Latest / Pod Save America / “The Era of Big Government is Back.”

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“The Era of Big Government is Back.” · 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 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Joe Biden's American rescue
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: plan is on its way to becoming law. We'll talk
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: about all the economic and political implications, as well as
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: What else Democrats might be able to achieve now that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin has indicated that he's potentially open to reforming
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the filibuster?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I just the intensity with which I now look not
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: just at the coverage of Joe Manchin, but about like
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the individual sentences. where the dependent clauses are. You can't
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: trust the headlines.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Not these days.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Not with this media.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: A lot of parsing, yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Later in the show, Love It will talk to Virginia
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: State Delegate Danica Rome about the fights over trans rights
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: happening in state houses across the country. But first, Love It,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: tell us about how the show went this weekend.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Hari Kondabolu. Ezra Klein.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I pretended to be the host of Jeopardy for a bit.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I almost got canceled over a joke, but I made
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: it out. And I would say check it out.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: You were a great Jeopardy host.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I think I know the joke that you almost got canceled.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I think it was fine.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I gasped.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: I gasped.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Also, it's International Women's Day, and we wanted to give
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: a shout out to our Hysteria friends and co-hosts, Aaron
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and Alyssa. This week, they'll be interviewing Teen Vogue labor
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: writer Kim Kelly about Amazon unionization. And friend of the pod,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: nominee for USAID, Samantha Power is on Hysteria, so check
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: it out. New episodes are out every Thursday. You can
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts. All right,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: let's get to the news. Early Saturday morning, after more
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: than 24 hours in session, the Senate passed the $ 1. 9
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: trillion American Rescue Plan by a single vote, thanks to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the support of all 50 Democrats. The bill now goes
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: back to the House, where Democrats are expected to approve
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the changes made by the Senate. President Biden will sign
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the bill shortly afterwards. He had this to say at
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the White House after it passed the Senate.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: When I was elected, I said we're going to get
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: the government out of the business of battling on Twitter
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: and back in the business of delivering for the American people,
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: of making a difference in their lives, giving everyone a chance,
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: a fighting chance, of showing the American people that their
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: government can work for them. And passing the American Rescue
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: Plan will do that. And, you know, it may sound strange,
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: but A lot of senators and congressmen I want to thank,
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: but I really want to thank the American people for
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: making all this possible.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: in the modern history of this country. That's not one
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of your neolib shill hosts talking. That was a statement
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: from budget chairman Bernie Sanders. Guys, why does Bernie think that?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And what are some of the highlights for each of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you that haven't been talked about as much? Tommy, let's
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: start with you.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: The era of big government is back, baby. Can I
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: say something really big and totally unfounded, which is that
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: this is a fundamental rejection of Reaganism and the treatment
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: of government as the enemy. It's a bit of a
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: rejection of Clintonism, but we won't focus on that. But
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: it took an approach. Why not? Why not? Let's do it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: I stage whispered. I don't like attacking other podcast hosts.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is a truly progressive bill. It targets
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: money towards the poorest people. I mean, like the most
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: exciting part of this bill might be the fact that
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the White House believes it will cut child poverty by
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: 45% as much as 50% among black families. I mean,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: many advanced countries, I think 17 is the statistic you
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: always read, subsidize having a child. Canada provides up to $ 4, 800
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: per child per year. the United States is finally getting
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: in the game on this front because there's tons of
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: evidence that suggests that falling into poverty, even for a
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: short period of time as a child, causes permanent damage
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: in terms of your educational attainment, your wages, your health.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: So this could be an enormous, enormous piece of an
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: even bigger bill. And I'll pause there because I'm sure
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Lovett likes some of the same parts I do.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think I will just say, I
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: think stepping back, There was a big fight over the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: minimum wage. It is actually extraordinary that the Democratic caucus
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: was largely united around the amount, the dollar amount of $ 1. 9 trillion,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and that really didn't move very much. We'll talk about
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: some of the other fights that played out inside of
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: the bill, but that tells you something really positive about
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: just how much the Democratic caucus has shifted across the board. Biden, Schumer, Bernie,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: everybody recognizes the importance of going big and giving people
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: change that they can see, that they can deposit in
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: a bank that's bold and simple, and they were worried
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: more about doing too little rather than doing too much.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I agree on what Tommy mentioned. I do think that this.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It is amazing how much politics has shifted even in.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: The past year.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: The fact that the child benefit... extends to people who
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: in the past wouldn't have been able to get it
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: because it was phased out for people as they made
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: less money and didn't qualify for it. It becomes much
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: more like a universal benefit, a universal basic income almost
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: for parents with kids. And I think that's going to
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: be hard to walk back. So there's a lot of
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: things like that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: That I think.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Are the reason Bernie is trying to make people understand
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: that this is more than just that this is COVID
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: relief that also, I think, lays the groundwork for a
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: much more progressive government.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Democrats have been traditionally in love with like tax
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: credits and sort of complicated benefits. The child allowance is
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: literally going to be like a monthly check of up
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to $ 300 per child for a lot of low income families,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: even low income families who are out of work. You know,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Eric Levitz over at New York Magazine said that this
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: bill would put more than $ 7, 600 into the bank account
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of the typical family of four when you combine the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: direct payments with the child allowance and some of the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: other benefits, $ 27 billion in rental assistance for those facing eviction. Dramatically,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: lowers health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act. Just
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: almost got no attention in the bill. So middle to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: upper income people can get subsidies for the first time
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: on the ACA and lower income people have even bigger
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: subsidies than they had before. $ 39 billion for childcare providers.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: And John, just one specific on that healthcare point. Anyone
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: who's ever lost their job and tried to file for
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: COBRA knows how much it fucking sucks, right? COBRA lets
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: you buy into plans But you no longer have your
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: employer footing part of the bill, so it's just prohibitively expensive.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: This bill covers 100% of COBRA premiums for two years.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: That's just an enormous, that's a sea change for someone
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: that desperately needs healthcare but lost their job because of
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: this bill. And they say it's going to reduce the
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: number of uninsured by like 1.3 million by next year.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: So sorry, I just wanted to add that because there's
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: so many great pieces of this bill.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: It's enormously beneficial to people around health care. $ 39 billion
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: for child care providers. It's going to make all student
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: loan forgiveness tax-free, which is a huge deal. It will
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: save the pensions of more than 1 million unionized workers
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: who are about to lose their retirement. It will shore
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: up those pensions for the next 30 years.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: I love Republicans trying to push that around as an attack.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: Oh, no.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: You're going to save people's retirements who have been working.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: That's a tough one. It represents the largest public investment
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: in native communities ever by the government. I mean, this is,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you know, look, I think there are bills and we're
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: going to talk about, you know, what we didn't get
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in the bill. But there are bills where you compromise
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a lot and say, you know, well, in the end,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the good still outweighs the bad. So half a loaf
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: is better than nothing. This is not that kind of bill,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in my opinion. I think this is. I think this
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: time we got most of a loaf. That's pretty fucking big.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: The loaf is huge.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I think you have to say, yes, I think you
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: have to say like, okay, it seems like there were,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: we can, there were more, but you can say like,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: there was sort of these like three negotiations. Uh, one
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: was over the, um, uh, direct payments. One was over
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: the extension of unemployment and one was over the minimum wage.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: The minimum wage fight was, I think, uh, a defeat.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It was a defeat for progressives. It is fully not
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: on the bill. We had hoped that it would be
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: in there. That pushes that fight completely off. But, As
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: much as I think that the logic around reducing by
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: 17 million who is eligible for the direct payments or
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: changing the formula on UI, which actually we can talk
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: about what the actual implications of that are. Let's remember,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Republicans were the... Remember how there was a moment where
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins and nine other Republicans were going to meet
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: with Joe Biden at the White House. They had proposed
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: 600 billion. Biden was at 1.9 billion. There was a
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: genuine debate as to whether or not where we were
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: going to land was someplace in the middle so that
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: he could get Republican votes.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Love it. A anonymous Biden advisor who clearly knows their
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: boss really well decided to be a source for Politico
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: not long ago and said, oh, well, I can't believe
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: these Republicans went to the White House and the White
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: House sort of poo-pooed the meeting and said it wasn't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: really productive. And that must be Ron Klain's fault. The
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden I know would never do that. And clearly
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin is going to make the number come down
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: from 1.9 to at least 1.3. Joe Manchin didn't make
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the final top line number come down at all.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: That is an enormous victory.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: And also to anyone who wonders, okay, what was it
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: worth to win those Georgia Senate races? The conservative estimate
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: is about $ 1. 3 trillion, right? Like that's basically the delta
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: between the bipartisan Republican Senate proposal and when they had
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: no leverage, right? They probably could have chopped it down
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: even more if they had a ton of leverage and
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: what was actually passed. So $ 1. 3 trillion is what you
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: all who fought for these Georgia Senate seats got for
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: the American people. Good job.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: And where it would be aimed, by the way, just
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: also where it would be aimed, right? Because CARES Act
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: had $ 500 billion for corporations.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: Right, right, exactly.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And just to put our finer point on the election,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you know, out of nearly 160 million votes that were
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: cast in November, David Perdue, the Republican senator from Georgia-
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: was just 14,000 votes away from avoiding a runoff against
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: John Ossoff, which he then lost, which then gave us
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the Senate. 14,000 votes. That is how close we came
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: to $ 1. 9 trillion being, like Tommy said, either $ 600 billion
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: or maybe nothing. We could have had nothing if Mitch McConnell.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: That's the generous, that's the highest it would have been.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, putting those Dominion machines there was
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: like one of the most forward thinking. Think about how much,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: that was such a good decision.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: How do you think Biden's rescue plan compares both substantively
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and politically with the other two most recent rescue plans,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Trump's CARES Act back in March of a year ago
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and Obama's Recovery Act in 2009?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Let's do the Recovery Act first. Divided into three parts?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I was about to divide. So we would just so
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: you know, like we have a joke we now basically,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: which is like the Recovery Act is divided into three
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: parts because we would say that every time Barack Obama
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: gave a speech about the Recovery Act. So the Recovery
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Act was 787.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Billion.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: This is $ 1. 9. So this is two and a half
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: times the size. But that was also divided into, as
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Tommy helpfully pointed out, into three parts, a third of
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: which were tax benefits, a third of which were relief
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: for people who had lost their jobs or were in
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: otherwise sort of economic trouble. And then another third was
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: long-term investments in infrastructure. So there's two things. One, there's
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: just more money in this bill. It's a much bigger bill.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: But also that bill was designed, as John said, to
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: kind of, it was based on the theory that you
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: kind of nudge people in various small ways to get
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: them to spend the most overall more efficiently, which very
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: well may be true, but it meant a lot of
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: these benefits were hidden. So like some of, some of
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the benefits for individuals were through payroll, uh, tax credits
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: that they might not see in their paychecks. You know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: we have this, the, the, the, the, uh, this $ 1. 9
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: trillion stimulus gives people an additional $ 300 a week. This
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: mixed the way in which unemployed people and others got
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: direct help, but it was more like $ 25 a week
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: in direct unemployment insurance, at least in one part of
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: the bill. And even still, this was also a third
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: of the money was for a long-term infrastructure project. So
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: it just gives you a sense that this is much
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: more money that people will be able to see and
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: know that they're getting and know the origin of it,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: because I do think that that is one of the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: lessons from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And by the way, We had to pass the Recovery
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Act through regular order, which means we needed 60 votes
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: for it. People forget that. And so and why did
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: we do that? Because we couldn't find even 51 Democratic
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: senators were willing to go through reconciliation back then because
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: everyone was. you know, so enamored with the Senate rules. Like,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: so for all the frustrations we have now with Joe
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, which are all legitimate, like we
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: had a bunch of conservative to moderate Democratic senators back
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in 2009 who just didn't want to go through the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: reconciliation route. And we had to find, and that's why
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the bill was ended up being smaller, you know? And
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: then in terms of the CARES Act, I do think that,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you know, even though Trump's CARES Act was like $ 2. 2 trillion,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: so slightly more money than this, it did deliver much
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: more of the benefits to businesses than it did to individuals,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: more to upper-income people than it did to lower- and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: middle-class-income people. So this was a much more progressive piece
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: of legislation than the CARES Act.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's also good to remember, in 2009, I
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: think Democrats had thought that the Recovery Act would be
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: the first but not the last stimulus bill. And then
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: we ran into Mitch McConnell, who was happy to hurt
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: the country if it hurt Obama politically and benefited him, right?
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And to their great credit, Biden... And Schumer and Pelosi,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: they did not make that mistake this time. And to
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: your point about the CARES Act, the CARES Act did
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of good. But right, $ 500 billion of that
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: bill was in the form of loans and other money
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: to big corporations. And that had to happen. You couldn't
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: have airlines going bankrupt, but it's a lot less targeted. Similarly,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: the PPP program that went to small businesses created winners
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and losers in ways that was not great. And so
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: this is direct money to people, direct money to states,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: to schools. You know, I do think the story is
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: not written about how effective it is. Right. But in
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: the way the money is used will be uneven. So
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: some states will take the check they get from the
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: federal government and they'll invest it in stuff we think
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: is important. Some red state governors will probably just give
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: rich people a big tax cut. That's just kind of
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: is how it is. But this is a hell of
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: a hell of a good start if you want to
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: get the economy running.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I will say politically, too. The fact that every Republican
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and most Democrats voted for the CARES Act and its $ 2. 2
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: trillion in spending opened the door, I think, for more
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: moderate Democrats to vote for this much money this time around.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So I guess thank you, Donald Trump, for that. The
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: fact that we had a Republican president who was not
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: just solely focused on deficits, though I can't remember one
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: who really was once they got to office because Bush
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: wasn't either. But the fact that the Trump administration, probably
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: because he wasn't paying any fucking attention to legislating, actually
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was and because he thought that by giving people money,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: he could win reelection.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Like that's what those are the motives that probably drove him.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So not great motives. But I do think it opened
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the door for Democrats, especially moderate Democrats, to say, yeah,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: we're not afraid to spend a bunch of money now.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I also I also do think we benefited from the
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: fact that Republicans spent this week angry at the entity
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: that controls Dr. Seuss's image for the brand maintenance they
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: decided to do. I do like it's a big deal.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Like we're doing like government here. You know, politics is
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: going to ultimately lead to government. We're doing the government
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: part right now while you're doing this Seuss part.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I saw I saw Sawyer Hackett, who worked for Julian
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Castro during the primary, tweeted just now. So once some Democrat,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: prominent Democrat should go out and say that Fred Flintstone
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: is racist and then we quickly eliminate the filibuster and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: then see what Fox News covers for the week.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: You joke. Obviously, like that's a joke.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: But is it?
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Is it a joke? It might work. It might work.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So as we mentioned, Biden and Democratic leaders didn't get
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: everything they wanted in the bill. We talked on Thursday
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: about how Senate moderates demanded to lower the upper income
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: threshold for the fourteen hundred dollar direct payments from one
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand down to eighty thousand. Joe Manchin made a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: last minute demand to reduce the expanded weekly unemployment benefits
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: from an extra four hundred dollars a week to three
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars a week, though the first ten thousand two
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars worth of benefits will now be tax deductible.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And a vote that Bernie Sanders forced on the fifteen
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: dollar minimum wage failed when eight Senate Democrats voted no.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: including Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema, who drew quite a bit of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: attention when she marked her vote by flashing a thumbs
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: down on the Senate floor. Tommy, let's start with the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: unemployment change, which we apparently almost lost Joe Manchin and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the entire bill over. What do you think that was
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: all about?
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, like, it's hard to know
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: if he really. So the generous explanation is that he
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: really did want to try to target as much of
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: this bill as he could to people under a certain
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: income threshold.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: But like there also just seems like there's a part
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: of his personality and his governing philosophy where he just
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: draws these lines in the sand and then has to
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: be dragged kicking and screaming back over them. I mean,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: the final changes he made in terms of unemployment insurance, right?
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: The $ 400 a week went to $ 300 a week. That's significant.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: But this that last minute wrangling, like basically what happened
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: was to get him to yes and The benefit is
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: going to expire on September 6th instead of September 31st.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: And the tax forgiveness part of this will be capped
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: at people who make $ 150, 000 in income, which all said
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: and done wasn't that significant of a change when you
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: look at the scope of the bill.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it also, Lovett, to me, seemed like, you know,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: listening to Joe Manchin talk about sort of these last
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: minute wrangling, listening to the other senators who like really
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: tried hard to convince him. I mean, it really did
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: come close to, there was apparently an amendment from Rob
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Portman that was just going to take the money down
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: from 400 to 300 without making any of it tax
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: deductible and have a shorter timeframe. And Manchin was like
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: ready to go with that. And if Manchin did vote
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: for that Portman amendment, it could have sunk the bill
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in the House. Progressives in the House could have said no.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And just by like sitting down, twisting arms, talking, negotiating, compromising,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: like they got Manchin back, which tells me that like, A,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: some of the reasons Joe Manchin is against bills or
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: for bills or against provisions or for provisions, like make
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: little sense. And B, like he is gettable. Like if
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: you talk to him and sit down with him, it's,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: you know, you can actually bring him back. And that's
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: what a lot of the Democratic senators did.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is going to continue to be
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: hard to tell when Joe Manchin is has a legitimate,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: moderate policy view based on talking to Democrats and Republicans
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: and finding a, I should say moderate, finding the center
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: of the Senate, which is quite conservative. Moments when he
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: just actually kind of also believes in a bipartisan process,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: that he has a kind of aesthetic or kind of
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: faith in bipartisan behavior and wants to model it. Or three,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: he knows that he's going to ultimately vote for a
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: lot of massive, very progressive Democratic priorities, as he's done
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: in this case. And he wants to do some performative centrism,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: some performative moderation. I don't think he hates it when
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Lindsey Graham and John Thune are on the floor of
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: the Senate joking about like, oh no, they're gonna get
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: my friend Joe Manchin. Somebody protect Joe Manchin from these Democrats. Like,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I don't think he hates that at all. Like in
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: this case, you end up with something where, like I
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: think for some people it comes out in the wash,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: but not for people who make over a certain amount
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: who won't get the tax benefit. It seems like he
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: might in part have been genuinely persuaded by people who said,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Republicans who told him, in person, this is too much
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: of a benefit. It's going to dissuade people from work.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: We can disagree with him on that. But I think
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: there's always with him going to be a mix of
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: those three incentives.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what do you think we do about the minimum
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: wage now? It wasn't just Sinema, but eight Democratic senators, Manchin, Tester,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Angus King of Maine, Jean Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire, Tom Carper and Chris Coons of Delaware. They
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: all say they want a minimum wage higher than the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: current miserable minimum wage of $ 7. 25 an hour. that hasn't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: been raised in over a decade, but didn't make it
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: through this bill. What do we do now?
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, it was very, very disappointing. It
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: is not clear to me if they voted against it
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: because they think $ 15 is too high, or if it
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: was because the parliamentarian in this instance determined that it
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: couldn't be part of the bill. But it is frustrating.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's sort of a benchmark piece of legislation
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: out there called the Raise the Wage Act. I think
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: it's Bernie's bill. It is 37 Democrats who co-sponsor it,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: which is nowhere near enough. So, I mean, I think
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: we're going to either have to make the case, twist
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: some arms, try to get 50 people and find a
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: way to do it in another reconciliation bill, or Republicans
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: and Democrats are going to have to find a compromise
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: that probably is closer to an $ 11 minimum wage increase.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: But if they can index that to inflation... That could
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: be an important development in an area that's just been
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: stuck for a decade and it really needs to be increased.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Well, but what do you think about that thumbs down
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: from Kyrsten Sinema?
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I don't care.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I find her logic frustrating. I find the policy decision frustrating.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I don't give a shit how she votes. Sometimes they
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: vote with their thumbs down.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I don't care. I don't care at all. I'm sorry.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry that you care. It was a lot.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I just think it's like, where do we want to
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: channel our energy, right? Like, I think where we want
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: to channel our energy now is what Tommy was just saying,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: which is like, OK, if you have mentioned on Meet
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the Press said every single senator, even Republican senators, wants
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a higher minimum wage.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So if you can get a compromise, even with Republicans.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to get 11 or something around there that's indexed to inflation.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe you get 60 votes for that. Or maybe as
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Dan has suggested, you fire the parliamentarian quietly so that
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: next time you do a big package like this, you
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: get a more favorable ruling. And then you see what
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Democrats want for higher wage. Maybe you get 11, maybe
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you get 12 from them. The other thing that we
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: can do is the Fairness Project that has won minimum
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: wage ballot measures in nine states, red, purple, blue. They
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: want to do more in 2022. Let's get it on
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the ballot in some states. We can win in very
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: red states there. And then like, as we look ahead
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to 2022, we have a bunch of Democratic candidates we're
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: going to nominate for the Senate. Let's make sure they
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: specifically support a $ 15 minimum wage.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: And one other piece of this too is like, we
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: should focus on the people who voted no and try
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: to understand why they voted no. And like, for example, Shaheen,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: she said basically she is worried about the tipped minimum
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: wage given the vulnerability of the restaurant industry. Let's make
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: an argument about that. Let's make an argument about why
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: it's really important to raise the tip minimum wage. Sinema
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: had a problem with the process and whether or not
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: to do it through reconciliation. Maybe she's open now to
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: doing a $ 15 minimum wage otherwise. So each of these
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: people who voted no offered a different motivation. Let's understand
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: those motivations and see which of them are gettable to
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: get that number higher and higher and closer to 50.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Because the closer we are to 50, I think the
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: the better position we'll be in to negotiate if it
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: ultimately comes down to negotiation over coming down from 15
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: to 13 to another number, finding other kinds of compromise.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: For example, when it looked like the $ 15 minimum wage
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: was going to come out, there was a brief moment
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: where there was an option for figuring out a way
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: to just do a $ 15 minimum wage for big corporations.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: That fell away because it seemed complicated and there were
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: questions about how to administer it. But that is a
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: policy idea that's been floating around for a long time.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: And raising the minimum wage for big corporations would create
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: pressure on the wage across the country. So there are
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: different paths we should pursue, but I would say focusing
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: on the actual motivation for those people and criticize them,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: put pressure on them, but understand their reasons.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like You don't have to like her. We're stuck
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: with Kyrsten Sinema until 2024. All right. We're stuck with
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin until then, too. We're stuck with them. They're
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: going to they're going to have jobs. There's nothing we
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: can do. And so we need their votes. We need
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: every single vote in a Senate that's tied.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Until 2022. And maybe we get some more senators if
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: we're very, very lucky and work very hard. So you're
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: totally right, Lovett, that like understanding what has caused these
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: people to oppose it is much better than like I
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: see a lot of people tweeting. Old statements from all
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: these senators who voted no that said they want to
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: raise the minimum wage as if it's like, gotcha, hypocrite.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, well, all of them want to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: raise the minimum wage. Either they don't think 15 is
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the right amount, which I disagree with. I want 15.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: We all want 15. Or they didn't like the process.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So like understand why they didn't like it. Get everyone
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: in a room and let's like figure out a way
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: to do this. It just seems like the best bet.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Right, like Tester Mansion, like they have a lower cost
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: of living in their states. So there's like a challenge
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: there and like low cost of living versus high cost
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: of living states. Obviously, one thing that'll help is Dan
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Pfeiffer's primary challenge to Tom Carper is going to create
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: some pressure on him to move on.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Dan for Delaware. Yeah.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: And Delaware for Dan, frankly.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Republicans who gave a grand total
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of zero votes for a piece of legislation supported by
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: 70 percent of Americans and about half of all Republican voters.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of this process, a lot of political
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: reporters were obsessed with Biden getting Republican votes for this,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: partly because Republicans spun it that way, partly because Biden
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: said during the campaign that he could get Republicans to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: work with him. Want to talk about bipartisanship in a second, but.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: What happened to the working class populist party of Josh
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Hawley and Tom Cotton, guys? Where's that? We didn't get
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a vote from our populist heroes on the Republican Party?
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: What happened, Tom?
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: They are full of shit. I mean, Tom Cotton and
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Mitt Romney, back to the minimum wage, they have a
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: bill that would raise the minimum wage to $ 10 an hour,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: but it takes longer. It's by 2025, but it also
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: ties it to an immigration reform bill. measure to screen
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: out undocumented workers. So their bill is not designed to
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: just help the working poor. It's designed to be a
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: wedge issue and probably a popular one. But in the
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: sign of how full of shit Tom Cotton is, Arkansas,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: his home state, already has a minimum wage above $ 10
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: an hour. So this guy's proposing something that doesn't even
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: help his own constituents. So I think that tells you
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: all you need to know about their sincerity in this area.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Lovett, what does the unified Republican opposition to this bill
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: say to you about the future of bipartisanship in the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Biden era?
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'd say prospects are not good, especially because, look,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: we talked about this. I think the fact that, like,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's actually a bad, obviously, I think Republicans
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: were never going to support en masse this bill. They're
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: just not going to do that. It tells you something
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: about the asymmetric polarization in our country that Democrats got
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: behind the CARES Act and Republicans will not get behind this.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: But the fact that none peeled off, no Republicans made
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: the calculation that they should buck their party and get
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: behind this kind of legislation tells you how much more
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: afraid Republicans are of primaries in the general election and
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: how difficult it will be to pry Republicans away from
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: their leaders and from the base to vote with Democrats,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: even on very, very popular bills like this.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Tommy? I mean, like my view is,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, Biden, obviously, part of his campaign was him saying,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I could probably, I can deal with Mitch McConnell,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the fever will break some of the some of what
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: we heard from Obama back in the day, too. Part
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of it was, you know, I think I can bring
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the country together around sort of big policy goals. It
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: feels like he achieved the latter here, even if he
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: did not achieve the former.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, people like the bill, the more you tell
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: them about the bill, they like it more, right? I mean,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: you could make an argument about Washington polarization that The
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: partisanship is actually worse than it was under Obama because
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: the Recovery Act got Republican votes. Now, they're vastly different bills,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: so that's maybe apples to oranges. But the thing that
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: I think is hard to understand and confusing about all
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: of this in terms of how it shakes out is
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: that Trump and the Republican Congress are in very different
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: places when it comes to these issues. I mean, Trump
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: blames McConnell for the Georgia Senate loss because Democrats ran
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: on giving $ 2, 000 checks. And Mitch would only offer $ 600 checks.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: So the future of the Republican Party is very much
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: in doubt with this major Trump-McConnell split. And I'm not
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: exactly sure what path they will chart, but it does
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: seem like the Republican members of Congress are wildly out
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: of step with the country and even their own voters.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: That's the most important point, I think. for Biden and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the Democrats to keep making, right? This whole thing has
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: been the test for Biden about bipartisanship. It's not a test.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Biden has done great here. Biden decided to put forth
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a bill that most Americans, including Republicans, support. He asked
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Republicans for their input. He met with them. They decided
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: that they didn't really want to play ball. Everyone in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the country or 70 percent of the country still supported
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the bill. It's a bill that will deliver benefits to
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: people in blue states and red states. He had a
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: bunch of mayors and governors who are Republicans supporting it, too.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: If a bunch of Republicans in D.C. want to be,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you know, intransigent and just continue to oppose every single
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: thing he does. That's their problem. They're the ones out
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of step with the voters.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I'd also say, too, that like I've obviously there's a
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: lot of different ways you can describe unity. It's an
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: entirely nebulous concept. But one thing that was striking is
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: like after this, after this passed, right, no Republican votes.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: There was a there was a Times piece that was like,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: you know, Joe Biden's efforts to produce unity couldn't overcome
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the acrimony of Washington and the bitter fight over the
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: stimulus bill.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I think it was that bitter.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Like I wasn't, it wasn't that bitter. It was, it
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: was kind of, you know, like I, it is abnormal
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to have a Republican party, not interested in saving the
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: country in the midst of a pandemic, but the actual
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: process by which are produced.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: You got your usual bullshit from your Tom Cotton saying, oh,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: it's just a check for prisoners, even though they did
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: the exact same thing with the.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Kid, whatever.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of the usual shit, but like, this
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: wasn't a particularly bitter fight. This, I actually think it
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: was a much less bitter fight than the fight over
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Obamacare in a lot of respects in terms.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Of how it actually played out. So I don't know.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: I think, um, what Biden said, right? He's focused on
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: actual policy, not Twitter, I think is having some knock-on effects.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: That was, I mean, in the inaugural, he said every
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: That's the standard, he said. And that's what happened with
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: this bill. There was a bunch of disagreements, but like
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: everyone sort of moved on. We passed a huge progressive
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: piece of legislation.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Dan had some great ideas in this week's message box,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: this weekend's message box about how to sell the American
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Rescue Plan. Tommy, how do you think it, how important
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: do you think it is to take a victory lap
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: on this. And do you have any other good ideas
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: on how to sell this thing?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: I think it's important to sell any accomplishment. And this
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: one in particular, because as we talked about earlier in
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: the polling, The more people hear about this bill, the
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: more they will like it. Now, I do think this
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: is a very different sales job than what Obama attempted
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: to do in 2009, right? Because the way Biden is
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: going to sell this bill will be in part to
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: just continue to manage the vaccine rollout well. We haven't
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: even talked about the fact that this bill provides a
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: ton of money from COVID testing. and for vaccinations. People
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: want the vaccine, or if they don't want the vaccine,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: they want others around them to be vaccinated so that
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: the cases drop down and they get their lives back, right?
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: People who get checks will probably be happy to get
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: a $ 1, 400 check because they need it. I do worry
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: a bit about the people who got a check the
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: first time during the Trump administration and aren't getting a
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: check this time because the income threshold is was changed. But,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: you know, hopefully Biden can hang that change around the
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Republicans neck and, you know, make them make them own it. But,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: you know, look, I'm glad that Biden is saying I
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: want to be out there. I want to talk about
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: this bill. I want to sell it hard. I think
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: that there is definitely room to criticize the ways the
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Obama White House did or did not sell the stimulus
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: in 2009. But it's also just an entirely different context.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Like unemployment was way higher The economy wasn't recovering fast. Hopefully,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: the Biden team will be in a place going into
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: the midterms where the COVID outbreak has just been managed
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: completely in the country and the economy is just cooking
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: again because this was a very different recession. It wasn't
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: a big structural challenge with the banks. It was everybody
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: having to sit in their house because they didn't want
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: to get sick.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. uh,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that we didn't really sell the, the recovery act in 2009.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: How many times did we write the recovery act is
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: divided into three parts. He did a lot of events
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: after the bill was passed. He traveled all over the country,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: did a ton of events. I think part of the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: problem is, you know, the substance of the bill. Like
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you said, Tommy, there was like, and love it. You
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: pointed this out too, that there's like tax changes that
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: people can't really see. I saw, you know, uh, post
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: had a piece this weekend that said, uh, Ed Randell,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm going to bring Ed Randell up,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: but He wanted Obama to send a letter to every
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: American saying what benefits they were going to get. And
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: we said, no, I think Ed Rendell was right. Donald
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Trump wanted to fucking sign the checks, sign the stimulus checks.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Like I, at the time, I wasn't one of the
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: people criticizing that.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Sign the fucking checks, Joe Biden. No, I just didn't
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: want him to sign them.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I didn't want Trump to sign them. I didn't want
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: his name on those fucking checks.
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: It's valuable to do that.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. I mean, look, there was no vaccine for the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: predatory lending and mortgage crisis that was unfolding. And so
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: there was no clear end in sight. And so we
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: were very careful. President Obama was very careful. We were
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: very careful as speechwriters to make sure that even as
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: we talked about all the things the Recovery Act did,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: we were very nervous about sounding too Pollyanna-ish about the
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: state of the economy because of how hard things were
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and how long they were going to be hard. So
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I do think that part of it is just, it's
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: a different sort of crisis.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Jen said at the briefing this morning that... vast majority
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: of Americans will be getting some relief by the end
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of this month, too. That's a huge difference in both
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act, which like
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the benefits for that didn't kick in until two years.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And so the fact that a bunch of Americans are
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: going to, you know, they'll know that this bill passed
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and then a month later are going to get relief.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, Biden's got an address, a primetime address that's
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Thursday now scheduled to talk about COVID. He's we think
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: has the address to Congress, his joint session to Congress,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: which is like a State of the Union in the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: first year. He'll hopefully have that to sell it. I
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: saw a story that they're going to be working with
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: like social media influencers to sort of get the word
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: out to different communities that they're doing this. So I
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: think it's going to be a full court press. And,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you know, and what Pfeiffer pointed out in his in
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the message box, too, is like it's up to all
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of us to it. Like everyone who. worked so hard
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to organize in this election, to like get friends to vote,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: that work continues in selling what Joe Biden actually did
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: for people. Because if people don't know that the government
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: did anything for them, like you can't blame them for
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: not voting again, right? You got to be explicit.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: Just to paraphrase Mike Tyson for a second, like everyone's
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: got a rollout plan until you get punched in the face.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, some shit is going to happen that is
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: going to entirely change the focus of the national conversation.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Maybe it'll be another Dr. Seuss related crisis, or maybe
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: it'll be something far more serious. We don't know. I
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: hope that they're able to really focus on this bill
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and sell it to the American people. But like, you
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: don't always have the choice. Fox News certainly isn't going
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: to help you. They don't give a shit what you say.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Well, Fox News is not going to like, are we
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: going to are we going to spend every episode of
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America being like now for our two minute
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: segment on the American rescue plan?
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: It's impossible.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: It's impossible to do that. Like some of this is
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: going to be, you know, Um, there's some outside organizations
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: that are gonna do some paid advertising. I think that's
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: pretty wise. Um, yeah, I think that's, that's part of
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: it too.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I think we should just need to get, we gotta
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: have to get, um, Meghan Markle to say that, uh,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Prince Philip fucking hated it.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: That would be helpful.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: Good idea.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: See, now you're thinking outside the box.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: I also do think too, like one of it, one
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: of the challenges too is like, I think Biden also
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: should talk about keeping up the fight for the minimum
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: wage because I do think that like people were disappointed
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: and the fight over the minimum wage, uh, I think
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: could for a lot of people until they, if they
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: don't know more about what's in this, like it could
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: over like that defeat could overshadow the, the, the, the
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: enormity of what they achieved. And so I think like
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: people like Elizabeth Warren, I thought struck the perfect note
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: when she was describing this, like how big of a
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: victory this is, but on a couple on, on these
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: key issues, like the fight continues. And I think Biden
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: should say that too.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: And I think I'm sure he will. And in some,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: in even in like very online communities, people were wallowing
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: in the defeats and then slowly figuring out what was
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: in the bill. And you'd see Twitter from like policy
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: reporters being like, wow, the more I dig into this,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: the more impactful and big it is. It's like, yeah,
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: no shit. Like, let's take a win.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Policy reporters and activists who've been working on these issues
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: for years, like the people, Rosa DeLauro and a lot
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: of the organizers and activists who've been fighting for a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: child allowance and Cory Booker and Michael Bennett and Sherrod Brown,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: they've been pushing this for years and they could not
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: get people to really pay attention to trying to fight
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: child poverty with a child allowance. And Like, you talk
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: to any of those people who've been fighting for this
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: for a long time, they're pretty fucking excited right now. Yeah,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: they're thrilled. Let's talk about what's next for Biden and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the Democrats in terms of their legislative agenda. They have
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: one more 51-vote reconciliation process they can use to spend
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: money on infrastructure, climate, and other economic budgetary priorities like
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: we saw in the American Rescue Plan. As long as
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the filibuster remains in place, everything else has to be
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: passed through the regular 60-vote process. Probably a path to citizenship,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: protections for DREAMers, police reform, the Equality Act, and H.R. 1.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: which is the voting rights and democracy reform legislation known
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: as the For the People Act. Prime Minister Manchin did
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: a round of interviews this weekend where he made some
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: newsworthy comments on both reconciliation and the filibuster. Here's what
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: he told Mike Allen of Axios.
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: Reconciliation is not a team sport and it's not a
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: healthy situation. And it's something we should not repeat.
• 38:37
  Speaker 7: After you swallow the COVID relief plan, President Biden is
• 38:40
  Speaker 7: going to have a second package. You're laughing, but a
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: second package, maybe even bigger, probably focused on infrastructure and energy, climate.
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: That's all good. But I'm not going to do it
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: through reconciliation. If my Democrats have bought on, my fellow
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: Democrats have bought on that you have no Republican friends
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: that will work in a reasonable manner.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: I don't subscribe to that.
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: Would you support any kind of filibuster reform?
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: The only thing I have even considered or thought of
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: is basically something through the.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: History, how it used to be.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Making them talk.
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: There should be pain to a filibuster.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: There should be pain.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And what is the pain?
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: Maybe the talking, basically.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: You've got to read the phone book or whatever.
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: That's it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Do whatever.
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: But make sure you have a little bit of pain.
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: Just don't say, well, no, I'm not going to vote.
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to vote for that.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: What other pain?
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: Well, you have the pain, basically, as the filibuster, talking
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: filibuster they've talked before. Some of the rules could be
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: changed a little bit, but not to the point where
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: just a simple majority rules.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: He wants to make the filibuster more painful. What does
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: that look like in practice and why is that potentially
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: big news?
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Well, so one thing to know that I think a
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: lot of people didn't fully understand is just how codified
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: and routinized the filibuster is right now, which is nobody
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: has to show up, nobody has to stand up and talk.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: One staffer in a Senate office just has to respond
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: to an email saying that they are not going to
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: go along with the unanimous consent, right? So it's just
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: like an email response right now that causes this explosion
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: in the number of filibusters. We used to talk about
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: them as they're sort of like shadow filibusters because no
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: one ever actually shows up and does the filibuster. It's
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: predicated on the assumption that there will be a filibuster,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: And what Manchin is saying here is let's actually force
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: them to have the filibuster. Let's have them show up.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Norm Ornstein has written in The Atlantic a number of
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: different ways that this can play out. Some of it
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: is just saying you have to show up and talk.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Some of it is a changing from you need 60
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: people to say yes, as opposed to you need 40
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: people to say no. So if they want to have
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: an ongoing filibuster, 40 people have to literally be in
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: the body. But all this is about getting rid of
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: the assumption that every single piece of legislation requires 60 votes.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: So basically Manchin is saying he is open to those
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: kinds of reforms and It's interesting, right? Because people have
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: been shouting questions at Joe Manchin about the filibuster for
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: months now. He seems to be quite frustrated with it.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: And he's saying, will you abolish the filibuster? Will you
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: abolish the filibuster? And he's always like, no, never.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: How dare you? Stop asking.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I won't even consider it. But as we've said many times,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: follow along with Pod Save America, that that left the
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: room open for some kind of reforms that maybe leave
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: some version of the filibuster in place, but gets what
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: he wants, which is bipartisan debate, bipartisan involvement, minority involvement
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: in the decisions of the legislature without giving Mitch McConnell
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: a veto on every single bill in perpetuity.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, Tommy, when I first heard about this,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, couldn't you see a grandstander like
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: asshole like Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley being like, yeah,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I'll sit and talk on the floor for a couple
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of days. But if they have to talk forever, right,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: or if they need 40 people, 40 Republican senators, basically,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: to maintain a filibuster and to be on the floor constantly.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: That's pretty, how long can you keep that up? Like
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: maybe that is, and then, you know, it sounds pretty
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: good to me.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I have more questions than answers about how this
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: process would work. I mean, could you just like stack
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: one filibuster speech after another so that it de facto
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: lasts forever? I don't know that these geezers could pull
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: that off, but it's a question I have. Does Manchin
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: think we need a bunch of Republican votes on a
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: filibuster reform package before he'll support it? I don't know.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I know that Manchin backed a version of a filibuster
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: reform bill like this back in 2011 that didn't pass.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, the talking filibuster is better. We should
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: note that the context, it was used extensively to filibuster
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: civil rights legislation. So there's a dark history there that
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: may get repeated with H.R. 1. So it's not a
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: great option, but it's a hell of a lot better than... Just,
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: you know, things as they are now, where basically we
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: could do two bills in Joe Biden's first term and
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: they both will be reconciliation.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what the talking filibuster does is the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: long if when the public comes to see the Senate
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: just be at a standstill and just speeches against voting
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: rights and civil rights for like a week at a time,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: two weeks at a time, and it just keeps going
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and going and going. Eventually, is there more pressure than
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: there would be with the automatic 60 vote margin? to
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: at least sit down and start compromising, right? And so
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: maybe on HR1, you get like, you know, Manchin's sick
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: of this filibuster that's going forever, Sinema is, and you say, okay,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: maybe the Republicans don't want publicly funded elections, but maybe
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: they'll do automatic.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Voter, you know what I'm saying?
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Like, it at least gives us the possibility for more
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: compromise than we had with, as Lovett was pointing out,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: just an email that says, yeah, my senators know, and
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: we're going to have to get 60 no matter what.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: It's something, and we just had nothing. So that's, it's
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: good news for that.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I also would say too, like, you know, even on
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: this question about him requiring bipartisan votes on things like infrastructure,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: these maximal hypotheticals posed to Joe Manchin, he is very,
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: he is hell bent on demonstrating that he, when he
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: says he's bipartisan, he means it, but he still leaves
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: the door open. And I think sometimes that is lost. Like,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: so he said, I am not going to get on
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: a bill that cuts them out completely before we start trying.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Trying, yes. Before we start trying. Right.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I caught that too.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: I did too.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: So like he is– I think that one of the
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: reasons sometimes Manchin's positions on some of these things have
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: been presented as like fait accompli or like kind of
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: immovable is because I think he actually wants them to
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: seem that way. He wants them to– when someone is like,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: will you ever do this without being bipartisan?
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: He's like, hell no.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: How dare you even ask me? But when he actually
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: comes down to the governing and the legislating, he is
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: leaving the door open. And look, I'm not saying Joe
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Manchin is where we want him to be on a
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: whole host of policies.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Across the board.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: But I think we just need to be really specific
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: about what he's actually been saying. Because sometimes Joe Manchin
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: being anti-something kind of slows everything down.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Like, well, why bother? We don't have Manchin.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: But he's gettable. We should think of him always as
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: being gettable.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Which shows back to our question about the future of bipartisanship.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: even though there were no Republican votes this time, Joe
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Biden is going to continue the dance of, I want
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: to try to get Republicans to work with me, if
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: not for the American people or because he believes it
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: to be true, for Joe Manchin, for the audience of
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin and Pearson Cinema.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: There's no cost.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: As he should, as he should. And, you know, today,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Psaki was asked about Biden's position on the filibuster. And
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: she said, again, you know, he would prefer the rules
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: not to be changed. I wish, you know, his position
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: now was Joe Manchin's idea of the talking filibuster is interesting,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: but like, Maybe Joe Biden doesn't want to get out
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: in front of the parade. Maybe he wants to have
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Manchin and the Senate go through this themselves. That's fine.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I think there's going to be I do think there's
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: going to be a moment where Joe Biden is going
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: to have to show leadership on this and push particularly
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: on H.R.1. Maybe that's not maybe the moment is not
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: here yet, but he's going to have to get there
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: at some point.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: But there's also like one thing that has been very
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: useful about Joe Biden's. moderate aesthetic, which is a lot
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: of times what it really boils down to. We were
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: incredibly frustrated by him in the primary saying that Republicans
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: are going to have an epiphany and all that. One
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: of the advantages of that is when he does come
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: to a progressive position, it looks more moderate. It becomes
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: the kind of consensus position, and that's really valuable. So ultimately,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: when he does come out for some kind of filibuster reform,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: you know that it will be a consensus position that
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: some other Democrats that are reluctant can hopefully, hopefully get behind.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I do think this next reconciliation bill, if it ends
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: up being a reconciliation bill, is going to be pretty wild.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: It's going to be an infrastructure, climate bill, maybe up to,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they floated $ 4 trillion. And now Joe Manchin's saying he
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: want it paid for by raising taxes. He wants some
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: pay-fors too, which I'm like, okay, you're going to pass
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: a $ 4 trillion bill, raising taxes, and you're going to
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: do it by getting 10 Republican senators on board? I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: don't know what Joe Manchin's smoking.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: That's why he's annoying, right? Because he wants a $ 2
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: to $ 4 trillion bill, but he won't vote for it
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: if Republicans aren't included. But he says it has to
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: be fully paid for, but he wants to increase the
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: corporate tax rate and then repeal the Trump tax cuts.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: You know that that scenario does not exist. So to
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: float it like that in an interview, to create a
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: dynamic that is impossible to achieve, it's baffling to me.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, again, it would be like, look, maybe he
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: just likes to make a scene. so that he can
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: prove to folks back home that he's not loved by
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: either party, but get things done and is his own man.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that plays well, but it's very fucking frustrating
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: for those of us who are trying to parse his
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: statements and create something that is logically coherent because it
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: does not exist there.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: How dare you, Tommy? How fucking dare you talk about
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin, who we love?
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: He's our prime minister. Look, I think the most generous
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: interpretation of that is that Joe Manchin was speaking to
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Republican senators directly. And this is basically saying, this is
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: our opening offer, $ 4 trillion, bunch of shit. We want
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to raise taxes to pay for it. We want to
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: work with you guys. What do you got?
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: And then we'll see. And then, you know, they won't
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: come back and say, absolutely not. Uh, some of them will,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: most of them will, but like his buddies who are
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and, and Mitt Romney will
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: come back and say, okay, I could do some pay
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: for his, some taxes. I could, cut it down to
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: $ 3 trillion or $ 2 trillion. So maybe this is just
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: sort of the opening negotiation here. But I do think
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: for our purposes, like Democrats and activists and organizers need
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to start pushing our priorities for this next reconciliation bill,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: for the Build Back Better bill, whatever it's going to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: be called. And it can be anything from, I think
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: it's going to be, climate's going to be huge in
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: this bill. This is where we're going to get climate done.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: To the extent we're going to get done, there's a
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: lot more, there's making the childcare allowance permanent could happen
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: in this bill as well. Some of these measures, most
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: of the measures in the COVID relief, the American Rescue
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Plan only last a year. So making them permanent in
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the next bill is going to be really important too.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot we should fight to get done there.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I do think on H.R. 1, the key now is
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: going to be really put pressure on your representatives, whether
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: they're Democrat or Republican in the House and the Senate,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: especially in the Senate since it's going to go there now,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to pass this bill to make sure we have a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: big fight over this. You can go to votesaveamerica.com slash
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: forthepeople to learn more about HR1 and to help make
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: sure it gets passed. This is going to be hopefully
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the next big fight and the real test of um
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: joe mansion's flirtation with filibuster reform it's a flirt it's
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: an open flirtation.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: It's getting pretty.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: It's getting pretty uh pretty flirtatious pretty um i think
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: they may uh what are you gonna say i don't
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: know i'm not funny anymore maybe i never was gotta
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: get out of this pandemic i'm good on it one
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: year Happy year anniversary, boys.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: One year.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Well, when we come back, you'll get to hear Love
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: It Be Funny with Virginia State Delegate Danica Roem.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Joining us on the pod, she's a Virginia state delegate
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: and former journalist. First elected in 2017, she was the
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: first openly transgender person to serve in a U.S. state legislature.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Please welcome Danica Rome.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: Good to see you.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for the invitation. It's great to join, John.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: So since President Biden was inaugurated in January, he's made
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: federal protections for trans Americans a priority. He's lifted the
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: ban on trans service members, for example. At the same time,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: we're also seeing a record number of anti-trans bills at
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: the state level. Where do you see the fight for
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: trans rights right now? What are some of these aggressive
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: local efforts to discriminate? What do they mean to trans
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: people and what should people do right now in response?
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Sure. So I'll take the second half of that first
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: and then we'll come back to the first half. So
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: the first thing about what should people do in response
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: is elect people who will actually take care of their constituents,
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: who won't single out and stigmatize the very people they're
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: elected to serve. Look what happened here in Virginia now
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: that we've done that, now that we have our Democratic
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: majorities that we worked so hard to elect, first coming
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: within a hair in 2017, and then actually winning the
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: majorities in 2019. We have passed so many pro-LGBTQ bills
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: in the Virginia General Assembly in the last two years.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: It's been an all-you-can-gay buffet in Richmond. It's just we
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: have done things like the Virginia Values Act, which actually
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: put some real teeth into our enforcement mechanisms. HB 1049
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: from Delia Levine, which added sexual orientation, gender identity to
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: more than 70 different sections of non-discrimination code. We passed
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: my bills to prohibit discrimination against trans people in health insurance,
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: which actually happened to me in 2014. We passed my
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: bills to ban the gay and trans panic defense this year,
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: HB 2132. We passed my bill last year to allow
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: for localities to include sexual orientation, gender identity in their
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: non-discrimination code. ordinances at the local level. We passed my resolution, H.J. 85,
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: to recognize the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: of every year in Virginia. We have non-binary driver's licenses
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: now as well. We passed one bill from Delegate Jennifer
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: Carol Foy, who's now running for governor, that says that
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: if you're going to have a dress code at your
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: public school, that it has to be gender neutral, so
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: you're not just picking on gay and trans kids. And
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: we have passed just There's so many more. If you
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: want me to just kind of take them off in
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: five minutes, I'm happy to dive in.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I'm enjoying it.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: So, you know, like what I'm really trying to get
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: at here is like we've even done HIV modernization this year,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: for example, an LGBTQ advisory task force that actually responds
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: directly to the governor, for example. We've had bills to
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: deal with people who were discharged with anything other than
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: honorable treatment. under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, so that at
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: least in Virginia, we're respecting their service. And the list
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: goes on. And so it's like, oh, oh, oh. And
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: I should also mention, we also passed a bill for
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: model trans policies for how to humanely trans kids in schools,
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: which is something that's obviously at the heart of a
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: lot of the fights going on right now. And also,
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: here's another thing. One of the fights right now is
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: about sports and stuff like that. In Virginia, we took
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: care of this six years ago. if you actually look
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: at the model policy of the Virginia high school league
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: uses here in Virginia, it's a non issue. You know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: there's an entire process that trans athletes go through. So,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: you know, it's basically verifying that they're not going to
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: have a, you know, inherently competitive advantage over other people.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: At the same time, you look at the policy that
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: we've done, you look at, you know, there's a few
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: trans kids, but not a lot, but just a few
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: who actually play sports in first place here, because most
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: kids feel too stigmatized to even do it. And you
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: look at where we are and it's just like, what's
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: the point of attacking children, their kids, they want to
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: play sports. Oh, well, this might mean that, you know,
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: as the, you know, the opponents might say like, oh,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: well then this is going to prevent, you know, is
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: this some cisgender girl from getting a, you know, varsity
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: scholarship or whatever. First off, cisgender girls who are competing
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: at varsity levels are incredible athletes to begin with. I
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: covered them as a newspaper reporter covering high school sports
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: for 10 and a half years. Like I am telling you,
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: We are looking at a lot of kids who are
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: extremely just like really competitive. Another thing is that when
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: you have trans kids who are on puberty blockers, who
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: are on HRT to begin with, and within nine months,
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: their testosterone level is either at that level or even
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: below that of cis girls, their estrogen level is the
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: same range. They don't have that competitive advantage. And in fact,
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: with the puberty blockers plus HRT, you're even basically allowing
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: their growth to be consistent with that of cis girls
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: in the first place. Ask me how I know as
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: a trans person. I'll be happy to tell you. Yeah, so.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: You're right, right?
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: They're focusing on trans youth and specifically around sports. 65
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: of the 73 anti-trans bills introduced at the state level
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: this year have specifically targeted trans youth, many around sports.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: It seems like gay people were stigmatized.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: For a long time.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: If we let gay people marriage, society is going to fall.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: They lost that issue. They lost that issue on policy.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: They lost that issue on the politics. They don't seem
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: to talk about the fact that gay people getting married
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: was going to destroy society. Society continues to And yet
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: they've sort of abandoned that. Now it seems like they
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: want to stigmatize trans people. They want to turn trans
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: people into what gay people were in the early 2000s.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: John, have you been reading my emails or hacking into
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: my phone as I've been talking to other people or
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: other reporters? Because I've literally said this verbatim. We are
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: just relitigating the fights from 17 years ago, only now
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: with a new victim. Only so instead of attacking gay
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: people for wanting to get married, now they're attacking trans
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: kids because very softer target to attack.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: It's really, so it's, it's obviously like, if you look
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: at the, the fight over gay rights, what you see
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: is over time, they will not win. They will not succeed.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: But what was terrible at the time, right? It's 2004.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: a bunch of discriminatory anti-gay amendments make it onto the books.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: And even as the public moves further and further away,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: we have to go back and chip away at those laws.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: This is even more pernicious because this is attacking children.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: How do we make sure that even as we see
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: the public moving on trans issues, learning more, coming to understand,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: coming to be more compassionate, coming to see trans people
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: as people and not as a scapegoat, that we don't
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: end up with a bunch of these horrible laws on
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: the book that will punish, stigmatize, harm kids at this
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: pivotal moment when they're just, when they're at the beginning
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: of their life, when they're at their most vulnerable.
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: So there's a few things. The first part of this
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: is that one of the most important parts of winning
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: federal elections is having judges, right? And being able to
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: appoint and confirm judges. And that's going to be one
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: of the horrible legacies from the last four years is
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: having a lot of people with anti-LGBTQ records being put
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: on the bench. And at the same time, we know that,
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: you know, if President Biden has Supreme Court nominees or
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: he's going to pick, if we know that, you know,
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: there's going to be other federal circuit court judges and
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: appellate court judges who he's going to be able to pick.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: What we're looking at here is basically understanding that When
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: you look at Title IX, when you look at federal
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: non-discrimination laws in general, as it is, that federal judges
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: who are actually understanding what the law means and that
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: the idea that discrimination on account of sex is inherently,
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: or when you're discriminating on account of sexual orientation or
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: gender identity, it is inherently to discriminate on account of sex,
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: as we even saw in the Bostic ruling last year, right?
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: And by the way, not to mention that I have
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: the Equal Rights Amendment tattooed on my arm, but that's
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: a whole different story for another day. If you get
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: into that level of public policy here, what you're going
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: to find is that the federal government has to be
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: our backstop against a lot of these really regressive and
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: repressive bills that are being introduced and passed. Because if
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: you look at what happened in Idaho when they started
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: taking shots at trans kids, it took federal courts to
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: actually have to block them in the first place. And
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: so that's the first component of it. The second component
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: of it is you have to win elections everywhere. at
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: the municipal level, at the county level, at your state level,
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: you have to compete, you have to win. And the
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: reason for that is what we are seeing, where are
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: these anti-trans bills most likely to succeed? In Republican trifecta states,
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: where you have a Republican governor, Republican-led chamber, or basically
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: even Republican majorities in both chambers of their state legislature,
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: unless you're Nebraska, given it's unicameral, quick little trivia fact,
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: there's one unicameral state legislature in the United States. But
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: what I would just kind of posit here is that
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: in order to win those state elections, that means that
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: you have to be, especially as LGBTQ people, vulnerable enough
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: to be visible in the first place, to put yourself
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: out there, knowing fully well that there are repercussions that
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: come with putting yourself out there as an LGBTQ person.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: I did it in 2017 and I'm not going to
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: be that person who's going to tell you that my
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: experience is going to be what you were going to experience,
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: neither better nor worse. It just is. It just exists.
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: And when I won, I took on a 26-year incumbent
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: who had been elected 13 times, who had been in
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: office since I was seven years old and had accumulated
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: the most anti-LGBTQ voting record and not just voting record,
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: but actually the bills he was introducing. in the entire South,
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: if not the entire country, among state legislators, including he
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: was the author of the state's 2006 anti-marriage equality amendment,
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: the Marshall Newman Amendment, which by the way, we just
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: took the first step to repealing and replacing with an
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: actual affirmative right to marry this year. So we have
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: to pass that one more time next year in Virginia
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: in the General Assembly, and then I'll go to the
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: voters in a referendum on the following fall. But to say,
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: to emphasize that in order to win state elections, You
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: have to win the local elections too, because that's how
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: not only you build your farm team, that's how you
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: learn how to organize. That's how you actually put people
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: out there in the first place who are able to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: collect data, to put it into NGP and to put
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: it in VAN, to really understand how to run a campaign.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: You have to have that organization. You have to have
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: that infrastructure they're willing to help. And that's what we need.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: And there are groups like Emerge America that trains Democratic
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: women to run for office. I went through Emerge Virginia's
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: boot camp. There's the LGBTQ Victory Institute. They train LGBTQ
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: candidates to run for office. I went through the Victory
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: Institute's 2016 training that November. You know, and then sometimes
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: you'll have your local organizations that train as well. Like
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: for me, the Democratic House Caucus, you know, did a training.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: the 2015 and 2013 Democratic nominees of this seat did
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: a one-day training, which was super cool. But there's other
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: organizations too. EMILY's List, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Run
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: for Something. All of these are groups that, and the
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: National Democratic Candidate Training Group as well. All of these
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: groups here exist in order to help candidates get on
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: the ballot who actually share our values in the first place.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: And if your values are based on inclusivity on building
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: up our infrastructure and start tearing down each other, then
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: these are people who can help you, number one, qualify
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: for the ballot, and two, learn how to win elections.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: And again, maybe I'll say this a few times this election,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: ask me how I know.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you know?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: I know because I went through it and I won.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: And then I won again. And I just literally, noon today,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: just an hour and 45 minutes ago, turned in my
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: petition to to qualify for the ballot this year. So
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: I'll be on the ballot November 2nd.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: So as we're making this, as we're sort of fighting
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: these fights at the state level, I think one, you
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: do see that as the public is shifting, the anti-trans
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: movement is kind of narrowing their focus and trying to,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: and it's getting tighter and tighter. And now it's saying
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: basically like, we're just being pro-girl sports. That really, we're
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: not anti-trans, we're pro-girl sports.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Can we hit the timeout button on that for a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: second to address this load of BS?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: So the same people who underfund girls sports, the same
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: people who will promote the football program and then cut,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: you know, the girls volleyball program or cut arts or
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: cut anything else that actually girls, you know, will, you know,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: in general participate in, in the first place, they're the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: ones who are trying to tell us that they're going
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: to be the savior of girls sports. They're just, they're
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: so full of it. It's just, you know, Their rhetoric
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: absolutely does not match up. And by the way, the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: same people who were opposing to the Equal Rights Amendment
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: now try to make themselves out to be the savior
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: of girls' sports. Oh, please. No, no, that's just not true.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: But can you talk a little bit about how some
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: of these anti-trans measures would actually hurt girls' sports and
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: make it harder for girls to participate in sports?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God. Let's just look at the Tuberville Amendment, right,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: that came up to the substitute version of the version
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: of the COVID relief bill that just passed, right? That
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: just passed the Senate. If when you actually read the amendment,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: and I did, because I'm a legislator, it's what I do,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: even at a state level, I'll read federal legislation when
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: I absolutely have to. So I did. And in reading this,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: they said that basically it was based on like your
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: genetic component about your reproductive system. There was nothing about
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: birth certificates or anything. They, what in essence, what Senator
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: Tuberville was doing was he was going to have to
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: subject every cisgender and transgender girl alike to invasive anatomical
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: searches of their reproductive systems, presumably by adults, to see
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: if they were female enough. I don't care where you
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: fall on this issue. If you look at this and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: you go, I don't want some adult prodding my child.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: That's terrible. That is objectively mortifying. There's, and here's the thing.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Some people say, oh, they could do a cheek swab
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: for DNA and stuff. Here's where it gets interesting. What
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: happens when you're starting dealing with intersex girls? What happens
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: if you start dealing with girls who are just built
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: a little bit differently, right? Even if they're cisgender. And yeah,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: When you actually look at how short-sighted, mean-spirited, and ill-thought-out
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: this amendment was, the consequences of what they were doing
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: is horrific beyond what they even knew they were doing
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: to start with. And the second part on this is
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: they were asking themselves and they were asking the states
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: to violate other existing federal law. And so how are
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: they supposed to, you know, they're going to restrict money from,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: you More than a dozen states right now already have
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: trans-inclusive policies. So let us who are doing this right,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: let us continue doing what's working. And other states should
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: be emulating what we're doing instead of regressing into discrimination.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've made sort of, I want to come back
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: to these sort of two points that you made. One
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: is around this, and it does seem like what they're
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: really saying is let's target any girls, any adults subjectively
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: decide doesn't look my definition of feminine, right? That seems
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: to be like one piece of this. And you also
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: said that basically trying to, you know, protect trans kids
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: by making sure that there were these non-gendered school uniforms.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: And it seems to me that like we're in this
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: fight right now, which is for trans people, but also
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of a larger fight around gender itself
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: and the salience of gender in our culture. And that
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: seems to scare conservatives. They seem to be genuinely scared
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: No, they're not. No, no, they're not. No. Like, in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: the same way that they weren't really scared about marriage equality, right? No,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: it's not.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: Well, they want people to be scared about it, I
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: should say.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: They want, like, the politicians who we're talking about who
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: are doing this They're looking for money and they're looking
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: for votes. Do you think they would give a damn
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: about this if they didn't think that it was going
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: to be good for their fundraising or it was going
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: to be a good Twitter moment for them or get
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: them on Fox News or whatever right-wing media publication of
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: your choice? Hell no, of course not. They're trying to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: be as inflammatory as possible because they think it's in
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: their own self-interest. This is how they work. And they
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: don't really care if it means that they have to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: target their own constituents and hurt children and exploit children
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: for a political gain. They'll do it if it thinks
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: that it's going to help their careers. That's where we're
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: looking at. This is the same playbook that they used,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: that Karl Rove used during the Bush administration when they
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: were engineering all the anti-emergency quality amendments that were up
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: on the ballots in 2004 and 5 and 6, right?
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: So when you look at the history of this, we've
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: seen this playbook before. The issue is that Chances are
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: a lot more people know gay people or bisexual people
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: in their lives more so than they know trans people
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: in their lives, because we make up a significantly smaller
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: percentage of population where we're 0.6 to 1.2% of the population,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: depending on your numbers. And so very often for me,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: I'm the first out trans person someone knows they have met.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: Even though they've met others, they just don't know that. But,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: you know, when I'm at the doors though, you know,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: the funny thing is I've knocked thousands of doors over
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: my campaigns, right? You know, I've heard more than 30
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: local town halls. I've, you know, I'm very present in
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: what I do. Do you know, I can count on
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: one hand how many times people have mentioned trans stuff
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: at the doors in a discriminatory, like negative way. I
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: really can. When people, even the few occasions when people
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: do talk to me about trans stuff, it's usually, oh,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: my kid's trans, or this person I know is trans,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: or I have a colleague who's trans, you know, or
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: they themselves are. They want to tell me a story, right?
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: And that's fine. But what do people, when I'm knocking
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: on doors, you know, I don't ever see someone go,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: you know, Danica, if only Virginia was more regressive towards
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: trans people, would we finally be able to fix Route 28?
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: That's not how it goes.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: It doesn't help with the potholes.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: They want politicians to take care of their commutes. And
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: by the way, my plan for Fixer at 28 is
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: in front of the Commonwealth Transportation Board. Hopefully we can
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: get money for that later this year.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Look, I remember that your campaign was on Fixing Roads.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: What I was trying to get at, though, is I
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: know that as a gay person, you spend so much
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: time fighting political fights about why you're not bad. That
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: so little time is spent on why being gay is
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: not just worth tolerating, but is wonderful and contributes and
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: brings like wonderful things to our culture and our society.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, as we think about this trans
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: fight and the fight for trans people and trans lives,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: like when you think about a trans kid right now
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: watching these fights unfold, how do you communicate to them,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: not just that we're fighting to prove that there's no threat,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong. with being trans, but that trans people
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: are wonderful and good and contribute something important to our
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: world worth protecting.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: John, when, um, the day I won my first campaign
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: in November 7th, 2017, um, I got to the Prince
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: William County Democratic Committee's victory party pretty late that night.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: I had been held up at a different victory party.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: And as soon as I got out of the car,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: there was a 10-year-old trans girl named Clara who was
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: in the parking lot. And I had known her throughout
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: the whole campaign going back to that January. And it
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: was now November 7th. The first thing that I did
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: was I picked up Clara. I looked her dead in
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: the eye and I told her, honey, You can be
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: whatever you want to be. You can be president because
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: we just won this campaign and you just helped make
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: it happen. She has just as much right to chase
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: her dreams and to be who she is and to
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: be that well, where it's sacred to sales as any
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: other person. And, you know, I have a, you know,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: a sticker that I keep outside my, or actually a
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: pin I keep outside of my, my door in Richmond
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: where it says my trans is beautiful. And I, This
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: is one of those things where as Democrats, we tend
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: to say, no matter what you look like, where you
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: come from, how you worship, if you do, who you love,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: or in this case, who you were born to be,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: that you should be able to succeed because of who
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: you are, not despite it, not for what discriminatory politicians
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: tell you you're supposed to be. You be you better
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: than anyone else ever could because you're the only person
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: who can be you. And if you're in one of
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: these states where you're having these fights and you have
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: to stand up and fight for your rights in this,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: We had to do that in Virginia. I drove down
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: to the Virginia General Assembly four times in 2016 to
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: fight nine anti-LGBTQ bills. And I spent 16 months leading,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: spearheading an effort along with our now former school board chairman,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: Ryan Sawyers, to get the Prince William County School Board
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: to include sexual orientation and gender identity in their non-discrimination policy.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: 16 month bruising fight that we won in a five
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: to three vote. And you know what happened? The three
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: people who voted against it ended up losing their next election,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: even though at the time, you know, like so many
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: hundreds of people were saying the worst things you could
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: imagine on camera into a microphone saying that gay and
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: trans kids were abominations who were damnable and damned by God.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: And then one of the actually elected Republican officials are
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: one of the county supervisors was applauding them for doing it.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: I know because I sat right behind her. Watch her
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: do it. And that's the same person who then, by
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: the way, dead named me in front of my stepdaughter.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: So it was like, yeah, that was a real class act.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: But we had to win a lot of policy fights
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: and we had to really win a lot of elections
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: here in order to secure that safety and that protection.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: And so for people in other states, look at the
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: model that we set in Virginia in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: You can follow that model. And here's the thing. I
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: can't just tell someone to get up and leave their
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: state and come to Virginia because they might not have
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: the money. They might not have the means. They might
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: not have the ability to come here. And if they leave,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: then who's left to fight, right? And at the same time,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: if it does get to be too much, if you've
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: put your heart in it, if it's too dangerous, if
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: your family's being threatened, whatever it is, please know that
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: the people of the city of Manassas Park and the
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: Prince William County portions of Haymarket, Gainesville, and Manassas that
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: I represent We will welcome you here because of who
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: you are. And here in Virginia, especially here in Northern Virginia,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: we celebrate you. So please, by all means, anyone who
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: likes to come to Virginia, regardless or because of your identifiers, welcome.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: We're glad you're here. And I just want to know
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: how I can serve you.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: Danica Rome, thank you so much.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: Thank you. I know I was supposed to plug my
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: socials and stuff.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: So if you want to do that for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: I can just do it. Yeah, tell me.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: Whatever you need.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: Where do you want?
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure. So I'm at Twitter at PWC Danica, D-A-N-I-C-A. Facebook,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: it's Danica Rome, Virginia Delegate. And you can find me
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: on ActBlue. If you type in Danica Rome, it's always
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: a great, great place to stop by. And my website
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: is DelegateDanicaRome.com.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: Cheers, John.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Danica Rome for joining us today. And we'll
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: talk to you guys later. Pod Save America is a
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: upload these episodes as videos every week.