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"Bienvenidos a Orlando (with Will Smith!)" · Pod Save America

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, I talk to Will Smith. Yes, that
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Will Smith. About his new docuseries on the 14th Amendment.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: And before that, we'll talk about the next steps on
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: COVID relief now that a $ 15 minimum wage may not
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: be included in the final legislation. We'll also talk about
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: what went down at CPAC over the weekend, including Donald
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Trump's first speech since leaving office and his threat to
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: run again. But first, a few quick housekeeping notes. Lovett,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: tell us about the show this weekend.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Look, I've said it before, but this was really a
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: barn burner episode.
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Ike Barinholtz, Shea Serrano.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Love Ike.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Fran Lebowitz.
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: Why would you burn the barn?
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know why a barn burner is good. I
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: don't either. But it was. Fran Lebowitz tolerated me.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: She made some headlines.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she did. She did. She did not know what
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Star Wars was about based on the title when she
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: saw it in the theaters.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: So.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Something.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: But it was great. So check it out.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Check it out. Be sure to also check out the
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: latest episode of Rubicon, where Brian Boitler and Matt Iglesias
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: have a thoughtful, informative discussion and debate over President Biden's
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: promise to forgive student loan debt. And over on our
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: YouTube channel, check out a fantastic new video featuring our
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: political director, Shaniqua McClendon. She interviewed Representatives James Clyburn, her
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: former boss, Alma Adams, and Cori Bush about their experiences
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: at historically black colleges and universities, shaped their perspectives and
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: impacted their careers. Check it out.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: Can I just say that Shaniqua's video is fantastic. I
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: found Brian's conversation about student debt to be informative and eye-opening.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: But can we just talk about interviewing Will Smith? I
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: don't know that I could be normal. I feel like
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: I've known him so well for decades on TV. I
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: don't know that I would be able to get past it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It was hard because I felt the same way. I
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: was actually talking with Tanya about this right after the interview.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I feel like so much of our childhood, just we're
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: that age, was Will Smith. Fresh Prince, all of his movies.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: There's famous, then there's Will Smith famous, which is- Welcome
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: to Earth. Friend.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Fantastic movie.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: Anyway.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Anyway. I try not to be too starstruck and just
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: stick to the question.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: You were just mean to him.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I am a serious, I'm a serious reporter.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: You're a journalist.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Serious reporter.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: We're journalists.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I'm a journalist.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: We're three journalists.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: I tried to play it cool, but, you know. John
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: had him signing the Harper's letter by the end. It
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: was good conversation.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Look, we have the same job as Jake Tapper and
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Barack Obama. That's just the reality of our experience.
• 3:07
  Speaker 6: Oh, boy.
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: If we don't hear from Jake, it'll prove he doesn't
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: listen to you.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Right, right, right, right. Please don't snitch tag him. Thank you.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Let's get to the news. Early Saturday morning, the House
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: of Representatives approved President Biden's $ 1. 9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It includes $ 1, 400 direct payments, an extra $ 400 per week
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: in unemployment benefits through the fall, a tax credit that
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: would cut child poverty in half, and hundreds of billions
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: of dollars for vaccinations, schools, and state and local governments.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: The bill passed 219 to 212 with zero Republican votes
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: and two Democratic defections. Were you guys surprised that not
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: a single House Republican voted for a piece of legislation
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: supported by nearly 70% of Americans, not even the Republicans
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: who represent districts that Biden won? Lovett, what do you
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: think the calculation was there?
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I was a little surprised. I didn't expect some massive
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: influx of Republican support, but I figured if there's a
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: you know, a couple of votes for removing a criminal president.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: There might be a couple of votes for helping people
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: during the pandemic. We talked about this last week as
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: the Republican message changed from kind of arguments against the
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: bill writ large and more arguments seemed designed to keep
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Republicans in line. And I guess it worked. You know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: I was surprised that there weren't a couple of defections.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think the calculation was there for
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: like someone in a moderate district that Joe Biden won
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: if you're Republican voting no?
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: I suspect what happened here is the Republican Party has
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: decided that their strategy is just going to be opposing
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: everything Biden does. They're running the exact same play that
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: they ran in 2009 against Obama. And I also imagine
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: there are a bunch of Republicans who would tell you
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: off the record that they wanted to be for this
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: bill because we know that there are Republicans in states
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: who vocally support the legislation, right? Like the Republican governor
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: of liberal West Virginia supports this plan and actually criticized
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: the Republican version. There was a letter signed by 31
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: Republican mayors urging approval of the bill. I believe it
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: was led by the mayor of liberal Oklahoma City, right?
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: So the Republican base isn't even worked up about the
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: COVID relief package. So it wasn't like a CPAC, conversation.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: So I think what happened was in Washington, you have
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: a bunch of members of Congress who get whipped really
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: hard by Republican leadership, and they're scared to go against
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: those leaders because they can be punished in a variety
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: of ways. And they're all just making this big long-term
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: bet that blocking Biden from getting anything done is the
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: way to run against him in 2022. And I don't know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: maybe that's a smart bet, but I bet it creeped
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: up on them how popular this bill has become. Because
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: as we've gone on, You're seeing numbers in the 70s
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden when you talk about the approval.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: And I wouldn't want to be against anything with 70
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: percent approval personally.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I think you're right on the obstruct Biden no matter
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: what strategy, which is, of course, the same strategy they
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: ran against Barack Obama in 2009. And you can argue
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: with some success, of course, in the 2010 midterms. I
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: think on this legislation specifically, they're thinking if things don't
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: improve by 2022, If like the vaccination rollout does not
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: go smoothly, if the pandemic is still around, if the
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: economy is still bad, then if you voted no, you
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: can blame Biden and this bill and say that you
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: had no part on it. If things do improve, then
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: you can just pretend the bill never happened and you
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: can fight on other issues that are more politically favorable
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: to you. like some of the issues that we're going
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: to talk about that were raised at CPAC. That seems
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: to me the calculation there. So the $ 15 minimum wage
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: was included in the version of the bill that passed
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: the House, but it may not survive now that Senate
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough has advised that the provision does not
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: have a big enough effect on the federal budget to
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: qualify for the reconciliation process, which allows legislation to pass
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: with 51 votes instead of a filibuster-proof 60. Love it.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Why were Democrats, especially Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, cautiously
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: optimistic that the parliamentarian would rule in their favor on this?
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: So one big reason was that the parliamentarian had previously
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: ruled that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: a measure that wasn't incidental to the budget, but actually
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: impacted the budget. And a minimum wage increase has a
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: much bigger impact on the budget and is much less
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: incidental in the sense that when you raise the minimum wage,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: people that make the minimum wage pay more in taxes.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: And more importantly, companies no longer get subsidized by taxpayers
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: to underpay their workers while they get public benefits. So
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: there was some hope that given the big impact this
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: would have on the budget and how much that's been
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: part of the message, actually, that the parliamentarian would let
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: it through.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: And even more specifically, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour would increase
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: the budget deficit by $ 54 billion over 10 years. So
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: I just I guess I am baffled by how these
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: parliamentarians make decisions if $ 54 billion is seen as merely
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: incidental in terms of its impact on the budget. The
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: more I learn about this process, the more nothing makes sense.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: It's like everything's got to pass these birdbath provisions. unless
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: they don't, in which case you just ignore them. It's like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: what are we talking about here?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: You have to know Bernie's mind. You have to know
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Bernie's mind. He was, yes, there was a big budget impact,
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: but that wasn't his goal in his mind in the provision.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: We had the CBO on our side. We'll see your
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Senate procedural nerd.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And we'll raise you a CBO, CBO score, Congressional Budget Office,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: also a nonpartisan scorekeeper, as we used to say in
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: our speeches for Barack Obama, the nonpartisan scorekeeper at the CBO.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: And then you'd be like, oh, yeah, well, everyone has
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to pay attention to that person. Republicans were like, yeah,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: fuck that.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: We don't care. But not us.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Not us Democrats. When the Senate parliamentarian speaks, okay, that's it.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: A bunch of rule followers over here, yeah. She came
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: down from the mountain with the tablet and it said
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: it does not qualify.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Democrats not a fan of the take some money when
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: you're on free parking monopoly rules. They really, they go
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: by the book.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: So question is what happens now? Democrats have a few options. One,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Vice President Kamala Harris in her role as the Senate's
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: presiding officer overrules the parliamentarian, which Democrats and Republicans have
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: both done in the past as recently as 2013. Two,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can replace the parliamentarian with
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: someone who will give Democrats a favorable ruling, which Republicans
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: did to pass George Bush's tax cuts in 2001. Three,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Senate Democrats can vote to eliminate the filibuster and just
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: pass the whole bill that way. Four, Democrats can try
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Ron Wyden and Bernie Sanders idea to tax big companies
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: that don't pay a $ 15 minimum wage and incentivize small
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: businesses that do, though they have now reportedly abandoned this plan.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Or five, they can all give up and try to
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: do this some other time. Tommy, what do you think?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: What are the pros and cons of some of these options?
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And what do you think they should do? We should
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: say that right now it looks like They have chosen
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: five to give up and try again.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, I think the guiding principle should be
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: do things that help people and then stop caring about
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: the process for how they get done, right? I mean,
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest process fouls in recent history was
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell stealing a Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: And not only did he not pay a political cost
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: for it personally, but the Republican Party benefited enormously in
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: the long run. by getting another justice on the Supreme court.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: So like all things being equal, if I were to
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: start this minimum wage process from scratch, I would say,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: get rid of the filibuster first, because that is one
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: process change that unlocks the minimum wage increase. And then
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: a whole bunch of other stuff that you really want
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: to do creates this one big explosive moment for Republicans
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: to complain about and the press to report on. And
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: then going forward, you just do stuff. But, you know,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: since we're debating this right now, I am intrigued by
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: this option of having Vice President Harris just ignore the parliamentarian. Again,
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: this to me underscores how stupid this whole process is.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Like you can only pass things through reconciliation if they're
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: ruled in order with a Byrd rule, unless you just
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: ignore the Byrd rule. It's absurd to me. I guess
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: the challenge becomes, can you get all 50 Senate Democrats
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: to vote for it in that case? I'm not sure
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: about Sinema. I'm not sure about Joe Manchin. Now, the
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: data for progress polling on the minimum minimum wage increase
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: found you can get up to like 61 or 62
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: percent approval when you describe all the things that it does.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: So it's quite popular. But they also found that that
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: support dips into the high 40s if you do it
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: through reconciliation, I assume because it's perceived as more of
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: a partisan effort. I just think the most likely outcome
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: is that 90 plus percent of the country never knows
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: or never cares about how this thing is passed. And
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: they just see that in five years, the minimum wage
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: is maybe closer to where it should be and that
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: people really ultimately just care about the outcomes, not how
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: you got there. But those would be my recommendations right now. Lovett,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: here's what I don't understand. So I think that on
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: the option where you either fire the parliamentarian or overrule
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: the parliamentarian, from the Biden administration's perspective, they're thinking, OK,
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: we can do that. But we still have to face
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. And even if we can
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: get it in the final package, what if those two say,
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: we're going to tank this whole bill because you overruled
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: the parliamentarian or fired the parliamentarian. We don't think we're
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: trying to uphold norms here. That's what they're big on,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: the norms. But so I get that. But why not
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: try and then sort of just Put the ball on
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: their court.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Like you know, you know, you have to do that,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: like because to me it seems like, you know, and
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Jen Psaki at the briefing today said we don't intend
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: to overrule the parliamentarian, which I guess firing the parliamentarian
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: would not be the Biden administration. Schumer can do that
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: on his own. Again, these things have been done before
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: by Democrats and Republicans in recent history, 2013, 2017, 2001
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: for firing a parliamentarian. George Bush did that. The world
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: didn't end. Everything was fine. Things got passed. We all
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: moved on. No one remembers the great firing of the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: parliamentarian or the overruling of the parliamentarian. So why not
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: just try it and then let Manchin and Sinema take
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: the heat?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I don't care at all about any of this rule stuff.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: We should do whatever we can. None of it's real.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: The rule is you need 50 votes to pass things
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: in the Senate. Everything else is culture and pretend. That's it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: It's 50 votes. That's what's in the Constitution.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Those are the rules.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: To me, I think the only argument, and I'm for
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: trying and doing everything we can and having as many
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: conversations about the minimum wage as we possibly can until
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: we've raised it. The argument against it would be, the
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: problem right now is not the parliamentarian. The problem isn't
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the filibuster. The problem isn't anything having to do with
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris's role as presiding officer of the Senate. The
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: problem is there aren't 50 votes to abolish the filibuster.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: There aren't 50 votes to violate the parliamentarian's ruling. And
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: there aren't 50 votes, most importantly, to raise the minimum
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: wage to $ 15. We don't have those votes. And so
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: the argument against doing it is you create a controversy
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: and a tough vote for two people, you are going
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: to need on a host of things. It doesn't happen.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: It raises the salience of the failure on the minimum wage.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: You jeopardize a giant COVID relief package, and you end
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: up where you would have been had you not pushed
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: that vote in the first place, which is a big
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: COVID relief package that will help tens of millions of
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Americans that does a host of things we need to
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: do without a minimum wage increase. Because to me, where
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: do we want to be in a year and a half.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: We want to pass this big COVID relief bill. There's
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: another big economic bill that could be through reconciliation around
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: infrastructure and a host of other economic policies. We want
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: to pass HR1. We want to pass the John Lewis
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act. Among immigration, there's a host of other
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: really important steps we need this Congress to be in
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: a position to take. And that is going to require
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: unanimity amongst Democrats in the Senate. That's going to require Manchin.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: That's going to require Sinema. And so we need to
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: strike this balance between putting a ton of pressure on
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: them to understand the stakes around the filibuster and around
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: the minimum wage while not making it harder to pass
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: things without actually getting anything done because of votes to
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: kind of, I don't know, teach the controversy, create the argument.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: I think that's why even people like AOC have said,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: if the minimum wage is not on the bill because
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Democrats were weak and Democrats gave up, that's one thing.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: But if it's not on the bill because of the parliamentarian,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: we might need to support this bill and go for
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: a standalone minimum wage fight after. And then you can
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: have that fight. You can make it about the filibuster.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: You can make it about the minimum wage exclusively and
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: kind of do it until it's done, I guess.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I guess what I don't understand is you're right that
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: there's just not the votes for a $ 15 minimum wage,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: no matter how many parliamentarians you fire, overrule or do whatever.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: You're not going to get a $ 15 minimum wage because
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin said he's against it. Therefore, that's it. But
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin did say he would possibly be for raising
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the minimum wage from around $ 7, what it is now
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: to $ 11, I believe. So I sort of wondered why
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: the Biden administration and progressives just didn't sort of sit
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: down with Manchin and Sinema and be like, okay, what
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: level of minimum wage would you be comfortable with? And
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: then like, how can we all get there together, right?
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Because I'd rather take it, I take an $ 11 over
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: what it is now, even though I want 15, you know,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: I think that's better than nothing. So I'm Sort of
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: unless unless they're just going to live to fight another day.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: But you're right that all of this comes down to, like, unfortunately,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the system we have right now. It's like what Joe
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and possibly any other Democratic senator want.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: They get like if it's indexed to inflation. I think
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: that's a very important step over the long term. Here's
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: my question.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Like.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Do we want to call their bluff, right? Are you
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: really going to vote against a $ 1. 9 trillion COVID relief
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: bill over a minimum wage provision? That's a very tough vote. Now,
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: that's usually the kind of vote you would force on
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: your opponent, not your ally. What I don't understand is
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: why Chuck Schumer can't sit down with Joe Manchin and
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Kyrsten Sinema and say, OK, both of you need two things.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: You need to deliver for your constituents and you need
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: to look like you're bucking the Democratic Party every once
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: in a while so you look independent. We can engineer
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: a process that does both of these things and gets
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: all of us what we want here, which is this
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: big COVID relief package, a minimum wage increase, all of
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: the above, some sort of future promise on filibuster reform
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: so that the Senate can be unbroken and they can
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: actually legislate and not jam everything through budget reconciliation and
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: chart a path forward. I'm hoping that's happening behind the scenes.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: We're just not privy to it. It's not in the press.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: But that seems like the path that needs to happen
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: for the next four years, not just for this bill.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: The other thing, Joe Manchin, wants is to not give
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: up the power that he has on the very first
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: time he would have to use it. Putting Joe Manchin
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: in a position to say, yeah, you'll talk a big
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: game and then vote with the Democrats no matter what
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: on a big COVID bill. I guess I don't know
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: what happens in brinksmanship over this bill to test Joe Manchin,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: to test Kyrsten Sinema on this when we have till
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: mid-March when unemployment benefits expire to get this done. So
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know what happens if you end up in
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: a situation where Sinema and Manchin are voting against this,
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: the bill is thrown into doubt, maybe you go right again,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: you can pass it without the minimum wage increase right away,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: or it delays it. I don't totally understand what happens next.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: But I think what is clear is they're trying to
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: avoid that kind of a democratic, infighting set of votes
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: before passing this sort of emergency measure.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: What I find persuasive from some of the progressives in
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: the House is It always seems to be the progressives
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: who have to back down and compromise and sort of
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: get in line. But they have power here. Like Nancy
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Pelosi lost two Democrats on the first bill, not progressive Democrats,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: but two more moderate Democrats, moderate to conservative Democrats. But
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: like she doesn't have that many votes to spare. So
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: if a couple of progressives in the House get together
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: and say, if you don't try to overrule the parliamentarian
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: or you don't try to put some kind of minimum
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: wage increase in this bill, we're not going to vote
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: for the final bill. Then it's not just caring about
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: what Manchin and Sinema want and the more moderate to
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: conservative Democrats. It's saying like, OK, we got to keep
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the progressives happy and we got to keep Joe Manchin
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: and Kyrsten Sinema happy. Now, Lovett, I do agree that like,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: is it helpful and productive for all of this to
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: play out in public? Probably not. But like everyone can
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: get in a room or get on a Zoom. and,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: you know, all the Democrats in the House and the
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Senate and work it out and try to figure this out.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Because I do like I do think at some point
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and maybe it's not this bill for some of the
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: reasons you cite, Lovett, because there's a lot more. There's
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: another reconciliation bill that will happen. There's other non-reconciliation bills
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: that will happen. So maybe progressives want to sort of
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: hold their fire for next time. But at some point,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: progressives will probably exercise as much of their power as
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will exercise their power.
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And they should. Yeah.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, the COVID relief part of the bill is
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: extremely urgent for obvious reasons. The minimum wage increase is
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: also critical and important, but it is less urgent because
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: it is phased in over time, right? So you could
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: pass it in another bill and there might be no
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: actual impact on people's lives when they actually get this increase.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I think we all worry about delaying policy
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: successes because anything can happen. We could lose a member
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: of the Senate. There's a million ways this could go badly.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: The confrontation over the filibuster is coming.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: It is coming.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: It's going to happen now. It could happen in a
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: few weeks. It could happen in a few months. But fundamentally,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: there are really important things we need to do. They
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: cannot happen as the rules of the Senate currently stand.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: And that is a confrontation that is going to happen
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: with Sinema. It's going to happen with Manchin. And it's
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: going to require incredible I think progressive solidarity, it's going
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: to require a lot of Democratic infighting and, you know,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Democrats in disarray. And it's coming. I just don't know
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: if right now is the best way to get to
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: the outcomes we want, which is not just this COVID bill,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: not just minimum wage, but a host of other pieces
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: of legislation.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: And I should say, you know, we're all $ 15 minimum
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: wage supporters, and I'm going to be very disappointed if
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: it doesn't end up in the final bill. But it's
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: a great bill. I mean, it is a recovery package
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: that is double the one that we passed in 2009,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: cutting child poverty in half, the expanded unemployment benefits through
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the fall. I mean, this is a really, really progressive,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: ambitious bill. Even without the minimum wage, it's going to
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: help a lot of people, and it's going to hopefully
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: get done really fast. So that is something to think
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: about as well. Let's talk about this weekend's conservative political
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: action conference in Orlando, where Donald Trump delivered his first
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: speech since leaving office. Even before the former president showed up,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: CPAC was nuttier than usual. The pandemic relief bill was
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: barely mentioned. The pandemic itself was barely mentioned at the
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: indoor event. The theme of the conference was America uncanceled.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And as The Washington Post's Dave Weigel pointed out, quote,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party on display at CPAC was anti-monopoly. anti-free trade,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: skeptical of foreign wars, girded for economic conflict with China,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: and frequently invested in things that aren't true. Specifically, most
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: speakers continued to spread the big lie that Donald Trump
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: actually won an election that was rigged and stolen from
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: him by Democrats. Just two months after that lie led
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: a mob of Trump supporters to launch a terrorist attack
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: on Congress. And of course, the speeches were mostly filled
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: with your crazy uncle's Facebook memes come to life. Here's
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: a sample.
• 22:49
  Speaker 7: We love President Trump, and I'll tell you, I will
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: confidently say that President Trump, from his desk at Mar-a-Lago,
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: will accomplish more for America in the next four years
• 23:00
  Speaker 7: than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could ever dream of.
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: Speaking of bombing the Middle East, have you seen Liz
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: Cheney's poll numbers? This month alone, they've banned the Muppets.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 23:20
  Speaker 6: I mean, if there's things that you thought were sort
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: of above cancellation, you would be wrong.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Look out, Mr.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Potato Head.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: You're next.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I think now he's going by Potato X.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Can't be Mr.
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: Potato.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: And see, to me, the whole concept of the Mr.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Potato Head was he could move the parts around.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, Mr.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Potato Head was.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: America's first transgender doll, and even he got canceled.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Orlando is awesome.
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: It's not as nice as Cancun. But it's nice.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: In the immortal words of William Wallace, freedom!
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: That was Ted Cruz doing his best Howard Dean impression.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: Horrible.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Also making a joke about Cancun. You have to be...
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So far in the weeds to even get some of
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: the references. I didn't even get the whole Muppet thing.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know what happened with the Muppets.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, you don't want to know?
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I want to know.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what happened with the Muppets. But they continue.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: The Muppets exist and they have not been canceled.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Don't worry about that.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: That's all I wanted to know. Before we get to Trump, Tommy,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: what did you think about the rest of CPAC and
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: particularly Trump? what it said about the message Republicans intend
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: to run on in 22, 24 and beyond.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: You know, look, the Muppets, the Mr. Potato Head bites
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: that we just heard are absurd. But I think the
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: most important takeaway from CPAC and from most of these
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Republican events is that these cancel culture wars that they
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: think they are fighting are everything to these guys. Like
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: it is the party. This is their base. Like Donald
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Trump Jr. carved out time in his 12 minute speech
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: to complain about the Muppets and Mr. Potato Head. We
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: progressives hear this stuff. We see it on Twitter. We
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: see them on Fox complaining about it. We think it's
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: absurd that this is what Tucker Carlson is focused on
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: every night on his show, but it is what animates
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: the Republican base. A lot of it is also just
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: complaining about the media and whining about being treated unfairly
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: or silenced by social media platforms. But a thing that
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: sort of jumped out at me is that Trump is
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: taking over the Republican Party CPAC is the most MAGA
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: version of the Republican Party. This event itself is literally
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: rigged for Trump by this scummy lobbyist named Matt Schlapp.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Matt Schlapp's wife worked in the Trump White House. The
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: whole event becomes about kissing the Trump ring, which is
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: why some of the polling we'll talk about later actually
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: probably isn't great news for Donald Trump, but we'll get
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: into that later. The two policy areas that got some
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: attention were immigration and then anti-China rhetoric. I saw that
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: there were six panels at CPAC about how China is
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: really bad. There was only one panel about the Middle
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: East called Dealing with the Threat of Iran. So some
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: of the usual demagoguing of radical Islam and terrorism has
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: all been shifted to China. Everybody hates big tech, but
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know that that's really policy as much as
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: just complaining about losing Twitter followers. There was a lot
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: of that happening on stage as well. But to me,
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: it was like these culture wars are going to be
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: the whole thing for four years.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Love it. My view was, we'll talk about Trump in
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: a second, but whether or not he leads the party,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: it's his party. It's his issues. It's 100% culture wars,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: identity wars, anti-elite, grievance politics, anti-democratic to the core. Like
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: if you are pissed about something, no matter what the
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: issue is, it's Democrats' fault. The whole, the party of
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney that cared about like,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: you know, no regulations and tax cuts at all. That
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: is fucking gone. That is way, way gone. There's none
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: of that shit that animates that party anymore.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Well, I, and maybe it never did. Maybe it really,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: it never did because what I was, what is striking
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: about CPAC is, so CPAC is, I think CPAC has
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: gained dark significance since Donald Trump became president, but it
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: has existed very similarly for a very long time. I
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: think it has moved, it has gotten even more radical
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: and racist and unhinged, and it's more openly embracing of
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: conspiracy theories and white supremacy. But what is striking about
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, it's not that Donald Trump remade CPAC in
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: its image, it's that there was a Donald Trump-shaped hole
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: in CPAC for a very, very long time that he filled. And,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: you know, Trump thanks Rush Limbaugh in heaven. And you
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: see like, oh, you know, Republicans like Paul Ryan were
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: deluding themselves for so long about what their party actually was.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: This was it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: This is the Republican National Convention. This is who controls
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: this party. This is where you have to go. to
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: to to grovel and and and supplicate before the fringe
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: and the base like this is this is where where
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz all have
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: to go to audition and dance on stage and pretend
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: to be the next Trump to win the approval of
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: these people.
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: So.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: I think it is striking how little, honestly, Trump has
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: to do with it. These people have been there. Trump
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: figured it out. Trump cracked it. But this was there.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Rush Limbaugh made this happen as much as Trump did.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: It was there, but Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: poll four times back in the day. I think that
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: it has gotten more and more Trumpy and more racist
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: and cultury over time.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was a There was a golden statue
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: of Trump that they were hauling around the place. Yeah,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I'd say it was pretty Trumpy.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: It looked like a Koons, which I found insulting to art.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: Is it camp?
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: That was the second reference that you did one in
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: our ads the other week, really.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: I'm going to kind of cover it.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about the polling Tommy mentioned
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: with Trump in it, but they also did one version
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: of their 2024 straw poll without Trump. And the big
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: winner was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 43%. South Dakota
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Governor Kristi Noem had 11%. Don Jr. had 8%. Mike Pompeo, 7%.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz, 7%. Tucker Carlson, 3%. What was your reaction
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: to those results? and what they say about sort of
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: where the party is going?
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: Love it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: What'd you think?
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, they're in Florida. So I'm not like,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: I don't, I don't know.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a lot of DeSantis stands
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: out there or if this is just sort of name
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: ID and the governor that they like, cause it's stuck
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: to the libs and on COVID. But, you know, Noem
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: being on that list, one of the most disastrous COVID policies.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: She runs around like she's some successful governor, one of
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the worst impacted states, South Dakota. You see Don Jr.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Don Jr., just by having the name Trump, like all
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: of Pompeo's like wheedling and working and fighting to be
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: this sort of base guy. Same with Ted Cruz. They
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: can't crack Don Jr. They can't beat Don Jr. So
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: I would say it's chilling to the core, John.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Tommy, I thought it was almost as interesting who wasn't
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: on that list, who didn't make the cut. Nikki Haley,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio, Mike Pence.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: I wondered about the DeSantis home court advantage question too,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: but that didn't help Rick Scott or Marco Rubio who
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: got like less than 1%. But yeah, I mean, the
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: big takeaway to me was there is no love. There
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: is no loyalty for Josh Hawley or for Nikki Haley
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: or for the former vice president. I mean, I guess
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: we should have known that when, uh, a mob of
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: fascists were chanting about hanging him. But yeah, like, I mean,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: all of these Republicans, like the people that are doing well,
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: like Kristi Noem, the path to success remains constant Fox
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: News hits and preening about culture war stuff. It has
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: nothing to do with your record of success. There's nothing
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: to do with the number of people who got COVID
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: in your state. It is all this complaining about social media,
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: cancel culture, whining bullshit.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: No, it's actually an inverse relationship with how many people
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: got COVID in your state. More COVID cases, the better.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: DeSantis and Cristiano just crushing it.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: In fairness to the Republicans, we Democrats have idolized some
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: jackass governors who have had lots of COVID patients in
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: their state. So, you know, maybe it cuts both ways here.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Like the guy in New York?
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that really terrible guy in New York.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Tommy no longer identifying as a... Quamosexual.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Never did. Never did.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Never did. Something that Trump seems to have unleashed too
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: is just like permission to not have to care about
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: the boring stuff. Like we don't care about economics. We
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: don't care about the stuff that makes us uncomfortable like
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: the pandemic. We can just talk about the fun stuff.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: We can just talk about cancel culture and liberals and
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Muppets and we're fine. This is a party and we
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: don't need a policy platform. We just need to complain
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: about the fact that they're voting illegally. and be whatever-
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Owning the libs.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: We've said this, owning the libs is the platform. That's
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: the driving force of the party, just owning the libs.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: They don't care about policy outcomes at this point. Trump
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: himself took the stage on Sunday night to deliver a
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: 90-minute speech that was somehow boring, terrifying, and enraging all
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: at once. First 45 minutes or so were focused on
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: attacking President Biden, Democrats, the media, immigrants, and transgender Americans,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to whom he was particularly cruel. And that was the
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: on-message part of the speech that his advisors reportedly wanted
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: him to deliver- Things really went off the rails when
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: he repeated the lie that the election was stolen, attacked
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, attacked every Republican who voted to impeach
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: him by name, and then announced that he may run
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: again in 2024. Here is a compilation from Trump's speech.
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: We can never let this or other abuses of the
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: 2020 election be repeated or happen again.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Can never let that happen again.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: We need election integrity and election reform immediately. Republicans should
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: be the party of honest elections.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: They didn't have the.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Courage, the Supreme Court.
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: They didn't have the courage to act. They should be
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: ashamed of themselves for what they've done to our country.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: They didn't have the guts or the courage to make
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: the right decision.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: They didn't want to talk about it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: Democrats don't have grandstanders like Mitt Romney, Little Ben Sasse,
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: Richard Burr, Bill.
• 33:47
  Speaker 8: Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey. And in the House,
• 33:59
  Speaker 8: Tom Rice, South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: That's another beauty.
• 34:10
  Speaker 9: Fred Upton, Jamie Herrera-Butler, Peter Meyer, John Katko, David Valadao,
• 34:19
  Speaker 9: and of course, the warmonger, a person that loves seeing our.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Troops fighting, Liz Cheney.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: How about that?
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: I may even decide to beat them for a third time, okay?
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: Beat them for a third time.
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: Woof.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: General reactions to that tour de force of lunacy? Love it.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I'll say, first of all, first time I'm hearing it
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: at 1.0 speed, because as has been my rule for
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: many years, which continues now that he is no longer president,
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: is I wait for these things to be over while
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: you two are live tweeting. And I then watch it
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: at 2x speed so that I can get through it faster.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: But even at 2x speed, it took me 45 fucking minutes.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: 45.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: He was up there for 90 minutes. Did not mention.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think the most important thing, honestly, is
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: what he didn't mention is that he did not mention
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: the COVID relief bill. Didn't mention it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: Didn't come up.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Nothing having to do with any of that. It was
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: all just the kind of the old hits and the
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: big lie. But in general, it was just, you know,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: same shit. Same shit.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: No job.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: Trenching analysis here. That's what I got.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: What do you want?
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: What do you want?
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: So yeah, to me it was like, I watched him
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: and I thought to myself, okay, what is it he's
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: supposed to talk about versus what does he want to
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: talk about? And you could see in the beginning that
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: he's like reading all this carefully scripted language about this
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: really vicious anti-immigrant rant. He had this cruel, bizarre attack
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: on transgender athletes that I think we're going to hear
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: a lot about going forward. There was a bunch of
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: criticism of Joe Biden, this argument that the country has
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: gone to shit in a month. But what he really
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: wanted to talk about were the lies about the election,
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: that it was stolen from him, and he wanted to
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: rage at these Republicans. And to me, the big news
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: that came out of the event was He's going to
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: lead these primary challenges against all these people who oppose them.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: And he wants to siphon donor money away from Republican
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: campaign committees to his own PAC and to his own organization.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: So he got up there and announced that he's not
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: starting a third party and it was all fake news.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: But he's trying to husband all the power within the
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: party and just fully run it himself. I mean, I'm
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: so surprised. It's been a Trump cult for a long time. But,
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: you know, you guys, all the Republicans in the Senate,
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: could have ended this by voting for impeachment, but this
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: is how it's gonna be now.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: There is so far, and we have a long way
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: to go, there is zero indication that this man is
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: going to skip the 2024 election and bow out of this.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: This is his party, this is what animates him. And
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: it's like you said, Lovett, because he doesn't have to,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: and the party doesn't have to talk about the boring issues,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the serious issues, the issues that may be unpopular for them,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: like the COVID relief bill. All they have to do
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: is it's all about talking about the fun stuff, talking
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: about the grievances.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: And I did think to myself as I watch this,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: you can sort of see why Joe Biden and his
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: administration is focused solely on, you know, fixing the pandemic
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: and fixing the economy.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Because. things go well, things get better over the next
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: couple of years, then all of this grievance from Trump
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: doesn't really matter as much. It's not as powerful because
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: people are just feeling that life is back to normal
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: and their lives are better. But things don't go as well.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: The economy doesn't improve as quickly. Then Trump's best shtick
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: is I'm the outsider just fucking throwing bombs and saying
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: that everything that's fucked up in the country is the
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: president's fault and Washington's fault and the establishment's fault and
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: the elite's fault. And I'm going to be your champion
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: against all the people who are screwing you over. That's
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: what he does well. He's better as an outsider out
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: of office than he was defending himself when he was
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: president of the administration. And basically his bet is if
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: things aren't going great in the country, I'm your guy.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: The like the the immigration rhetoric where he basically says,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: you know, Joe Biden is keeping your kids out of school,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: but educating migrant kids gives you a sense of like
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: the kind of the place he's going to go for
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: a while. Um, you know, he's, he's given the, he
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: wants your kids from, cause he's giving everything away to
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: the teacher's union. The attack on transgender, uh, people is
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: another version of this is just going to be this
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: kind of like the Biden is sided with the radicals.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: He sided with these people. He's putting immigrants ahead of you.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: He's putting, you know, uh, lefties and communists ahead of you.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: He's putting transgender people ahead of you and he will.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: And so it's like, okay, well, if, if we can
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: pass this bill and schools are open, not going to
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: have much, uh, If schools are open, you can't complain.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: That schools are closed.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: And so it really does hinge on how much he
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: gets done on the big stuff.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: And on that just vicious, bizarre diatribe he went on
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: about women's sports and transgender athletes, there was just a
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: vote in the House on the Equality Act that would
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: add protections on the basis of sex and sexual orientation
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: which banned discrimination on race and religion. Eight Republicans voted.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: voted for a very similar bill to the Equality Act
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: in 2019. A whole bunch of them switched their vote,
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: including Elise Stefanik, someone who was seen as some sort
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: of moderate Republican who decided to go all MAGA. So
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: you can see the way that Trump's rhetoric is not
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: only describing how he views the base and what they
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: want to hear, but also the direction the party has
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: been pulled in over the last couple of years. All
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: of it is very, very depressing.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: It's very depressing. Though on that issue too, I would
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: say that is an issue that is absolutely going to
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: animate the like Fox News loving base and pulls people
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: like Stefanik towards Trump's position on that. That is not
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: an issue I think that you like go into the
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: suburbs with as a winning issue for Republicans who are
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: like trying to win back some of these moderate districts.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And That's just going to be a thing that like,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like the cancel culture stuff, right? Like
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: this is if you're if you're just mainlining Fox News,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: this is what gets you.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: I hope that's right. But like, you know, Trump has
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: taken actions previously to discriminate against transgender people. But this
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: he made it a focus of this speech. It has
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: become something that Republicans are talking about more and more
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: as an attempted wedge issue. So they're going to bigotry
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: in all its forms to animate their base these days.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: I think they are going to use. They're going to
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: use trans people the way that the Republican Party under
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: George W. Bush used gay people. They're going to try
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: to find ways to find wedge issues. They're going to
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: try to find ways to pass legislation or ballot measures
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: at the state level to target trans people. And I
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: do think that's coming. And I do think it's very dangerous.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: It's very dangerous. It's very dangerous. It has backfired on
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: them before, most notably in North Carolina, but they're going
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: to do it for sure. So in addition to repeating
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: the big lie, Trump specifically attacked H.R. 1, the For
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: the People Act. Tommy, I saw you tweeted about this.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Why do you think he singled out a piece of
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: legislation that is both extremely popular and largely unknown?
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought it was it showed concern among the
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Republican Party about what H.R. 1 could do to their
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: electoral prospects. I mean, the way the Republican Party is
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: going to stay in power, if they can, is by
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: using the big lie around the presidential election and all
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: these ridiculous claims that votes were stolen from Donald Trump
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: to pass voter suppression bills in state legislatures and to
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: gerrymander the hell out of the district so that they
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: can win back the House in 2022. If we Democrats
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: can get rid of the filibuster and pass H.R. 1
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: and make it easier to vote in this country and
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: block some of these voter suppression bills from being passed,
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: I think that we will win. I think Democrats will
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: increase their power in the House and we'll be able
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: to do more things and get more voters out. But
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: it's clear that the Republican Party, including Donald Trump, is
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: worried about any effort to keep them from voter suppressing
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: their way to minority rule. So that should tell us
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: something about what they think is important should be what
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: we think is important here.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Well, and we've been talking about sort of what animates
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party now and its grievance and it's a
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: lot of these cultural issues. But CPAC also polled their
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: attendees about what issues are most important to them. Election
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: integrity topped the list at 62%, beating issues like immigration,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: reopening the economy, Second Amendment, taxes, and abortion by 30
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to 50%. It was a landslide. So this is why
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: they don't want to have a debate on a lot
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: of these issues because their whole thing is like, we
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: just want to make it so that it's harder for
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: people to vote. They just want to overturn an election.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: That's what's animating them. And again- progressives understand how important, um,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: HR one is and for the people act and people
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: who paid close attention to it. But again, you know,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: we've said this before, our, our biggest challenge here is like,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: we've got to get more people to know what this, what, what,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: what the stakes are, what this bill is, what's in it.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: And of course, like the only way it's going to
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: get passed is if the filibuster is removed, Republicans are
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: not going to vote for this bill. So this is
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: going to be the Titanic fight over the next year.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, we, even in how he talks about it, right?
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Like we saw it in our own polling, the polling
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: we did with Data for Progress, Republicans on issues like
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: mail-in voting specifically have been radicalized by Trump, right? This
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: is gonna, we know where this base, where the Republican
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: voters will be on this issue by the time HR1
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: comes up for a vote. They have been radicalized against
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: democracy and everything about what you're saying about like how
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: that politics for them is about grievance, it's about feeling,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: everything in Trump's rhetoric around the big lie beyond just
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: the made up, the lie, is this notion he's telling them,
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: which is How could I possibly have lost? Didn't it
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: feel like we won? Didn't it feel like we were
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: going to win? That feeling is all that matters. Like
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: the feeling that you want to have about your country
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: is the only thing that matters. And if you don't
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: feel good, something is wrong.
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Well, and that goes to, I mean, Tommy, you mentioned
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: this polling earlier, you know, so the straw poll with
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Trump in it. First of all, he had a 97%
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: approval rating among the thousand or so attendees at CPAC.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Not really a surprise there. 68% said they wanted him
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: to run again. 55% said they'd vote for him again
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: in the primaries, given a list of other choices. You
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: think those numbers are good or bad for Trump?
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: The thing that jumped out at me was getting 68%
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: of the most diehard Trump fans on the planet, I
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: actually don't think is great, especially when 95% said they
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: wanted to vote for the Trump agenda. So what that
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: suggests to me is that even among the like hardest
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: of hardcore MAGA people, You could find a lane where
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: you are running to continue the Trump agenda. You continue
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: the culture wars, all his divisive stuff. But you argue
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: for giving someone else a chance to execute on it
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: because he failed last time. It suggested to me there
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: was like a sliver of space in there for someone
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: who is Trump like. But maybe you can make a
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: pitch that they could be better at the job.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Well, so I had the same thought as you when
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I saw the numbers. And then I was like, the key,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: and you just said this, the key is because he
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: failed at it or he didn't do as well or
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: you could do better. And what I'm trying to figure
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: out is, like, say it's Ron DeSantis, say it's Kristi Noem.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: What is the, eventually they're going to have to make
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: an argument against Trump in the primary. And what is
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: that argument if according to, like, according to every Republican
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: in the official edict from Fox News and the right
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: wing media, Trump rightfully won the last election. So he
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: wasn't a failure. Like, how do you make an argument
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: against him? I just don't know.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: They've created a real problem for themselves by going along
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: with this big lie. I mean, it's the same exact
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: collective action problem we saw in the 2016 Republican primary.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: No one wanted to attack him. You know, Ted Cruz
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: would say, you're trying to drive a wedge between me
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: and Donald, but I think Donald is terrific. And then
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: You know, when Trump accused his father of killing JFK
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: and said his wife was ugly, he decided it was
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: time to stand up for himself. And it was way
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: too late. It feels like we're set up for the
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: exact same kind of, you know, path.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: It seems to me that the way that you would
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: have to do that is by being an extraordinarily adept,
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: charming and charismatic politician with the ability to carefully walk
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: this delicate line between defeating Trump and embracing what Trump
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: stands for. You know, let's see how Pompeo does.
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: Look, who knows? By the way, one other thing is,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: you know, we could have Tish James marching Donald Trump
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: down Fifth Avenue in handcuffs. There's a lot of things
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: that can happen between now and then. I do think it's...
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's set up for Don Jr. He could just
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: be like, look, you like the Trump agenda? You like
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: the Trump name?
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: Try a new Trump.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I do think it's... I think the numbers are fascinating
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: because it, like, the fact that he only got 55%
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: in the poll does mean that there's 45% that are like,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I like Donald Trump. I'm on the Trump train. Yeah,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: he won the election.
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: Great.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: But I would try something else. And I would love
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: to know from those people, what is it about him
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: that you didn't like? Because that's the message for another
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Republican to use, even if it's subtle.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: It's a poll conducted by Trump's pollster of people who
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: are so in such intense fans of Donald Trump that
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: they're willing to go to an indoor event in Orlando
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: during a pandemic. Like you got to be a fan.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Got to assume though, got to assume based on just
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: the demographics alone, we got a lot of people in
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: the vaccinated groups heading to that ballroom.
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: But regardless, it doesn't, what you learn from CPAC is
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: it may be someone, it may be Trump, it may
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: be someone like Trump. The point is you can't get
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: to the end of this process without being a monster.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: It's a monster's only, it's a monster's only primary.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Everyone who's got all these people who are like, I'm
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: going to run to be the non-Trump and to take
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: back the Republican Party and save it. Like, good for you.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: I wish you well, but it's you're not going to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: do well.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: Nikki Haley sounded so reasonable in Politico. Guess who doesn't care?
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: Republican voters.
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Guess who immediately kissed Donald Trump's ass after his speech?
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley. Great job, Nikki Haley.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Do you think the people at CPAC didn't get to
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: the bottom of that Tim Alberta piece? You think they
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: didn't get all the way to section three?
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley just put on a master class.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: You're telling me that the people at CPAC didn't see
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: the kicker?
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: I got to not see the kicker.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: Mike Pompeo tried to tell a couple of jokes that
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: landed so flat. I cannot wait to clip all of
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: them for Pod Save the World tomorrow. He is just
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: the worst. He's the worst. He is the worst.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: The worst.
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Enough about CPAC. When we come back, my interview with
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Will Smith. Will Smith is host and executive producer of
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Amend the Fight for America, a documentary. which is now
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: available on Netflix. Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Hey, man. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: be here.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: So I'll admit when our producer first said that Will
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Smith is doing press for his new project, my reaction was,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: why the hell would he want to talk to a
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: couple of political dorks like us? And then he told
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: me it was all about the 14th Amendment. And I
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: started watching and It is moving and insightful and beautifully produced.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: What attracted you to the project and how did it
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: come together?
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: You know, a big part of it was, you know,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I was like everyone else, you know, sitting home on
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: lockdown when the George Floyd situation happened. you know, at
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: that moment, I just, I felt like I wanted to
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: be a part of the healing and the future of America.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I was feeling the change that was happening in our
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: country at that moment. And there was a friend of
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: mine who was, is a constitutional scholar. And we had
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: been talking about the issues and he mentioned that the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: 14th Amendment was the most cited amendment in American law.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: And I found that hard to believe because I didn't
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: know what it was. So if I don't know what
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: something is, it can't be the most anything. But I
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: was shocked and appalled by my ignorance around the 14th Amendment.
• 51:11
  Speaker 9: And he.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Began to educate me that the 14th Amendment is essentially
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: the center of what we think of when we think
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: of ourselves as Americans. You know, the 14th Amendment is
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: like the all inclusive amendment that makes clear that all
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Americans are equal under the law. And I was really
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: blown away when I started getting educated about the history.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: And I thought it was going to be a really
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: critical thing for the healing of our country to retrace
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: the steps of the second founding of America and the
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: 14th Amendment.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: What did you learn about the full history and reach
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: of the 14th Amendment that most surprised you that you
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: didn't know before the series?
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: The idea that in the fight for equality, almost every
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: marginalized group in almost the history of this country from
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the late 1860s, with its ratification, has used the 14th
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Amendment to fight for equal protection under the law. And
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: it started with the former slaves, and then the striking
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: down of the Chinese Exclusion Act, you know, Native Americans, women,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: women's rights, back through the civil rights movement, like literally
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: every marginalized group has fought and won using the 14th Amendment.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: The 14th Amendment is like this magical amendment of the
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: American Constitution that doesn't lose a lot.
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: So the first episode is interesting in that it rightly
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: centers Frederick Douglass as the American most instrumental in fighting
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: for abolition and freedom and ultimately the 14th Amendment. You
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: point out that Lincoln's belated embrace of the Emancipation Proclamation
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: was more pragmatic than anything else. How did you all
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: think about telling America's history in a way that was
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: honest and even if it didn't always comport with the
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: airbrushed version that's been taught in a lot of schools
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: over the years.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Right. One of the major things for me, and I
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: came at this project and I come at all projects,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: where I want to sit in the world is no attack, right?
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: No one responds well to attack.
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: If somebody attacks you, you don't care if you're right
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: or wrong. You want to hit them back. So the
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: thing that that was really critical to me was a multicultural,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: multiracial group of people taking an honest look at the
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: history of America and being able to. say honestly that
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: this is a country that was established by white men
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: for white men. And that's how the country was established.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: It was established by white men for white men. And
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: now on the back of the 14th Amendment, America is
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: becoming the world's greatest, almost only, multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy. So
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: that's a really critical adjustment. And I just wanted to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: lay out the patterns of what happens in that kind
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: of adjustment, establishing and clarifying the patterns so we can
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: all relax a little bit and recognize even while things
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: are not perfect, we're finding ourselves in really familiar patterns
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: so we can make different decisions to have America recognize
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: the promise in our practice of being Americans.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's always been fascinating to me is that even
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: though we have consistently failed to live up to the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: ideals embedded in the Constitution, they are embedded in the
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: constitution and specifically in the 14th amendment. And so even
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: we don't live up to them, there are these documents saying, well,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: this is the North star, um, which is, which is
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: quite valuable. How did, um, how did the last four
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: years of politics affect your perspective on 14th amendment and
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: debates around citizenship and equal protection under the law?
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: You know, the, you know, the last four years, um,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: was difficult for me in that the truth became harder
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: to discern for some reason in the last four years.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: You know, there's always been misinformation. But, you know, some
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: part technology, some part intention of.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Negative doers. But for the most part, the truth became
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: more difficult to discern. So as a part of amend
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: and a part of being able to put this into
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the world, I really wanted to be able to stabilize
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: rationality in discerning the truth as much as I possibly could.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to do my part in that. And
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Buddha had a great quote. He said, good people have
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: to wake up every day and try to empty the
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: ocean with a ladle.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: That is what it feels like many, many days, especially
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: over the last four years. A big ocean and a
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: small ladle. You are one of the biggest, most successful
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: celebrities in the world. You've also lived the experience of
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: growing up as a black man in America. How have
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: your personal experiences with racism and prejudice and discrimination sort
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: of shaped your worldview?
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I always, I'm writing my book right now. So these
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: things are fresh in my mind. So I've been called
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: nigger to my face probably five or six times. And
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: fortunately for my psyche, I've never been called nigger by
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: a smart person. So I grew up with the impression
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: that racists and racism were stupid, and they were easy
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: to get around, I just had to be smarter. While
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: they were very dangerous, I had never looked into the
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: eyes of a racist and saw anything that I perceived
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: as intellect. So, you know, as I got older, I
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: saw that was less and less true. And as I
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: went into Hollywood, I started seeing the ideas of systemic racism.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: But at the core of it, I noticed a difference
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: between ignorance and evil. Now they're twins for sure. They
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: are twins for sure. But ignorance can be educated and
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: evil is a much more difficult problem. And fortunately, ignorance
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: is more prevalent than blatant evil. So I've always been
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: encouraged that the process of education and understanding could alleviate
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: some of the more dangerous and difficult aspects of racism
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: that have unfortunately been embedded in the very fibers of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: our country.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I want to talk about that process. You
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: mentioned this earlier, but you spoke up during the protests
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor about
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: how the world was finally paying attention to racial injustice
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: in a way you hadn't seen before. What would you
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: say to young activists who might be frustrated and angry
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: at the pace of progress since even this summer when
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: the protests took place?
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: You know, that was one of the major hopes that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I had and still have for amend, right? It's like,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: you have to see the patterns. You have to recognize
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: the patterns, right? So, you know, Barack Obama becomes the
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: first Black president and then the next president is Donald Trump,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: arguably as, as polar and opposite as possible. That's what happens. That's,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that's if, if you just watch the patterns, that's what
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: has happened historically with the 14th amendment, you know, after
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Lincoln was Johnson, right? So that's how the pendulum swings
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: around these things and around these issues. Um, what I
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: would also say, uh, to young activists is that we
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: are in an unprecedented place in American history right now
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: that really demands delicate attention to the movements of what's happening.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Over the summer, The entire globe stood up in a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: way that they never have before and agreed that Black
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Lives Matter. That's never happened before. Activists in the late
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: 1800s and early 1900s would have to get on boats
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: and go and give speeches in England. And Frederick Douglass
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: had to travel to try to make these speeches to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: get people to understand. And we're in an unprecedented place
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: with many dangers, but also a lot of new possibilities.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: You sound fairly hopeful about where we might end up
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: at this moment. Is that right?
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I am wildly hopeful. In my study of the patterns,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: we are beyond the tipping point. Right. Black lives aren't
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: going to go back to not mattering.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: You know, there is a momentum.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: There is a.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Momentum behind this movement and not just for black lives,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: for in terms of equality for all individuals under the
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: 14th Amendment in America. You know, the the. The lessons
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: of reconstruction, I think, have been learned sufficiently and significantly
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: enough that those mistakes aren't gonna be made again in
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: the same way, at least. I'm very hopeful, not just
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: for Blacks in America, but I'm very hopeful for America
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: as a whole, as an idea, As a country, I'm
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: very hopeful for our future.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: You've talked before about potentially getting into politics, sometimes talked,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: sometimes joked. What has made you think about entering politics
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: and running and what so far has prevented you from
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: taking the leap?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I think for now, I'm going to let that office
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: get cleaned up a little bit and.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Then I'll... Get the deep clean and the vaccinations.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Then I'll consider that at some point down the line.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like I absolutely have an opinion.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: I'm optimistic. I'm hopeful. I believe in understanding between people.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: I believe in the possibility of harmony. So I will
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: certainly do my part, whether it remain artistic or at
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: some point ventures into the political arena.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. So I have to ask, What was the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: conversation between you and my old boss, Barack Obama, like
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: where he gave you the OK to play him in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: a biopic?
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he, you know, the idea came up and we
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: kicked it around and he looked me up and down
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: and he said, well, you've certainly got the ears for it.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Of course he did. Well, that is the seal of
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: approval right there. You don't need anything else. That's good.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: The docuseries is Amend the Fight for America. Will Smith,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: you're the host and executive producer. Thank you so much
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: for coming on Pod Save America and take care.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I hope to see you again.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: I love your energy.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Will Smith for joining us today. Come back anytime.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Will Smith can co-host the pod.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: When one of us are out. How's that?
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: That's great.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: We'll bring him on the road next time.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: This is Will Smith, the pollster, not the actor.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: There's a pollster?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: Just be fitting with our thing.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: All right, guys. All right.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: We'll see y'all later.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: Bye.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: every week.