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“New tone, who dis?” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, I check in with Wisconsin Democratic Party
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Chair Ben Wickler. about the election they're supposed to have
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, and what can be done about voting in
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic. Before that, we'll talk about
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Trump's grim new coronavirus projections and what should be in
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Congress's next economic relief bill. But first, we have an announcement.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: In the midst of all this awfulness, in the span
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of about two weeks, we developed a brand new podcast
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for you people. Longtime friend of the pod and brilliant
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: journalist Alex Wagner is the host of Six Feet Apart,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: which will shine a light on the hidden worlds of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: this pandemic through interviews with everyone from grocery store workers
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to prisoners to immigrants and many others. These are the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: very human stories that the news doesn't always cover, that frankly,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we don't always cover on other pods. And we're very
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: excited that Alex is going to tackle this. So first
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: episode is out now. The podcast is six feet apart.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: You can get it wherever you listen to your podcasts.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Isn't that exciting, Dan? New pod?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Is that an homage to the HBO show?
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It is not Dan. It is because we have to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: be six feet apart from each other.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, it's like six feet apart, six feet under.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: There's like a very bleak. It's either an homage to
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: an HBO show, a classic HBO show of the early
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: 21st century or death. So I would take the former.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It's an homage to something. Also on this week's pod,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: save the world. Tommy and Ben talk about how protest
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: movements can survive coronavirus and how we can stop governments
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: from using the pandemic to consolidate power and shut down
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the press. Um, Again, this is a foreign policy show.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Then Tommy talks with former US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: about political developments in Israel. And Ben talks with British
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Labour MP David Lammy about the UK's coronavirus response. Finally,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a big shout out to Akilah Hughes, Gideon Resnick, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the entire What Today team on their 100th episode, which
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is out today. Wow, I can't believe it's been 100
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: episodes already. If you aren't already subscribed, what are you
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: waiting for? This is the best way to wake up
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and feel sane and informed and entertained. It is a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: fantastic podcast. It is about 20 minutes long. It'll get
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you up to speed. So if you have not subscribed already,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: do it. New episodes drop daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your podcasts. The team is fantastic.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Akilah and Gideon are great. And they just, these guys
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: work so hard every night, you know, five days a
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: week to do this podcast. So check it out. It's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: well worth it. Um, okay, Dan, let's, um, let's talk
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: about the day that Donald Trump finally became president. Uh,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I think Tuesday was one of the most stunning, disturbing
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: White House briefings, maybe in history. Um, because the president
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of the United States and his team told the country
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that in the best case scenario, where we all follow
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: strict social distancing measures and keep most of the economy
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: shut down for months, we would lose between 100,000 and 240,000
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: American lives to the virus. Then Donald Trump said that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: if that historic and absolutely horrifying loss of life comes
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to pass, quote, we've done a great job. We've done
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a great job. That really happened, right, Dan? What was
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: your first reaction sort of watching that unfold?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, you say it happened, and I vaguely remember
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: seeing it, but it seems impossible to imagine that it
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: actually happened.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I guess if there weren't graphs and charts, we wouldn't
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: have known it for sure, but they had those, so
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I must be real. I mean, it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: disturbing... and upsetting and infuriating. And the thing that I
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: think I took from it was like, we obviously had
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: heard Fauci say this on the Sunday shows and we,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: you know, we have been consuming every bit of coronavirus
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: news we could have. And we know we've looked at,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: we've read the report. None of us have looked at
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: an actual model, but we've read the reports of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: models and we've looked at what the possibilities are. And
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: you look at the numbers and this is what many
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: people have suspected. It was one thing to hear Fauci
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: say it on Sunday because he's sort of our beacon
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: of hope that if he's saying it, then that means
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: he's the person we as a nation have come to
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: trust the most for this information. But then when you
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: see Trump say it, it's a reminder that this is
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: the person whose job it is to save us. And
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: that is fucking scary.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Well, my first reaction was I became really angry thinking
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: about where other countries are right now, like South Korea
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and Germany. South Korea reported, I think, a couple hundred
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: cases yesterday. United States and South Korea both had the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: first infected person on the same day back in January.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And their curve has not only flattened, it's almost gone now.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And Germany's instituted mass testing. And Trump wants to treat
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: this like It is something that no one ever saw coming,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that it's this natural disaster. This wasn't a fucking earthquake, right?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Or like a series of wildfires, right? Where you can
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: look back and say, okay, was the government prepared for this? No,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: they weren't, right? And that's certainly true of the Trump
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: administration on this. It's that as the crisis hit, they
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: still fucked it up so badly. And we know that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: because other countries... are handling this and have handled this
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: better than we are. And then it also made me
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: very angry that as he's saying this, and as they're
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: showing us these charts, there are states at the time,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: there were states like Florida and Texas and other Southern
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: states and other rural states that still haven't fucking issued
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: mandatory stay at home orders you've got the trump administration
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: saying that if everything goes well that if everyone abides
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: by social distancing measures then we're going to have 100
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to 240 000 dead americans and they're sitting up there
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and he hasn't put a fucking phone call in to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: ron desantis the governor of florida to tell him to
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: keep people at florida in florida at home and you
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: know finally that happened uh late in the day yesterday
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: long after that briefing happened but it's just unfucking believable
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to me. Yeah.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: The numbers that Trump was talking about, the scale of
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: human devastation that was being talked about somewhat blithely by
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the president is so disconnected from the nature of the response, right?
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Like this is, we are on a schedule, nearly a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: thousand Americans died yesterday from coronavirus. As this continues, we're
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: going to be a situation in the not too distant
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: future where we are having equivalent of a Katrina or
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: a 9-11 every single day in terms of the loss
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: of Americans. That would seem like a let's get serious,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: all hands on deck approach. You don't see that from
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration still. Maybe that they have finally publicly
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: acknowledged the scale of devastation, but they have not scaled
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: up their response or their meet that, right? There's such
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a lack of urgency in how this is being approached.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: The only thing that they are expressing urgency around are
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: the public relations and the politics, not the public health response.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Right. So he wants to basically frame hundreds of thousands
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of deaths as a win for him. We've done a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: great job, is what he said. Now, in order for
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: him to do this, he has to completely rewrite history.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: He keeps saying now that there were supposed to be
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: 2 million deaths in And then, you know, he heroically
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: took all these steps. And now there's only supposed to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: be a few hundred thousand dead Americans. How does he
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: get people to believe this?
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I don't think he can get people to believe it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: And like watching that argument, watching him make this argument
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: was perhaps to me the most infuriating part of the
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: entire briefing, which is, look, politicians, including our former boss,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama, often make straw man arguments, right? Like there
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: are these people over here who have this completely extreme position.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And then these people over here with this other extreme position,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: which therefore based on these two extreme positions, which generally
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: sometimes don't are like even the extreme version of the extreme.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: But given those two extremes, my version makes complete sense.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: It's a straw man argument. And part of a straw
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: man argument is you have to invent a straw man
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: to make the argument. So Trump is making a straw
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: man argument about these people and the press is framing
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: as a straw man argument about these people who thought
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: we should do nothing or do very little and let it,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: it's only like the flu, we shouldn't panic. Except Donald
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Trump is the fucking straw man in the argument. He
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: was the person making that argument and like he has
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to be called on it, right? I don't think eventually
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: reality catches up to spin, right? There's no number of
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: press briefings or tweets or, Fauci interviews that can spin
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of American deaths as a win. But
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Trump will have the ability to rewrite history if all
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: of us let him do that.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, and on that note, there's a video
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I came across yesterday from, it's an ad from Republicans
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: for the rule of law. And it just goes through
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: all of the things that Trump has said about the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: virus and all the ways that he downplayed it. And
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: by the way, you know, we're going to play the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: clip now. As you listen to this, all the things
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: he's saying here are in February and most of them
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: are in March while the cases in the United States
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: started going up. the hundreds and then in the thousands.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: So here's the clip. Are the words about a pandemic
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: at this point?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: No, we're not at all.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: How concerned are you?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Well, we pretty much shut it down. A lot of
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: people think that goes away in April.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: We have contained this.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I won't say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: It's going to be down to close to zero.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: It's going to disappear. It's like a miracle. It will disappear.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: They're going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon. I'm
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: going to say to Americans who are concerned that you're
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: not taking this seriously enough. That's CNN.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: The president say, for example, he's going to continue with
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: political rallies. Is this sending the right message? Going to
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: a rally? There's no reason that you shouldn't go.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It's really working out.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: The president stopped shaking hands in our line of work.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: you shake hands.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: No, I don't take responsibility at all, but it's something
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: that we have tremendous control over.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: How would you rate your response to this crisis? I'd
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: rate it a 10.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: long before it was called a pandemic.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So you can hear there all the different times that
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Trump told us not to worry about this, that it
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't a big deal. I also think At the press
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: briefing itself, he made a rather huge admission that, you know,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't really seen as that. Although the New York Times
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: story that Peter Baker wrote about it sort of got this.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: In the New York Times, he wrote, Mr. Trump said
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: he played down the seriousness of the threat because he
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: chose to be reassuring. I want to give people hope.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, that right there is an admission from Trump
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that he did downplay the crisis because he wanted to
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: be hopeful. But like what that's missing is the fact
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that because this is a virus and if you downplay
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the virus and you tell people not to worry about it,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: they will go spread the fucking virus. They will leave
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: their homes. They will travel. They will be around people
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: when they shouldn't be around people, which could spread the virus.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Like by downplaying the virus in a way to give
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: people hope, he was facilitating the spread of a deadly virus.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And he basically admitted it in the briefing.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, the first rule of any crisis is you
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Trump did the exact opposite here. And he did not prepare.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And then he gave people false information, which put their
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: And This isn't a situation where there was a range
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: of expert opinions, and he picked some of the more
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: optimistic ones. He ignored all of the advice of every
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: single medical expert, every single epidemiologist, every single scientist to
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: tell people something that absolutely wasn't true, which led to
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: thousands upon thousands of Americans getting sick in a way
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: they did not need to. It facilitated the states like
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Florida and Georgia from doing the right thing. He polarized
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: this issue in a partisan way, which made it so
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: that Republican governors thought the Republican thing to do was
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: to downplay the virus, and people in their states will
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: die because of that.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: The governor of Georgia, the Republican governor of Georgia, said
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: today that he didn't know that asymptomatic people could spread
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the virus until yesterday, and that's why he didn't issue
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a shutdown order sooner. The fucking CDC is located in Georgia.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And the Republican governor said he didn't know this. Like,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, is he lying? Is he a fucking moron?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Probably both. Was he just getting all his news from
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Fox News? Probably. Like, what the fuck?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like not that you need another
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: reason to say elections matter because Donald Trump reminds us
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: of that at the briefing every single day.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: But.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure Stacey Abrams would have checked the CDC
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: website were she to be governor of Georgia right now,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: which she should have been if Brian Kemp had not
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: stolen the election.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So, you know, one problem is Trump may have some
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: help rewriting history from his frenemies in the media. He
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: showed up at the briefing and was able to, you know,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: somberly deliver the news that hundreds of thousands of Americans
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: will probably die. And as a result, multiple reporters remarked
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: on his performance and Here are some of the highlights. Quote,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: this is an absolutely new message and new tone from Trump. Quote,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the tone at this briefing feels different. Quote, this is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the most effective job of communicating Trump has done during
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: this crisis. And quote, this was a different Donald Trump tonight.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I think he gets it. Dan, do you want to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: talk while I just quietly scream into the void here?
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I think it was very nice of you to put
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: no names by those quotes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is fucking nice of me.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very generous.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I thought about it last night and I thought that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about this in a second. But I thought overall,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of reporters out there who are working
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: really hard to report on this in very dangerous conditions.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to sort of paint the media
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: with a broad brush here. And I also respect a
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: lot of the reporters who said these things. Some of
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: them are quite smart and usually quite good about this stuff.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So I don't need to point people out right now,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: but come on.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, John, look, you got to see it from
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: their perspective. Donald Trump, a man whose entire life is
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: centered around the idea of serving the American people. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: when he finds out that 100 to 200,000 of his
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: fellow citizens that he serves so devotedly could be killed,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: of course, he's going to develop a new tone. Turn
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: into Churchill, Roosevelt. Bartlett, Lincoln, of course, because that's one
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: thing we know about.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: What is the bar here? Like, did they expect that
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: he was going to laugh when he delivered this news?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Did they expect him to be jovial when he talked
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: about hundreds of thousands of Americans dying? Like, what kind
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of tone did you think was going to accompany that
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: kind of announcement?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just, I'll say a couple things about this,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: which is, one, we have to stop grading Trump on
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the steepest fucking curve in history. Because it is actually,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to your point, it is possible that Donald Trump could
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: deliver it jovially or ridiculously or turn it into an
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: argument of impeachment. That is actually on the table. And
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: you can see how people who cover him on a
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: daily basis might be surprised that he did not trip
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: over the very low bar of expectations the press and
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the American public have set for him. But having said that,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: what I think drives this these sorts of tweets. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: we've seen this a thousand times. We see it after
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: State of the Unions. We saw it after he launched
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: that strike in Syria and a dozen other times over
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: the course of this presidency where Donald Trump does the
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: bare minimum of the job and then is applauded. I mean,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: so much so that Republicans eventually chanted Nobel at him
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: for doing the bare minimum of his job. But I
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: think what drives it is this intense hunger for normalcy
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: among the press, right? They desperately want Trump to be
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: a normal person, to be something resembling a normal president.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And they have to recognize that you can't fit the
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: square peg of a sociopath into the round hole of normalcy.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And you're going to get burned every time you credit
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Trump for something because he is inevitably going to do
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: something that is going to make your take look terrible
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: within the next 12 hours. And even in the case
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: of this briefing, within 30 minutes, he did things that
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: made those new tone takes look terrible.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: It's just also the need to judge everything a politician
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: does by style and performance, right? Like it's a bigger
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: problem because I get that those reporters just want Donald
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Trump to be normal and to be a good president.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And to lead the country through what could be its
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: most trying time in history. And I think a lot
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: of people in the country want that, too. Like, I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: get that feeling. But if you walked away from that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: briefing thinking that the story was the tone and style
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of the president and not the news that he delivered... Like,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you've lost the fucking plot. Like, I just don't, you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: like that, we've got to, even in the middle of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a pandemic, we're still doing the fucking style critique? Really? Like,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: we can't put that aside maybe just for the pandemic?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, policy is complicated. The trade-offs of how you
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: respond in a pandemic are complicated. The fact-checking someone in
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: real time is complicated. The lazy crutch of political reporting
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: is optics. I tried to figure out what the audio
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: version of optics is. I mean, that's what tone is, right?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tone. Yeah, there you go.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. But this has been a
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: problem forever, right? I almost called the BP oil spill
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: a crisis, but I feel like that term has been
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: redefined in our current period. But I mean, I think
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: you remember that the It was very hard for reporters
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: to cover how you stop an oil spill at the
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, which is a very
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: complicated piece of engineering and physics and science. But it
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: was easy to comment on whether Obama was mad enough
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: about the crisis.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Right. According to the media, he was not. He was
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: not mad enough. More anger would have plugged the hole.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. Well, look, if you can't get a ventilator, a
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: somber tome can help you breathe.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: And look, they have been burned before just a few
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: weeks ago. Um, March 17th, New York times, why president
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Trump changes his tone. AP Trump changes tone gets real CNN.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: What drove Trump's newfound somber tone? Uh, this was the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: week before then he decided to, uh, go on a
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: tear attacking democratic governors, uh, heads of companies start Twitter wars,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: all that kind of shit. Um, Then, thank God, the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Daily Beast had a story yesterday that had Trump aides
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: telling the Daily Beast, quote, that for the last three years,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the president has laughed about how easy it is for
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: him to trigger praise by acting nice during weighty moments.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: He laughs at them. He knows that when he does that,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: he's going to get good reviews. And he laughs about it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: If you're one of the anonymous people whose quotes John
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: just read, Hopefully this morning you wake up, before your
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: cup of coffee, you look in the mirror and you say,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I got played by one of the dumbest men in history.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Now, one other development from that press briefing, CNN didn't
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: take Trump's opening remarks live. And then MSNBC sort of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: cut away later at 1.2. Basically only Fox is the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: only one that's now taking the full briefings live for
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the full two hours now. Do we count this as progress? Yeah,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's progress. And I mean, the briefings are
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: dangerous misinformation. We've talked about the tragic example of the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: couple that thought they were taking the drug that Trump
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: has been promising in contravention of science and FDA guidelines,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and where someone lost their life. And just in general,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you see the asymmetry of Trump saying his lies on
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: live television. And then after you turn away from the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: briefing- Because like we usually watch on CNN in our house,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you see Daniel Dale, who's a tremendously talented fact checker.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Immediately go through all of his lies. But you have
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: a president briefing at a podium, and then you have
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a CNN reporter on a Zoom. And it's just you
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: can't– like no one has figured out how to fact
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: check him in real time. And therefore, as long as
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: you show him or even quote him, you are in
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: danger of passing misinformation along. And that is bad in general,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and it has life or death consequences in– pandemic.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: How do you think the press has been covering the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: response overall?
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Phenomenal. And I think it's important to separate the coverage
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: from the conversation. All this about, all this political analysis,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the tweets you mentioned, the cable panels, that's the conversation, right?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: The coverage, the stories written in the newspapers or on
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the websites or the pieces put together for the local
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and national news. That has been, I think, a tremendous triumph.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: And I think that's an important caveat to all of
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: the complaining about the press, which is reporters are literally
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: putting their lives on the line to cover the story,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: to be in some of the hot spots in New
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: York and elsewhere to say what, or in Italy to
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: say what's happening. The reporters who go to the briefing room,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: whose questions sometimes frustrate us, are putting themselves at risk
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: by going in the briefing room. At least one White
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: House correspondent has contracted coronavirus and believes he did so
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: by being in the briefing room. And the coverage the
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: press has done has sort of told us the stories
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: of the heroes, the victims, and the villains of all
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: of this. And I think some of the stories have
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: actually prompted state and federal action by getting to the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: bottom of things that Trump's administration was unwilling to get
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to the bottom of. And the fact that they're all
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: doing that at a time in which they're– the disruption
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: in the economy is crushing their industry. Los Angeles Times
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: is doing great coverage of what's happening in California at
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: the time that they're having to shrink their paper down
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: in sections because advertising dollars are drying up. And so
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I just think it's worth noting that some of the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: reporters doing the best work here could very well be
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: out of a job in a couple of months because
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of, particularly local outlets, may not survive this crisis.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's very important. And the reason that we
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: yell about the conversation instead of just the coverage is,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you know, the conversation does have an impact, particularly it's
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: not just on Twitter where a lot of people aren't,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: but reporters are on Twitter and the conversation also takes
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: place on television. And there's a lot of people at
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: home just watching their televisions right now, watching cable news.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, it does have an effect on people,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: which is why we yell about it. But it is,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's important to highlight the tremendous and
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: courageous work of so many journalists in covering this. So
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: let's talk about what effect all of this has on
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: shaping public opinion about the response. We've been talking about
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: how Trump has seen slightly higher approval ratings during this crisis.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: According to FiveThirtyEight, he's currently at the highest average approval
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: since the beginning of his presidency, though there have been
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: a few recent polls that suggest his bounce may be
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: leveling off. Why do you think that might be?
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, reality is catching up here, right? I would
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: encourage everyone to check out the Navigator tracking poll on coronavirus.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: The Navigator polling is a collective of progressive groups who've
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: been funding research projects over the last couple of years,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and they're doing daily tracking polls on coronavirus. And on
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: a daily basis, you're seeing more and more people be
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: personally affected by the virus. Either they know someone who
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: has contracted it, or they know someone who has lost
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: their job because of it. And as it gets more
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: and more touches people's lives, it's going to take away
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: from the sort of the rally around the flag effect
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: that has affected Trump. And part of what has driven
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: his approval ratings are increases in support from Democrats, who
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: are most likely probably not going to vote for him
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: in November. But the more he makes this partisan, the
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: more he attacks Gretchen Whitmer and Andrew Cuomo and other governors,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the more he's going to lose those people. That doesn't
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: mean that we should not, focusing on the election in November,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: pay very, very close attention to those numbers and be
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: very nervous about them. But you're seeing them come back
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: to earth a little bit as more and more information
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: about Trump's performance is becoming more and more relevant to
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: people's lives.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: How much do you think that... I've been wondering about this.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Trump or Trump's opponents, us, how much... can either do
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to shape public opinion about his handling of this crisis? Like,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: how much of this is ultimately dictated by the reality
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of what's happening in the country versus arguments people are making, advertisements, organizing,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: all this other kind of stuff? Because I'm starting to
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: think that more than almost any other scandal issue that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: we've dealt with over the last several years with Donald Trump,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: this is something that he can't spin and we will
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: have sort of limited ability to make an argument about
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and shape public opinion as well. Like it seems to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: me that the reality of the situation on the ground
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and how people are dealing with this in their own
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: lives is going to be the most important factor in
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: how they respond to this.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: This is something that people like you and I probably
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: shouldn't admit publicly, which is even in normal times, the
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: words that politicians say, the messages they have, the communication
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: strategies they employ affect things on the margins, right? It's
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: always the big things, right? It's what the economy is.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: It's how many people are legally allowed to vote in
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: a certain state. How the demographics bear out on the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: electoral college is overwhelmingly more important than the political strategies
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and the ads and all of that stuff. That, you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: that is, I've heard it described this way before. That's
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the field goal unit, right? That's what comes in in
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: a close game and wins it. And I think that's
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: particularly true here. But I think because of how things
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: are going, it is imperative that we do all of
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: those things, all of the ads, the organizing, the messaging,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the research to know what it is, right now for
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: two reasons. One, sure, is it possible that this is
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: going to be one of those events that Trump handles
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: either so great, seems unlikely thus far, that the American
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: people will applaud him and he would win an easy
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: re-election or handle so poorly and the election will take
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: place in a way that eludes the historical path towards
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: polarization in the Electoral College of Republicans and you see
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: an election where Joe Biden wins by a margin much
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: larger than you would suspect in normal times. Yes, that
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: is possible. But I don't think we should plan.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: For that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: And I do think the most likely scenario is almost
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: no matter what happens, this will still be an election
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: that is decided by 100,000 votes spread out over four
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: to five states. And given that sense, we have a
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: lot of work to do. And I think the other thing,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: this is why All the advertising, all the messaging, all
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: the organizing is so important right now, which is this
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: is a moment of hyper engagement where even people, voters,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: you could never reach this far out from an election
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: are paying attention. And so they're either paying attention to
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: what Trump is saying and believing him, or they're going
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: to pay attention to what we're saying to show why
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: they shouldn't believe Trump. So if we were to take
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: a step back and say, this is not the time
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: for ads, this is not the time for politics, we
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: would be making, I think, a potentially fatal error. Because
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: we're not really like, yes, I prefer when Trump's approval
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: numbers are bad because approval numbers are kind of what
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: drives political conversations. If his numbers are bad, he will
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: get worse coverage. I will be a happier person. But
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that's not really how we're going to win the election.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: What we're going to do right now is provide people
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: with information that creates a context for the decision they'll
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: make in October. And missing the opportunity right now when
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: they are paying attention would be seeding the field to Trump.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: And I think that would be a tragedy.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I also think there's sort of two options available to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Trump in how he deals with this crisis from a
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: message standpoint. One is probably an option that most traditional
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: politicians of either party might choose, which is he's going
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to say, look, this isn't as bad as it could
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: have been. I stopped something worse from happening. Everything's actually
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: better than you think it is. Yes, We lost an
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: untold number of Americans and the economy's in the shitter,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't my fault. No one could have seen
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: this coming. I think that that sort of has a
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: limited effectiveness. Like, I don't know that he can do
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that because people who have lost their jobs or lost
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: loved ones from this crisis are going to say, well,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem very good. But the other option that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Trump can choose, which is much more Trumpian, is that
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: he blames blames others for what's happening. So we get
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to November and somehow he is blaming all the Democratic
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: governors for the deaths in their states or for the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: job losses. He's blaming the media. He's blaming Democrats. I mean,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you've already seen him start to do this. And I
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: do wonder like, yes, people are going, I mean, people
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: are going to be angry and furious and upset in
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a way that we haven't seen in decades, maybe a century. Um,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: by the time we go through this and the question is,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: who are they angry at? And I think Donald Trump
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is going to try to tell a story that it's
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: not my fault. I was fighting for you the whole time.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It's all of these people's fault. And that I think
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: is why everything that we do matters. The ads we run,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the organizing we do, what we say, because he is
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: going to try to rewrite history, not just to, um,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: you know, absolve himself of responsibility. but to actually point
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the finger of blame towards someone else at a time
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: when the country is going to be extremely angry. I, yeah,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I think like that's something the strategy is going to have.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Cause he, in his most recent briefing, which yesterday, which
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: I would note was a different tone than the Tuesday briefing. Um,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: as we do our daily, our daily tone checks around here. Um,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: but he blamed, you know, you've seen Republicans blame impeachment. You,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: the new, uh, cause du jour on the right is
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: that it's China's fault because they lied to us about it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: And the third thing that Trump was doing on Twitter
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: this morning is blaming local officials for not preparing enough.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: So ultimately, I don't think those three arguments are going
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: to be effective. Impeachment is basically announcing that you cannot
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: walk and chew gum at the same time. Seems like
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: a bad idea. Blaming China is essentially saying that, yes,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I branded myself as the tough on China president, but
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I got played by China. Oh, and by the way,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: I don't read my intelligence briefings. Not a good argument.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And the problem with blaming Democratic governors is, according to
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the Navigator coronavirus tracking poll this morning, by a margin
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: of 54 to 33, the American public trusts local officials
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: more than the Trump administration. And even 27% of Republicans
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: trust local officials more than the Trump administration. What Trump
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: can do, and this is where Democrats have the most
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: work to do, is convince people that no one could
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: have seen this coming. This was beyond his control. He
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: did the best he could under a very difficult situation.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And voters tend to give presidents a pass on these
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: things for at least a period of time. As you
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: and I remember working for Obama, that for, it was,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: I think, almost a year and a half in our polling,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: voters would hold Bush and Wall Street more accountable for
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: the state of the economy than Obama. And that's what
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: kept his approval numbers above where you would possibly imagine
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: them to be at 10% unemployment. But so now, I
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: think we're going to see a point like, whose fault
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: is the state of the economy? Coronavirus or Trump? Or
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: how much you hold Trump responsible? We're going to have
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: to make sure that enough of the voters that we
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: care about hold Trump responsible for this. And we have
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: to do it in a narrow window of time. And
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: so that's why all the stuff about his failure to prepare,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: his not listening to the warnings... his downplaying is so
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: critical to the argument.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: All right, let's go from the historic public health crisis
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: to something much cheerier, which is the historic economic crisis.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: This week, more than six and a half million Americans
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: applied for unemployment benefits. Another record after last week's record.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: It's now somewhere over 10 million at least. People in
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the last two weeks have lost their jobs. The unemployment
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: report on Friday, tomorrow, may well be the worst in
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: American history. The sheer number of claims is overwhelming unemployment
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: offices and crashing systems. Dan, one consequence of losing your
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: job is losing your health insurance. And in response to that,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration announced that they won't even open a
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: special enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act so that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the newly unemployed can get health insurance at a time
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: when people who are hospitalized for COVID without insurance face
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: medical bills as high as $ 75, 000. Why would they do that?
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Because they are terrible people, John. That is why. I
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: think it is.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Doesn't cost anything. Like doesn't cost money from the federal government.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Doesn't require any... Just turning the fucking switch on.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: And it would be good for the economy because if
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: people had more money, then they could continue to buy
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: goods and pay for services, which would mean fewer people
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: lose their jobs. But I think that the example of
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: how they're handling healthcare is an important reminder that the
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: completely fumbled response to coronavirus, both from a public health perspective,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: a governmental preparedness perspective, and an economic perspective, is not
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: simply an indictment of Donald Trump, the president. It's of
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: republicanism as a political philosophy. Because here's one thing I
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: fucking know for sure. If Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio... Mike Pence,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Tom Cotton, even resistance hero Mitt Romney were president right now,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: they would have done the exact same thing that Donald
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Trump did. It is core to the Republican philosophy that
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: giving health care to poor people is a sign of
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: political weakness, and they would not have done it. And
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: that is something that we should remind voters. And we
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: should remind voters that in the middle of a pandemic–
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Republicans are right now, with the help of the Trump administration,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: in court trying to kick millions of Americans off their
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Affordable Care Act policies.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: You pointed out something yesterday morning to us that even
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: though there's no special enrollment period, even though they shut
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: that down, there is still a way for people who
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: lose their jobs because of this to get insurance on
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act market. Can you talk about that?
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. So it is morally abhorrent that Trump would not
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: do something simple that would help people who are uninsured
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: get insurance during a pandemic, in part also because during
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: a pandemic, you want people to call their doctor when
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: they have symptoms, right? Because you want them to find
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: out if they potentially have coronavirus and they take the
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: steps to isolate themselves. And if they don't have insurance,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: they can't do that, right? Telemedicine is not a thing
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: that really works for the uninsured. And so you want
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: them to do it. It is morally apparent. But if
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: you are one of the nearly 10 million Americans- who have,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: it's actually the number's much higher than that, but at
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: least 10 million Americans who've lost their jobs and you
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: are losing your health insurance with it, the Affordable Care
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Act allows you to apply for an Affordable Care Act
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: plan under special circumstances. And losing your job is a
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: special circumstance. So you can still go to healthcare.gov and
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: see what your options are for a plan. And if
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: you're in a state that expanded Medicaid, you can get
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: tremendous financial assistance where the cost of that plan could
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: be de minimis, if not zero. And so I would encourage,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: I think we should tweet out the information about how
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: people do this. But if you are one of those
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: people who is going to lose their health care because
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: you have 60 days to apply for an Affordable Care
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Act plan, now importantly, you may need documentation that you've
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: been laid off. So you should make sure you get
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: that from your employer. But The option is there regardless
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: of what the Trump administration does with a special enrollment
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: period or not.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people have been asking. you know,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: do you think this crisis makes Medicare for all more likely?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Because one thing that this has taught us is that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: when your insurance is tied to your employer and your
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: employer lays you off and then you don't have insurance
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a pandemic. that to say the least,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: that is not a fucking ideal situation. And there have
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: been some polls that show sort of support for Medicare
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: for all has been up since this crisis began. What
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: do you think about this?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's very hard to speculate about the politics
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: of a piece of legislation on the back end of
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: this pandemic. I think it was without a shadow of
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: a doubt that America would be, and the American people
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: would be in a much better position if we had
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: universal government-provided healthcare right now.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Now, so I think that this is a reminder of
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: the arguments that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and the
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Medicare for All crowd have been making for a very
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: long time, which is, as you said, when the power
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: to whether you get healthcare or not lies in your
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: employer and insurance companies, then you're always at risk. And
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: that has never been more true than in a historic
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: economic crisis. It's also an important point, though, for everyone
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: who's saying, that this is the time to pass Medicare
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: for all is that even under Bernie Sanders' very aggressive timeline,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: there is a four-year transition. And so this could be
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: a response to ensure, and I hope people take it on,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I hope there's a massive expansion of healthcare in this country.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: If you could get a single-payer plan, that would be great.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: If you can't, we should be very clear that the
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Biden public option plan would protect people in this situation
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: as well, maybe not to the same extent, but would
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: be a huge improvement of where we currently are. But
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: it is not a response to the immediate crisis right now.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: It's something we wish we had in place and could
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: be a way to protect people in a future crisis.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: But right now, people need help. And the available help
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: is what the federal government can do for them right now.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I realize this is like a nuanced answer, which
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: is not satisfying to a lot of people. But like
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: you said, of course, we would be better off in
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a single payer system right now. But sort of the
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: main arguments, at least within the Democratic Party, over Medicare
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: for All has never been about sort of the worthiness
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: of the goal of Medicare for All or the fact
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: that a single-payer system would be more efficient and more just.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: It would. We know that. The debate has always been
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: about that transition and about passing the bill in the
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: first place and about funding the bill in the first
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: place and how you do all of those things in
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: a way that is also fair to working in middle
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: class people and, you know, deals with the political realities
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: of our current system. And I hope that at the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: tail end of this, there is more support, not only
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: among Democrats, but independents and Republicans as well for a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: single payer plan for truly universal coverage. But now I
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: find myself wanting to do everything possible to make sure that,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: like we just said, people know that if you lose
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: your job right now under the ACA, you can still
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: apply and get insurance, that you can apply for Medicaid
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: if you're in states that have expanded Medicaid, that if
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: you're under a certain threshold of income, that you're going
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to get subsidies to help you pay for insurance on
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Yes, I know this is
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: a Byzantine system. Yes, I know that it's way too complicated,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: but this is reality right now. This is what we have.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: And I think it would be really great if everyone
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: just sort of did everything we can to make sure
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that people have care right now when they absolutely need it.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: And then yes, I hope we have a debate after
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: this and that there is more support for the politically
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: trickier decision to move to a fully single payer system,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: which again would obviously be better right now.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I think just one, one addendum to that is like
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: you are right that the good faith version of that
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: debate is about what is politically feasible right now and
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: how you get to single payer. I think, People in
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: the Medicare for All crowd who are approaching this with
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: real seriousness would argue that in the context of the campaign,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: it didn't always happen in a good faith way.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: They're totally right. Yeah. They're totally right.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: And that is totally right. But the argument between the
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: various people, like policy people thinking about how you get
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: there is about whether you start with something smaller or
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: you go right to something bigger and what the political
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: system can bear. And that's what the debate is.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, this was my disappointment throughout the primaries.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of the arguments against Medicare for all
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: were sort of political talking point based arguments and not
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: substantive arguments about the transition and financing, which I think
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: are legitimate. And I think some of the political arguments were,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: you know, less legitimate, let's say.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: So that's what Trump isn't doing about the economic crisis.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what else Democrats want to do. Nancy
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Pelosi is already working on another economic relief bill known
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: for some reason as phase four that she would try
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: to pass in the House in late April at the earliest.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: She's already floated some ideas like more direct payments, more
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: money for hospitals and medical equipment, more paid leave, a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: big investment in infrastructure jobs, lifting the limits on state
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and local deductions and a slew of other relief ideas.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell isn't so hot on the idea of a
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: phase four. He said of Pelosi, quote, she needs to
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: stand down. It would take a lot of convincing to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: convince me. Dan, what do you think of Pelosi's strategy
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: here of trying to sort of do phase four on
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: her own? What do you think of the timing? And
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: what do you think about some of the ideas that
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: she floated?
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I think Pelosi is... smart about passing a House bill, right?
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Last time we had to work off a text that
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: McConnell and Mnuchin did with some input from Schumer, but
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: ultimately McConnell held the pen. And I think Pelosi, and
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I understand all the reasons why Pelosi approached it the
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: way she did last time the House was out, the
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: White House has frozen her out of things. She had
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: already done, she already passed a bill. But in this situation,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: you want the debate between the Trump plan and and
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: a plan House Democrats want. That's how divided government should work.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: And so she should get out there and do it
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: and move the window towards more progressive solutions focused on
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: middle and working class people. All of the suggestions that
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: are talked about there make sense. Even, I think, to
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: a– I would put this much lower down the priority list,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: but the lifting of the state and local deduction cap.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Because there's a– If you do that and you don't
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: do a lot of things that help middle and working
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: class people, then you have done your job poorly. But
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: you also need to put money in the economy, right?
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: And that is a part of stimulus is you need
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: people buying goods and services so that companies don't shut
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: down and people don't lose their job. I think what
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: I would put as the priorities in a bill, if
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: we were in charge, which we are not, is the
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: bill should have monthly checks to people. with a trigger
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: that turns off when the economy hits a certain level.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Because McConnell's statement, it's gamesmanship because he wants to hold
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: the pen and not have Pelosi hold the pen. But
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: he is correct that with every passing, every time you
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: have to go back, the likelihood of success goes down significantly.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: And that is what happened in the economic crisis 2008, 2009,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: why it took much longer to get out of than
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: it should have. And that's true no matter who's in charge.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: That's one. So the things I would put is monthly checks.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: I think we need forgiveness for rent payments, mortgage payments,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: student loan, and potentially others. But those are the three
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: I would put because it is great that many Americans
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: did not have to pay their rent yesterday or pay
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: their mortgage yesterday or pay their student loan bills. But
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: that money is accruing. And even if it's accruing without
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: interest– most people can't, they don't have the money to
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: make three months from now, three rent payments at the
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: same time. And so unless you offer them some forgiveness,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: American families are going to get into a hole that
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: they can never get out of.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I am concerned that Democrats are thinking too small and
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: too traditional. And I realized that because we've been through
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: this with the stimulus in 2009, the Recovery Act, that
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: one of the challenges for lawmakers who are trying to
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: stimulate the economy in a time of recession is how
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: fast can we get money out the door and in
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the hands of people? Because to keep the economy going,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: you just need cash in people's hands. And there are
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: a number of existing avenues to do that. So unemployment insurance,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: money to state and local governments, which is very important.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Things like lifting tax deductions, right? All this kind of bullshit.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: it becomes, so it's sort of the fastest way to
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: get money out the door. But I don't like, we
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: just saw six, six and a half million people file
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: for unemployment, 5 million last week. I mean, this seems
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: like it is going to be a recession that is
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: deeper and scarier than anything we have ever seen in
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: this country. And when you look to Europe right now,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Denmark has agreed to compensate Danish employers for up to
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: 90% of their workers' salaries. In the Netherlands, companies facing
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: a loss of at least 20% of their revenue can
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: apply for the government to cover 90% of the payroll.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: The UK announced that it would pay up to 80%.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: of the wages for as many companies as needed to help,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: with no cap on the total amount of public spending.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Germany even chips in for part-time workers. This was all
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: from a New York Times editorial last week. Europe has
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: basically decided that their solution is going to be fairly simple, elegant,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: and very ambitious and big, which is they're just going
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: to pay people to stay home, right? They're going to
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: shut down the economy artificially, and they're going to tell employers,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: don't lay off a single person, and we will pay
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: their wages for as long as this goes. And I
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: just can't help but wonder if we should be doing
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: something like that here that is that big and ambitious
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: that people can understand. And I was looking around for
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: what you know, people said about those kinds of proposals.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I saw our friend Jason Furman, who was obviously in
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: the Council of Economic Advisors in the Obama White House.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: You know, he said that what you're doing is attractive
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in some ways. You know, he worries about some smaller
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: businesses who have to sort of pony up for their
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: employees on the front end and pay their payroll and
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: maybe don't have the cash to do that and then
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: just wait to get reimbursed by the government. So obviously,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of considerations that go
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: into figuring something like this out. But I worry both
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: from a substantive and a political standpoint that we as
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats are going to do what we usually do, which
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: is try to find the most responsible, easy ways to
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: get money out the door. And it ends up looking
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: like a laundry list that no one can understand. And
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: then we both, at the end of the day, weren't
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: ambitious enough and didn't do everything we could to keep
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: people whole during this pandemic.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that is probably the starting principle
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: that you outline here is where everyone should begin. which
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: is the federal government has asked everyone, in some cases
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: ordered everyone, to stop working and staying home. So because
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: we did that, we are going to spend whatever it
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: takes to keep everyone whole until this is over. And
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: that is a simple principle that... The implementation of it
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: is quite complicated, so do not get me wrong. I
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: get it.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: But if you start there... as opposed to a more
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: piecemeal plan of Keynesian economics of putting money in the economy,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: plus bailouts for specifically affected industries, plus expansion of existing programs.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: If you just say, this is our principle, this is
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: what we are going to do, it is in everyone's
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: interest to do that. It is in the interest of
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: people who go into public service to care for middle-class
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: and working people, Democrats. It is in the interest of
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: people who go into public service in order to expand
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: their own political power, like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: It is in the interest of corporations whose bottom lines
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: depend on people having enough money to buy their goods
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: and services. That is in everyone's interest. And you say, well,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: how do we pay for it? We can figure that
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: out on the back end. And if you can decide
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: to do that for a massive tax cut for millionaires
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: and corporations two years ago, you can figure out how
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: to do that now. Because I do think, and I've
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: seen people like Jason talk about this, The question is
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: not how devastating is this going to be to GDP
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: and unemployment. That is going to be terrible. When you
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: shut down the economy, that is going to be terrible.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: The question is how much pain are people going to
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: have while it's happening and how quickly can we get
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: out of it? Those two questions are interrelated. If you
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: took a big, giant, aggressive approach, we would come out
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: of this crisis much faster because people would be allowed
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: to leave their homes and And they would feel like
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: they had enough money and economic security to return to
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: their normal lives. If you worked in a restaurant, your
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: restaurant would still be there when you came back. If
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: you worked at a hotel, the hotel would still be
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: there when you came back or any small businesses. And
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: then I really think you could come closer to the
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: idea of turning the economy back on if people had
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: that security. And it does bespeak sort of the narrow
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: parameters of policymaking that that that's not what the conversation
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: is in this country.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also, I mean, there's another issue here. You know,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: in the last big economic relief bill, Democrats were criticized
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: for trying to include a number of provisions that were
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: unrelated to the emergency at hand. Things like, you know,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: money for the Kennedy Center, emissions restrictions for airplanes, money
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: for Head Start, which is a worthy program, but all
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the Head Start programs are closed right now. And it
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't just Republicans doing the criticizing here. Michael Grunwald, who
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: covered the 2009 stimulus bill very well, in fact, wrote
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: a book on it. He reported the other week that
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: one former Obama official looked at the bill and said,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: what does all this shit have to do with anything?
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Do Democrats need to be careful of this next time
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: in phase four? Because I really think we do.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, everything that you mentioned is incredibly worthy
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: and important. And because... Politics is so broken primarily by Republicans.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: The opportunities to do things are so limited that when
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: you see a train leaving the station, you want to
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: put everything on it.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: But the ability to– like if Pelosi passes a bill,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: it is going to be a political messaging battle to
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: convince McConnell and Trump to take as much of that
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: bill as possible. And so you have to protect your
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: flank when you do that. And so there's going to
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: be trade-offs there about what you put in, what you don't.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: I think having some overriding big principles that are very specific,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: where the bulk of the bill is a few things,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: whether it's rent forgiveness, student loan forgiveness, these checks that
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: go on. Whatever those things are that people can understand
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: is going to be much better. Having Five or six,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: that may be too many, but five or six big
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: things that go to helping ease people's pain is going
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: to be an easier political battle to win than having
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: 100 things to do it, right?
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, it's also important, I think, that
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: whatever Democrats come out with, that it draws a stark
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: political contrast with Republican priorities, not just that Republicans like
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: McConnell don't want to do anything, but that they want
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: to help this economy by helping their rich friends with
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: more tax cuts for big companies. I mean, that was
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the other thing that we had to deal with with
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: the last bill, is that there were too many goodies
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: for the rich in there. And we had to sign
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: off because it was also a huge amount of relief
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: for working people. And so, of course, it was responsible
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: to vote for that anyway. But I think next time around,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: if Pelosi's crafting the bill in the House, shouldn't it
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: be like, a very tight message about democratic priorities focused
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: squarely on the crisis at hand and the people who
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: need the money the most and then let McConnell and Trump,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: you know, either oppose it or propose something ridiculous for
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: big corporations or whatever the fuck they're going to do.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Isn't sort of that the best way forward? I mean,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Trump was already out there yesterday saying it's interesting the
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: split between Trump and McConnell, which we should talk about
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: is McConnell's like, I don't want to do another bill.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: And Trump's already saying, well, I want to do a
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: $ 2 trillion infrastructure bill.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, yes, you're right. And I think it's important
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: that Democrats recognize that the bill they pass is first
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: and foremost a political messaging document. It's both your first
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: offer in what will be a very difficult negotiation with
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: some pretty bad people, but it's also going to be
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: your message to the country about what governance would look
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: like if Democrats were in charge of the entire government.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: This is what we would do. This is what we
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: would do in this crisis. And if we had been
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: in charge, and you should put us in charge, then
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: your situation would be better off. And then we will
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: go out and do these things if we were still
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: in this mess come November. I am somewhat sympathetic to
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: how hard the job that Pelosi has in this, which is,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: you're a member and you know, the United is headquartered
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: in your member from the Illinois and United is headquartered
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: in your district. And so in the middle of this crisis,
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: you're going to vote for something that doesn't help the biggest.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: And you to think about that, not in terms of
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: your campaign contributions, first and foremost, but in terms of
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: the thousands of workers in your district who are going
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: to lose their jobs. So like, it's very hard and
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: it's always going to be a balance. Um, But you're
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: going to have to lean that balance towards what gives
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: you the strongest hand with McConnell, and that's the cleanest,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: most easily understood, most comprehensive approach.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think, you know, the biggest danger here
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is sort of short-term thinking, narrow thinking, small thinking, traditional thinking,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: and not realizing that the scale of devastation wrought by
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: this crisis could change politics for generations. it will, like,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: young people who are graduating college who might not be
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: able to get jobs, people who are going to be
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: out of work for a long time, people who are
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: going to lose people in this, like, it is going
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: to shape people's views of the political system for, like,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: 9-11 did, like the financial crisis did, maybe even more so.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: More so, for sure.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: More so. And there's going to be such rage and
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: anger and despair and a lot of it you know, very,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: very warranted. And this is a moment for the Democratic
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Party to make clear that we stand on the side
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: of the people who are going to be struggling for
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: a long time because of this. And everything we have
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: to do to make that clear, we should do. And like, I, I'm,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I get all the, the, the struggles that, that, you know,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: leaders have in times like this and trying to make
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: government work and we're the responsible party. So we always
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: try to do things responsibly and I get that, but like,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I really hope we don't lose the forest for the
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: trees on this one. Yeah.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: And I'd say one other thing about how Democrats should
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: approach this, which is not just the next bill, but like, like,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Democrats are in a different place in this crisis than
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Republicans were in 2008, 2009. Republicans, because they controlled nothing,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: could sit back, vote against every bill, and then blame
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: Obama for everything that happened. Democrats control the House and
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: have a responsibility gene, so they were never going to
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: take that sort of, frankly, evil approach to helping their Americans.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: So we have our hand on the knife, right? But
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: what I think is important here is the The way
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: to frame this is Democrats worked with Republicans to give
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: the president what the president thought he needed to fix
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: the economy. And he is now responsible for the implementation
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: of that bill. So every bad loan, every giveaway to
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: a special interest, every missed check, right? That is on Trump.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: That is on him, right? And that is where the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: political– like we have to watch this like a hawk
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: every single mistake they make, they have to be held
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: accountable for. Because if we don't hold them accountable, they're
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: just going to continue making mistakes and hurting American people.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: And also, this is the important story to tell about
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: what happens when you put incompetent, narcissistic people who hate
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: government in charge of the government.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is the whole story.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: And Trump is uniquely bad at this. But we have
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: seen this from Republicans from time on end. This is
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Bush fucking up Katrina. This is Bush fucking up Iraq.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: This is Republicans in the House almost taking the global
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: economy over the dead ceiling. These people cannot be trusted
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: to be in charge of anything. And we have to
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: make sure that people understand that if they do what
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: we suspect they will do, which is mess it up
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: because they hate helping people, they hate government, and they're
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: really bad at what they do.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the only other thing that I, the priority
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: that I think Pelosi and the Democrats have to make
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: sure gets in the next bill is doing something so
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: that people can vote safely in November. And I know
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: that is not directly related to the economics of this,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: but this is sort of trains leaving the station on
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: this one. And, you know, I'm about to talk to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Ben Wickler and what's happening in Wisconsin right now is
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: a preview of what could be happening around the country
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: in November, which is Republican state legislatures and Republicans you know,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: trying to do whatever they can to prevent people from voting,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: which is what they usually try to do anyway in
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of these states. And now there's going to be,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you know, we could possibly be in a situation where
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: even in November, people don't feel safe voting. And a
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: lot of that's going to be universal vote by mail
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: in some states that, you know, it's going to be
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: just sort of protecting election workers and voters and everything
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: like that. But I think that Democrats have to demand
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: that that is in the next bill. Because if we
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: get to September or October, it's just going to be
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: too late. It's going to be too late to do
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: anything about this. And this is what Wisconsin is realizing
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: And it's going to be hard because Trump never bright
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: enough to know what the quiet part is and what
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: the loud part is, went on Fox and Friends last
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: week and said, referring to the vote by mail provisions
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: and what the House was talking about, that if they
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: were to happen, Republicans would never win an election again.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: A state legislative leader in Georgia said the same thing
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: last night, which he opposed vote by mail because it
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: would increase turnout, which means Republicans would lose. I would
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: say two things about that. One, if more people voting
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: means you're going to lose, maybe reassess your party's agenda.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: That'd be one. And two, I'm not even sure that's
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: the case in this specific example, because if people who
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: are over the age of 70 do not feel like
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: they can go vote, I'm pretty sure I know which
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: party that would hurt most, and it's not ours. Yeah.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: So, all right, that's important. Okay, on that note, when
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: we come back, I will be talking to the chair
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wickler. On today's pod,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wickler, Uh, Ben,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: how are you and your family doing?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: We are doing okay. I'm home with three kids who
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: are currently watching a ready jet go on PBS kids.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: My wife is working, I'm working, but we're all safe.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: So we're very grateful. Uh, other than the fact that
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: there's an election in five days in Wisconsin.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that. Uh, you guys have elections
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: scheduled on Tuesday. It's not just the democratic primary. There
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: are local and state elections, uh, including a close race
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: for the Supreme court. Um, You and other Democrats and
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: now the governor have all called for postponing these elections
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: since there's a statewide stay-at-home order. But somehow they're still scheduled. Why?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: So in Wisconsin, the Republican Party have made an art
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: out of controlling election laws to try to prevent Democrats
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: from voting. And they have at every turn for the
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: last decade, tried to stop young people from voting, people
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: of color from voting. They've done everything they could to
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: restrict voter registration, to restrict people's ability to cast votes
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: in normal ways. And now with this pandemic, they are
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: absolutely refusing to move the election, to mail people ballots,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: to allow people to request absentee ballots without taking a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: photo of their voter ID. The wild thing is now
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: they're also suppressing all older voters, because there are tons
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: of older folks who don't know how to take a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: photo of their voter ID and upload it to a
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: web form. I'm hearing from clerks that they're getting loads
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: of selfies from old voters trying to request absentee ballots.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: But I think the GOP, frankly, I worry that when
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: they look at this election, they're also noticing that Democrats
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: are more aware of the risk of COVID than Republicans.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: And we can see right now, both of the legislative
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: leaders of the Republican Party are planning to be poll
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: workers and are tweeting about how It's going to be
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: safe because of the safeguards that are put in place.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: They control the election calendar. They control the date. They
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: control the methods of registering and requesting an absentee ballot.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: And they're refusing to budge and they're intervening in court
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: every time we at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the DNC, mayors,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: civil rights groups, county clerks, anyone tries to do anything
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: to make it easier to get an absentee ballot.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: So what is their, this is obviously their intention is
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: to stop people from voting. We all know that. What's
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: their official excuse that they're giving?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: Let's see. They've given a bunch. One of them is
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: that changing the rules might be confusing to people, which
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: is extraordinary because this is a moment, if there's any
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: word to describe how people feel, it's other than scared,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: it's confused. Polling locations are shutting down en masse because
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: poll workers are dropping out because they're afraid for their
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: health because most of them are older. So Waukesha, the
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: heart of Republican Wisconsin, is going to have only one
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: polling location for a city of 70,000 people. Milwaukee is
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: down from 180 to 10 polling locations. I mean, everything
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: is changing about this election already. And we have 1.1
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: million absentee ballot requests. The previous record for absentee ballots
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: was in the fall presidential election in 2016. It was 249,000.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: So there's nothing normal about this. But nonetheless, they're saying,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: you know, the process should go forward. We need the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: pandemic means we should have more democracy, not less. And
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: it would be confusing to folks. They also in the
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: kind of lower register on, you know, county party, Facebook
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: pages and stuff are accusing Democrats of trying to rig
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: the election by making sure everyone can vote. And I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: think that goes to the heart of how Republicans see elections,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: which is they don't see the battlefield as getting more votes.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: It's who do you stop from voting successfully?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: So where does the legal fight stand right now?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: Yesterday we had the, um, the hearing in federal court
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: in the Western district of Wisconsin and, uh, the DNC,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: the democratic party of Wisconsin, uh, a bunch of civil
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: rights groups, the league of women voters, um, all kind
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: of rolled our lawsuits into one, um, and made the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: case for, uh, the, the, the civil rights groups had
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: standing to argue to postpone it.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: Uh, we argued for a.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: Bunch of changes to absentee ballots and supportive of the, uh,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: of the other groups claims. The judge basically said, look,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: this is on the legislature and governor. And, and frankly, uh,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: the governor would be more than happy to make voting
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: accessible to everybody. It's the Republicans who are refusing to
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: do anything in our state legislature. So he was mad.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: He said he didn't think he had the power to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: move the election. I am very hopeful that he'll grant
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: some relief to stuff like being able to return an
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: absentee ballot with a postmark on election day instead of
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: having it be received by election day, which would make
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: life a lot easier for a lot of folks trying
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: to vote. But he said he doesn't, he thinks he
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: doesn't have the power to wholesale move the election day.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: So we're waiting for his ruling. And in the meantime,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: right now it's Thursday, April 2nd, at 5 p.m. Central
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Time today. It's the deadline to request an absentee ballot online.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: So even as the fight moves in the courts, we're
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: doing everything we can to make sure people know how
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: to request an absentee ballot. And we're just calling, texting,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: reaching out on Facebook, everything we can possibly do to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: make sure people know how to fill them out. Right
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: now they have to get a witness signature to cast
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: an absentee ballot. Kind of hard during social distancing if
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: you live alone. And then to help folks get those
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: sent in before the deadline.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: So that's really important. So if you're listening right now
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: and you're in Wisconsin or you know someone in Wisconsin,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: it's 5 p.m. Central. Tonight is the deadline to request
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: an absentee ballot. So say the judge... does not postpone
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: the election. You talked a little bit about how you're
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: trying to push for expanded mailing voting. What are some
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: of the other things you guys are trying to do
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: to make the election work as best as possible if
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: it is on Tuesday?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: So the Elections Commission has been working with public health
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: experts to try to make in-person voting as safe as possible.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: In Wisconsin, elections are administered by municipal clerks. We have 1,850
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: of them across the state. So they have been training them.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: They've been finding personal protective equipment, sanitizer, wipes. There's a
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: PDF you can go through explaining that you should wipe
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: down every surface people might touch every 10 to 15 minutes.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: There's all these things they're trying to do. So I
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: hope that makes a difference. Poll workers are dropping out
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: so much that the governor is now ready to deploy
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: the National Guard to be poll workers on Election Day
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: on Tuesday, which is younger than the average poll worker.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: But that looks like part of how we'll close the
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: gap there. Polling locations have been consolidated. There are some
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: cities that are offering drive-through voting. And in Milwaukee, there's
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: actually drive-through absentee ballot witnessing. So you can pull up,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: someone will witness your absentee ballot, and then you can
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: drop it off without getting out of your car. The
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: guidance is for any clerk to allow people with symptoms
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: who pull up to do drive-through voting. And That'll be dependent, frankly,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: on how many poll workers they have to be able
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: to process people inside and outside. And then what we're
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: doing at the party is this just massive onslaught of
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: pushing and supporting people doing absentee voting. There's a very
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: proud tradition in Wisconsin of voting in person. We have
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: same-day voter registration. That's been a big part of how
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: elections work here. All of our efforts are on voting
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: by mail. And the mayor of Milwaukee actually He's on
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: the ballot, and he said, I don't want you to
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: vote in person on Tuesday. This is unlike any election
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: that I think anyone alive has ever seen, and it's
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: happening in five days.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about why the Supreme Court election is
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: so important? I think a lot of folks around the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: country look at this, and they're like, well, other states
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: have moved their primary. The primary is less competitive now.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Who really cares? But it seems like there's a very
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: competitive– Supreme Court election that's important on Tuesday that has
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with the primary. Can you tell us
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: a little bit about that?
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: What happens between now and Tuesday with absentee votes and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: in-person votes will affect whether Trump is reelected in November.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: It's as simple as that. And the reason is that
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: our state Supreme Court is going to rule on voting
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: rights issues potentially multiple times between now and November that
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: will affect who can cast a ballot to defeat Donald Trump.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: And whether Wisconsin goes blue or red, could tilt the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: entire electoral college. So the way this works is our
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: state right now, it has a 5-2 Republican, frankly, Republican majority,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: even though it's nonpartisan. These are Republican operatives on the
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: state Supreme Court. Dan Kelly is kind of the worst, well,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: hard to say, one of the worst of the bunch.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: He sort of made his career by defending Scott Walker
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: in corruption investigations and then defending gerrymandered maps in court.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: He was an appointed- What a resume.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: Obviously, clearly someone dedicated to justice. Scott Walker then appointed
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: him to fill a vacancy on the state Supreme Court.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: So this is the first time that he's faced voters.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: I have a mailing that I could grab from Americans
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: for Prosperity that calls him independent, tough, and fair. That's
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: what they send to people like me. Obviously, they're sending
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: a different message to other folks. But the reason the
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: Koch brothers are behind him is the same reason that
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: Trump endorsed him at his last rally in Wisconsin. which
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: is that they want him to cast votes for things
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: like purging voters from the voter rolls in Wisconsin. The
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: case where this right-wing group sued to get 234,000 voters
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: purged was petitioned up to the Supreme Court, and it
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: deadlocked there. One Republican crossed over. Dan Kelly recused himself because,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: I can only assume, he knew it would be explosive
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: for him to purge voters in his own election. He
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: has now said to reporters, that he would consider unrecusing
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: himself after the election, which there was a whole story
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: about this where law professors said they'd never seen a
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: judge unrecuse themselves from a case. But nonetheless, that is
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: his pledge. And that is why I think Republicans see
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: this as a path to rig the election to try
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: to get Donald Trump into office. And it makes it
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: hugely high stakes. And, you know, we are even in
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: this virtual environment where people are trying to figure out
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: how to make ends meet and get through the day.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: We are doing this incredibly intensive virtual organizing operation to
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: try to get every possible Democrat to cast an absentee
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: ballot and vote for Jill Karofsky, who is great, who
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: is running to unseat Dan Kelly.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: So thinking about November, what has all of this taught
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: you about how Wisconsin and other states should get ready
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: for a presidential election that could be held in the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: middle of a pandemic?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: The most important thing, and this is a hard fight,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: is to get universal vote by mail. Our governor called
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: for everyone to be mailed a ballot, every registered voter.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: We have pushed for that. Democrats in our legislature are
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: ready to do it. Republicans clearly see that as a threat.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: Trump said in a press conference that it would cause
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: levels of voting that would mean no Republican would ever
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: get elected, which is an incredible tell.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Saying the quiet part out loud.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: Yes. Any state where that's possible, any state, county or
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: municipality where that's possible to do legally, and the whole
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: country if we can fight to make it happen. That
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: would make the biggest difference just to make democracy actually function.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: It would move us a lot closer to having a
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: real legitimate democracy in the United States of America. There
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: are also a lot of other things we have to do.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: And the first is we have to get really good
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: at virtual organizing. Right now, on this day, I was
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: expecting to be out knocking on doors in every part
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: of the state. We've had these neighborhood action teams we've
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: been building since the spring of 2017 who were ready
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: to mobilize a vast field operation to have neighbors talking
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: to neighbors at their doorsteps. That is our most powerful tool.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: It is totally off the table right now. And we
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: are now, we're using phone calls, auto dialers, peer-to-peer text messages,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: relational organizing tools, friend banking. We're doing all these things.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: I know that groups are doing handwritten postcard campaigns. Every
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: possible medium that you can contact someone without interacting with
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: them using, and we're about to learn a lot about
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: what things make the biggest difference. We've got to hone
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: this art to a fine point during the time between
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: now and November, because it might be that in November,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: the thing that Democrats have always been strongest at relative
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: to Republicans, the face-to-face conversations, might not be possible. And
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: we have to invent other ways to make sure that
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: we have the advantage on the ground game and then
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: we've got to overtop Republicans with meme warfare, because they
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: are still coming really strong.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: On that front.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: How do you think about sort of underserved and rural
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: areas where people and voters might not be as online
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: as other places in a world where you have to
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: organize like this?
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: There are places in Wisconsin that don't have cell phone service,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: that don't have broadband internet.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: There are.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: Communities, especially communities of color that are most at the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: economic margins that Most people don't have access to printers
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: and to things that you need to do by mail.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: What everyone still has is postal mail service. And one
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: thing that that means is that making sure people get
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: stuff in the mail, making sure that you find ways
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: to reach out to people and help them to respond
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: to things by mail, that can make an enormous difference.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: And I think we can't leave the oldest technology in
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: the world. We can't leave that out in our planning.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: But that said, there are a lot of folks with landlines.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: You can call those landlines. Make sure that you have
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: cell phones. The DNC has been doing a lot of
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: investing in getting fresh cell phone data so that you
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: can text people. Texts have an enormous amount of reach.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: You just have to use every tool in the arsenal.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that I like about absentee ballots,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: at least in Wisconsin, is we can see who's requested them.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: We get the list every day. And that means we
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: actually know the list of people and we can also
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: see who's returned them. So we can go through that
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: list and just over and over and over, reach out
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: to everybody and ask them to fill it out, send
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: it in, call them if they need help, see if
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: someone needs to drive by and pick up their absentee
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: ballot wearing gloves, like whatever it takes to get those
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: absentee ballots in.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: So last question, it was just announced just before we
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: started that the Democratic Convention, which is supposed to be
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: held in Milwaukee, will now be postponed until August 17th.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: You feel good about that?
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: I think it's a great and clear decision. And I've
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: been in touch with a bunch of the folks today
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: the commitment that they have is, one, to make sure
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: that the convention is safe, and two, that it is Wisconsin-y.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: And if we do those two things, we can launch
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: our nominee in the tipping point state and whatever the
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: public health conditions are, we're going to do this in
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: a way that sets us up for November.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: I'll let you go, but I guess what should anyone
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: who's listening to this who is sort of freaked out
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: by everything you've just said about what's going on in
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin for Tuesday, how can people help?
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: So three things that I want to ask Pod Save
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: America listeners to do. The first is, if you're in
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: Wisconsin or if you're not, tweet the link to request
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: an absentee ballot, myvote.wi.gov. Post it on Facebook. Actually, especially
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: post it on Facebook. post it on anything you can,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: text it to anyone you know who might know someone
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: who lives in Wisconsin. We have to push that out.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: The second thing is if you have a minute, an hour,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: five days to volunteer, go to wisdems.org slash volunteer, fill
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: out our form, and we'll start shifting you into slots,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: especially to phone bank to help people, to walk people
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: through the process of getting their ballots filled out. And
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: the last thing, I know a lot of people are
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: in economic free fall right now. So not everyone is
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: in a position to donate. If you are one of
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: the lucky people who is, there are actually less people
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: doing it and your money goes further. So if you
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: go to wisdems.org forward, there's a page that we have
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: up right now for this push, wisdems.org forward, and chip
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: in a few bucks or make a recurring donation. Yeah,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: we're trying to figure out how we go the distance
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: for these five days and through November. And knowing that
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: we have resources to count on allows us to keep
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: on expanding and keep our foot on the gas. in
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: the same way that Trump is doing on the other side.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: All right, everyone, do what Ben says. And good luck
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, man. I'm very glad that you're the one
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: running this show out there. So stay safe, stay healthy,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: and thanks for joining us.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ben for joining us today. And, you know,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: enjoy your quarantine, everyone. We will stay safe and healthy
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: out there. Stay home. Don't be like, you know, Ron
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: DeSantis and Brian Kemp and those idiots. And we will
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: see you on Monday.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: every week.