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Supreme Court Refuses to Exonerate Trump for Jan. 6th · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau I'm John Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Nikki Haley wins the D.C. primary and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: won't commit to endorsing Trump.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: She did it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Great work, Nikki.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden gets another batch of fun polls and gives
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a long interview about his thinking on 2024. The Super
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Tuesday contests include a big Senate primary right here in California.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And later, Congressman Ro Khanna talks to Tommy about Gaza,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party in 2024. Is that about right? Is
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that what you covered?
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Sure. Sure.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Talk crypto, too.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Talk about the California Senate primary a little bit, too.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I like him a lot.
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But first, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump cannot be kicked off the ballot in Colorado
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: or any other state. All nine justices agreed that Section
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bans insurrectionists from holding office,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: cannot be enforced by individual states, which is what Colorado
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: tried to do after a federal court found that Trump
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: did engage in insurrection. But five justices went further, saying
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: that only Congress can disqualify a candidate for insurrection, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Amy Coney Barrett and the court's three liberals disagreed with.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Trump responded with remarks at Mar-a-Lago, where he celebrated the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: ruling and said he should be immune from prosecution for
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: trying to overturn the election.
• 1:28
  Speaker 6: I don't want to be prosecuted.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: In that case, it worked out very well.
• 1:31
  Speaker 6: There will be some things that perhaps don't work out
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: so well, but I don't want to be prosecuted because
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: I decided to do something that is very much for
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: the good of the country and actually for the good
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: of the world.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It's for the good of the world. For the good
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of the world.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Usually they don't prosecute you if you don't want to
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: be prosecuted.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And also if you've done something, if overturning the election
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: just happened to benefit the country and the world.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I feel like he was trying to combine things there
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: because I think what he's also saying there is, He's
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: referring to his farm policy and he's saying, I wouldn't want,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's saying that, he's saying that his efforts
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: to overturn ISIS went well, but if it went poorly.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: He could be prosecuted. Yeah, but the reason he's talking
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: about it is because.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: No, of course, of course.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: But that's just, yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think about the ruling and the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: different opinions?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Anyone take the LSAT at this table? Did you, John?
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Someone wants to go back and talk about his, relitigate
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: his debate with Larry Tribe.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: All I'm just saying is, you know, Larry Tribe and I,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: just difference of opinion, and nine Supreme Court justices agreed
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: with me unanimously, and only zero agreed with him. And
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: that's just how it works in the legal world. There's
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: just two legal scholars hashing it out. That's the beauty
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: of it. Socratic method. What was that paper chase? All right.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: So here's what I thought the most interesting thing about
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: this is, they they decided unanimously except it had the
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: vibe of a group of people that hate each other
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: trying to keep it together at.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: A restaurant well certainly you got that from amy coney barrett.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Well that's the best part so you have so so
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: basically you know you have this unanimous opinion and then
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: you have the three liberal justices saying you you guys
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: went way further than you need to It's done in
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: this very, like, kind of cheeky way where they're referring to, like,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: they quote Dobbs back at Roberts. Dobbs' concurrence back at Roberts.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: They quote Bush v.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Gore.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: And then Amy Coney Barrett is like, I think the
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: most important thing is that we mostly agree. And I
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: don't think we need the tone, which is a new,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: which is, I think, a new and fun role for her.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Tommy?
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, just so I think I understand it.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: All the justices say that states can't unilaterally disqualify a
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: presidential candidate because that would lead to chaos. Kind of
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: makes sense. But then the liberals are frustrated the conservative
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: majority went too far by saying that Congress alone through
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: legislation may enforce Section 3, the bar on insurrectionists holding office.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: But that doesn't make sense to everybody because the rest
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: of the 14th Amendment is supposed to be self-executing, meaning
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: you don't need congressional action for it to be law.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: But all of a sudden, there's this special provision that
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: applies to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Basically, the five justices were saying, okay, if we're going
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to prevent someone from running because they engage in insurrection,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Congress has to pass a law, right? And the four
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: justices were like, we want to leave open the possibility
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that someone can be disqualified by other federal action, federal courts, right?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Or something else. And they didn't understand why. And I
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: don't really understand why either. You would have Congress pass
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a law when also in the provision, it says, someone
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: can be undisqualified from being an insurrectionist if Congress votes
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: by two-thirds to have them undisqualified. Requalified? Undisqualified? I don't
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: know how you say that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: The liberals think they did Trump a favor, basically.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Well, it just seems like what they've done, like, obviously,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: this Congress is not passing any law to bar Donald
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Trump and his fellow insurrectionists.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Even though Jamie Raskin said he's reviving that law, he's like,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the question is, will Mike Johnson put it on the floor?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: The answer is no.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, okay, I mean, you know, you could
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: also just sort of, I don't know, go for a
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: walk or something.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: But no, but I'm supportive. Do it. Do it.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Get it on the record.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Get it on the record.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: But yeah, no, just there's just no because there's no law.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: They're just basically saying we don't want to deal with
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: this again. We're all set for a while.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: And again, you know, imagine the Alabama Supreme Court, the
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: same one that gave us the IVF ruling, decide that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: some wacko court in Alabama that disqualified Joe Biden because
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: they think he's an insurrectionist. And now they're going to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: keep him off the ballot. And I mean, like, you
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: just can't. It is, I get it. I get why
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: one state can't do that.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like that part of it to me, look, I
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: was always sort of really skeptical about how this would
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: work in practice and the kind of chaos it would unleash.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: And it was just sort of like, yeah, like this
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: would be like, no, you can't, there's sort of a
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: tone in the thing.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: It was like, no, this is insane.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Like, what are you crazy? Which I was always like, but.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: The second part, yeah, it's like the whole like John
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Roberts is an institutionalist and he cares about the kind
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: of the reputation and dignity and prestige of the court.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: You feel like, I don't know, you just feel in
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: this document, like this place where nine of them agree
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: on the top line issue, like, oh, this place is
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: a snake pit. These people fucking hate each other.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: It doesn't seem fun.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I think the majority, I think, was worried about what
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: happens if Trump is convicted before the election, and then
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: suddenly they're like, okay, well, it's not the Colorado court anymore.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: He was convicted in a federal court of election subversion,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and now can he be barred from actually serving even
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: though he won the election. And they didn't want that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: And now, so, and then somebody, somehow it comes before them.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: It's after the election, Donald Trump has won.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I think the other thing to keep in mind here,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: they pointedly declined to absolve Trump of having engaged in insurrection.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: They didn't say a word about the Colorado court's finding,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: which Trump had wanted them to. And so- They didn't
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: touch it. They didn't touch it. And it's like, look,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that would have been obviously a sticky wicket. But they
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: could have, if the fix was really in, all of
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the conservatives on the court could have said, okay, we're
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: also going to overturn the Colorado finding that he engaged
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: in insurrection. They could have done it.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: The question that you guys are all wondering right now is,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: will strict scrutiny record an episode on this?
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: And I want to let you know they already have.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: You've probably already listened to it.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: You're going to get something a lot better than what
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: you just heard. Don't you worry.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Hey, hey, hey, different, different.
• 7:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: More fact-based.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Go check it out. Trump also won the Missouri, Michigan,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and Idaho Republican caucuses over the weekend, sweeping all 125
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: delegates at stake. He then gave a speech at a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: rally in Virginia, one of the Super Tuesday states, where
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: he bragged about purging the Republican Party of moderates and
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: once again demonstrated his mental fitness for office.
• 7:41
  Speaker 8: And they say, always trying to demean, well, MAGA really
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: represents 48% of the Republican Party. No, it represents 96%
• 7:49
  Speaker 8: and maybe 100%. We're getting rid of the Romneys of
• 7:53
  Speaker 8: the world. We want to get Romneys and those out.
• 7:58
  Speaker 8: And Putin, you know, has so little respect for Obama
• 8:01
  Speaker 8: that he's starting to throw around the nuclear word today.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: You heard that, nuclear.
• 8:05
  Speaker 6: He's starting to talk nuclear.
• 8:07
  Speaker 8: You have to see the chart.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: They're like this.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: And we're like, ding, boom, this is me.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: I hear, bing.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: I got to put that chart up for people.
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: Heard that Saudi Arabia and Russia will repeat your.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I watched that last clip so many times. It's so
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: funny when he just.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: What happened to it? Did it just glitch out?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I have gotten a little, okay, we
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: get it. Every time Trump says one wrong word now,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: we're all like, see, he's senile. It's a little much.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: That one, he definitely... That was a good one. That
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: was wild. So the Obama flub got more attention, but
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I feel like the comments about Republicans could be more
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: damaging in the long run.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, traditionally in a campaign, you want to grow
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: your coalition, not shrink it, and... Telling Mitt Romney that
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: he's not allowed to be a Republican anymore is not
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the best way forward. I mean, also, there's a lot
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: of data suggesting there are Republicans who are not going
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: to vote for Trump. The AP VoteCast survey of the
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Republican primary and caucuses found two in 10 Iowa voters
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: say they won't vote for Trump in the general election.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Thirty three percent of New Hampshire voters, 25 percent of
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: South Carolina voters, one in 10 Republicans. early state voters
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: who voted for Trump in the 2020 general election said
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't do so again. So this is a political
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: risk for him, and he's just leaning right into it.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Also, in most of these exit polls in these primaries,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: at least somewhere around half of the Republican primary voters
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: or the people who participated in the Republican primary said
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: that they didn't think of themselves as MAGA.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the Times poll that just came out.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Among likely voters, 23% of Trump's vote is coming from moderates.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: 15% of people voting third party identify as Republicans, far
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: more than Democrats are voting for third party.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I'd certainly like to show that clip to as many
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Haley voters as possible. For sure. I didn't include this clip,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: but you heard about the vaccine comments too?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: When he was in Virginia?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: He said, I will yank federal funding from any school
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: that has any vaccine mandates.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Well, that's all of them.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And he said, you know, of course he said, then
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: he said, and mask mandates too. So he might have
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: been referring to COVID, but the way he said it,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And so far they haven't walked it back was just
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: any vaccine mandates at any school cut federal funding.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I want my kid to get the
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: polio vaccine and I want his friends to get that too.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: We're seeing fucking measles outbreaks again. Thanks to the anti-vax
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: movement in the Republican Party that gained steam under COVID.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Trump's going to do better in Marin County.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Those sort of, those freaks.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Dan.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, poor Dan.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: So Trump wasn't the only Republican winner over the weekend.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley won her first primary in Washington, D.C. on Saturday,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: sweeping all 19 delegates with 63 percent of the vote.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: And a whopping turnout of 2,000 voters.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: What?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: 2,000 voters. 2,000 voters. There was something like, I know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it's DC.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't know it was that few. It's DC.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: It's small. It's not a very Republican town.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But I think there's like 11,000 registered Republicans in DC.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: It's a high school football game. A small one.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: 2,000 is not.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Not in Texas.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: That's a PSA show.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Like 2017. Trump's campaign graciously congratulated her on being named
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Queen of the Swamp. And their attempts to woo Haley
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and her voters are clearly working like a charm. Here's
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: what Haley said to Kristen Welker about Trump on Meet
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the Press.
• 11:33
  Speaker 9: You did sign a pledge, an RNC pledge to support
• 11:37
  Speaker 9: the eventual nominee. Do you still feel bound by that pledge?
• 11:41
  Speaker 7: I have always said that I have serious concerns about
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.
• 11:47
  Speaker 9: So is that a no? Are you bound by the
• 11:49
  Speaker 9: RNC pledge?
• 11:50
  Speaker 7: The RNC pledge, I mean, at the time of the debate,
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: we had to take it to where would you support
• 11:55
  Speaker 7: the nominee? And you had to, in order to get
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: now not the same RNC. Now it's Trump's daughter-in-law.
• 12:02
  Speaker 9: So you're no longer bound by that pledge?
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: No, I think I'll make what decision I wanna make,
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: but that's not something I'm thinking about.
• 12:09
  Speaker 9: Do you think Donald Trump would follow the Constitution if
• 12:13
  Speaker 9: he were elected to a second term?
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you always
• 12:22
  Speaker 7: want to think someone will, but I don't know.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You do always want to think someone will follow the Constitution.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: That's something that you want to think.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to believe in the best in people.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Is it happening? What's happening? It seems like it'd be
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: tough to endorse a guy after Super Tuesday, if she
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: drops out after Super Tuesday, who she just said that
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: about a couple days earlier.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: But I don't know.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know either. I watched this whole thing. First
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: of all, it's just like Nikki Haley was like the
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: best alternative and she's still terrible. But the thing that's
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: interesting about it is the way Welker pushes back right there,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: she actually is walking through the rationale she would use
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: for endorsing Trump, right? She says, I have concerns about Trump.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I have even greater concerns about Biden.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which she's been saying the last couple of weeks.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Which is what you say when you're... So what is
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: not clear to me in watching her interview is, is
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: this somebody... Because she goes after Chris Christie at some
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: point about the difference between her and Chris Christie. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: she says Christie was running to stop Trump. I'm not
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: just running to stop Trump. I'm running for the future
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: of the public party, blah, blah, blah. And I can
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: tell in watching her, is this someone who is leaving
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: the space open to endorse Trump, even though she's being
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: incredibly critical? Or is this just somebody who is not
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: planning to endorse Trump, but is trying to bring in
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: as many people that she is seeing in the polls?
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: that are not anti-Trump but still want an alternative. She
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: doesn't want to be seen as a never-Trump person.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Queen of the Swamp's pretty good.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I was waiting for that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Shout out to them.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I'm a little disappointed that Trump himself didn't go out
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: there and say that. Yeah, he could do a fun
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: graphic maybe. Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I also like that she's like, look, I would have lied.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I would have said any lie to get it on
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the debate stage.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: By the way, last week her message was, I'm a
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: woman of my word. Now she's like, no, obviously I
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: lied because it was good for me in that moment.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: So duplicitous.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: They all were like, yeah, I'll take your stupid pledge.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: And Chris Christie was more direct about that when they
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: asked him a long time ago. He was like, yeah,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I signed the pledge. Who cares? It doesn't matter.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: If you guys said, all right, we're all betting today.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Will she endorse or not? My money's on endorsing. I mean,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: in 2016- She said Trump's everything a governor doesn't want
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: in a president. She said, I will not stop until
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: That is not a part of our party. That's not
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: who we are. Nobody said meaner stuff about Trump than
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Lindsey Graham. He signed up. So I don't know. I
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: have no faith in these people not eventually kissing the ring, unfortunately.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: She's definitely pulling her punches, right? She's not going all
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the way in. And I do think one reason is
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that she'll endorse him. I can't. Imagine the other reason
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: is that she's trying to win over voters now. She's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: got to know she cannot win.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: No, but it's not about winning. I don't know what
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: it's about. But if you watch that interview, there is
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: a carefulness and a precision that she is still using
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: that is somehow around trying to bring in as many
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: people as possible, even though she can't win.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: No, I was going to say, I think it's possible
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: that she's looking to 2028. And if Trump loses and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: she gets to say, oh, I told you all this
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: was going to happen. She doesn't want to go quite
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: as far as Chris Christie because she knows Chris Christie
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: has no place in the Republican Party ever again. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: she might think that if she still is like Trump
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: was bad, but he's not too bad. No, I think
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that's wrong. I don't think that's going to help her.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: When you talk to Christie, his view on why she's
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: saying she's running in 2028, right? Like he was like
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: definitive about it. That might be the case. But what
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: she's really doing is making the base of the party
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: hate her guts. Well, that's not the best strategy.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: The nuances are so strange because she's also saying like
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: he's unfit and either one of them should be. She's
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: going in certain places. She goes much like there's places
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: where she's careful that don't don't seem to reflect the
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: way she's not as cautious elsewhere. I will say, like,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: put it in the time capsule. The very end of
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: that interview where where Welker asks, like, do you think
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Trump would uphold the Constitution? the way she pauses before answering,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: it's a different version of her. And there was a
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: seriousness to the way she answered that question that was
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: different than any other part of that.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, there is another option. Which
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is that everything she said she genuinely believes right now.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Maybe so.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Which is like she doesn't really know if he's going
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: to follow the Constitution. I mean, she could be a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: conflicted person because she did work in his administration, right?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: She likes Trump. She likes his policy. She probably likes
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of things about him. She's not as anti-Trump
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: as Chris Christie. Could be true, you know? And she
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: might be wrestling with the decision still whether she's going
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: to endorse him or not. She might not have made
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: up her mind yet.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Another undecided voter.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: We got four high-quality national polls over the weekend. They
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: all sucked. New York Times' Sienna has the two-way race
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: at 48-43 Trump. CBS News has it at 52-48 Trump.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Fox News is 49-47 Trump. And the Wall Street Journal
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: is 47-45 Trump. The overall national polling average has Trump
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: up by around two points in line with most of
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: those polls and his margins a little more in most
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: swing states. Joe Biden and his campaign say they aren't worried.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: The president and his team talked to the New Yorkers,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Evan Osnos, for a 14,000 word piece. Could that have
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: been like 5,000 words?
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, give me a give me a give me a
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: give me a dock. I'll control control shift E and
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: fucking make some cuts. Let's turn some red. Let's get
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: some red fucking cuts on this thing. Read that thing
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: for like two hours this morning. I got to the end.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: It's like, he is old.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: These people in New York, do they know the kids
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: are on TikTok now? Yeah, Jesus Christ.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: No one's got attention screen for.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: More than 30 seconds? Anyway, it was a great piece.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Get ready with me while I read the Evan Osnos piece.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: It's a good piece.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It's a good piece. So in the piece, Biden was
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: described as giving off a, quote, conviction that borders on serenity.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Senior aides say they doubt He's behind by as much
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: as the polls suggest because according to one of them, quote,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: polling is broken. And senior advisor Mike Donilon predicted that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: by November, quote, the focus will become overwhelming on democracy
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and that, quote, the biggest images in people's minds are
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: going to be of January 6th. All right, so we'll
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: get to the piece in a bit, but as we
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: all know, campaigns use polling not to predict what will happen,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: but to get a sense of where voters are right
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: now and how to win them over. With that in mind,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Was there anything in these polls that stood out to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you guys?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. I mean, so I'll take the Wall Street Journal poll.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: That survey made me very sympathetic to the White House's
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: frustration about Biden's political standing and the challenges they're having
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: of improving it. For example, 43% of voters think the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: economy has gotten better over the last two years. That's
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: up 10 points from December. 43% said their personal finances
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: are headed in the right direction, up nine points from
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: last year. But Biden's overall approval on the economy is
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: only at 40%. which is only up 4% from December.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So that could be a lagging indicator. It might take
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: some time for your economic sentiment to filter into your
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: feelings about Biden. Maybe your feelings about Biden are being
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: driven by concerns about inflation that's still pretty high in
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: this journal poll. Maybe it's age or other issues. But
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: you can see their frustration where all the economic indicators
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: are getting better. People's feelings about the economy are getting better,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: but Biden isn't getting credit for it. That drives you
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: crazy in the White House.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I feel like the I.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Feel like the question on what does the polling look
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: like on age is sort of asked and answered. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: so I was looking at the economic numbers in the
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Times poll. The Times poll is, I think, a little
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: less sanguine. Two-thirds of the country feel the nation's head
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: in the wrong direction. Trump is winning two-thirds of them, right?
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: And then you dig into those numbers. 40% say Trump's
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: policies help them personally compared to only 18% for Biden.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: And you run through the numbers. It's like, you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: women who favored Biden are now split.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Like he's losing among all these groups. If you go
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: into the like whose policies have helped you personally, it's
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: not there's no contingency right now where Biden is doing better.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: That Trump's policies 40 to 18 have helped. But that's
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: true for men. That's true for women. That's true for
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: white voters. It's true for black voters. It's true for
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Hispanic voters. It's true by age. And I do think
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: that there's like this vicious circle, which is people worry
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: that Biden's age make him ineffective. They are unaware that.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: of the actual policies that Joe Biden has put in place.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: And so when they look back in the last four years,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: they see rising prices as a signal of ineffectiveness. They
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: are unaware of his achievements. And then they put those
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: in the basket of age. And it does, if you
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: look at this poll, kind of blur your eyes, you say,
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: all right, there is a lot of work that needs
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: to be done to let people know how much Biden
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: was able to get done and the actual choice between
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Trump and Biden on the economy going forward. And it
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: might be the case that you don't actually address questions
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: of Biden's age and ineffectiveness directly. You actually help people
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: understand the choice and what he's actually gotten done. And
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden you see people, you see
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: a way of addressing age and ineffectiveness by actually talking
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: about the economy.
• 21:20
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: No, I think that's right because there's only so much,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: there's only so much that the Biden and the White
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: House can do about the age question. We've talked it
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: to death. Like there's just, it's there, it's an issue,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: but there's only so much you can do about it.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: You've got to focus on what you can control. And
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that's why I also think it's worthwhile sort of looking
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: at these polls. I don't think it's worth overanalyzing subgroup
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: crosstabs in a single poll. I don't think it's worth
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: overanalyzing a single poll. I think it's worth analyzing the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: polling averages, overall trends, and then themes that keep coming up.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I think when you think about it that way, you
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: get the sense that voters, first of all, they sort
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of forget the Trump presidency. And they basically have better
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: feelings than we'd like them to about the Trump presidency,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: particularly around the economy. They tend to think that 2020
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was awful. but that COVID was, you know, act of God.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It happened everywhere. And so they don't blame Trump as
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: much for COVID.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: In the journal, his approval is at 43%, but his
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: approval of the job he did in the White House
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: is at 48%. So he's got like plus five on,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: you know, people looking back at that period of time
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: when he was in office.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: And that, and then what Lovett mentioned about the policies,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and that's why people look back and more people say
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that Trump's policies helped them personally than people are saying
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: that Biden's policies helped them personally as well. So, and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the other big difference is Trump's popularity hasn't really changed
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: in four years. It is the same. He is very unpopular.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Rock solid.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: What's changed is Biden's popularity, which has taken quite a tumble.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: So you can do two things about that. One is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you've got to make Biden more popular and you've got
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to make people believe that his policies would actually improve
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: their lives. And also that he's been fighting for policies
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that will improve their lives. So I think that it's, again,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: it's not just enough to do To let people know
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: what the accomplishments are, you've got to say, and this
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: is what I intend to do if you give me
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: another four years. And then I think there's a bunch
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of people who don't like Trump, but don't necessarily think
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: he is as dangerous as those of us who are
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: paying close attention. And so I think that you've got
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people who are like, I don't like Biden,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I don't like Trump, but I don't know, the Trump
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: economy seemed a little bit better, so I might be
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: leaning towards Trump. And I think we've, so you've got
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to raise the salience of how dangerous it is for
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. To win again. And by, and that's why
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you have to talk about what he's going to do
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and like the policies he's going to pass that are
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: going to affect people's lives.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And some of the ones that were very unpopular in
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the journal that are worth mentioning, 51% oppose repealing the ACA, Obamacare.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: So not going to like that. A majority opposed pardoning
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: the January 6th insurrectionists. And this is my favorite. 82%
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: opposed encouraging Russia to invade NATO allies that don't spend
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: 2% on defense. So you can see why the White
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: House has been hitting.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: This one hard.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I laughed at that because I took that note, too,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, yeah, it's good to know
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that that many people don't want Russia to invade Europe.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Well, actually, they were split on whether the U.S. should
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: uphold Article 5 commitments under NATO if these countries don't
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: meet their spending targets.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: No one likes sending U.S. troops places, which Trump knows
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: very well.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the other... Yeah, just like the way in which
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Trump has become a kind of gauzy memory. Roughly like
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: a fifth of Trump's vote in these polls are coming
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: from people who believe he committed serious federal crimes. And
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: that's like been repeated across all these polls. And there
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: is just this fundamental problem right now, which is we
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: have the real and extant Joe Biden going up against
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: the kind of soft memory and potential future that Donald
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Trump represents. And, you know, the point that the Biden
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: people make in that in that New Yorker piece is
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Once people are reminded, once Trump is back in their face,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: voters will come home. Voters want normal, not crazy. They
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: don't want Trump. But, you know, we see these polls
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: and these polls are not good. And we have data
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: on one hand and we have a theory on the other.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: And at some point we need to see the data
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: start reflecting the theory.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: There's a few other numbers from the CBS poll that
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I think would sort of give us guidance on message
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: going forward.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Vision.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Who has a vision for the country. For Biden, it's 50-50.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And for Trump, it's 63-37. So it's a dark vision,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: but you can see why people believe Trump has a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: vision for the country. And I do think that starting
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: on Thursday with the State of the Union, Biden will
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: be able to start outlining his vision. And that's what
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: paid media is for. That's what a campaign is for. Abortion,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and you see this in a bunch of polls, only
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: 33% blame Trump for Roe v. Wade being overturned. That's
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: a real problem. 48% say he doesn't deserve blame or
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: credit for it. Now, that's another, like, that's exactly what
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: paid media is for. That's what a campaign is for.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: That's what I thought, too.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Like, the same, you know, you see, like, the split that, like,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden is no longer winning among women in this poll.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: It's like, all right, that, let's call that, that better
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: be fucking soft. And let's assume that those are people
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: that can be brought back once they understand the stakes.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And I continue to think that that is... It's not
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: just relitigating or reminding people, oh, well, he put the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: justices on the court and then they overturned. It's national
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: abortion ban is coming.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Reduced access to contraception is coming. Reduced access to IVF
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: is coming if Trump wins. What was your take on
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: how Biden and Donilon and the rest of the team
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: are thinking about the race?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's an interesting story, the New Yorker piece. Look,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the challenge with a long magazine profile like this is
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: like we don't have a transcript of the conversation. We
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: just have what the reporter ended up running with. And
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of confidence from Biden, from his team,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: that he will win. He's the only guy who's beaten Trump.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: He can do it again. There wasn't a lot of
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: that vision for what a second term will look like,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: which is what you're trying to sell to the American people. Now,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's because they didn't talk about it.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it just wasn't the appropriate time
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: to lay that all out. I'm sure we'll hear about
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: more in the State of the Union. But I do
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: think that piece is missing. What are you running on?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: What are you fighting for? What's coming next? And again,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: it's early. I'm not criticizing the Biden White House, but
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you know, just in terms of takeaways.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Biden says in the piece that democracy is the central
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: cause of his presidency. I read that Donilon quote about
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: he thinks that January 6th will be on people's minds
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: by the fall. I am inclined to agree with Biden
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and Donilon on making democracy the central theme of the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: campaign for a Biden clearly believes it and is animated
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: by it. It is real. It is not a poll thing.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: It is just like something that he gets up every morning.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I think it's why he's running at 81 years old. Again,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: because he thinks he's best positioned and he thinks that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: so much is at stake. I also think it's Trump's
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: biggest weakness. And it's the greatest. It also happens to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: be the greatest danger of his reelection, right? There's a
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: lot of awful things that could happen, but ending democracy
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: is the big one. That's the tail risk. Yeah, for sure. Now,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the caveat here is that they talked about the freedom agenda.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And if you're going to go with the freedom agenda,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: as Donald suggests, it's easy to fit abortion into that frame.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: And they've already done that. They did that in the midterms.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But I think you really have to make room for
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: an economic message, too, if you are going to go
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: all in on democracy, which it sounds like they're going to.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And so it's not just, you know, freedom to vote
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and have those votes counted, freedom to see a doctor,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: freedom to know when to start a family. But it's like.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: you know, freedom to be able to make a living,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: freedom to send your kids to college, right? Like you've
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: got to, you've got to have some kind of economic
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: message in there and show that Biden's fighting for working
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: people because it's, it's, it's going to take some work
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to make the democracy message tangible for people. I don't
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: think that's a reason to run away from it, but
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: it does take some work to actually make it feel
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: real to people.
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was sort of like, you know, it
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: was sort of reading the piece after reading about all
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: these polls and you just, you know, you step back
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: from all of this polling and you just really get
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: a sense that Biden as a messenger, that the age
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: question has so kind of clouded people's ability to see
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: and hear everything else that he's saying. And that in
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: these polling, you see that like, oh, people have no
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: idea what he's done. They have absolutely no idea of this,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: like of this record of a president that did more
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: and got more done in four years than anybody predicted.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: played his hand better than anyone could have predicted that
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: you really can't point certainly not domestically you can't point
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: to a single place where you would say oh the
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: reason that he didn't get this done is because he's
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: older or the reason he didn't get this done is
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: because he's lost his step right you cannot even find
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: those moments domestic policy wise like I really do believe
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: like this isn't he has an incredible record of achievement
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: that people simply have no idea about and so I
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: read the piece and I feel like, okay, I'm with you.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: All right, let's make the argument about freedom. Let's tell
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: that story. But to me, it's less about this sort
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: of high level question about the rhetoric about democracy. It's like,
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: how are we going to get this in front of people?
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: We've got a 14,000 word piece By Evan Osnos, he
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: skipped the Super Bowl. And I'm just sort of like,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: when is it? Where is it?
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I think I agree with you on the record of achievement.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I just think like we're sort of judging that from
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: like an analysis of what's possible or what expectations were
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: for what you could get done in Washington in 2022
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: or three or four.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Which is like a divided Senate and actually getting something
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: done in a bipartisan basis. I think the challenge on
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: running on the record is going to be really getting
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: people to feel like, okay, the infrastructure bill or the
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: CHIPS Act or the IRA really helped me in.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Some material way. Or capping infrastructure or canceling as much
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: student debt as possible.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's discrete pieces like capping the price of insulin.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Those are the kinds of things you can really lift
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: up and focus on. But that's where I do think
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: you're missing that prospective economic piece, like give me another chance,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: give me another term. This is what I'll do. This
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: is what I'm fighting for.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And you do need an overall argument that you can
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: say in a couple sentences because I do think- when
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Democrats have gotten into trouble losing campaigns, it tends to be,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: here's the top 10 issues that poll really well. And
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: so we're going to talk about these and that's it.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Like that doesn't tend to usually work. So I do
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: think it's important to have a theme. I also think
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that the media environment, the information environment is just so
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: different than it even was in 2020. And part of
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: what that means is all of us have to be
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: messengers too, because it's like, how are you going to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: get this in front of people? The Biden campaign will
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of money and they will run a
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: huge campaign on this, but all of us have agency too.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: And I think that's precisely why we should be looking
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: at the polls and knowing where the electorate is, because
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I think that helps us figure out what's the best,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: most effective message to persuade voters. And so there is
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: this thing every time these polls come out where people
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: are like, well, it's just, it's doom and it's prediction,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: but forget about the top line stuff. That tells you
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: where the race is right now. And it's probably not
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: exactly accurate, but it's in the ballpark usually. But the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: important thing is like under the hood and like finding
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: out where voters are in these issues, because then you
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: find out what the best arguments are, what the most
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: effective arguments are when you're talking to your friends, neighbors, colleagues,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: whoever about the election.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And by the way, like when I say like, like,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: where is it? How do we get in front of people?
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Like I'm not it's like I think sometimes it's like
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: you we now lay at the feet of presidential campaigns,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: like the challenges and like and sins of modernity. It's
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: like part of this. Yes, this is on the Biden
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: campaign to do the best they can to get this
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: message to people. But it also just a grim reality
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: that it is very hard to inform people now. And like, yes,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: the fact that Donald Trump is in striking distance of
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: the Oval Office, if not more likely to win than
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: not right now today, is that because Biden is older?
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Is that because, you know, there are criticisms of the campaign?
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: But it is also because we have a fucking broken
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: media environment and we have a right wing propaganda machine
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: that makes it very, very difficult to to break through
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: all of this noise. And there are places where we
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: should be putting pressure on Joe Biden, but then there
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: are also places where we should remember that it's kind
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: of incumbent on all of us to do what John's saying.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And if you want to just dig deeper into the
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: cross paths.
• 32:54
  Speaker 8: I do.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly what I told people not to do.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: But if you want to do it.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: With a smart person?
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Like me. If you want to be like a real junkie.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Get in there.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: The best junkie there is. Dan Pfeiffer.
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Is going to be breaking all these poles down on
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Polar Coaster.
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: He's got a trench coat. He's outside of school. And
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: you're going to love what he's got to offer.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Like drugs.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: You said dealer.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Didn't he? Did I think it?
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Dan in a trench coat. Anyway. Leave it in. It's
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: called Polar Coaster. You're going to want to sign. You
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: have to sign up. It's subscription only. Be a friend
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: of the pod, crooked.com slash friends. You get to listen
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: to Dan. You get to listen to Terminally Online. You
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: get all kinds of other fun content. It's great.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Finally, biggest Super Tuesday state is California, where we aren't
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: just voting for a presidential nominee, but a nominee to
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: succeed Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. We have a system
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: here where candidates from all parties run in the same primary,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and the top two finishers go on to compete against
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: each other in November. Haven't filled out my ballot yet.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: I haven't filled out my ballot either.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Well, by the time you hear this, I should have.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it after we record. I'm going
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: to do it after we record, too. Can I copy
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: off yours?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: But I've got to copy off somebody else's.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Polling average has Adam Schiff at 25%, Republican Steve Garvey
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: at 20%, Katie Porter at 18%, and Barbara Lee at 9%.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Garvey's late rise in the polls coincides with Adam Schiff
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: running ads. that attacked the Republican, but have also had
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the effect of boosting his name ID, which seems to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: be the point.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: No.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Here's Katie Porter on that strategy.
• 34:18
  Speaker 10: See from Representative Schiff is that his positive messaging isn't
• 34:23
  Speaker 10: moving the needle. And make no mistake, having Steve Darby
• 34:26
  Speaker 10: on the ballot is a boon to Republicans, if not
• 34:31
  Speaker 10: in the Senate race, certainly down ballot. They want to
• 34:35
  Speaker 10: be able to trot out Steve Darby. He can sign
• 34:38
  Speaker 10: a few baseballs. Um, and say he doesn't know what
• 34:41
  Speaker 10: he thinks about any policy position or what he'll do
• 34:43
  Speaker 10: about any problem. Um, and that's a, that's a boost
• 34:46
  Speaker 10: for the Republican party. That's not what Adam Schiff or
• 34:49
  Speaker 10: any Democrat who wants to represent the state of California
• 34:52
  Speaker 10: with our values should be doing at this point.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, what do you guys make of Katie Porter's argument there?
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I feel like she's basically, you know, she's, she's delicately
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: walking up to, to saying, Hey, if we have two
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Democrats running for the Senate in November, That is going
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: to drive, hopefully drive turnout and help us win some
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: of these close house races in California. If we have
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: a Schiff versus goofy Republican race, that might turn out
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: some Republicans, and it's a seat we're going to win
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: either way. And while it might mean we don't have
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: to spend as much money on a Senate race in California,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: it does mean that we're going to have to work
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: that much harder to turn out the vote. So for
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Democrats in California, would you rather a choice in November
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: between two Democrats you really, really like or one Democrat
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: you like and one Republican baseball goof?
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Republican baseball goof.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: No, I asked, um, I asked Rokhan about this and
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: he was kind of like, yeah, I don't like the
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: strategy either, but like it's politics stuff happens all the time. And,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: you know, he's endorsed Barbara Lee. So he's, you know,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: self-interested party here. I don't, I can't tell how impactful
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: these ads are or aren't like Steve Garvey was, I
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: think a 10 time all-star. He played for the Dodgers
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: and the Padres, two California teams. So like that was smart. Politically. Yeah.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Well, he set himself up well for later for the center.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: They've been trying to get him to run for a
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: long time.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: He's like a pretty.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Famous guy is all I'm saying. He's a very famous
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: baseball player. He won a World Series.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: So like maybe these ads helped and, you know, drove
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: some folks his way.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe they're just late deciders. I don't know. I think
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: shifts calculus that it'll be a hell of a lot
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: easier for him to beat Steve Garvey than Katie Porter and,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: you know. Maybe it will be.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Probably will.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Correct. I think it would be.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: It's got a point. Look, Adam Schiff has more money
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: than God in the Senate race and knows that if
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: it's Garvey and him, he wins.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: And he's the next senator.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Gas prices hit God hard. So he... Obviously, he's going
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to do that. But I do think that Katie makes
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a good argument, especially around the... Like, look, if we
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: win the House races, we need to win in California.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: They're very competitive. We could flip the House just based
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: on California.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Law, right?
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And so... And you do want... High Democratic turnout. And
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: if not every Republican wants to come out to vote
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: between Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, eh. That's too bad.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: That's too bad. I think everyone should vote all the time.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: Everybody should, of course, vote. But I'd rather them put
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: on a baseball jersey and head out than just stay
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: home and be like, I don't care which one of
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: those freaks wins. That's the Republican speaking.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: And for Katie Porter, she knows that if it's Porter
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and Schiff, she has a very good chance of winning.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And it's probably a toss-up. Because a couple of these
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: polls have just polled if it was a Schiff-Porter race,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and it's almost hot.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: It'll be interesting to see what it does or does
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: not do to turn out. I mean, at the end
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: of the day, it is an election year. MAGA people
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: are pretty fired up. They'll probably want to vote for
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Trump no matter what, but you know, Garvey might turn
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: out some of those kind of softer Republicans who, you know,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Romney Republicans were no longer welcome in the party who
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: might stay on.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: I also just think like, what, you know, Hey, Democrats,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: we're all going to be voting in the fall. Would
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: you rather, would you rather.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: For Democrats, it's, it's, it's much better to have Porter.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just, uh, the only, the only people that, um,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: But some people are trying to make the argument that, well,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: then it's just going to be so much money spent
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: on this California Senate race between Katie Porter and Adam
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Schiff when the money could be going to Ohio and Montana.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: It's like, then just don't spend money on it. I'm
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: not donating.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't give any money.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sending my money to Ohio, Montana, Nevada. It's sort
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of an opposite.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: It's an alien v. predator, but opposite. You know, whoever wins,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: we win. So don't have to give them any money.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Send the money to the states where we need to
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: hold the Senate.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Or some of these House races in California if you
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: want to donate locally.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: For sure. Who's the predator? No, there's no.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: It's a good one. They're good.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: It's good.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: It's because the line from Alien v. Predator was whoever wins,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: we lose.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: So it's like Superman v.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: Batman.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: Fine.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Let's get out of this before it gets fine. Two
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: quick things before we go to break. We're only four
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: months away from the release of our upcoming book, Democracy
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: or Else, How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: It's the perfect guide to get you through 2024. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Cricket is donating the profits to support Vote Save America
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and other groups organizing for 2024. And if a book
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: with a reasonable page count loaded with illustrations isn't your thing,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: we've got you covered. That's right. We also recorded Democracy
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: or Else as an audiobook. Head to crooked.com slash books
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: and preorder a copy for you and your friends now. Also,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the Crooked store has some brand new t-shirts.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: You want to talk about it?
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: No, you got this.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Okay. The No Trespassing Collection features four different designs, each
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: inspired by a different state where abortion rights are under attack.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Read them.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: There's Stay Out of My Swamp for Florida. That's right.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Stay out of my hole for Arizona.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Because of the Grand Canyon.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Yes. It's always good when you have to explain it.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Stay out of my prickly pear for Texas.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Because that's a kind of catchphrase. got down there.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: And stay out of my strip for Nevada.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: They're all metaphors for abortion.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: A portion of proceeds will go to Vote Save America's
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Fuck Bans Fund, which currently is supporting abortion rights organizations
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: across key states. Head to cricket.com slash store to shop.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Ro Khanna talks to Tommy about
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: all kinds of fun stuff.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Congressman Roe Connor represents California's 17th congressional district. And far
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: more importantly, he was very kind to my daughter and
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: my mom when I ran into him recently walking my
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: dog in my neighborhood, like two blocks from my house. Congressman,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: great to see you again.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: Great to see you.
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: I feel like after eight years, I finally made it.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: Eight years in Congress, I'm on pod seven mark. And
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: now I knew the key is to meet your mom
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: and your daughter to get an invite.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: My mom was like, I love that guy. I get
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: that guy on the show. Like, all right, man, you know,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: you say jump, I say how high. Well, we're very
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: excited to have you on. Let's start with Gaza, because
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I know you were recently in Michigan. You were meeting
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: with members of the Arab American and Muslim American community
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: who are frustrated about President Biden's Gaza policy. We've talked
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: a lot on this show about the uncommitted movement and
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: the potential political problems, but I thought it would be
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: useful if you and I could talk about what the
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: United States should be doing differently to actually solve the
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: underlying problem. So, Let's start with this sort of acute
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: need to get to a ceasefire, to get more aid
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: into Gaza, to get the hostages back. What do you
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: think the United States should be doing different policy-wise?
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: Well, first of all, Tommy, I appreciate us starting there
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: because if you talk to people in Dearborn, they will
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: tell you this is a humanitarian issue. They'll talk about
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: family members who've been killed, friends of theirs who've had
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: generations killed. They're really not thinking about this politically. The
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: first thing we need to do is call very clearly
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: for a permanent ceasefire and a release of all hostages.
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: And that's very different than just calling for a six-week ceasefire.
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: As you know, Hamas has said they want a four
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: and a half month ceasefire at the very least. We've
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: managed to get Israel to six weeks. We need to
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: say that the ceasefire needs to be permanent so we
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: can have some room for negotiation and getting deal because
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: the time length of the ceasefire is one of the
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: key issues that's preventing the deal. The second thing we
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: should do is make it clear to Netanyahu that we're
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: no longer going to be protecting him at the United Nations.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: If we're not going to be voting for the ceasefires
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: at the United Nations, then at the very least we
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: should abstain from doing that, and that would add pressure.
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: The third thing we should do to is make it
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: clear to Netanyahu that no more transfer of weapons bypassing
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: Congress until there is a permanent ceasefire, conditional, of course,
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, the release of all the hostages, which I
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: do believe.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: That we can get.
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: And we should make it clear to Hamas that they
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: need to live up to the release of all hostages
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: and what they're proposing. Those would be a few places
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: that I think could get us some movement.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: It seems like the Biden theory of the case has
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: been to try to get this six-week ceasefire because they
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: think once that happens, it will be very difficult for
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: the Israeli military to restart up the military conflict, at
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: least at the same level after that six weeks period.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Are you saying that you don't necessarily agree with that
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: theory of the case and that we should be reaching
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: for a longer, more durable, more permanent ceasefire right now?
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: I think there's something to be said for the case
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: in terms of, obviously, if we can get at least
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: six weeks before Ramadan, that's a step. And I agree
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: with your view, having talked to folks in the administration,
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: that they're hoping once we get a ceasefire, it can
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: continue to be extended. I don't have enough faith in
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: Netanyahu that that's what's going to happen. I think after
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: six weeks, he's going to start again to have operations,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: partly because his own political survival depends on continuing the war. Partly,
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: I don't trust his motives. I don't think he wants
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: the president reelected. I think he prefers Donald Trump, and
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: it's in his interest to continue the conflict. But the
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: second point is the six weeks is hard to get
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: precisely because Hamas wants a longer duration. So at the
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: very least, we need to be pushing for a longer
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: duration to get a deal. And we would have probably
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: gotten a deal weeks ago if we weren't stuck on
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: just the six week framework.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: So bigger picture. I mean, it has felt for a
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: while like things were going in the wrong direction in
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: terms of resolving the underlying conflict. But U.S. policy doesn't
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: seem to adjust, right? I mean, the negotiations over two-state
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: solution have been dead for years. The Palestinian Authority is
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: corrupt and, frankly, distrusted by most Palestinians. The Israeli government,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: on the other hand, keeps getting more right-wing. It keeps
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: getting more extremist and more nationalist. And the U.S. position
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: is basically, let's urge both sides to negotiate. But there's
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: never consequences if one side or the other does something
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: to set back those talks, for example, settlement construction in
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: the West Bank by the Israeli government. The Trump administration
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: and now the Biden team, they seem to think that
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel is the skeleton
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: key to sort of unlocking the broader Palestinian issue and
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: getting to a Palestinian state. Do you agree with that approach?
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: And if not, what generally do you think we could
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: do to shake things up and kind of break out
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: of these U.S. government positions and talking points from, you know, frankly,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: the 80s? Well, at least when I was in the
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Obama administration.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: Well, the president, I thought President Obama tried with the
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: new beginning speech in Cairo. So I try to give
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: him some credit for that. But look, I don't I'm
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: a supporter of the Abraham Accords. But I don't think
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: that that is going to get you a Palestinian state
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: or a two-state solution, even if you have the normalization
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: between the Saudis and Israel. And that doesn't just come
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: from my own view. If you talk to Ambassador Rima,
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: she would tell you the same thing, that she is
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: committed and Saudi Arabia is committed, as is UAE, to
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: helping see a Palestinian state. They don't like Hamas. I mean,
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: they recognize Hamas is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. But
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: they need for us to do a few things for
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: that to be possible. What are those things? First, they
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: need us to at least recognize the Palestinian state. I mean,
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: we as the United States, we don't recognize them. Under
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: the Obama administration, Palestine at least had observer status at
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: the UN, though the US voted against it even then.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: But they're there.
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: But we should come out and recognize clearly a Palestinian
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: state and recognize a Palestinian state at the UN. The
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: second thing is, let's take the Gulf states up on
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: their offer to have a summit in the Middle East,
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: have Saudi there, have Egypt there, have UAE there, have
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: Israel there, have folks from the Palestinian civil authority there.
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: I mean, civic leaders, municipal leaders. Ben Rhodes has written
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: extensively about this. I cite him only because he's met
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: some of these leaders. and then have the Saudis and
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: UAE put a tremendous amount of pressure, which they will, saying, look,
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: we were willing to develop Gaza. We're willing to fund it,
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: but we need to have a new generation of leadership.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: But we can't get there. People keep saying, let's not
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: have Hamas. What is the strategy to get a new
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: generation there? We can't do it without the Gulf allies.
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: And Hamas ultimately... as Fareed Zakaria wrote, is an idea.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: It's an idea that armed resistance is the only way
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: to end occupation. We need to provide an alternative. So
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: it's going to require real U.S.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Leadership.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the other challenge that's happened regionally since October
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: 7th is there have been this drastic uptick in attacks
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: by Iranian-linked proxy forces in the Gulf. And there's been
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: a response by the U.S. government and in some cases,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: a coalition of countries against the Houthis in Yemen. You
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: have criticized presidents of both parties for taking military action
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: without congressional approval. Most recently, that was in the form
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: of a letter to President Biden arguing he needs congressional
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: approval to target the Houthis in Yemen. So, look, I
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: come to this conversation with some humility because the Obama
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: administration stretched the congressional authorization for the use of force
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: against al-Qaeda beyond all recognition to justify a lot of
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: counterterrorism activities. But can you describe to listeners how you
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: think the process should work? And then also just, you know,
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: kind of reflecting that answer, the reality that There's a
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: lot of people in Congress that are deeply unserious, and
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean they don't have the same role in
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: the Constitution, but it creates a challenge, right? I mean,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: we have Marjorie Taylor Greene with essentially a veto in
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: the House of Representatives.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: It does create a challenge, but, you know, Matt, as
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: I said, enlightened statesmen aren't always going to be.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: At the helm.
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: The process is supposed to protect against that, precisely because
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: we may have people who are not well-informed in Congress
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: or in the executive branch, and That's why you have
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: checks and balances.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: But look, here's my view.
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: If one of our Navy ships is struck and we're
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: taking totally defensive action because we don't want another Navy
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: ship to be struck or even a commercial vehicle, commercial
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: ship to be struck, I think the United States has
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: the right, the president has the right to take that
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: defensive action. And that's what people cite the Pirates case
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: with Thomas Jefferson, that Thomas Jefferson took some of the
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: action to defend the ships back in the early 1800s.
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: What they often don't cite is the second half of
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: that story where Jefferson then comes to the United States
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: Congress and he says, okay, I've taken this defensive action,
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: but now I want to take more offensive action against
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: the pirates. and I need Congress's authorization. And so when
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: it becomes not just that we're protecting our ships, but
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: we want to take offensive action against the Houthis or
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: some other force, then they need to come to Congress.
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: And the reality is, in most cases, they would get
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: the authorization, especially if they asked for an authorization that
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: was limited in scope and time. But the process of
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: coming to Congress would actually have a debate about the issues.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: And And I it's it's really unfortunate that that has
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: been bypassed.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm with you on the principle and I'm
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: with you in theory, though, you know, the sort of
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: infamous case of Obama not enforcing the red line happened
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: in part because he decided that he wanted to go
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: to Congress and get a vote on it. And it
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: seemed like Congress was thrilled to not actually have to
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: put their fingerprints on a very tough political issue and
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: kind of walked away from the process. Is that is
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: that wrong?
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: No, but I'm not saying I don't think that that
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: was a mistake that the President Obama made. I give
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: him a lot of credit for doing that. Look, Assad
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: obviously gassed his own people. He used capital weapons. He's
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: a brutal dictator. Does that mean that the United States
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: should have been engaged in another Middle East war? Probably
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: there was a lot of hesitation of that. And the
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: president obviously had those considerations.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: But so did Congress.
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: Congress said, look, we've just been in Iraq. We don't
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: want to have some massive troop deployment.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: Into Syria.
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: That didn't mean that President Obama wasn't very clear eyed
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: in condemning Assad and understanding the awful things.
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: That Assad had done.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: But he was prudent in not getting us into another
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: Middle East war. And I think Congress helped inform that prudence.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: So in my view, that was actually an example of
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: the president following the process.
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: And in fact, within a few weeks after that process,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: there was a bunch of diplomatic efforts with the Russians
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: that got all the chemical weapons Syria, at least a
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: lot of the chemical weapons stockpiles out of Syria, but
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: a story for another day that gets lost in the
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: very simplistic version of the red line story. Stepping back
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: a bit, over the past few years, you've been part
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: of this group that worked hard to build bridges between
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: the Biden White House and the progressive community. Those efforts were,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: I think, surprisingly effective in the first few years. They
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: seem to have unraveled a bit more recently, especially as
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: things have gotten worse in Gaza. Why did you end
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: up taking on that role? And what do you think
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: it will take to reconsolidate the Democratic Party voters who say,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: you know, they're not planning to vote or they're frustrated
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: with politics or the Democratic Party at the moment?
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: Well, I give the president credit for allowing some of
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: us to play that role. I mean, the president, when
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: he won, recognized that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: progressives had a big say in the party. And one
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: of the president's great talents has been to find where
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: the median of the Democratic Party is. Another one of
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: the president's great talents is to reach out with humility
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: to lawmakers. So he made an effort and his team
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: to build relationships, not just with me, but with Pramila,
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: with AOC, with a number of key progressives in the Congress.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: And he took our idea seriously. It wasn't just lip service.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: The the American Rescue Plan. And that had massive increase
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: in the child tax credit, in K through 12 school funding,
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: in checks to people. One of the side notes, things
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: that drives me crazy is when I talk to young
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: voters of color and they say, well, Trump gave us checks.
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: I said, you know, President Biden did too. I mean,
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: those checks were the American Rescue Plan. And a lot
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: of the idea for checks came from House Democrats. But
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: the President did that. He listened to us on ideas
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: on climate and made IRA all about climate. He listened
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: about issues of the chips and science and bringing manufacturing back.
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: So the alliance and coalition was based on his outreach
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: and his willingness to embrace progressive goals. In some cases,
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: he pushed for things that Manchin and Sinema didn't let through,
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: like the $ 15 wage and expanding Medicare to dental and vision. Now,
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: the progressives said, maybe, Mr. President, you should have fought
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: harder for it. And there was always some disagreement. But
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: by and large, we were all rowing in a similar direction.
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: And there was a view that the president really understood
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: on domestic.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: Politics where we were going.
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: And then most of us thought he did a masterful job,
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: as did Tony Blinken, in standing up to Putin and
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: in organizing a coalition with Ukraine. And there was a
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: lot of support for the president on that issue. It's
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: really been on Gaza that you see the first major
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: disagreement with the progressive caucus. I mean, there were issues
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: with student loans, but this is probably one of the
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: big disagreements. And it goes to, I think, a view
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: of America's role in the world and justice for people
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: of all backgrounds, but this is one of the first
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: times where you've had a very difficult issue.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you sound hopeful, though, that we can get
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: that coalition back together in time for the election.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: Look, I think everyone understands that we need the president
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: to win. What I would say is that the president's
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: team needs to appreciate how important the Obama's victories, even
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: in 2012, how important it was in 2020. And right now,
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: he has a lot of young folks, a lot of
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: voters of color, a lot of progressive voters, Arab and
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: Muslim American voters whose.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: Trust he needs to build. But it's not just Gaza.
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: It's also that he needs to offer some inspiring vision
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: about the future, where he's going to take the country,
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: their role in that country.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I think we have work to do
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: on that front.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and some time. I want to ask you about
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: your district. You represent Silicon Valley. You know a lot
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: of the bold-faced names in tech. I was wondering if
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: you could help us understand them a little bit. Because take,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: for example, someone like Marc Andreessen, who I think you know.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: He is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: biggest and most successful venture capital funds in the country.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: He's got to be worth a couple billion dollars. Not
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: that long ago, Marc Andreessen was kind of like a
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: center-left guy. He was buddies with Al Gore. He supported
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Obama in 2008. I think he decided Obama's rhetoric was
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: too mean to big business and then endorsed Romney in 2012.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: But today he's part of this kind of crew of
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: reactionary tech leaders that are super online, that seemingly were
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: like radicalized by, I don't know, COVID restrictions or feeling
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: like cancel culture was targeting them. I don't know what
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: it is. I was wondering if you could help us
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: understand how there are so many of these leaders in
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley who rich, powerful people like Marc Andreessen or
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk who feel like they're victims or act like
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: they're victims despite having power that most people could only
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: dream of?
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: Well, you're right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, as you know, I supported Bernie Sanders
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: and I represent Silicon Valley. So the voters are different
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: than some of the most high-profile tech leaders. But Marc Andreessen,
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: someone who has supported me, has gone on and off.
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: I think he supported me. Then I supported Bernie. He
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: stopped supporting me. Then he started supporting me. And, you know,
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: there are places where he may be open to a
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: vision of Democrats, which is he thinks we need to
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: build things in America again. We need to have some
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: kind of policy with government and the private sector on industrialization.
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: So what Obama did, I mean, Elon Musk may not
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: acknowledge it, but there would not be Tesla if there
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: was not President Obama. That was the Treasury loan that
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: took place. And Andreessen understands that you need government collaboration
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: with the private sector to spawn Silicon Valley. It was
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: going to the moon that led to the semiconductor industry
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: because NASA had to buy a lot of semiconductors.
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: That's what spawned Silicon Valley.
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: And that on times of let's build things, they're there.
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: But the problem is that they have come to this
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: view of libertarianism, that The obstacle isn't a lack of
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: government financing or government investment and workforce. The obstacle is
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: just bureaucracy and government regulation and, in its worst case,
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: DEI programs.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: And that if.
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: Somehow the government just championed the entrepreneur, that America would
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: be more a manufacturing superpower, an economic superpower. And I
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: think that's a misread of history. I also disagree with
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: it from a values perspective. But that is one strand
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: of thinking in the valley.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: I hope these guys log off and find whatever they
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: need to fill that void in their souls. Speaking of
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Mark Andreessen and going to the moon, I want to
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: ask you about cryptocurrency, because at the end of 2021,
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: crypto was collapsing. Now it's surging again. I'm no expert.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: on the industry, but it seems like a lot of
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: this increase is coming on the back of the SEC
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: approving Bitcoin ETFs. Those are basically financial instruments that make
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: it easier for people like you and me to buy
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: little bits of cryptocurrency on the stock exchange and make
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: it easier for retail investors to get involved. But a
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: couple of years ago, these crypto companies were imploding left
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: and right. There was FTX, Three Arrows Capital, which is
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: a hedge fund, Celsius. There was a stable coin called
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Terra that imploded. If folks don't know all the specifics here,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: just know that these companies failed and a lot of
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: regular people got hurt. Now, again, like I was saying,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Bitcoin's back up to $ 60, 000 a coin. The casino is
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: back open, right? Can you help us understand what, if any,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: steps are being taken to regulate these guys? Because I
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: know that even the SEC was not happy about its
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: own decision to approve Bitcoin ETFs in the first place.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: And I just worry we might repeat what happened at
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: the end of 2021 and see retail investors get hurt.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: Well, we need more regulation.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, the one basic regulation is we need stable
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: coins to be capitalized. And without going into all the details,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: just think of it as we have capital requirements on
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: banks and Stablecoin allows for monetary transactions overseas, and a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: lot of them are undercapitalized. So you could have capitalization
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: requirements for them. There should be clear distinctions between cryptocurrencies
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: that are speculative and that should be regulated by the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: SEC with investor disclosures and understanding the risk. And then
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: in some cases, Bitcoin, which is ubiquitous, being more of
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: a commodity. Now, A lot of blockchain and crypto still
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: has a use case to be made. I mean, what
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: is it going to solve? I mean, some people say, well,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: is it going to make monetary transactions faster and cheaper?
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: That's a debatable issue.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: I'm waiting on that one.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, even if it's digital gold, maybe it's just a
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: collector's item. But here's, I think, Tommy, what we're missing.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: A lot of folks, younger folks, have gotten crypto and blockchain.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: Many people of color. And to me, it's almost... a
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: sad commentary that this is the closest they're going to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: get to having a part in modern economic wealth generation.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: I sit on a district that has $ 10 trillion of value, Apple, Google, Intel, Tesla. Yes,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: kids in my district, are they optimistic about America? 90%
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: of hands go up in most parts of the district,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: not all, but most parts of the district. And that's
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: the almost inverse in many other parts of this country.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: So the only way that we have really provided some
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: people the opportunity to participate in modern wealth generation is
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: blockchain and crypto. And it's a sad commentary. I mean,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: what are we doing to expand the opportunities of the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: digital economy and modern economic life across this country? That
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: should be, in my view, the question that we're trying
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: to answer.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question. Final question for you from me.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: So we're recording this on March 4th. The interview will
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: come out March 5th, the day of the California primary.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: We have a big, important Senate race happening here. I
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: know you've endorsed Barbara Lee. Congressman Adam Schiff and Katie
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Porter are the other main candidates in the race. Congressman
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Schiff is running ads that boost a guy named Steve Garvey,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: a Republican. The idea being, or strategy seeming to be,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: that the campaign thinks it will be easier for Schiff
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: to beat Garvey in a runoff. than to beat Katie
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Porter or Barbara Lee or other Democrats. Congresswoman Porter is
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: not happy about this strategy. She's concerned that even having
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Garvey on the ballot in a runoff would help down
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: ballot Republicans turn out voters. Do you agree with that criticism?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Are you concerned about this elevation of Steve Garvey?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: I don't like this strategy, but look, it's politics. It's
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: happened before in California races. It's not a surprise. I
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: don't think it's going to have a effect on down
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: ballot races. I think we still have a great chance
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: with Trump as the nominee to win.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: Four House races.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: But I agree with Katie Porter that it's sort of
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: a manipulation of a system. I mean, it's completely legal.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: Adam Schiff isn't doing anything that's illegal, but I don't
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: love the tactic.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we'll leave it there. Congressman Conner, thank you
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: so much for joining the show. Appreciate it.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you, Tommy.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Rokana for joining us. And we will have
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: another episode for you on Wednesday after Super Tuesday. It's
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: going to be all four of us. Dan's flying down.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: We got Dan.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: We got Dan.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Gun to your head. You got to wear one of
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: those four shirts we just talked about to a family dinner.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Which one are you going with?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Prickly pear. I think I'm going to prickly pear. Yeah, 100%.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not wearing a shirt that says stay out of
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: my hole at a family function.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Why? It's about the Grand Canyon.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: I'm wearing one. My dad wears worse.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Some of his hats.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know where those hats come from.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Are we selling onesies for babies about this one?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: No, we are going to sell. I checked with new
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: moms about this one. We are going to sell a
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: onesie and the onesie is going to say the onesie
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: is going to say I hope you sort out this
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: whole abortion thing by the time I need one. Which
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: is fucking good.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: Onesies coming to a Jesse Waters piece near you.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: Great great no such thing as that that's good get
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: it on Fox News.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Bye everyone if you want to get ad free episodes
• 1:04:53
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• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers
• 1:05:18
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• 1:05:24
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