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“Impeach ‘em if you got ‘em.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tom Evitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, we'll talk to Jessica Yellen, CNN's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: former chief White House correspondent, who's written a new novel
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: about the news media in D.C., Before that, we're going
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to talk about the debate over impeachment, Elizabeth Warren's new
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: plan to eliminate student debt and provide free college, and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Seth Moulton's announcement that he's joining the other few dozen
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Democrats already running for president. And he's not the last one.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Love it. How was Love It or Leave It?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: We had a great episode of Love It or Leave It.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Chairman Adam Schiff.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Chairman shit? Shit.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Remember?
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I forgot that he did that.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: What a shitty culture.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Uh, no, uh, uh, Congressman Schiff came by very graciously
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: to the improv on a Thursday night, the day of
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: the Mueller report to talk to us about it. We
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: had a great conversation, uh, about, about the actual report
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: and the congressional response. And we discussed impeachment and whether
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: it's worth pursuing very much worth listening. Also, uh, Jason
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Leopold of Buzzfeed who's done reporting on this came by
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: to talk about it. We also had Mitra Juhari and
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Paul Downs. It was a fantastic episode. Also, I think
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: you have some tickets you might want to sell.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Are you heading back out on the road soon?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Austin, Dallas, Houston, our next swing. Coming up the first
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: week of May, we have some very fun.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Is that next week? Oh, my God.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I've got to go next week to fucking Texas.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: But it's going to be great. We're going to have
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: a great time. You should come check out those shows.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: There are some tickets left for all three shows. I've
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: been joking about Houston not selling, but guess what?
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: It sort of picked up.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: To get tickets, crooked.com slash events.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Also, congratulations to our friends at Pod Save the People
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: who just won two Webby Awards. Double Webby.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Bookends.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: For their fantastic podcast. Congrats to DeRay, Brittany, Sam, and Clint.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's probably a lot of new listeners to the
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: show who haven't checked out Pod Save the People.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Go now. Smash the subscribe button. You will not regret it.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It's fantastic. All right. Let's get to the news. We've
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: now had a few days to fully digest the redacted
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: version of Robert Mueller's report, a 400-plus page document that
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: details the Russian government's attempt to sabotage our presidential election
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: on behalf of Donald Trump, sabotage that Trump and his
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: campaign knew of, sought out, welcomed, and lied about. The
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: report then details 10 different instances where the president obstructed
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: justice in an attempt to impede the investigation into that
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Russian sabotage, in addition to his own wrongdoing. As a result,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: there is now a debate about whether impeachment proceedings should begin. Guys,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: before we get to impeachment, I wanted to get your
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: biggest takeaways from the Mueller report. since this is your
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: first pod to talk about it. Dan and I talked
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: about it on Thursday. Tommy, what were some of your
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: biggest takeaways? You know, I think we always need to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: step back as far as possible. And just remember that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the report confirmed that the Russian interference efforts were sweeping
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and systematic.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Because this was debated early on, right? The Clinton people
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: were treated like they were crazy for suggesting so. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: the incredibly frustrating thing about the Mueller report is that
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: there's probably no recourse for.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: That, right?
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: There doesn't seem like there will be a a way
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: to punish the Trump campaign for its part in this.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: So that would require the Trump administration to undertake some
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: sanctions or some sort of covert action or something additional
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: to what we've already done to punish the Russians for
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: this election interference. So they will likely do it again.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: And that sucks.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: And it's a huge, huge win for Putin.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: And you already have people like Jared Kushner, who today
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: tried to downplay it by suggesting it was just a
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: few Facebook ads. No, I mean, this was a massive
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: effort that Russians were able to create real-life protests and
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: get people out on both sides of the protests in.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: The United States during our election to be involved.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: And by the way, and that's the social media part
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: of the sabotage.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: It's not just that.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Never mind the hack. It was a theft of documents. Again,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: if you don't think that matters, go publish your inbox.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: See how that feels.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: It also speaks to the use of the word leak.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: was very prevalent during this period of time. Even the
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Sony emails. Remember when Sony was hacked?
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: They were called leaks.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: The emails are leaking.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: They were never leaked.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: They were stolen and released. They were stolen documents. Anyway, Tommy,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: go ahead.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: And also, the laying out of all the efforts to
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: obstruct the investigation is so striking, and it's so egregious,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: and it's so transparently illegal and unethical. And I'm deeply
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: frustrated by the argument that somehow Trump was saved by
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: his own staff's insubordination.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I hate it.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: Or that, you know, just because we couldn't prove the
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: underlying criminal conspiracy crime that he can get away with
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: obstructing something.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: That's just not true, right? We know that there was.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: A campaign finance violation in terms of the payments Trump
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: made to Stormy Daniels to silence her and keep her
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: from telling her story before the election. It stands to
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: reason that any obstruction effort might have been to prevent
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: that from coming out, right? So, like, just.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: He did a lot of bad stuff, and it's very frustrating.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: But I guess the thing I keep telling myself is
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: it's very hard to digest a 448-page report quickly. We're
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: going to keep going through it over and over again
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: in the weeks and months to follow. So take a
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: deep breath, I guess. I'm talking to myself right now.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: But it's also an interesting example of where really dogged
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: investigative reporting clearly added to the Mueller report and helped
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: him along the way. But it also lessened the explosive
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: impact of all these revelations coming out at one time
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: because reporters have been doing great work.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I was stunned by the number of very good journalists
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and outlets who went with the Trump staff saved him
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: from himself because they didn't carry out his orders to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: obstruct justice. Like the legal definition of obstruction of justice
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: is includes attempts to obstruct justice. Donald Trump attempted to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: obstruct justice. The reason his staff wasn't charged with obstruction
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: of justice is because they ignored his orders. But just
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: because they ignored his orders doesn't mean that he didn't
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: obstruct justice. There's no such thing as that. Right.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It's actually backwards. The fact that, first of all, Donald
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Trump did, it's also, it's not either or. He very
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: clearly successfully obstructed justice on many occasions, succeeded in intimidating witnesses,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: succeeded in tampering with the investigation on many occasions. The
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: fact that on several other occasions he was thwarted by
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: staff who out of either self-preservation or cowardice refused to
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: carry out those orders is an argument for impeachment. It's
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: an argument for calling it obstruction, not an argument against it.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Love it. What were your big takeaways? You know.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: I talked about this with Schiff.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I actually talked about it at the top of it,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I'll leave it and then cut it because it was
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: just me kind of being sad for a while. And,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: you know, what I've been thinking about more and more is,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: you know, we've talked about this since the beginning of
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration, this vice grip between those of us
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: seeking to preserve institutions and upholding their character against a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: president who has no interest in them. And I do
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: feel right now that we are paying for that in
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways, because what you take from the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Mueller report is someone so committed to to faithfully executing
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the duty of special counsel, so faithful to the idea
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: of an impartial adjudication of the law, a careful prosecutor,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: that he errs so many times on the side of
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: caution in how he describes things. He errs so many
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: times with caution in whether or not to call something
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: a conspiracy, whether to call something a collusion, whether to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: call something a crime. And I believe that that is
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: in part what has guided Robert Mueller in his investigation
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: and maybe his career. which is a faith in our system,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: a faith in the political process, a faith that once outed,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: the information itself will do the job he needs it
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to do. And I come away from the way we've
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: responded this weekend, the way the media has responded, the
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: way Trump has responded, the way Republicans responded, saying, you
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: know what, in this case, that really may not be so.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: That ultimately, the reason the investigation didn't leak for so long,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: ultimately the reason we were in a position where we're
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: seeing this report is because Robert Mueller thought the information
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: would be enough to galvanize the public. And My fear,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I think all this debate about impeachment is part of that,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: is my fear is it just won't happen. And I
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: think it's worth taking a moment to say where we
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: are as a culture, and where we are as a
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: culture is a place in which we all collectively do
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: not believe Republicans would ever do the right thing. And
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: it informs every aspect of what we decide to do.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: The fact that we know that there are a group
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of Republicans, no matter what the truth holds, that they
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: are inured, that they are immunized against a morally responsible path.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk a little bit more about
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Robert Mueller's intentions with this report. Yoni Applebaum writes in
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic that, quote, the Mueller report, in short, is
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: an impeachment referral. It says that, quote, Mueller spelled out
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a concern with alleging a crime against a sitting president,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and that concern was the risk that it would preempt, quote,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: from the report, constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Is
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: that what it read like to you guys, an impeachment referral?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what, you know, I don't
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: know the difference. I don't know what, It's, what is
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: an impeachment referral? This would be the first one I've read,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: you know? At least in some time.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Well, just for some background, just so we can talk
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: about it. Under the old independent counsel statute, when Ken
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Starr was independent counsel, the independent counsel was allowed at
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the end of investigation to make a formal impeachment referral.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Under the new regulations, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, was
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: not allowed to make an explicit impeachment referral. And yet,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: by saying that, you know, charging the president with a crime...
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: which Mueller did not think you could do because a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: sitting president can't be indicted under DOJ guidelines, and then
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: also saying, well, I think it would preempt the constitutional
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: processes for dealing with presidential misconduct, which is impeachment, it
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: seemed like he was signaling that this was perhaps.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: An impeachment Well, there's also a fairness question, right?
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: If you accuse someone of a crime and then they're
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: not able to go through the process of a speedy
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: trial to adjudicate it, I think he really, that weighed
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: on him as well.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: It's also, he also makes, there's another caveat inside of
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: the report, right? Inside of this argument that here, you know,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: this roadmap toward impeachment, there's also a point where he
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: makes it clear that despite these constitutional questions, despite these restrictions,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: even take those aside, there would still be reasons to
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: debate whether or not to pursue charges. He makes that
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: point explicit as well.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: But ultimately, yes.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: But he also says explicitly, if there were facts that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: could exonerate him, we would. There are not.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Or something like that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: This is, again, what I mean, though, right? He was
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: so careful in his language that he left outs for everybody.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But, yes, I mean, it's... Because you said that, I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: was wondering, like, I don't think... He was not allowed
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to say, yes, Donald Trump should be impeached and Congress
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: should impeach him. And he also believed he was not
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: allowed to say, because of DOJ guidelines, that... I want
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: to indict a sitting president. So I don't even know
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: if it was just Robert Mueller's own caution or what
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: he imagined the political implications would be or how he
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: thought he was going to galvanize the country. I thought
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: he was more like, well, I'm going to do this
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: by the book and by the letter of the law
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and the regulations at DOJ. But knowing that, I'm going
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to go pretty fucking far in letting you know that
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I think this misconduct was possibly impeachable.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I do think the argument for that is just the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: careful laying out of the legal defense of why obstruction
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: of justice is a crime without the constitutional implications that
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Barr recommends.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: It really is an argument against Barr.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: And there really is a, it's very legal, but it
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: is the end of the, uh, the obstruction section has
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: this beautiful language about why if a president were to
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: commit obstruction of justice, it is important that Congress have
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the power to investigate it and to impeach a president
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: over it. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: laws to the president's corrupt exercise of the powers of
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the office, accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: and the principle that no person is above the law.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And I think there's no- Again, why add that language
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: if you don't have a message to send about impeachment?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And in a very careful way, right? Because he's laying out,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: he introduces this idea that if the president is using
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: his powers in a corrupt way, it's a high threshold
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: for it to be corrupt. But if it is, it's
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: actually important for Congress to make sure that the president
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: is faithfully executing the laws.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What has the Trump Republican strategy been since the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Barr letter? And has- The Mueller report changed that strategy
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: at all.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, this is the premature victory lap
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: to end all victory laps. And the rest of the
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: thing came out and they're just still doing loops around
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: that track. You know, they're just going to make this
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: a political fight and they're going to say no collusion,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: no obstruction.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: We win.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: Time to move on. The key point that everyone needs
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: to watch for is time to move on, time to
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: move on, time to move on. That's where they want
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: to get the American people.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Ironically, the organization move on. named for censure and move
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: on when they were trying to get Bill Clinton out
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: of an obstruction case.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've tried this before.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Well, it's move on and nothing to see here. No obstruction,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: no collusion. But it's also, as we're seeing from Trump
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and all of his tweets over the weekend and everyone
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: from the White House, now it's time to investigate the investigators.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: The Democrats committed a crime by starting this investigation, which
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: makes no sense. The Democrats didn't start anything. They never do.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't a crime. I mean, the best part
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: of the Mueller report is at the very beginning, It
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: totally obliterates, obliterates the bullshit talking point on the right
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that somehow the FISA warrant on Carter Page is what
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: started this and the FISA warrant wasn't right when it
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: was like, no, actually, George Papadopoulos fucking sitting with, you know.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, with a bunch of Australians.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: So we didn't learn that much that we didn't already
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: know about Donald Trump. We learned a whole lot about
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: the Attorney General William Barr in a very short period
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: of time. He is a total hack. He was willing
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: to lie and spin and misrepresent this report, and he
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: was willing to entertain the notion that the Obama administration
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: was spying on the Trump campaign and maybe that was
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: the genesis of these things. So these punitive steps that
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: Trump has been out there talking about for a very
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: long time He now has some serious top cover and
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: some allies within the Department of Justice, a supposedly independent entity,
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: who might execute on him.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems to me there was a category error
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: around Barr where he was sorted into serious, maybe shifty Republican,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: but where he has now actually behaved more like a
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: completely unserious Trump goon. That is, I think, something that
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: even surprised Robert Mueller, because I do believe, based on
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: what we now know, that Robert Mueller seems to have
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: been caught off guard by the way in which Barr...
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: took that report, wrote that four-page memo, basically tried to
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: get Trump out of the possibility of being charged in
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the future, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to me, I think we see the kind of the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: range of Republicans' responses. They run from what Tommy's describing
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: and what you're describing, the kind of total exonerated, let's
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: investigate the investigators, all the way to the Romneys, which
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: have decided to land on something along the lines of
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: It was sickened.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: He said he's sickened by the administration's dishonesty. That's right.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: That it is sickening, unpatriotic, terrible, reprehensible, not a crime.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: That's where they're landing on.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And thank God.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, what a relief to discover that the sickening, unpatriotic,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: reprehensible president did not commit a crime. We need to
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: we need to you know, it's it's shameful. It's deserves
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: to be held accountable, but it's not a crime. And
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that to me is where the Republican range is.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's there's two other categories of reactions that
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I want to mention because they matter going forward. One
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: is Rudy Giuliani on CNN telling Jake Tapper, there's nothing
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: wrong with taking information from the Russians. Who says it's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: even illegal?
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Well, it's clearly a.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Campaign finance violation to take something of value from a
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: foreign individual or entity.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Right. So he's wrong on the most basic facts.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: That's true. Okay. And let's say even because clearly in
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the case of the Trump Tower meeting, Mueller thought that
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Don Jr. was too stupid. to know that taking something
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of value from a foreign entity was illegal. And in
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the case of the ban on foreign contributions to an election,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: ignorance of the law is okay, apparently, in that instance,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: because campaign finance law is quite complicated, I guess. That
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: is just outrageous. Which is outrageous. But set aside, which
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: is crazy to say, set aside the legal issues here.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's basically Giuliani saying in the future, 2020
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: comes around. and the Russians or the Chinese or any
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: foreign power offers us information about our opponent, we think
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it's now okay to do that.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it's also, it's such a fundamental thing. I mean,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: we are a country founded with certain rules and restrictions
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: to try to prevent the foreign influence on our democracy, right?
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: It's like, it's so central to who we are that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Foreign- Something the founders were worried about. We know that.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: That foreign power should not be able to come in
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: here and take over our elections, meddle in our elections,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: choose our leader for us, right? That is partially why
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the president needs to be born in the United.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: States, right?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: This is all goes into our sort of our fundamental
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: tenants of who we are, which they don't give a
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: shit about. I do think, though, there is this problem,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: which is Rudy's been saying that kind of thing before. Remember,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: we've been watching him slowly evolve even before the Mueller
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: report came out, too. It was like no collusion, maybe
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: collusion from some other people, but not from Trump. What's
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the problem with collusion? That was a joke for a
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: long time. But it's interesting when when it seems to matter,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: when it doesn't. Rudy says that it doesn't seem to
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: get everybody kind of amped. But what happens when Donald
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Trump stands next to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki is and
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: behaves like a supplicant, that does sort of shake people
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: to attention. So I think one of the challenges here
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: is this question about foreign influence does seem to have
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: a real kind of subjective and emotional quality, and people
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: clearly react in a stronger way depending on literally how
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: it feels to see it play out.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: There is a whataboutism argument that you'll hear a lot
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: that is valid, which is to say the US has
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: intervened or interfered in foreign elections time and time again
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: throughout our history.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: And that is true.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: But I don't think it then excuses what the Russians
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: did or excuses the Giuliani argument. Maybe it should make
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: us step back and think, hmm, maybe we shouldn't.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Do that shit.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: Maybe in the past when we've had these stupid, covert
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: actions that get cooked up by a bunch of unaccountable
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: CIA agents that, you know, they don't end that well.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: We're supposed to be for values and transparency and democracy
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: and rule of law. Let's keep pushing ourselves in that
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: direction and not excuse it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, I don't think anybody's faithfully making the
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: argument like, I don't care if China intercedes in our election.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Remember what we did to the Shah?
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Well, no, you see that on Twitter all the time
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: from some very well-known, well-respected people.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: And it is not the point.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: The other reaction that I think bears upon what Democrats
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: should do now is over the last couple of days,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: we've seen two different stories. Trump and his businesses are
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: suing House Democrats again. to hide their financial records to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: avoid all the subpoenas for Trump's financial records. And then
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: today was the deadline that Trump was supposed to hand
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: over his taxes, um, or the IRS was supposed to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: hand over Trump's taxes to Congress. And they have just
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: blown through that deadline and said, they're not going to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: do it. So they do by saying that, Nothing's here.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: This was a sham. This was a witch hunt. They're
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: now saying whatever other investigations you got, we're going to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: ignore subpoenas. We're going to ignore regulations. We know this
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: because this is all a witch hunt. Right. So these
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: are all the reactions. And this all leads us to
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the Democratic reaction. On Thursday, when this whole thing broke,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer initially said that impeachment, quote,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't worthwhile and that there would be an election coming
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: up where the American people could make a judgment. He
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: since walked that comment back and said, quote, Congress must
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: have the full report. and all underlying evidence in order
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to determine what actions may be necessary. Jerry Nadler, the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said over the weekend
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: that he wouldn't rule impeachment out, but that he needs
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to hear from both Mueller and William Barr and read
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the full report first. On Monday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: cold water on the move to start impeachment proceedings immediately,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: releasing a letter to her colleagues that says, quote, While
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: our views range from proceeding to investigate the finding, of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: finding the truth.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: So I think this one is not an easy call.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So let's go through all the different arguments one by one.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: What is the argument for taking impeachment off the table
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and just moving on?
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, so here's how I'm trying to think about it,
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: which is I believe all the moral arguments. I am
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: swayed that it is an obligation that this is what
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Congress was set up to do. This is why we
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: have impeachment. But I just don't care about them. All
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I want to hear is the most crass political argument
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: about how this may benefit us or not. And so
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: what I want to know is two things. what can
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: we learn via impeachment that we can't learn through other
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: investigative means through committees, and how will it impact public opinion?
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: And I think what we will learn basically boils down
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: to what information and people do we get access to
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: during an impeachment proceeding that we wouldn't get during a
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: subpoena process? If they're ignoring subpoenas now, they might again later.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: We'll probably need a court to compel them in either direction.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: So I'm mindful that impeachment And the process started in
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: the House is why we ultimately got the Nixon tapes
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: that proved to be the smoking gun to take him down. But,
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: you know, so there's a track record of success there.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: But the second half is going to be a big
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: PR fight. And so will impeachment hearings fundamentally change hardened
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: public opinion or coverage of Trump in a way that
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: is strategically important or that just subpoenaing Don McGahn might not?
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: And this is where I really struggle, because I think
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: the impeachment timeline will be what, like three, four or
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: five months from start to finish. Will that focused attention
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: be enough to change public opinion so that even when
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: we get to the end of it and the House
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: does what it's likely to do, which is to not
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: vote to impeach him, that he doesn't walk away with
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: an even bigger benefit, which is to say Mueller and
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: the Senate found me innocent.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Let's move on.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: And I think the answer to your question, Tommy, is like,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: what is, you know, what are the politics of impeachment?
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You know, does public opinion move? We don't know.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: We don't know.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: We can't answer it. And so, look, I think it's
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the morally, you know, you could talk about the moral
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: dimension of this, you know, or the constitutional obligation of this.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And I understand that, like, that doesn't have a lot of,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel real world and practical and political. I also
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: think there's a precedent that it sets, right? Like, by
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: not taking action, which, okay. Robert Mueller, who, as Lovett
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: just said, has been very conservative, not ideologically conservative, but
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: conservative by nature, very careful in how he laid this out,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: basically lays out 10 instances where the President of the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: United States obstructs justice and goes all the way up
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to the line of basically saying this is an impeachment
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: referral for Congress. And so if we take the special
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: counsel who found all this evidence that the President committed
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a crime, and it wasn't, by the way, just... This is,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I think, qualitatively different than what Bill Clinton was impeached for.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton... It was obstruction of justice. It was perjury
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: for an underlying, you know, it was an affair, right?
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: He lied about an affair. This is the president obstructing
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: an investigation into foreign sabotage of our elections. And I
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: think that is a very, very big deal for a
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: couple reasons. One, future presidents then, if you don't impeach,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: future presidents can say, as long as my party has
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: enough votes in Congress to make sure that I'm not convicted,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I can commit whatever crime I want because Donald Trump
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: got away with it. That's number one. Number two, we
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: have an election.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: But what if you do impeach and he gets away
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: with it? Future presidents will draw the same lesson of partisanship.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: It's possible, but we don't know. Exactly. But we're at
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the stage right now where we don't know what the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: consequences of impeachment are.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I'm presuming the outcome.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: I'm presuming that the supermajority of the Senate will not vote.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And what I'm saying is whatever the outcome may be,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: if we go through an impeachment proceedings, that does actually
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: change the public perception of Donald Trump because we don't
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: know that it won't yet. And it does lead to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: more information. If more information is uncovered, if more crimes
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: are uncovered throughout the course of the impeachment proceeding, then
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: maybe other presidents will think twice. Well, they did do
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: that to Donald Trump and he didn't get reelected. Again,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: we don't know. The other big thing is we have
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: an election coming up in 2020. If I was the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Russian government, why wouldn't I try to interfere again? Why
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: wouldn't I? And highlighting the fact that there's a foreign
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: power that interfered in our election and that we took
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: action to make sure they didn't get away with it
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: by going through the impeachment proceedings because we knew that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the president committed a crime. That may have an effect, too.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It may not.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: I don't think it'll have any deterrent effect on them personally.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: This is why I think the conversation is, I think,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: a bit frustrating. And it's actually why the further we
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: get from what Steny Hoyer said, the more furious I
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: am for him having said it. because he introduced this
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: binary of should we impeach or should we not impeach?
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: And that's become sort of the core of the debate
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: among Democrats. But to me, everything we're discussing, it is
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: a hypothetical. It's a hypothetical about what impeachment will do.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: And we're all dancing around it, right? The facts are obvious, right?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: He's morally, intellectually unfit to be president. He's obviously committed
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: obstruction of justice. Unless you're paid by a network to
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: pretend otherwise, it's clear. Impeachment also exists for a president
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: just like this. So then why wouldn't we?
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And to me, it very much boils down to what
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you're saying. How malleable is public opinion?
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: That's really what we're talking about. You know, we can
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: we can, you know, shift on love it or leave it. Well,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: there's other avenues we could explore. There's the counterintelligence dimensions
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: or financial dimensions, other things that that were outside of
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the scope of Robert Mueller's investigation. And again, this always
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: comes back to this same problem, which is we just
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: right now are not sure how to move public opinion.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: There is this question at root. The fear is that
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: even though Trump deserves to be impeached, even though impeachment
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: power exists for this purpose, we don't believe Democrats have
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the moral authority or political acumen or reach inside of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the media to make that case, that Fox News immunizes
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Republicans to impeachment. And we're in this place where that
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: very well may be true. It simply may be true
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: that we are right now facing a 30-year problem of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: an onslaught of conservative propaganda that makes Donald Trump immune
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: to the effects of impeachment.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: It is horrifying. It is terrible.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: But ultimately, I wish we could be more honest about
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: that because The fact that Donald Trump deserves to be
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: impeached to me is unassailable.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: It is hard to argue with.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: And when you say he shouldn't be impeached, what you're
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: really saying is this system is so fundamentally broken that
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: we can't remove an unfit criminal president.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Look, I also think if we just want to put
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: everything else aside and talk pure politics and polling about this,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I think there has been a problem where certain public
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: polling has been baked into the narrative around impeachment, where
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: if you go out to voters and ask them, what
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: do you care about in this election? Impeachment never shows up, right?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Which is absolutely true. But when you ask voters, do
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you believe that Donald Trump should be impeached or not?
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It is much, much closer. It is pretty split. And
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: if you look at independence, the numbers are pretty close, right?
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: There were a few polls that had a plurality opposed,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a few polls that had a plurality support, right? So again,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the people who watch Fox News are again, are lost
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: to public opinion, right? They can't agree on just like, they're,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Fox News is convincing them that basic facts aren't correct, right?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: But we're thinking about Democrats and independents, right, when we're
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: talking about moving public opinion. And it is very unknown, right? Like,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: it is very possible that most people in this country
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: do not want all their 2020 candidates and all of
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: their politicians to be talking about impeachment all the time,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: for sure. But if Democrats make a case, the case
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that Robert Mueller, Independent Special Counsel Robert Mueller made, that
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the president has obstructed justice, and when everyone turns their
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: televisions on, cable news is covering that for a couple
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of months and all the crimes that Donald Trump committed
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: are being shown on TV and talked about and everything.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And potentially other crimes are out there. What does that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: do to public opinion? We don't know. And there's also, and,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and also one more point, Brian Boitler brought this up.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: There is in his piece, there is what happens if
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Democrats move on and what Republicans do and what Republicans do.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: What we've seen already is they don't just move on.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: They start the counter investigation. They start saying, The Democrats
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: committed a crime by starting this investigation. And now because
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the Democrats have clearly moved on anyway, because they know
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: it's a loser for them. So now we're going to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: start going after the Democrats. Now we're going to start investigating.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: So here's the problem, I think, with that argument. I
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: think everything you're saying is true. And you're saying there
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: might be a political benefit in a 2020 election to
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: having this period of time where we're focused on this issue.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: And it is true that those Fox News people aren't gettable.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: But if what we want to do is have a
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: successful impeachment in which Donald Trump isn't acquitted, and declares
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: another layer of exoneration, right? He declares himself exonerated by
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: the Mueller report. We take the Mueller report. We impeach
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: him based on it. That is sent to the Senate.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: The Senate acquits him. He's exonerated yet again. To me,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: for impeachment to be successful, it requires piercing that Fox
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: News bubble. And I think right now we just don't
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: feel as though we have the capacity to do that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Let me make it. So I don't think this is binary.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: I don't think moving on is the option. I don't
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: think anyone's suggesting that. I also think that they're going
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: to start a counter investigation no matter what we do.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: I think they're especially likely to start a counter investigation
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: in the Senate if we start an impeachment in the House.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: So just to game it out for a minute, like
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: for Bill Clinton, the timeline was the House authorized impeachment
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: in October of 98. The House proposed articles December of 1998.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: The trial began January 99. The Senate acquitted him in
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: February 12th. So that's like five months. I believe they
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: bombed a rock in the middle. So maybe shrink. So
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: we start this thing in two, three months. It's sort
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: of done by the end of the year.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Super focused attention.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to understand how that's more politically beneficial than
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: one blockbuster hearing of per month with a Don McGahn
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: or another really key individual that gets us all the
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: way through the election.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: So I think you could make an argument that the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: media coverage of individual investigations is and hearings would not
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: be as significant as the media coverage for a full-blown impeachment.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: I think that's reasonable. And another argument for impeachment is
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: kind of crass, but it's just running out the clock.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Like this would be all-consuming for them for six months.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: They wouldn't be able to do much more damage in
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: terms of policy and legislation and getting stuff through the House.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, not the House, but the Senate. So that's
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: another interesting element of this.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And the other point, talking about Clinton's impeachment, is everyone
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: looks back at that and says, okay, the House Republicans
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: impeached Bill Clinton, and then the 1998 midterms, Bill Clinton's party,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, actually gained slightly a few seats in the House.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: But also, by the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, while
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: his job approval was at 60% because the economy was
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: one of the best economies of all time, his personal
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: approval was 30% with 66% opposed to Bill Clinton personally.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: And he was so toxic as a political figure that
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Al Gore did not want him to campaign with him
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the entire time. And both Al Gore and George W.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Bush were campaigning on restoring integrity and honesty to the
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: White House. So it did not do much for Bill
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Clinton's personal ratings being impeached by the House.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I guess I just come back to this problem, right?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: What we're then talking about is the pure political calculus
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: about the benefits of impeachment. And then the moral argument
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: kind of fades away to me, right?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: We can make that. I was just putting it aside
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: because it's time. He said, like, we can make the moral.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: But let's just talk about. No, I agree. I agree.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: But I'm just saying so. So if I guess what
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: I I guess what I what I'm saying is if
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: in order for the moral argument for impeachment to make sense, right,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: that we must that to Tommy's point, if impeachment is
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: doomed to fail in the Senate.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Then the moral argument is kind of iffy because it's like, wait,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: how would we serve the constitutional question if a president
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: committed crimes, he's impeached and then exonerated? So for there
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: to be a moral case for impeachment, to me, it
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: involves having faith in our ability to finally pierce through
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: that right-wing bubble and have it carry over and change
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: the way Republicans are behaving.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: But I also think if you start an impeachment proceeding,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the expectations that Donald Trump will be convicted in the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Senate are zero. Does any of us believe that he'll
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: be convicted in the Senate?
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: No.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Does anyone believe he'll be convicted in the Senate?
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: No.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And Dan makes this point all the time that when
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is convicted, exonerated by the Senate because Republicans
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: don't vote for his conviction. He's going to run around
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: saying total exoneration. But we know that's going to happen now.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And Elizabeth Warren, to me, made the best argument last
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: night at the CNN town hall where she's like, she
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: fully realizes he's not going to be convicted by the Senate,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: but she's like, I want every single member of the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: United States Congress to take the vote. Do you believe
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: what he did was okay or not okay? And if
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: you think it was okay, you take that vote and
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: you live with it for the rest of your life.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Because my thing is this. If we make this a
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: debate where it's the moral case here is that we
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: should impeach him, but the political case is that it's
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: dangerous and so we shouldn't. But we don't know that
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the political case, basically what we think is the moral
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: case is yes, he should be impeached, and the political
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: consequences of when we impeach him, we don't know. They're unknowns.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: So if that's the case, then maybe go with what's
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: morally correct.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: Look, it's a reasonable argument. I don't know the answer,
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: and that's why I'm debating both sides of it. I'm just,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: you know, I keep thinking back to a really bad
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: loss we had on my football team in high school
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: and my friend losing his mind screaming, I'm sick and
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: fucking tired of moral victories. And that's how I feel
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: right now. Like, I want to win, and I want
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: to be as crass and political about this, and I'm
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: trying to game it out, and I don't know the answer, but...
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: The hesitancy we already have and the numbers we already
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: have about impeachment going into it makes me concerned, and
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: I'd love to see these committees just dig and dig
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: and dig and dig and dig and find more information
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: and evidence and roll it out.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I keep thinking about your argument, Tommy, that you
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: just made about running out the clock, too. We know
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: from the past however many years he's been in office
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: now that when the news is focused on Donald Trump
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: doing something wrong, Donald Trump acting badly, Donald Trump— his
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: approval ratings are lower and Democrats do better. Yeah.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: He's back to 39. It's notable. Yeah.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: His approval rating has already dropped since the Mueller report
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: came out. And the more the focus is, if, if
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Congress is focused on impeaching Donald Trump and the news
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: is about that and the 2020 candidates are out there
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: on the trail talking about healthcare, talking about jobs, talking
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: about all these issues, um, That, to me, is a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: news narrative and a news environment that I don't find
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: particularly problematic or detrimental to the prospects for Democrats in 2020.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: That's just my sheer, that's my crass political guess on this.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: This is why I come back to my frustration with
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: how the debate has unfolded, because I do feel as
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: though Democrats in Congress weren't on the same page at all.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: And turning it into a binary of, is impeachment worthwhile?
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: was not a smart decision. Because I do believe that
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: there's a version of how we're talking about this right now,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: which is something along the lines of Robert Mueller has
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: exposed gross criminality on the part of Donald Trump. It
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: demands to be investigated, and it could lead to impeachment.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: And every Democrat in Congress is committed to that investigation.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: And if it leads to impeachment, so be it. We'll
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: go where the facts take us and do what we
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: believe is morally right. And instead, we're in this debate
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: whether now we've... They've managed to turn investigating the president
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: for his crimes in a way that could lead to
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: impeachment into some half measure.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, look, I also think in some
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: ways this is all a moot point, because if we
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: don't if if not all the Democrats are on board
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: with moving forward with impeachment, then this whole thing becomes
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a story about the Democratic Party divided over impeachment. And
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: I think politically that certainly doesn't redound to our benefit. Yeah,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: that I'll agree.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: And that's where we started. Right.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: Because between Steny coming out against it and then AOC
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: leaning in, I mean, the divide was readily apparent.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: And to your point about other investigations, to me, this
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: is why it's very similar. Actually, it's similar to our
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: argument about the filibuster. It's similar to the argument about
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: adding just judges to the Supreme Court. Whether or not
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: you believe that that's ultimately where we'll land when when
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: when you say we're going to add more judges, it
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: tells something to the judges that are currently there. When
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: you say you might get rid of the filibuster, it
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: is a lever of power to those who want to
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: preserve the filibuster.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: And keep some power.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: When you say that impeachment is not worthwhile, you send
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: a message to everyone that says, we don't have the
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: stomach to go all the way for an investigation. And
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: to me, that's to me the most dangerous thing, because
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: we could be in a place, we could be in
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the exact same position we are right now without this
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: idea of us taking impeachment off the table, and I
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: think we'd have a much stronger position.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other non-political argument about the investigations is,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: what are these congressional committees going to learn that Robert Mueller...
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: And all his FBI investigations and everyone else didn't already
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: tell us in her 400-page report.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: But I don't think that's how anyone should be thinking
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: about this.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: No one read and internalized and went through the whole
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: 448-page report. You pluck out pieces and you hold blockbuster
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: TV hearings at a regular basis.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: You're saying this is purely a political show then on that.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: I believe this is a purely political PR fight and
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: we need to win it and then win the election.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: That's my take.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And that's saying the reason that we need to do
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: that is because the word impeachment itself has some sort
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of political trigger in voters' heads that they're going to
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: say somehow the impeachment isn't fair, but the investigations are.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: I'm just trying to say that I think you could
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: get the same outcome, which is massive news stories, TV coverage,
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: witnesses on camera speaking under oath for the record through
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: standard issue committee hearings with someone like a Don McGahn
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: testifying over two days for several hours. And you don't
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: necessarily need to label it impeachment, where at the end,
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: there is almost undoubtedly going to be an outcome that
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: is seen as exonerating the president.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: I also would add just one other thing. There are
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: things that Congress could uncover. And this is actually to
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Schiff's point. There are other things that Congress could uncover
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: that didn't come out of the Mueller report because Mueller's
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: report was scoped, right?
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: They did not look into.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: The counterintelligence portion of the investigation. was almost entirely hidden
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: in the report.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: And we also know that this report is not called,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: the report is not a look at Donald Trump's history
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: of criminality across his businesses over the past 30 years.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: It's a Russian interference in his efforts to obstruct it.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: There are also huge avenues to explore around corruption, around
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: the emoluments clause, around his financial dealings in Russia, around
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: other criminal acts that he has taken as a real
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: estate investor, money laundering, all the other shit that we've
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: been kind of dancing around while waiting for the Mueller report.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: So that is, you know, do I believe that there's
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: still out there something that could learn that would change
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: the fundamental dynamics of our politics where Donald Trump's popularity
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: hovers between 35 and 45 percent and the Republicans are
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: on board no matter what?
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I doubt it.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: But still, I do think that there are places to
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: go that Robert Mueller didn't go.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I guess, yeah. And my only concern, and
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: we'll see what happens since it seems like they're going
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to go down the investigations route, is let's see how
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: much coverage these individual investigations spread over a bunch of
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: different committees actually get and how much we're talking about
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: them over the next 12 months. Let's talk about how
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the 2020 candidates responded. Uh, at least three democratic candidates
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: for president feel that impeachment is an appropriate process to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: consider in the wake of the Mueller report. Um, Former
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: San Antonio Mayor and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro said
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: in a television interview on Friday that starting impeachment proceedings
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: would be perfectly reasonable. Elizabeth Warren also tweeted her support
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: for impeachment on Friday and on Monday night defended her
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: position in a CNN town hall saying, quote, there's no
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: political inconvenience exception in the Constitution, which I thought was
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: a fantastic quote about this. Kamala Harris also said in
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: her CNN town hall that she believes Congress should take
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: steps toward impeachment. Bernie Sanders, however, aligned himself with Pelosi's
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: strategy and said, quote, If for the next year all
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the Congress is talking about is impeaching Trump, what I
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: worry about is, does that work to Trump's advantage? What
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: do you guys make of sort of the different dynamics
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: at play here with the different candidates?
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: It's so fascinating. I do think it's interesting.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: They're having the same.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I think Bernie is sincerely having the same debate because
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Bernie doesn't feel like he needs to prove his bona
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: fides on being progressive, on being tough, so he can
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: be honest about his current. reservations. I think Elizabeth Warren
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: is very sincere in her argument, and she clearly, I
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: take her at her word. I think she read the report,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: came to this conclusion. I think there are others who
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: will look at this and see, where do I fall
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: in this group of 3,000 candidates? How do I distinguish myself?
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: But it's interesting that Bernie's reaction was, I think, a
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: sincere one.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it was a good idea for me.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: It was just very pundit. It was it was, again,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Bernie guessing the political consequences of impeachment without really knowing.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: I also just, you know, look, so the Congress is
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: going to spend the next year passing a bunch of
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: bills through the House that are dead or unrivaled in
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: the Senate.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Which will get zero coverage.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: I guess there's some messaging benefit, kind of, but not really.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Because it doesn't get covered. It doesn't get covered at all.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: How many messaging bills have they passed through the House
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that we haven't heard about?
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: Most. Most of the bills.
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: Look, I am totally open with people saying they need
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: to spend more time reading this. I'm open to people
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: being on either side. The only response that kind of
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: bothered me was Mayor Pete saying, sort of passing the
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: buck and saying Congress should make that decision later. and
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: that I'm not a part of Congress, so I'm sort
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: of not going to weigh in. That's not how this works, buddy.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: You've got to take a position on this. People are
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: going to be waiting to hear it.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to say yes or no. And to
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: be in fairness, Mayor Pete did say, I think he
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: deserves impeachment, but I'll let Congress do it. But I
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: do think you've got to, you know, one way or
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the other. One last question about the 2020 candidates. How,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: if at all, do you think they should incorporate the
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Mueller report, the findings of the Mueller report, into their
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: larger messaging system? as they go out on the trail.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I think that's actually a really good way
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: to put the question because, you know, in one way,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: I'm also sympathetic to Mayor Pete, because again, if any,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: this is about choosing who could be the next president.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: And if they are the next president, they can't impeach
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. You know, they're not, they're not part of
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: that decision at all. But I, but it is this
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: fundamental question. I think it's what Bernie is ultimately getting
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: at too, by the question of, is this a distraction?
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Like how should Mueller factor into what we talk about? And,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: you know, I think we've had that conversation a million times,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: and I think it always boils down to finding a
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: way to make Donald Trump's criminality, corruption, misbehavior fit into
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: a larger story about the failure of his presidency?
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: I suspect that the 2020 Democratic primary is not going
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: to be won based on who is the hardest on,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: meanest to, nastiest to Donald Trump, right? It's going to
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: be based on how well you can set yourself out,
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: show your vision for the country, and then make an
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: argument about why you were the best person to beat
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: him in an election. So I would focus on that.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: I think once you win the nomination that the Mueller
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: report findings will feature heavily in all of your messaging,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: all of your negative ads. It will be an enormous
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: gift to the next candidate. Just like that's another phase.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: So I completely agree with that on the general too.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: And I do think right now, again, the debate is,
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: do you talk about Mueller in impeachment or do you not?
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: I think if the Democratic nominee is out there saying
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: he should have been impeached, obstruction of justice gets down
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: in the weeds on Mueller, it's not really helpful. I think,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: like you were saying, Levitt, if you step back, and
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: I don't know why Democrats aren't saying this already, Donald
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: Trump betrayed his country in order to win an election
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: and enrich himself.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: That's what he did. That's what the Mueller report tells
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you to do, right? He wanted to cheat. He tried
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: to cheat. He welcomed the help, right? Also, he could
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: win an election. He lied to us about the fact
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: that he was going to get $ 300 million from a
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: deal with Putin with the Trump Tower Moscow thing. Completely
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: lied about it. He had a financial advantage. to being
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: nice to Putin and having favorable policy towards Russia. And
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I think when the Democratic nominee is making their case
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, part of that case is he is
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: in this for him. He is not in this for you.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Everything he has done since before he took office, since
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: he was running this campaign, has been for his benefit.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: He wanted power. He wanted wealth. That's why he cheated.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: He tried to cheat to win this election and then
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: tried to cover it up. And I think that's actually
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: an important part of the message. So I think it's
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: useful for candidates.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: To talk about that. Yeah, it's also, it's worth, you know,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: it's funny, just like here we are. You could have,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: that's exactly what we would have said three days before
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: the Mueller report came out, and it's what we can
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: say three days after.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it was all reported.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing, too. You know, you step back
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: from this thing, and again, it comes down to this
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: vice grip. Part of the reason this report did not
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: land as hard as it should have is because there
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: was so much excellent journalism for the last year and
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: a half that has exposed us to a lot of
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: this criminality before.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: If If that report had landed.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Well, because every fucking day is memento and we forget
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: what happened yesterday, so.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: I know, but it is worth... But, like, this is
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: the moment, right?
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: This is it, right?
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: This report lands.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: It is a catalog of gross malfeasance and abuse of
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: power and misbehavior and a lack of patriotism and cowardice and...
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: and evil on the part of a great many people
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: to benefit Donald Trump and to hurt the country. And yet,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: because so much of it is something we kind of
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: knew before, because it really elucidated a larger story we
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: were already telling, it didn't land as hard as if
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: we had just gotten this report all at once. And
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you deal with that.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: I don't know how you change that.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: But it's worth noting that if we had learned all
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: this all at once, there would be no question about
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: what we'd be talking about. It would be an emergency
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: to remove this man from office as soon as humanly possible.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And the last thing I'll say is, you know, Democrats,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: as they make this case, Right now in the media,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: it's Democrats are being pushed to the left by their
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: base for impeachment, and Republicans aren't. George Conway, very conservative
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: lawyer who was part of the Clinton impeachment process.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Alexandra Ocasio-Conway?
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Married to a White House advisor, Kellyanne Conway, wrote a
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: very good piece in the Washington Post about how the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: president should be impeached. Just this morning, a staffer on
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Trump's transition team who worked on Marco Rubio's campaign, said
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: that he should be impeached. There are conservatives out there,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: not electeds, because electeds are beholden to their Fox News base,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: but there are conservatives out there who believe the president
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: should be impeached. This is not a Democratic-based thing. All right,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: let's talk about 2020. On Monday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: introduced the most comprehensive higher education policy of the campaign,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: universal free public college and the cancellation of student loan debt.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: The plan would cancel up to $ 50, 000 worth of debt
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: for people with household incomes under $ 100, 000. It would eliminate
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: tuition and fees for two- and four-year public colleges. It
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: would end federal funding for for-profit schools and set up
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: a $ 50 billion fund for historically black colleges and universities.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: The plan would be fully paid for by Warren's ultra-millionaire tax,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: which is a 2% annual tax on these 75,000 families
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: whose net worth is valued at $ 50 million or more.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: What do we think? Obviously, Warren has introduced a lot
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: of ambitious plans, but on the spending investment side, this
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: is probably her most ambitious and specific yet. Why do
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you think she chose the cost of higher education to tackle?
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Good question. I mean, I don't know.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: It's a great idea. I think that long-term, the idea
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: that the U.S. would invest in education to invest in
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: its people and its workforce is obvious.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: It makes a lot of sense.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: I also think that student loan debt is particularly crippling,
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: and she knows that because... You know, we can't seem
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: to get a handle on it as a country. And
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: you see, you know, millennials in particular, young people not
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: buying houses for decades and years because they're paying 8%
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: or 9% on their student loans.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: And it's crazy.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: So I think it's a smart policy. It will play
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: well politically. It will provide an economic boost. And then
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: I do think, again, she has been very smart about
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: focusing on reducing racial inequality since African-Americans are 20% more
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: likely to need federal student loans.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: So it's something we need to fix.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Lover, what do you think?
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, she is
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: running through America's thorniest and biggest structural problems and saying
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: what she would do to fix them if she were
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: president and could pass things through a Congress that was democratic.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: It is holding a generation back. I think it's also
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: a chance that this unleashes a wave of support from
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: young people who could knock on doors for her and
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: campaign for her and galvanize support for her. I think
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: for all those reasons, you know, that to me makes sense.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting to compare her plan to
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: other candidates as well. Because Bernie Sanders supporters and stackers,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: rightfully so, were saying, well, Bernie was for free college
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: in 2016, and he was. His free college plan actually
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't go quite as far as Warren's. He was focused
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: on tuition. She's focused on tuition, fees, housing, transportation, books.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: But I think the big difference is the student debt forgiveness.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: And that is very Elizabeth Warren, right? Because remember how
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: she started her career focused on bankruptcy, right? And there
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: are a lot of people who think that the next
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: big economic crisis in this country or one of the
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: next big economic crisis in this country is going to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: be the fact that not just kids out of college now,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: but 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, people are walking around with all
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: of this student loan debt, six figures student loan debt,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: that is not just holding back a lot of middle-class
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: families in this economy, but it's holding back the entire
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: economy because we have all this debt out there. And
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: this is definitely, in terms of forgiving student debt, the
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: most ambitious plan in the field. And there are other
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: candidates who have been, who are on record for debt-free college,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand all signed on to
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: a plan in the Senate. Castro said he supports debt-free college.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg recently rejected free college plans
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and then not sure where everyone else is yet. So anyway,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: that's sort of how it compares with the rest of
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the field.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Debt forgiveness on student loans. Again, another way that it's quite,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: it fits with what Elizabeth Warren has done as a
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: candidate and as a person is it's one of those
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: issues where, well, you can't be for that. Yeah, you
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: should be for free college, but we can't go back
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: and cancel all this debt. I mean, they took they
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: took the loans. You know, that's it's not fair. They
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: took on these loans. They should need to pay their
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: fair share.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: It's not fair. It's wrong. It's wrong.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: It's a very like you feel there's like a third
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: way argument against it. There's a conservative argument against it
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: This is now getting at some of the deeper structural
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: barriers to progressive policy in America, which is, yeah, maybe
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: in the future we can fix it for the people
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: that are coming, but there's nothing we can do for
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: the people who came before.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: She's also a uniquely credible messenger on this point.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: She was 19.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: She had a scholarship to college, and then she got
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: married and dropped out and basically thought her dream of
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: getting a job was finished until she found a cheap
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: commuter college close by. So a lot of the policies
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: she talks about are anchored in who she is. And
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: I don't think that is probably understood by the broader
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: electorate nearly enough.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: And it's not for lack of trying on her part.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: It's just, I guess it hasn't broken through because the
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: words used to describe her are Harvard professor or senator.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: It's not this middle-class upbringing that leads you to understand
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: why she would be so sympathetic and to kids dealing
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: with crushing debt from school.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And love it to your point on sort of
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the politics of free college versus the politics of forgiving debt. Um, the,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: you know, yesterday everyone was on Twitter was like piling
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: on all the conservatives who said, you know, it's people's
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: fault for taking, you know, what about all the people
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: who paid off their debt? Um, but it's not just conservative.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: So when you look at the polls on this, um,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: a recent Fox news poll from last week, Fox news
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: providing free college tuition for all, 57% support, 40% oppose
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: very free college, very popular, which is maybe one of
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: the reasons we are seeing so many Democrats for it. Um,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: data for progress and civis, um, which is a, you know,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: lefty liberal organization. They pulled this in October. Would you
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: support reversing the recent Trump tax cuts and using the
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: proceeds to cancel outstanding student debt? Only 41% in favor,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: 35% opposed. So still a plurality in favor. Um, With Democrats,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: 66% in favor, 13% oppose. Great with Democrats. But overall,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: among independents and Republicans and everyone else, it is a
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: more controversial proposal.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a controversial proposal. I mean, also, it's very clear.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: If you have student loan debt, it will help you.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: If you don't, it won't, right? And you're looking at
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: this like, wait a second, you're just going to give
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: money to all these people. I think about this political
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: moment in a larger way. And I think Democrats have
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: been in this debate and it comes like, how do
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: we wake up the American people, right? That's what this
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: impeachment debate's like.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: How do we wake them up?
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Like, we feel like we're yelling and we're yelling. We
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: blame the media. We blame Fox News. We blame a
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: lot of things and they're all deserving. But ultimately, it's
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: how do we get people in this fight with us?
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: This fight that we believe is so existential that so
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: many people are protesting and knocking on doors every single day,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: even though there are millions and millions of Americans who
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: aren't so engaged. And to me, what I find so
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: attractive about this is it's saying that like for people
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: that feel trapped in our current system, that feel as
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: though they were they're under the yoke of a process
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: that has let them loaded with debt that they can't
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: get out of, that there's even the best policies that
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: came before would not have helped them. That it says like,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this and your life's gonna be better.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: It's just gonna be fucking better. Like you need a
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: president who's gonna make your life, you, you someone with debt,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: you someone who did everything they were supposed to do,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: your life gets better when I become president. And I
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: think there's something so powerful and important about that for
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: people that tried to do the right thing and worry
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: that they feel trapped forever by a mistake they didn't
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: know they were making. that there's someone out there who's
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: going to do something for them. And I think that's so,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: it's just, it's brave because it is ultimately not necessarily
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: a popular policy, but it's clearly something she believes is
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Okay. Finally, on Monday, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton announced that
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: he too will be running for the Democratic nomination for
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: president this election cycle. Moulton is a Marine veteran who
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: was first elected to Congress in 2014. He turned up
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: in the press a fair amount last November as part
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: of a group of House Democrats who pushed back on
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi returning to her previous role as Speaker. In
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: his first day in the race, Moulton also made a
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: point of saying, quote, I'm not a socialist. I'm a Democrat.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: He said that he also said that as a person
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: who receives his medical care through the government, for him,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: it's the VA because he's a veteran. Single payer systems
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: aren't perfect. And that as president, he wouldn't force people
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: off their private health care plans. Guys, what are Seth
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Moulton's strengths and challenges?
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: So he's been a congressman since 2014.
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: He's a Marine who graduated from Harvard, I believe, and
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: then decided to join the Marines and ended up serving
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: four tours in Iraq. He was awarded the Bronze Star,
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: something he refused to talk about until actually the Boston
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: Globe figured it out and disclosed it. So the video
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: he released talks about service and being compelled to service
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: and the honor and reasons behind it in a way
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: that I think is incredibly admirable. I know Seth a
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: little bit. I think he's going to struggle with The
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: fact that most Democrats know of him via the anti-Pelosi efforts,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: which I think probably will look worse in hindsight than
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: they even did at the time. But, you know, he
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: wants to mount a national security argument against Donald Trump.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: I'm always interested to see that. In some ways, it's
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: the thing the president can actually do versus talk a
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: big game about a bunch of policies that might never
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: get through Congress. But it's going to be tough. It's
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: going to be an uphill climb to get in the
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: slate with this many candidates. and to make an argument
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: that is a little more moderate in nature.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: You know, he did an interview with George Stephanopoulos. George
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Stephanopoulos said, you know, you're the 19th person to get in.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Why you? And he said, I'm getting in because we
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: need a candidate who's going to talk about patriotism, service,
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: and security. I don't find that a particularly compelling rationale.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: I am very open to that turning into a more
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: compelling rationale. But saying you're basically for a public option
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: and that you want to talk about national security, it
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: may be valuable and maybe there's a place for you
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: to kind of bring that to the debate. But in
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: terms of mounting a presidential campaign based around it, when
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of the strengths you bring to the table
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: are also brought to the table by several other candidates,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I think it's hard to justify. And it shouldn't matter
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: that you're 19th versus first, right? Like if you're the
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: person who should win, you're the person who should win.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: But at this point, when we have 18 people who
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: are in the race, when you're getting in as number 19...
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: It has to be because you believe these other 18
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: aren't up to it and you're the one. And so far,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I have not heard an argument in favor of that.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: And because this election is so important and because we
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: need to have these debates and these conversations to find
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: that exact right person to represent us in the fight
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: against Donald Trump, if you're getting in now, you need
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: to button up that rationale and you need to make
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: that case. He still can.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: He absolutely still can. I have not heard it yet.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I worry less about the timing because I think we're
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: sort of trapped in the present and it's April and
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: there's so much time left. But I do think his
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: main challenge is it's going to be the challenge of
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: anyone who doesn't have significant name recognition in a field
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of what's going to be 20 candidates when Joe Biden
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: went the news today that he's going to announce on Thursday,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: 20 plus candidates in the field. And finding media attention
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: in the field of 20 candidates is going to be paramount.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: And a lot of these candidates think, well, as soon
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: as I get to the debate stage, then I'll make
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: my mark and I'll get noticed. But two nights of
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: a democratic debate with 10 people on a stage each
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: night is still going to be really hard to break through.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Right. I mean, we don't know what's going to be
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: the big issue in December, right? So that's why we
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: can never count somebody out now. I do think losing
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: all these months really hurts you in terms of organizing
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: and infrastructure and fundraising and staff. But let's say there's
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: a major national security incident that occurs in the next
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: several months. God help us that that does not happen. But,
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: you know, we invade Venezuela. There's a terrorist attack. Seth
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: Moulton standing up on that stage and saying, I served
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: four tours in Iraq. I know what it's like to
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: command men and women in battle, see people you love die.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: That could become the single most compelling issue on that stage.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: It's something that Pete Buttigieg could make too. It's not
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: something that the other candidates necessarily could. Tulsi Gabbard could
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: make it as well, but the others might not.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: And then Biden could say, I was in the situation room.
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: Right. Yeah.
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, a couple of them served on
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: armed service and stuff like that. But beyond that, it
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: becomes a little trickier. Um, Moulton's also, we should just say,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: he's argued for automatic voter registration, abolishing the filibuster, abolishing
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the electoral college, so on the process, democratic reform stuff,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: that's where he is. What do we make of his
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: criticism of single payer? Other candidates have not been for,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: you know, Bernie's Medicare for all version. The specific criticism that, hey,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I'm on single payer at the VA, it's not everything
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: it's cracked up to be, so I don't want to
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: push people on that. What did you guys make of that?
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: I think it's a interesting way in to land at
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: democratic position that is also pretty mainstream, right? That position
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: still aligns him with, say, Medicare for America, the cap plan, right?
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: So it puts him very much in the mainstream. I
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: think the question is, even in this field of 20
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: or 50, whatever, is there still room for one person
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: to stand at that stage and say, I'm going to
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: represent this argument for moderation? Will that have value, right?
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: This was, I think, the debate that Mike Bloomberg had
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: should I represent that voice? Howard Schultz decided he was
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: going to represent that voice by setting himself on fire
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: on the Morning Joe set. But for the Democratic nomination,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: there seems to be a competition to be progressive, either
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: to represent the actual progressivism you've shown your entire career
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: or to prove your bona fides to people who might
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: be skeptical. He's saying, I'm going to do something a
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: little bit different. And maybe that is a place for him.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: And again, it's all how we talk about moderation, too.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: We just talked about how very, very popular free college is.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: And I thought about Moulton's comment on single payer because
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Morning Consult just had a new survey of 6,000 plus adults,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: which is quite a big survey. Medicare for all defined
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: as everyone enrolled in one federal plan. The numbers are
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: now 47 in favor, 34 opposed. Medicare buy-in or public
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: option is now 62 to 17. That is very, very popular.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: And then they asked, would you be more likely to
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: support Medicare for All if it means Americans could keep
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: their hospital and doctor? 62% said they'd be more in
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: favor of it. And would you be more in favor
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: if it's voluntary enrollment? 60% said more in favor. So
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: it is a very interesting way. And these Medicare for
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: All numbers, the more it's been, and we knew this
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: was going to happen, the more it's been out there,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: talked about, and the more that Republicans have started beating
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: up on. it, you can start to see how the
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: numbers go down a little bit.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: Agree or disagree with the policy. It's a pretty powerful
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: rejoinder and it's one drawn from experience. And it's one
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: that would probably be backed up by a whole lot
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: of other veterans who have been in the VA system
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: and have not always been thrilled with the outcomes of
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: the care they've gotten or the, timelines or the treatment.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: So I don't know. I would like to hear more
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: about it from him, but it's certainly the most least
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: political sounding, most novel argument I've heard against eliminating private
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: insurance so far. Yeah.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: And again, it is a testament to every activist who
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: has pushed for Medicare for all that a massive expansion
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: of Medicare where you can voluntarily enroll or you can
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: buy in depending on the plan is the quote unquote
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: moderate position. Because Basically, all of these Democratic candidates are
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: now on record for a massive expansion of Medicare.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: I also think it's also unclear to me. Is Seth
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Moulton criticizing single-payer? Is he criticizing a national health service?
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: It's a bit unclear.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. When we come back, we will talk to Jessica Yellen.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Joining us today in studio... the founder of News Not Noise,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: and the author of the new book, Savage News, our
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: friend Jessica Yellen.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: Hi.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Hello.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: Yellen, Jessica Yellen, someone that I drove entirely crazy for
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: years and years as a flack when you were a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: fantastic dogged correspondent at CNN, and then you were still
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: kind enough to do stuff with us when Crooked Media
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: didn't even exist yet. The pre-Crooked Media phase, you were helping,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: you were working with us on how to be better
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: at talking about the news, figuring this stuff out.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Original friend of the pod from before there even was
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: a pod.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 6: Now you guys are crushing it. It's awesome.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot to talk about.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Mostly this book.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Starting with your book, you used to be the chief
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: White House correspondent for CNN. What made you channel the
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: experiences you had in the news business into a fictional novel?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: I thought maybe you'd write like a tell-all.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: I know. I know. It would have been more fun
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: in some ways, I guess. For insiders. I guess one,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: I always wanted to write a novel.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: And so when I left, I figured let's do it,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: which might have been an epic mistake for my life.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: It took three and a half years to write. But
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: it's satisfying now that it's out. I also thought that
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: I could get another audience engaged in the news with
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: a novel in a way that I couldn't if I
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: wrote nonfiction. If I wrote nonfiction, it would be for
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: all of us and the insiders. And everyone would be
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: looking for like, oh, this dishy story about that person.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: My goal was to really give people who are news
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: viewers and outside the system a window in. And I
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: think you do that better with a story.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: What is the main point or a couple of the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: main points you wanted to make about the news business
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: with the novel?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: So first, it's about a young woman reporter who's always
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: wanted to cover the White House. And she gets the
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: opportunity just as the first lady disappears. And so she's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: chasing the scandal of the missing first lady. And her
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: management sets her up in a competition to get the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: White House gig. She has to compete against a former
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: reality TV star turned journalist. And whoever gets the highest
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: ratings wins. So it's a commentary a little bit about
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: operating inside an industry that's so focused on ratings. And
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: also what it's like to be a woman in this world.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: And that's easy.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: So easy.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: It's a really easy thing.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: It's way better than being a dude.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems easy.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: Um, you know, there's like weird things. So I started
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: writing it in 2014. I mean, you guys knew I was,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: you know, when you were first out here, I was
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: starting the book and then I was still writing the book.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: Finally, the book's out.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: Uh, but I started, there was me too. I call
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: it light me too in the early version. And I
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: gave it to early readers and they were all like, Oh.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: My God, take that out. Nobody wants to hear that.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: You can call it pre too.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: Pre too.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: That's good.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 6: That's good.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: Good branding.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: I think you should TM that.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: Um, And then, and then after Weinstein happened, um, all
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: those people called me back and they're like, put it
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: back in, put it back in.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Oh God, of course.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: So, you know, some of that, and it's like a
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: lot about her.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: I never knew how important hair was to white house coverage,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: like how perfect your hair has to look and all
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: the things women have to go through when you're on camera.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: And these are all drawn from, I assume specific experiences
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: at CNN.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: Uh, It's not only, my experience is not only CNN.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: There are stories that happened to me, to my friends,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: or known in the industry in general.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: But people could read this book and say, oh, I
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: bet this is based on someone. And then there are
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: people who will read this book and say, I know
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: exactly what this is about. This is about that person.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 6: I'm getting a lot of those messages. I mean, this
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 6: is the fun part.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: Are you trying to be coy?
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Are you trying to avoid telling us that this is a,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: what's the word?
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: What was that primary? What's it called?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: What's a Romana Clef?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: Romana Clef.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: Is it a Romana Clef?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: Is there a version of that? A Romana light? I
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: don't know. I don't speak French. You know what I'm
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: trying to go?
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: So I am getting people messaging me going, I know
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: exactly who this is. But people will say three different people. Like,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: so I have this one mean woman boss. And they're like, oh,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: I know exactly who this is. But everybody's got a
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: different mean woman boss. Or a really satisfying thing for
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: me is, like, there's this story about how Natalie, the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: main character is Natalie Savage. She gets the scoop. And
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 5: she runs to the assignment desk to say, I got this.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: Can we get it on air? And they're like, I
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: don't see anyone else reporting it. So how do we
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: know it's true?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: And you're like, no, no, no. No one else has
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: it because it's a scoop. I got it first.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: That's the deal with reporting.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: Except all the time you come up against this where
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: they're like, no, we can't be first.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: How do we know?
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: So I'm getting all this response from other reporters going, oh,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: my God, that happens to you too? That happens to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: me all the time.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this before. What do you think is
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: the core problem with the way that the media covers
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: politics today?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: So I think the meta challenge is they work inside
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: these corporations that are geared toward profit and shareholder value
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: as the bottom line. And so they have to orient
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: their editorial choices to maximize ratings.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: And how do you, I mean, because people say this
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: a lot, how does it actually filter down from CEOs,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: executives running these media companies to down to reporters in
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: terms of, like, we're trying to make money and profit,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: and so you should cover the news this way? Like,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: how does that actually work?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: The way it works is that the next step of
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: that is there's this thesis on how news should be done,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: that everybody in the news business, or most of the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: companies I think have adopted, which is that it needs
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: to be a bit like ESPN. Competition, jargon, outrage, who's up,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: who's down, who's winning, who's losing. So everybody believes news
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: succeeds when it's conflict-based. And so they're all trying to
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: find the stories that do that the most and then
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: tell you, how do we tell that story in the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: way that's most conflict-driven? So you never have a focus
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: on consensus. You never have common ground.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: Substance.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: You never have substance.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: Actual information.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, you do, but you don't have enough. And
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: I also don't think there's enough explaining. Like, what do
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: we mean by that term?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: Redacted.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: How hard is it to say redacted, which means parts
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: edited out? Do you know how many more people you
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: gain just by saying that?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's helpful.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: And then the outrage piece. There's this notion that, like,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: emotion and screaming is going to trigger the most engagement.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, we're all sort of out of the D.C.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: news bubble.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: You've been out as well for a couple years. So
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: I think it's interesting now to observe it go on.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: as a sort of perpetual motion machine doing the same
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: things over and over again, while the media landscape is
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: drastically changing, right? I mean, 100 million people are on Instagram,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: many more on Facebook, on Twitter. Do you think they're
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: watching that happen and evolving at an appropriate rate? Or
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: do you worry about your former colleagues and offices sort
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: of working themselves out of the business?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: That's such a nice setup. Thank you, Tommy.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: I think that they're missing a huge audience. There's a
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: huge audience that wants information. They just want it told
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: with information and a little calm. I can't tell you
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: how many times I'm in rooms of especially women, but
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: millennials or people who are under 35 going, stop screaming.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: I don't want the yelling. I just want to know
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: what's happening, and I don't want to watch for 12 hours.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: That brings up a good question that I've always wondered.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Why do you think there are these panels of 15
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: people on CNN. And look, there's a few who are,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: you know, trying their best offering analysis, but there does
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: tend to be a bit of yelling because they'll have
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: some Republican strategist who's a Trumper next to some Democratic
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: strategist or a never Trumper strategist. And, you know, I've
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: been on these sets once or twice too. They actually
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: sort of encourage you to speak up and argue with people.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: So here's the big picture. Before Trump, All that stuff worked.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: They think it worked, right? It got your attention. When
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: things were calm and there was like stability, yelling and
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: all this was an emotional grab. The problem is now
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: everybody's living at a much higher level anxiety to begin with.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: So I think it's just triggering people and putting them over.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: And so they have this old model they were committed
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: to forever. They think it's the thing that works. And
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: so they keep doubling down on it. And they're getting
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: viewers because people are interested in Trump. But I think
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: there's another way to do it to get a bigger audience.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: There's also the point that panels are a lot cheaper
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 5: than sending a crew out into the field. And, you know,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: you want to know how is health care actually functioning
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: on the ground right now? Well, that's an expensive story
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: to go out and cover. If you have two people
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: on a set yelling about it, it's a lot cheaper.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: How much of this is not strategy? How much of
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: this is just inertia and not knowing a better way? Like,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: you know, OK, Eight people yelling at each other about
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: the news, a frenetic pace to the way we cover
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: the news, covering Trump constantly, sensationalizing it, turning it into sport.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: All right, that's what we do now. How much of
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: it is just not knowing an alternative way to cover
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: the news in a way that they believe will attract
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: people who.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: Will watch it?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: I think that's it.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: I think that they believe this is the way to
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: make people watch the news. And it's not like deeply
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: well thought through. It's just what they've always done. And
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: now they're doing it more. And it's making money because
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: people are so fascinated with Trump, so why stop? The
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: one thing I'll say is we're simultaneously seeing more remarkable
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: reporting than we've seen for a long time.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: Like my former colleagues who are on the beat every
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: day are crushing it, right? Like there's real journalism happening.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: It's just a bummer that they're operating inside systems that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: aren't prioritizing that more instead of the yell fest.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: What makes me feel really bad for investigative journalists is–
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: to open up the New York Times, or what am
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: I saying, open up, I read it online, to read
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the New York Times, the Washington Post, and see some
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: deep dive that clearly has taken months for investigative reporters
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: to report out, and the coverage it gets on CNN
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: is the same amount as Trump's latest tweet. I'm like,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: this piece is so well done, it is so smart,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: it is so in-depth, and it's just going to be
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: a fucking blip on the radar.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: It's like a chef in, like, Marie Antoinette's court, like
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: spent six months figuring out the perfect ratios to build
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: this beautiful pie. Big meat pie comes out. It's 300 pounds.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Everybody looks at it and Marie Antoinette comes up and goes,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: eats a little bit of crust and says, not to
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: my liking.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: Honestly, I couldn't have thought of it more.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: That is perfect.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 6: Now I'm hungry.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: The other thing.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: I just wonder about Yellen is like the redundancy is
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: just astounding. The news is never on in my home
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: when I get home, but every once in a while
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: we'll turn on The TV don't happen to be on
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: the same channel it was on three months ago. And
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: it's one of these primetime shows on the various networks,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: cable shows. And it feels like the same stuff. It's
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: the same anchors talking to the same pundits or the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: same Rudy Giuliani about the same topics. And it seems
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: discordant to me that there is nothing new about the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: news most of the time when you watch it. Is
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: that a deliberate decision as well?
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: I think that they do that because it's... I mean,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: they think that they have families, right? Like you're part
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: of the conversation in this family. And so you want
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: to keep tuning in to see what the people have
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: to say. But I also think it's just sort of
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: it's what Lovett said. It's inertia to some extent. It's
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: just how it's done. I mean, the challenge is I
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: also think it's making some people disengaged. While you have
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: more people paying attention to the news because they're fascinated
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: by Trump, the data shows that there's a huge audience
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 5: that's tuning the news out. And it's not because they
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 5: don't want to hear the challenging information. It's because they
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: feel less informed after they watch it. They have more
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: questions than answers and their anxiety is very high. And
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: they want information. It's just not doing the trick. And
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 5: the danger of that is people then actually disengage from
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: our politics, civic society, voting.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: So you've been trying to offer this audience something different.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Tell us about news, not noise, which is what you've
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: been working on on Instagram.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: So I came out to LA when you guys were
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 5: just starting up and I started pitching this idea, like,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: what if we do calm news? Or what if we
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 5: do like, I call it news without a panic attack.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 5: And everyone's like, oh no, that's not a thing. I
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: was told that there will be no news in the
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 5: future or that news will only.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: Come from comedians.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: There will be no news in the future.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: So I was thinking maybe I'm insane. Maybe I'm completely wrong.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: And also how would I do Calm News? Maybe they're right.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: No one wants it told in a placid way. So
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: I just did it on Instagram to challenge myself and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: see if I could do this. And so I started
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: reporting stories on Instagram and it took off. And the
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 5: idea is I tell you, here's the news landscape. This
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 5: part is noise, meaning they're molehills. Everyone's turning them into mountains.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: You can pay attention to them if you want, but
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: it's like the Us magazine of politics, right?
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 6: You know, you don't need it.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: What's a recent example of that? What's a recent molehill?
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 5: So there is a day Donald Trump went to the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 5: briefing room and he didn't take questions. And for 12 hours,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 5: everybody was shouting that Donald Trump went to the briefing
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 5: and didn't take questions.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 6: Therefore, it's not a briefing. It's an address or you
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 6: can call it something. And you're like, who cares? No
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 6: one cares.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: Obama did that all the time. Obama.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he did that.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: We would go and make a statement and head out.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's true. It's also like I don't care if
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 6: you call it a briefing or you call it a statement.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 6: Who cares? Like, let's get to news.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: The other one is the amount of time that was
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: spent anticipating when Mueller would come out. was a friend
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: of mine called it a news crime. Like the amount
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: of news that wasn't covered because that's all they talked
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: about is like criminal.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: News crime. We have found you guilty of news crime.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: You must stay in the green room with David Gergen
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: for two hours. You're sentenced to two hours of Gergen
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: green room time.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: What's the response been to News Night Noise?
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 6: So it's taken off.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: I have a really engaged audience. I do it on
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: my handle, which is at Jessica Yellen. And I do
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: a story every day, which is a video. And I
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: do an explainer. And the idea is to just break
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: down the jargon so that you know what it means
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: and tell you one story that really matters in a
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: way you're going to get and then be done. And
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: I promise you I'm not going to panic you. Like,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: even if it's a horrible thing, it's told in a
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: way that's not designed to maximize your anxiety.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: And so the response is, like, I have.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, Amy Schumer announced her pregnancy on the Instagram feed,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: so that kind of helped me out.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: Like it blew things up.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: Can I, can I, can I issue a challenge?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: That is not a molehill.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: That is a serious story.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 6: She was like, this is noise, but it was noise.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: Can I issue you a challenge?
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: Can you please tell us that a meteor is heading
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: towards earth, but do it in a way that that
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: is the appropriate amount of panic.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 6: Um, we've gotten word that, okay, wait, no, how do
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: I do that?
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: Okay, guys, I want to bring you a story that's,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: A little upsetting.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: Happening now.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: There's a meteor.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: Science tells us that there's a meteor heading toward Earth.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: John Leavitt informs us this is happening. Time of impact
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: could be X and such. But we have to keep
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: in mind. that we've had warnings of this nature in
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: the past and it hasn't actually.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: Come to pass.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: I already feel better.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: I do too.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: Mole Hill, President Trump is really upset the speed is
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: reported in kilometers and not miles per hour.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: He thinks that's super Euro.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 6: He's tweeting.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: Move past it.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 6: At an outrageous level.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: The idea is to kind of inject sort of the
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 5: full length, like the complexity.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 6: You know what I mean?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: That news happens in the gray zone and we cover
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 5: it in black and white. And how can I bring
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: more gray to it and still keep it interesting?
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: 2020, do you think the media is doing better job
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: than in 2016, a worse job, or just more of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: the same shit?
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 6: So I think that the reporting is amazing.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: Like the actual people getting information or the practice of
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 5: journalism is happening. The frame is really anxiety inducing. Like
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: the outrage is a problem, like all the emotion. Also
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: the fact that the candidates, the Democrats keep coming on
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: air and they're asked about Donald Trump. That's going to
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 5: be the thing people should watch for. the candidates need
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: to come on air and be asked about their policies,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: where they stand, you know, challenges within the primary. But
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 5: every time somebody is on and all they're asked is
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: to react to Trump's tweets, it's the story is Trump again.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 5: And I am, I think there's a chance that the
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: media reelects him because he's just so good for the
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 5: bottom line.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: You lose sight of the fact that the one thing
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: we know for certain is that if any of these
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: Democrats become president, Donald Trump won't be an issue.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Jessica, the, The opinion of news or trust in
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: news took a big hit in 16. I think it's
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: bounced back considerably. But a friend of mine who you
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: actually know asked me over the weekend, like, what is
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: the point of an editorial page in a paper? And
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: it made me think that we have in our minds
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: that there is this firewall between opinion and news on
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: newspapers and on cable TV.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: Where you we know that once you hit 6 p.m.,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: it's crazy opinion time on both sides. And let's freak
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: out and scream. Do you think that that's a construct
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: that's ultimately problematic and leads to this belief that maybe
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: news is inherently biased or fake news is real?
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: It was Peter Hamby. You wouldn't be surprised. Shout out, Peter.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: Rock on, Peter.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: I love this conversation. I actually think that, listen, you
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: guys do opinion, but you do news, too. And so
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: there is a place for opinion and news. It's just
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: about being transparent about it. You get into this philosophical conversation,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: which is, is there any such thing as objectivity anyway?
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 5: If you think about Joseph Pulitzer, who is the standard
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: bearer for like the highest achievement in journalism now, was
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 5: an opinion. He ran an opinion newspaper. So opinion has
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 5: been part of our news landscape forever. The goal, though,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 5: is to be upfront about it and say, this is
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: my come from. But, you know, I'm giving you the
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: facts as they are. Like people read my Insta and
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: they're like, oh, it's neutral.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: I'm like, it's not neutral.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 5: I have a point of view. Like I'll tell you
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 5: this is a mole. That's a point of view. But
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: I'm giving you fact based information you can use to
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: make your own decision, too. So my call would be
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: for people to be a little bit more transparent.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: One thing I always wonder about is you see a
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: lot of reporters who when their stories appear in The
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: New York Times, The Washington Post, on CNN. They are objective, nonpartisan.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: When they're on Twitter, they're much more likely to offer
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: their opinion. Not like liberal versus conservative, not in an
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: ideological plane, but they're snarkier. They'll make fun of stuff.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: And I just wonder if that seems to be the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: worst of both worlds. Because you're like, when I'm in
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: the New York Times, it's all straight news. But when
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter, I'm going to just make fun of shit.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 6: That's actually really smart.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 5: One of the reasons I think social media is working
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 5: for news or can as the future is because you
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: can be your real self while giving the news. And
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 5: I think the more so the pressure on all those
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 5: reporters is to stop tweeting with those opinions. Like on
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: the one hand, you have to tweet to have a
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 5: brand and build your following. On the other hand, you
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 5: have to not show yourself too much. Like I felt
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: this pressure all the time when I was on air.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 5: I have to like triple censor what I might say
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 5: for anybody to take it the wrong way on Twitter.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: What if people actually leaned into it more and were
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: allowed to just be yourself a bit and also tell
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: the information? I think it's very hard when you work
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 5: for these traditional organizations, but I think that's why you
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: guys are doing well. I think that's why new voices
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 5: in this space do well, because people feel the authenticity
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: of your point of view, but also the information. I
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: do think it's weird when you're like one persona on
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: the page and another persona on Twitter.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just like it to be consistent.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Also be yourself in the news outlet when you're doing that.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: Be straight-laced.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: Be straight-laced on Twitter. Just pick one, though.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 5: I don't think it's like, how are they going to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: do it? You can't be real in these organizations. There's
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: like a format for how. I mean, that's part of
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: the book, actually. The girl, when she's, because she's a
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: color woman, becomes the news reporter, literally has to go
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 5: to the same salon that every woman goes to to
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 5: have her hair, like a chemical straightener put on it
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: so that everybody looks the same. Everyone in the news
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 5: looks the same. It's like you go through a conveyor belt.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 5: And it's like a factory that produces the news look.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 5: And I do think there's like a stripping out of
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 5: your voice and your tone with that too, which we
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: can debate whether that's going to be the news of
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: the future or not.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: Why is the tone stripped out? It's so weird.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: Literally, the accents are gone. I mean, you could listen
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: to any regional newscaster and they could be from Boston
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: or California and you aren't supposed to know.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 5: I think it's because we have this false notion of objectivity.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 5: And like, there's like this news authority that No?
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: No, no.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: I think it's a really hard question. I think it's like,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: what does it mean to be objective? And is it
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: adding something or is it taking something away? And I
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: think so often, I think the goal of being objective
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: can be quite good, but then occasionally what it means
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: is a kind of forced false obtuseness, like a kind
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: of imitation, an imitation of someone who is serious, but
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: the way you'd be serious is by pretending you don't
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: see things for what they are.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 6: That is really well put.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: When some brilliant New York Times reporter has to call
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: a political science professor to get them to say that
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: Trump blatantly breaking the law is a political problem. Right.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 6: Like one can't assert that. One needs an expert to
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 6: state it.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: Can we skip that step?
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: That'd be cool.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 5: No, that is that, like, it's not me saying it.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 5: I'm quoting the people saying it. It's just, it's kind
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 5: of the posture of how you have to be. I
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 5: do think it's extra challenging right now because we should
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 5: acknowledge in this conversation, we have a White House that's
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: trying to delegitimize the press. And has played this rope-a-dope
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 5: game where he wants an opponent and he's doing this
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 5: WWE with the media. And they're in an especially challenging
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: position because you can't ignore it. But also, if you
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: take the bait, you're playing his game.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: So do you see any hope for major media organizations
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: to change from within? Or do you think that all
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: of the change has to come from new organizations from
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: outside the traditional news business?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 6: I mean, what do you guys think?
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: I haven't been in one of those big organizations, so
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much people can push against it,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: or are they just sort of a lagging indicator and
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: they have to wait to be disrupted?
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: I think they have to wait to be disrupted. I mean,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 5: you do see sort of CBS this morning. They have
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 5: a calm, substantive approach.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 6: They do.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they do a good job.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 6: There are spots.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: And so there's awareness that there's another way. I just
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 5: think they're making so much money doing it the current
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 5: way that there's going to be no motivation to experiment.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: But that just means there's opportunity for other people.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: Jessica, have major news organizations done enough to fix the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: glaring problem of sexism within them? I mean, the 1972,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: the book Boys on the Bus was literally true. It
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: was all young men covering presidential campaigns. I think there
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: were some incredible, I mean, there's obviously amazing journalists anchoring shows,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: Margaret Brennan.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: Is doing, what the hell is it called? Face the Nation.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: You know, there's amazing women out there, but like, has
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: it gone far enough yet?
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: No, I think sexism was a problem 40 years ago,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: 30 years ago.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 6: 20 and today.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: Listen, I've tried not to call out any news organizations
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 5: in particular, but last night, CNN had five hours of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 5: moderated town halls. There were three presidential candidates in those
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: town halls who were female. They had not one female
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: moderator in five hours of television. You don't have a
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 5: one woman on that stage. It's striking to me. It's like,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: do they not see it? Do they not care?
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: Which is also crazy because I've seen Poppy Harlow do
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: one of the CNN town halls with presidential candidates, and
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: she's one of the best moderators there.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 6: Poppy's great. Dana's great.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: She's done one too. She's fantastic.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's a long list of exceptional reporting talent
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 5: that's female. I just it's not just a quota thing.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 5: Like I'm I've been steeped in the social science. The
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 5: social science shows, first of all, women are the majority
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 5: of news viewers. You get a larger female audience when
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 5: you have women shaping questions to and women at the front.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: It's not because I relate to the woman. It's because
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: women tend to come at politics with less of the
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 5: rhetorical back and forth and more of the how does
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 5: it impact me as a human? What is that kitchen
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: table payoff on this? And that's what women viewers prefer.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: So you actually engage more women in politics when you
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 5: have women making these decisions or participating.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: And so they're losing a whole audience by not doing that.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 6: It just confounds me.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: And on the other end of this, how do you
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: see sexism shaping the way the media covers the Democratic
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: presidential candidates right now? Because there's been this sort of
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: long running debate since the beginning of the primary, you know,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: every other day. And we were just talking about this.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren releases a new very substantive policy, and yet
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: the men in the field are getting far more coverage.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, to me, it's sort of two bad habits
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: of the news media sort of converging in one, and
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: it's hard to separate them both. One is sexism that's
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: been there for a long time. The other is the
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: reluctance to cover substance over style.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 5: I think, I mean, the Elizabeth Warren challenge is, it's unique.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 5: I don't know what the resistance is, if it's purely
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 5: sexism or if it's also like anti-elitism because.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 6: She sounds Harvard-y. I don't know.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 5: Um, she clearly has the most thought out substantive policy
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 5: positions of anyone and she's doing well on the ground.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 6: So what up? Um, the other thing is.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 5: So it's, you know, it's super interesting. Like they know
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 5: now not to use certain words. You can't call women shrill, right?
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 5: Candidate shrill. You can't say they're unlikable. Can't talk about
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 5: their clothes. Um, but like, so they're finding new ways
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: to not like them. Um, You know, and I wonder
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 5: the Klobuchar story on abusing her staff. Does that have
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 5: a gendered valence? Like, was LBJ awesome to his staff?
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 6: Was Bill Clinton? I don't know. You know, yes and no.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: So I do think that I think that they're mindful
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 5: of doing it better.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 6: And yet can't help themselves.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: So to me, it seems like a lot of that
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: conversation around sexism is the things that the bad things
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: ascribed to women that are not ascribed to men. Do
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: you see the opposite of that as well, that there
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: are good qualities, that it's easier for a man to
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: seem interesting to the media? Is it easier for someone
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: to seem like a leader?
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: Well, I think that there's a natural inclination to see
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 5: a man as an authority figure. I mean, you keep
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 5: hearing this conversation right now, which is Democrats must defeat
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump. Therefore, they can't take a risk on a
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: woman or a person of color. It must be the
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 5: traditional thing, which is a white guy, which is a
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 5: legitimate debate on one hand, but it also reveals our biases.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 6: I think that, again, it goes back to this thing about.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 5: How women approach politics differently, which is like less about
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 5: the rhetoric and more or the combat or the polls
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 5: like that fixation. Can I curse like that fixation on polls?
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 5: Like women voters don't give a shit about polls. Stop
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 5: telling me this one's doing two points better.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 6: I don't care.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: I want to know this person saying this on health care.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 5: Will that be preexisting condition coverage or not?
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: Like.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 6: Tell me Medicare for all of us.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 5: And I think that's the difference. It's like when the
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: women candidates come at it from the substantive point of view,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: the media is like, OK, OK, OK. But like, what's
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 5: your attack line?
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 5: And so we're like oriented in a different. I know
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 5: I sound super gender essentialist, but I do think it's.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 5: Do I sound super gender?
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: Not at all.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: I think you're hitting on a huge problem, which is
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: the conversation about issues and substance is very specific. And
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: we all understand what we're talking about. The conversation around
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: electability is all coded, and we're not really saying what
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: voters think, which is a white male looks like a
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 4: president to them, so therefore they somehow think they're more electable.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: I think so much of these poll respondents and the
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: questions that are being debated on cable news are about
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: race and gender. And we don't say it specifically.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: And I think it has a worse conversation.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: It's also coded on ideology as well. It's race, gender,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: and electable is a moderate.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: Totally. Sure.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 6: Well, that's for sure.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, in the media, it's immediately like, are you
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 5: concerned about this left fringe of your party? I mean,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 5: that's their orientation because it's all centrism, centrism. I don't
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 5: know how you have that other conversation that you're talking about, Tommy,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 5: with like talking openly about gender and race because they're
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 5: so nervous about it. But I also think– so I
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 5: go back to after 2008, people would talk about there's
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 5: less faith in government than ever before, right? There was
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 5: a poll on that. And the media started telling the
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: public that so frequently. I think it made it true.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 5: Like you have less faith in government than ever before.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 5: You don't believe in government. And then suddenly the numbers
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 5: are rising. So I wonder if constantly repeating that only
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: a white guy is electable makes that more true.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: I was going to say that because I do think–
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: if you take polls and you ask people in the electorate, right,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: you will find that some of this coded language we
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: use on electability is the perception that a lot of
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: voters have. They will say, I want someone who's electable,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: and they'll just naturally gravitate to white male centrists. But
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: the media not only reinforces it, it propagates it, and
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: so at some point, it's a vicious cycle, but the
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: people who have the power to change it are the
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: ones reporting the news.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: Because the media will say, well, that's what people actually believe.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: And it's like, well, why do they believe it? Because
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: their information source tells them that all the time.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 6: 100%.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 5: If you ask the question in a certain way, you
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 5: find the soundbite that says that, you seek it out,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: and then you find it.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: Well, we're going to fix everything.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: Yay!
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: And you certainly are. The book is Savage News by
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: Jessica Yellen. And also, check her out on Instagram, at
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: Jessica Yellen. And it is news, not noise. It's fantastic.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: So go check it out.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 6: Thanks, you guys.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 6: Thanks, Jess.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Jessica Yellen, for joining us. And we'll talk to
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: you later.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you.