Latest / Pod Save America / “Slush Fund Baby.”

Transcript

“Slush Fund Baby.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, we'll talk about Donald Trump's refusal to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: use his authority to force the production of life-saving medical equipment,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the Democrats' fight to get a worker-friendly economic relief bill
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: through Congress, and how the coronavirus is affecting the 2020 campaign.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But first, you should all know that, unfortunately, the three
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of us are not together this morning. We'll be recording
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: all Crooked Pods from our respective homes until it's safe
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to head back into the studio. So please bear with us,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: but know that we will all keep churning out our
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: regularly scheduled pods. Because what the hell else do we
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: have to do? Right, guys?
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: Nothing.
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: My laptop is balanced on a copy of Hillary Clinton's
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: hard choices.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It's like a lot of metaphors there, but, you know,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: we'll just.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Lovett, how was the show this week? I hear your
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: quarantine bunny showed up.
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we did another episode of Lovett or Leave It
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: Back in the Closet. I was joined by Ronan Farrow
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: of The New Yorker. And my couch. We also took
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: calls from couples struggling in quarantine. And then I talked
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: to Adam Schiff about the latest on the congressional response.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It was a welcome respite.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: That's good. I'm glad. Two other members of the Cricket
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: family who will continue to churn out daily episodes are
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick of What A Day fame.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: They help you keep up on all the day's news
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: in just 20 minutes. So if you haven't yet, please
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And finally, thank you,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you to everyone who's helped us raise
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: over $ 465, 000 for Crooked's Coronavirus Fund, where your donation is
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: split between groups helping food banks, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, seniors,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: kids who depend on school lunches, and others during this crisis.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Please donate at crooked.com slash coronavirus. And also throughout this episode,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we're going to play a few more stories from healthcare workers,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: from people who are really freaked out about what we're
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: dealing with right now and sort of the lack of
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: medical equipment and supplies. And so we'll be playing a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: couple of those stories that you sent us, the voice
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: notes that you sent us throughout this episode.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So here's where we are. The coronavirus pandemic has now
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: claimed the lives of over 400 Americans and affected nearly 40,000.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: And even though one out of every three Americans have
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: now been ordered to stay home in an effort to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: slow the virus, this is going to be a really
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: tough week because thousands more who were infected before these
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: orders took place will start showing up at hospitals that
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: are already running dangerously low on beds, masks, gowns and ventilators.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what the government can do
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to avoid the worst case scenarios here. But first, I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: want to talk about why the U.S. has been slower
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and more unprepared for this pandemic. than countries like Germany
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: or South Korea. This is from an incredibly damning Washington
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Post piece over the weekend, quote, U.S. intelligence agencies were
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: issuing ominous classified warnings in January and February about the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: lawmakers played down the threat. One anonymous U.S. official said, quote,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: lot of other people in the government were. They just
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: couldn't get him to do anything about it. The system
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: was blinking red. Tommy, how significant was this story and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: what was your reaction?
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, I honestly predicted that this story was coming.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: It's one of the most damning things I've read about
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: all the warnings Trump ignored for months, literally. I mean,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the coronavirus threat didn't need to be in the PDB,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: the President's Daily Intelligence Briefing, for him to know it
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: was serious. He could have turned on the news and
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: or turned on social media and looked at hospitals in
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: China or Or later on, he could have looked at
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: what was happening in Italy and seen that this threat
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: was coming. And the WHO was saying, you guys need
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: to prepare for this.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Fauci and people at the CDC were saying it. But
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: that Washington Post report laid out in unbelievable comprehensive detail
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: just how long of a head start we could have
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: had to prepare for the coronavirus. And you juxtapose that
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: with what Trump was saying at the time that it's handled.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: We're going to be fine. It's just like the cold.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: It's really one of the most damning things I've read.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: In my mind, it's akin to George W. Bush receiving
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: a PDB bulletin about bin Laden's determination to attack the
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: United States in August before 9-11. I think it's that
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: scale of a government-wide failure.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Lovett, what do you think of the story?
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, Trump has slow rolled this every step
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: of the way, and he's still doing it right now.
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: He is still, you know, we are going to read
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: stories a month from now about the slow rolling on
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: using the government's power to get companies to make ventilators
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: and masks. Donald Trump has been concerned about one thing
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: from the very beginning, which is how this would affect
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: his poll numbers and the markets in the very short term.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: That is why he was keeping ships, the number of
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: people on ships from being counted against our totals. That
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: is why he was saying we had it under control.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: That is why he was so obsessed with how low
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: our numbers were early on. And every step of the way,
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: he is failing to actually take it seriously enough. And
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: it's continuing right now. He is right now still not
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: using the powers he has in his office to take
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: care of people as we speak. So this idea, you know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: he has kind of two modes. One is I'm the best.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: And the other is no one could have done better
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: than me. And they're subtly different. I'm the best is
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: what he says when he thinks he can defend every
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: action he's taken. No one's done better than me is
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: what he's been doing lately, which is because he knows
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: how many of these bad stories are out there. And
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: he knows that There's all these people talking about testing
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: and all the rest. It's why he's redounding to nobody
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: could have predicted this. Nobody could have imagined this. Nobody
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: could have seen this coming. When everyone was telling him
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: this was coming, this was the most predicted event possible.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: He's also in his blame China mode now also. And
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: he's calling it the Chinese virus. He's doing all this bullshit.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But I found it fascinating in this piece that part
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of the whole problem is he took president xi's word
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: over u.s intelligence there's a quote um uh there's a
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: tweet from donald trump in february that says china has
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: been working very hard to contain the coronavirus the u.s
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency it will all work
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: out well i want to thank president xi and this
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: piece is basically saying that like well all the people
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in the government including his own by the way it
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't just like the world health organization all the other
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: people It was his director of domestic policy in the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: White House. It was his own cabinet telling him all this.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And the intelligence officials, too, are telling him that like
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: China is not telling the truth on this. And at
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the same time, he's thanking President Xi for like, you know,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: telling him all this stuff. It's crazy.
• 7:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, he wants the racism. He wants to
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: demagogue this as the China virus because he knows that
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: it's an easy thing to pick a fight about in
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: the press. He knows that his base loves when he
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: attacks China and it is actively racist towards them, but
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: he doesn't want to upset Xi Jinping for a variety
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: of economic reasons, probably. And so we're in this weird
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: place where he ignored all these warnings, but has been
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: praising the guy publicly over and over again. But yeah,
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, to your point, John, it's not just that
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: the intel people were warning Trump about what was happening
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: with the coronavirus and the looming threat. And we have
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: to assume that they had access to, say, intercepted Chinese
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: communications that really spoke to how bad the problem was
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: at a time when China was hiding the ball. But
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: like Alex Azar, the HHS secretary, tried to call Trump,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: I think in January, to talk to him about the coronavirus.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: And he berated him about restrictions on vaping. Because he's
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: worried that's going to harm his reelect. So that's what
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: was in this guy's head. That's why we are where
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: we are.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: There's another part of this story that reminded me, we've
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: almost forgotten about this story. It took place last week. Quote,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the surge in warnings coincided with a move by Senator
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Richard Burr to sell dozens of stocks worth between $ 628, 000
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and $ 1. 72 million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly classified
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: reporting on the coronavirus. Burr issued a statement Friday defending
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: his sell-off, saying he sold based entirely on public available information,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and he called for the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So that's one of two Republican senators that we know
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of who basically dumped stocks because they knew that shit
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was going to get bad, even as they told the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: public that everything was fine and that everything was being
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: overhyped with regard to the coronavirus.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: What a monster.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, Burr put out that statement with his
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: tail between his legs. I would really love to understand
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: the technology he used to only use the part of
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: his brain that used public information and not use the
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: part of his brain that had private classified information to
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: make that sale. Obviously, if there's a real investigation, we'll
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: find out what he told people at the time when
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: he made that decision. But he's counting on the fact
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: that he can get away with that because it's in
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: his mind. Then there's Loffler, Kelly Loffler. who gave this
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: incredible denial of kind of the whole, like it's a
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: strongly worded denial that leaves room for a bunch of
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: different ways in which she could have actually made these decisions.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: But what I found so galling about the Loeffler, about
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: the Loeffler and her husband, by the way, who runs
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: the New York fucking stock exchange, cool power couple, that
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: what I love about that, the audacity of her decision-making, yeah,
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: she sold a bunch of stock, but she did make
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: some purchases about telework, She saw that there was a
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: real opportunity in telework.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Incredible.
• 10:02
  Speaker 8: Incredible.
• 10:03
  Speaker 9: Coincidence.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Coincidence there. Can't wait till we find that Mitch McConnell
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: started investing in Zoom right before this started.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: And look, I am not one... I'm sorry.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: I am not one for just wildly speculating about Donald
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: Trump's finances and the houses in Russia and Turkey and
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: all the rest.
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: However.
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump pauses in every fucking press conference. Every president
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: talks about how doctors are seeing patients via telemedicine. Then
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: he leaves his talking points and gives a weird plug
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: for the field of telemedicine every single time. Jared got
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: him into telemedicine. That's where his money is.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And we have no idea. But that's just I just
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: want to lay it out there.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, just to spell this out on Burr. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Burr is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: would be privy to all the highest level briefings Trump
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: was getting at the time. So he had the longest
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: head start of anyone outside the federal government or the
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: intelligence community. We then heard this audio of him speaking
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: to some private audience of like very influential people who
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: bought into some club in North Carolina. And he was
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: giving them pretty dire warnings as he was telling the
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: broader public that everything was going to be fine. The
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: coronavirus will be taken.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Care of, etc.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: And so it really is as bad as it gets.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: And then, yeah, Trump was asked whether he sold any
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: stock yesterday. He said, I don't own stocks. I own
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: assets or own things or something like Hugh Hewitt, like
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: exploded with joy, was like, you know, pleasuring himself to
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: this quote. And then I like Googled Trump, you know,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: personal financial disclosure. He owns like hundreds of millions of
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: dollars in stocks and equities. So I don't know if
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: he sold them or not, but it's just amazing that
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: the the MAGA sycophants what they're willing to believe from
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: this guy without doing a simple Google search just to
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: verify it.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: It's so easy.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Not Hugh. I can't imagine that coming from Hugh.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Hugh Hewitt.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about the current response. The
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: World Health Organization says that the only way to really
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: slow the virus is by mass testing so that you
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: can catch some portion of the 80% of people who
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: have mild or no symptoms and make sure that they self-quarantine.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: We are nowhere near that capacity yet. And so, Mayors
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and governors and healthcare workers are begging the federal government
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: for more beds and ventilators and masks and other protective equipment. Meanwhile,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Trump and Pence and the rest of them give a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: press briefing every day where the message is basically always,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: help is on the way, the tests are coming, Navy
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: ships are coming, masks and ventilators are coming, treatments are coming. Tommy,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: what's the real story of where the response is right
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: now and where it's falling short on the federal government side?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, what it seems like is that the spread
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: of the coronavirus has gotten so out of control that
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: the early need for testing to identify which individuals had
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: the virus and then specifically isolate them is kind of gone.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: The horse has left the barn, to struggle for a metaphor.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And so we're at a place where we are all
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: essentially as a country being asked to not leave our
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: home for at least 15 days to ensure that everyone
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: who has it, whether they know it or not, is self-isolating.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And so in the meantime, we are still, I think,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: pretty far behind what will likely be the peak of
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: the number of cases of coronavirus. And already we're seeing
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: hospitals in some places starting to get overwhelmed. I mean,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: it's not just that we can't test at this point.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: The bigger concern is that caregivers in many of these
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: hospitals don't have the gear they need to protect themselves
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: from contracting the coronavirus in the process of trying to
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: care for people. And that, in many ways, is a
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: far more dire situation. I mean, if half the workforce
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: in the healthcare community contracts the coronavirus and can't treat people,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: then what the hell do we do?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, Lovett, can you talk about
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: what's going on with the Defense Production Act, which is...
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: you know, part of what a lot of these governors
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and healthcare workers and local officials are hoping will solve
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the problem that Tommy's talking about?
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, the Defense Production Act gives the
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: federal government the ability to direct supplies, resources, and the
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: making of needed supplies and resources to get things like masks, ventilators,
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: and important equipment to places it's needed most. There has
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: been an incredible confusion from Donald Trump about whether he will,
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: has plans to invoke the Defense Production Act. He has
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: lied about it in press briefings for a week now,
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: maybe longer, saying he is doing it, then saying he's
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: only planning to do it. Then Chuck Schumer calls him
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: and says, can you please do it? And he, like
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: he's a small business owner who just found out about
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: a package that didn't get shipped, like get puts, puts
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: Chuck on hold and shouts, Hey, we got to invoke
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: the defense production acts.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Where are we on that? Chuck wants it. Let's do it.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. Doesn't happen.
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: Um, so, uh, and, and, and the press conference yesterday, they,
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: they had the audacity to say, uh, they're not invoking
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: it because private sector is taking care of this.
• 15:03
  Speaker 8: On its own.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: And we don't want to employ the heavy hand of government.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: You know, I, I'm not going to say where, uh,
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: An ER doctor that I know who is figuring out
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: how to manage this crisis in LA just had to
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: move into the garage at his house and find a
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: mini fridge so that he can stay away from his
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: family for the next month, however long, not see his kids,
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: not see his wife, not talk to anybody, not engage
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: with the supermarket, figuring out a way to keep himself
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: away from everybody. Because he knows he's about to go
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: to a hospital that doesn't have the equipment it needs
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: to protect himself, to protect his nurses, to protect the
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: people that are coming in for treatment. These doctors are
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: screaming for help. They're working 18, 20 hours a day,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: barely able to sleep, afraid to talk to anybody, afraid
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: to go home. And we have the president and his
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: team saying the fear is there'll be government overreach in
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: the production of the supplies that these doctors need to
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: keep people and themselves alive.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, he compared it to Venezuela, right? I mean,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: he said like, this is socialism is what he sees.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: So I think the thing is important is like, this
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: is so complicated. Our supply chains are so complicated, right?
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, I heard a story about a organization that
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: makes N95 masks, but the raw materials they need to
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: make those masks, they source from Wuhan, China. So that
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: shipment is going to be held up for a little while.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: And so the notion that like private sector can just
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: come to us piecemeal and we can figure this out
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: and there's some magic will happen out there. Like, no,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: you need the White House, the federal government coordinating this.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: And so luckily, Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz have a bill
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: that they've put forward that will dictate that the president
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: has to ensure the production of a half a billion
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: N95 respirators, a bunch of ventilators, face shields, et cetera,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: to try to force his hand here. But The notion
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: that the federal government shouldn't be coordinating this because it's
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: socialism is like offensively stupid.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Well, it was at least clarifying after all the lies
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that Lovett was talking about that at the press conference yesterday,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: he finally revealed the real reason he's not invoking this
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: power that he has, which is he said, you just
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: mention it and it sends a tremor through CEOs, a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: tremor through CEOs that the government directed them to produce
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: things in a time of crisis. when healthcare workers are
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: literally making their own masks, reusing masks, using bandanas. I mean,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the stories, everyone can hear these stories. They're everywhere right now.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: And this is a very, like, you're right. This is like,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Trump keeps saying, oh, well, all these companies are volunteering.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: But like, that's why we have a federal government in
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: times of crisis. You don't have fucking companies volunteering here
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: and there. Like, as Cuomo has been saying, Governor Cuomo
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: has been saying, like, the problem here is different states
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: are competing against each other for these supplies. And so
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: what you need is to have the federal government say, OK,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: this company make ventilators, this company make masks, this company
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: makes parts for this thing that we need. And then
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you coordinate the whole response. And again, like, you know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt did this during World War Two when we needed
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: sort of mass production to have government control the supply chain.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And governors are asking for it. Governors in both parties.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It's not a partisan thing. It is fucking insane that
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't want to do this because he's worried
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: what the CEOs may say.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: And it's also just also worth just pointing out just
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: how like this is the ideology and this is it's
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: incredibly dangerous.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: These companies like those CEOs, these these companies there, they
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: have obligations to their boards, to shareholders, to employees. They
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: may want to be enlisted in this fight. They may
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: want the government to come in and say, make me
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: do this. you know, whether it's banning smoking in restaurants
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: or a minimum wage, when the government comes in and says,
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: these are the rules, this is what we're expecting of you,
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: and every company knows that every company is participating in
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: this effort, then the responsibility is shared and nobody is
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: trying to compete to not be involved in the response,
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: to not do their part. Right now we have a
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: bunch of companies trying to figure out if they can
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: participate in some way, get supplies to some place in
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: this incredibly ad hoc way, called by a governor, called
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: by a mayor, called by fucking Mike Pence, whoever it is. Like,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: We are in a historic once a century crisis. This
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: law exists for this moment.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Also, the government's going to pay them fair prices for this.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: The government's not just like taking over and making them
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: do stuff without paying them. Like it's going to be
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: a fucking orderly process here. Well, maybe not because Trump's
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: running it. But so a lot of people are wondering
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: how long life will be like this. And late last night,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: we got a pretty strong hint about where Trump is
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: on this question from an all caps tweet that said,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: At the end of the 15-day period, we will make
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a decision as to which way we want to go.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Then he retweeted a bunch of random Twitter morons saying...
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we should isolate the high-risk groups and let everyone else
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: go back to work. Tommy, where is this coming from?
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like he was watching a segment
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: on Fox News hosted by some goober named Steve Hilton
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: that I thought might have been associated with the hotels
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: but is not, and thus I don't care about his opinion.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And he just copied what he said, which is that
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: we cannot let the cure be worse.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Than the problem itself.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Now, public health experts are calling for longer periods of
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: social distancing and quarantine. The people who aren't are Trump
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: and his political aides and people on Wall Street who
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: are worried about the stock market and Trump's guys who
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: are worried about the general state of the economy and re-election.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: And so, I do think it's worth having a conversation
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: about the impact that a long-term self quarantine might have
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: on the economy and on individuals, right? Like 30 million
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: kids in the U S count on school lunches for
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: one or two meals a day. We have to worry
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: about that. Families on the brink of bankruptcy. We have
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: to worry about that. Just loneliness and isolation. I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: that can cause mental health problems and we should talk
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: about it, but that's not what Trump is talking about.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Like this is gross and it's cynical and it's, considerations
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: from Goldman Sachs CEOs and like people on his political
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: team who want to pretend that this virus is going
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: to go away because we just started to find it
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: inconvenient when the reality is we are just starting to
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: do the things we need to do to address it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Love it. What'd you think about that whole Trump Trump's turn?
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: So there is that strain. It goes beyond Trump.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: There is that strain of like, you know, there was
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: a Goldman Sachs call that seemed like it was written
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: by the writer's room of succession to make Goldman Sachs
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: seem completely sociopathic and evil, explaining like, you know, yeah,
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: if this really spreads, sure.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: We'll lose a lot of people, but a lot of
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: those people would.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: Have died anyway. And it really reminds me of Dr. Strangelove,
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: you know, where one of the guys is advocating for
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: nuclear war and how we'll win the nuclear war. And
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: the guy says, but millions of Americans will die. And
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: he says, I'm not saying we won't get our hair
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: must a little.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: You know, It's sociopathic.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: What public health officials have been saying repeatedly is the
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: goal is to slow the spread so that we do
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: not overwhelm the medical system so that more people don't
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: have to die. Because if we can slow the spread,
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: it's not saying it won't reach a lot of the
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: American population. But if we slow the spread, those people
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: can get the care they need. The health system won't
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: be completely overwhelmed. They'll be the ventilators we need for
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: people or we'll have had time to build up the
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: stock ventilators and masks so that we're ready when the
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: surge of patients eventually comes. What they are talking about
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: is abandoning the American people. And by the way, high risk,
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: I would love to know what they're going to ultimately
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: define as high risk when they let people come out
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: of their homes, because if they're talking about over 60,
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: that's a huge proportion of the population on top of
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: pregnant people, people who are immunocompromised, people with diabetes, people
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: with heart conditions, people with morbid obesity, whatever the condition
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: will be, high risk is going to turn out to
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: be a huge swath of the American population.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: So it is dangerous. It is stupid.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: And by the way, on top of all that, one
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: last point, the assumption that if we just open up
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: the economy in eight days and have everybody fend for themselves,
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: things go back to normal.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: What are they fucking talking about? I'm not going to
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the movies.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to a big crowded restaurant.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: It is madness.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: It is dangerous. It is the same instincts that got
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: us into this mess. We're all stuck at home because
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump listened to the wrong people and didn't take
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: it seriously. And we will be back in our fucking
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: homes again. if they open the doors too soon.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Well, does Donald Trump think that while a recession would
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: be really bad for his reelection chances, that mass casualties
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in the United States would somehow be better? Like, is
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that what he's weighing right now? Because, and you're right,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: it's not like, oh, a few people will die here
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and there. Like, we are talking about fucking, you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: look at what's happening in fucking Italy right now.
• 23:56
  Speaker 9: Right?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Where the morbidity rate is up. It's also like half
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the people in ICUs are under 52. We are already
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: so far behind the curve compared to other countries right
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: now that to start talking, I absolutely agree. At some
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: point way down the line, we have to have these
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: difficult conversations about what parts of our economy do we
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: turn on? When do we tell some people to leave?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: We're in day 10 of this crisis right here, a
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: crisis that public health officials tell us could last For months.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Spring break ended like two days ago. I mean, like
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: most states haven't even really taken the drastic actions that
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: are curtailing the economy in ways that are problematic.
• 24:36
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And the idea too, that this is like something that
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: only New York and California and Seattle are going to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: be dealing with right now. Like the big cities that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: are dealing with it right now, it's because it hit
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: there first. It will go everywhere else in the country,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: even if you didn't shut down your economy over this. Like,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: People in rural Oklahoma are still going to be dealing
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: with this at some point, too. Like no one is
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: going to be able to fucking hide from this unless
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: we get through it together by all staying home, all
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: shutting down and like working through this as one country.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not you also don't have to be hypothetical.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: The flu comes to Oklahoma. The flu comes to Idaho.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: You know, there is a sinister element to this. It's,
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: you know, the Chinese virus. You know, we will start
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: to see them talking about the city's And the dirty cities,
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: you know, there will be they will turn.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: They're ready.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You know, he's going to start attacking like Newsom and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Cuomo and all the blue state governors who keep the
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: restrictions in place. That's going to be the next move.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats want to keep doing this to hurt the economy.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: There will be a look.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: We already saw already, you know, it. We've seen it
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: was Devin Nunes till he was cowed. Like Devin Nunes
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: going on television saying, go to the restaurants. There aren't
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: any lines. That governor in Oklahoma, you know, bragging about this.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: That is that is where they're that's where their hearts are.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: They want to make this a political fight. They want
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: to prove that going out and being social is like
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: sticking it to the libs and they don't care who's
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: going to get hurt. And it's incredibly dangerous. I have
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: to wonder what Fauci is going to do. You know,
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: Fauci has had this incredibly deft, delicate balance about this?
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Fauci has to resign if it goes this direction. I
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: don't think he can in good conscience be party to
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: a bunch of press conferences where we just ignore all
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: the best medical advice and in fact, you know, propose
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: things that are going to get people killed.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Well, this is already brewing because Fauci gave this interview yesterday,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the day before with the journalist, the science magazine, where
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the journalist basically is like, how do you stand up
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: there while he's telling all these lies? And Fauci's like,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I know, but what do you want me to do?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I can't jump in front of the microphone and push
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: him down. So this is on Fauci's side. And then
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times story this morning about Trump
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: wanting everything to get back to normal faster, it says
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: he started to have some tensions with Fauci because he
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: knows Fauci is this sort of celebrity now on television.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And Fauci's offering more warnings to people and telling people
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to be careful and giving the proper advice from a
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: public health official. And Trump's already getting sick of this.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And so you know that there's already tension between Trump
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and Fauci on this, which does not bode well for
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the future, guys.
• 27:16
  Speaker 8: No. Yeah.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, we are lucky. We are lucky that
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: Fauci is there and in that position. And I just
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: genuinely respect the moral calculus he has been making to
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: make sure he's in the right place to offer the
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: best advice he can while picking his battles in real time.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: because he wants to get the important facts to the
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: American people while knowing that if he disagrees with Donald
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: Trump on television, he may lose that ability. It's an
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: incredibly difficult position he's in. But yeah, Tommy's right. If
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: it starts becoming the point where Donald Trump is going
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: to advocate for the death of a million Americans, which
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: is what we're talking about. We're talking about Donald Trump
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: advocating for the death of a million Americans to get
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: the Dow back into the 20s. Everyone of conscience will
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: have to resign. And of course, we know that so
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: few people of conscience are actually left.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I will just say one last point on this. There
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: is one path that would allow us to both mitigate
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the public health crisis and also start opening up the economy. And,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Abdul was mentioning this on the pod on Thursday.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And that's what South Korea has done in some other countries,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: which is mass testing, which, as Tommy mentioned, they're starting
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to give up on because we still haven't ramped up
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: testing to the capacity that we need yet. But if
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you start doing mass testing and you even start testing
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: people who are asymptomatic, then you can start sort of
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: quarantining the people who might show symptoms right away. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: you know where people are who have symptoms. And then
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: you can at least start figuring out, all right, where
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: are the hot spots? Where are the where aren't the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: hot spots? Where can some people start going back to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: work where they can't they? So you don't have to
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: do sort of the extreme social isolation measures that are
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: happening right now. If you have a real mass testing
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: program that's nationwide and we're not there yet and Donald
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Trump refuses to like and we're not there yet because
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: he didn't take it seriously. And now the first of
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a couple stories you'll be hearing throughout this episode from
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: health care workers who called in to tell us their
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: stories about how they're dealing with this crisis.
• 29:24
  Speaker 8: Hey guys, thank you so much for the podcast every week.
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: My name is Richa.
• 29:27
  Speaker 8: I'm an anesthesiology resident in Miami, and I just wanted
• 29:31
  Speaker 8: to share how this pandemic has drastically shaped mine and
• 29:35
  Speaker 8: my friends' lives. My daily fear isn't that I get
• 29:39
  Speaker 8: this virus. I think that that's just part of the
• 29:41
  Speaker 8: job and we've come to accept it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: At this point. But I am dreading the day when
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: we run out of masks.
• 29:48
  Speaker 8: Anesthesiologists are at the highest risk when we put in
• 29:52
  Speaker 8: that breathing tube and a patient goes on the ventilator.
• 29:55
  Speaker 8: And today, when the CDC said that, We may have
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: to use a bandana or a scarf when we run
• 30:03
  Speaker 8: out of masks. It's like going into battle without even
• 30:07
  Speaker 8: a fighting chance. My colleagues who are physicians, one of them,
• 30:13
  Speaker 8: her husband's also a physician, and they're talking right now
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: about a backup plan for their newborn son if they.
• 30:20
  Speaker 9: Both get infected at the hospital.
• 30:23
  Speaker 8: And I have so many friends that are supposed to
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: find out where they match for residency on Friday and
• 30:30
  Speaker 8: graduate medical school in May, and their graduation.
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: Just got canceled.
• 30:36
  Speaker 8: They worked thousands of hours and so many years for
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: that medical degree, and their parents and families and friends
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: don't get to see them walk across that stage in May.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: So I just want to remind.
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: Everyone, and it's been shared on social media, we stay
• 30:55
  Speaker 8: at work for you guys.
• 30:57
  Speaker 9: So please, please stay at home for us.
• 31:00
  Speaker 8: It's really the only thing that can make this better. Thanks.
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: Hey, I live in southern Colorado.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: I work in a clinic. I think we just.
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: Saw our first case.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Yesterday, positive.
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: I took care of the guy. We had PPE on,
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: but we're already reusing. We get one N95 mask a piece,
• 31:31
  Speaker 7: and we have one gown left. So I used the gown,
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: and we're just going to reuse it. Our ER has
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: 20 gowns total. We're running out of alcohol wipes. We're
• 31:50
  Speaker 7: If we run out of that, like, I don't know
• 31:53
  Speaker 7: how we're going to take people's temperatures. We are– our
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: clinic built.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: An entirely new wing in, like, a week.
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: We turned our waiting area into a dock-in-the-box area. So
• 32:05
  Speaker 7: the idea is if people come in that are infected,
• 32:07
  Speaker 7: we'll send them over there. But we're– like I said,
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: I think we just saw our first case. We sent
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: in for testing, and since I– was in touch with
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: him I've pretty much isolated myself I still have to
• 32:20
  Speaker 7: go into work but um but we're already out of
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: material and we haven't even gotten I don't know I
• 32:31
  Speaker 7: don't know how we're going to protect ourselves how we're
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: going to protect our patients our clinic is not doing
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: any non-essential surgeries which is how we make money and
• 32:43
  Speaker 7: I don't know. I'm so nervous for our community.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Our community just shut down just like every other community
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: in America.
• 32:50
  Speaker 7: And I just, we're so unprepared.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: It's scary.
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: But I appreciate you guys. I appreciate all your pods.
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: And thanks for keeping me sane and feeling like I
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: have a family out there.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the economic fallout. On Sunday,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the St. Louis Fed chief said that unemployment rate may
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: hit 30%, which would be higher than in the Great Depression.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: In response, Congress is trying to pass nearly $ 2 trillion
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in economic stimulus that would send direct cash payments of $ 1, 200
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: to Americans making under $ 100, 000 and a combination of loans
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and grants to companies that have been hardest hit. But somehow...
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: The White House let Mitch McConnell take a first crack
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: at this bill, and it went almost exactly how you'd expect. Tommy,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you want to run through some of the highlights of
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: what Republicans put in this bill?
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: Sure.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think the biggest problem with this bill
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: right now is there's a $ 500 billion lending program, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: it's $ 425 billion of that will go to businesses, cities,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: and states with absolutely no terms that dictate how the
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Treasury Secretary.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Will dole out that money.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: And we know from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico that
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: that Trump will absolutely punish states and governors and localities
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: who criticize him politically. And we just cannot put states
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: in that position. They have to be able to say
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: what they believe. We also can't put Steve Mnookin in
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: charge of picking companies that live or die. I mean,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: that was one of the primary concerns Republicans had with
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: the Recovery Act. They said Obama was picking winners and losers.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: This will allow Mnookin to do that, and it will
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: offer no oversight.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: There's no transparencies.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: The TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, had multiple layers
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: of oversight, right? That was the fund that billed out
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: the banks. It had an oversight board, it had an
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: inspector general, it had mechanisms for the Congress to exert oversight.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: And so this bill has none of that. And it
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: also just does not do nearly enough to get supplies
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: to hospitals. I think Democrats wanted hundreds of billions. I
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: think this has 75 billion. And additionally, like that money
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: that's supposed to go to businesses is there is not
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: stringent measures in place to prevent the companies from taking
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: the money and then firing workers anyway. It doesn't prevent
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: them from taking the money and then buying back their
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: own stock to jack up the share price or giving
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: the CEO a big payout. It just says that companies
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: who get bailout money have to retain workers to the
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: greatest extent possible, whereas Democrats wanted them to have to
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: hold on to 90% of workers. It only limits raises
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: for CEOs for two years. So this thing's a fucking mess.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have enough money for SNAP. It doesn't extend
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: unemployment insurance for long enough. And there's a big loophole
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: for people. If you didn't file a tax return in
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: 2018 or 2019, you aren't eligible to get one of
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: these direct payments. So there's provisions to provide $ 1, 200 per
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: individual and $ 500 for kids. But if you're someone who
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: is in such a tough spot economically that you didn't
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: pay your taxes or file a tax return in the
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: last couple of years, you're stuck in this bureaucratic nightmare
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: trying to gather all those materials in the midst of
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: a pandemic or else you're shit out of luck.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: You're just going to starve. So there's a ton wrong
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: with this thing. So love it. I mean, Democrats basically
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: all oppose this bill yesterday. Everyone down to like from
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin, they were all against it.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: McConnell couldn't get the votes yesterday. So as we're recording
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: this now, they're all on the Senate floor screaming at
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: each other, by the way, way too close to each other,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: first of all. So they're all on the Senate floor
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: screaming at each other. McConnell's pretending he's very outraged that
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the bill was completely fine until Nancy Pelosi went back
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to San Francisco and came back and larded it up
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: with all her liberal wish list bullshit. And you can
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: tell now that McConnell's move is either to sort of
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: spin Hill reporters or on this, just that it's really
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the Democrats' fault, or more likely just to get a
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of headlines that it's like, partisan warfare, partisanship in
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: this time of crisis tanks the bill. How hard do
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: you think Democrats should fight for what they want in
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: this bill?
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they should fight maximally hard. Yes, obviously.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, it's interesting. This is an historic crisis
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: and moment, but this is also kind of politics. This
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: is politics playing out. There was a bipartisan conversation about
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: what the bill should be. McConnell went off and tried
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: to do it on his own, came back, went too far.
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: If you're losing Joe Manchin, this isn't Nancy Pelosi in
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: San Francisco, right? This is Mitch McConnell overplaying his hand
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: or planning to overplay his hand. And I think that
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: the shit fit that McConnell has pulled and they have
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: employed all of their best, you know, their best hacks
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: in this, you know, your Hugh Hewitts and all the
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: kind of right wing kind of, intellectual apparatus to say
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi want to destroy the economy.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: That is about leverage. That is about trying to tell
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: a story that if the bill goes down, some blame
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: will fall on Democrats because as you and Dan pointed
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: out on Thursday, the responsibility will fall to Donald Trump
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: and Democrats have a lot of leverage because Donald Trump
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: is in charge. And so I think this is a
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: lot about giving McConnell some room to maneuver to claim
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: that some of the political blowback might fall on Democrats
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: so they maybe kind of think twice or pull back
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: their position a little bit. So to me, this is
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: very high stakes, but it's just high stakes negotiation and
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: McConnell knowing that Schumer and Pelosi are in a very
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: strong position.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also a difference between now and when Obama
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: was trying to get the Recovery Act passed, which was like,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: With Obama, he only needed like a couple Republican votes
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: in the Senate to get this thing through. Mitch McConnell
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump need Nancy Pelosi. They need the entire
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: House of Representatives, the majority of the House of Representatives
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: to vote for this bill. And they need Senate Democrats
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: because they need 60 votes for this bill, too. So
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: they actually have to negotiate with Democrats and they can't
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: just pass a shitty bill on their own. So some
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: of the frustration, I think, is the fact that for
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: the first time in their fucking miserable lives over the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: last however many years, they need to compromise with Democrats
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: and they can't just ignore them and let a bill
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: go down. And this idea, too, you know, they're going
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: to lean on. Well, it's a crisis. It's urgent. We
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: must get the money out the door.
• 39:29
  Speaker 8: Hey.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: We agree. We want to get the money out the
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: door to people, too. But we don't want like their
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: wish list for their fucking, you know, rich CEO friends.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: to get in the way of cash going out the
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: door for people who need it right now. Like, I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: think that's a very fine message for Democrats.
• 39:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, Mitch McConnell can rightly say this is
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: an urgent matter, but that guy took a four-day fucking
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: weekend to go home to Kentucky to hang out with
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: some right-wing judges and Brett Kavanaugh. So he has lost
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: the moral authority to act like anyone but him is
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: at fault here for the timing. But yes, I mean, Democrats... yes,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: it's important to do this fast, but it's far more
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: important to do this right because odds are we're going
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: to be living with this coronavirus problem for many, many,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: many months. And if we pass a $ 2 trillion bill
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: that doesn't actually help people and there's massive frustration among voters,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: we're not going to be able to pass the next
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: bill and the next bill and the next bill. And
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: so I'm glad Democrats are fighting this. There's no reason
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: to give some big giveaway to to CEOs who just
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: want to buy back stock. Like, I think we need
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: to bail out passenger airline companies. I don't know how
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: we can be a country that doesn't have Delta, United,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: like a ways to get places. But they spent like 95,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: 94% of their profits the last few years on stock buybacks.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: It's a very simple fix to just say they can't
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: do that. Donald Trump says at the podium that that's
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: what he wants.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: So do it.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine what people would think who got one $ 2, 000 check
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and nothing else, or who lost a loved one because
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: there weren't enough healthcare workers or enough funding for hospitals.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Imagine what that person thinks when a couple months from now,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: we learned that Steve Mnookin handed out $ 10 billion to
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: some company that's connected to Donald Trump or some other
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: random industry besides the airlines. Like, uh, Tommy, like you mentioned,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: who actually need help, you know, need help because they
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: also employ a lot of Americans. Um, And like, what
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: are people going to think about that? They're going to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: be angry. And imagine if Democrats sign their name onto that.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: They sign their name onto a bill where a couple
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: of people got a thousand dollar check and then some
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: CEO raised his own salary two years from now and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: got billions and billions of dollars for no reason that
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: we knew of because Steve Mnookin just made the decision
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: on his own. Do we think that's fucking good politics?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
• 41:54
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: It's also, I mean, it's also like put the politics aside.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: Like this is about the harm. The goal of getting
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: money into the hands of corporations in this emergency is
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: not to make sure those corporations exist in perpetuity. The
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: goal is to keep those corporations running and paying their
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: people so that after this crisis is over, they can
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: get back to work quickly. If we take a bunch
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: of money and give it to a cruise line corporation,
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: and then a few weeks later they say, we tried
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: our best, but we had to let all our people go.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: But don't worry, our ships are waiting in the harbor
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: for you. Like that will have hurt a ton of
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: people and not achieved any end. I don't care about
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: the organizational structure of the fucking cruise industry. We care
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: about the people. We care about the people.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. One more thing on this before we
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: move on. So McConnell only got 48 votes for his
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: bill on Sunday night because five Republican senators are under self-quarantine.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Florida's Rick Scott and Colorado's Cory Gardner were already under self-quarantine.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: And now there are three more after Rand Paul tested
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: positive after having lunch with Mitt Romney and Mike Lee.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, one Republican senator pointed out that Rand Paul
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: was using the Senate gym and swimming while awaiting his
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: test results. Is this best practices, guys?
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Rand Paul's a doctor. He's a U.S.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Senator and he's a doctor. But so he, like more
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: than anyone, should know better about what behavior is proper
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: and how to keep himself and others safe. By the way,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: this is an institution where I think half of them
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: are over the age of 60. So they are very
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: much in the danger zone for contracting this virus. I mean,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Congress writ large has been acting unbelievably irresponsibly and stupidly
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: throughout this process. They shouldn't be going to the gym.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: How's their fucking pool open? What are you doing, man?
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Like stop gathering in groups on the Senate floor, slapping
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: each other on the back. Mitch McConnell refuses to pass
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: a provision that would allow senators or members of Congress
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: to vote remotely. And that could prove to be a
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: disastrous long-term decision. They got to move on that. I mean,
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Rand Paul's arrogance in this case is infuriating. I hope
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: he's OK. You know, I hope he'll get great medical care.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: But it's also notable yesterday at the press conference that
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: when informed that Mitt Romney was in self-quarantine because he
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: might have been at risk of catching coronavirus, Trump made
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: fun of him. And that is so fucked up. Like
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Mitt Romney could die from this. Mitt Romney's wife has MS.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: So she's very much at risk as someone with a
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: preexisting condition. For him to scoff at that and to
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: use it to bring up some past political beef, it
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: shows you how broken and dark and soulless that man is.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: It's really, really fucked up. All right, let's talk about
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the politics of all this. In several new major polls,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: a majority of Americans approve of Trump's response to the
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic so far. According to an ABC poll released Friday,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: 55% of Americans approve of how he's handled this crisis,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: while 43% disapprove. A 12-point jump from the week before.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: A morning consult poll released Friday found similar results. Most
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: of the jump is due to independents and Democrats. You
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: guys got any possible explanations for this? Love it?
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's very hard to know the truth
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: if you watch television and if you're just paying attention casually.
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: That is a fundamental bias in our media. It's not partisan.
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: It's just baked into how the news is currently covered.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: That's true all the time. It is just a fact
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: of the way Trump is covered that he gives a two-hour, stem-winding, nonsense-spewing,
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: racist rally speech, and it is covered generally by pulling
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: out the salient narrative from it. Donald Trump launches broadside,
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: discusses immigration. It attaches coherence to what Donald Trump is
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: saying on a daily basis. You add that to a
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: media that is responding to a crisis by just giving
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: the president airtime every single day and letting him go
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: and do a propaganda briefing every single day. And then
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: over the course of the next few hours, unpacking what
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: was true and what wasn't and discovering that a lot
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: wasn't or knowing in real time that a lot wasn't.
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: All of that means that Donald Trump has He has
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: the bully pulpit. He has this incredible advantage in telling
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: a story. Yes, Democrats need to do better about making
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: an argument. Biden needs to be out there making an argument.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: But we should just be realistic about how challenging it
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: is in this environment to compete with Donald Trump.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised by this. I mean,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I don't like that 55% of Americans approve of his
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: handling now, and that's up. But I also think that
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: we're in the very early stages of this, right? So,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: so far, he's had like a flood the zone strategy.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: He does this hour, hour and a half long press conference.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: Every day he surrounds himself with important sounding, competent people.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: And everyone who tunes into that briefing, like Lovett said,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: you get mainlined propaganda with a whole bunch of claims
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: that are lies or misstatements or exaggeration. And, you know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: that's an effective short-term fix. He looks very active. And
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: I think you've seen that in past crises, like people
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: rally around the president. But Trump refuses to prepare us
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: for what could be coming. He won't present bad news.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: He won't tell us hard truths. And I think That's
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: going to screw him in the long term.
• 47:08
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, he wants to be seen. His new thing
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: is he's I'm a wartime president. You think that's dramatic
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: and you think that's powerful framing and shows leadership.
• 47:17
  Speaker 8: But like.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: He's not FDR in World War II, right? Like that
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: comparison holds if the Japanese spent months saying, hey, we're
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: going to bomb the shit out of Pearl Harbor. And
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Trump's response was to say their military is weak and
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: they don't like to fight in the summer, right? And
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: then two years earlier, he fired the guy in charge
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: of tracking Japanese military movement. So the analogy is off.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: And in two weeks when some of our hospitals look
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: like Italy, I don't think this strategy is going to
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: be working as well.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think you can outrun the reality of
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: the facts on the ground. Like if this is not
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: as bad as everyone expected, which is hard to believe
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: since it's already fucking awful. But if somehow, you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: we go back to normal in a couple of weeks
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: for some reason and the economy is not as bad
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: as we thought it would be and the casualties aren't
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: as bad as people are predicting and the virus goes away,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: then no matter how much we attack Trump, it's not
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: going to change the fact that he's going to get
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: credit for it, right? In that scenario. But if things
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: look like they're going the way they're going, if we
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: go into a deep recession, if a lot of these
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: hospitals are overwhelmed, then like no amount of spin from
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: that briefing room is going to make people think that
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Trump did a good job. When we're sitting here in May, June, July, August, September,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people are out of work and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are sick. And so I do
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: think it's sort of hard to judge the politics of
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it right now. Um, what do you think about like,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: you know, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Sullivan of the Washington post
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and others have called on cable networks to stop broadcasting
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Trump's daily briefings. Um, do you agree? And do you
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: guys think that's realistic? Love it. What do you think?
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: You know, they're right. It's never going to happen. And
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: they're also wrong. So I, you know, it's like, he's the, like,
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: what do you do when the president, what do you
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: do when the president is a monster?
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: He's a monster.
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: He's a broken, terrible human being who only cares about himself.
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: And he will kill people to help the stock market.
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: He will lie and encourage his own supporters, his own
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: elder supporters to come out to a rally when he
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: knows how dangerous it is because he doesn't care about
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: anything except himself. What do you do when someone that
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: dangerous has this much power?
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: And is this important? Is this important to the response?
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: And no one has the answer to that because it's
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: an unsolvable problem. Air it, don't air it. Like Trump's
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: message will get out. Trump will have the ability to
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: say what he wants to say. So I just think
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: it's kind of a problem without a solution, honestly.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like sympathize with all the networks. Like if
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: MSNBC and CNN stopped airing these things live, I would
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: watch it on Fox, right? Let's just be honest. I
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: do think that the briefing room would benefit from more Clear,
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: aggressive questioning about his record compared to what he's saying
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: at the moment, because you've seen at times when he
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: is pressed or even when he's not pressed, when Peter
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Alexander said, what's your message to people who are scared?
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: He fucking erupts in unravels because he views that room
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: as his propaganda stage. And it's even harder for those reporters. Like,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: I don't mean to dog the reporters in the room.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: I think if you read the print coverage, the TV
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: coverage of the reality of the response, it's been incredible.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: They've done an amazing job, and these people are literally
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: risking their lives. It's just the live nature of the
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: briefing that's really been the problem.
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: Hi, my name is Cheryl, and I've been a registered
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: nurse for 38 years.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: I live in the Midwest.
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: Nurses are very cognizant of isolation protocols for different diseases.
• 51:01
  Speaker 6: You follow different instructions about masks and gowns and gloves
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: and face shields. The biggest thing right now is because
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: of the shortage of equipment, we don't have the things
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: that we need to do to keep our patients safe,
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: the patient next door safe, ourselves safe, and our families safe.
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: Standards that we had a month ago have been lightened
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: up because they have to because there's not enough things.
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: We have a thing called an N95 mask. It's a
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: special mask that you wear for respiratory disorders like tuberculosis
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: and COVID-19. Now they're telling us it's okay to wear
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: a surgical mask, and not only that, that we can
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: reuse the mask.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: Five times in a day.
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: So we take our mask and we put it in
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: as a black bag and label it with our name
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: and the date and keep track of how many times
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: you've used that mask until you get to five and
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: then you can get a new mask. There's a thing
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: going around right now on Facebook and Twitter about selling
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: masks and Two weeks ago, we would have laughed at that,
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: that we would wear a mask that our volunteers made.
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: But we're not laughing anymore. We'll take that offer because
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: I guess the CDC says it's better than nothing. And actually,
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: putting a furnace filter paper in it can be pretty effective.
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: So we're willing to be creative and do what we
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: need to do. But It's getting really kind of scary
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: right now.
• 52:52
  Speaker 9: Hi, Podstate America crew. Thanks for taking phone calls. My
• 52:55
  Speaker 9: name is Sarah, and I am a physician assistant in Portland, Oregon.
• 53:01
  Speaker 9: Thanks for taking calls from us in the medical community.
• 53:04
  Speaker 9: We're all anxious and worried. Our PPE is basically being rationed.
• 53:14
  Speaker 9: I get one mask. a shift, which is 12 hours,
• 53:17
  Speaker 9: unless it gets soiled. I have to wash my hands
• 53:21
  Speaker 9: before putting it on. I have to wash my hands
• 53:23
  Speaker 9: after putting it on, before I take it off, and
• 53:26
  Speaker 9: after I take it off. I also have to store
• 53:29
  Speaker 9: it in a paper bag so that I can reuse
• 53:31
  Speaker 9: it between patients. We in our clinic do not have
• 53:36
  Speaker 9: enough gowns. We do not have enough masks. We will
• 53:42
  Speaker 9: probably be closing our site and consolidating at one of
• 53:46
  Speaker 9: the main hospitals in the next few days, maybe a week,
• 53:51
  Speaker 9: depending on what the surge plan is. There's still very
• 53:56
  Speaker 9: limited testing. It causes me a great deal of anxiety
• 54:00
  Speaker 9: to log on to my work email to see what
• 54:03
  Speaker 9: has changed between yesterday when I left and today. Please, please,
• 54:09
  Speaker 9: please wash your hands. Please stay home. The people who
• 54:13
  Speaker 9: are showing up wanting to be tested when we have
• 54:16
  Speaker 9: no testing are putting us at risk, especially when we
• 54:21
  Speaker 9: don't have support from the very top. I think the
• 54:25
  Speaker 9: thing that has made me so much more agitated and
• 54:29
  Speaker 9: anxious about this whole situation is watching this administration bungle
• 54:37
  Speaker 9: this and having bungled this for weeks.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: Our lives are at risk. Our families are at risk.
• 54:44
  Speaker 9: The communities are going nuts because of all the misinformation
• 54:50
  Speaker 9: and lack of information that this is going to get
• 54:54
  Speaker 9: so much worse before it gets better. Thank you guys
• 54:57
  Speaker 9: for doing what you do. I enjoy listening to you.
• 55:00
  Speaker 9: You've helped keep me sane on my drive fine.
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: Stay home.
• 55:05
  Speaker 9: Stay safe.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 55:14
  Speaker 10: I'm Akilah Hughes.
• 55:16
  Speaker 11: I'm Gideon Resnick.
• 55:16
  Speaker 10: We are the hosts of What A Day, Crooked's daily
• 55:18
  Speaker 10: news podcast.
• 55:19
  Speaker 11: Look, we understand keeping up with the news can be
• 55:22
  Speaker 11: a challenge, especially when we're living in an actual pandemic
• 55:25
  Speaker 11: and we haven't gone outside in a week.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Life is like a movie. But you know what?
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: That's why we're here.
• 55:30
  Speaker 10: We'll be bringing you the news every weekday morning in
• 55:33
  Speaker 10: about 15 minutes. So you're up to speed on the
• 55:35
  Speaker 10: latest developments, both coronavirus related and not.
• 55:38
  Speaker 11: And as always, our goal here is to keep you informed,
• 55:41
  Speaker 11: but not feeling like you're overwhelmed.
• 55:42
  Speaker 10: So you don't have to count on Twitter, which can
• 55:44
  Speaker 10: be very exciting and dramatic, but also very scary and
• 55:47
  Speaker 10: not always real. We're going to be level-headed right here
• 55:50
  Speaker 10: all the time.
• 55:51
  Speaker 11: Yeah, so go ahead and subscribe to What A Day
• 55:53
  Speaker 11: now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen
• 55:57
  Speaker 11: to podcasts.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Finally, Joe Biden held his first live stream today from
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: his brand new television studio that is now set up
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: in his home. Politico had a story over the weekend
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: about how the crisis has really challenged his campaign. He
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: can't hold rallies. He can't do fundraisers in person. All
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: his staff are working remotely. And in addition to all
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: of that, he can't start unifying the party because Bernie
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: is still in the race. What do you guys think
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: of the live stream this morning? And what else would
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: you be advising Biden to say or do during this
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to sort of get out there more?
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm sympathetic to how hard this is.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine being on a presidential campaign in the
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: midst of a pandemic. I can't imagine trying to come
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: together and prepare for a general election when your staff
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: literally can't be in the same room as the candidate
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: or work together, right? So it's impossibly difficult. So I
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: give them a lot of leeway to sort of slowly
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: ramp this up. I mean, it's probably even harder if
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: you can't go to Best Buy and to get the
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: proper cameras, but his team needs to sort out these
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: technical issues because this morning it seemed like maybe the
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: teleprompter or whatever version of a teleprompter they were using
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: stopped and Biden like interrupted himself and tried to reach
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: for a hard copy of the remarks. And like, unfairly, fairly,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: some of his performance issues on the campaign trail to
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: date have become a thing, right? You see Bernie people
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: talking about them all the time and they have to
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: serve him a little better in that moment when he's
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: live streaming. And that's going to be his only way
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: to communicate with the people. I don't know that a
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: speech from a podium in your library is quite the
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: best way to do this. Like maybe they have him
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: do a conversation with Ron Klain, who's one of his
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: top advisors, who is the Ebola czar for Obama. Ron
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: made this awesome video. It's about five minutes long about
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: what a good response could look like. You could have
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: Biden talk to Ron about it. You could have Biden
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: take calls from caregivers or people who are worried and
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: like show you his ability to empathize and like reassure people.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of ways to put him in a
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: better position, I think, to deliver the message he needs
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: to deliver, because it is scary to have Trump out
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: there and then.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Sort of a vacuum.
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like, I agree with what Tommy said.
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: You know, when I saw how he was set up, like,
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: I'm really like, I don't want to, it's an incredibly
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: difficult position the Biden team is in. But what I
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: was thinking when I saw him is, God, I want
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: him sitting down.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Like, this is a cliche of all cliches. But Biden,
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: this is to be Biden.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I know it's coming. I know it's coming.
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: It's coming, but it's, I can't believe how true it is.
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: I can't believe how much it applies. I'm angry for
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: how much of a cliche it was made before we
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: got here to this moment. But this needs to be
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: his fireside chat.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: It does. It does.
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: You're right.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. I 100% agree with you.
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: And I want him sitting in a fucking armchair. I
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: want his sleeves rolled up. I want him home. I
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: want there to be a fucking dog sitting in front
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: of the goddamn fireplace. Good idea. Let's get the dog.
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: And I want him to start by saying, hey, everyone.
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: And I want him to talk to us like he's
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: right there. I don't need it to be live.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Film it.
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: Have it come out every day. Do whatever you need
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: to do to help Joe Biden be the best he
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: can be.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Worry about that.
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: The most important thing is not live or not live.
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: It's just make Joe Biden the best Joe Biden can
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: be and put something out as much as humanly possible
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: with great opportunity. quality and great shots because that this
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: is going to be the staging ground and brand of
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: his campaign for weeks if not months.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah why do live if there's no interaction that makes
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: no sense.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Right so i i've been thinking about this with him
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: for a while and i think you know this is
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: from a speechwriter perspective and love it i'm sure you've
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: probably noticed this as well like Biden is the type
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: of candidate who, you know, when he's not on a prompter,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: goes off, talks forever, tells all kinds of stories. And
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: so the whole challenge is to get him on that
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: prompter and to get him on message. And I think
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that for a while in the campaign, that was the
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: right move to get him on message. But I think
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: at a moment like this, sort of pulling him back
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: from the prompter a little bit where you can tell
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: you could tell he was uncomfortable this morning. He's trying
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: to read it. He literally motioned, like you said, Tommy,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: for a piece of paper because I think the fucking
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: prompter stopped, which I can't believe they let a prompter
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: stop in the middle of a live stream. Like that's
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: not serving him well either. And like they put out
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: a video before the live stream this morning of him
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: sort of assailing the McConnell bill. We should say, by
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: the way, that his message on this is great. It's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the message, the same message that Elizabeth Warren had been
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: saying yesterday about why the bill is fucked up. So
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: from that standpoint, it's great. But he had a video
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: where he was just standing with no podium that they
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: put up this morning that I actually think he was
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: much better on. He was still reading something, but he
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: was much better. And I just think they got to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: get him in a more comfortable position. Joe Biden's strength
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: is his empathy and how he can sort of comfort
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: people at a time like this. They also want to
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: exude competence, which he has as well. But like you're right,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: have him talking to people at a safe distance, of course.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: But he could be like virtually taking questions from people
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: who are hurting and worried, whether it's health care workers.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: He could be talking to a staff like Ron. Like,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: I just think now is the time to really get creative.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: And I can't imagine the stress on all of them
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: because they're all operating as we all are and everyone
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: is from a distance. Like he doesn't have a lot
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: of staff around him and on campaigns, all you're doing
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: is like sitting together in a room all the time
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out the next strategy and they can't
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: do that. And, you know, group calls of 30 people
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: are fucking annoying and hard to come up with strategies
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: like that. So I totally get the challenges they're having. But,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: you know, you see people like andrew cuomo out there
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and newsom and stuff like that sort of leading their
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: states through this and he's kind of got to get
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: to that level right now and look it is it's
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: the first day he's got the tv studio set up
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: so he's got a lot of runway here but you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: know he's got to get things going fast i think he.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: Definitely has some runway and like again i want to
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: be sympathetic because i have no idea what it's like
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: to work on a campaign in a pandemic i can't
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: even imagine how hard it is a normal presidential campaign
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: is hard but they are going to have to really
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: start thinking like We need to radically rethink how this
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: campaign is going to be run through the general election, right?
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: There's not going to be many rallies. There's going to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: be no rope line. There's going to be very little travel.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: And that can't just be conference calls with press or
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: satellite TV hits or local radio stations. He's going to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: need to build his own media infrastructure that virtually gets
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: him with human beings and it's not through the press. Also,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: he's going to need to radically rethink what field program
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: looks like in this climate. Like we're not going to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: go back on to knocking a million doors in the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: general election before November. I mean, maybe that's an overreaction,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: but I sure as fuck aren't going to be opening
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: my door to strangers. So they're going to need to
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: fully transition to online organizing, relational organizing, like building little
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: communities and empowering those people to campaign with friends in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: their communities. So like this whole thing is going to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: be more difficult than anyone ever imagined.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what I'm really worried about is the moment when
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump decides he's going to go back on the
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: campaign trail, have his rallies, and then you're going to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: see split screens of Donald Trump at a 10,000 person rally,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people screaming, not caring if they get coronavirus.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: And then Joe Biden's going to be alone in front
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: of a television camera. And that's not going to be
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: a good contrast, even though Joe Biden in that scenario
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: will be the responsible one.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: Yes, you can bet, you know, you can bet fucking money.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: that the fifth paragraph will be about how Joe Biden's
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: doing the right thing in a story about how masculine
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: and macho and tough and powerful Donald Trump looks like
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: I am. So it super Tuesday.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: Was two weeks and six days ago.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: Uh, uh, I, I just, you know, we should all
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: just take like, this is an unprecedented, incredibly quickly evolving,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: you know, nightmare. We're in a nightmare and I'm just, it's, and,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: It is such a gross irony that we are in
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: this mess. We are stuck in our homes. You know,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: South Korea, their cases have leveled off and are dropping.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: We're now spiking. We are in this mess because Donald
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: Trump is a terrible president. And the fact that this
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: is going to make the job Joe Biden has to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: make that case that much more difficult. historically difficult is
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: such an ugly irony to all of this. So again,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: just like, as we talk about what Joe Biden should do,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: we should all just be kind of, and we all
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: are just being, have some humility in the face of
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: the fact that we're all figuring this out in a
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: completely unprecedented situation.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: Indeed.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Indeed we are. All right. That's all we have, guys.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's sad to leave you both because again,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: it's great to have some social interaction.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it really is.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: It's nice to see your faces. Yeah, no interview this week,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: but we'll get back to that Thursday or whenever we can.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, we will do that. And Dan and I will
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: be doing the pod on Thursday. So we'll talk to
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: you all then. Bye, everyone.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 6: Bye, guys.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Bye, everybody.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: every week.