause just to
47:44
Speaker 3: acknowledge that fact. So Eric Coomer, this employee, he filed
47:48
Speaker 3: a lawsuit against Newsmax and a bunch of others for
47:50
Speaker 3: basically destroying the guy's life. So they seem to have settled.
47:55
Speaker 3: The terms are not public, but Newsmax posted a correction apology.
48:00
Speaker 3: As a person who co-founded a media company with you guys,
48:04
Speaker 3: like lawsuits against News outlets make me a little uncomfortable
48:07
Speaker 3: as a general matter, but these suits are becoming one
48:11
Speaker 3: of the only ways that individuals can get right-wing outlets
48:13
Speaker 3: to correct brazen, purposeful lies like this. A similar example
48:18
Speaker 3: was a lawsuit that got Fox News to retract its
48:20
Speaker 3: lies about a DNC staffer who had been murdered. This
48:24
Speaker 3: lawsuit also names a Trump organization, Rudy Giuliani, One American
48:27
Speaker 3: News Network, so they should all be very worried. And
48:29
Speaker 3: then Dominion Voting Systems has a separate lawsuit against Fox News,
48:33
Speaker 3: Rudy Giuliani, and the MyPillow guy. Of course, all of
48:35
Speaker 3: this comes way too late. Like the conspiracy theories has
48:38
Speaker 3: spread everywhere. They helped incite the attack on the Capitol.
48:41
Speaker 3: They made this poor guy's life hell. They made him
48:43
Speaker 3: fear for his safety. Um, but you know, clearly there's
48:45
Speaker 3: an epidemic of fake news and I'm hoping that outcomes
48:48
Speaker 3: like this will make some of these like nakedly partisan
48:50
Speaker 3: right-wing sites think twice before they let say a pillow
48:53
Speaker 3: CEO come on their air and just claim an election
48:57
Speaker 3: was stolen, uh, with, with no actual basis.
48:59
Speaker 4: So a little bit of goodness.
49:01
Speaker 2: And I think that, um, I'm interested to see what
49:03
Speaker 2: happens with some of these lawsuits that are targeting Fox
49:06
Speaker 2: News for the same thing right now that are still
49:09
Speaker 2: out there. I think that you need to get a
49:12
Speaker 2: bunch of these to really inflict some pain on these
49:15
Speaker 2: companies to start this change. And I do, you know,
49:19
Speaker 2: I share the concern. about just being able to sue
49:21
Speaker 2: media companies. But I also think the magnitude of the
49:25
Speaker 2: lies and conspiracies that they're spreading and when called on
49:28
Speaker 2: those lies and conspiracies, they refuse to. to post any
49:32
Speaker 2: corrections because it's not about getting something wrong. Like someone
49:34
Speaker 2: told cricket media, we got something wrong. We would be like, okay,
49:38
Speaker 2: we'll change it. We'll get it right. Um, this is
49:40
Speaker 2: deliberately spreading conspiracies and misinformation. And I think at this point,
49:45
Speaker 2: the only way you're going to stop it is, uh,
49:47
Speaker 2: unfortunately through, uh, through lawsuits like these.
49:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
49:50
Speaker 5: It's the, um, like dominion suit starts with a B
49:54
Speaker 5: it's a, it's billions. Uh, and that's something that no
49:57
Speaker 5: company can just ignore. Like that's, We don't know what
50:00
Speaker 5: the settlement is with this one person, but it's certainly
50:02
Speaker 5: not near what the order of magnitude of the lawsuit
50:06
Speaker 5: Dominion is seeking is, which I think makes it a
50:08
Speaker 5: much bigger deal because Fox News can make money without
50:12
Speaker 5: advertisers on Tucker Carlson because it makes money on the
50:14
Speaker 5: rent because it comes with cable packages for people who
50:17
Speaker 5: want to watch sports. But they can't not have ads
50:21
Speaker 5: and have this unlimited liability every time they go after somebody. So, yeah,
50:27
Speaker 5: I think it's good.
50:29
Speaker 2: Love it. What do you got?
50:30
Speaker 5: Margaret Sullivan in the Post wrote about a local Pennsylvania
50:33
Speaker 5: news radio station that is showing, I think, more courage
50:36
Speaker 5: than some of the biggest media companies in this country.
50:39
Speaker 5: As Tommy and his Twitter fuck buddy, Matt Negrin, who's
50:42
Speaker 5: a producer on The Daily Show, friend with benefit, whatever
50:45
Speaker 5: you say, as you often point out, a lot of
50:48
Speaker 5: the Sunday shows do want to let bygones be bygones.
50:51
Speaker 4: We talked about this.
50:52
Speaker 5: This is what what Jake and State of the Union
50:56
Speaker 5: on CNN is doing differently than these other channels. But
50:58
Speaker 5: it leads to these incredibly stilted moments when you have
51:01
Speaker 5: people like Rick Scott on CBS saying that Joe Biden
51:05
Speaker 5: isn't being bipartisan and nobody points out that he tried
51:08
Speaker 5: to overthrow the government to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president.
51:12
Speaker 5: So WITF in Pennsylvania has been appending notes whenever they
51:18
Speaker 5: cover Republican politicians who supported the insurrection, even on articles
51:21
Speaker 5: around the vaccine issue. or other issues. They say, just
51:24
Speaker 5: a reminder, on January 11th, SCOTUS refused to fast track
51:28
Speaker 5: the case, the election fraud lie that led to the
51:31
Speaker 5: attack on the Capitol, which is supported by some of
51:33
Speaker 5: these 17 Republican state senators. So I think it's interesting
51:37
Speaker 5: when news outlets decide to focus on things that are
51:41
Speaker 5: true and important, even if they're not in the headlines.
51:43
Speaker 5: And as you said, the State of the Union has
51:45
Speaker 5: refused to book election deniers. But also, I like it
51:48
Speaker 5: when these anchors don't just cover what's in the news.
51:51
Speaker 5: So Jake Tapper asked Susan Collins about something she said
51:56
Speaker 5: around Trump's impeachment.
51:57
Speaker 3: Do you ever wonder that Trump did learn a lesson,
52:00
Speaker 3: but the lesson he learned was that he can get
52:01
Speaker 3: away with anything?
52:05
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, that was an interview that was
52:10
Speaker 6: grossly mis-edited. It chopped out the rest of what I said,
52:15
Speaker 6: which was in dealing with foreign governments, I hope, that
52:20
Speaker 6: the president has learned the lesson.
52:24
Speaker 5: These people are not held to account for the things
52:26
Speaker 5: that they said. And at a time when, as we
52:28
Speaker 5: talked about, the majority of Republican voters now believe that
52:32
Speaker 5: the election was stolen, it's clear Trump did not learn
52:34
Speaker 5: his lesson about abusing his power in order to kind
52:37
Speaker 5: of steal the election. And I think it's interesting that
52:41
Speaker 5: this local TV station is showing more courage than even
52:46
Speaker 5: like giant television anchors who have Incredible power to kind
52:50
Speaker 5: of shape what we talk about.
52:51
Speaker 2: I love that story. I think it's like very courageous
52:53
Speaker 2: for that local station to do that. I love that
52:55
Speaker 2: State of the Union is refusing to book election deniers.
52:58
Speaker 2: We always give people something to do. I think that
53:02
Speaker 2: now that we have some local news organizations and also
53:05
Speaker 2: a Sunday show. willing to take these steps like every
53:09
Speaker 2: media outlet that's not a right wing media outlet that's
53:11
Speaker 2: never going to listen should be pressured to do this
53:13
Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
53:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
53:14
Speaker 2: Like if State of the Union can do it, there
53:16
Speaker 2: is no. Why isn't why isn't this week doing that?
53:19
Speaker 2: Why isn't Meet the Press doing that? Why isn't Face
53:21
Speaker 2: the Nation doing that? They should be held account of that.
53:23
Speaker 2: They should be asked why they're not following. Jake and
53:26
Speaker 2: Dan as lead and news organizations all over the country.
53:30
Speaker 2: Why not? When you bring up people who are election deniers,
53:33
Speaker 2: who tried to oppose the certification of the election, why
53:36
Speaker 2: not add that in your statements, in your newscast? You should,
53:40
Speaker 2: and people should pressure them.
53:41
Speaker 3: Also, there was a very annoying debate at the beginning
53:42
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration where people on Twitter would just
53:44
Speaker 3: yell at the New York Times for not using the
53:47
Speaker 3: word lie. But I've now fully come around on that
53:49
Speaker 3: because I do think saying lie instead of falsehood gets
53:52
Speaker 3: at the fact that they're doing this on purpose, that
53:55
Speaker 3: they know better and that they're trafficking in lies and
53:59
Speaker 3: misinformation to gain political advantage. And I do think that
54:03
Speaker 3: news outlets need to say the word lie to make
54:05
Speaker 3: a moral judgment about that behavior.
54:07
Speaker 4: It's not a misstatement. It's not an accident.
54:09
Speaker 3: It's a lie that helps them win elections or mislead
54:12
Speaker 3: the public. And we should just be clear about it.
54:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.
54:14
Speaker 1: All right.
54:15
Speaker 2: That is our show for today. Thanks for listening. And
54:18
Speaker 2: we'll talk to everyone later this week. Pod Save America
54:25
Speaker 2: is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
54:29
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are
54:33
Speaker 2: Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and
54:36
Speaker 2: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
54:40
Speaker 2: Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin,
54:44
Speaker 2: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
54:47
Speaker 2: Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
54:51
Speaker 2: film and upload these episodes as videos every week.