Latest / Pod Save America / Age Against the Machine

Transcript

Age Against the Machine · 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: Dan, it's good to see you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome back, Jon.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I said... It's been a long time. I feel like
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that was the longest vacation I've ever taken.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I think it probably was, yeah.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Oof, I won't be doing that again.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Might be the last one for a long, long time.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: After this podcast. I sort of thought about it, yeah. Well, look,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I was sort of engaged when we were watching the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Republican debate in that first week. I was doing the discords.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: pulled Emily in to do the Discord as well. So
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that was a little bit of our vacation night, just
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: watching the Republican debate and then the Trump-Tucker interview afterwards.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: What a way you live.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, right? Anyway, it's good to be back.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: There's lots going on. On today's show, we're going to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: talk about the uncomfortably close race between President Biden and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: his likeliest opponent, the guy who's facing 91 felony counts.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I'm also going to talk to Frank Foer about his
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: brand new book, The Last Politician, which is the first
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: real insider account of the Biden White House. and a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: fascinating read about Biden himself. But first, Labor Day usually
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: marks the unofficial start of the campaign season. I know
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you guys spent the last few weeks talking about the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Republican primary, which still seems to be frozen in place
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: despite four indictments for Donald Trump and one debate that
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: he skipped. If you take all the polls that have
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: come out since Milwaukee, early state and national, it looks
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: like there's basically been no movement for our pal Ron DeSantis.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy have maybe gained a few points,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and Trump continues to lead the field by 30 to
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: 40 points. This is after the mugshot, after four Proud
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Boys leaders were just sentenced to a combined 82 years
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: in prison for January 6th, after a judge just ruled
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: that Trump is liable in E. Jean Carroll's second lawsuit
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: against him, and after we just learned that the IT
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: guy who was charged in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, has
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: now flipped on Trump and is cooperating with Jack Smith.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Did I miss anything else? Are we all caught up?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: You have basically covered approximately three weeks of news right
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: there related to Donald Trump. Can I just give you
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: sort of an amazing stat? In mid-February of this year,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump led this before the first of the four
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: indictments came. Donald Trump led Ron DeSantis by 2.4 points
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: in the 538 polling average. After four indictments, everything you said,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: the lead was 40 points as of yesterday.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So do we think that this is where the Republican
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: primary stands until at least the second debate on September 27th?
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Probably beyond that, but I'm saying that seems like the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: first event that could potentially change the race even a little.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: No.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: It's not going to change the race. If Donald Trump
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: does not participate, it is not going to change the race.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Dan, Dan, we're trying to get people to tune in
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: for whatever coverage plan we have.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Look, it's not often you get a close-up, 90-minute look
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: at potential vice presidents to Donald Trump. So that's what
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you're doing there.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. All right, so there
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: will be plenty of action in Congress over the next
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: few weeks once they're back in session, though priorities like
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: funding the government and emergency aid for disaster victims... don't
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: seem to be high on the list of the Trumpier
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Republicans in the House. Here's Florida's Matt Gaetz on what
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: their plan is.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: When we get back to Washington in the coming weeks,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: we have got to seize the initiative. That means forcing
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: votes on impeachment. And if Kevin McCarthy stands in our way,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: he may not have the job long. So let's hope
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: that he works with us, not against us. But we've
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: got contingency plans in the event that he's not as productive.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Did Joe Biden commit an impeachable offense while I was
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: on vacation? What is going on there? I love this, like,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: we're going after Joe Biden, and if Kevin McCarthy doesn't
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: let us, we're going after Kevin McCarthy, too.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: It's always poorly written Sopranos dialogue is how most of
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the MAGA Republicans in the Trump era talk. You were
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: pretty offline, Mr. Offline, but you weren't so offline that
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you missed a crime.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: No, nothing happened.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: You missed no impeachable offenses in your absence. You missed
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: no high crimes, no low crimes, no medium-sized crimes. There
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: were no crimes in your absence.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I haven't seen a ton of polling.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think voters will appreciate Congress spending all their
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: time on an impeachment inquiry in an election year over... Again,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the allegations of the impeachment inquiry
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: would be, except that Hunter Biden did some bad things and...
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: The Republicans think that Joe Biden was involved, but have
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: so far after five years turned up absolutely no proof
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: whatsoever that he was. I don't know.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is on the list of dumb things
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: that Kevin McCarthy has contemplated doing. This might be the
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: dumbest of them all. It is absolutely no purpose. It
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: is politically counterproductive in every single way I can possibly imagine.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And he's basically galaxy-brained himself into an absolute corner. If
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: it wasn't probably so bad for democracy and government and
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: people's faith in the system and everything else, it would
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: be quite amusing.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, before his job was threatened,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: this would be Kevin McCarthy's job by Matt Gaetz, he
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: was open to this impeachment inquiry before that. Why do
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you think he wants.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: To do this?
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Because he's a moron. And let me explain.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Nothing beyond that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: If you could take a Homer Simpson look into Kevin
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: McCarthy's brain, here's what you would see. Kevin McCarthy knows
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: that the Freedom Caucus Republicans do not support the funding
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: levels that he agreed to in the debt ceiling deal
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: with Joe Biden. Therefore, they're not going to vote to
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: fund the government. They're not going to support what the
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Senate and Joe Biden work out. So he has come
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: up with a plan. Did he try to persuade them?
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: No.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Did he try to strong arm them?
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: No.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Did he try to bribe them with pork barrel projects?
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: No.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: What he's decided his best idea is to float impeachment
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: and then turn around and tell these Republicans that they
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: have to support keeping the government open because if they
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: shut down the government, then they're also going to shut
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: down the impeachment inquiry that they so desperately want. There's
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: a massive flaw in that plan. The flaw in that
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: plan– is that the government does not entirely shut down.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Congress does not shut down when the government shuts down,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: because they have to be there to vote to reopen it.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: So then one person decides which is our essential personnel,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: essential services, who are the people who continue working during
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the shutdown. I'm going to give you one guess who
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: that person is.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Who's that?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy. You know who else knows that? The Freedom
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Caucus Republicans who've already started pressuring Kevin McCarthy to deem
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: an impeachment inquiry staff essential personnel if there's a shutdown.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: So he wanted to avoid a shutdown because he thought
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: that was worse politics than impeachment, which is a real
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: question there. But now he's likely put himself in a
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: situation where he could likely get both.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So Politico reports that even though the Biden folks agree
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that an impeachment over nothing will backfire on Republicans with
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: swing voters and probably most voters except Republicans. They're also
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: worried about, quote, negative headlines and, quote, the potential for
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: unexpected outcomes. Do you agree? Do you have any concerns
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: if they charge ahead on this impeachment inquiry? Did you
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: hear what John Fetterman said about it yesterday?
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: No.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: He said on impeachment, he said, go ahead, do it.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I dare you. It would just be like a big
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: circle jerk on the fringe right. How great is that?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: You know what that is? Maybe not for today. That's
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: a pod title one day.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I know. I thought about that. I thought about that.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: That's why, again, we'll see.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I think the most likely scenario is that if the
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Republicans impeach Joe Biden, his approval numbers will go up.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: That's what happened with Trump. That's what happened with Bill Clinton.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And those were at least impeachments based on an actual
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: finding of wrongdoing. If you just start an impeachment inquiry
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: in search of wrongdoing, I think they're probably even better.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean Joe Biden wants it. It is
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: a huge distraction. It takes up a ton of resources
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: within the White House to deal with it. One of
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: the reasons that McCarthy has tried to sell the impeachment
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: inquiry to other Republicans is it gives them– that is
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the apex of their ability to investigate and get documents
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and witnesses from the White House. Now we know from
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Trump's impeachment that that– not as clear cut as it
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: sounds since we didn't– most of the people didn't actually
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: have to testify or give up documents, but You just
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: don't want a bunch of MAGA Republicans rooting around in
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: your emails. It's a pain in the ass. They don't
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: want it. They prefer not to do it. So I
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: completely understand that from just we have to run the
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: government and a re-election campaign at the same time. We
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: don't need this additional burden on us.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think it raises the chance that completely
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: unfounded allegations and conspiracies get media coverage because it is
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: within the context of an impeachment proceeding or hearing and,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: you know, and sort of that becomes more of a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: legitimate reason to cover allegations that probably have like no
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: basis in fact whatsoever. And just having those allegations out
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: there probably isn't something that the Biden people want or
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: anyone wants, right? Yeah.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can see the headlines that are like,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Republicans say Biden guilty of bribery. Democrats say no evidence.
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: You decide.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't love that. So, like, I'm not quite
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in the, like, go ahead, bring it on, do an
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: impeachment camp, because I just think it's, like, it would
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: be better not to have it. But if they do
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: go forward, I agree with that. everyone who says that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: it's not really going to help them that much. And
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: other people who don't think it's going to be that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: politically advantageous seem to be like Senate Republicans who went
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on the record yesterday with a bunch of reporters being like,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know why we would do this. I don't
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: see any of the, I don't see any evidence, any allegations,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: even like, dumb shit senators like uh tommy tuberville was
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: like i don't we're really going to go through another
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: trial why would we do that so it doesn't seem
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: like there's a big appetite for it in the senate
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: among senate republicans who aren't exactly known to be a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: moderate bunch these days.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Also there are 19 house republicans in districts that were
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: won by joe biden.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like that yeah it doesn't it doesn't seem
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: clear that mccarthy would even have the votes for impeachment anyway, right? Yeah.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: So just think of the ways this plays out. One,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: they jammed through a partisan impeachment of Joe Biden based
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: on nothing. That seems bad for them. They launch an
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: impeachment inquiry, never find enough evidence and never vote on it,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: which seems like that'd be a piece of useful information
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: that Biden could tell voters when Republicans try to say
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: he's corrupt. Or they bring it to a vote and
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: the vote fails because you have to get every single
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: one of those 19... Republicans in Biden's district to vote
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: for it, which seems like another thing. It's hard to
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: imagine a way in which this plays out well for McCarthy.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean Biden wants it. It doesn't mean it
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: should happen. But he really hasn't thought this one through,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: is my take.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: So one thing it is clear we've seen from some
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of the polls over the last few weeks is that
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign can't really afford a lot of negative
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: headlines or unexpected outcomes. A new CNN poll shows Trump
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: leading Biden 47 to 46 in a hypothetical matchup. A
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: new Wall Street Journal poll finds the race tied at
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: 46% each with 8% undecided. That's pretty much both of
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: those polls are within a point or two of where
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: all the high quality polls are at this point in
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the race. Interestingly, when the Journal poll gave people the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: option to vote for third party candidates and they listed
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: like Green Party candidate Cornel West and some Libertarian Party
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: candidate that I've literally never heard of before and think
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: might have been made up, only 3% of voters took
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the option for the third-party candidates, and that left 17% undecided,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: which I thought was notable. We can get to. Our
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: old colleague, Jim Messina, who was Obama's campaign manager for
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the 2012 re-elect, just gave a slide deck to Playbook
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in which he makes a data-driven case that you'd still
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: rather be Biden than Trump. And Jim also said to Playbook, quote, historically,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: we're fucking bedwetters. Democrats had their hearts deeply broken when
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Hillary lost, and people didn't see that coming. And so
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: we continually believe every bad thing people say. What do
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you think about Messina's argument?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I think that we all have to just know deep
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: in our soul that this is going to be an
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: incredibly close race that will be decided by a number
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: of voters spread out over a handful of states that
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: is smaller than the attendance at the last Taylor Swift concert.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: That's just how 2016 was. That's how 2020 was. We
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: should expect 2020 to be that way. We should mentally
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: prepare ourselves for it.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: We should I know we're all stuck in 2020.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how we should expect the 2024s. That's where
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: it's never ending. We are stuck in this point of view.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons why the electorate is
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: so fucking grumpy in these polls. But we just have
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to prepare ourselves for that. And it will be incredibly close.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I agree with Jim that Joe Biden, under current conditions,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: and current conditions include a strengthening economy and Donald Trump
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: not in prison, Joe Biden is a slight favorite in
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: that close race. And he's a slight favorite because incumbents
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: usually win. Incumbents who are unopposed in primaries almost always win,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Trump being a glaring exception to that rule. The economy,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: although people are very sour about it, the economic indicators
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: are consistent with incumbents who get reelected. We will have
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: to see in this new post-pandemic environment whether that holds true,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: but that is a point in Biden's favor. And the
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: third reason is that Biden has many more paths to
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: get to 270 than Trump. Trump has to flip a
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: bunch of states that are moving demographically to become more
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: blue or have voted for Democrats consistently over many years
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: with the one glaring exception, another glaring exception being Trump 2016.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: And so incredibly close, but you, Biden was probably the
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: slightest of favorites in what is pretty damn close to
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: a toss up as of right now.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Here's my thing on the bedwetting.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: And you know, this is a very sensitive subject for us.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It was really, well, it was really kicked up today
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: with the CNN poll. And so there's like, There's people
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: freaking out. And then there's like Democratic strategists yelling at
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: people for freaking out and saying, don't freak out. It's like, look,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: my view on this is the prospect of Donald Trump
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: becoming president again should scare the shit out of all
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: of us. And however you want to cope with that,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: that's fine. You can wet the bed. You can not
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: wet the bed. You can get out of the bed
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: at 4 a.m. every day because your mind is racing
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: with thoughts about creeping authoritarianism like me.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: That's what you call having to pee?
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Whatever coping mechanism you choose, I'd say just make sure
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you're spending more time and energy trying to help defeat
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump than just worrying about him winning. And we
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: will say this a million times between now and November
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of 2024. But the reason that we sort of got
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: out of the prediction business is not because it's embarrassing
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to be right or wrong. It's because predictions aren't that useful.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: What's useful is figuring out how we can channel our
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: energy into helping defeat Donald Trump and the reason that
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: we still talk about polls and stuff like that is
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to figure out what's the best way to persuade people
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: who might be on the fence and haven't decided whether
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: they're going to vote or who they're going to vote
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: for yet. And I think that's very useful too. But like,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're worried, then yeah, you should be worried.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It's like a worrying prospect that Donald Trump could win
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the presidency again. And I don't want to like yell
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: at people for being worried. I mean, you say this
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: all the time. Worry about everything, panic about nothing. The
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: question is like, how can you direct your energy towards
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: helping achieve the outcome we want, which is making sure
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump doesn't get back to the White House?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: There have been sort of three reactions to these polls
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: over the last few days. And I'm very glad you're
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: back from vacation because everyone has one friend that they
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: ride the roller coaster with, and you're my one friend
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I ride the polar coaster with, where it's like, who's
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: me most interested in the crosstabs on where Biden 2020
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: voters are on his approval rating? And that's you, and
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: you were offline, and that was unpleasant for me, so
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I did this alone.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I will say on our text chain and like, me
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and Tommy were both in this wedding in Morocco and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I could just look at our text chain and you
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: send the wall street journal poll and then you're sending
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: like parts of the wall street journal poll and then
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you're sending crosstabs. And I'm like, just for my own
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: mental health, I can't look at this right now.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I was giving you stuff to read.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: On the plane. I did. I read it on the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: plane home and it was not very pleasant, but yeah.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Tommy asked for TV shows to download and I sent
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: you polling data to download. So, but there's been like
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: three reactions to these polls. One is the utter panic.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Holy shit. What is going on? Can Joe Biden win?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: What's wrong with this country? That's one. Two is, well,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the polls were really fucking wrong in 2022. So we
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: should assume these are wrong too. And the third is
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: stop polling.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: It's way too early.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Stop talking about polls. It's way too early. First one
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: you addressed. Second one. Yes, that is true. The polls
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: were wrong in the wrong direction in 2022. And they
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: were wrong in the other direction in 2024.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Sorry.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: God damn it. They were wrong. Yes, it's true that
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: they were too Republican in 2022, but they were also
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: too Democratic in 2020 and 2016. We have no idea.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. There's no harm in
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. The
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: last thing is, you know who's doing a lot of
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: polling right now? The Biden campaign. Because it's very important
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: to know where the race stands today so you can
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: figure out how to get it where you want it
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to be by knowing who you have to talk to
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: and what you have to say to them. And so
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: there is a reason that we are having this conversation,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: even if it feels unpleasant to the people listening, but
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: especially to us.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I think what most people who you talk to about
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: this race, what they ask is like, okay, I get
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that it's going to be a close race. you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: because the electorate's polarized and basically this is what we've
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: been dealing with since 2016. And by the way, the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: last race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was an
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: extremely close race. And you can talk about Joe Biden's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: popular road victory to make yourself feel better, but it
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: still only came down to what was like 40,000 votes
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: across three states. So that was close. So obviously it's
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: going to be close again, but then people will say,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: but Donald Trump, is facing 91 felony counts. How can
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: it still be this close the second time around? And
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: he tried to, you know, overturn the last election. What
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the hell's going on? So why do we think, do
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: you think that it's just that polarization right now rules all?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And like, that's more, that structural issue that we're facing
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: is more salient than like whatever Donald Trump has done.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's Biden? What do you think it is?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we do tend to conflate two things
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that get confused in these polls. There is the national
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: popular vote, which Democrats have won overwhelmingly in the last
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: two elections.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And then there is how close it is in electoral college,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: because electoral college disproportionately weights Republican-based voters because of how
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: the college works. Yes, it is true that the 2020
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: race was really close. These polls show a close race.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: 2024 is probably a But what about these polls is
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: the popular vote race is tied. It was not tied
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: in 2020. Biden won by more than 7 million votes.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And so the question is, why is the popular– and
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: a tied popular vote race is something that would be
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: very consistent.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Trump wins.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Trump wins the electoral college, almost certainly.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: And so why is it so close? And so while
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: you were gone and I was trying to occupy myself,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I did this for MessageBox and I went into the
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: New York Times Siena poll that came out in early
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: August to look at what the crosstab said and compared
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: it to the Pew validated voter study of 2020, which
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: is probably one of the two or three best pieces
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: of data we have about who actually voted and who
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: they voted for. And what I found is that the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: main reason this race is so close is that Joe
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Biden is underperforming with his 2020 voters right now. So
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: in that New York Times poll, Trump is getting 91%
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: of the people who voted for him in 2020, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Biden's getting 87% of his voters. And 9% of people
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: who voted for Biden in 2020 in this poll either
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: claim they won't vote if the race between Biden and
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Trump or intend to vote for a candidate other than
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Biden or Trump. And that's the difference right there. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: now that group is disproportionately made up of younger voters,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: voters under the age of 45. Interestingly enough, 16% of
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: voters 30 to 44 are planning to vote for a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: third-party candidate or not vote at all. That's a huge
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: chunk of Biden's base. The other group is non-white voters,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: particularly Black and Latino voters, are supporting Biden at much
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: lower rates than they were in all the polls, not
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: just the New York Times poll. than they did in 2020.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And that is the delta between where Biden wants to
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: be and where he is right now.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And particularly non-white, non-college educated, younger voters are a
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: tough group for Biden. And Nate Cohn dug into this
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in a piece this week in the New York Times.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: That you should steal yourself before you read.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Steal yourself before you read it. But it's based on
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the same New And what's fascinating and sort of terrifying
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: is that Biden in not just that poll, but other polls,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Biden and Trump are both doing the same as they
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: did in 2020 with white voters. And and then for Biden,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: nonwhite voters who are college educated, he's still doing really well.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And nonwhite voters who are older, he's still doing the same.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But it is younger nonwhite voters who are either. And look,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: some of them. have said that they'll vote for Trump
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: this time. There's a portion that said that. Some, as
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you said, will say they're not going to vote and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: some will vote third party. And I think that what's
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: extra tough about this, which I know from the last
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: season of The Wilderness that I did, is like these voters,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: these are not like voters who are super progressive and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: they're just like waiting for some organizer to knock on
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: their door and tell them like Joe Biden is more
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: progressive than you think. And look at all the good
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: things he's done and blah, blah, blah. That's not who
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: these voters are. They actually tend to be more moderate,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: even though they're young and nonwhite. And the reason they
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: tend to be more moderate is all the young nonwhite
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: voters and white voters who are very progressive, they're already voting.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: They're going to vote for Joe Biden. They're out there.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's whatever. It's these voters who are disaffected from politics.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: They do not consume politics like we do. They do
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: not consume the news as much as we do, which
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: also makes them harder to reach for a campaign. So
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: throwing up an ad on television is not necessarily like
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I think the best way to reach these voters. They're
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: not going to read a lot of the coverage of
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the race. And I think the real challenge for the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign is going to be figuring out how to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: reach these voters who are disaffected from politics in the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: first place, but did turn out to vote for Joe
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Biden in 2020. Do you have any thoughts on how
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: they do that?
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's going to be a whole host of things.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: One is there is a huge gap of information about
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: what voters think Biden has done, what he's actually done.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: And you're going to have to close that gap to
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: make people know that their vote in 2020 mattered and
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: had made a difference so that they will vote again
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: in 2024. And we're going to have to do a lot,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I think, to undo– and this is very challenging. It
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: was challenging in 2016. It was challenging in 2020. It
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: will be challenging in 2024. is try to undermine this
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: idea that Donald Trump is some sort of populist working
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: class advocate. He's actually beating Biden in some polls on
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: the measure of looks out for people like you or
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: fights for you or looks out for the little guy
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: or whatever the– looks out for everyday people, whatever that
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: measure is. Here's a guy who flies on his private
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: jet past the most egregious tax giveaway to corporations and
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: rich in the history of the country and– It is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: part of a party that's got Social Security and Medicare,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: and he's treated as some sort of advocate for working
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: class people, and we've got to change that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So every piece of available data says that Biden's two
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: biggest challenges are what you just mentioned, sort of his
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: economic record and his age. So let's start with age.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: The Journal poll has 73 percent of voters saying Biden's
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: too old to run for president. Last week's poll from
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the Associated Press had 77 percent of Americans agreeing with
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the statement that Biden is too old to effectively serve
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: another term, a number which includes 69 percent of Democrats.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Not nice. Here's how Biden addressed the issue during his
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Labor Day event.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you what. Someone said, you know, that Biden,
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: he's getting old, man. I'll tell you what. Well, guess what?
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: Guess what? You know, the only thing that comes with
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: age is a little bit of wisdom. I've been doing
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: this longer than anybody, and guess what? I'm going to
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: continue to do it with your help.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: What do you think about the with age comes wisdom argument?
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: It's good. He tried to turn age into wisdom and
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: experience in 2020, both in the primary and the general.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And The best political strategies take your weakness and turn
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: them into a strength. So it is the best of
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: a menu of not great options to navigate this challenge
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: that is very evident in the polls.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I will say, though, there is one very prominent figure
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that disproves that theory, that with age comes wisdom, and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: that is the man that Joe Biden is likely to
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: run against, Donald Trump. It's the only... It's the only
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: flaw I see in that argument. But I agree with
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: you otherwise. Only 47% of voters in the Wall Street
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Journal polls say that Donald Trump is too old to
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: run for president, even though he's only three years younger
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: than Biden. And Trump would also be the oldest president
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: ever elected if he's elected again. Why do you think
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that is? Why do you think that Trump's age isn't
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: as much of an issue for people?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I think we should at least be honest with ourselves
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: that there is a difference in people's minds between late 70s,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: That is why things are priced at $ 9. 99. That makes
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: a difference. It just does. We should acknowledge that and
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: deal with that. But that's not the main thing here
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: because Joe Biden may be older, but he's healthier. He's
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: clearly more competent and of his faculties than Donald Trump,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: who– claims to believe to his core a gazillion conspiracy
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: theories that make no sense, says insane things. If your
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: uncle talked like Donald Trump talks, you would have a
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: family meeting about how to deal with his health care. Like,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: that is how it is. But the issue here, I
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: think there's two reasons why we don't hear about Trump's age.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: One is the press has decided that Biden's challenge is
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: his age. And we've created this sort of, they have
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: created a flywheel here where Donald Trump and Republicans and
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: right-wing media say Biden's too old. Press says, Republicans say
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Biden's too old. Press then writes think piece that says,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: is Biden's age going to be a huge problem? Voters
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: read that. Pollster asks voters if they're concerned about Biden's age.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Voters say yes. Press then writes story about increasing concerns
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: about Biden's age. And so it is taken off. And
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I think the concerns about Biden's age are legitimate. People
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: should have them. They The way it's being covered and discussed,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I think, is deeply irresponsible. When the press has done
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: the right thing, what the press should do is they
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: cover Biden every day. They should see if he can
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: do the job, if he's capable of doing the job.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: All of the reporting says yes. They've talked about some
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: minor adjustments he has made around which set of steps
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: he uses. But there's been no suggestion, not from the reporters,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: not from the Republicans who meet with Joe Biden, not
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: from world leaders, that he is not a man 100%
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: on his game in these meetings. And that's what the
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: press should tell us. The press should not tell us
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: that people are concerned. The press should tell people whether
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: they should be concerned or give them facts and information.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And the story here is that Joe Biden can do
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: the job at 80, not that people think that Joe
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Biden may not be able to do the job at 80?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's that Trump doesn't seem old. He seems crazy.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And like Joe Biden's problem is not that voters think
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Trump is actually some spring chicken because voters don't like
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Trump because they think he's crazy. Like I was watching
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the Tucker Carlson interview with Trump and my first reaction
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: was not that Trump is some old guy. It's that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: he's like talking about the fucking Panama Canal and how
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the mosquito killed 35,000 people. And then he's talking about
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: faucets and water falling. And I'm like, this guy is
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: fucking nuts.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Right, but if Joe Biden talked like that, we would
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: have a thousand news cycles about it, about it being.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Related to his age. But I think what's happening with
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Biden is... like he, it is very clear that when
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: he has some fight in him with some energy, like again,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: like he did during the state of the union, like
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: he's done during some speeches when he's on the stump sometimes,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: then like, it doesn't come across as old. Sometimes he's like,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: he's just very gentle. And like, there's been a little
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: more shuffling as he's gotten older. And you know, sometimes his,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the way he talks is a little quieter than he
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: used to be.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So like, people are not, I don't think we can,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think we can say that like people are
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: imagining it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: But, but I think that's, I think it, I think
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: in some ways, like it can't be dismissed because then
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: voters think you're just like, what are you talking about?
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Everything's the exact same. And it's like, well, no, it's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: not the exact same. What you can say is the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: guy can really fucking do the job. And he's still,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: he's still completely with it. And he can, you know,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and so like, I think that it, I think you
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: have to acknowledge that, that, that, you understand why people
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: would think he's old, 80 years old for the presidency,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: but that the guy is still very much competent, very
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: much able to serve and do the job.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: It just is bizarre and inexplicable on paper why when
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the press writes about Joe Biden's announcement, Joe Biden announces
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: a reelection to become the oldest president ever and does
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: not say the same thing about Donald Trump. That speaks
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: to a sort of, the culture of journalism and the
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: both sides nature, because they definitely talk a lot about
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's crimes. Like that is a real... Well, that's.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: What I was going to say, but I think that
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: sort of takes precedent over his age, right? If he
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: had no crimes, if he didn't have 91 felony counts
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and he wasn't saying crazy shit every day, maybe you'd
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: start focusing on Donald Trump's age. But there's a lot
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of other things that go ahead of his age. Guess what?
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: They don't really print the news on paper anymore. You're
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: not limited by the number of pages. You can write both.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: So the Biden campaign obviously understands this challenge. And they're
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: releasing a very interesting ad in the swing states. I
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: think it's going up this weekend in swing states that
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: is ostensibly about his trip to Ukraine, but I think
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: is about addressing the age issue. Let's listen.
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: It was the first time in modern history.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Very significant moment on the world stage.
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: That an American president went into a war zone not
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: controlled by the United States.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: A nearly 40-hour journey in and out of Ukraine.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: President Biden left Washington, D.C. at 4 a.m.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: On Sunday.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: He landed in eastern Poland and then took a nine-and-a-half-hour
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: train to Kiev.
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: He entered Ukraine under the cover of night. And in
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: the morning, Joe Biden walked shoulder to shoulder with our
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: allies in the war-torn streets. That's the quiet strength of
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: a true leader who doesn't back down to a dictator.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: You host a wildly successful YouTube show called Political Experts
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: React about ads. So please react.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: It's a great ad for the reason you say, which is,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: and I think this gets to the strategy behind addressing
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Biden's age, which is you have to show, not tell,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: and show him being active and engaged. Because if you
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: really think about it, and this is partially... a result
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: of the way the media has changed over the last
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: few years. It's partially a result of the way Joe
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Biden has conducted the presidency. But people who are not
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: deeply engaged with political news never see Joe Biden. They
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: never see him speak. They never see an event. They're
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: not watching the places where Joe Biden is covered. And
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, because he's a lunatic, and this is not
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: to his benefit most of the time. And Barack Obama,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: because of sort of the cultural figure he was in
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: a very different media environment, is that people were always
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: seeing Barack Obama and Donald Trump. And so if you
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: don't see Joe Biden, and all you ever hear is
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden's really old, and maybe you see some
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: edited clips from the RNC or some cherry pick footage
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: that maybe is circulating on social media, and you know
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: he's 80 years old, you're going to think he's too old.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: But if you have a point of comparison with what
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the guy's actually doing, you can have a more nuanced
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: take on the age issue. And I think this ad
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: tries to get at that.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: What else would you do If you're running the campaign
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to address that, to address the age issue, I think
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: they've clearly done that in the here with a paid ad.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure there'll be more from a paid ad perspective.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: But like, how would you do in terms of like,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: you know, where you put Biden, where you have him go,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: what you have him say, what you have him do,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the type of events, right? Like, is there a there's
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: sort of a strategy or any creative ideas?
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Well, it's creative. Seems like you're putting a lot of
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: pressure on me. And I will say I read this
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: question in the outline right before I went to bed
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: and it kept me up for a while. You're basically
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: a huge part of both the paid and the earned
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: communication strategy, the free social or traditional media is going
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: to be getting Biden in front of people who do
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: not normally see him. That includes young voters and less
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: engaged voters. And so there's going to be a lot of,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I think, communications things where you're not– it's not a
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: CNN town hall or the Sunday shows. It's going to
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: be a lot with influencers or interesting podcasts on video
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: or like when he did SmartList, the podcast before the
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: election last time, where people who will– what used to
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: happen in the old media world is that you would
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: bump into politics as you were doing other things, either
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: because it was in your Facebook feed or your Twitter feed.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Because you were tuning into the news to find out
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: the sports or weather. That doesn't happen anymore. And so
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: you're going to have to go where people who do
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: not consume politics already are. So I think they will
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: do that. He did that podcast with Jay Shetty, I think,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: who's the mindfulness person with a very popular podcast. That's
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the sort of things I think you'll see more of.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: I've been trying to think about the messaging of this.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Because a lot of us are going to be in
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the position of talking to our friends and family about
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden. And the age is going to come up.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: So I tried to do, this would be my best
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: take composed between one and two in the morning last
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: night in my head.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: The best kind of takes.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: That's where all the good stuff happens.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: We'll find out because I didn't write it down. We
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: know Joe Biden can do the job because he's been
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: doing the job. He became president in the middle of
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: an unprecedented series of crises, including a pandemic and a
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: historic recession. While he was president, he also dealt with
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: a global spike in inflation and and a Russian invasion
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: of Ukraine. He has been ably, competently navigating those crises
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: for the last three years. His policies help save the economy,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: where we are now. Unemployment is now at a historic low.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: The economy is growing again, and wages are going up,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: and costs are going down. He has passed a series
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: of historic pieces of legislation, which helped make the economy
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: more fair, dealt with climate change, launch a manufacturing renaissance
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: in America with clean energy and well-paying jobs. He has
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: passed legislation to help veterans deal with gun violence and
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: rebuild Americans' roads and bridges. Many of those were bipartisan
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: pieces of legislation that he was able to pass because
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: he had the experience to do so, even though this
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Republican Party is so radical that most of their members
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: won't even admit that Joe Biden legitimately won the election.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden has been doing a hell of a job,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: and now we've got to give him the chance to
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: finish the job because the last thing we want to
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: do is undo all the progress of the last few
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: years and go back to right where we were when
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden took office with double-digit unemployment in a country
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: that was swirling in chaos. The end.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: And if that doesn't work, the other guy tried to
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: overturn the last election.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then you get to Trump. But the question is,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: how do you answer the Biden question?
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: No, I know, I know.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: But it does speak to, like, every time I think
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: about this, I'm always like, is it easier? Is it
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: going to be easier to convince these voters who don't
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: like Biden and don't like Trump, or at least don't
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: approve of Biden and don't approve of Trump? Is it
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: going to be easier to convince them that, and they've already,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and most of these people have already voted against Trump
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: once in 2020. Is it easier to convince them that
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: actually they should like Joe Biden more than they do
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: because he did all these things, even if they haven't
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: personally felt the effects of all the wonderful accomplishments that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: you just listed? Or is it going to be easier
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: to remind them that Donald Trump was not only a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: bad president, but could be a threat to democracy and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: everything we hold dear if he is returned to the
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: White House?
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be one message for every, you know,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: there'll be, let me put it this way. The prioritization
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: of those messages, which both will be part of the campaign,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: is going to differ a little bit, at the juncture
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: in the campaign in which you do them and who
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: you're saying them to. But as we talked about earlier,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: we've got a bunch of people who know everything there
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: is to know about how bad Donald Trump is who
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: have not yet committing to Joe Biden. I think a
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: lot of people will come home naturally as the race engages,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: but we have work to do with people who don't
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: like Donald Trump. And this gets right at the age,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: because I think one of the huge problems that Biden
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: is facing is that voters don't know enough about what
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: he has done. And so they're unhappy about the economy.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: they don't know what he's done, and they keep hearing
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: he's really old. So you are tying all those things together.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: One way to prove that he can do the job
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: going forward is to show that he has been doing
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: it this whole time, which people don't actually know. And
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: I think that matters a lot. It's not going to be,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: let's go get our voters back and then worry about
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: the people in the middle as the campaign goes on.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: But I think this part of the– the Biden part
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: of the messaging is the part we control and the
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: part we should be doing right now as opposed to
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: sort of launching a bunch of attacks at Trump that
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: probably do nothing more than strengthen him in the primary.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Well, in addition to the ad that we just ran
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: that's going to be going up this weekend, there's another
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: ad that tries to get exactly at what you're talking about,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that they are going to air for the first time
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: during the NFL season opener tonight. Let's listen.
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: They said millions would lose their jobs and the economy
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: would collapse. But this president refused to let that happen. Instead,
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: he got to work fixing supply chains, fighting corporate greed,
• 40:06
  Speaker 7: passing laws to lower the cost of medicine, cut utility bills,
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: and make us more energy independent. Today, inflation is down
• 40:13
  Speaker 7: to 3%, unemployment the lowest in decades. There's more to do,
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: but President Biden is getting results that matter.
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: So I always start with this premise whenever I hear
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: an ad, which is if there's a political ad that
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: a campaign has spent a bunch of money on, they
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: have tested it and they have found through that testing
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: that it is effective. People usually, especially on the presidential
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: level where they have more money than like a local
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: congressional race, they don't usually spend a bunch of money
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: on an ad that they have no idea whether it's
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: effective or not. So I assume this ad's effective. I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: was wondering if like, do people, I guess, do people
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: know what fixing supply chains is? Do they know what
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: it meant when he said he fought corporate greed? I'm
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: sort of interested in, I know you have to squeeze
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: a lot in a 30-second ad, but I'm wondering how
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: much assumed knowledge is there. I don't know. What do
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this ad does not do the thing that, and
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: you can't do this in all the ads, the thing
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: that we talked about, which is show Joe Biden being active.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's going to have to talk in a lot
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: of these.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Ads, too.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my first reaction.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: But there is going to be a billion dollars in
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: ads spent. Uh, you have to do some things to
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: lay a foundation and part of laying the foundation is
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: giving people information. The, I am sure that I know
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: corporate greed pulls through the roof is one of the
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: things that shows up in all the ads. I am
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: positive that fixing supply chains and the people don't really
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: know what it means. Pulls very well. Is there enough
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: context in that ad? Maybe not, but, and this is
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: one of the things we really try to guard against.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: And when I do the YouTube show on political experts, directors,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: these ads don't exist in a vacuum.
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: There's other ads happening. There's other communication happening. There's digital
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: stuff happening. And they're pretty finely tuned and targeted at
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: certain groups of people. So you assume that this is
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: one piece of information they're getting. So you just view
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: this ad as the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: It's not going to scratch any itches. But I think
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: if it's part of a larger set of communications around,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: you know, they're out there on Bidonomics talking about fixing
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: the supply chain. And so in that sense, you hope
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: it probably that it works and effective. But it has
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: a laundry list element to it that may turn off
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: some voters.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So one last question about it. One thing this ad
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't mention is Trump. None of the Biden campaign ads
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: have mentioned Trump so far. Biden hasn't really talked about
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: him on the stump much. Politico reports that there is, quote,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: considerable unease among Democrats about this. I know that you
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: do not have that unease because I'm an avid reader
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of the message box and you wrote about it this morning.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Why do you think not talking about Trump is the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: right strategy for Biden at this point? point in the campaign.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: People project this forward and are like, is he never
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: going to talk about Trump? Is he just so into
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: his unity? Of course he can talk about Trump. He
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: talked about Trump all the time in 2020. They ran
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: a ton of negative ads against Trump. That's going to
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: happen again. Super PACs are going to run negative ads
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: against Trump. He's going to talk about Trump. He's going
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: to have to navigate the tricky dynamic around not commenting
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: on the specifics of Trump's many, many criminal trials happening
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: in the federal courts, but he's going to talk about Trump.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Right now, in this point, and there was a very
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: good NBC News article sort of laying out Biden's thinking
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: on this. And what they talked about is that they're
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: following the same strategy that we used in 2012 during
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: the Republican primary, is that we did not comment on–
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: we are focused on all of our anti-Republican energy on
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: congressional Republicans. Biden is doing that with quote-unquote MAGA Republicans.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: But the reason to not talk about Trump right now
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: is twofold. One, He's got a lot of work to
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: do on his own with ads like the ones we
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: talked about. He's got to inform voters about him and
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: rebuild up his image with his voters. And so that's
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: priority number one. And time and money are limited resources.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: And so that's our concern. The second reason is much
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: more strategic. And that's why we never talked about Romney
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: until he was the nominee. Because if all of a sudden,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is probably going to win this primary going away.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: But the best thing that can happen to Joe Biden
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: is this becomes a protracted primary. Maybe someone else wins Iowa.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Maybe someone else wins New Hampshire. Maybe this gets past
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Super Tuesday, where Donald Trump is now on federal trial
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: for trying to overturn an election. And if Biden starts
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: attacking Trump all the time right now, he's going to
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: fast forward the election. He's going to elevate Trump, make
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: it more likely that Trump wraps his things up by
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: the end of the New Hampshire primary. And so just strategically,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: the last thing you want to do is make it
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: more likely that Trump wins the nomination running away. You
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: want him to be stuck fighting with Ron DeSantis and,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Vivek or Nikki Haley, whoever else, as
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: opposed to running the general election, why Biden is off
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: taking advantage of that incumbent advantage. So those are the
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: two reasons that I'm totally fine with what he's doing.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. You want to obviously a long drawn
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: out primary for Joe Biden. I do wonder if it's
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: even possible to further elevate the guy who commands more
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: media attention than any other politician ever and is basically
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: running as the Republican incumbent and up 30 to 40 points.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I just don't know if... Joe Biden talking about Donald
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Trump or not has any effect on elevating him or
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: not just because of who Donald Trump is and why,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: and because he's such a unique figure.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: It's fair that it's probably pretty marginal, and it's definitely
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: different than the dynamic that we face, where Romney was
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: not a well-known figure, and that was a closer primary, obviously.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: The other reason just is, if you think about this strategically,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: and you look at all these polls, voters are not
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: walking around with a lack of negative information about Donald Trump.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: That's not the problem. The problem is not they all
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: think that they're just like, what indictments or anything like that?
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: The biggest problem is that they have a lack of
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: positive information about Joe Biden. So go fix that problem,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: which will give you more credibility when you engage in
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: the attacks. It is so early, despite this very long
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: pod where we've talked about the 2024 election. It is really,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: really early in the general election. It's 14 months away.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. And last thing I'll say on this is
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I think people get too hung up sometimes on whether
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: he names Trump or how he talks about Trump, whatever else.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I think what is important that he does soon is
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: frames the race on his terms, frames the choice in
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the race on his terms. Obama did that in 2011, right?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Before in December of 2011, we gave that speech in Osawatomie, Kansas,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: where Obama basically lays out the choice in the election.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't mention Romney by name. He sort of,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: he does talk about like the crowd in Washington and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Republicans and their philosophy and stuff like that. And, but
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: he did it in such a way that when Romney
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: was the eventual nominee, you could basically just slot Romney's
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: name in to that speech if you wanted. And the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: whole message of the speech would be the same. And
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: so I think that at some point, and of course,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: this was December of 2011 that Obama did this, but
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I think at some point in the fall, this fall
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: or early winter, if I were the Biden folks, and
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: they're probably going to, playing this anyway, but I would
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: sort of lay out a speech where, again, he doesn't
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: have to mention Trump by name, or he can, but
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I would lay out what they believe the choice should
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: be in the election, or at least how they want
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to frame the choice, because I think getting the story
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: right and the message is almost even more important than
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: any individual piece of information you need to get out
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: there about Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Do you think that that story is probably pretty similar
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: to the way the 2022 election was messaging was around
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: MAGA Republican extremism against sort of.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: And I think that, and this is partly because I'm
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: talking to Frank Foer about the book that he just wrote,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: but you can fold all of the economic stuff in
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: there too, because I think in his book, Foer lays
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: out that Biden's theory of the case is you got
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: to make sure that democracy delivers for people if you
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: want people to stand up for democracy. And this allows
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: him to talk about all the ways that democracy has delivered,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: that he's been, you know, the fights that he's picked
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: so far. And then you have the finish the job message.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And that's both about sort of the economic progress you're making,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: but it's also about protecting democracy. And that is at
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the core of this whole thing. Because again, if you just,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: you put aside all the polls and all the shit
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: that we read, and you just go talk to people like,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: what is the scary thing about Donald Trump becoming president again?
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: It's that he almost tried to overturn democracy last time, right?
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Like this whole system with whatever issues you care about,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: whatever side of the issues you're on, like the guy
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: tried to fuck up the whole system last time and
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't have had like representative government anymore. He's going
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to install himself in power forever. Like that is at
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the core of what this next election is going to
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: be about. And at some point you've got to figure
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: out how to get there as fast as possible to
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: start wrapping people's heads around the fact that like those
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: are the stakes that in the 2024 elections, and it
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: couldn't be higher. All right, before we go to break,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: a few quick housekeeping notes. Falls just around the corner,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: and you know what that means? Pumpkin spice. Oh my goodness.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Sweater weather. More incredibly important elections for abortion rights. Okay,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: there we go. In Virginia, we've got to maintain a
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: majority in at least one chamber of the legislature to
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: block the extreme anti-choice agenda. Meanwhile, Ohioans will be voting
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: on whether to codify reproductive freedom in the state constitution.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Visit votesaveamerica.org One more related item here. Ben Wickler says
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: they're launching a campaign to help stop this at defendjustice.com.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: So if you're in Wisconsin, talk to your representatives. If
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you're not, check out the website and see how you
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: can help. We'll be talking more about this issue in
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the weeks to come on this podcast. Also, if you're
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: looking for a smart, funny explainer on what in the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: absolute fuck is going on in British politics, Pod Save
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the UK is the podcast for you. Each week, hosts
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Nish Kumar and Coco Khan break down the biggest news
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom. from the sex scandal at the
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  Speaker 1: BBC to the most prolific child killer in modern British history.
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  Speaker 1: Listen to new episodes of Pod Save the UK every Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, I
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: talk to Frank Foer about his brand new book on
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: what makes Joe Biden tick. Joining us today, the author
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: of The Last Politician, the first real insider account of
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: the Biden presidency that's out this week, Frank Foer. Welcome
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to Pod Save America.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, so great to be here.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: All right. So I'm curious about how you approach this book.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Like how many interviews did you do over how long?
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And did you try to get time with Biden himself? Right.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: So the book is kind of a tale of an
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: of a subject just ballooning on me. It's I started
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: off intending to write a book about the first 100
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: days of the Biden presidency, which I knew was a
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: trope and I knew was likely to be.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: But a useful trope.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: It's a useful trope.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: But I got to the.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: End of the first 100 days and I totally did
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: not have enough material to write a book. And I
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: think you know from being on the other side that
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of an administration, you have these conversations
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: with aides who are just trying to get their own
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: footing and they're super paranoid about being the one person
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: to leak. Everything is in process and people don't like
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: talking about things as they're happening. And so the 100
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: days rolls around and Biden proposes the Build Back Better bill,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: which is a huge deal. It's a huge amount of
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: social spending. I thought, OK, this is a good excuse
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: for my publisher to keep going and also incredible story
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: if he's able to jam this thing through in a
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: 50-50 Senate. And then end of the year rolls around,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Manchin pulls the plug on Build Back Better. And it
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: was like a dark, dark moment for the Biden presidency.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: And it felt like maybe a bummer note or an
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: unfair note or a note that wouldn't hold up over
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: time if I stopped it there. And so my publisher said,
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: all right, go to the The process of writing a
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: book like this is you just got to keep showing up.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: It's patience is a virtue I do not necessarily have
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: as a journalist. I want to be, I want to
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: hit my deadline if possible. I want to, but I
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: didn't have the material until things actually happened. And then
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: the nature of media is that media gets so distracted.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: It's like they, Afghanistan happens, they run and chase the
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: next story. And then as the book writer, you come
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: in And you're able to have all these conversations with
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: people who want to unburden themselves, who want to explain
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: themselves for the sake of posterity. And they want to
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: claim credit for various things if they're victorious. And that's
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: when the good stuff started to roll in for me.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my co-host would have killed me if I spoke
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: for this book. When I was in the White House,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm talking to any book people.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: But I feel like you.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I would argue you wrote a very favorable book about
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Biden's first two years. Did you try to interview him?
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: So I was able to talk to him twice off
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: the record with other groups of columnists. And it's so interesting.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: The Biden that comes across in public is so different
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: than the guy who's sitting behind the resolute desk in
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: the Oval Office. I understand the impulse to edit him
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: to avoid the gaffes, the unintentional headlines, which would inevitably
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: come if you sat him in front of reporters all
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: day long, or you had him conduct town halls endlessly.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: But the guy who is there is like, yeah, he
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: tells a lot of stories you've heard before. There's no
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: doubt about that. But then there are these other moments
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: where he's explaining his deeper thinking and you think, oh,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: the public really would benefit from hearing a lot of that.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Like he's able to talk about grand strategy in the
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: Indo-Pacific with all of this detail, this sense of how
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: the pieces fit together. And, you know, people don't see
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: that side of him. And they would benefit, I think,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: politically on some level if they could.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: I totally agree with this. I've had the same experience.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: My family was at the White House in December of
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: last year.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: When I came back from the interview, I went to
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Vinay Reddy's office, who's the speechwriter, Biden's chief speechwriter. And
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: my wife, my three-year-old, and my in-laws were all in
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: there with Joe Biden, who had stopped by the office
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: because he recognized my mother-in-law from meeting her three years ago.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: And then he brought us up to the Oval, and
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: he's like telling us all these stories. And it was
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: classic Biden because on one hand, there were some long
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: stories about But it's also, you're like, you get such
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: a deeper insight into his thinking. You get that he's sharp, right? Like,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: which is everyone's concern. And also just like the kindness
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: and warmth and generosity all come through as well. But
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: he could like, he was like carrying on for an
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: hour about everything, like all kinds of different details, you know?
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Those moments of grace, which I don't do an
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: especially great job of capturing in my book that are
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: unique to Joe Biden, where he calls a staff member
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: up after their parent had died, or he remembers somebody
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: like your mother-in-law. That's part of his DNA. It's part
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: of the way in which he is. I describe him
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: as the last politician. That's an inherent skill of a
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: great politician and something that doesn't translate always in a
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: mass media environment.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: So you write at the beginning of the book that
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: you started as a Biden skeptic. You said you viewed
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: him as a bloviator who dangerously fetishized bipartisanship. But, you know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and through the course of writing this book, your opinion changes.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: You say that not only has your respect for him grown,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: but you said it was hard to imagine any president
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: doing much better under the circumstances. What was it that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: changed your view about the president? Right.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: So in part, it was, I think my... understanding of
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: what it means to be a politician changed over time,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: that there are all these things that seem so artificial
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: or maybe cheesy about Joe Biden that I ended up
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: coming to respect the wisdom of, and that there was
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: real technique behind the way that he maneuvers the legislative world,
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: the way that he deals with foreign leaders. There's Jonathan Alter,
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: who'd written a book about Obama, kind of set me
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: up for this at the beginning. His word of advice
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: was that there's some, you know, the expression familiarity breeds contempt.
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: And he said, with Joe Biden, familiarity breeds respect. And
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I definitely found that to be true for myself as
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: I journeyed.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I completely share your assessment of Biden.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm always, I'm someone who's always loved Joe
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Biden as a person. He wasn't my first choice in
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: the Democratic primary. But now I think that given the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: constraints of of what he's inherited and who he's had
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to deal with. He's not getting nearly enough credit for
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: what he's accomplished. I also just spent the last segment
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: talking with Dan about how most voters don't think he's
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: doing a good job, don't think he's accomplished enough, don't
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: want him to run again because they think he's too old.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: And that's not just Republicans. That's a big chunk of
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: independents and Democrats as well. What do you think is
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: going on there? Why don't more voters have a view
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: of Joe Biden's presidency that's similar to the story you
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: tell in this book?
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: There are a couple of things that I could untangle there.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: One is Matt Iglesias tweeted yesterday that part of what
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: people are saying is that Joe Biden just doesn't make
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: for a good television character. So he's omnipresent. People say, well,
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden should be out there more. And it's true
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: in the way that we just discussed that it would
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: be good to see him unplugged. But he gives set
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: piece speeches every day. And yet they never really managed
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: to break through because he's reading off of a script.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: And the age issue is so tied up, I think,
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: in the diminishment of his presidency that because of the
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: way that he walks, because he doesn't speak with the
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: same level of energy that he did before, there's just
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: a sense that he hasn't been an active president. I
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: think he began with the theory of the case that
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: he wanted to lower the temperature in the country and
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: to get people to have politics recede from the forefront
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: of everybody's mind because it dominated it in such a
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: destructive way during the Trump era. And he needed people
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: to take the vaccine. And so he didn't want to
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: overly politicize that. But now we get in here. And,
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the other thing that I should say is
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: also they've been very reluctant to claim credit for things
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: in a way that I guess I understand, but is
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: ultimately self-destructive. So you take something like the fact that
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: they saved the economy from collapse while inflation continued to persist.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: And even though unemployment remained crazily low, which was their
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: goal all along, they didn't like to talk about their
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: economic achievements because they thought they would never break through.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: They didn't talk about the vaccine. The vaccine is one
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: of the great successes in the history of government. Like
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: a beautifully designed program, you could, within six months of
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: them coming into office, you could walk into a CVS
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: and get a shot that would save your life. Very,
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: very complicated program. But COVID never really disappeared. So, and,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: and they got burned on July 4th of that first
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: year for trying to claim a little bit of credit.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: So they just stopped claiming credit for, um, for returning
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: life to normal. And then you get around to this
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: other stuff, the inflation reduction act. Well, you know, it's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: a very un-Joe Biden like name for a piece of
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: transformational legislation.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: As he's pointed out.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But they've, um, you know, they've had a hard,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: they've just not hit the road and sold this thing,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: despite the fact that we have all of this capital
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: investment that is pouring into clean energy, into semiconductors, the
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: transition to clean energy is going to happen much faster
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: than anybody anticipated.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting to me. I feel like I'm having
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: such deja vu because obviously we had different circumstances, but
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: it's similar in nature when Obama got into office and
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: then There was a lot of criticism after the fact. And,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I even saw it in the context of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: like lessons learned from the Obama administration and Biden staff
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: are sort of saying this to reporters that like, oh,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: we didn't sell the Recovery Act well enough. We didn't
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: hit the road. We didn't market it good enough. And
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to it's not going to be the same
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: with the Inflation Reduction Act or the American Rescue Plan.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: And then sure enough, they have like run into the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: same set of roadblocks. And I sort of wonder, as
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: you were talking to all the different people close to Biden,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: like how much of the challenge of the last couple
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: of years is like a structural challenge, like polarized electorate,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: fractured media environment. So it's hard to get your message out.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Declining faith in institutions is like sort of the backdrop
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: of all of this. And how much is decisions made
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: by Biden and his team that they either regret or
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: mistakes they made or, oh, we should have done this
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: differently and maybe it would have been better. Like, did
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: you get any sense of that from talking to people?
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: And I, in your, As you're talking, I could just
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: see myself slipping into what the political scientist Brendan Ihan
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: referred to as Green Lanternism. It's like there's this sense
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: that if only the president used their bully pulpit more effectively,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: then things would be different. But all the structural constraints
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: that you're just describing are, of course, correct and make
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: it hard. I also remember when the American Rescue Plan passed,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: there was this grand strategy for going on the road.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: And then- there was a hate crime that happened in
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: Atlanta the next week. And they scrapped their plans for
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: going out and talking about it because they felt like
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: it was more important to address those hate crimes. And
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: then they never got back to that process of selling
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: the American Rescue Plan. Or only got, you know, they
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: did it in a half-hearted sort of way. And that's
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: just the nature of the presidency as well, is that
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: you ricochet from crisis to crisis. And even if you
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: come in with these intentions about how you're going to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: market your agenda and correct for these mistakes that you
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: witnessed the last time. You can only correct for so
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: many of them when your hands are full with the
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: next terrible thing you have to deal with.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: We mentioned the age concerns. The people you spoke to
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: for the book, what did they say about those concerns?
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: They've worked with Biden closely. Did you talk to anyone
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: who had concerns themselves about his age or him slipping
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: or anything like that? Or what was your take there?
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: I think everybody acknowledges that he's changed over time, that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: there was, I bet the Joe Biden you saw in
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: the White House, you would describe as not a different person,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: but having a different energy level than the Joe Biden
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: that you see in public now. But nobody told me, man,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: that guy is is really losing it. He's not up
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: to doing the job. I think Nikki Haley talks about
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: the mental acuity test that she wants to apply to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: every president. I would tell you, Biden would ace that test.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, the ways in which he's aged are physical.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: And so he's not able to go out and stump
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: for things maybe in the way that he once did.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: His schedule is not the same schedule that he would
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: have had 20 years ago. his stories, which always wandered
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: a little bit, maybe wander a little bit more sometimes,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: but he's, you know, there's this flip side to the
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: age thing, which is the wisdom, which I also think
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: is real. Like, I do think that he's, you know,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: he hears all of this noise in the media about
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: various things. And this is the thing that surprises me
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: most about Joe Biden is I thought of him as
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: a weather vane, but he's not. And so when the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: the media comes down on him hard for Afghanistan, or
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: maybe even when they're coming down on him hard on
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: age right now, he doesn't freak out and start to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: veer in the other direction.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: The book's called The Last Politician. You tell the story
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: about how Biden set out to prove, I think you
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: call it the eternal relevance of politics after the profession
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: has fallen into disrepute. His profession, you know? And you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: contrast that explicitly with both Trump and Obama's who you
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: argue posed as anti-politicians and in very different ways benefited
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: from the common sentiment that politicians were the problem, corrupt, unresponsive,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: lacking in necessary boldness. I obviously found that interesting. Can
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you say more about how you define the differences between
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: a politician like Biden and anti-politicians like Trump or Obama?
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, to just go to the Obama part,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: because I mean, I remember what was so exciting about
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: him in 2008 and like the real potential of Obamaism,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: is that he had this very direct connection with voters,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: that it felt like he could have in an unmediated
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: sort of way, unfiltered through media. I mean, it's like
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: the way in which he, it was very attractive, the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: way in which he would kind of roll his eyes
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: at the idea of the professional politician. I imagine there
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: were times like his relationship to Joe Biden, which was complicated.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: There were times where he would even roll his eyes
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: at Joe Biden because there is something, you know, Obama's
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: strength and his appeal was his authenticity that he was,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: he was who he was. He was this guy who came, um,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, we ran a cover story, uh, uh,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: in the new Republic called American Adam, that he was
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: this guy who kind of descended.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: And, um, that's a, an extremely attractive archetype and Biden, uh,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: the defects of the politician is that they just, uh,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: reek of artificiality that you think that they're going to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: say one thing in public and then do another thing
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: in private that, um, that's why people don't like politicians
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: or the stories that get repeated over and over again.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: There's a theatricality to the politician, uh, in, in authenticity.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: But what I came to respect over the course of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: time was that, um, Biden was able to assess the
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: political self-interest of other actors. So whether it's a foreign leader,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: whether it's Macron, whether it's Bibi Netanyahu, whether it's Mitch
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: McConnell or Kevin McCarthy, he's able to detach himself and say, okay,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: what's their political game here? What do they need in
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: order to do their jobs effectively? And the empathy that
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: he has allows him to understand the emotional baggage that
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: the other person brings to the table. And I don't
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: know if this is a fair contrast with Obama, but
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, Obama with kind of his
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: fierce intelligence and like his ironic sensibility would look at
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: some of these other actors and just get frustrated with
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: them in a way, you know, it's like he would
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: get frustrated with Bibi Netanyahu for Bibi Netanyahu's bullshit. He
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: would get frustrated with, you know, with a house Republican for,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: their bullshit. I think that Biden kind of is able
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: to at least see himself in them enough to have
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: maybe more patience in dealing with them, if that's fair.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: No. So I asked the question not to like try
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: to defend Obama or the administration. I asked because I
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: think I think it's a really important tension in politics,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: whereas like Most Americans, most voters, if you ask them,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: they will say that Washington's broken, that politicians are corrupt
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: and stupid and blah, blah, blah. And so to be
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: a successful leader, you have to both channel the emotion
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: that's out there in the country, which is very anti-Washington,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: very anti-establishment, very anti-institution right now. But if you're, especially
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: if you're a Democrat, for Republicans, it's almost easier. But
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: if you're a Democrat, you have to be the defender
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: of institutions that That aren't working very well for people
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: or that people are pretty upset with. And I think
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Obama always felt that tension as well. And I don't
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: think it's an accident that by the end of his presidency,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: when you hear when you heard Obama talk about. Joe Biden,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, he talks about the three
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: of them with like such reverence. And he had so
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: much respect for them. And I think that respect was
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: developed over time. And I can remember like edits to
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: speeches where Where we would say, oh, Washington's doing this
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: and Washington's doing this because we had that muscle from
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: the campaign, from the away campaign. And he would say,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: you know what? I get some shit from this from
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: from people in Congress and then stopped by being like,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I should say I should point out that it's actually Republicans.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: It's not people in Washington. And so he even evolved
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit over time. So I think he learned
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: that from Joe Biden. And then Joe Biden sort of,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: That's totally fascinating. It's really I think that Biden in
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: some ways needs to unlearn a little bit of that himself,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: that what's he's channeled Trump's populism and policy, that he's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: got this industrial policy that's reviving American manufacturing and He's
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: taking on the problem of monopoly in a way that's very,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: very robust. We've got this Google trial that's just about
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: to begin. He's got his merger guidelines. He's made unionism
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: more acceptable in the country. I think he's lent his
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: prestige to that. And then he needs to turn that
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: into the rhetoric of populism, which he's loathe to do
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: because it requires having an adversarial relationship with certain forces
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: in American life. And he's capable of doing that through policy.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: But his Labor Day speech last week, I think, did
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: a pretty effective job of foreshadowing what I think would
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: be a good campaign strategy. I'm a terrible political consultant.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: No, look, I agree with you because I think it
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: solves a couple problems for him. Like when he is
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: fighting and energetic, it like– it speaks to the age
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: concerns and it also sort of speaks to a discontent
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: in the electorate. Right. And this like populist economic populist streak,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: which like you say, like his policy certainly reflects. And
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I've heard him do like this to me, the Scranton
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Joe was like the best kind of Joe, Joe Biden
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: when he's out there on the stump.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And in that speech, he did a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: great job of connecting it to Donald Trump and describing
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump as this phony park Avenue guy who, who
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: only talks about these things. But Joe Biden, the politician,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: is actually able to deliver for you.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: So, you know, you talk about how his theory of
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: the case is that, you know, democracy has to deliver
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: for people in order for people to sort of want
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: to protect democracy and stand up and protect democracy. So
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: on the one hand, he proves this by, and he
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: proves the consensus is still possible by passing some real
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: historic legislation in a very closely divided Congress, a lot
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: of it bipartisan. On the other hand, Like Republicans want
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: to impeach him right now over absolutely nothing so that
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: they can help the guy that's facing 91 felony counts
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: come back to the White House. How do you square
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: that circle if you're Joe Biden?
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: I think that he has his eye on the long term.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: I've heard aides describe this. So there was various moments
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of the administration where Ron Klain or
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: others we're like, let's just run. We'll, we'll, we'll just
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: take this straight to reconciliation. Let's not pussyfoot around. We
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: know that there are not enough Republican votes here to
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: explore a compromise and Biden will say, no, no, no, no.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: Like you're probably right, but we need to model something
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: here about how you should be go, go about getting
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: something done. We need to at least see, be seen
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: as trying to forge some sort of bipartisan deal. Um,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: I think with, uh, you take something like Dobbs where
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: he has very conflicted feelings about abortion on some level.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: I think he understood ultimately the radicalism of the Dobbs decision. And, um, uh,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: he also understands that abortion is going to be maybe
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: the issue that saves the democratic party in the next election.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: Certainly did it in 2022. Um, But there was all
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: this pressure to respond instantaneously, to go out to match
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: Republican solutions with sweeping Democratic solutions. And his instinct was like,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: you know, let's let's back off here. He doesn't say,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: you know, so far as let's just let's just back
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: off here. Let's let the Republicans hoist themselves on this.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: They're the ones responsible for this. Let's not give them
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: any unnecessary beefs with us. Let's not match Republicans. their
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: radicalism with our own radicalism, their anti-institutionalism with our own anti-institutionalism.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: Let's let them be portrayed as the pure villains here.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: The book ends around the midterms, right, which was sort
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: of a surprise victory for Democrats, though Biden himself always
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: felt more confident in the outcome than most of the pundits.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: But did you get any sense of how his team
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: is looking at 2024, partly because, you know, in the midterms,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Biden was able to step back, not make it as
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: much about him, let the sort of, you know, election
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: denier candidates sort of screw themselves over. And we also
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: had a lot of, you know, good, good Democratic candidates, right,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: that were well liked in their states. And I wonder
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: how they're looking at 2024 now and what they're thinking
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: about as sort of the path to victory for him.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: I think it's kind of the same in that, so
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: he was not there on the ballot in 2022, but
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: his instinct is it always needs to be a referendum
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: on them, that Trump presents such a stark alternative. I
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: think part of the reason why he feels compelled to run,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are probably all sorts of psychological reasons
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: why he feels compelled to run, but on a base
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: political level, he feels like voters know that I am
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: this safe alternative to Donald Trump. They know what they're
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: getting with me, and the choice becomes clear enough. And
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: people may be wetting their beds right now about him,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: but that when the time comes, it's still going to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: be this stark alternative.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: How would the assessment of Biden that you wrote in
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: this book change if he loses to Trump in November,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: or would it?
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: I think it does. I mean, I think that his
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: legacy is now going to be defined by the 2024 elections.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: Everything that he's done exists on its own, but it
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: was done in service of a theory of the case
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: that politics and his agenda could show that democracy could
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: deliver for its citizens in order to avert authoritarianism. But
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: if authoritarianism is the end product of the Biden administration,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: then he was wrong.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Uh, you made a little news when you said, I
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: meet the press that if Biden dropped out before November
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: of 2024, it would be a surprise to me, but
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a total surprise to me. Why wouldn't
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: it be a total surprise? I would be shocked at
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: this point.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, I, when I said that I hadn't, um, I,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: I was relying on the fact that when he talked
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: about running in the past, he always talked about fate and, um,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: That there was this religious component to it and that
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: he didn't know exactly what life would– and I always
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: assumed as an 80-year-old guy that was like an essential
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: thing to append to any statement about that. But the
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: more that I've thought about it and the more that
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: I've encountered what's happening right now in the discourse, it
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: feels like. If there's a succession of polls that show
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: him losing to Donald Trump, there's going to be a
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: pretty massive Democratic freakout. And I don't know what will
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: happen in that sort of environment.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't. Yeah, no, look, my view on this
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: is the time for alternatives is sort of long past.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: No, I know you are.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: And he seems like very intense and sort of like,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: you know, they got a whole campaign. They're going it.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: So it's like, you know. everyone's like, let's, we're doing
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: this people, we're doing this and we're going to help
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: them out.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: Well, and also there's, I think he's got a theory.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: He hasn't really explained it, but it's, it's, it's, it's.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: A, I think actually maybe the strongest political case of
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: them all, as opposed to kind of picking some untested
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: candidate or letting there be an open democratic primary where
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: who knows where that goes. Yeah.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: No, look, I mean, my, my, after, after reading your book,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: I sat down and I was like, this is really
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the story that they have to figure out how to
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: tell because they have a good story and they have
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: a good case. And I think that for a whole
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: bunch of reasons, many of which are beyond their control
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: because of the way that the media environment is and
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: because I think people got used to in Trump, a
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: president who was like in their face every single day.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: And so there is a lot of like, where is Biden?
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: Why don't we hear from Biden? But like they have
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: to find, I think, creative ways to sort of tell
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: the story about the last two years and the next
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: four years sort of in a way that you laid out.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: And I think the story's there. It's just a question
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: of like, can they get it out there?
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: You know, I found that Biden had become so distant
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: as an individual to most Americans over the course of
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: his presidency. Maybe Americans knew him better in some ways
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: before he became president. And there are these parts of
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: the Biden story that I tell that the right has
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: seized on for their own purposes that reflect a guy
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: who's flesh and blood. He's got a temper sometimes. Like
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: he doesn't, like he doesn't like it when uh he
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: makes a mistake and then um beats himself up for
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: it and then does the very human thing of blaming
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: an aide for for for the mistake that he committed
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: himself he is a flesh and blood human being in
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: the best sense right he makes mistakes but he's also
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: got this very uh these honorably human characteristics that you've
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: described and i think it's valuable for them to just
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: restore him to being a character.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah no i i've i've said the same thing it's
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: like i i take a whole bunch of gaffes um
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: if it meant just like also getting to see the
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: other side of him the more personal side of joe
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: biden Um, who is just like a wonderful, kind, generous man.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: And when you let him out there to do whatever,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: sometimes you're going to get a few long stories and gas,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: but I think that's worth it. Um, to just like,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: make sure that people do know who he is and
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: aren't so distant from him.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: Well, it's also, he has it. I, I've thought this
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: from the start and I've thought, he should just become
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: America's grandfather. Embrace the age. Be the wise person who
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: actually instructs the country about certain things, very human things.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: I thought at the beginning of COVID, he did a
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: very good job of that when he had to fill
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: in for Trump, especially, and talk about what it was
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: like to not have Thanksgiving dinner that year. And then Later,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: when he was talking about what it would take to
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: get back to normal, I thought, all right, here's a
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: guy who's leaning into his age in order to instruct
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: a younger nation. And then over time, that's just retreated.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as is the case when you're president of the
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: United States and sort of dealing with shit beyond your
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: control every single day.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Frank Ford, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: The book is The Last Politician. It's fantastic and a really,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: really great read on what makes Joe Biden tick, I thought.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: So thanks for coming on.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Frank Ford for
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: joining us. Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: to you next week.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: Bye, everyone.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner Bernstein
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:21:18
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• 1:21:21
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