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Republicans' Work Till You Die Agenda · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden goes on offense during a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: campaign swing in Wisconsin and Michigan. Kamala Harris becomes the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: first Vice President or President to visit an abortion clinic
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: as Republicans start to get nervous about their position on
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: reproductive rights. Your favorite third-party spoilers. Get ready to screw
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: things up again. And EPA Administrator Michael Regan stops by
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the studio to talk to Tommy about clean energy and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: environmental justice. But first, Joe Biden and Donald Trump have
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: now won enough delegates to clinch their party's nominations. And
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it was quite a week for the presumptive Republican nominee.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Medicare and Social Security cuts that he's now trying to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: walk back promised to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists on
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the first day of his second term, a group that
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: includes convicted felons who violently assaulted police officers. And Trump
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: also visited his number one re-election battleground, federal court, to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: attend a hearing on whether the judge he appointed will
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: dismiss his felony charges in the classified documents case. In
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: preparation for the hearing, Trump employed the novel legal strategy
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of essentially admitting guilt during a Newsmax interview where he
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: said he took the documents, but very legally took them,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: instead of a whole bunch of other crazy shit. Let's listen.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I took them very legally and I wasn't hiding them.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I said, there's no, I don't care, Andrew Jackson or
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: anybody else. Nobody has, when you think of the fake things,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: nobody's been treated like Trump in terms of badly. But
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: by the way, they released Hillary Clinton. She hammered her phones.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: She used all sorts of acid testing and everything else.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: They call it bleach bit, but it's essentially acid that
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: will destroy everything, you know, within 10 miles. The Hunter
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Biden stuff is bad. Let's face it. And if you
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: believe the laptop from hell, there's a lot of money
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: that's been exchanged. And it's a lot of money and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: seems like a lot of proof. But I would just
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: say to him, what do you say?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: What do you say, Dan? What do you say? Hillary's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: gone from destroying some emails to packing a chemical weapon. Acid?
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: What is going on there? Less grievance, more policy, right?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: How's that for message discipline from the presumptive Republican nominee?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm not sure we needed another reminder, but this
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: is a reminder that Donald Trump may not be the
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: highly disciplined political genius that he's being portrayed as in
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the press. Like, he's still a shitty candidate.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Still a shitty candidate. Still doesn't know how to answer
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a question. What the... The Hunter left... He... It really
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: is like he just knows that there are buzzwords he's
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: supposed to hit. Like the laptop, the laptop's bad. You
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: know what I'm hearing? That it's bad. There's a lot
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of money and there's a lot of corruption. And you know,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: it's just very bad.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's so fascinating because we think of him
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: as like deep into like MAGA fanfic conspiracy stuff, but
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: he's not really that deep in it. He even skates
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: the surface of Fox News. Like he knows, like you said,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: he knows the buzzwords, but he couldn't explain them to you.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: He doesn't even understand the bullshit part of it. He
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: just knows, say laptop, a bunch, say bleach bit. And it's,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: but he uses the, this is the other reason why
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: he's a bad candidate is he uses language that is
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: requires such to be so far down a rabbit hole
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: to understand what you're talking about. That it's just like,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: so an average person that meant not even average person,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: a average political junkie that meant nothing. Like it's just
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: absolute nothing. Laptop, bleach bit, server, email.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Just acid.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Like, what are we doing?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson would be treated very... No one's been treated
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: like Trump in terms of very badly.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: And not even Abraham Lincoln.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Not even Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, I forgot about that one, too.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Swore the alert, but it didn't end great.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So we talked on Tuesday's episode about Trump floating Medicare
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and Social Security cuts on Wall Street's favorite cable news network.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: His campaign clearly realized how damaging that was because... They
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: got him to walk it back Thursday during a Breitbart interview.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: One prominent Trump supporter who apparently didn't get the memo
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: was Ben Shapiro, who's taken the whole thing is that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: people should literally work until they die. Let's listen.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: No one in the United States should be retiring at
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Everybody that I know who is who is elderly, who
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: has retired, is dead within five years. If you talk
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: to people who are elderly and they lose their purpose
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: in life by losing their job and they stop working,
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: things go to hell in a handbasket real quick.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Look, I get you take it from us being a podcaster,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: backbreaking work. But if Ben wants to, you know, read
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: underwear ads until his heart gives out like good on him,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: other humans may want to spend their golden years with
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: their family, their friends. And if you're not a multimillionaire
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: like Ben Shapiro is, you're going to need Social Security
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and Medicare. I personally wish that Donald Trump and all
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Republicans would just be honest and run on the Ben Shapiro,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Paul Ryan, work till you die platform.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And I mean, that is their platform, 100%. It is
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson's platform. It is the platform of both white
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: guys named John who want to replace Mitch McConnell. And
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: it will be Donald Trump's platform if he is elected president.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: This election does come down to, and we can talk
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: about how you message it, but it does come down
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: to if Donald Trump wins, he probably wins with a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Republican House and a Republican Senate, and Social Security cuts
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: and Medicare cuts are very much on the table. And
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: if Joe Biden wins, then he will stop those cuts
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: from happening. Full stop. That's all you need to know.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Election over.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: Done.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Are you telling me that when a Republican House and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Senate send President Donald Trump a budget with Social Security
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: cuts and Medicare, he isn't going to go through that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: budget with a fine-tooth comb? making sure that his campaign
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: promise that he made to people about protecting Social Security
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and Medicare isn't fulfilled because he knows he's never going
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to have to face voters again?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Well, here's how I know that that's not going to happen,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: because it's probably going to be his budget. Because the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: last time he was president, he put cuts to Social
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Security and Medicare in his budget every single year he
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: was president. He made that exact same promise to not
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: cut Social Security and Medicare or even Medicaid, because at
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: one point he confused Medicare and Medicaid, 2016. Then he
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: tried to cut and eviscerate all three of those programs
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: within- like six months of being in the White House.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: So no, I do not take it seriously.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Well, how do you think this is going to go?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Because obviously, President Biden and the campaign have done a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: great job over the last couple of days, really hammering
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Trump on this. Biden sort of talked about it when
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: he was in Wisconsin and Michigan during his events. Now
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the Trump campaign walked it back and Trump's going to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: probably spend the rest of the campaign saying, oh, I'll
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: protect Medicare and Social Security no matter what. You think
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the best strategy here is for Biden and Democrats to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: just keep hammering him by pointing out what you just did,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that it was in his budget for the last four years?
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in his budget that all the people of
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: his party agree with him and want to do it.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And that is an extension of the extremism that's taken
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: over this Republican Party. So a couple of points on this.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: One is something that pollsters found in 2022 was there
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: was always some hesitancy among voters to believe that a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: politician would actually cut Social Security and Medicare. That hasn't
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: happened for almost a century. And so why would you
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: believe it would happen now? But then after Dobbs, those
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: ads started becoming more effective because once Republican extremists take
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: something away, that this seems– everything's on the table if
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: you're going to take constitutional rights away from people. And
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: so you saw people more open to Social Security and
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Medicare cuts. And while abortion was the topic in the
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: most ads in 2022, not far behind that were cuts
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: to Social Security and Medicare, particularly in Arizona where Mark
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Kelly and that super PAC supporter ran a ton of
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: ads against Blake Masters on that very issue. The second
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: thing that's really important about how you talk about this
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: is the reason Donald Trump and Republicans want to cut
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Social Security and Medicare is not just that they think
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: it should work until they die and they hate government
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: and they think we have to live in some sort
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: of Darwinian hellscape where only the richest survive. It is
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: because they need to pay for another $ 2 trillion tax
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: cut that they are planning to pass at the end
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: of 2025. The Trump tax cuts expire.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: For Ben Shapiro.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, a huge tax cut for Ben Shapiro, yes.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And then he can just keep working and not retire.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So it's not just that they want to cut Social
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Security and Medicare, something unpopular. They want to cut it
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: to pay for more tax cuts for corporations, and they're
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: very wealthy. And so Donald Trump's going to lie about it.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: He has this, at least in the immediate least, this
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: imprimatur of he's a populist, a blue-collar billionaire, and all that.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And that certainly works with his base. But we talked
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: about this blueprint poll last week. looked at Donald Trump's
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: vulnerabilities among working class voters, almost 50% of them cite
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump cutting Social Security and Medicare as a top
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: concern for why they don't want to be president. So
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: people are open to this. And you just have to
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: make the case and make sure people hear it. And
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: you're going to face a lot of headwinds since Trump's
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: going to lie about it. And the press is skeptical
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: that these things would happen. But I love what the
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Biden campaign is doing. They should keep doing more of
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: it for the next eight months. This was a very,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: very important moment in the campaign.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And not only is the press skeptical, it's just very
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: hard to get issues like this to break through because
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: all political coverage is personality and culture wars and everything else. And,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not 2012 anymore where all the fights
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: are about the size and role of government. And so
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to get coverage on Medicare and Social Security.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And so as anyone who's listening, as you're volunteering, as
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: you're talking to people in your life, like I realize
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like the sexiest topic, especially if you're young,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: but someday we're going to need social security and Medicare too.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And it is a very persuasive point to make to
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: people that Republicans are going to cut social security and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Medicare and that Joe Biden and Democrats will protect it.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Very persuasive.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: It's really fascinating because I write message box newsletters on
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of topics and I wrote on the social
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: security one and you can almost feel Just the difference
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: in engagement and an open rate between something on Social
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Security and something on democracy or abortion. And part of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the reason, I think there's a bias in the press
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: that's sort of almost economic, which is when you look
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: at these polls, the things that are of most concern
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: to the more politically engaged, college-educated, upper-income-scale voters, Democrats particularly,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: is democracy, abortion, those sorts of things, which are incredibly
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: important issues. But those are the people who are subscribing
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: to the New York Times or the people who are
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: watching MSNBC and CNN, people who may be listening to
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: this podcast. And it is on the issues for the
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: people who are less politically engaged. This matters a lot.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: So you need a lot of repetition to get it
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: in front of those people.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And yeah, and the upper income thing is a real
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: issue there too, because it's people who are not lying
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: awake at night thinking, am I going to have to
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: wait and retire at 75 or 80? Because I don't
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: know if I'm going to be able to get social
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: security or Medicare. I mean, that is a real, it's
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a real issue.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Or be physically able to keep working.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Yes. Right?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Like, yes, we can podcast till we die and we
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: probably will, but that's different than if you do a
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: job that requires physical labor, whereas you get older, that
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: becomes harder. You have, you are older, but you're also
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: taking on any injuries or damage that's been done up
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: to then. So like, that is what's so obnoxiously elitist
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: about what Ben Shapiro said, which is just so ironic
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: coming from how the right likes to portray themselves.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Now, here's an issue that I bet would get some engagement.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: We know that pardoning insurrectionists ain't all that popular. Saw
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: a CBS poll around the anniversary of January 6th this year.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: 70% of voters think that people convicted of violently assaulting
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: police officers shouldn't get to skip their prison sentence. Though
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: they didn't ask the question like that, I bet if
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you asked it like that, you'd get even higher than 70%.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Just so people remember, at least 140 police officers were wounded.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Rioters had guns, knives, tasers, baseball bats, flagpoles. Most of
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the prosecutions focused on people who committed violent assaults. around
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: January 6th, not just people, not the peaceful protesters that
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Republicans talk about, not people who just wandered into the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Capitol even, but the people who were violent on January 6th,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: who caused people harm. And now Donald Trump says on
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the first day of his presidency, he wants to let
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: these people out of prison and pardon them. Imagine ignoring, like,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: why would they worry about committing political violence when the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: guy who just pardoned them for committing political violence is
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: in the White House?
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: The guy who incited them then pardoned them. So why
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: wouldn't they do it? Who will incite them again? Like, obviously.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I get that there are limits to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the democracy argument. You really have to make it tangible
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: for people. I think that Trump wanting to pardon insurrectionists
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: is one of those ways to make it real to people.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And I think that it, I actually think it could
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: be a real salient issue, but I don't know what
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you think.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, 100% agree. I think January 6th is a very,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: very salient issue because a lot of the democracy arguments
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: are very, very valid and important, but they're about the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: esoteric notion of a functioning political system and norms. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: this is about a group of people who violently try
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: to overthrow the government, getting pardons from the person who
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: asked them to violently overthrow the government. It is an
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: example of, it reminds people what they like least about Trump.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: It reminds you of the tremendous dangerous extremism of them,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: the chaos. And so, yeah, absolutely should be talked about.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Mark Esper, who was Trump's defense secretary towards the end,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: who then he ended up firing, He was on MSNBC
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: this week, and he said that, like, Donald Trump suggested
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that the military shoot Americans in the streets to him.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: This is a guy who was defense secretary for Donald
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Trump is now saying, hey, I quit. I mean, you know, hey,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I wasn't defense secretary anymore, and I just want to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: tell everyone the president was telling us that the military
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: should shoot Americans in the streets who were protesting. What
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: are we doing?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: And you know what? The next defense secretary, more likely
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: to go along with it if Trump wins.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, yeah, not going to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: make that mistake twice.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So Trump and Republicans are also trying to figure out
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: how to sneak their national abortion ban past voters. Kellyanne
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Conway was out there this week giving her party advice
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: on how to talk about the issue. At a Politico event,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: she said Republicans should ditch their line about Democrats supporting abortion, quote,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: up until the moment of birth, because go figure, not
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of people actually believe that happens because it
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen. The National Republican Congressional Committee also put out
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a memo this week urging Republican candidates, quote, to express
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: empathy for women in order to fix their brand problem.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: But alas, Kellyanne also admitted that Trump is, in fact,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: considering a national ban.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: You think Trump should come out for a 15 week ban?
• 15:14
  Speaker 7: Well, it's a national minimum standard and it's not a ban.
• 15:19
  Speaker 7: And he has said, I think he's told Sean Hannity
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: a couple weeks ago when they were at the border,
• 15:23
  Speaker 7: he was looking at that. He's also said 16 weeks
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: or four months.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: What is he calling it?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: A national minimum standard.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: A national minimum standard. Oh, okay. Yeah.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: What it means is if you're a state that has
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: banned abortion at six weeks or banned abortion completely, that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: ban stays. But blue states or states that haven't put
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: any restrictions on abortion yet, they would all have to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: be 15 weeks. So, yeah, it's a national ban. 15
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: weeks in some places, six weeks in others.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you think it's possible for Republicans to
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: speak about this in a way that actually helps them
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: deal with this political problem? I'm doubtful, but what do
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. The problem is not their language. The
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: problem is the problem, right? It's their position, right? They
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: have a Republican appointed Supreme Court, took a constitutional right
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: away from more than half the country, and then a
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: bunch of Republican legislatures then pass these onerous bills in
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: many cases with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: health or life of the mother. And so that's the problem.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: It's not 15 weeks. It's not showing more empathy. It's
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: not any of that. You have adopted incredibly unpopular position
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: at a time that has caused a massive electoral coalition
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: shifting backlash in this country. And so this is where
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: political consultants are totally full of shit. There is no language.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: You can either be on the right side of the
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: issue and win elections and be on the wrong side
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: of the issue and keep losing them. And that is
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: full stop. That's the whole deal.
• 16:52
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, a Republican tried this in a big campaign.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: It was Glenn Youngkin in the legislative elections in Virginia.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And he tried to campaign in a 15-week ban and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: a bunch of anti-abortion groups called it a roadmap for
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: how to tackle abortion. And he lost. They lost. Republicans
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: lost that campaign. And the reason they lost is because
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: people didn't focus on the number of weeks or when,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: or people focused on the idea that politicians were trying
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to tell women and their doctors what decisions they should
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: make about their health. And what they didn't want is
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: for politicians to get in the way of that. And
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: they didn't want any, the government to step in and say,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: we get to decide and we get to litigate what
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you do with your body. And the idea that, you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: 15 weeks is going to save them once. There might've
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: been an argument for that before Dobbs, Politically, but I
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: think you're right. As soon as Dobbs happened and we
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: heard these stories, these horrific stories all around the country,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: people realized 15 weeks, 20 weeks, six weeks, whatever. Just
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: let me make the decision. You know, Conway thinks Republicans
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: should challenge Democrats to lay out the specifics of their
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: own abortion views. I believe she phrased it. Show me
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: your exceptions and I'll show you mine. Meaning like Republicans
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: are willing. Because, you know, she wants Trump, and Trump's
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: been saying this to say, oh, I'm for exceptions. Rape, incest,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: wife of the mother. And so now she wants Republicans
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to turn around to Democrats and say, okay, what are
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: your exceptions? How do you think Democrats should handle that?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I'm even confused by her question. Like, what is she
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: talking about? Like, I don't even understand.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: She wants Democrats to be like, oh, so, okay, you
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: don't want 15 weeks. Do you want 24 weeks? Do
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you want 30 weeks? What do you... 22 weeks? How
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: many weeks would you be for?
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: What if we just... passed the bill, the Senate, the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Women's Health Protection Act that Senate Democrats have pledged to,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: and President Biden have pledged to pass and sign into
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: law if they get enough Democrats to get rid of
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: the filibuster. What if we just did that? What if
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: we just returned to the way of life before Dobbs?
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think you fall into that trap because
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I think the principle is that women should get to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: make decisions about starting a family and when to have
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: a family with their doctor. That's it. It is a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: personal medical decision that And Republicans should stay out of it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: The reason the Republicans keep losing on this is because
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: no one believes they're going to stop at 15. But,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you know, in Alabama, the Supreme Court went after IVF.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Some of them are trying to go after contraception. It's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: like just keep politicians out of people's medical decisions unless
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the politicians are trying to make decisions that are going
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to guarantee access to affordable health care. That's the only
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: time politicians should be involved in people's health care.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Politicians should get you into the doctor's office and
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: then they should close the door and leave. They should
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: not stay and advise you on and not mandate what
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: it is you can and can't do when you're in
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: that room with your doctor.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: So Democrats are, of course, trying to keep abortion in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the news. Yesterday, Kamala Harris visited an abortion clinic in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Minnesota run by Planned Parenthood, something no sitting vice president
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: or president has ever done. Here's Harris answering a question
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: about whether Democrats can succeed in restoring the protections of
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Roe v.
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: Wade.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Well, Congress will pass that bill when we win back
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: the House.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And so I am sure of that.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: One of the points that must be made on this
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: issue as we attempt to uplift the real stories and
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: the real consequences of the Dobbs decision is to remind
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: people elections matter.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: What did you think of that move, going to an
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: abortion clinic?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I loved it. I think it was incredibly smart. It is,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: you know, as we know, when abortion is top of mind,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: it helps Democrats win elections because that is what is
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: at stake, right? And we cannot let it Every day
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: is one day further from Dobbs. Every day, Republicans are
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: getting a tiny bit smarter about not saying their real
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: positions on abortion or even just try to avoid talking
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: about it. So it's going to be incumbent upon Democrats
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to keep it in the news. So talking about it
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: is good. And it is a real sign of the
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: White House and the Biden folks thinking creatively about how
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: to get attention for the things they're saying. Let's say
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: she just did that at a women's roundtable in Wisconsin.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Or somewhere else.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: We're not talking about it. It's not on the news.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It's in the news locally, which is good, but it's
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: not getting into the national online conversation. And so doing
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: things like this, going to places that are controversial, they're
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: going to cause the Republicans to react to it, to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: create controversy and conflict, means people will hear her message
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: and remind them that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the Democrats are going to fight for reproductive freedom and
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: access to abortion. Republicans want to take it away. So
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I think it was great they did it.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: It was bold. It was smart.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And I think it was quite effective.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think it shows that Joe Biden and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: his White House and his campaign and Kamala Harris are
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: not afraid to put abortion front and center by going
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to an abortion clinic. And look, I say this because
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: there's been a few stories about how some reproductive rights
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: activists are angry with Biden for saying words like choice
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and Roe instead of the word abortion. And I guess
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: he didn't say the word abortion in the State of
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the Union, even though he started the State of the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Union by talking about abortion and urging Congress to pass
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the Women's Health Protection Act. And I totally understand the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: argument that prominent public figures saying the word abortion could
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: help lessen the stigma around getting an abortion, which is
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a very important thing to do. But one thing I
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: would urge everyone to remember is The abortion rights movement
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: didn't win in red states like Kansas and Ohio and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Kentucky by speaking only to people who favor no restrictions
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: on abortion. They won by persuading people who– some people
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: who are uncomfortable with abortion or even personally opposed that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: politicians shouldn't get to make that choice for people. And look,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: now we have an 81-year-old Catholic guy as president who's
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: never been a personal fan of abortion– but opened his
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: State of the Union by promising to stake his political
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: capital on guaranteeing access to abortion nationwide. And to do that,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: he's going to need to convince people who feel the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: same way he does. And that is just democracy. That
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is how we accumulate the power necessary to make sure
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that we don't just have a president who says the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: word abortion, but a president who has the ability and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the power to actually make abortion possible. uh, legal in
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: every single state of the country. And I think that
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: most people who, who want an abortion would rather that.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: There is zero political downside or risk in saying the
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: word abortion. It doesn't make your position more radical. It doesn't,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: everyone knows what you're talking about, right? It's like when
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: you run the ads about Trump and then you just
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: don't say his name or when Republicans try to subtweet
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: him back in the day. Now, now they just all, uh,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: tweet in support of him. Um, Like, that's dumb. A
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: different president, maybe a younger president, maybe President Elizabeth Warren
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: or President Kamala Harris, pick two people who ran against him,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: would probably be more comfortable and more bold and aggressive
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: in talking about abortion than Joe Biden is. But Joe
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Biden is our president. You worked on a thousand State
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: of the Unions. We've watched a million of them. I
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: just can't tell you how far the party has come
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: that our 81-year-old Catholic president use the first five minutes
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: of his State of the Union to call for passing
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: a law to restore Roe. That is a gigantic progress.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Would it be better if he felt more comfortable talking
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: about it in Boulder Waste?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: But he is our president. He is our nominee. And
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: if a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate send him a bill,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: he will happily, proudly sign it. And that is just
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: a gigantic deal. And so Is there more work to
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: do to get more politicians to be more comfortable? Absolutely.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: But have we come a huge distance in a short
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: period of time because of Dobbs?
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: And is Joe Biden going to do the right thing here?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: He absolutely will.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And again, it's really not about defending Joe Biden or not.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: If you want to be mad at Joe Biden, that's fine.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: But as you are out there persuading voters, know you
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: are going to run into some people who may be
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: personally opposed to abortion, may call undocumented immigrants illegal immigrants,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: like Joe Biden did in the State of the Union,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and then later said he wished he used the word undocumented.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: And the point of campaigning is to meet people where
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: they are, but then not leave them there. And so
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: if you stop by like scolding people for it, then
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you're going to turn off the conversation when instead you
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: could actually persuade them to get to a better place
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and to like, again, join this coalition that we're trying
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to build to stop Donald Trump. All right, let's talk
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: about the vice president's running mate, jacked up Joe Biden,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: who's been on offense since the State of the Union.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: This week, he visited two must-win Midwestern states, Wisconsin, where
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: he opened a campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, and Michigan, where
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: he campaigned in the diverse city of Saginaw. The president
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: talked about all the infrastructure jobs he's made possible, his
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: plans to lower housing costs, and he hit Trump as
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a loser who wants to cut your retirement benefits. The polls, however,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: still haven't moved all that much since the State of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the Union, though it's only been a week. Trump is
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: still up two points, around two points in the polling averages,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and the 538 swing state averages show Trump up everywhere,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: ranging from almost eight points in Georgia to less than
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a point in Pennsylvania. I won't even go through the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: individual polls. There have been quite a few in the
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: last three days. Some high quality, some lower quality, some national,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: some swing state. All bad. Mostly bad. Mostly bad.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: They're not all bad.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Someone's going to say he was up two in the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Ipsos poll. Anyway, where's the bounce, Dan? You promised us
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: a bounce. You do this show Polar Coaster that everyone
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: can sign up. Crooked.com slash friends. Listen to Dan on
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Polar Coaster. Where's the bounce?
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Anyone who thought, and I know you didn't think this,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: this is not an attack on you.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Because I said it. I said it at the night
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of the State of the Union. I said, I don't
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: remember what I said because I.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Was pretty tired. You were doing your best Chuck Todd
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: impersonation right there, but it was like, that's unfair to Chuck.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Chuck would not have done that. But anywho, anyone who
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: thought that Joe Biden was going to get a significant
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: bounce out of one speech seen by 30 million people
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: should be suspended from talking, writing, tweeting, tooting, threading, or
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: skeeting about politics for six weeks. It was never going
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to happen because just think about this. Joe Biden has
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: 100% name ID. He's been president for almost four years.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: He was vice president for eight years. He was with
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: National Scene before that. He's in a race against a
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: person who was president four years ago. Also has 100%
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: name ID. And it's not just people know their names.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: The depth of knowledge of these two candidates is unlike
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: anything in any race in modern history, right?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So were you saying it's too early to pay attention
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to the polls then?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: No, I'm absolutely not. I'm not saying that at all.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: What I'm saying is.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Two people with 100% name ID who everyone knows?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The point I'm trying to make is Barack Obama
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: did not get to see the union balances. That was
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: not a thing that happened then either.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Just like I said, just in 2009, that was it.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And that was because probably he had a pretty high
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: approval rating going into that speech anyway.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: We live in a time of polarization. Most people have
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: made up their minds. 30 million people is a lot
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: of people that watch that speech. It's still a fraction
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: of the electorate. And you assume that most of those
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: people who watch it have already made up their mind, right?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: That's just who, that's who tunes into a speech. But
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the way that campaign operatives think about this is the
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: horse race moves last. Approval ratings move second to last.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: What moves first is the polling questions about, we call
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: them the underneath questions, right? character strength. And for Joe Biden,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: the critical question right now is, do voters think he
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: is too old to do the job? And there's evidence
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: in a morning consult poll that the number of voters
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: who thought that Joe Biden was too old to do
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the job went down after the speech. They pulled pre-speech
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: and they pulled post-speech. And the bulk of that change
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: happened among Democrats and Biden's 2020 voters, which is exactly
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: how you would expect this race to go, which is
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Biden is underperforming against Trump right now because He's getting
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: about 85% of people who voted for him in 2020,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: and Trump is getting 97% in the New York Times
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: poll of people who voted for him in 2020. And
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: so that's the low hanging fruit for Biden are people
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: who have actually pulled the lever for him before or
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: new voters who agree with him ideologically on almost every issue, right? Abortion,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: climate change, LGBTQ rights, tax cuts for the wealthy, protecting
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: social security. And those are the people you move first.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: You move them first by showing that this big giant
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: concern and that has been hovering over the race for
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: months is not as big a concern as people may
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: have thought. So what we've seen in the polling suggests
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: that things are moving in the right direction for Biden.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: They're just going to move more slowly than most people
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: want them to move.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And I also think a couple of things on polling.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: It's always tough because polling is a lagging indicator. And
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: so those of us who are very involved in politics
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and pay close attention to And we, you know, wait
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days and we're like, well, how
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: can someone not have formed an opinion on the State
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of the Union already? Because didn't we all just watch it?
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: But almost all the time, changes in polling happen like
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: two or three or four weeks later. It's just like
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: because most people like didn't watch the State of the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Union and didn't really like get into the coverage all
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that much and just maybe just heard about it later
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: from a friend. But I also think what's definitely more
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: effective than just the State of the Union, which I
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people didn't watch is the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: ad campaign, right? They're just like the ad campaign in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the swing States. And, uh, that has really started in earnest,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: especially as the contrast, uh, the ad we talked about on,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday's pot. So, uh, lots of time left, but
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you know, again, don't forget about the polls. Don't dismiss
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: them either. Use them like campaigns do, which is to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: understand what voters concerns are and, and how all of us, uh,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: not just the Biden campaign can address those concerns and
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: persuade people to vote for Biden. That's the That is
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the use of polling, not for predictive purposes. So no
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: crosstab truthers here. What does the message and geography of
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: the first few stops tell you about their strategy? Wisconsin, Michigan,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Kamala was in Minnesota.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And Biden was in Georgia last week. Obviously, the campaign
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: is going to be primarily focused on the six battleground states, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: I think One of the sense you're getting both from
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the issue choices and some of these last few visits
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: is that the primary focus, the most important states, the
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: states he cannot afford to lose, are the three states
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: that make up the so-called blue wall. Not really a
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: blue wall, thanks to 2016, but Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. And
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: that you're going to see a lot of focus there,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of time there, a lot of spending there,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and a lot of focus on economic issues. And it's
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: notable that that's where he has been delivering this hit
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: on Social Security and Medicare. And so- I think that's
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: sort of what– what it says is really the campaign
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: is off and running now. Like the starting gun was
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the State.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Of the Union.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: We are now campaigning. We're running ads. We're going to
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Battleground Space's opening campaign headquarters in Milwaukee and doing a lot.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: So we are off and running for– with only eight
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: months to go.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Less of a blue wall, more like a blue fence,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: like a mesh fence.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Kind of it's a– Not really.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: It's not too sturdy right now.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: It's one of those invisible electrical fences, which I think
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: you're probably not supposed to use for animals. And maybe
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: the battery works on the collar we put on Trump.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Maybe it doesn't. We don't know.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, it definitely doesn't. All right. Well, on the same
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: week that Biden and Trump sewed up their nominations, the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: potential third party spoilers also made some news. No labels
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: announced that they formed a nominating committee to select their candidate.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman, back in our lives. He said
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: that they could announce as early as March 21st. That's
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: next week. But that they'll still only move forward, he said,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: if they think they have a real chance to win
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: because they don't want to reelect Donald Trump. Meanwhile, their
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: national co-chair, former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, quit the group.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: You guessed it. Spent more time with his family. Lost
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: another one. Lost Larry Hogan because he's running for Senate.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Pat McCrory's gone. They're just losing people left and right there.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Then there's RFK Jr., I talked with Jane Koston on
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Wednesday's pod about RFK Jr. floating Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: as his running mate. Kennedy later confirmed that he will
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: be announcing his VP pick on March 26th in Oakland, California.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Rodgers played college football in nearby Berkeley. Turns out Rodgers
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: also told CNN's Pamela Brown a few years ago that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the Sandy Hook massacre was actually carried out by the U.S.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: government as a false flag operation. Un-fucking-real. Hours after CNN
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: broke the story, Kennedy was asked about Rodgers during a
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Fox News interview. Here's what he said.
• 34:13
  Speaker 9: Aaron Rodgers is battle-tested. He's stood up. He's been hammered
• 34:17
  Speaker 9: by the press. Stood up for things we believe. And
• 34:20
  Speaker 9: I like that part of his character. He's a critical thinker,
• 34:24
  Speaker 9: and I think we need that at the time as,
• 34:26
  Speaker 9: you know, the rise of AI. We need people who
• 34:29
  Speaker 9: understand that you cannot always trust authority just because somebody's
• 34:33
  Speaker 9: in charge.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: When I think of the rise of AI and the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: dangers of artificial intelligence, I think there's only one person
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: who can help us through this. That's Aaron Rodgers. Can
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I get your thoughts on the possibility of a Kennedy-Rodgers ticket?
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a parody at first. I didn't
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: believe it. And now it seems like he's maybe the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: top of the list.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: The guy has to report to Jets training camp in
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: four months. I don't. understand how this is going to work.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Is he not going to play football? Is he going
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: to retire from football to be the VP of Robert Kennedy?
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Do we think it's possible that his Achilles injury, the surgery,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: everything was just, he didn't recover as well as he
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: thought he would, and he doesn't want to do this
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: other season. So he's like, you know what? I'm just
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: going to use this as a way out.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's the case because I've seen a
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: lot of footage of him throwing footballs. They were sort
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: of ridiculously floating the idea he was going to come
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: back for the playoffs, which is a really brave thing
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: to say when the Jets are 6-10 or whatever they were.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: So it's like, I too will play in the playoffs.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's worth remembering that Aaron Rodgers, in the
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: midst of coming off his MVP season as quarterback, spent
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: an entire summer trying to become the host of Jeopardy.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah. But that's just like reading questions off
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: a card. That's not running for president.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm just saying the guy seems to be having
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: a crisis of some kind. He's leaving for a meeting
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: in his life.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: You think so?
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm getting the sense that football is just not
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: doing it for him.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It seems like it's been for some time since it
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: was a couple of years ago that he was at
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby with Pam Brown and told her, oh,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: by the way, Sandy Hook? Yeah, total false flag operation. Yeah.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And my buddy Alex Jones told me this.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Where's his information been?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess he wasn't– I mean, she probably
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: thought that he– because he's not– potentially a vice presidential candidate.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's been spreading COVID misinformation on podcasts all
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: over the world for years now.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Now we know, now we know.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: But I would say just as a political matter, this
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: would be great news for Democrats. I think it is doubling, tripling,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: quadrupling down on fucking weirdos. RFK Jr. Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And it also, it just seems fucking ridiculous. And that's
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: the best thing.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: By the way, in a Sandy Hook truther, not only
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: is it just fucking morally repugnant in like, it makes
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: me sick thinking about people saying that, but it's all
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: like most people are going to think that's way fucking
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: crazier than vaccine skepticism or vaccine or even full anti-vax, right? Unfortunately,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: but like Pete, like, saying that these children, like, crisis actors,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, the shit that Alex Jones was sued for
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: and lost for millions and millions of dollars for this,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: for defaming these poor families. And, like, what the fuck
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: is Aaron Rodgers running around spreading that bullshit for?
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, even if he was Anthony Fauci's intern and
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: a spokesperson for Pfizer, no one thinks that the quarterback
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: of the Jets should be fucking Vice President of the
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: United States. Like, that is an absurd notion.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Well, okay.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Well, Donald Trump is, you know, he was president for
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: another four.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but at least he pretended to be a businessman
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: for a half century. Like this is, it is, you remember,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I know we have to go back deep into our
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: memory holes here, but you remember that Kanye West was
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: on the ballot in 2020?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: There is a level of ridiculousness that voters are not
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: going to abide by. And I think Aaron Rodgers being
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: on the ticket is part of that. And if he
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: were like, well, he was a quarterback of the Green
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Bay Packers and Green Bay's in Wisconsin and Wisconsin's a
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: swing state. I was like, I'm just, This is Aaron
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Rodgers stealing Wisconsin from Joe Biden is a low on
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: my list of concerns.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: That, that Fox interview that where Kennedy's talking about him,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: he goes on to say like, and you know, it's
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: important for someone young to be on the ticket because
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: he's only 40. And then he also said, and, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I think he's going to help me get America healthy again.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I think that's, that's, that's why I'm really excited. He's
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: going to help people get healthy again. I'm like, why
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: is Aaron Rodgers?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Spokesperson for Iowa.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: So that's Aaron Rodgers. We'll find out a week from now.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I honestly cannot wait for what's going
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: to happen because the backup choices are also amazing. It's
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: not like it's Aaron Rodgers and then like a state
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: legislator from Oklahoma.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about it. Yeah, it could be
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Jesse Ventura or Mike Rowe, Discovery Channel host. There's some
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: real interesting people on that list. So the no labels
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: thing sounded like news until I realized that it was
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: just basically the announcement of a future announcement. Though then
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Lieberman did say March 21st, as early as March 21st.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: So What's going on there? They've gone from a– they're
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: going to have like a nominating convention in person to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a Zoom convention to now it's just a small committee
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: picking people. They've been turned down by a whole bunch
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: of people. Who has left? Who has left? I'm so
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: interested to see who they end up going with here.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe Aaron Rodgers if he doesn't make the Oh.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. I didn't think about that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm trying to think who the... If
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Aaron Rodgers is the RFK junior football player, who the
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: no-labels football.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Player would be? I don't even want to know.
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: It's a different.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: It's a terminally online subject, is my guess.
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: It.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I assume they just want to keep this thing going
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: so that the people at no labels can continue to
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: suck as much money as possible from politically naive billionaires.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: That seems like the most likely case because the idea,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Joe Lieberman, ridiculous human being that he is, we're not
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: going to do if we can't win. Read the fucking constitution.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: You can't win. You cannot win. If you do not
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: get to 270 electoral votes, it goes to the house.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: How many no labels party members are currently in the house?
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: It is an absurd proposition. No one has told me
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: what the fucking plan is here. I mean, just the
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: amount of absurd PowerPoints presented to people, apparently smart enough
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: to make a billion dollars on Wall Street, but not
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: smart enough to understand the most basic fundamental principles schoolhouse
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: rocks versions of politics. You just check here, check there.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Which should tell you something about how much smarts it
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: takes to be rich.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: There's a right brain, left brain thing. I don't know, but.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Not sending their best, the wealthy. Not sending their best.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: So would you say that you're more or less worried
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: about no labels than you were a month ago?
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: I am less worried. I mean, talk to me on
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: March 21st when they roll out some ticket, but The A,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Larry Hogan, Kyrsten Sinema, like all the names that have
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: been floated to us. Larry Hogan, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: That was more worrisome than a person we've never heard
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: of doing this.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan from Georgia.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Is that a choice?
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they floated him and they said he might be interested.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: He was the lieutenant governor under Kemp. I don't know
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: if he's still the lieutenant governor, but he's like anti-Trump,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: but still pretty conservative anyway.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I mean- Yeah, I'm still worried about it only because
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: every single place that is a way station for Biden
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: voters in 2020 who are unhappy with Joe Biden, who
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: don't want to cross the river to kind of vote
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: for Trump. Like we need this to be a choice
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: between either you vote for Joe Biden and Joe Biden's president,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: you vote for Donald Trump or a third party candidate
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: and Donald Trump is president. And if people have a place,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: every place there is for a protest vote makes it
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: easy for Donald Trump to win. So I remain worried,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: maybe a little bit less worried, but still worried.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Me too. All right, before we go to break, if
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard, Pod Save America is going back on
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the road with the Democracy or Else Tour. Starting in June,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: we'll be heading all over the country, including to key
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and more. So come
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: on out and bring your favorite undecided voter or your
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: least favorite undecided voter. Just bring one. I don't care.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Love It or Leave It will also be on tour.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Tickets for 2024 live shows are available today at 10 a.m. local.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Head to crooked.com slash events to grab yours today. When
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: we come back, Tommy talks to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Joining us now to talk about President Biden's record on
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: climate change, clean air, clean water, so much more, is
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Thank you for being here.
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: Hey, it's exciting to be here.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: What do we call you? Administrator?
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: Administrator.
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: I'll answer to anything as long as it's not derogatory.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Okay. I like that. I like that very much. I
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: like that a lot.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: So one of the issues that our audience cares about
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: the most is climate change. Can you just give us
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: like the kind of overview of what the administration has
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: done to combat climate change, what you'd like to accomplish
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: if President Biden gets another four years, and then how
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: the EPA fits into those efforts?
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I'm really proud of the way the
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: president has tackled climate change. And I think when you
• 43:23
  Speaker 6: look at the historic legislation that's been passed, the president
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: has worked considerably in a bipartisan way to create billions
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: of dollars to invest in where we see the private
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: sector already going. So this is an acceleration opportunity to
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: reduce pollution, but also to create jobs and invest in infrastructure.
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: EPA is at the center of that. Our goal is
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: to protect public health and the environment. And so traditionally
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: our agency through regulations look at ways to provide certainty
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: to the private sector in the market so that they
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: can make longer term investments for the good of their
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: business model, but also for the good of the planet.
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: This time around, the president has given what I like
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: to call us a little bit of walking around money.
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: You know, we've got a couple of billion dollars now
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: that we can invest in the industries that we're also regulating.
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: So it's a little bit of a stick and a carrot.
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: I think that's, emblematic of the president's vision for how
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: government should work, public-private partnerships. It's the most aggressive investment
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: in combating the climate crisis in United States history. So
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: I'm excited to be on the team and I'm really
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: excited about EPA's role in the president's vision. And hey,
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: I'm looking forward to getting eight years because I think
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: we've done a tremendous amount in the first three years.
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: But we've got a story to tell. We've got to
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: ensure that the American people understand that these historic investments
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: that are being made are for the long haul. Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: So the IRA passed about a year and a half ago.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: At the time, analysts predicted that the tax credits, the
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: investments in the bill in clean tech would cut greenhouse
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: gas emissions to about 40% below the 2005 levels by
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: the year 2030. So there's some outside groups that track
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: progress and implementation of the IRA. They say that despite
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: some of the headlines out there, the electric vehicle sales
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: are actually on target and doing well, but efforts to
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: get more carbon-free electricity into the electric grid are behind schedule.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: Is that right? And if that's the case, how do
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: we fix it?
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: You know, I think it's about right. You know, when
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, it's such a
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: massive piece of legislation. And you're talking about investing billions
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: of dollars into infrastructure and projects.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: Some of those projects are on time. And some of
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: those projects are requiring a little bit more cooperation between state, local,
• 45:57
  Speaker 6: and federal governments to make that investment. And bureaucracies can take.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: A little longer. Permitting stuff.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Permitting.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: New lines.
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: Getting municipalities to find matching funds for some of the
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: federal dollars. But also, some states who want this money...
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: To reduce carbon, having to deal with their state legislatures
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: who want to turn away money or do things for
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: political reasons solely.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: Sounds familiar from the Obamacare administration.
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Turning down free money.
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: Different topic, the same playbook. And listen, I think no
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: matter where you live, you know, you're seeing your state
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: invest in the future. newer technologies, newer business models to
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: reduce climate pollution. And it's just like we have a
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: climate reduction pollution grant program, CPRG. I get lost on
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: all these acronyms.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: There's so many acronyms.
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: And this is about $ 4. 6 billion where states can draw
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: up their own plan and compete for federal funds to
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: reduce climate change. And, you know, you see these legislators
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: and congressional representatives in the other party constantly say climate
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: change is false and fake. But you can go to
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: our website right now and you'll see Alabama, Alaska, state
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: plans asking for these dollars to combat the climate crisis.
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: And they're doing that because they want the money, because
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: they want the battery manufacturers in their states. They want
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: the clean technologies because they know that's how you recruit
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: a younger workforce. So what's playing out through the rhetoric
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: in Washington, D.C. isn't actually playing out on the ground.
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: And the president knows that. He sees right through it.
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: And he pledged from day one that he'd be a
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: president for everybody. And I think if you look at
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: some of the historic legislation and where the resources are going,
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: just as many resources are going to red states as
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: they are to blue states.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: The first trip I ever went on at the White
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: House was to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. And the guy
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: who worked for Bob Gates, his press guy, was like, hey,
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: come have lunch with us. So we sat down and
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: he's like, how are you liking the job? And I'd
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: didn't know what to say. And I was like, a
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: lot of acronyms, sir. That was the only thing I
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: could think to say. And he started laughing. He's like, man,
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: even I don't know what they're talking about half the time,
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: but I'm the boss. So they have to explain them
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: to me when I pause. So we need an acronym
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: reduction acts. We'll work on that after. So a couple
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: months ago, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over an
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: issue called the Chevron defense or the Chevron doctrine. Basically,
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: the idea is federal agencies should be allowed to interpret
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: the law to set regulations because they're experts while Congress
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: and the courts are not. I think anyone that has
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: watched Congress or the Supreme Court debate social media, for example,
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: we'll get it. So a lot of people are worried
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: that if the court overturned Chevron, it could fundamentally undercut
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: the government's ability to regulate stuff, in particular, your agency.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: What do you think a scenario where Chevron is overturned
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: would mean for the EPA?
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: You know, it's something that we are obviously watching very closely.
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: I think the majority of Americans think that Congress got
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: it right. they give agencies discretion because agencies are the experts.
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: And you know, some of the court decisions that we're
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: seeing as of late, in my view, restrict agencies from
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: doing what they are tasked to do. We have the mission.
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: We have the expertise. So when you look at the
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: cases like Chevron and others, without me predicting where I
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: think they will land, you really probably put a chill
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: in the market because as the regulator, we've been doing
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: this for, since 1970, most industry knows where we're going
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: to land in the ballpark. And we work hand in
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: hand with our stakeholders, whether it be communities or the
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: industry and the private sector. And so when you have
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: a court like what happened with, you know, our Clean
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: Water Act case, when you have the courts reverse 50
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: years of precedence, that not only hurts the agency's ability
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: to protect water quality or air quality or whatever topic
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: may be, but it also upsets the apple cart for
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: the predictability that we provide for industry. So, you know,
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: we're seeing some decisions at the Supreme Court level that
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: obviously we disagree with. But at the end of the day,
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: we have to find a way to protect public health,
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: protect the environment, protect water quality, And make sure that
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: every single person in this country has a clean and
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: healthy place to live.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: I was looking at some of these cases. The Supreme
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: Court is considering a request to block the EPA's Good
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: Labor Plan, which basically tries to prevent interstate pollution. You know,
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: one state dumping a bunch of pollution downstream to another.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: They've gone after your ability to regulate power plant emissions,
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: to protect wetlands. I mean, are the courts becoming the
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: biggest impediment to the mission of the EPA?
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: You know, we're having to, I'd like to say we're
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: having to measure twice and cut once, meaning we have
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: to spend a lot more time just ensuring that our
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: decisions are durable. And, you know, the interpretations that we
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: used to have for our statutory authority, obviously the courts
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: are taking a different tact. And so we're having to
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: adjust to that. That's slowing down progress. That is also
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: creating uncertainty in the markets because now even industry and
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: those we regulate may agree with some of our decisions
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: and we're both seeing them overturn in the courts. We're
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: seeing fewer pesticides being able to hit the markets. You know,
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: Waters of the U.S. is another Supreme Court decision that
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: has really created some chaos on the ground in terms
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: of local permitting and decisions around clean water. West Virginia
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: versus EPA is sort of that decision around power plants
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: that really slowed down where the private sector was already going.
• 52:13
  Speaker 6: The interesting thing about the West Virginia versus EPA case
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: is the Supreme Court evaluated a rule that never took effect.
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: And so industry was already anticipating that this rule was
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: going to go in a certain direction. So they made
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: massive investments. The rule that never took effect, that the
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: Supreme Court took time to evaluate, actually achieved less emission
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: reductions than what happened in reality. So we focused on
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: a rule that never took effect that was not as
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: ambitious as what is happening in reality. I just think
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: that the courts should really focus on the things that
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: matter and not really play into what seems to be
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: a political temperature that is guiding some of these decisions.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Back on climate change for a Cutting methane emissions
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: is key to combating climate change because methane traps in
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: way more heat than carbon dioxide. Methane also breaks down
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: faster in the atmosphere. I think it's like 12 years
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: as opposed to centuries for CO2, which just sits up there.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: So for listeners, long story short, if we cut methane
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: emissions fast, it'll have a big impact. Some of those
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: reductions will come from fixing leaky oil and gas infrastructure.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: Some will come from livestock management, which is where this
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: conversation can get very stupid. Here is a quick clip
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: from a guy named Larry Kudlow. He's a financial news
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: commentator and former Trump aide.
• 53:37
  Speaker 8: To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has
• 53:42
  Speaker 8: to get this. America has to stop eating meat, stop
• 53:45
  Speaker 8: eating poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy and animal based fats.
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: OK, we've got that.
• 53:52
  Speaker 8: No burgers on July 4th. No steaks on the Barbie.
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: I'm sure middle America is just going to love that.
• 53:59
  Speaker 8: Can you grill those Brussels sprouts? So get ready. You
• 54:04
  Speaker 8: can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels
• 54:09
  Speaker 8: sprouts and wave your American flag. Call it July 4th Green.
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: Setting aside the fact that it sounds like Larry Kudlow
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: is drinking meat-based beer, that's weird. You do hear this
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: nonsense a lot. Can you address... the people who think
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: that Joe Biden wants to ban hamburgers? Is that in
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: the cards?
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: It's just completely ridiculous. Number one, EPA doesn't have the
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: legal authority to regulate animals in this way from a
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: methane standpoint. So we have no desire to do that.
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: It's not on the table. And, you know, society is
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: just a victim of a lot of misinformation. When you
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: really look at what President Biden is doing on the
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: issue of methane, what he has done is he's tasked
• 55:02
  Speaker 6: EPA to develop a technology standard that, by the way,
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: the majority of the natural gas industry has signed on
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: to do. And we're actually using technology ranging from robotic
• 55:16
  Speaker 6: dogs to The Environmental Defense Fund, a national nonprofit, just
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: launched a $ 100 million satellite into space to monitor methane.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: They can see the leaks, right?
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: They can see the leaks all over the world in
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: real time. So the industry said to us, hey, we
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: need a regulation that creates a fair competition for all
• 55:34
  Speaker 6: of us to reduce our methane emissions at the same
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: time because organizations like EDF and community groups have more
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: access to information. So give us something that we all
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: can rally around. And we did that. We're leading the
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: world in some of these technology standards. So we're focused
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: on the realities of leveraging technology standards and new business
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: models to tackle pollution. By the way, I think the
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: industry would even agree that if you can detect a
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: leak and plug that leak, you're actually saving product, which
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: saves them money.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: That's too rational. for Larry to grab onto, he'd much
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: rather focus on cows and other, uh, things like, I
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: guess you said it best, meat-based beer. Maybe he's drinking
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: meat-based beer.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: And everyone in middle America says, uh, steaks on the Barbie.
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: That's very, uh, common. So what's the plan here? Is
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: we giving cows some Tums or some sort of an acid?
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: Like what, is there an actual, is there a fix
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: to methane release from livestock or is it just over
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: time changing habits?
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: From, from my position at EPA, um, Because I don't
• 56:46
  Speaker 6: regulate cows for methane reasons, and I enjoy a good
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: steak and hamburgers. I just would like for cows to
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: live happy and do what they're doing.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: Okay, do what they're doing. Maybe, yeah, don't go out
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: on Friday nights.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: You'll feel a little better.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: So the president has talked a lot about replacing lead pipes,
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: including during a State of the Union address. There are
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: probably some listeners who are thinking, Tommy, why are you
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: asking about pipe maintenance? I'm already bored. But this is
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: a big deal. And I was wondering if you could
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: give folks kind of the overview of why getting rid
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: of these lead pipes is so important.
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: Number one, we know that there is absolutely no acceptable
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: level of lead exposure. It's a scary thing when you
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: think about our children being lead poisoned. Not only does
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: it create physical ailments for them, but it impacts cognitive
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: ability and really can undercut what their potential is as
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: individuals in this country. And so the president has pledged
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: $ 15 billion to begin to eradicate all lead service lines
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: in this country. We're also focused on some regulations that
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: would bring that lead exposure down. It's important because certain
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: populations in this country are disproportionately exposed to lead. And
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: the president has pledged that in all of his pursuits,
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: no communities would be left behind. This is something that
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: we can and must do something about. And I just
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: think that most people don't understand or think that members
• 58:16
  Speaker 6: of their communities are drinking poison in their water. And
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: that's exactly what has been going on. And the president
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: has pledged to do away with that.
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: And how does that effort to get rid of these
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: lead pipes sort of fit into the broader environmental justice
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: campaign that I know you guys are working on?
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: You know, everything that we do at EPA is done
• 58:34
  Speaker 6: through an environmental justice lens. the resources that we have,
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: the regulations and policies that we design are designed to
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: help those who are exposed the most first. And so
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: when we think about less service lines, obviously the criteria
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: for giving this money to the states really is prioritized
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: for those communities who are disproportionately exposed, which typically are
• 59:00
  Speaker 6: black and brown or low-income communities. But, you know, with
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: the Justice40 initiative, 40% of all of the investments that
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: we're making through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act,
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: 40% of those investments must go into and stay in
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: frontline communities. Again, I think the president believes that solutions
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: should come from the bottom up. And for those who
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: have been at the back of the line, they should
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: get a fair shot In society, just like everyone else.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: I was reading a bit about you and I saw
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: that you got into this field because you grew up
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: hunting and fishing. What kind of fish are we talking
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: about here? Freshwater, saltwater, fly?
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: Freshwater, largemouth bass.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: Largemouth bass.
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: A good brim is fun to catch as well.
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: And I saw you were up in Alaska recently.
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: Dealing with the pebble mine issue. I actually worked on
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: that back in the day, full disclosure, trying to prevent
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: the pebble mine, this horrible thing. open pit mining operation
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: from going into Bristol Bay, Alaska.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: One of the most precious resources the country has. Did
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: you get to fish up there?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: I did.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: You spend some time?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: I spent a little bit of time. Catch anything?
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: I think there's a picture that proves I caught at
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: least one rainbow trout.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: How big?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: You know, I didn't really come on this show to
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 6: be embarrassed.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: You didn't go for the big ass salmon that are
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: supposed to be everywhere?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: I did, but apparently we went to a different fishing
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: spot than they normally take the administrator, you know, and
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: there wasn't that cage where they let the fish out
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 6: so I could catch them. So they had this little
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: puny thing that I caught that maybe was about 14
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: to 16 inches.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: I just hand it to you.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Hold this up.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, I asked this because it's interesting. I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: like to fish a lot too. I grew up fishing
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: with my dad, but also it feels like this is
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: one of those areas where the environmental movement crosses party lines.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? There's a lot of Republicans
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: who want to preserve lands and wateries for fishing, for
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: hunting and, because it's culture, it's part of a tradition.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: And I'm just wondering how you think about building the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: biggest possible coalition for your work and making sure that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: it feels as inclusive as possible.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: You know, that's just it. I think I grew up
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 6: hunting and fishing, and I also grew up with respiratory
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: challenges that were similar to asthma. So when you're out
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: there and you have that asthma attack or that respiratory distress,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: that means you're not out there with dad or granddad.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: So you're missing out on the fun. I think most
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 6: people who understand and like sports can understand that if
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: you have a bunch of pollution and you can't participate
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: in sport, then you're missing out. I grew up in
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: eastern North Carolina. And so in these rural communities, obviously,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: you have a lot of both red and blue homes that,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: quite frankly, all conversations aren't political. They're more so focused
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: on culture and the things that you enjoy. So when
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: I talk about the environmental movement, I try to think
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 6: about it through that lens. Protecting natural resources for those
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: who like to hunt and fish, thinking about economic development
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: opportunities for those who think about the financial side. But listen,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: this is a long way from 1960 and tree hugging.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: When you think about today's environmentalist, you really are thinking
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: about the latest and greatest technologies that you can apply
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: to solving these problems. You know, growing up in eastern
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: North Carolina, most of us like cars. I think it's
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: really fun to drive an old car, an antique car.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: But if you like speed and if you've driven a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: 1967 Chevy with a 454 engine and then you jump
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: into a Tesla, you know, the torque, the technology, they're
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: not even comparable.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: There are ways that we can bridge all of these gaps.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: If you like speed, if you like technology, if you
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: like making money, if you like hunting, if you like fishing,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: these are not blue and red issues. These are just
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: American issues. And I try to talk about it in
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: that way and try to visit communities that represent all
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 6: of the things that you and I are discussing today.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah. This is a part of the show I like
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: to call dumb questions for smart people. So I hope
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: you'll indulge me. So you're from North Carolina and Why
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: are Duke players and fans so insufferable? I hope you're
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: not a Duke fan. I should have researched that first.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: I think that I have to go home and a
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 6: lot of friends are there. So I would say that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: Duke fans aren't that bad.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: Come on.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: Coach K like scolds the other teams, yells at the fans,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: berates his players when he loses. He's retired now, but.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, but see, you asked me a question about the players,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: and now you're talking about the behavior of the coach. True, true, true.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: I think I can agree with you on that.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: Who do you root for?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 6: I graduated from A & T State University, so I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: am a proud Aggie. And as you know, being and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: spending some time in North Carolina, getting into the ACC
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 6: politics is a dangerous thing.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: I know, I know.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: You got to steer clear of those folks.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Any relation to Ronald Reagan?
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: You know, this is painful for me to say, but
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: Growing up in middle school, I was really teased about
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: being the illegitimate child.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: Come on, man.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 6: So, you know, you're bringing back a little bit of PTSD.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Come on, man.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 6: I'm really not appreciative of this right now.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: Oh, there goes my nipple baby question. Do you know
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: where Kate Middleton is? Can the EPA help with that?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: You know, I was just talking to my wife about
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: that the other night. I came home and was really
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: frustrated about working through, you know, a very technical rule.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: Uh-huh.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 6: And she said, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, right
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: now I'm on a chain and we're trying to figure
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 6: out what Kate Middleton is. I was thinking we are
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: living two different lives right about now.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: Your marriage sounds a lot like my marriage. Which invasive
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: species do you hate the most? Ash borer, zebra mussel,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: Eric Trump. What are we looking at? What do we
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: have our eye on these days? C. Do you guys
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: handle invasive species or is that somebody else?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: We dibble and dabble a little bit. We share that
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 6: with the Department of Interior.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: Gotcha. Okay. Rahm Emanuel used to get very mad about
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: the Asian carp. That was sort of my experience with this.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: Apparently they jump out of the water, they hit people
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: in boats and shit.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: It's a problem.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: I've seen those videos.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: Last question. And if this is in your bag, tell me. Recycling.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: We all do it. It's important. Also, we judge others
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: who don't do it. I don't know what really gets
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: recycled though. If I'm getting a bunch of takeout and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: I'm putting the little plastic containers in the special bin,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: is that like Penang stained plastic getting reused? Or is
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: this like for show? How does this all work?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: Listen, first of all, let me say this. I think
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: I've traveled to about 38, 39 states and 13 countries.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: When you talk about climate change, young people get excited.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: When you talk about plastics and recycling, it seems like
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: the intensity of the excitement is about the same. So recycling,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: all jokes aside, has become a really big focus for EPA.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 6: My son is 10. And, you know, when it comes
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: to recycling materials, he is all on it. So I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: have been looking into this question you pose, which is,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: what are we really recycling? Is it going to the
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 6: right places? And I would say that the answer is
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: it is increasingly recycling. getting better because this country is
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 6: starting to really understand how to monetize it. And I
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: think that once you introduce the ability to monetize and
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: we now have a market of young people and others
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: who are demanding tighter standards, we're starting to see more
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: interest in that area.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: But so glass is good, right? Like glass, put it
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: in the recycling bin, it's going somewhere, it'll get used.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: I just worry about the plastic because it feels like
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: it's all just winding up in like literally the middle
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: of the Pacific Ocean, like going in circles and just
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: not getting necessarily reused. But there's this industry that's telling
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: us that these things are getting recycled. I feel like
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: they're not sometimes.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 6: Well, they haven't been traditionally. I think we're starting to
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 6: see markets emerge where companies want the recycle products. I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 6: was just in Ghana recently and just looking at a
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 6: bunch of entrepreneurs there that are really into electronic recycling.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 6: And the things that they are refurbishing and the way
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: they're reusing older technology is just amazing. And so, you know,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: I was a little bit skeptical like you are, but
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 6: my eyes have been open as I've been traveling the
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: world and seeing not only how big of a problem
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 6: it is, but how interested so many people are in it.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 6: And young people definitely are interested in recycling.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: When you meet with skeptical Republicans, maybe they question whether
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: the government regulates too much. Maybe they question, you know,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: whether climate change is manmade in the role of the EPA.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: Do you ever just tell them, I work at an
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: agency that Nixon created? Does that like impact people? Do
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: they realize that this was actually a creation of a
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: Republican president?
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think most of them have forgotten that. And
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: most have forgotten that when you look at the Clean
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: Air Act, And the revisions to the act, that was
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: done during Republican administrations as well. I don't know where
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: we got off track. Clean air and clean water should
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: not be a partisan thing. And I think that as
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 6: we move forward and as I move forward, I try
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: to meet people where they are. I'll be honest with you.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 6: Most Republicans behind closed doors don't challenge me on climate science.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: The performative aspects, when the lights and cameras are on,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: It's much different than the serious discussions that we're having
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: behind closed doors.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: Then it's Larry Kudlow drinking meat beer.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: Who's listening to that stuff, man?
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know. For God's sake, God help that man.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: Administrator Regan, thank you so much for coming and doing
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: the show.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: Hey, thank you for having me. It's been fun.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Michael Regan for joining us today. Everyone have
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.
• 1:09:16
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  Speaker 1: to get through this election year, Political Breakdown from KQED
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