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“Daunte Wright should be alive today.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the Biden administration's focus on the pandemic
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and the economy is interrupted by multiple new challenges and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Democrats analyze how to poll and advertise better in the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: next election. And Pod Save the People's Sam Sinyangwe joins
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: us to talk about police reform after another devastating killing
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota. Dan, let's start with the Biden administration, which
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: is nearing its first 100 days. The president's average approval
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: rating with voters stands at 53%, with 42% disapproving. That
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is much higher than Donald Trump's 41% average approval, slightly
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: below Barack Obama's at this point in his term. Part
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of this administration's success has been their ability to zero
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in on one simple overarching message over the last few months.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Here it is. Shots in arms and money in pockets.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Shots in arms and money in pockets.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: But of course, as you and I are painfully aware,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: even the most successful White House message is inevitably interrupted
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: by events beyond your control. In just the last week,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the Biden administration has had to deal with an influx
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of migrants at the border, tensions between Israel and Iran,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a timeline for withdrawal in Afghanistan, a Russian military buildup
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: near Ukraine, another black man killed by police in Minnesota,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a fourth wave of COVID cases in states like Michigan
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and And the request from the FDA and CDC on
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Tuesday for states to temporarily pause the use of the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: J & J vaccine after six women experienced extremely rare
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: blood clots. So much for the prediction that the Biden
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: presidency would be boring, huh?
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I think the boring part was how the president would
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: respond to these news events, not that the news events
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: were bad.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The boring part is Biden.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, and it's not even boring. I think the right
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: term is normal, right?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Normal, right, yeah. Not the world. The world is still crazy,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: but the president in office is not making it crazier,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: at least. I wanted to talk about the J &
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: J news. What was your reaction to the news? Some
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: self-appointed Twitter experts and some real experts thought the pause
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: was a mistake because this was so far only— six
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: out of over 7 million who got the vaccine. And
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: there's a concern that this news will only increase vaccine hesitancy.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important that you and I weigh
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: in here, because what a lot of people don't know
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: is before we were podcasters, before we were in politics,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: we had a long career in epidemiology.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: We did studies. Yeah, we were big, big epidemiologists.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, we did a number of studies on vaccine hesitancy
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: all over the world. So we're true experts. You should
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: take what we say very seriously.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I studied under Dr. Fauci at Holy Cross.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: You know what my PhD is? The blue checkmark by
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: my name. I mean, I have no idea whether this
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: is the right decision or not. I would say that
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the Biden administration, the FDA are highly incentivized to get
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. So if
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: they are making the decision to take the pause and
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: They have a pretty good reason to do so. And
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I am willing to be like Joe Biden and trust
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: the science on this one.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I kind of just think you get to a point
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: where there's only bad options when a crisis or a
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: problem like this occurs. And we've been there in the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: White House a million times. So instead of thinking like.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: was this the right or wrong decision? Think about what
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the alternative was. So the alternative to this decision is
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: six people so far, we don't know, perhaps more as
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the weeks go on, develop these blood clots. It comes
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to the attention of the FDA and the CDC. Imagine
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: if they knew about it, the news leaked out, they said,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: we're not concerned, continue to get your shots. And then
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the news continues to leak out that more people are
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: getting blood clots. I mean, does that make, if the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: problem that we're worried about is vaccine hesitancy, does that
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: help vaccine hesitancy to have the FDA and the CDC
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: just telling everyone as they hear about more blood clots,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: don't worry about it? Or do you study the issue,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: not only because you're going to, that's a better way
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to make sure people trust the vaccine, but also because
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: you want to save lives if there's a problem. Let's
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: not forget that very important goal. And in this case,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the FDA and CDC have said that this is as
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: much a message for doctors and providers as it is
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: for people who are taking the vaccine, because apparently the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: way to treat this very rare blood clot is completely
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: different than how you would treat other blood clots. And
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: so they want to make sure that doctors and providers
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: know what to look out for and know what treatment
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to provide if this very, very, very extremely rare blood
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: clot happens. Now, They of course have to weigh that
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: with the fact that the longer this pause goes on,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the more people are going to be distrustful of the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: J & J vaccine. And that is of course something
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to weigh heavily. And they met on Wednesday. And I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: think just about everyone hoped this would be resolved on Wednesday.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: It was not. They're going to try to meet now
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: next week. I do think the longer this goes on,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the bigger problems they have with trust in the J
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: & J vaccine. And you were already seeing that in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: some of the polling about this. But again, I can't
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: figure out what the other options would be that are
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: better than this.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. And you're sort of trying
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: to analyze and argue a counterfactual. But I agree with
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: you that on the question of vaccine hesitancy, The worst
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: problem would be a situation where– you sort of see
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: how this plays out in the media because the primary
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: method of covering the pandemic is panic porn, right? Where
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: it's like another person had a blood clot and therefore,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: why won't the FDA intervene? Why won't they look at this?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: What is going on? That would do more, I think,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: to increase hesitancy than– a situation where a bunch of scientists,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: including Dr. Fauci, the most trusted person in America by
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: some measures, looks at it and then comes out and says,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: we looked at it, here's what it is, and it
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: is okay. That seems to be the better of two
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: bad choices, as you point out. That's what being president is,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: is choosing between two bad options. I remember someone telling
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama after he won, congratulations, now you get to
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: spend the next 48 years choosing between two terrible choices.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: And that's sort of what this situation is. I think
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: we should also– there was this poll by Echelon Insights,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: which is a Republican polling firm run by one-time Republican pollster,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: current Twitter troll Patrick Ruffini, that basically tested whether this
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: increased or decreased vaccine hesitancy and actually turned out that
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: it had the opposite of what you thought. It made
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: people trust it more or it didn't really cause people
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: to panic about it. But what he was testing was
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the exact– truthful message, like how many people it is,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: what they're doing. And that's just not how people are
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: going to get information. And we shouldn't think this is
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: only going to affect people's willingness to get the J
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: & J shot, because they're surfing the news. All they
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: hear is, pause on vaccine. Does every person know it's
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: J & J as opposed to Pfizer or Moderna? Absolutely not.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And so this will certainly have an impact. I just
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: don't think there was another choice. And it is particularly
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: problematic that it is J & J because that is
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: the shot that was being used by a lot of
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: states and localities to get to the hardest to reach populations.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: A lot of cities are using J & J on
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: the homeless population because you only have to do it once.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Healthcare providers are using it on homebound patients, so you
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: only have to do it once. And so if you
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: lose that weapon in your arsenal for a week, two weeks,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: whatever else, that matters. But this is still, I think,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: the only choice that the Biden administration had before them.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And certainly imagine a world where the FDA- recommended it,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: and then Joe Biden overruled it, right? That would be
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: the exact opposite of what we did.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I saw, of course, we basically guessed it before
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: it happened. But the Politico headline about this was Biden's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: trust the science approach hits a political snag. I'm just like,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me? Like, yes. Yes, I'm sorry.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: He's trusting the science and it may cause a political
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: problem for him. So be it. So be it. Would
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you rather him not trust the science to not hit
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a political snag?
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: It just shows how fucking broken some political coverage is.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Trust the science is not a political strategy. It is
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: not an approach. It's just a belief. It's what you do, right?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And look, I don't want to downplay the challenge of
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy that will come from this and was already
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a problem before this. I mean, I look, I got
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the J and J vaccine, um, I feel great. I'm
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: not worried about it. I'm not losing sleep over it.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But I have someone else in my life who we
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: had to convince for quite a few weeks to get
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the vaccine. She was very nervous about it. She finally
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: got it. She got J & J.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: How's Emily feeling?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Emily got Moderna. But when I saw this friend yesterday
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and I had to you know, talk about this story
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and like really convince her everything was okay. It's hard
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: because like vaccine hesitancy is real. And look, one of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the worries about this was like, is this going to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: pause the vaccination program? Is this going to be a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: supply issue? Is this going to slow down the campaign?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: That I think we don't have to worry about. We
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: are already seeing now in some states up to 30%
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: supply that is going unused to vaccines. So we are
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: very rapidly approaching the point where the supply of vaccines
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: is going to soon outstrip the demand. And then the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: question is what to do about everyone who hasn't taken
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: it yet. Monmouth did a poll the other day this
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: week that said, you know, 51% said they've already received
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the vaccine in the poll. That's how you know the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: poll is fairly accurate. The CDC number is about 49%
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: have received a first dose. 14% said as soon as
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: it's allowed, they'll receive it. So that brings you up
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to about 65% of people. But we need anywhere between
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: 70 and 90% to hit herd immunity. There's another 12%
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: that'll say, I'm going to see how it goes. And
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: 21% still who will say they'll likely never get the vaccine. Now,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: who are those people? Well, 45% are Republicans. 36% are
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: people under 35 years old. And those are the two
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: biggest groups Also men, white non-college and Hispanics are also
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: overrepresented in that category, but mainly it's Republicans and people
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: under 35 years old. So like, what does the Biden
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: administration do about that? That's a lot of work to
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: get that last. I mean, if you end up with 10,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: 20% who don't get the vaccine, that's not ideal, but
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it's probably not fatal to herd immunity, but you do
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: have to get to like 70 to 80%. And I
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: do think that's going to be a lot of work.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: And there's limits to what the Biden administration can do.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: just because of the way how America is polarized, how
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: filter bubbles in the information ecosystem currently operate. It's very,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: very hard for Joe Biden or Anthony Fauci to convince
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: that 45% of Republicans to get the vaccine. In fact,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of studies show it has the opposite effect.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: The mere fact that Joe Biden is talking about it
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: makes them less likely to believe it. The more it's
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: on CNN or The New York Times, the less likely
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: they are to get it because of sort of how
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: they've been conditioned to trust or distrust these institutions by
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: a bunch of very malicious grifters in the Republican Party
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: for a long period of time. If someone really wanted
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: to do something about this, that person would be Rupert Murdoch,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: who was one of the first people on the planet
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to get vaccinated. Yet his network is spreading vaccine conspiracies
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: left and right. Tucker Carlson, the most watched show seen
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: by 5 million people, and then a gazillion more people
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: via Mark Zuckerberg's very dangerous algorithm. is fanning the flames
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: of these conspiracy theories. And so you need trusted messengers
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to do it. That can be nonpartisan people in your community,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: like your doctor or your nurse or someone like that.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: But it also needs to be people within your ideological in-group.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: And the Republicans and the right-wingers are doing the opposite
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: of what Generally in politics, you want your voters to
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: live long enough to vote for you. And so this
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: approach seems somewhat counterintuitive, but you need people on the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: right to step up. Like there was this PSA that
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: was done, public service announcement now in Pond Save America,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: that was done a few weeks ago that included the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: former presidents, Obama, Clinton, Bush, talking about the vaccine. The
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: problem is Trump is not in that PSA. And so
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: actually having Bush, Clinton, and Obama talk about it does
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: nothing to get any of these Republicans. Now, there are
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: lots of people who are not Republican who are also
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: still vaccine hesitant. And there's this telethon that's coming that's
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: going to include a lot of celebrities, and the Obamas
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: are going to be involved, and I think the Biden
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: administration is going to be involved. That can help raise
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: awareness and convince people to do it, athletes doing it.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: There is a PSA that Bill Russell has been doing
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: on NBA games that I think could be very effective.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: But for that 45% of Republicans, there are going to
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: be people in the Republican Party and the right-wing movement
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: who are going to have to step up or the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: problem is not going to be solved.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think there's a lot of studies show
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: that like depoliticizing this as much as possible is the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: most effective route. So like even more important than Republican
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: politician messengers to Republican voters are like your doctor or
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: there was a fact that was shown to a focus
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: group that like 97% of doctors took the shot when
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: offered to it. And that actually moved people more than
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: anything else. I do think it's a great example of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the contrast, one of the many contrasts between the Biden
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: administration and the Trump administration that this J & J
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: news happens. Biden basically, he gives a statement, says, don't worry,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: we have enough vaccine for every single person in America,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: basically sends the medical team out, the science team out
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to talk about the details. Biden sort of recedes into
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the background. Meanwhile, Trump puts out a statement saying, basically
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: charging some you know, saying it's a conspiracy and this
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: is a Pfizer-led conspiracy. I'm not even going to go
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: into what Trump said, but basically tried to make the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: situation worse with his statement. It goes to a larger
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: question here about how Biden has been able to maintain
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a healthy approval rating at an extremely polarizing time. Dave
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Weigel of The Washington Post laid out a theory this
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: week that Biden's success is due to the fact that
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: he has been less visible than his predecessors in spoken
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: less in public than his predecessors, and most importantly, hasn't
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: really picked any fights like Trump or weighed in on
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of the Republicans' favorite culture war controversies. What
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: did you think about that theory from Dave?
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I think there is some truth to that, for sure. Definitely,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: taking a different approach than Trump. It seems like a
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: pretty good way to keep your approval rating high. Like
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: one guy had the lowest approval rating in modern polling history.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: So don't do what that guy does. Seems like a
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: pretty solid approach. Biden's approval rating on average is right
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: around his vote share in the election.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: And so that is what it's basically saying is he
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: is doing things that his voters like he's delivering on
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: his campaign promises and And that is a– that's how
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: you stay popular. What I think is true and Dave
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: talks in here about some political science research that shows
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: that presidents actually– the bully pulp is quite limited. There's
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: very little presidents can do to persuade the other side
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: and there's other research that.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Was done. A real blow to speechwriters and communication staffers, Dan.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Look, here's what we can do. We can keep you
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: at 52%. What we can't do is get you to 60%,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: so we can give you an office.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Literally most of the work we've done our entire lives.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: There's a study that's very limited. I remember this from 2012, right?
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Obama talked about this study.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I often in the Obama years had
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: to write sort of memos during dark periods of time
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: about sort of what changes we could make in our
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: messaging or communication strategy to solve problems. And around... I
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: think it was after the 2010 elections, I wrote one
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: that was using some of these backlash analysis to show
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: the limits of the bully pulpit. There was very little
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the president could do to actually change it. And when
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: it circulated around among– and it was for like a
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: big strategy session for how we bounce back from the midterms.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: And when it circulated around the senior staff, David Axelrod
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: came into my office and he said, hey, brother, I'm
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: not sure you should send a memo to the president
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: saying your job is irrelevant. Right? I was like, it's
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: a fair point. This isn't that complicated. Joe Biden has
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: done and talked about popular things. And even more than
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: what his messaging has been, he's delivered on his agenda.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Americans have gotten checks in the mail. Half of Americans
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: have gotten shots. You can very well see what the
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: vaccine situation was when Biden came into office, and you
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: can see what it is now. And just how chaotic
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: and impossible it was for anyone who was trying to
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: get their parents' vaccine appointments in the early days, and
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: you had to be online at the exact moment they
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: opened or you couldn't get them. And to where it
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: is now, where while there's still lots of kinks in
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: the system, it's so much better. And so he's delivering,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: and that is helping. It's also smart to not lean
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: into divisive issues. That's not always your choice. That is
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: going to– sometimes those issues come to your table, whether
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: you like them or not. But I think the analysis
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: is interesting and helps show that the benefits of a
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: very disciplined communications approach on top of a successful governing,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: which is the key to hypervortings.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I do think there's one more interesting thing in the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: numbers here, which is, you know, Biden's average disapproval rating
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: is 42%, right? So you're right that his approval rating
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: is close to the vote share, but his disapproval is
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: lower than Trump's vote share, significantly lower. And, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Weigel points out in his piece that By this time
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in the Trump administration, you had the Women's March, you
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: had protests at the airports after the Muslim ban, right?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: There was already an organized, large resistance to Donald Trump
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that was passionate and energized. We were part of it.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: At this point in the Obama administration, you already had
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the first wave of Tea Party protests against Obama. There
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: has been no organized, right-wing sort of groundswell of protest
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: against Joe Biden and his administration just yet. Why do
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: you think that is?
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: So two things about this. It is true that the
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Tea Party had started in this part of the Obama administration.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It didn't really get going until August.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And Obama's approval ratings were quite high and his disapproval
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: rating was quite low at this point in time. And
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: so it wasn't at all like Trump. The Republicans have
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: struggled from the very beginning of the campaign to demonize Biden.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And part of this is they have spent the last
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: several decades demonizing people of color and women, and all
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: of a sudden they found themselves with a white guy
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: from Scranton at the top of the ticket and they
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: didn't know what to do about it. And that has
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: continued to bedevil them. And Biden's been very deft about
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: how he has handled all of this. So that's part one.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Part two is is while I think it is– yes,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: it is true. There are not Tea Party rallies or
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: those sorts of things or much people donning tri-corner hats
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and showing up at town halls right now. But we
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: may not be getting the full picture of what is
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: going to happen later for two reasons. One, the pandemic.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: There's less happening out in the public. And I always
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: think back to that piece that Kevin Roos wrote in
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: the New York Times about Facebook during the 2020 race
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: where it seems like Biden's up by 12 and we're
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: doing great and all this. And he's like, well, go
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: on Facebook, people, because shit is crazy there. And then
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it turns out a lot of that really manifested itself
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: in the election. And so there's probably a lot of
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: things that in 2009 were happening in the public square
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: that are happening on Facebook in 2021. And so I
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: just think it's too early to declare victory on the
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Democrats and Joe Biden's ability to completely avoid Republican backlash
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: to a Democratic president, if that makes sense.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: It's early. Two big political challenges for Biden and the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party in advance of another existential midterm election are
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to improve the accuracy of our polling and the effectiveness
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of our advertising. Democratic strategists released analysis on both fronts
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: this week, starting with a report from five major polling
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: firms about why the polls were so off in 2020,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: specifically why they tended to overestimate Democratic support up and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: down the ballot. Turns out they don't think there's a, quote,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: single definitive answer. which is the kind of helpful thing
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you want to read in a report with a heading,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: so what went wrong. But they do have a few
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: theories that they offered. One, their turnout models were wrong
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: because among low propensity voters, people who rarely vote, there
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: were a lot more Republicans who turned out than Democrats. Second,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: voters who had more progressive attitudes on COVID-19 were not
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: only more likely to wear masks and stay home, but
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: more likely to answer a pollster's call. So that was
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: skewing it. And third, Trump's strongest supporters tend to be
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: more distrustful of all other authority figures and institutions, making
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: them less likely to answer a call from a pollster
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in the first place. What'd you think about the report
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and especially the conclusion that these Democratic pollsters aren't really
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: sure how to fix the problem?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: We know a lot of these pollsters and they're, I mean,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: they're obviously all friends. They've all worked together, but they're
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: also competitors. They're always bidding against each other for working
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: on various campaigns or various initiatives. And so the fact
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: that they all came together is a pretty big deal
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: and sort of speaks to the size of the problem
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and the lack of trust that exists post-2020 between the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: people who pay for polls and the people who get
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: paid to do polls. And we've seen a lot of
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: these theories. We talked many months ago about some of
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: the theories that David Shore, a Democratic data strategist, talked about.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I think all of these make sense. There's two parts
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that are noteworthy in here that I think are worthy
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of further exploration. One is, as you say, they have
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: no answer. We don't really know what to do. And
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: they float some things that are worth it, like should
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: you test multiple turnout models as opposed to just picking one?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Is there value in experimenting beyond– there's been this theory
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: forever that live interview polls are the best polls ever.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: A 538 analysis suggests that 2020 undermined that fact. And
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: some of the better pollsters did things like robopolls and
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: purely online surveys. Also, some of the worst pollsters did
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: that too. So open question as to what the right
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: answer is there. But what I think they're essentially saying
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: is we are going to revisit our model of how
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: we do business to try to get accurate answers. And
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I think that is a very big thing because a
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: lot of them were quite– I was on a couple
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: of panels with pollsters– After the 2016 election, and many
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: of them were very resistant to the idea that basically
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: it was a waiting issue. You just had to change
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: how you thought about the electorate, not how you went
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: and got the information to begin with. The second thing
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: that I think I really wonder about is they make
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: the point that this may be a problem unique to
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Trump being on the ballot. Because we've had three elections, 2008, 2016, 2018, 2020.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: They were more accurate in 2018 than 2016 and 2020.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: The difference between those is Trump wasn't on the ballot.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: So in 2022, Trump is not going to be on
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the ballot unless he's going to run for governor of
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Georgia or something. And so we'll go back to being
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: somewhat more normal. I am skeptical of that because I
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: don't– I think.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Remember, Andrew Gillum was supposed to be governor. And I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: will say in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Ohio.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: The same places.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: The polls were closer, but they overstated Tony Evers' vote
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: share in Wisconsin. They overstated slightly Gretchen Whitmer's vote share
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. And in Ohio, they showed a closer race
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: than it was in both the governors and Senate races there.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So I think this is a problem beyond Trump.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: And so this is why there's going to need to
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: be a solution. And these pollsters make it kind of
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: clear this is the beginning of the process. And there is,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: to their credit, some transparency in putting this report out
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: publicly and having some humility about what they know and
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: they don't know. But there's a lot of.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Work to do here. You raised a point that I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: do want to bring up because every time we have
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: done a poll– Since the election or we've talked about polls,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of folks on Twitter say, why
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: are we still caring about polls when the polls were
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: so often 2020? And usually the polls we're talking about
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: are about issues. And I do. You mentioned that Pew
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: did a study that somehow issue polls are still more accurate,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: even when horse race polls in an elections may be off.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: While I have a long career in epidemiology, my career
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: in statistics is much shorter, so I will probably butcher
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: this explanation. But basically what they did is they compared
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: what the difference was in opinions on issues if Biden
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: was winning by what the polls expected and what he
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: actually won by and found that the gap between the
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: vote share and the issue opinion was different. In other words,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the percentage of people who supported the minimum wage or
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: supported social distancing or vaccines or whatever else did not
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: change by nearly as much, by actually a fraction of
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: what the horse race did. Now, that tells us two things.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: There can either take an optimistic or pessimistic view of that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: The optimistic part is Americans are actually more united on
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: issues than we think. The pessimistic view of that is
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: that our political preference is more important than the issue
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: we support.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And that we've seen for a while now.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And that's why you have things like the $ 15 minimum
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: wage getting 60% of the vote in Florida and the
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: person who opposes the idea of a federal minimum wage
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: getting the majority of votes in the Florida presidential election.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: But I think that gives us some– like we should
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: take every poll with a grain of salt. We demand
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: a level of accuracy in polling that is never true.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Even in the best of scenarios, even in the pre-Trump era,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: there was a margin of error. It's often three or
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: four points in either direction. And in close races, either
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: outcome is very possible within the margin of error. And
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: so when the average has candidate A winning and then
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: candidate B wins, but the difference is the margin of error,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the poll is not wrong. I think it should give
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: us some measure of confidence that as we look at
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: the popularity of the American Jobs Plan, American Rescue Plan, H.R. 1,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: we can have confidence in those results based on issue
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: polling that we would not have in horse race polls
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: as of yet, if that makes sense.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: No, it does make sense. And look, it's somewhat comforting
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: because I think that we need polling to work. We
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: cannot be flying blind. And I say that Not just
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: because I am one of these people that we need
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: polling to work so that everyone can like refresh 538
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: every five seconds during a campaign to see who's going
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: to win or who they think is going to win.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: That's not why we need to fix polling. We need
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: to fix polling from, I'll put my Democratic strategist hat on,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: like for Democrats on a campaign, you have to make
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: decisions about where you're going to spend your money, where
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: you're going to send your staff, resourcing. And we need
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: an accurate read on the electorate in order to run
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: campaigns effectively. And so it is critical that, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I'm glad these Democratic pollsters got together and put this
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: statement out as a start, but I really hope that
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: they continue to do the work and so does everyone
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: else so that we can actually fix this problem because
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: we can't be flying blind. We can't be flying blind
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: because otherwise what that's going to be is just like,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of people on Twitter just assuming
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: that their opinion about the state of the electorate is correct.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I'm sure accurate polling will solve that problem.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was going to say, the aggregate polling
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: will not solve that problem, but without the polling, that's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: all you got. And I'll tell you, that's not very useful.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: That is not very useful. So the other big 2020
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: memo that came out this week was from Priorities USA,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: one of the leading Democratic super PACs. It was titled,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: How Democrats Can Optimize Media Spending and Stop Wasting Millions.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Priorities analyzed $ 5. 4 billion in spending by Democrats and Republicans
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: on elections, both from campaigns and from outside groups, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: found that Even though Democrats outspent Republicans in 2020, much
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: of that spending was inefficient. It often came too late,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: was delivered through the wrong medium, targeted the wrong voters,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: and didn't focus enough on mobilizing. Lovely. Specifically, they found
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that 10% of Democrats' total ad budget likely reached people
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: who had already voted. 75% of late-in-the-cycle TV ads in
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: House races aired outside of the district they were targeting.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And Democrats spent 77% of their advertising money on traditional media,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that Americans now spend significantly more time
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: engaging with digital media. Dan, how does something like this happen?
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And what can Democrats do about it?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: There are a couple of reasons for this, and they're
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: all somewhat connected to the conversation we just had, which
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: is we were operating with an inaccurate measure of who
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: was going to vote, who our targeted voters were, and
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: where they were. So that's part one. I think prior
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to the 2020 election, there was a big debate about
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: TV spending versus digital spending. And a lot of younger
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Democratic strategists were arguing that the balance was completely out
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: of whack and it was the product of sort of older,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: dyed-in-the-wool political consultants who were kind of both out of
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: an economic model that benefited them and muscle memory continuing
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: to use this outdated, inefficient method of television advertising. But
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: then something happened in the election. And while I think
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: as a priorities USA study notes, digital spending increased dramatically
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: and that was very good. But there were three factors
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: that drove the tremendous inefficient television spending. The first is
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: for much of this campaign based on the polling– and
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: there was some accuracy to this. But the core part
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: of Biden's success was he was doing better than Democrats
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: had done in a very long time with older voters.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: So we're seeing like 10, 15-point shifts. This is an oversimplification,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: but generally, the older a voter is, the more likely
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: you are to reach them through traditional linear television. They're
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: less likely to be watching YouTube TV or YouTube or
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Hulu or any of these other platforms that you would use.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: So you would still get them through advertising during the
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: local news, for instance, or 60 Minutes or sort of
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: these programs that skew older. So that drove it. Then
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: it caused a lot of Democrats who were running behind
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Biden to chase those same voters. So they put their
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: money towards me. The second thing that happened was money
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: came in way too late. Democrats were doing well on
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: fundraising a lot of places. But after the death of
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as we know through the Crooked Media
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Get Mr. Night Trying Fund, money poured in like never before.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: And these candidates got this huge bunch of money at
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: the very end. And there's not that much you can
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: do with money. And then some candidates had more money
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: than they know what to do with. And so you
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: have to spend it. You don't really get to keep it.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: And so you saw candidates like Sarah Gideon and Jamie Harrison,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: who had so much money, they just bought every piece
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: of television you possibly could. In some cases, national cable
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: buys that were being seen by a fraction of their people.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Biden had tremendous resources and was buying national broadcasts, like
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: during the University of Florida, University of Georgia football games
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: to reach voters in Florida and Georgia. And then there's
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: a third element here that I think has changed in
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: the– that has made television advertising less efficient for Democrats
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: is we have– as the Democratic Party has become more suburban,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: more of the districts that we're competing in are the
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: ones that are adjacent to the biggest, most expensive media markets.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: So a district outside of Cleveland, you're buying Cleveland TV, right?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Like in Andy Kim or Tom Malinowski's district, you're buying
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: either New York or Philadelphia TV as opposed to when
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: we represented more rural districts where the primary media market
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: your district is in is a smaller secondary market that
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: represents more of your district. So you're getting just a
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: fraction of it. I think the recommendations in this report,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: which we can talk about, are quite good. And I
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: think it was a real service and priorities to do this.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: So talk about some of the recommendations, because it does
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: sound like this is an oversimplification, but top line, like
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: donating money earlier, funding these campaigns earlier and not at
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the end, And more consistently throughout will allow the campaigns
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: to plan how to spend the money better and more efficiently.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And also fixing the polling. It's obviously going to be
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: a big issue, too, because that's going to fix the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: traditional TV spending digital split.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that is the most important thing. It's
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: something that you have seen our friend Ben Wickler and
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: the Wisconsin Democratic Party do, which is to try to
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: get people to give monthly. So that these campaigns, it
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: starts early and they know they have a steady stream
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: of money coming in so they can plan around it,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: as opposed to just getting a giant check that you
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: don't expect at the end.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: At the end.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: And then forces you to spend it. And digital spending,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: if it's done strategically and smartly, happens over a longer
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: period of time than television advertising. That's part one. Part
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: two is we did not do a good enough job
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: of adjusting our strategy for how many Democrats were going
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: to vote early. And that had a lot to do
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: with– like it's hard to fully blame people for how
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: they respond to the first election that happens in a
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: pandemic where the incumbent president is trying to steal the
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: election by rigging the Postal Service.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Some unique circumstances.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: But– I hope.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: Yes, we hope.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: But voting behavior is habit forming. So the people who
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: voted early in person or through Dropboxes are probably likely
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: to do that. next time. And so thinking about how
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: you schedule your GOTV spending around an earlier election cycle
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: where the bulk of your voters are voting early and
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: then shifting some of your dollars to persuasion towards your
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: target audience, your persuasion audience. Persuasion meaning non-voters to voters
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: as well as swing voters is an important part of
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: this as well.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest stories in America this week was
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the killing of Dante Wright, the 20-year-old man who was
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, just miles away from the courtroom
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: where former police officer Derek Chauvin stands trial for the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: death of George Floyd. Joining us to talk about this
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: tragic violence and how we can fundamentally reimagine policing in America,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the co-host of Pod Save the People, co-founder of Campaign Zero,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and just a brilliant data scientist and policy analyst, Sam Sinyangwe. Sam, welcome.
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It's good to be here. Thanks for being here. Before
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: we dive into police reform, I do want to take
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a minute to talk about Dante Wright. He was the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: father of a two-year-old boy, also named Dante. His loved
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: ones describe him as an adoring dad, full of laughter,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: who liked playing sports, celebrating the Fourth of July. He
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: was on the phone with his mother when police pulled
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: him over for driving with expired license plates and hanging
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: an air freshener from his rearview mirror. And when he
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: tried to get back in the car after they arrested
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: him for an outstanding warrant, Officer Kim Potter shot and
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: killed him. Potter, who later resigned along with Brooklyn Center
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Police Chief Tim Gannon, has also been charged with second-degree
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: manslaughter after officials alleged that she meant to fire a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: taser and not a gun. Sam, you've analyzed thousands of
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: instances of police violence, so you've certainly seen your fair
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: share of stories like this, but this has been a
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: particularly heavy week. The killing of Daunte Wright, Derek Chauvin's trial,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the Kenosha officer who killed Jacob Blake returning to the force.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and the Virginia police officer who pepper sprayed a black
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: army officer. What's been running through your mind these past
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: few days?
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: So I think, you know, a lot of the conversation
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: has focused on like these individual cases and there's been
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: sort of this back and forth around, particularly, you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: in the context of Daunte Wright's killing, this idea that
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: was this an accident?
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Was this intentional?
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: And, you know, talking about the officer being, you know,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: the president of the police union, but this is not,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: you know, this is not actually like an isolated incident.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: This isn't something that is unrepresentative of a broader dynamic
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: that we've seen play out for years now. So, you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: we just crunched the numbers for killings by police in
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: 2020 last year. We found that there were 121 people
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: killed by police after a traffic stop last year. So,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: you know, that's every three days the police kill somebody
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: at a traffic stop. So this isn't, You know, this
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: isn't like a case that is an outlier or we
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: need to really dive into the particulars of whether this
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: was an accident or not. This was actually the rule
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: and not the exception. And this happens with alarming frequency. Indeed,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: like even zooming out more broadly, the majority of people
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: killed by police in America are killed in incidents that
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: begin with these low-level issues, traffic stops, mental health calls,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: you know, trespassing, people.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: Who are homeless.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: All of these small things that the police are called
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: to be, that the police intervene within and escalate to
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: the point where people are being killed. And so I
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: think part of this is like, we're in this moment again,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: and we've been in this moment before so many times,
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: too many times. And now it's just about like looking
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: at the big picture, understanding that this is the way
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: in which this system is functioning, has been functioning for
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: quite some time, and that we need to be thinking
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: about radical transformative changes that can remove the police from
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: these situations and create different alternative responses that are far
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: more effective and far more safe for the people who
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: interact with them.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly seems that for all the media attention on,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: you know, whether or not Potter's use of her weapon
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: was intentional or accidental, there was a systemic policing failure
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: that led to that moment. Just pulling him over in
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the first place, just, you know, having a taser or
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: a gun on you as you're going to do that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Can you talk sort of about some of the systemic
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: failure that sort of led to them even pulling him over?
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there were so many different things. So,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, you talk about the fact that the police
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: were there enforcing a traffic violation in the first place.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: So expired tags, like that is a choice to have
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: an armed agent of the state pull people over and
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: stop them with the threat of force, even deadly force,
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: for an expired vehicle tag. That is a policy choice
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: and a policy failure. There are different models of dealing
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: with this. So you have, in Berkeley right now, they
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: have just passed legislation, city council, to move away from
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: the policing of traffic offenses. And instead, what they're gonna
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: do is have an unarmed civilian unit that will be
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: responding to those issues in ways that are not going
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: to lead to people being killed. And so again, I
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: think this is a policy choice. The police shouldn't have
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: been there in the first place. But even then, like
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: that was just the initial, you know, encounter. Then you
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: have the questions around the warrant, right? So we're talking
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: about a warrant that was outstanding for, I think it
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: was like minor marijuana possession.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: It was like the smallest thing.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: And then on top of that, apparently they sent the
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: information to the wrong address. So he wasn't able to
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: actually update his information in time to be in compliance
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: with that. So again, I think the system again and
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: again and again created opportunities for the police to intervene
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: for the smallest of things, made it very difficult to
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: even comply with this very complex and difficult system that
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: can have you arrested for the smallest of things and
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: issue warrants. for small delays that was actually the problem
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: of the institution itself sending the actual letter to the
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: wrong place. So I think all of that is happening
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: in the context of one incident. And then you even
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: deal with the issue of, she was the police union president, right?
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: She wasn't like an ordinary everyday officer. She represented the
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: police officers of that police force. She was the police
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: union president. She had the influence to determine what structures
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: would be in place to hold police accountable. She had
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: the power to actually negotiate a police union contract that
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: makes it more difficult to hold officers accountable. So she
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: was part of that system, a key part of structuring
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: the system in a way that will make it difficult
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: even to hold her accountable for it. So all of
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: this sort of from start to finish Um, is problematic. Um,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: and we're just get, we haven't even got into, like
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: she was just recently charged and arrested.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: We haven't got into the issues with the trial.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: We see some of those issues in the context of
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: the Derek Chauvin trial and how difficult it can be
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: to actually secure a conviction. Um, so, uh, so, so
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: much wrong with the situation.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Well, that was going to be my last follow-up there.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Just from a data perspective, how often do we see
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: police officers face any consequences for killings, violence, or excessive force?
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: It's exceedingly rare.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: So we've tracked this going back to 2013 all the
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: way through the present. And in any given year, between
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: 1% and 2% of officers who kill people are charged
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: with a crime, between 1% and 2%. And of those
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: who are charged, not all of them get convicted. So
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: only about half a percent of officers are convicted. So
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: that's 1 in 200 killings by the police results in
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: an officer being convicted of a crime, not murder necessarily.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it is a lesser crime because prosecutors chose not
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: to charge with a higher offense because they didn't think
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: they could secure a conviction. So again, I think what
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: that means is murder is essentially decriminalized if you're a
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: police officer in almost all cases. And that is a
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: problem that encourages the type of behavior that we saw.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: With Derek Chauvin, it encourages the type of behavior that
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: we saw in Brooklyn Center, where, you know, again, that
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: officer was not only the police union president, she was
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: a trainer. She was training the other officers as Derek
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Chauvin was. So, like, this is part of creating this
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: culture of violence and maintaining and expanding upon that culture
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: of violence that causes real harm to people, especially black people.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Dan, I want to ask about the politics of police reform.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: There was historic momentum behind reform during the protests last summer,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: both in terms of public opinion and actual legislation. House
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Even
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Republican Tim Scott felt compelled to introduce very watered down
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: legislation of his own. How has the political environment changed
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: since then? And do you think the events of the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: last few weeks could give reform the same kind of
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: momentum it had last summer?
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I certainly hope it gives it that momentum because
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: for all the reasons that Sam cited, this is absolutely essential.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: And we can't rely just on a small handful of
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: localities to make bold changes because things are easier to
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: do on this level in a place like Berkeley than
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: they are in other parts around the country politically. And
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: so we need some federal guidelines to do this. I
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: think a couple of things have changed, and it's incumbent
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: upon Democrats to push back on that. We don't We
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: talked about this earlier in the podcast, but there are
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: still a lot of questions about why 2020 happened the
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: way it did. But one of the narratives that came
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: out of it that was pushed by a lot of
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: moderate Democrats is Democrats down ballot, particularly in the House,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: did less well than they thought they would because they
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: were labeled with this defund the police attack from the Republicans.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: And I think the danger in a situation like this
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: politically is for Democrats to be too scared to talk
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: about what they are for. And there's nothing the Republicans
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: and the right-wing media machine likes more than a vacuum.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And if we don't talk about what our plans are,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: they're going to give them the most malicious and false
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: sort of label on them. And we have to be
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: bold about what we were for and talk about. Because
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I think we have certainly a moral obligation as Democrats
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: to speak out about what happened, to speak about the
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: systemic failures that Sam so eloquently talked about. But we
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: also have a political obligation to talk about what we
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: believe– the solution is and what the policy changes need
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: to be. Because if we don't talk about what our
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: plan is, Republicans will label it. And that will make
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: it harder to get something done.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: So just to dive into here, I think this is
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: so complex a problem. And oftentimes, we think about the
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: federal government needs to be creating a solution that will
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: end police violence all across the country. And the problem
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: with that is policing is so decentralized. You have 18,000
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: different law enforcement agencies across the country, most of which
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: are pretty small. They all have their own police leadership,
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: their own policies, their own practices, their own funding streams.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: And so it's very difficult to sort of create sweeping
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: change across the board absent a Supreme Court precedent, which
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: could actually do that. But of course, we have to
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: pack the courts or do something with the courts first
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: because that doesn't seem to be in the offing.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: But I think big picture, so much of this.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Will have to change at the local and state level.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: And the federal government can play a role in encouraging
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: and providing a roadmap for what those changes can look like.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: But the challenge with it is that many people, when
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: you look at police violence, what would be the biggest
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: big picture changes that can make a huge difference in
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: saving lives? Those changes involve dramatically restricting the role of
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: the police in society. They recognize that the majority of
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: cases that people are being killed by the police and
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: the vast majority of cases in which people have force
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: used against them are arrested or are stopped by the
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: police are for low level, minor, nonviolent offenses.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: That's what we're talking about.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: And so we're talking about the state intervening in those
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: situations in a way that is escalating and killing people.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: And states can decriminalize those offenses. States can fund alternative
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: responses to those offenses. States can actually step up and,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: as Colorado is trying to do, they're considering legislation right
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: now that would actually prohibit police from making arrests for misdemeanors.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: for municipal infractions, for traffic violations, that would dramatically change
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: these dynamics. So again, I think we can, that type
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: of change though, like these are crimes in the state code, right?
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: And so we need to go after this at the
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: state level through state legislation. These are some crimes in
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: the municipal code as well. And there are approaches to
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: enforcement of those offenses as well that are determined municipally.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: So a lot of this is going to necessarily take
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: action at every level of government. The federal government creating
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: a roadmap for what can happen, what needs to happen,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: creating guidelines, using their federal funding streams to encourage or
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: discourage particular.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: Behaviors or policies.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: But states and cities have to step up in this
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: moment because if they don't, we're not going to see
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: the transformative change that communities deserve.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: So excellent point on how the change needs to come
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: from states and localities more than anything else. on the
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: federal level, I do want to talk about President Biden's
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: response to this and what he can do. He was
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: asked during a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus on
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Tuesday what he could offer in terms of solutions on
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: police reform. He said, quote, a lot, and I will
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: tell you guys later. Sam, what steps do you want
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: to see from the Biden administration and the Democratic Congress,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: both in terms of legislation and other actions that Biden
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: could take without Congress?
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: So, you know, while the federal government is limited, there
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: are key areas that the federal government can play a
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: role in making a big difference. So one has to
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: do with demilitarization of the police. So this flow of
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: military weapons from the Department of Defense, from the Department
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: of Homeland Security, from a range of different agencies, not
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: just the 1033 program at the Department of Defense, that
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: funnels all kinds of military equipment, tanks, armored personnel carriers, AR-15s,
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: assault weapons, all kinds of things to police departments across
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: the country.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: They can cut that off.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: And so far, they have made some minor changes to
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: some of the most egregious types of weapons. But those
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: make up a tiny proportion of the overall amount of
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: weaponry that's being transferred to departments across the country. So
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: they need to go much further in just cutting off
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: that flow entirely. Similarly, there is a huge role that
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: the Department of Justice can play in opening pattern and
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: practice investigations of police departments. So Vice News did an
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: analysis of pattern and practice investigations that have been open
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: over I think about the past decade or so. They
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: got access to police shootings data, both fatal and non-fatal,
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: for about the 50 largest jurisdictions in the country. And
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: what they found was that those jurisdictions that had federal
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: intervention had significantly fewer police shootings after that intervention than
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: jurisdictions that didn't have those interventions, about a 20% reduction
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: in police shootings after that intervention. The problem is there
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: are only enough resources currently to open about three of
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: those investigations a year.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: That's like the high watermark.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: Even the Obama administration, it was averaging three pattern and
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: practice investigations a year, three departments. Under Trump, they didn't
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: do that at all, like any of those, but three
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: isn't exactly a win. So there are 18,000 agencies. We
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: need to see this approached at scale. Now the Biden
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: administration can do this administratively and Congress can also vote
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: to add additional funding and resource that pattern and practice unit.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: To do more of these investigations as well.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: But we should be talking about on the order of
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: hundreds or thousands of departments being investigated, not three. And
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: we have the data now to identify which departments should
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: be investigated. We have the data on killings by police
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: going back several years. We have now additional data that's
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: being collected on broader forms of use of force, non-fatal force,
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: on traffic stops. There's data on arrest and arrest disparities
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: reported by almost every agency in this country. So there's
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: more than enough data to identify places that have a
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: pattern and practice of discriminatory, potentially discriminatory conduct, certainly places
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: that have egregious racial disparities in policing. The problem is
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: that the Department of Justice just simply hasn't decided to
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: approach this issue at scale, tends to be reacting in
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: a reactive way. So waiting for an uprising or high
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: profile incident to open investigation rather than thinking proactively about,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: here are all the places where we think the next
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: incident is most likely to occur. And we want to,
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: across the board, change all of these agencies. So I
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: think that's the type of sweeping change that the federal
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: government can play a role in.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: But they have yet to step up and do it.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: I think the Justice and Policing Act contains provisions that
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: would strengthen that pattern and practice unit, would restrict the
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: flow of military weapons, and do a host of other
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: things that could be helpful. But ultimately, the Biden administration
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: has the authority to do a lot of this right now.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Dan, how do you think the Biden administration and the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: president has been handling this issue of police violence since
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: taking office. They have basically decided, you know, Biden had
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: proposed a police oversight commission during the campaign. They have
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: since said they're basically going to set that aside. Some
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: civil rights activists have praised that decision because they thought
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: the commission would be a delaying tactic. Anyway, they're saying
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: that the House passed legislation is what they're pushing for.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: We know, of course, that the House passed legislation will
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: end up stuck in the Senate. For the same reason,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other stuff is stuck in the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Senate because of the filibuster. So how do you think
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Biden's navigating this and how should he be navigating it?
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I think it is too early to draw a true
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: verdict on it. I mean, his attorney general has been
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: in office for a couple of weeks. There are still
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: key parts of the Department of Justice that are not
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: there yet. So I think it's an incomplete grade. And
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: I think ultimately the question on police reform legislation, on
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: so many other things is, Is it so important that
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: you are willing to push hard and publicly to get
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: rid of the filibuster? And I know all of our
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: conversations seem to default to that. But if you want
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: to do something, you're going to have to do that.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I think it could be easy to trip over the
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: bar of low expectations of simply being better than Trump
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: or being better or Merrick Garland being better than Jeff
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Sessions or Bill Barr or whoever else and to really
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: use your political credibility to use the full weight of
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: your office to talk about it, make the executive action
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: decisions that you can make, and push for legislation. But
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: simply talking about it, I think, is going to be sufficient.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: And we're going to have to see where this goes.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: But I think there's going to be real pressure on
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Biden to do as much as he can, as I
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: think there should be.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Sam, you were talking about how some of the better
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: news has been outside of Washington in the state's I
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk about one example. The Maryland legislature passed
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: a series of police reforms over the veto of Republican
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Governor Larry Hogan this week. What's your take on these reforms?
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: So Maryland really this past week has stepped up in
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: a huge way. So Maryland was the first state to
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: enact a police bill of rights law. This was decades ago.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: The police bill of rights law has now created a
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: wave across the country where there are 20 states that
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: have police bill of rights laws now. And Maryland just
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: became the first state to repeal it. So we've come
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: full circle where Maryland created this wave of anti-police accountability
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: legislation across the country. And we're talking about laws that
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: completely remove communities from the process of being able to
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: hold police accountable. And even from being able to have
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: basic transparency into officer personnel files, disciplinary records, the ability
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: to investigate disciplined officers and All of those things are
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: structured by these laws that are designed to basically put
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: the police in charge of policing themselves.
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: And we've seen that that doesn't work.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: So what Maryland did was they completely repealed that law,
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: and they replaced it with a community-centered model, like the
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: opposite model. This model now has a civilian police accountability
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: board in every county, and that civilian police accountability board
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: nominates the members to a charging committee that will have
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: the power to formally charge officers with misconduct. Then once
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: they charge those officers, the police chief can either discipline
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: officers according with that charge in the disciplinary matrix or higher.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: So they can either be as accountable as community wants
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: or more, but not less. And they also don't allow
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: for these sort of arcane disciplinary appeal processes where officers
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: get their jobs back after being fired. Instead, the officer
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: can appeal, but they have to appeal to a trial
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: board that has two civilians and one officer. So again,
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: communities have a majority stake in this process throughout, and
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I think that that is really key to thinking about
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: how the system could be structured differently. Now, there are
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: still 20 states that have these laws in place, so
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of work that needs to
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: be done. Particularly, a lot of these states are very,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: quote unquote, progressive states. California has one of the worst
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: police bill of rights laws in the whole country, and
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: you have a Democratic supermajority, they wouldn't even need to overcome,
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: they had to overcome a veto from a Republican governor
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: to pass this in Maryland.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: You don't have that problem in California and still we
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: don't see the legislature step up and act as boldly.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: So I think there's a lot of opportunity now that
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: Maryland has stepped up and created that precedent for other
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: places that should have the votes to do this, to
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: follow through on what communities deserve, to repeal these laws
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: and to replace them with a structure that is community centered,
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: that is focused on accountability that has complete transparency around
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: disciplinary records, which they now have in Maryland for the
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: first time, and that can get to work actually holding
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: these offices accountable.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a good opportunity for some of our California
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: listeners to put some pressure on the California legislature and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the governor here. Dan, what would you say to Democratic
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: politicians at every level who genuinely want to do the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: right thing on police reform, but are scared of these
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: defund the police attacks from Republicans that you speaking about earlier.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: I think you have to lean into the pitch. You
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: have to, if you ignore the issue, you're going to
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: allow the Republicans to define you. And so the actual reforms,
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: like what happened in Maryland and elsewhere, we've seen are
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: quite popular when they were explained. And so it's incumbent
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: upon these Democratic politicians to explain what they want to
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: do and to be bold advocates for their positions. Because
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: if you hide from it, if you're scared from it,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: if you try to change the subject, you're going to
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: allow your opponent to define you. As Sam has pointed out,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: these police unions are incredibly powerful. There is a very disturbing,
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: century-long sort of pop culture and advantage that has gone
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: to the police in these sort of discussions. And so
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: taking it on and doing it with forthrightly and transparently
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: is going to give you your best chance of success.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: And I think there's another way to think about this too.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: And this sort of goes to Biden and congressional Democrats
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: is you were elected in the wake of the uprising
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: around the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: if two years from now, four years from now, little
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: to nothing is done, then you have sent a message
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: to those activists, a lot of people who got involved
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: because of what happened there and who registered to vote
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: at those at those protests, your message to them is
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: that politics does not matter, that your participation does not matter.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: So there is the right thing to do here, but
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: you also have a political obligation to deliver on what
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: you said you were going to deliver. And that is
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: not easy. There are structural forces in Congress that make
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: that hard. There are political impediments at the state and
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: local level. But you have to demonstrate progress if you
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: want the people to believe that their vote matters, their
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: participation matters.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Sam, what would you say?
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: So I would say you got to lean into it, right?
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Just echoing what Dan said, you have to lean into
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: this because it's the right thing to do. The data
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: demonstrates that if you create alternatives to the police, you
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: remove the police from this aggressive enforcement of these low-level
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: minor issues, that you can not only keep communities safe,
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: but you can save lives. And even some police departments
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: are starting to acknowledge this. So this isn't a new
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: conversation necessarily, right? We've been talking about this issue for
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: quite some time now, And some cities, in the context
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: of that conversation, have begun to step up and pilot
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: some of those alternative models.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: And we're starting to get the results back in. So
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: the results are pretty clear.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: You look at the Denver Star program, where they're responding
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: to mental health crises. Last year, the police killed nearly
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: 100 people in response to a mental health crisis. In Denver,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: they're responding to them with 100% success rate, zero arrests,
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: zero use of force. They're connecting people to services rather
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: than policing and incarceration. Similarly, the LA Sheriff's Department just
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: released a evaluation of their mental health evaluation team, which
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: is a co-responder model where you have the mental health
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: provider who sort of takes the lead on the scene
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: and the officer sort of plays backup. Now, I'm a
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: fan of having it just be the mental health provider.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: Having any officer on the scene can escalate things. But
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: even when you just have the mental health provider as
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: an addition to the mix, it makes a difference. Because
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: what the LA Sheriff's Department report said, and they admitted
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: that that over the course of a year, a one-year period,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: they evaluated the 2018 period, that there were over 600
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: use of force incidents that they said their officers would
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: have committed if not for the mental health provider being
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: on the scene. They literally said in the context of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: the report that there were people they would have killed
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: if not for the mental health provider being on the scene.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: This is the police saying this. So, you know, I mean,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: there is consensus now when you look at the data,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: when you just read the facts, that this can make
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: a difference. I think the politics of it are more difficult,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: but I think as that data continues to come out,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: as the results continue to be demonstrated by cities that
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: are beginning to do this all across the country, and
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about places like San Francisco, Oakland that are
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: starting to pilot this model.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: You already have it in some places in Oregon. It's
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: being scaled in Portland.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: In Baltimore, you know, state's attorney Mosby has announced that
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: she's just not even going to prosecute low-level offenses. So
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: decriminalizing low-level offenses. So this is happening sort of piecemeal
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: in different haphazardly all across the country. But when you
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: actually look at the results of those programs, it is compelling.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: So it's up to us to lift those results up,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: to use that in our advocacy, to push those policymakers
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: to see the truth, to move past sort of the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: fear about something new and to recognize that actually this
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: isn't that new at all.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: It's already working in some places.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just echo your point that when we,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: the politics are tough, but when we lift up examples
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: of what has worked and what is working now, the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: politics become easier, right? Republicans want to make this a
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: fight over a slogan. They want to keep it this
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: culture war. What doesn't work for them is when we
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: come armed, one of the reasons we wanted to have
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: you on today, when we come armed with data about
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: what is working in places across the country, where reforms
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: are saving lives, where reforms are making sure that police
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: are held accountable, when you tell people that they are
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: more likely to go along with these reforms. And so
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I do think that instead of running away from the issue,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Democrats need to talk more about where reform is working,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: places like, whether it's the Maryland law, whether it's what
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: you were talking about in Denver, whether it's all kinds
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: of cities and localities across the country, that's a really
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: important thing to do. Sam, thank you so much for
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: coming on the pod. We really appreciate it. And we'd
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: love you to come on again soon.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me on.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us today. One last thing before we go.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: We talked about how the filibuster is one big obstacle
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: in the way of passing the George Floyd Justice in
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Policing Act. We've talked a million times about how it's
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: an obstacle in the way of passing the For the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: People Act, I am wearing my Abolish the Filibuster merch today.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Very important. We think it is now time for Senate
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Democrats who are still filibuster friendly or filibuster curious to
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: hear from their constituents. That means all of you. If
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: you go to VoteSaveAmerica.com slash for the people, you can
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: check out our brand new whip count where you can
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: see in their own words where your senators stand on
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: eliminating the filibuster. And if they're on the fence, you
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: can give them a call using our call tool. If
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: you're nervous about calling or you need some practice, Or
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: if you just have a good pitch you want to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: share with the world, we got you covered. You can
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: now send a voice note to PSA at crooked.com. That's
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: PSA at crooked.com. And let us know if you had
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: a chance to make your case to Joe Manchin or
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Kyrsten Sinema or any other Senate Democrat on why we
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: need to abolish the filibuster. What would you say? Give
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: us your best pitch. Maybe Joe Manchin will hear it.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: We know he's a huge PSA fan. It's coming on
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: any day now. Um, And if you need a little inspiration,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: here's a message from our very own John Lovett.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: Hi, Senator Manchin. First time, long time. Just wanted to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: say I've been loving the will they or won't they
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: thing you've been doing on democracy. The filibuster doesn't make
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: the two parties compromise. It makes the two parties scorched earth,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: bloodthirsty enemies. And I know you hate that because you
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: are so great. We have 575 days to protect people's
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: votes and earn people's votes. Help us, Joe Manchin.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: You're our only hope.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: What do you think, Dan? I thought that was pretty
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: good from Lovett.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: It was great. Let's send him to Washington. Let's get
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: him a meeting with Joe Manchin.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: John Lovett on Joe Manchin. You're great.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: That's a social clip we should send out.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: That's the Politico headline from that message. Again, that's PSA
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: at Crooked.com. Please send us your voice notes. Who knows?
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: We might play it on a future pod and maybe
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: it can help some people convince their senators. Thanks, everyone.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.
• 1:05:19
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• 1:05:23
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• 1:05:26
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• 1:05:33
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• 1:05:37
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• 1:05:40
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