Latest / Pod Save America / “Party of Q.”

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“Party of Q.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys!
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, Democrats go big and fast on COVID relief.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Republicans take it easy on Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: And the fate of democracy could depend on the redistricting
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: battles that will take place in state houses over the
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: coming months. Then Dan talks to journalist Farai Chidea about
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: building a media that's more representative and better connected to
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: all communities. But first, check out Keep It all this month. Ira, Aida,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and Louis will be having discussions with Black creators, Black-owned
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: business leaders, and many more great guests for Black History Month. Also,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: check out this week's Pod Save the World to learn
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: about the military coup in Myanmar that took place this week.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And speaking of Pod Save the World, Ben Rhodes has
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: written another book, which you can pre-order right now. It's
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: called After the Fall. It's about Ben's travels around the
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: world after Trump won, where he met with dissidents, opposition leaders,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: and young activists. who are trying to understand the turn
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: towards authoritarianism and nationalism in their own countries and all
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: over the world. Ben is one of the best writers
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I've ever met. One of the best storytellers I know.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: You should go pre-order After the Fall right now. It
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: comes out in June. I started reading it a few
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: nights ago. It does not disappoint, Dan. It is outstanding.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I'm only laughing because it is a real testament to
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Ben that I got you to read a book. So
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I'm very, very proud.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I only read my former colleagues' books. Those are the
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: only books I read. In 2020, it was Samantha Power,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama, your book, and now Ben's.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I will say a couple of things about this. I
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: have also started reading it. You're exactly right. Ben is
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: an amazing writer. It is also a chance to revisit
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: a world where you can travel. So if you miss traveling,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: that's a good place. That is amazing. And as a
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: connoisseur of podcast related book pitches, Ben's pitch for why
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: he wrote the book and what you can get from
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: reading it on Pod Save the World is a Hall
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: of Fame book pitch.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: And Tommy's pitch was also quite persuasive, which is buy
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Ben's book to make sure that it ends up ahead
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: of Dan Bongino's on the bestseller list.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Does Dan Bongino have a book coming out?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I don't want to just substitute any asshole for Dan. Yes.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Any asshole on the right.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: You can always bet there's some asshole from the right
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: with a book coming out.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: By the time Ben's comes out, it'll be like Lauren
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Bobert's book. So yeah, go, go check that out. All right.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Let's start with a quick update on the negotiations over
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Biden's COVID relief plan. The president and vice president met
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: with the 10 Republican senators who made a counteroffer on Monday.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: They had a two hour meeting. Everyone said nice things
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: about each other afterwards. But the White House still released
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: a statement that read, quote, While there were areas of agreement,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: the president also reiterated his view that Congress must respond
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: boldly and urgently and noted many areas which the Republican
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: senator's proposal does not address. Sure enough, all 50 Senate
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Democrats voted on Tuesday to use a budget reconciliation bill
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to pass the COVID relief plan, which would only require
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: 51 votes instead of 60. Not only did Joe Manchin
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: vote in favor of using budget reconciliation, some people were
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a little worried he might not. He said this about
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the size of the plan on MSNBC.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: The worst thing we can do is put a price
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: tag on it. We have to get what the needs
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of the people are and basically how we keep the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: economy going, how we keep people basically ready for this
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: economy to come roaring back and they're prepared to be
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: part of it. So If it's $ 1. 9 trillion, so be it.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: If it's a little smaller than that and we find
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: a targeted need, that's what we're going to do. But
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I want it to be bipartisan. So if they think
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that they're going to basically, we're going to throw all
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the caution to the wind and just shove it down
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: people's throat, that's not going to happen.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: So that's a lot of mention being mentioned, but pretty
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: good news on the $ 1. 9 trillion that he is willing
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: to embrace $ 1. 9 trillion if it gets there. It does
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: seem like he has... at least two specific sticking points. Overall,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: of course, he keeps saying he wants it to be bipartisan.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: He wants it to be bipartisan. That seems like it's
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: going to be tricky. But on the policies, he keeps
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: talking about making the bill more targeted to people who've
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: been most impacted by the pandemic. And this could be
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: why we learned yesterday that Democrats are reportedly considering lowering
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the income threshold for the $ 1, 400 checks from $ 75, 000 to $ 50, 000
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: for individuals who make that a year. and from $ 150, 000
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: a year down to $ 100, 000 a year for married couples.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Parents would also get $ 1, 400 checks per child. Dan, what
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: do you think about this change and why Democrats are
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: reportedly considering it?
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I assume they're reportedly considering it because they need Joe
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Manchin's vote.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you think he's made it like a requirement?
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Or at least expressed a strong desire for it. I
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: think we should be glad that he is open to
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: a large bill, a number consistent with what Biden has
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: talked about. I think this is a foolish and unnecessary
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: thing to do. There is no situation where there's a
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: perfect process for distributing funds. It has never worked in
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: the history of time. This is a something that has
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: to be done very quickly at a very large scale.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: I would much prefer in a historic recession in a
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: pandemic that you err on the side of helping some
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: people who need it less than not helping enough people
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: who need it more. But this is sort of the
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: reality we're going to have to come to terms with,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: which is we need Joe Manchin, we need Kyrsten Sinema,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: we need Mark Kelly, we need a handful of more
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: conservative senators to get something done. And Hopefully, he'd be
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: persuaded to do something different. But this is why this
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: is happening. It is not Joe Biden just deciding so
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: that he can appeal to austerity hawks on Morning Joe
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: or whatever else to demonstrate, to sort of do austerity
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: virtue signaling. This is, I imagine and assume, he's trying
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: to figure out what it is going to take to
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: get all 50 Democrats to vote for something that is
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: very close to $ 1. 9 trillion in line with what he
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: proposed last month.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we talked about this a couple of
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: pods ago. When Susan Collins was complaining that people making $ 300, 000
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: would get a check, I understood that. $ 300, 000 is a
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: lot of money. I don't know that someone needs a
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: stimulus check if they're making $ 300, 000. I also wasn't sure
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: what she was talking about because I don't know what
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: threshold that really is in the plan. But these numbers
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: get thrown around in Washington and in the press. And
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: I think people don't think about what real people are
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: going through. Like imagine if you're making $ 60, 000 a year
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and you've gotten the past stimulus checks and suddenly someone
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: tells you that you can't get your full stimulus check
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: making $ 60, 000 a year because why? They needed to like
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: save a little bit of money. It's not a ton
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: of money to go from $ 75, 000 to $ 50, 000 in the
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: context of a $ 1. 9 trillion piece of legislation. So it
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: does seem very silly to me and harmful to people
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: who are struggling making in that income bracket. That said, again,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: we are just all fucking living in Joe Manchin's world.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin wants something, then you can yell at him,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: you can try to persuade him. But at the end
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: of the day, every Democratic senator gets to act like
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: the majority leader. They do. Because if they're out, there
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: is no bill. Similarly, Manchin also said he's against raising
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour, and that he'll
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: only go as high as $ 11 per hour. background of
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: this is in West Virginia, the minimum wage is like
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: around $ 7 an hour. The cost of living in West
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Virginia is much lower than other places. So again, minimum
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: wages aren't the same, aren't equal in many states. $ 15
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: an hour in a place like LA or New York
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: is probably still too low to have a living wage
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: and to keep yourself above poverty. Certainly in West Virginia, though,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: maybe $ 11 is a living wage. So what do we
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: do about that? Like, is there Are there, is there
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a way to square the circle so that we don't
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: get no increase in the minimum wage, but that if Joe,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: if clearly if Joe Manchin is a hard no on 15,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: it's not going to pass because you need all 50.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Before we persuade Joe Manchin about how high the minimum
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: wage should be, we have to persuade the Senate parliamentarian
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: that a minimum wage increase fits under the rules of
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: budget reconciliation, which is a very, very open question. Senator
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Schumer has expressed some optimism on that last month, uh,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: But we don't know. And once again, we may be
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: in the unfortunate situation of having to compromise with Joe
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Manchin to get something done. The minimum wage has not
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: been raised since 2007, I believe, not federally. I think
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: this is something we should push aggressively on, even with Manchin,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: even with Republicans, because as we've seen in our polling
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: and other polling around the country, minimum wages, that $ 15
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: minimum wage is incredibly popular and with bipartisan support among
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: the public. And so I think we should push really
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: hard for it and not immediately accede to his demands.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: There could be some of these faux populist Republicans who
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: could potentially be on board with a minimum wage. It's
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: going to depend on are we dealing with the minimum
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: wage increase as part of a standalone piece of legislation
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: that requires 60 votes because it is not viewed as
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: part of budget reconciliation? Or is it in this deal
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: where Joe Manchin has vetoed? over every single word in
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: the larger coronavirus package?
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: And we should say the good news about Manchin here
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: is he's running around talking about how $ 1. 9 trillion is okay. Like,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: even if there is a bad policy decision on the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: threshold for the checks, even if there's a bad policy
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: decision on minimum wage that we don't agree with, which
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't if it doesn't pass, like the unemployment benefits
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: alone in this package that is going to hold people
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: who are unemployed to anywhere between 70 to 100 percent
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: of their wages through September is is really important. The
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: vaccination money, super important. The childcare money, the rent money, the, uh,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: you know, there is so much in this plan that
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: is really important. That's going to make a huge impact
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: on people's lives. And the fact that it does seem
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: like mansion is on board with most of it. And
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: so are all the other Democrats on board with reconciliation
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: and passing it with only 51 votes is overall very
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: good news. Um, Now, Republicans in Congress are still pretending
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: that they give a shit about bipartisanship. They're also trying
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: to spin reporters into believing that Biden really wants to
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: cut a deal with Republicans, but his liberal advisors are
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: standing in the way. On Wednesday, Republicans got some help
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: on this from an anonymous longtime Joe Biden advisor who
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: decided to fucking go on background to Politico and say
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that the White House statement after the meeting was too harsh,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: that it's all being driven by Ron Klain and other
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Obama veterans who learned during negotiations over the Affordable Care
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Act that Waiting around for Republican votes is pointless. And
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: this advisor also said that getting Republican votes is worth
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: lowering the price tag of the plan by a few
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars. I mean, where do we even begin here, Dan?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: What's the argument for lowering the price tag to get
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Republican votes that you don't need?
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: There is none. The entire exchange is so frustrating on
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: so many levels. One, because this very vague anonymous sourcing,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: we have no idea who this person is. It could
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: very well be a longtime Biden advisor. It seems clear
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: it's not someone who works in the White House since
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: they seem to.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Certainly not someone involved with drafting the statement in the
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: White House. It could be someone who is Biden's legislative
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: director from like 1986 to 1989. It could be a
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: former campaign aide who is not involved in the White House.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: It could be someone who was in my 1997 Joe
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Biden Senate office intern class. We do not know the
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: answer to that.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: And I should say the reason we're bringing it up
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: anyway is because it is the narrative that's not only
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: coming from this random anonymous Biden advisor from the past.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Republicans are pushing this narrative. the press, a lot of
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the DC political press has bought into this narrative, especially
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: at Politico and other places. So it is out there.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: And this advisor sort of gave it more life, which
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: is why we're bringing it up.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: One other thing is just like, this is Ron Klain
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: making Joe Biden do things. Obama advisor Ron Klain. Ron
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Klain worked for Joe Biden from 1986 off and.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: On until 2020.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: That's part of it. But the idea that $ 200 to
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: $ 300 billion in less aid to the economy and the
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: pandemic control effort is worth a handful of votes is insane.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: That is just like, where is that 200 billion dollars
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: coming from?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: That is like, talk about, talk about fucking DC brain.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: How long have you been there? Jesus Christ. That's what you,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you're like, like, this is like people's lives struggling through
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: a pandemic and you're like, well, I don't know, a
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: couple hundred billion for a vote. That'd be cool. What
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: are you talking about? But where does it come from?
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Are you going to do less money to get the
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: vaccine out? Are you going to cut people's unemployment benefits for,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: for this optic? It is, it's, speaks to a strain
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: of political coverage and punditry that is so deeply stupid,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: which is thinking that optics are more important than substance.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: What is going to matter more two years from now?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Just put aside all the substance about saving people's lives,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: helping them put their families back together financially. Let's just
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: talk politics for a second, because that's clearly what Politico,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: by name, in this case, is focused on, is... In 2022,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: are people going to think more about whether Joe Biden
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: got five Republican votes for his coronavirus package or whether
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: the economy is back and running and people can leave
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: their homes again? Which do you think is more important?
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Everything has risks to it, right? There's definitely some political
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: risk for someone who ran on a unity message to
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: have to pass a very large bill on a party
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: line vote because that allows the other party to just
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: stand back and say, this is all your fault. Everything
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: that goes wrong. But there's also, but there's, Also risk
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: in under-responding to the crisis and having it linger. Which
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: risk would you choose between those two things? It seems
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: pretty clear what the right answer is.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Also, again, public opinion is on Joe Biden's side here.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Data for Progress has a poll out yesterday. By 55
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: to 35 percent, voters want Democrats in Congress to pass
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: a larger bill as soon as possible, even if it
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: doesn't have support from Republicans in Congress. That was yesterday.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: We now have polls from. Yahoo News and YouGov, Data
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: for Progress, Quinnipiac, all confirming the Crooked Media Change poll
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: from the other week that 70% of Americans support this plan,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Biden's plan. It's all coming up around 70%. It's the
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: gold standard. Our poll is the gold. It's the Ann
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Seltzer of polls.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the Ann Seltzer 2008 to January 2nd, 2020 poll.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: 70% support and then 40% Republican support, you know?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And now you get, now you get a bunch of
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: DC reporters be like, Democrats are, have a new way
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: of defining bipartisanship by the percentage of support they're getting
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: from voters in the, in the, in the country. Like, yeah,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: that is the fucking definition. The voters in the country,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: the people who decide elections, they like the plan. I
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: don't give a fuck what a couple of Republicans in
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: the Senate caucus think about it. That's their problem. Go
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: ask them why they're not supporting a plan that 70%
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: of Americans support, including almost half their own party. Ask
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: them the question. Don't ask us.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Ask them and ask the anonymous Biden advisor. Those are
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: the two people to ask.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so Politico Playbook got the anonymous Biden advisor
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: who was the intern in your class back in the 80s.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Punchbowl actually got Steve Ruschetti to speak to them, who
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: is a Biden advisor in the White House. And he
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: pushed back pretty hard on this idea that there's some
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: kind of split. He's like, this is who Biden is.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: He goes, he.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: he wants to be polite to people. He wants to
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: have respectful disagreement, but he like, he's not naive about
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: what Republicans want. And he's like, okay with there being disagreement.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: And again, everyone keeps confusing. I think who Joe Biden
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: is and, and sort of what his approach is going
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to be. Like when he talks about unity, when he
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: talks about bipartisanship, even it's not Joe Biden thinking he's
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: going to completely change the Republican party, bring a whole
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: bunch of them on board. And then everyone's going to
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: pass bipartisan bills. You know, and he said this in
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the inaugural, he doesn't think that every fight has to
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: be a political war. He doesn't think you have to
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: be nasty to each other, which is why as soon
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: as that meeting ended, like Susan Collins walks out of
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the meeting, talks to reporters and like, you know, we
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: didn't agree on everything, but we had a really nice chat.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: And like, if all Joe Biden's bipartisan unity bit is,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: is making sure that people aren't screaming at each other
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: all the time in Washington and aren't like calling each
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: other names and at least are listening to each other,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: even if they end up disagreement, that's pretty good. That's
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: pretty good. And that's a lot different than the last
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: four years. So one thing before we move on from this,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you know, everyone's talking about how the Biden folks and
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of specifically people who are working in the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Biden administration that used to work in the Obama administration
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: have learned lessons from 2009. When they talk about that,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: they mean both lessons from the negotiations around the Recovery
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Act and then the Affordable Care Act right after that.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Since you and I were both there, Do you want
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: to explain why things went the way they did and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: what lessons we learned, Dan?
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Well, I could explain it to you. I would also
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: recommend you read Barack Obama's take on this in his
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: not particularly well-known book, Promised Land, which has only sold
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: seven gazillion copies. There is no question that with– as
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Obama said in his book, with the benefit of hindsight,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: we would do a lot of things differently than we
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: did in 2009. I do think, however, some of the
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: retelling of that history has been overly reductive and doesn't
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: sort of provide context. And so there is no question
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: that the first stimulus that we passed was too small
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: for the challenge. Now, you may say, why did we
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: do that? And there were three reasons for that that
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I think are relevant. One, the top line number was
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: dictated by members of Congress who had just passed a
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: stimulus the year before. And two, bank bailouts that no
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: one wanted to pass but felt were necessary a month
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: earlier before the whole conversation began. Second, we had a
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: much more conservative Democratic majority back then, but just from
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: top to bottom. Joe Manchin is closer to the left
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: than the right in the Democratic caucus of 2009.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: You had Joe Lieberman. whose vote we needed, who had
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: endorsed and campaigned for and spoken at the convention of
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: Barack Obama's opponent. We needed his vote. We needed the
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: vote of Ben Nelson to the right of Joe Manchin
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: in a lot of ways. We had two senators in
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: North Dakota, two senators in Arkansas, a senator in Alaska,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: a senator in Louisiana. We had a lot of very
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: conservative senators in red districts. That group of people would
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: never in a million years have been for using budget
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: reconciliation for this purpose. And we also only had– people
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: always pretend like we had 60 senators. We actually had
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: 58 because we would have had 59, but Al Franken
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: was in a recount that lasted through the first half
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: of 2009. He actually did not get seated until– the summer,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: like June or July.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: July. We had 60 senators from July of 2009 to
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: February of 2010. That's it. That was our super majority.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: And one of them was Joe Lieberman this whole time.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: And then the last thing that I think is really
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: important that I do think people forget a lot, which
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: is as bad as the crisis was, we didn't even
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: realize how bad it was because the first report of
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: the gross domestic product for the last half of 2008
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: during the crash was that the economy had contracted 6.8%.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: And stimulus is about filling the hole in the economy.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: We learned after the stimulus was passed, when they revised
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the numbers, the number was actually 8.9. So they're off
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: by a pretty large percent. So all those things combined
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: led us to be in a position where we did
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: not get the stimulus, the amount of stimulus and response
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: we needed in the short term. And then what happened
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: because of that is our party, which not just we
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: talked about conservative senators, there's also a gigantic coalition of
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: quote unquote blue dog Democrats in the House who were
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: very fiscally conscious, if you will. And then we were
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: unable to go back to the well to get more
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: stimulus where we saw we were missing. The most important
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: thing from all of this, and I think Barack Obama
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: would agree with it, you and I would agree with it,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: the Biden people clearly agree with it, is you get
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: one shot to address this crisis. And everything else that
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: you want to do depends on addressing the crisis right now,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: which is why they are going big and fast and
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: comprehensive and being aggressive about it. Because if you fail here,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: you're going to be trying to dig yourself out of
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: this economic and political hole for the rest of your term.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of lessons to learn about 2009.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: And it is very clear that Joe Biden, who was
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: there and managed the Recovery Act, completely understands that. His team,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: I think, is very wisely approaching this with that experience
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: in mind.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And I would agree with all that. And I would
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: just add, in general, political coverage tends to focus on
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: characters and personalities and lessons learned from individuals and who's
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: tough and who's not and who's smart and who's not.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And Usually the answer lies not in personalities, but who
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: has power, not in characters, but what the larger context is.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And the larger context is we now have a more
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: ideologically consistent caucus in the House and in the Senate
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: than we did back in 2009. And now we have
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: power in the sense that we have a House majority
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: that is ideologically consistent. We have a Senate majority that
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: is more ideologically consistent than it was, though we still
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: have Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to deal with. And
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: so we're going to be able to just do a
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: lot more and to be a little bit more ambitious
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: than we were in 2009. Have we also learned lessons
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: from how the Republicans acted in 2009 and ever since? Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But even if we knew in 2009 that Republicans were
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: going to block every single piece of legislation and be obstructionist,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: we still would have had to deal with Joe Lieberman
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: and Ben Nelson and all these people. And if Barack Obama,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: like what was Barack Obama going to do? Like go
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: to Ben Nelson's, go to Nebraska and start like whipping
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: up crowds against Ben Nelson. They don't give a shit
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: about Barack Obama in Nebraska. Ben Nelson, like he's not
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: going to be afraid of Barack Obama. And so I
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: do think that's something that people have to keep in
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: mind today, just because again, Joe Biden can yell at
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin all he wants. But Joe Manchin is going
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: to have a lot of power over the next couple
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: of years. And it's just something that we're going to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: have to deal with, unfortunately.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about Republicans in Congress because they're having a
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: hell of a time this week. They had a big
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: decision on Wednesday. Do you punish the House member who
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: voted to impeach Donald Trump for provoking the attack on
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: the Capitol? Or do you punish the House member who
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: thinks Democrats should be executed and wildfires are caused by
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Jewish space lasers? House Republicans went with neither. They chose neither.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: In a secret ballot, only 61 members voted to oust
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Liz Cheney from her leadership post on Wednesday night, while
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: 145 voted to keep her. As for Marjorie Taylor Greene,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: not only did Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans decide not
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: to strip her of her committee assignments, half of them
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: reportedly gave her a standing ovation after she half denied
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: and half apologized for all of the comments she definitely said.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: As we're recording this, she's on the floor this morning
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: saying things like, I do believe that 9-11 happened. Which is,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: you know, something good for her. That's something that she
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: has to say. That's a real, it's a real sister
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: soldier moment for her. It's a very brave thing that
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: 9-11 happened. And what's happening now is the full house
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: is going to vote on whether she should be stripped
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: of her committee assignments. Before we get to Green, Dan,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: what is your take on the Cheney vote, the Liz
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Cheney vote?
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: First, a Pulitzer Prize to the reporter who uncovers which
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Republican voted present on a secret ballot. Because that person
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: should also be stripped of their committee memberships just for
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: pure stupidity.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: So funny. No one's going to know my vote. I'm
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: still too afraid.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: The number of people who voted against Cheney is pretty
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: substantial and pretty telling about just how divided the Republican
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Party is. This is ultimately a decision by the caucus
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: writ large to kick the ball down the field a
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: little bit and deal with this later. And so McCarthy
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: probably has it in a weird, very short-term way. This
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: was probably a winner for Kevin McCarthy in the sense
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: that he gets to continue to make the Cuban non-Trumpist
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: crazy part of his caucus feel good that he's on
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: their side, the insurrectionist wing of the Republican Party, of
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: which I would note that Kevin McCarthy is a part of,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: but also the more establishment, corporate-backed part of the party
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: can feel comfortable that it hasn't fully devolved into Marjorie
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Taylor Greene-ism. So it's sort of a, they've accomplished nothing.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: They solved their problems and they managed to only slightly
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: exacerbate the problems they had, if that makes sense.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: It does. To me, the most telling part of the
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: whole thing is the secret ballot. I believe that if
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: it wasn't secret ballot and they had to be public
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: about their votes, there would be a lot more of
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: them who were afraid of what would happen to them
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: if they voted to defend Liz Cheney. Because they are
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: led around by, you know, their voters and their voters
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: are led around by right-wing lunatics on Fox and right-wing radio.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: So that's it. But you got a secret vote. Maybe
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: some of them feel like they can be a little
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: bit more normal, just a little bit more normal. But
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: when it's public, they are scared shitless. So entire house
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: is about to vote on a resolution to strip Marjorie
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Taylor green of her two committee positions. This comes after
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy offered to kick green off one committee, but
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: not the other. An offer that House Majority Leader Steny
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Hoyer rejected. So McCarthy decided to accept her fake apology,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: telling reporters, quote, this Republican Party is a very big tent.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Everyone's invited in. Everyone from deficit hawks to people who
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: think Nancy Pelosi should be executed. It's a big tent.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: It's a big tent, Dan. And then he pretended to
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: not even know what QAnon is. Here is a clip.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: I think it would be helpful if you could hear
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: exactly what she told all of us, denouncing QAnon. I
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: don't know if I say it right. I don't even
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: know what it is. Any from the shootings. She said
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: she knew nothing about lasers or all the different things
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: that have been brought up about her.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Has no idea where QAnon is, except here's a clip
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: of Kevin McCarthy just a few months ago.
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: I do not support it. And the candidate you talked
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: about has denounced it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: A real leading light of the Republican Party, Dan, Kevin McCarthy.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: It's just a lot going on upstairs with that guy.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: He managed to pronounce it incorrectly twice in two different.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Ways. Why do you think McCarthy was willing to do
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: one committee but not two? I realize that's a small question.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: He's so painfully stupid. Just painfully dumb. When he was
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: the House whip, his job was to count votes. And
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: it is incredibly rare for a House majority to call
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: a vote and lose it because you get to decide
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: when it goes and you get to count the votes.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: And it happened to him several times. It is like
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: what the galaxy brain meme is for is something that stupid,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: which is, yes, Leader Hoyer, you have some solid points here.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: And I think she is definitely too anti-Semitic and off
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: the rails to work on education issues. But labor issues
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I think we're okay with. Like what the fuck are
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: you talking about? I mean this is ultimately the problem
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: is we are dealing with really stupid people in really
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: important positions at a very important time for this country.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Do you see, onto the Democrats, do you see any
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: risks to Democrats kicking her off these committees, just so
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: people know? know, this doesn't happen. You usually don't have
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: a full vote in the House to kick a member
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: off their committees. Usually if a member does get removed
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: from committees, it happens within the party. Kevin McCarthy did
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: ultimately kick Steve King off his committees because he's a
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: white nationalist, belatedly because he's a white nationalist. But usually
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: it happens within the party. This is, you know, going
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: to the full floor is unusual. Do you see any
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: risk in this for Democrats?
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Not political risk. This is absolutely the right thing to do.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I think Democrats have a political imperative and frankly a
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: moral obligation to deal with someone like this and to
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: shine a light on what the Republican Party has become
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: and where it's headed. There is almost certainly going to
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: be some form of retribution if Republicans take the House
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: again in two years.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, they will immediately take some comments that
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: some members or all members of the squad made. They
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: will twist them into something awful and they will all
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: vote to kick them all off committees, probably other members
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: as well. It will definitely happen.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: I think and then so we say that and they're like, well,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: maybe they shouldn't do that because ultimately who cares what
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: committee Marjorie Taylor Greene is on? I just think Democrats
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: cannot pull our punches based on what we think Republicans
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: may do because they will probably do it anyway.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, I totally agree.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Is this likely to make her a martyr in the
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Republican Party elites, big tech, Hollywood cancel culture bullshit? Absolutely.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And we do live in this very disturbing information political
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: environment where calling out the extreme positions of someone– strengthens
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: that person's position in a lot of ways. Like it is,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: you know, I sort of sometimes refer to it as
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: mutually assured attention. She has raised well over a million
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: dollars because she said crazy things and Democrats called her
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: out for them, which is a pretty disturbing sign about
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: where our politics are and where the Republican Party and
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: its base is. So like we should not, Democrats have
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: to do this because it is the right thing to do.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: I also think it is the politically wise thing to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: do to put, to shine a light on this. But
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: we should not pretend that this is going to do
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: anything to make the Republican Party less extreme, less out
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: of the mainstream, less dangerous. It will probably have the
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: opposite effect. It's not our job to police their party,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: but that is ultimately the, her hand is, I think,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: strengthened by this, not weakened.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I just want to emphasize why it's important to do
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: as well, because I think some of the focus on
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Greene has been Oh, she makes these sort of kooky,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: crazy comments, right? This is someone who said that Muslims
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: should not serve in Congress. This is someone who said,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: who promoted a post, liked a post, that Nancy Pelosi
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: should be assassinated. Like, the QAnon conspiracy is not just
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: like some kooky conspiracy. QAnon's been labeled a domestic terror
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: threat from the FBI because QAnon believes that leading Democrats
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: should be executed. She is someone who has advocated violence
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: against government officials shortly after we just had a riot,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: an insurrection on the Capitol where government officials were targeted
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: for assassination. It does not get more serious than that.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: You know, there's also a question of like, why not
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: expel her? That was on the table. To expel a
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: member of Congress, I believe you do need a two-thirds majority,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: which of course Democrats are not going to get in
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the House. I also think the problem with expelling her is,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: She'd probably go run again and the people of Northwest
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Georgia would vote her back in. I mean, this is
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: the headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today. The leader of
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: a private paramilitary group that provided security for Marjorie Taylor
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Greene said he's formed alliances with other far-right racist neo-Nazi
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: hate groups to advocate for Georgia's secession. One of them
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: said things are different now. The ballot box, we tried
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: as hard as we could. It's not working. This is
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: what's happening right now in different places in the country.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: And specifically in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, right? Like we
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: focus a lot on the Republican Party and Kevin McCarthy,
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: but the voters, they sent her there. And if you
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: get rid of Marjorie Taylor Greene, they're probably going to
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: vote another lunatic back in in that district. So, you know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: the problem goes a little deeper than I think we
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: would hope. Democrats are already trying to make Greene and
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Republicans like her the face of the Republican Party in
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: advance of the 2022 midterms. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Chair,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Sean Patrick Maloney, previewed the party's strategy to Politico, saying, quote,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: If Kevin McCarthy wants to take his party to crazy
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: town and follow these dangerous asides, he shouldn't expect to
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: do well in the next election. They can do QAnon
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: or they can do college-educated voters. They cannot do both.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: The DTRIP is already running $ 500, 000 worth of ads linking
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: House Republicans and battleground districts to the dangerous cult. Here
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: is the ad.
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: QAnon, a conspiracy theory born online, took over the Republican Party,
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: sent followers to Congress, and with Donald Trump incited a
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: mob that attacked the Capitol and murdered a cop. Then
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: Republicans like young Kim and Michelle Steele voted to protect Trump,
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: letting the QAnon mob win. Kim and Steele should have
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: stood with us, but they were cowards.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: They stood with.
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: Trump and the lies. Representatives Kim and Steele, they stood
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: with Q, not you. DCCC is responsible for the content
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: of this advertising.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: They stood with Q, not you, Dan. A little ham-handed,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: I would say, but what do you think of the
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: strategy overall?
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: I would also note that that same person has been
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: doing voiceovers for DCCC negative ads my entire career. It
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: is a little– this is not really DCCC's fault. This
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: is sort of how you have to get things covered.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: I'm 90% sure that ACCC does not know, and no
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: one else knows, what their strategy for 2022 is going
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: to be. We got a lot of miles to travel
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: before we get there. Yeah. I do think as a
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: political communications approach in this media environment, putting paid advertising
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: behind stories that are relevant and making sure that voters
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: see them long in advance of the election is the
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: right way to do it. I don't love every word
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: in this ad. I don't love the execution. I support
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: the strategy. I think it's the right thing to do.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: What impact it will have in the long run, who knows?
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: But if you step back, what this is really about
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: is continuing to lock in the Trump-era gains among suburban
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: voters and keeping that going because– You can see a
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: world where Democrats can be very concerned. We don't have
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: evidence of this yet, but it'd be on my worry list,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: that with Trump in the background, with people not seeing
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Trump every day, that people could revert back to where
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: they were before Trump politically, right? And they only need
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: a small handful of suburban voters to go back to
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Romney Clinton voters who voted for Clinton and Biden and
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: for Democrats in 2018 to revert to a Republican, to
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: think the Republicans are less crazy than they were with
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Trump when As it turns out, they're actually more crazy
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: post-Trump than they were during Trump. And making sure voters
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: know that will certainly be an essential, whether it's this
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: exact execution of it, will be a central political goal
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: for the Democrats over the next two years.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: The DCCC said that something like 60 plus percent of
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: voters knew what QAnon was in the polling that they did,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: which really surprised me because I would not have guessed
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: that that many People did. I still wonder if you
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: ask them, OK, explain what QAnon is, if they could
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: But anyway, they're like five people who can do that total.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: And Q is not one of them.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: It's like. So, you know, putting that aside, I think
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: the overall strategy of trying to depict the Republican Party
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: as in the thrall of extremists is a useful strategy.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Should it be the only strategy? Probably not. Part of
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: this is we still don't know, like, for example, in Georgia,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: in the runoff, Democrats ran an economically populist campaign against Republicans.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: And we both thought that was a good idea. They
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: also pointed out that Loeffler and Perdue were part of
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: the big lie that Donald Trump was telling and helping
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: him try to overturn the election. So there was an
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: argument that they were extremist and that the Republican Party
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: was extremist. and that the Republican Party was just trying
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: to help rich people at the expense of the working class.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Which one of those arguments was more effective? We actually
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: don't know. We don't know yet which drove voters. And
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: in truth, different arguments could have driven different voters and
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: different kinds of voters to the polls. So I do
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: think there needs to be a little bit more research
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: on what exactly is motivating different groups of voters and
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: what has motivated them in the past. But in general,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: we know from decades of political science research that if
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: voters believe a candidate or a party is more extreme
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: ideologically way out to the side, either on the right
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: or the left, they're going to be less likely to
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: vote for that candidate or party. Like we do know that.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: So just painting the Republicans as extreme is at least useful.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: It's not everything, but it's useful. One of the biggest
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: factors that will determine who controls the House after the
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: 2022 elections is a process that will begin in the
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: next few months, redistricting. What is redistricting? Well, we hold
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: the census every 10 years. As a result, some states
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: lose population, other states gain population. That changes each state's
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: number of electoral votes, since that depends on population. It
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: also changes each state's number of house districts since that
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: depends on population. So every 10 years, all 50 states
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: have to redraw the boundaries of their house districts based
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: on the new census numbers. If your state government is
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: entirely controlled by Republicans, Republicans get to essentially pick their
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: own voters and by drawing districts that are favorable to
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Republican politicians, known as gerrymanders. If your state is controlled
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: by Democrats, Democrats get to draw the districts. In some states,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: an independent or bipartisan commission gets to draw the maps.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: And this year, which is a redistricting year, Dave Wasserman
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: of the Cook Political Report, who is such an expert
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: on the process that his Twitter handle is literally redistrict,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: says that Republicans may be able to win the six
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: seats they need to take control of the House just
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: by drawing new maps. Again, they think that Republicans, just
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: by redrawing the maps during redistricting, can pick up the
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: six seats they need to take control of the House
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: of Representatives in 2022. And this year also redistricting is
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: going to start in July because the census data has
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: been delayed due to the pandemic. All right. Did I
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: leave anything out there? And where should Democrats be worried?
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Which states and where might Democrats have an advantage?
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Democrats should be worried generally because in the states that
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: allow partisan redistricting, Republicans control district lines for 188 seats
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: and Democrats control them for 73 seats. The states that
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: are most likely, we don't know, but most likely to
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: gain seats include Florida, Texas, and Georgia. Republicans have complete
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: control of the redistricting process in those three states. And
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: so I think Dave Wasserman is actually being– when he
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: says may, he is just like putting in a kernel
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: of doubt. Without it, it's very clear based on the
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: number of seats these states are going to get and
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: how aggressively Republicans have redrawn these districts on a partisan
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: basis the last time around that– While we could win
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: other seats to make up the gap to hold the House,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: they would take control just on the states I mentioned alone.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Democrats have an advantage in New York. It's the one
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: state where we now have complete control and have some ability.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: To do it.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Republicans could still lose seats in some states where they
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: have complete control just because they have almost unanimous control
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: of the congressional delegation. But this is deeply, deeply considering.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: We went into this election in 2020– with huge hopes
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: of making real gains to be in a much better
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: position than we were in 2010. And while we are
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: in a better position than we were after the 2010 election,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: we failed to gain control of a single entity that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: would give us additional influence over the process in the
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: 2020 election. Thank goodness we did so well in 2018
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: because we were able to pick up governorships in some
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: states that would allow us to have a say in
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: the process. But we enter into the deeply, deeply, deeply
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: disadvantageous position.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: And just, you know, you might be wondering like, what
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: about a state like California where Democrats have full control?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: What's going on there? Well, California outsources redistricting to a
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: commission so that it's not partisan. Same thing as states
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: like Colorado, Virginia, Washington. Also, California is all in all
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: likelihood going to lose a seat this time. So even
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: the states where we have full control and some of
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: the more in the bluer states are they're either bipartisan
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: or nonpartisan commissions, or those are states that are actually
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: going to lose population and therefore lose a seat. So
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: we're just in a, we are in a bad spot.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: And like, it's not, I think what's so worrying about
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: this is it's not a bad spot, like in a
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: normal year, years ago. It's a bad spot where Republican
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: control of the House could mean You know, in 2024,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: the next coup succeeds because now Republicans control the House.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: They could start impeachment hearings of Joe Biden when they
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: win in 2022. It's the end of Joe Biden's legislative
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: agenda in 2022 if the House Republicans take over. So
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: it is quite worrisome. And what do we do about it, Dan?
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: We need a time machine.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. Next. What else we got? What else we got?
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: There's two elements of things we can do. One is
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: grassroots activism in the states where this process is happening.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: All on the line, which is a project associated with
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: the National Democratic Redistricting Commission is organizing grassroots campaigns to
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: put pressure on Republicans. Indivisible is organizing their chapters to
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: put pressure on Republicans to shine a light on what
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: is happening. We can absolutely have influence and we should
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: absolutely not wave the white flag in their efforts. The
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: worst gerrymandering happens when it happens out of the spotlight
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: where you don't put pressure on people and you can
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: really push hard. And I'm not saying this is going
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: to fix all the problems. I'm not saying that Texas
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Republicans are all of a sudden going to become responsive
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: to the will of the people. But we have agency
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: here and we have to use it. The other thing
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: we can do is really simple and really important. which
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: is the For the People Act, which is essentially the
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: updated version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: ban partisan gerrymandering. It would ban any map that unduly
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: favors one political party or the other. And if we
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: were to put that in place, we would have a
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: chance at outlawing the worst gerrymandering in this upcoming election.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: We would have to do that very quickly. In order
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: to do that, we have to eliminate the filibuster and
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: pass the bill.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: So again– We could save the House, potentially, if Joe
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema would only vote to get rid
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: of the filibuster so we could pass the John Lewis
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Voting Rights Act.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: This is the next decade of our lives. What happens
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: in this redistricting process is going to determine the next
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: decade of our lives. Because it is not just federal districts.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It's also state districts. There's a whole bunch of things
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: happening here. It would, in addition to dealing with gerrymandering,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: the For the People Act would put automatic voter registration
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: in place. It would stop a lot of these really
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: malicious Republican efforts to roll back voting rights in their tracks.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: All we have to do in order to give ourselves
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: the best chance to govern this country in a progressive
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: way consistent with the will of the majority is for
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: a small handful of senators to be willing to change
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: their opinion on an archaic, esoteric legislative loophole, and then
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: pass a bill that, according to our poll, has two-thirds
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: support in the country, including more than 30% of Trump voters.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: That is all we have to do. We're not asking
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: anyone to do anything politically hard. We're asking you to
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: break with a Senate tradition that was critical to the
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: implementation and containment of Jim Crow, a Jim Crow relic,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: as Barack Obama called it, change that, pass this popular
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: bill to make America more democratic and to stop an
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: effort to rig our politics and steal the House is
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: right before us. And so ask yourself, what would Mitch
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: McConnell do in a similar situation if Susan Collins and
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: Lisa Murkowski were being a little reticent about something that
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: would give the Republicans the best chance to control the
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: levers of government for a decade?
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: What do you think he would do? Yeah, I mean,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: I think we all, I think every single person listening
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: knows the answer to that. I mean, it's one of,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: it might be the most important piece of legislation that
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: is in front of Congress that Joe Biden could sign
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: in the entire first term. And maybe for the next,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: like you said, maybe for the next 10 years. Not
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: only because it would end gerrymandering, dark money in politics,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: it would protect voting rights, roll back some of the
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: things Republicans have done to make it harder to vote, offer...
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: the citizens of D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood. I mean,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: the number of things it would do to make to
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: unrig our democracy are just mind blowing and necessary. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: just so you know, like that, like if the Republicans
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: pick up six seats that they need from redistricting, our
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: only other chance of picking up seats in the House,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: we have nine Republicans in the House sitting in districts
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden won, which is not many. And then
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: we have seven Democrats sitting in seats that Donald Trump
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: won in 2020. So the playing field is relatively small
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: in 2022 because we don't have a lot of other
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: targets and opportunities should the Republicans start by making up
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: six seats just by drawing the maps. So it's going
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: to be really, really hard in 2022. And it's never
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: been more important. I know we say every election is
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: the most important election of our lifetime, but because we
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: now have an authoritarian party that hates democracy, it's true.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: I think it's also important for people to understand that
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: while our friend Mark Elias and other attorneys can do
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: everything they can to fight back in the courts over
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: these new partisan maps, we have to realize that according
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: to the Supreme Court, thank you to moderate hero John Roberts,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: partisan redistricting is is constitutional. The Supreme Court, in an
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: opinion written, I believe, by John Roberts, made this point,
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: which is so painfully stupid that it hurts my brain,
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: that the courts are not the place to litigate overly
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: partisan districts. The only place to do that is at
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: the ballot box. So according to John Roberts, the only
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: way to get a fair district is to win an
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: election in an unfair district.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it pretty much sums up up what
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Democrats are facing in the next several elections, should we
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: not pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: If we do not pass this bill, it'll be really
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: one of the worst mistakes Any political party has ever made.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: We had– this is– having unified control of government, we
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: have not had it for a decade. This is a
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: chance– it is fleeting.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: And we won't have it again.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Not– I mean not for a very long time, very possibly.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: And like I don't– I mean, I'm going to get
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: very worked up about this, and that's probably not constructive.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: But we have an opportunity to do something that will
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: change the trajectory of American politics in a way that
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: will give us at least the opportunity to address things
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: like health care, climate change, everything else. But it requires this.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: And it begins, and people get bored by process, and it's,
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: why are you having to talk about the economy, talk
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: about health care? Yes, that's all true. But process is
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: a predicate for policy. And if we want to put
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: in place the policies that we want, we have to
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: fix the process. The opportunity is right before us. We
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: could do it in a day if we could just
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: get Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and I will say others.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: We always say their names because they have outed themselves.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Dianne Feinstein.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: But there are a lot of other Democrats who are
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: hiding anonymously behind Sinema and Manchin and Feinstein. So we
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: have a lot of work to do to get people there,
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: but this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: And we're trying to sound the alarm on this because
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: I don't want people to be surprised by it. And
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: I know there's a thought right now, like Trump is gone.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Things are good. Biden's there. We can sort of relax.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: We cannot relax. And this is why this is one
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: of the reasons why like we like 2022 is going
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: to be incredibly important. And before we get there, Joe Biden,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: the Democrats trying to pass this piece of legislation is
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: going to be incredibly important, just as important in many
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: ways as getting rid of Trump was in 2020. So
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: everyone pay attention to this. We'll be talking about this.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: again and again in the months to come. When we
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: come back, we will have Dan's interview with journalist Farai Chidea.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: Farai Chidea is a journalist and author. She's the creator
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: and host of Our Body Politic, a syndicated public radio
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: show and podcast, which is centered on reporting on not
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: just how women of color experience major political events today,
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: but how they're impacting those very issues. Farai, welcome to
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America.
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: I wanted to start by talking about the conversation you've
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: been leading in your industry for a long time now
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: about representation and how newsrooms are often disconnected from the
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: communities they're covering. How has the Trump years illuminated that problem?
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: And how are people within the industry responding to the
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: conversation you're having?
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, first of all, I think a lot of us
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: are having it. And Part of my specialty is doing
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: voter demographics, and I've done it year in and year
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: out for many different elections in different places. And I
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: won't perseverate on this, but I have been speaking about
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: the 538 newsroom in 2016, where there was no interest
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: in really exploring the rise of racial resentment as an
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: indicator of voter preference and the rise of white nationalism.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: And I had examples of both, which are interconnected but
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: not the same. But also, I feel like in general,
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: and I was very lucky, I should say, to get
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: to do a series on voter demographics, but it could
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: have been much more robust if we had given it
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: some space to breathe. That's my personal experience, but pretty
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: much every Black journalist you talk to, many Latino, Asian-American,
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: Native American journalists, And even white journalists who seriously took
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: on the topic of racial resentment and its weaponization in
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: politics were often shut out of doing the kind of
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: substantial reporting that the issue demanded. And so in the end,
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: it's not about journalists of color versus white journalists. It's like,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: what is the frame for the way that we covered America?
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: And so just recently on my Twitter feed, I looked
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: at the that there was no coverage of white nationalism
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: explicitly in any of the covers. And the one cover
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: on Steve Bannon had the word white 16 times referring
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: to the White House and once referring to white nationalism.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: So basically what I've been doing is calling BS on
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: the framing of politics and the way that we've covered it,
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: both to diminish, I think, some of the contributions of
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: women of color, which is what I'm specializing in now,
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: and also to underplay the rise of white nationalism.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: The unwillingness to look at politics through the frames, very
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: specific frame of white nationalism, that is a product of
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: newsrooms that are not diverse enough, a product of a
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: mentality about politics that's outdated. What do you ascribe that
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: to that's bigger than just, that includes, but maybe bigger
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: than just representation within the newsrooms?
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a frame, I call this
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: frame establishment whiteness, which is essentially one of the constructs
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: that affects a lot of newsrooms, which is the idea
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: that whiteness in and of itself is unremarkable and in
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: fact normative. And because it's normative, it doesn't have to
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: be reported on as a thing in itself. So blackness
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: is often reported on badly or in biased ways, but
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: it's reported on extensively to the point where I feel
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: like black people are often problematized. It's like the problem
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: with America's cities and implicitly how it's covered. It's like
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: the problem is black people don't have their stuff together.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: Whereas nobody asked the problem with domestic terrorism and then
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: starts going in on white nationalism. Why has that cover
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: not been in any of the major magazines? I mean,
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: that's pretty astounding. So if white people were treated the
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: way black people are by supposedly objective newsrooms, there would
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: first of all, just be coverage of whiteness, the good, bad,
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: and the ugly, but whiteness is not covered as a category,
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: which to me is a huge, blind spot in the coverage.
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: And then it really undermines political reporting because white nationalists
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: are a group of American voters. They are voters who
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: are motivated by certain sentiments and beliefs. And during the
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: 2016 election, I interviewed a woman in the Las Vegas
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: area who was told repeatedly in both business context and
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: personal context that the reason to vote for Trump was
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: to prevent the dilution of the white race. If that's
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: not the rise of white nationalism in politics, I don't
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: know what is. And I think we didn't give enough
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: heft to that kind of narrative, which is also about
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: white people who reject white nationalism and supremacy. She rejected it.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: And whether people were embracing it or rejecting it, we
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: didn't get enough of those voices.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: Over the last four years, how much have you seen
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: the industry come to terms with this challenge? Because my
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: experience in talking to journalists of color over the last
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: four years is the people least surprised by everything that's happening, right?
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Least surprised by what happened at Capitol last month, least
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: surprised by Trump's election, least surprised by how the Republicans
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: have embraced Trump on Capitol Hill over the years. But
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: the decision makers in many cases, or in most cases,
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: I guess, in a lot of these networks and newsrooms
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: are still white people. And have you seen these newsrooms,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: these executives begin to seriously wrestle with this question and
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: address it in some way in their coverage and in
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: their staffing?
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: Staffing, I think, is a little bit of a too
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: soon to say, because there's major staff changes coming up.
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: You know, first of all, after every election, there's a
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: lot of movement in political reporters. It's when people move
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: on to take new jobs, etc., But also there are
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: positions open for the head of news at ABC. There's leadership,
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: you know, Washington Post, CNN, Reuters, Vox, Huffington Post. You know,
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: the list goes on, LA Times. So this is a
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: sea change in the industry of journalism where all of
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: these leadership positions are open. So now would be good,
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: a good time for leaders in journalism to open themselves
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: up to who is considered a leader. But I think
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: you can put anyone in the seat at any company
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: and not empower them to make new decisions. So you
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: could change the race and gender of every position to
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: someone else of someone, you know, another race or gender
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: and still get the same outcomes if you don't have
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: a sense of inquiry about the truth. So to me, really,
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: it's like, what is your inquiry about the truth? how
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: are you unbiased? I don't like the term objectivity because
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: it's been used in ways that are patently not objective.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: You know, and in my case, you know, Nate Silver
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: and I had these sort of running discussions about race
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: and politics and how we covered them. But in the end,
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: he called the Trump campaign evil and made a big
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: point of it on the podcast. And I was like,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: so is this why we can't talk about it? So
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: you can have this big reveal at the end That's
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: not objectivity. So I think when you look at the
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: construct of objectivity, it's failing. But the construct of inquiry,
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: of saying, why do people vote the way they vote?
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: How do I segment, you know, what is often classified
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: as one group of voters, you know, white evangelical prodigies? are,
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: you know, very much a voting block at this point,
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: but there are many differences within them. So it's about
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: treating people with respect and it's about treating people as individuals,
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: not statistics. Statistics are great, but we have to know
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: the story that gets us there.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: I think it's a very important point, what you said
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: about objectivity. Because the way that most people, I think,
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: commonly understand journalism, particularly in this day and age, is
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: there is partisan journalism. That can be right-wing, left-wing. It
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: can be opinion. Then there is, quote-unquote, objective journalism. And
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: that could be what we traditionally think of as The
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: New York Times, Washington Post, ABC. And that what you
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: often hear people wanting is more objectivity in journalism. Can
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: you explain why that is not necessarily a good thing?
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: I'm less worried about The I mean, the concept of
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: objectivity doesn't work for me for this reason, which is
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: that it it asks that you leave your your culture
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: and your past behind, which, frankly, I don't see journalists
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: doing when they go out in the field. A lot
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: of the reporting on low income people, working class people
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: and people of color, which are not the same group,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: but interconnected in various ways, is very anthropological, like, oh,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: we're going to this dangerous black neighborhood to talk to people.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: And to the point where I wrote a report for
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: Harvard Shorenstein Center, and one of the parts of the
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: report was talking to a woman who had been forced
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: to go basically as the black buddy of a white
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: reporter to black neighborhoods. But when she was sent into
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: the pit at NASCAR and dragged into a bathroom, no
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: one was there to protect her. You know, I mean,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: to be a black woman in due field reporting is
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: patently dangerous. And many different types of unpleasant... incidents have
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: happened over the course, but that's part of my job.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: And I sign up for those dangers. What I get
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: really irked by is that the construct of objectivity itself
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: becomes weaponized in newsrooms to prevent the kind of reporting
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about, to prevent the kind of reporting that
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: really does take you into the field and to dealing
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: with people who are unpleasant, unpalatable, et cetera. So, you know,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: if we can reform the whole idea of objectivity and
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: make it meaningful, great. But right now what we have
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: is a conceit that is actually used to prevent coverage
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: in various ways. And so I go for fairness or
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: impartiality as the language I choose. If we want objectivity
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: not to be bankrupt, we have to act differently.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: One of the challenges of the, quote unquote, objective model
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: of journalism is sort of the both sides dynamic. And
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: One of the things that a lot of our listeners
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: have been very concerned about, and I've heard from a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: lot of journalists about, is that because now we have
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: sort of come to, at least some people come to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: terms with the idea that there is a very virulent,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: very growing strain of white nationalism in the Republican Party.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: And so now we have to treat white nationalism, quote unquote, objectively,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: as opposed to calling it out, you know, with some
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: sort of moral clarity. How do you think about that?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that objective journalism, and I've
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: done 25 years of reporting on white nationalists and supremacists,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: I want to treat them impartially, which includes saying, in
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: some cases, this group kills people or, you know, part
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: of being impartial is actually stating what's happening and not
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: sugarcoating it. So I'm, you know, In one case, a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: woman from the Aryan Nation, which was disbanded because they
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: killed people and were sued out of existence in civil court,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: said that the reason that she granted the interview was
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: to recruit followers. And that let me really understand that
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: I also could not make her an antihero. She was
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: a very compelling, like she would make a great movie.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: She was from a wealthy family, said that the Aryan
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: Nation was her true home, talked about throwing the hammer
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: at this summer hammer toss and like, She was basically
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: like a Leni Reifenstahl, you know, character. But I don't
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: want to portray her as someone who is living the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: good life. You know, I'm going to be honest about
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: her life, but I'm not going to valorize her. And
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: so I think what actually happens sometimes, people are afraid
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: of covering this because they don't know how to contextualize
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: the fact that there are perfectly, you know, employed, well-off
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: people who join these extremist movements. If we wrap our
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: brain around that, then... we just have to make sense
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: out of the fact that some people choose this. Some
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: people make, it's not like, you know, it's not by
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: accident and that's okay. If we can, if we can
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: do endless crime coverage on the evening news, we can
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: cover domestic terrorism through the lens of white nationalism and
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: it requires a bit of discipline.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: There is sort of two opposite, I think two sort
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: of polar opposite types of journalism that happens. There is
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: sort of the man on the street. It's the New
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: York Times diner story that we make fun of a
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: lot here, where you just go to a diner, interview
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people with MAGA hats on and ask
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: them why they still love Trump. And then there is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: sort of data journalism, where you're just digging into the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: crosstabs of polls or whatever else. How do you find
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: a balance between those two to tell an accurate, contextualized
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: story of what is happening in America?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I love using both data and field reporting because
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: you can also... I mean, data is flawed just like
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: interviews are flawed. Sometimes people lie to you. You do
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: your best to figure out when they're lying and when
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: they're not lying based on context and evidence. And at
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: the same time, people also lie to pollsters, which we're
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: increasingly finding out, or simply the mechanisms don't track certain
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: populations well, people without landlines, et cetera. So I really
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: use the two types of journalism to reflect on each
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: other so that I can puzzle out what the truth is.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: And I also don't pretend to have a lock on
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: the truth all the time. If I'm not certain about something,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: I'm not certain. But I also spend time with people
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: where they are. So I go to mosques, I go
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: to evangelical churches, I go to people's places of work,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: I go to county Republican meetings, because I don't just
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: want to interview someone in a diner. I want to
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: talk to them where they live, where they pray, where
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: they have family, so that I know what the words
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: that they're saying mean to them. It gives me so
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: much more context.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: If we were, if we, the political community, the journalism community,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: were not up to the moment of dissecting what was
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: undergirding the Trump movement in 2016, Do you think we
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: are better prepared for this next time around to cover
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: the next Trump or another politician who is part of
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: that same movement?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: I think we're going to get plenty of practice, whether
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: we like it or not. I mean, the reality is
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: Trump is gone, but Trumpism isn't. As we've seen from,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: you know, the way that Marjorie Taylor Greene was able
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: to sway members of her own party. And there's a
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: tick tock of arrests coming out of the siege of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: the Capitol that So we don't have the luxury of
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: not dealing with this. Now, will we deal with it? Well,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: it depends. I mean, first of all, as someone who's
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: done primary source reporting, it's dangerous and it's time consuming.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: The data reporting on white extremists, you know, which is
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: in and of itself a huge thing of people scraping various,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: you know, video Facebook posts. post, et cetera. It's a
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: very skilled endeavor. And so I think that you have to,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: in order to really understand the story, have some basic
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: understanding of technology and social platforms, where to find information
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: and how to safely interview people if you choose to
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: do the primary work. But I also want to be
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: clear that I think that the press missed the story
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: of white nationalism But I think that the more important
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: story and the story always in politics is power. Who
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: holds it and why? So white nationalism is just a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: tool to hold power. It's a tool to hold political
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: power even when you don't win it democratically. And politics
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: is all about power. So there's many ways to gain power.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: You can gain it through a democratic vote. You can
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: gain it through weaponizing ideology or race. And so it's
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: just part of what we should be doing as political
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: reporters is to understand the many different mechanisms people use
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: to hold power, ethical and unethical.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: Fry, thank you so much for joining us. Before I
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: let you go, how can our listeners follow your work
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: and support what you're doing?
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much. I do a podcast called
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: Our Body Politic. You can find it at ourbodypolitic.show. And
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: we dive into basically how women of color hold power
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: and the ways in which it's sometimes different than men
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: or white Americans or both. And I think that to
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: hear the stories of how women of color gain, hold,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: and use power is also something that we need to
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: plug into.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: Frye, thank you so much. It's such an important conversation,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: and I look forward to talking to you again.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: Likewise. Thanks so much.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Fry for joining us today. Everyone have a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone. Pre-order Ben's book.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. and to
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: every week.