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“A Very Lit Joint (Address) with Jen Psaki.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki joins
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to talk about President Biden's first address to a joint
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: session of Congress. We'll also talk about how the 2020
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: census could affect control of Congress and dive into the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: latest round of right wing conspiracies about Biden's burger bans,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: plant based beer and so much more. But first. This
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: week marks the end of Biden's first 100 days in office,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: so don't forget to join host Brian Boitler as he
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: reviews the administration's biggest wins and fails in the season
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: finale of Rubicon out this Friday. Check it out. Joining
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: us to talk about what the White House was hoping
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to accomplish last night, one of the biggest and brightest
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: stars of the Biden administration, we get to say we
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: knew her way back when, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: What's up, friend? Welcome back to the pod.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Hi, how are you guys? It's so good to talk
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: to you.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: It's good to have you here. Um, So I want
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to start by getting your reaction to a superb piece
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: of journalistic analysis about the speech from our favorite publication,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Politico Playbook.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: That we were hiding. We were hiding the proposal.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You know what I was going to say. See, you
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: know me too well. Were you guys trying to hide
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: last night's speech?
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Well, in my many years of tutelage on communications under
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Dan Pfeiffer, he always told me, when you want the
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: American people to know something, hide it. Don't tell them
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: about it. And that's exactly what we were trying to do. Yeah,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: that is ludicrous. I will tell you that, which we
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: all know, What the president wanted to do last night is,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: of course, talk about how far we've come and give
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: a progress update on that. That's always a part of
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: these big speeches, as you guys know better than almost anyone,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: but also set out a bold agenda for moving forward.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: And We think we did that. And that's what these
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: type of speeches are an opportunity to do, to kind
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: of tell the American people what government is there to
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: help them with. Or that's what we think it should
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: be for.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Did you guys, when you were planning for the rollout
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of the speech, have a headline in mind that you
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: wanted this morning? What was the one thing you were
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: hoping people would take away from the speech?
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: The big thing was that this president is going to
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: fight for you. We wanted people to take away that
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: we've made some progress, that we're working to get the
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: pandemic under control. Here's what we've done to date. We
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: don't expect everybody to watch every moment of cable news,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: God forbid. That wouldn't be healthy for anyone. So we
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: knew that we had to do about a third of
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: the speech or maybe 25% of the speech on an
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: update on where we've come from. Even though I feel
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: like I know that people who are watching every moment
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: of what's happening in politics know that, but the millions
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: of people watching at home don't know that. So that's
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: why we spent about 25% on that, which is pretty standard.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: But we wanted people to have an understanding of what
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: the agenda looks like moving forward. You know, we're moving
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: through this emergency, the pandemic, millions of people out of work.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: And now we want to lay out for people what
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: we want to do next. And that's why a big
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: chunk of it was focused on both the jobs plan,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: the jobs plan, millions of jobs. And also, yeah, there
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: you go. And also the family's plan, Because, you know,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: people always ask us questions when, you know, here in
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: the briefing room. Well, how are you going to get
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: this one Republican? And what are they thinking about the
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: taxes piece? And that's just not how people sitting at
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: home think about things. Right. I mean, it's not people
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: sitting at home or thinking, you know, can I get
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: my kid into preschool? Can I get can I pay
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: for community college? Right. So our focus was trying to
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: lay out in very specific detail what the next chunk
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: of his agenda look for, lay out the blueprint. And that's,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: you know, what his next several months is going to
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: be focused on.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Are you trying to say that people at home aren't
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: thinking to themselves, is this bill going to be split
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: into two parts?
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Right. They're not thinking, why hasn't he met with Kevin
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: McCarthy yet? What I'm wondering is whether reconciliation will at
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: some point come up in the process. No, I mean,
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: I barely knew what reconciliation was until several months ago. So, no,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think most people sitting at home are thinking
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: through that prism. But they are thinking about, you know,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: whether government can work for them and, you know, what
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: it will do for them. And that's what he was
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: really trying to say.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Jen, President Biden's been in that chamber for dozens of
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: addresses to Congress. He sat behind Obama for, I think,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: 10 of them. But this one was obviously very different.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: It was a sparse crowd, people wearing masks. He was
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: going to stand up there and give this giant speech,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: speaking to essentially almost an empty room. Is there anything
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: that you guys did differently in how the speech was written,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: how he prepared for it, how you thought about the
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: messaging to account for that very strange dynamic?
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: You know, part of it, we didn't really know how
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: to predict. Right. Because as you said, Dan, I mean,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: typically of sixteen hundred people in the room. Right. When
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: a president's delivering a speech and there's a certain energy
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: or ebb and flow that goes with that. Right. There's
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: a certain energy of who's in the first lady's box.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: And that's always such a big part of the speech,
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: calling out these, you know, Americans who are inspiring, who
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: have overcome great odds or whatever it may be. So
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: we didn't really know how that would entirely play. But
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: what we did know is that what's going to work
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: for President Biden was not going to be I mean,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: he is not a flowery, you know, speech maker. He's
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: somebody who wants things to be very accessible and straightforward.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: It was never going to be a big rhetorical speech.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: And actually, it turns out that worked in our view
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: in the room. Right. He was having he feels so comfortable,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: as you guys know, in this in Congress. You know,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: he served 36 years. He sat through more speeches than
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I think anyone living today. It's probably safe to say.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: And it was like he was having a conversation. Right.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: We didn't know that's how it would exactly play. And
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: watching it here from the White House, because none of
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: us went with him, was really an interesting perspective because
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: it almost felt like at times he was whispering a
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: little bit. Right. He wasn't he was never going to
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: be screaming to them. That was never going to be
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: his style. And we knew that it wouldn't have the same.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: extended applause lines so it was written in a way
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: where it was going to go through and try to
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: take people on a story of where we've come from
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: what we're doing now and where we're going from here
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: but what was interesting to watch was like kind of
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: the fact that you don't have to scream to be
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: bold right he had pretty bold proposals but it wasn't
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: um what was it wasn't it wasn't meant to be
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: kind of a big rhetorical flourish it was meant to
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: speak in very direct simple, straight language about what we're
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: facing and what we're doing moving forward.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: So in other words, he was going to give a
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: speech that didn't have any of Favreau's highfalutin elitist rhetoric.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, I knew that's what you were thinking, Dan, when
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: she was saying that. I could see the look on
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: your face.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I know you love acronyms, John.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I love an acronym.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Who among us doesn't really? And like, we tried to
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: keep putting acronyms in there to just, you know, quote
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: many past presidents. Yeah, of course.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, he was always going to speak in a
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: way that was very kind of straightforward, direct, simplistic language.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: That was always going to be the way he talked.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: But the conversational notion, as we were watching it, it
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: was like he was at a town hall in some ways, right?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I think that worked really well.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know that we anticipated that. Yeah.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Were there cheers in the legislature's office when he shouted
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: out three separate congressional committees?
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We all cheered. I mean, Deere and Kevlar vests.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was an ad-lib. There you go.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: There were some ad-libs, a little ad-libbing on China. You know,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: why not? Why not? You can take the man out
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: of the Senate. You can't take the Senate out of
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: the man, you know?
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And all the things that he did mention, how did
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: you guys come to the decision to leave out his
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: one burger a month plan from the speech?
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: You mean our banning of meat? Yeah.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, banning of meat, yes.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: In all seriousness, I mean, it speaks to part of
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the broader challenges you deal with every day in getting
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: his message out is you have this totally messed up
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: information ecosystem. You have Republicans who are actively engaging in disinformation.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: After the speech, Kevin McCarthy went on Fox, on Hannity,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: and once again brought up the disproved burger lie. How
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: are you thinking about how you sort of navigate that
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: on a day-to-day basis trying to get his message out?
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: It's a challenge. I mean, as you said, because there
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: is like, you know, last week there was a whole day, which, again,
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: the reporter then resigned over about whether or not the
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: vice president's books were being distributed through, you know, packages
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: that were going at the shelters. I mean, it's crazy.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Of course not. Right. But we'll have to see if
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: this works. It's a test. Right. We're 100 days in
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: our focus so far. has been on trying not to
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: get distracted by sideshows that are an attempt by Republicans
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: in Congress at many times to distract us. So whether
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: it's Dr. Seuss, I mean, I don't even, that controversy,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: you know, or, you know, even for a while, it
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: was school reopening as if we were against school reopening.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was even in in Senator Scott's speech
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: last night. So, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, like we
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: just try not to get, we kind of try to
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: keep our blinders on. Now that doesn't mean that those,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: that information isn't traveling on the internet. We're not naive
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: about that. But I think the fundamental question is like,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: is it our role entirely from here, speaking on behalf
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: of the president and the White House and the government,
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: to be the ones that are swatting down and refuting
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: every little conspiracy theory? Or is it our role to
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: be focused on communicating with the American people about what
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: we're doing, refuting conspiracies? firmly when they come up, but
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: not spending every day batting that down? Because that would
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: be all we would do.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned Senator Scott's speech. He started the speech
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: by saying, I won't waste your time tonight with finger
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: pointing or partisan bickering. And then he went on to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: accuse the president of trying to tear us apart with
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a liberal wish list of big government waste. It did
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: seem like most of the Republican response to the speech
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: focused on sort of the size and cost of Biden's agenda.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: What's what's your reaction to that? What was your reaction
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to sort of Scott's speech?
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, in part, they don't want to refute the
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: fact that we need to modernize our infrastructure, that kids
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: should have access to clean drinking water, that we should
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: have universal pre-K, right? I mean, there's no disagreement about
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: all of that. That's what's so important for people to understand.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: everybody thinks we should do that there's just a disagreement
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: about how to pay for it and you know they
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: don't want to talk about it and it also turns
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: out as you all know that things like raising taxes
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: on corporations and the highest income is.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Also really very popular so we don't need.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: To shy away from that it's hugely popular we don't
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: need to shy away from that so you know it's
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I think my bet is we'll see what, you know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: the magical pollsters say. But is that people watching that
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: didn't to the degree they're really digesting it and thinking
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: about it. And that's infrequent, as we know, from response speeches.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: They didn't really take his word at the notion that
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Biden is trying to divide the country. I mean, based
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: on what? You know, I mean, it's a little bit
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: of a baseless suggestion.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: He did. He did spend a lot of time attacking H.R.1,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the For the People Act, which just about every Senate
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Republican has now said they opposed. President Biden asked Congress
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: to send him the bill towards the end of the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: speech last night. But I noticed, I'm sure you noticed this,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that Joe Manchin told Vox this week that he's, quote,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: not going to be part of any voting rights bill
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that's passed with only Democratic votes. So what are you
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: guys thinking about the path to getting H.R. 1 or
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: even something like it passed at this point?
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: It's hard. I mean, you know, just to state the obvious,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: because what people don't, the Democrats is Senator Manchin is
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: an example, obviously are not all united and moving forward with, um,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: even if the president was right, which he's not for
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: charging forward with eliminating the filibuster. I know. Um, but
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: you know, even if he was, um, Democrats are not
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: all for that, um, in Congress either. And you'd need
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: enough Democrats to want to do that. Um, Look, I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: think his view is that we have to keep pushing
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: forward on H.R.1. Of course, it's a hugely important piece
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: of legislation. We also need to refute any of these
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: arguments that the Georgia legislation doesn't make it harder to vote.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Of course it does. That's like an absurd argument for
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: a range of reasons. And also refute this notion that
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Republicans are trying to make it easier to vote. They're not.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: But that in this case, there may be, as we're
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: pushing for H.R.1, action that needs to happen at the
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: state level. You know, there may be continued. He's taken
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: done some executive actions. Those are not going to be
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: long lasting, as you know. So you have to do
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: more than that. And part of it is, in his view,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: kind of building up support among the American people and
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: awareness that voting rights, 47 states, I think you guys
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: may have a more updated number, have legislation that's trying
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: to make it more difficult right now. People need to
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: be aware of that, need to know what people are
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: trying to do in their states and that moving the
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: American public's understanding around this. is going to help make
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: change here. And sometimes DC is the last to know, right?
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Even as, as actions happening in states.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Has there been any conversations with Manchin or among the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress about like a different HR one or
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: a smaller bill that like Manchin could support. So you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: get some of the provisions passed.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: You know, I think there are, there, there are conversations
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: about all sorts of things, as you all know. And,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: and what could be, what could be possible between Democrats
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and Republicans, but they have to agree on that too. Right.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: The battle is not always the president. Right. The battle
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: is can they this is like on the George Floyd
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Justice and Policing Act. Right. Can they get to a
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: place and their negotiations are starting today.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Where they can come to an agreement on something that,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: you know, people from both parties can wrap their heads
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: around and someone like Congresswoman Karen Bass can sell to
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: her caucus as a step forward. And it's the same
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: on issues like voting rights, right? It's not just about
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: getting a few Republicans. It's also convincing for understandable reasons,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: members of the Democratic Party who have been fighting for
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: voting rights, who know how ludicrous it is, the argument
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: that we should make it harder, not easier to vote,
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: that they're going to do something lesser than or than
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: what is proposed as a part of H.R.1. That's part
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: of the battle in that discussion, too.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: The president talked a lot about vaccines last night, all
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the success you've had. He very explicitly encouraged people to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: get vaccinated. You know, everything that he has done and
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: wants to do depends on keeping the pandemic, getting it
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: more under control and keeping it under control. And that
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: depends on more people getting vaccinated. And we're at the point,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: thanks to the very good efforts of your team, that
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: it's not about access and supply and logistics. It's about hesitancy.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: We're getting very close to that point. And the largest
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: group of people that seem to be the most hesitant
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: are ones who are not supporters of the president. They
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: are Trump supporters or Republicans. These are the traditionally, you know,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: when you and I work together, we're the hardest voters
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to possibly reach. What are you guys thinking about how
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: you can, not necessarily with the president or administration officials,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: but what's sort of the strategy for trying to convince
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: these people to get the vaccine in a way that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: works for people who may not trust this administration or
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: support this administration?
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is one of the questions that
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of, not misinformation, it's not the right word,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: but like a lot of confusion or confusion. expectation about
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: or preconceived notions about is the right way to say
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: it in that, you know, there's this view that like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: if we just had former president Trump and like some
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: conservative celebrities, Brooks and Dunn, I don't even know who
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: go out and like, I don't know if that's right,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: but like, you know, go out and.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Say, you'll find out very soon after this comes out.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Um, go out and say, get the vaccine that everybody
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: who is skeptical would say, Oh, former president Trump. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Brooks and Dunn said, get the vaccine. We're going to
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: do it. That's just not in our data how it works, right?
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Or how people are going to be moved. So what
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: our focus has been on is a lot more labor intensive,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: but more effective, which is trying to get into, it's
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: like building for a campaign or building from a political sense, right?
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: So you're trying to go into communities, do very targeted outreach,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a member of clergy. Sometimes it's a civic leader.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a mayor. Sometimes it's a local doctor and
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: empower and help fund these local operations and apparatus so
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: that people can meet people in their communities. It's just
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: like politics in the sense that if you tell your neighbor,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I love Joe Biden. Joe Biden's going to do something
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: for the climate. And your neighbor says, I don't believe that.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden's not going to do something for the climate.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: And the neighbor then convinces you, then you're going to
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: be more convinced by that than you are by an
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: ad on your television set, right? It's the same kind
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: of strategy. And so we fully expect that the daily
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: numbers about how many people are vaccinated may go down.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Because as you said, that's kind of the stage we're in, right?
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: We were in this stage where it was like, how
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: do I get my shot? People are counting down. Like,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: when am I eligible? Where do I find, you know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: where do I find it? There's not enough supply. Now
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: we have plenty of supply and, or we will, but
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: we're going to, we have it now we're going to.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: And now it's like, how do we get to people
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: who are like, I can't take a day off of work. Understandable.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know where to go. So really doing it
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: in a way that's very locally organized.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Jen Psaki, thank you so much for joining us as always.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Congratulations on the babies.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, all the babies.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Jack, Charlie, all the babies.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Give the rest of the team our best. Say hello
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: to Peter Doocy for us when you see him.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: He just got married.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I know he's your favorite. Oh, wow. Congratulations to Peter Doocy.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Look at that.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Your audience is excited about that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Does that mean you won't have him in the briefing
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: room for questions now for a couple of weeks? Is
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that upsetting?
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: He is back from his honeymoon. But no matter your
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: background or your views, picking who you marry is pretty important.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: So we can all agree on that. It's bipartisan.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Look at that. On message as always. Jen, come back anytime.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Unity.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: The Biden message.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Marriage is good.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: We love having you.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you, guys. Great talking to you.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, so I do want to talk
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about the speech itself before we
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: move on. Here is a clip from last night.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Tonight, I come to talk about crisis and opportunity, about
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: rebuilding the nation, revitalizing our democracy, and winning the future
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: for America. I stand here tonight, one day shy of
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: the 100th day of my administration. Hundred days since I
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: took the oath of office and lifted my hand off
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: our family Bible and inherited a nation we all did
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: that was in crisis. The worst pandemic in a century.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: attack on our democracy since the Civil War. Now, after
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: just 100 days, I can report to the nation, America
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: is on the move again.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: America is on the move. So we heard Jen talk
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: about what the White House wanted to get out of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: that speech. How well do you think they executed on that?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And what did you think of the speech in general?
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, the headlines today suggest they did exactly what
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: they wanted to do. The headlines covered the progress, the proposals,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the boldness of it. And it was, you know, we
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: saw the The always interesting, if somewhat slanted, post-speech polls,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: which showed nearly 9 in 10 viewers approved of it.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So that seems not a polling expert, but that seems
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: quite good.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: No, that's good. That's a good rating.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And so, look, I think they should feel very good
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: about it. I don't think we should understate the difficulty
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: of giving a big speech in a big room with
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: a small crowd. It's just very awkward and very hard
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: to do. And if you're watching it on TV, if
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: you just watch the head-on shot of Biden, I don't
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: think you could have possibly known other than Nancy Pelosi
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: and Vice President Harris sitting behind him in masks that
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: this was different than any other State of the Union.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: It had that sort of– magistrate and seriousness and big
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: moment to it. Um, so I think that they pulled
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: off something very impressive, uh, with a very good speech
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: delivered quite well by president Biden in a very challenging environment.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I was terrified of that before the speech, because look, I,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I do not love writing speeches, um, with a ton
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: of applause lines and writing for the audience, because I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: think it doesn't lead to a great speech. The one
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: exception to that rule. is during a speech to Congress
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: because you are judged on how many times all those
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: yahoos stand up and clap often. And so when I
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: heard that there was only going to be 200 people,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I was a little worried about how it would go.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: They did a great job with it, I thought. And
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: part of it was, I think Biden's delivery was great.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I think he, you know, Jen mentioned the whispering and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: that got some attention afterwards. I do think that was
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a style of delivery and a choice that worked well
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: in a room that was nearly empty, a big room
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: like that, with only 200 people. And so I think
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: they did a great job. It was an interesting choice
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that they, you know, the bulk of the speech was
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: focused on the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And the sections on issues like immigration and voting rights
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and race were shorter, and they were towards the end.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: They actually came after the foreign policy section Traditionally, at
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: least when we always used to write these, it was
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: all the domestic stuff, then all the foreign policy stuff,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: then a conclusion. Why do you think they made that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: choice to devote so much of the speech to American
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: jobs plan and American families plan and didn't do as
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: much on issues like immigration, voting rights, guns? There's a
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: little more on guns, but basically a lot of other issues.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I would say almost almost 50 percent of the speech
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: was here's what we've done and then here's our two plans.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a pretty clear indication that the next
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: two items on the legislative agenda, the things that they
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: are most urgently trying to pass and probably have most
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: optimism about passing are those two pieces of legislation. Because
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: there's always this dual audience with the State of the Union.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: You are speaking to the public primarily, but there's also
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: you're speaking to Congress. Usually that means people in the room.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: In this case, it means people in the room and people,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: whole members of Congress. And you're signaling to them. to
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: members of your own party what you want them to
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: work on. You're giving them the best arguments for why
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: they should do those things to take back to their constituents.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: And you're sending a message to the other party that says,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: get on board or I'm going to use my very
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: large platform to make this argument to the public for
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: why you're against it, which is where you really saw
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that in the tax section where he made it pretty
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: clear the very real political challenges Republicans will have if
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: they oppose these very popular initiatives because they were opposed
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: to these even more popular tax increases of corporations and
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the wealthy.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think, you know, there was, I thought
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the close of the speech was wonderful. And, you know,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: he said at some point during the close, you know,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the big test of our time is whether democracy can
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: deliver for people. And it does seem like their overarching
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: strategy in the Biden administration is to figure out how
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they can pass as much legislation as possible with the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: narrow majorities they have and actually deliver on their promises
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: to improve people's lives. And where they can do that,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: which is the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they want to emphasize those issues as much as possible
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: because they are popular and because they know they can
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: get them done. I think that they, and we sort
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of heard this from Jen on HR1, they seem to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: know that the path to getting anything else done that
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: is outside the reconciliation process and requires getting rid of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: the filibuster is very, very tricky. It is a very
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: steep hill. And so it seems as though to me
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that they thought we're not going to spend a lot
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of time on things that if we talk about them
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a lot in public, they're still not going to change
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin's mind or Kyrsten Sinema's mind. So we might
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: as well focus on the trillions of dollars in spending
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that might actually pass because Joe Manchin said that he
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: is willing to consider it and you only have to
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: pass them through reconciliation. Did you sort of get that too?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Or what did you think?
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's always a relationship between where a policy falls
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: in the speech and how many words are dedicated to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: it that correlates to the White House's agenda, their to-do list.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And I think for people who care passionately about HR1,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: as we do, as many of our listeners do, I
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: think that's a pretty alarming sign. I don't know that
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I would have made a different decision if I was
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: sitting in their seats, given what you need to do,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: what is possible, and what is probably... Everything's a risk-benefit analysis, right?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: If you think your odds of getting HR1 are quite low,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't use your biggest platform you're going to have
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: probably all presidency outside of your inauguration. to carry a
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: message on something that depends on the views of one
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: or two senators. You don't necessarily have to convince the
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: public about HR. One, you have to convince Joe Manchin
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: and Kyrsten Sinema. There are more efficient ways to do
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: that than using the speech. Having said that, though, beyond
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the speech, I think that's probably the right decision for
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: the speech. They're going to have to make some decisions
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: as we make progress on the jobs plan, the family plan,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: maybe those get done, is there are some times where
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: it's better to fight and lose than not fight it.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: My belief is H.R. 1 is one of those things.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I think if we fail to get that done, that
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: is going to be a black mark on everyone involved
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: in this Congress, from Joe Manchin to Kyrsten Sinema to
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer to Vice President Biden, because it will be
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: a missed opportunity and a very critical moment for our democracy.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: It may be that it cannot get done or is
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: nearly impossible to get done, but I think there is
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: an upside in fighting for it. And that decision does
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: not have to be made now, doesn't have to be
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: in the speech, but at some point down the line,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: they're going to have to decide how much of their
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: political capital they will put behind pushing for something that
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: may not succeed.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say it's also not just a black
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: mark on them in terms of, oh, you know, we
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: campaigned on this, we talked about this and we couldn't
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: get it done. It is, you know, the future of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: our democracy is at stake and so is their majorities,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate. And
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: we are facing, as we're about to talk about with
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the census, a structural disadvantage that, as we have for
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: some time going into 2022, where, you know, a majority
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: of the American people could vote for Democrats and yet
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the balance in Congress could tip towards the Republicans because
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of the anti-majoritarian system we have. And this is sort
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of our one chance to fix it. And so I
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: do think it's existential. But I also agree with you
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that if I'm sitting in the White House, again, the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: problem is Joe Manchin. It has been for a while.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And spending 20 or 30 minutes on voting rights in
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a public speech changed Joe Manchin's mind. I don't know. Or, or,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: or are they trying to do something or are they
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: trying to do something behind the scenes, which is what
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I was trying to get at with Jen, where maybe
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: they're starting to talk to Manchin about, okay, what, what
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: version of HR one would you really fight for? Um,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and then, and then try to go from there. But
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I think it is, you know, the reality is this
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: fucking sucks.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: Or, yeah.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Or are they doing what you said, which is call
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: his bluff? Joe Manchin said in his op-ed in the
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Washington Post, I believe it was, a few weeks ago,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: that he thought there was bipartisan support for a plan.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: So maybe they said, Joe Manchin, go find your 10
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: mysterious Republicans who do not exist. Try. And if he
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: tries and fails, then maybe that's a different conversation. And
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: beating everyone over the head in this speech doesn't change
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that dynamic and maybe even make it worse. I mean,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: this is really hard.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: It's very hard.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And I am very sympathetic to how the Biden White
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: House weighs this.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: What did you make of the Republican responses to the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: speech last night? Most of them focused on the cost
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and size of Biden's agenda, which was a real throwback
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to the Republicans' Obama-era complaints.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I thought the Scott speech in particular was just a
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: giant mess. It had no message, no strategy, sort of
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: a microcosm of the overall Republican Party's larger challenge with
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: defining Joe Biden. They start by saying, as you said
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: in your review to Jen, I'm not going to point fingers.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's a good guy. But here are all these
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: terrible things about him. So that's problem one. It's just
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: you need a coherent narrative. And they do not have
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: a coherent narrative. And they certainly do not have a
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: coherent narrative that is alarming enough about Joe Biden that
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: it will fire up their base yet. Second, I think
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: there's a massive strategic error that Tim Scott and the
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: rest of Republicans made by saying, we support infrastructure. We
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: want to build roads and bridges. But we don't support
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. And that allows
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Biden to make a very strong and very politically powerful
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: case that they would rather keep corporate tax rates at
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: a historic low than put people to work, than to
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: build roads and bridges to create jobs. And that is
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: a miserable political position to be in. And they walked
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: right into that trap. And I think a very well-organized,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: well-funded Democratic Party messaging campaign can just hammer that vulnerability
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: home between now the passage of that bill and between
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: the passage of that bill at the election in 2022.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I thought that was another huge political advantage to
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: talking so much about the American jobs plan and the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: American families plan, which is, you know, the Biden folks
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: really like to hammer issues where it's not just that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: public opinions on their side in terms of like, you know,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: 55% of voters agree or 60% of voters agree. They're
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: going on like issues where they have 70%, 75% of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the American people behind them. And they're just hammering Republicans
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: with those issues. And like, like, you know, Republicans are
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: on the losing side of the argument over voting rights.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: They are on the losing side of the broad argument
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: over immigration that at least the Biden administration is making,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: but they're on the big time losing side of the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: tax issue of the infrastructure issue of the jobs issue, right?
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Like you're getting 70%, 75% of the American people who
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: are supporting these plans are And I do think what
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: we saw from Tim Scott and what we saw from
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: all the Republican responses last night is that their party
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: is on the defensive right now. They are playing on
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: our turf. And so every time Joe Biden goes out
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: there and starts talking about taxing the rich in order
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to pay for investments that are going to create jobs,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: investments that are going to help families raise their kids,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: investments that are going to help clean up the climate
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and clean water, Republicans are left with saying, yeah, yeah,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: we support all that popular stuff too, but... And whenever
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: you're in a position where you're saying and but, and
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you have to say, oh, us too, but this, it's
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: just not a strong political position to be in. And
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: that's what... I mean, Tim Scott last night having to
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: say like, yeah, we support infrastructure too, but we just
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: don't support tax increases. Or we're actually the party of
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: racial progress too, but we don't like what they're doing.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: You know, like everything was... You could tell... from Tim
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Scott's speech, what it looks like for the Republican Party
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to try to at least appear to be a more
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: reasonable party, but completely fail at doing so because the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: truth is they're like a gang of insurrectionists who love
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And without H.R.1, that may just be enough to take
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Congress in 2022.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Well, but that well, that's that was the other interesting
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: thing is they've almost We'll talk about this with the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: conspiracy stuff, too. They've almost stopped trying to make an
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: argument because their hope for regaining power is basically just
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to keep the structure of democracy tilted and rigged for
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: them and to continue to rely on the fact that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: they that we have counter majoritarian institutions in this country
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and they don't really need to persuade a bunch of people.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: They just need to keep it like that so they
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: can sort of take power in 2022 and beyond, which
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is alarming.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: So speaking of that, there was other news this week
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: that will have much bigger and longer lasting political consequences
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: than the speech we heard last night. On Monday, the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Census Bureau released its 2020 population data, which, among other things,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: determines how many House seats each state gets for the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: next 10 years. Big winner is Texas, which will get
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: two more congressional seats. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Oregon will also gain one seat each. California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: West Virginia, and New York will all lose a congressional seat.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: In fact, if New York had counted just 89 more people,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Minnesota would have lost a seat instead of New York.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So that is rough. So this is basically the first
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: step in the redistricting process. The full census data will
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: be released at the end of September, at which point
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: each state will begin redrawing their congressional districts based on
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the new population figures. But what do we know so
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: far about the political impact of this data on control
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: of the House in 2022? In other words, how screwed
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: are Democrats?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: What's the thing you like to say? Not great.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: It is not great. Not great. The census data.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I would think about it this way. Between Texas, Florida, Georgia,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and North Carolina, Republicans could redistrict themselves into the majority
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: if everything else stayed the same. And- Kelly Ward Burton,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: who helps run the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said that
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Republicans could steal up to 12 seats through partisan gerrymandering.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: So in an incredibly narrow majority, in a normal non-districting world,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: this would be a very tough majority to hold on to.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: With a presidential first, midterm of a president, usually it
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: bounces back. And you're going to do that pushing against
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: very partisan gerrymandering in a series of states that benefit Republicans.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: So Democrats have their work cut out for them, both
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: in the state legislatures in those states, in the state
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: legislatures in the handful of states where Democrats have complete
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: control and can draw the maps, and just broadly in
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: fighting for H.R. 1, as we just talked about.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, just to underscore this, Democrats in the House
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: currently have a five-seat majority. They are up five seats.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: And so if through The census data through the population
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: changes and then through redistricting and just redrawing the maps
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: where Republicans are allowed to redraw the maps, if they
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: can get pick up 12 seats, as Kelly Ward Borton,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: who knows more about this than most people. if they
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: can get 12 seats just through that, then suddenly Democrats
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: go into the 2022 elections down seven seats, even though
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: they currently hold the House majority. And so the party
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: in power, which usually loses seats, now has to gain
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: seven seats just to keep their majority.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't want to be super Debbie Downer here,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: although that's I kind of got to be me. But
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: it could be worse, is I guess what I would say.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: So 2011 was the last time there was redistricting. It
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: locked Democrats out of power for nearly a decade. It
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: was devastating in a whole host of ways. We are
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: in a better position now than we were then. In 2011,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Republicans had complete control over drawing 219 districts. It's only
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: 187 this time around. Democrats only controlled 44 districts, 75
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: this time. And we went from only 88 seats that were, uh,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: going to be drawn through independent or bipartisan commissions like
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: we have here in California. That number is now up
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: to 121. So this is not good. There's a lot
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: of work to do. It is very concerning, but it
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: could be worse people. It could be 2011.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And you know, Dave Wasserman, who, um, studies this extremely closely.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: His name is at redistrict. Yeah, exactly. His Twitter handle
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: is at redistrict. He, his estimates are actually a little
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: more hopeful for Democrats than, um, Kelly Ward Burton's. He
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: thinks that Republicans will gain three and a half seats
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: and then Democrats will lose three and a half seats,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: which would be a swing of seven seats. Still not
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: fucking great. But he also he also says that a
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: lot of it depends on some of these. So the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: unknowns here are the states that have nonpartisan redistricting commissions.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: What will happen with those commissions? We don't know yet.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: And there are a few other states where there's split
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: control between Democrats and Republicans. So the states that have,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: you know, full Republican control, you can pretty much guess
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen in those states. But there's a
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: bunch of other states where there is a question mark
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: on how the redistricting process will play out. And we
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: will know that in the fall. So there have been
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: some questions about whether Latinos were undercounted in the census.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: According to the American Community Survey, Latinos have accounted for
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: about half the population growth in Texas, Florida and Arizona
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: over the last 10 years. And yet those states only
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: gained a combined three house seats, which was a lot
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: fewer than most people expected. This is another thing we
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: should bring up in terms of, you know, as we're
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: talking about could have been worse, which is they actually
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: thought that Texas and Florida, North Carolina would gain even
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: more seats than they did.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: But.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, that could be because
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the census systematically undercounted Latinos. Why do you think this happened?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And is there anything that can be done about it now?
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure that there's anything that can be specifically
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: done about it now, but it seems pretty clear that
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Latinos were undercounted because it's not just Texas that gained
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: fewer seats. Everyone assumed that Arizona was going to gain
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: one seat. It did not.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: That's right. Arizona was the other one.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: And of course, this is a census administered by Donald
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Trump's administration, which is tried to put a citizenship question
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: on the census, which may have, even though it was
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: struck down by a very disappointed John Roberts, that he
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: had to strike it down, in the opinion, literally angry
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: at Trump's attorneys for being so terrible at making their
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: arguments that he couldn't give them what they wanted. But
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: a massive amount of coverage amounted, Trump's immigration message may
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: have made it less likely that Latinos replied to the
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: census or participated in the census, which may have undercounted them,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: which has dramatic impacts on political power, as we just
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: talked about, but also federal funding going forward. These are
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: the populations of which federal funding that is allocated by
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: state and city is done by population. And if your
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: population is undercounted, you're going to get less funding, you know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: on critical programs. And so this is a gigantic problem.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And I saw, you know, Ruben Gallego, who's a congressman
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: from Arizona was saying that, you know, It's not just
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the fact that Trump tried to ask that citizenship question,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: but also just... you know, systematically underfunding the census because
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: he said it wasn't just Latinos in his state that
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: he believes are undercounted, but Native Americans that live in
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Arizona as well. And so these sort of harder to
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: reach underserved populations, when you don't put a bunch of
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: resources into the Senate or adequately fund the census, this
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that's going to happen. So
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: it's not great. Let's talk about what Democrats can do
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: here overall about this. Obviously, if H.R. 1 is passed,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: there would be nonpartisan redistricting commissions in every state, which
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: would prevent Republicans from drawing so many maps and picking
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: up so many seats. Short of that, is there anything
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: else Democrats can do about the fact that we may
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: lose the House because of redistricting?
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, local activism in the states where there is
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: legislatures make the decision. I can't promise you that all
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of this activity is going to put pressure on Republicans.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: But shining a light through protests, through calling and emailing
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: your members and all of those things can make it
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: more challenging. And if you can't adjust the– you get
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: them to change how they draw the districts because they're
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: just so committed to sort of mendacious power grabs, you
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: can shine a light on it and then make them
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: pay– potentially make them pay a political price within the newer,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: less ideal districts. And so– We mentioned the National Redistricting Council.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: All on the Line is a program that works with
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: them where you can go there and sign up to
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: help volunteer and help do activism and help fight back
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: against gerrymandering. And it's going to be different in every
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: state where there are cases where there's split legislators sort
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: of bucking up and supporting the Democrats who are fighting
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: a very uphill battle. It's helpful pushing Democrats in the
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: states who have authority like Illinois, Maryland, and Oregon. to
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: do this the correct way and to not sort of,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: you know, surrender in the sake of bipartisanship in those
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: states is part of that effort as well.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And there are lawsuits also, right? I know Mark Elias,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Democratic super lawyer, is back in court trying to sue
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: some of these states or the Republicans in the states
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: who are going to try to gerrymander these maps. And
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: of course, the court's are not the greatest avenue because
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of them, particularly the Supreme Court, are packed
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: with right-wing Republicans. But that is one other option that
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I think Democrats will probably use.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: It actually goes to the urgency of H.R. 1, which
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: is in a Supreme Court decision in 2019. I think
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: it's Rucho versus Common Cause. The Supreme Court actually said
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: partisan gerrymandering was a issue for the voters, not the courts,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: which is insane, which says it is up to the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: voters to unrig the elections the politicians have rigged for themselves,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: which is a crazy position. But racial gerrymandering is still
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: something that is contestable in court. So if you pass H.R. 1,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: you can solve, hopefully, the partisan gerrymandering question.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: So if you happen to consume just about any kind
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of right wing media over the last week, Fox, The
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: New York Post, random Republican Twitter accounts, whatever, you learn
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the following. John Kerry has been accused of committing treason
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: by leaking information about Israeli military options to the Iranians.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris has been accused of profiting off of the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: border crisis by charging taxpayers to hand out copies of
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: her book to migrant children. It's like funny when you
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: just read it. And Joe Biden has been accused of
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: releasing a climate plan that will force Americans to stop
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: eating red meat. Here's a clip of world class dipshit
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Jesse Waters freaking out about this.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Americans would have to cut red meat consumption by a
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: whopping 90 percent.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: That means only one burger a month. You'll be shocked
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: to learn that none of this is true. John Kerry
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: didn't divulge any sensitive information. Our government isn't handing out
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's book to migrant children. Absolutely nothing in Joe
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Biden's climate plan will force Americans to stop eating red meat. Dan,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: where did all these conspiracies come from? And why do
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: you think they all took off so fast?
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Well, we have two things that are happening simultaneously, but
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: are interrelated. One is our media environment is progressively getting
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: more fucked up. That's happening for a whole host of reasons. Polarization,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Facebook's ravenous profiteering, declining trust in institutions. While that's happening,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: the Republicans are taking advantage of and catalyzing that process
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: with a political strategy based on disinformation.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: And there's one that has been.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Going on for a very long time, dates back decades,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: but is because of how fucked up our media environment
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: is and because of the incentives of Facebook and Twitter
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: and other social media outlets, it is incentivized to happen.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: And so let's take the burger one as a perfect
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: example of how this works, which is Joe Biden gave
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: a speech on Earth Day about his new carbon reduction targets.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: The Daily Mail, which is a right-wing clickbait factory, British tabloid,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: writes a story that takes a 2020 study from the
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: University of Michigan about how you would reach 50% emission
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: reductions on a whole host of things. What sort of
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: behavioral changes would Americans need to do? One of the
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: ones they mention, not because Joe Biden proposed or anything else,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: just doing random academic studies, is a 90% reduction in
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: red meat consumption. That was then factored out to be
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: about one burger a month. The entire right-wing establishment ran
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: with it. It went everywhere. Members of Congress tweeted it.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Fox News did it. And not just the opinion. It
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: was all over the quote unquote news side of Fox,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: amplified by Republicans, fact-checked by everyone as complete and total bullshit.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: And just last night, as I mentioned to Saki, Kevin
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: McCarthy raised it again. And this is how this works.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Republicans are working aggressively to build an alternative disinformation ecosystem, right?
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: This is classic authoritarian effort to hold on to political
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: power by lying to people and sort of insulating them
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: from facts and truth and the even idea that there
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: is subjective truth out there. And this is a gigantic problem.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: It's probably the greatest threat to democracy in the planet.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: It's how Donald Trump was elected. It's why people stormed
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: the Capitol. It's why we can't get 40% of Republicans
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: to save their own lives from COVID. It is a
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: gigantic problem that overhangs every part of American life.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, they've never had much shame in
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party, but they are now sort of just
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: impervious to it. They are impervious to fact checks. On
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the Kamala Harris conspiracy, right? So what really happened there
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: is at one place in Long Beach where migrant children
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: are staying when they come here, there were donations for
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the children when they go to this sort of community center.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: And one of the donations included a single copy of
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's book that they left on the bed for
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the child who was going to be at that center.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: And the New York Post decided to write that every child,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: every migrant child is getting a copy of this book
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: and the government itself is handing this book out. Now,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: after the whole uproar, after this was fact-checked a million times,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the New York Post reporter who wrote the original story
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: tweeted that she just resigned from the New York Post
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: because she was forced to write a story that she
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: knew to be false. And even after that, all of
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the tweets from the chairwoman of the Republican Party, Ronna
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Romney McDaniels, Tom Cotton, Lauren, all the idiots, all our
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: favorite idiots, All their tweets are still up. And like
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: you said, with the Biden thing, Kevin McCarthy last night
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: after being fact-checked on that is still spouting the same lie.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: So it really is a dangerous new territory. And of
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: course they learned this from Donald Trump because Donald Trump
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: did this all the time. You could tell Donald Trump
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: he was wrong to his face. You could show him
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the fact that he didn't care. He just kept lying
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: because he learned that you should never apologize. You should
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: never admit you're wrong. And that's the way to deal
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: with And so now they all do that. And I
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: don't know how. First of all, do you think it's effective? Like,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: do you think it's effective when the Republicans do this? Obviously,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: it continues to keep their base riled up. Obviously, their
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: base who doesn't get any other information from sources beyond Fox,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: New York Post, etc., doesn't probably see many of these
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: fact checks, doesn't really care. So it keeps the base
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: riled up. Do you think it has any effect beyond
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the Republican base or does it need to?
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, it does have an effect beyond the Republican base
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: because that's how Facebook works, right? Is it doesn't, does
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: it really matter if a bunch of Republicans believe a
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: bunch of like hardcore MAGA waters world fans believe Joe
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Biden is going to limit their burgers? No, it doesn't
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: mean that just like it didn't matter.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they believe that Joe Biden is like a dementia
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: patient pedophile, right? It's like the burger thing is secondary
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: to them. Who cares about that?
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: But I think sometimes we get too, as Democrats, get
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: too focused on the absurdity of the specific charge and
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: don't think about the broader impression that it gives when
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: people are exposed to it over and over and over again.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Which is, I don't think any real voter, and probably...
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Even any Watersworlds fans think Biden is really going to
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: limit their burgers. Like that's not, it's motivated reasoning, right,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: is what causes them to tell pollsters that or to
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: say that. But down deep, they don't really believe that.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: But what they're trying to do is give the impression
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: that Biden's policies are going to affect their lives in
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: a negative way. And they're sort of reverse engineering these
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: attacks to what goes viral on social. So think about your,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: you know, apolitical aunts and uncles or neighbors who they're
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: not listening to us. They're not watching Water's World, but
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: they're not watching CNN or MSNBC. They're just scrolling through
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Facebook and they're seeing a bunch of headlines about Biden
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: limiting burgers. And all that, what that doesn't say to
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: them is like, oh shit, I better hoard hamburger meat
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: right now. What it says is Biden's got some policies
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: that seem out of touch to me. And over time
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: that oppression sinks in and it's problematic. The second problem
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: for it is, that it blocks the sun out on
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: other things, right? This is sometimes a zero-sum game for messaging.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: So if you're talking about their absurd thing, you're not
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: talking about your positive thing. And that's what was always
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: problematic for us in the White House. If we have
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: to deal with Donald Trump's birth certificate bullshit, then we're
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: not talking about Barack Obama's jobs.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: Jobs.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: And so it serves as a message blocker. And Like
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: you mentioned the thing about Republicans having shame. They definitely
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: have less shame now, but what really has changed is
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: not that they are worse people all of a sudden
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: because they've always been pretty shitty people, Republican politicians. What
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: has changed is the power of, quote unquote, independent sources
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: to be persuasive to voters about it. Right now, if you.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Share- The gatekeepers are gone.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are no guardrails on democracy anymore. If you're
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: MAGA uncle- shares, says to you, Joe Biden's going to
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: limit my burgers and you send him the New York
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Times fact check of it, he will now, he's.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: More likely to think- Fake New York Times, fake news,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: fake news. That's going to make.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Him believe more in the burger thing than the opposite.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: And so the question is, what do you do about it?
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: And the main thing is, is that no one, not
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: the White House, not us, not campaigns can rely on
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: The media to be the fact checkers here. We have
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: to go beyond that. We can't rely on them to
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: get the information in front of people who need to
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: see it.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Well, you pointed out and you wrote about this in
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Message Box this week. It was great. Everyone should go
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: read it. That the White House stepped in to push
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: back on the burger ban story and just the fact
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: that Ron Klain passed. tweeted or retweeted the fact check
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: on that says something about how the White House views this.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting because there's two different ways
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the White House handled it. One was retweeting the fact check.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: The other was retweeting a picture of Biden flipping burgers,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: showing how much Biden actually loves burgers. And I started
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: to wonder which was more effective. You probably need both
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: because I think you do need to give people the
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: actual facts because if you just tell people, oh, Republicans
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: are lying about something, they'll say, okay, well, What are
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the real facts behind this story? It's just human nature.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: People want to know what the real story is. But
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I do think like showing someone, oh, here's what the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: fact checker said versus, see, there's Joe Biden eating a burger.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: He fucking loves burgers. He's not going to ban your burgers.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: It's almost more powerful and persuasive. Not that you can
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: do that with every issue, but I do wonder sort
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: of what the strategies are to sort of fight this
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: kind of disinformation.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: In the long run, The only solution to this, in
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: my view, is progressives building up a robust progressive media
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: ecosystem that can push back at scale against these things.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Because right now, it is asymmetric warfare to the nth degree.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: We are spitting in the ocean compared to what Fox
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: et al bring to the table. In the short term,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: what has to happen is Democrats need to take our
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: army of volunteers, organizers, or adopted state people and turn
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: them into a distributed grassroots messaging army. And this is
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: what was, I think, at the core of both of
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: the things the White House put out, which is you
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: have to give them the tools to carry the message
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: on their own, to engage in hand-to-hand combat with their
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: networks on what it is. I think in this case,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: both the fact check and the picture served a purpose.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: They probably served a purpose for two different audiences. The
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: fact check helps you just explain it to your Biden,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: maybe Biden supporting, but somewhat skeptical neighbor or cousin, right?
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Someone who doesn't really believe it, but just wants to
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: know what the truth is. And they're not going to
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: go look for it or believe it from sort of
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: traditional media sources. So now you can just say what
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: I said to you, which is that's not true. The
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: fact that whole thing comes from a study that was
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: done a year before Biden released his plan, whatever, however
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: you want to do that. The picture is probably the
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: most effective thing to post on social because it's just
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: a picture of It doesn't come with all of the
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: baggage that the New York Times or CNN comes with.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: The most effective thing to probably share is John Roberts,
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: a Fox News host, who just vomited this conspiracy theory
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: on Friday, fact-checking nothing, doing no due diligence, just reading
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: the words that whatever Stephen Miller Jr., who writes his
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: teleprompter script, wrote for him. got embarrassed and corrected himself
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: on Monday and said that he, that the story was
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: actually wrong. Like that clip would be the clip you
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: would share with a lot of people who are more conservative,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: more Trump leaning, more skeptical of sort of the quote
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: unquote liberal media, which is so fucking ironic. It's hard
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: to even stand. But I think that's ultimately what you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: have to do is we have to build strategies and
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: tools and actually ask people to take these things on.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like what, Pots of America is about.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: It's why I started Messagebox was to sort of try
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: to build out that model and test out that model.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: But I think it is the only way we have
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: any chance in 2022 and 2024 to compete with the
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: right wing media machine.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: I also think to talk about the other two conspiracies
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: as well. On the Kamala Harris story, I think sharing
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the tweets from the New York Post reporter that said
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I was forced to write an article that I didn't
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: believe was true is probably very effective for people because
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: she was the messenger originally of the story. I think
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: on the Kerry conspiracy, like the reason we know that
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: John Kerry didn't divulge secret information to the Iranians is
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: because the Israelis bragged about it publicly in 2018. So
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: it was and there's all kinds of headlines of the
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: information he supposedly shared. years ago that it was public, right?
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: So just things that you got to, I think you
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: got to think about like common sense, right? Like what's
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: going to be common sense to people like, oh, okay, well,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I see this headline, blah, blah, blah. And I don't,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes, and this is why, you know, you
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: talking about why progressive media is so important on this
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: is sometimes mainstream media will just run a very bland
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: fact check. And aside from the fact that there's lower
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: trust in mainstream media institutions and You kind of have
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: to do something a little more to grab people's attention,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: whether it's through humor, whether it's through like the picture
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: of Biden flipping burgers.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Like there's got to be ways that you sort of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: break through the clutter to fight these conspiracies that aren't
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: just saying, here you go. There's like, you know, three
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: fucking Pinocchios in The Washington Post. Like you need to
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you need to find creative ways to break through the
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: clutter on this kind of shit. Or else the fact
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: check is just going to get lost. As wonderful as
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: fact checkers are.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Just one last thing on this is during the election,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: I talked to Jiori Craig, who's an expert in fighting disinformation.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: And one of the things she pointed out that is
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: so important is that in pursuit of being helpful, most
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: people end up further spreading disinformation. Here's the thing we
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: do not need to do, which is reply to the
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: tweet with telling it why it's wrong. Don't quote tweet it.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Just get the information that counters the disinformation out there
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: to your network. If you give additional engagement to Marjorie
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Taylor Greene or Jesse Waters or Donald Trump Jr., you're
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: going to ensure that more people see that tweet or
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: that Facebook post. And this is a classic part of
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Republican messaging and right-wing messaging is leveraging liberal outrage into
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: greater engagement and just tricking us into spreading their message
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: for them. And so You know, there's a saying that
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Anil Dash, who's sort of a very thoughtful person in tech,
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: has said, which is, quote, tweet your friends, screenshot your enemies.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: I'm butchering his thing. But that is a way of
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: thinking about it is don't give additional engagement to liars.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to start learning that. Yeah, I got
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: to learn that. Okay, great. Well, that is our show
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: for today. Thank you so much to Jen Psaki for
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: joining us. I also want to give a special shout
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: out and thank you to one of our fantastic Pod
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Save America producers, Jordan Waller. This is her last PSA.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: She will continue to work on Pod Save the World
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: with Tommy and Ben and with friends like these, with
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Anna Marie Cox. But she has been with Pod Save
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: America producing this show for a couple of years now.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: She started as an intern at Crooked and now works
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: with us as a producer. One of the smartest people
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: I've met and keeps us sounding much smarter than we
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: actually are with all the research and prep work she
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: does for the show. So thank you, Jordan, for everything.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: Every once in a while, you work with people who
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: you know you're going to work for one day, and
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Jordan Waller is one of those people.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, everyone have a good weekend, and we'll talk
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to you all next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: film and upload these episodes as videos every week.