Latest / Pod Save America / “Both Sides-ing the Insurrection.” (with Mehdi Hasan)

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“Both Sides-ing the Insurrection.” (with Mehdi Hasan) · Pod Save America

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I will not stop tweeting. I will not stop posting.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: I will not stop asking.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Questions That was Marjorie Taylor Greene repeating my own personal mantra.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I will not stop tweeting. I will not stop posting.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. Dan's on
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: vacation this week, and I am lucky to be joined
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: by Mehdi Hassan, the host of The Mehdi Hassan Show
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: on Peacock and MSNBC. Mehdi, welcome back to the pod.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me, Jon.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: I think it was a year ago that you were
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: guest hosting on the pod with Tommy because it was
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: when my son was born, and he's about to turn
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: one tomorrow. So this has been a year since you've
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: been on the pod. Thanks. We have a lot of
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: news to cover today. Joe Biden's town hall in Cincinnati,
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: where he spoke about the pandemic, the economy, and the filibuster.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: The Republicans' intraparty battle over vaccines and the 1-6 Commission.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: And later, I talked to Ekis Research co-founder Stephanie Valencia
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: about how Latino voters are reacting to all the latest
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: news about immigration. But first, it's Thursday, which means we've
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: released a brand new episode of Edith. With President Wilson
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: back in charge and the League of Nations vote days away,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Edith is nervous. There are only two more episodes of Edith,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: but you can binge the first six episodes now. Check
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: it out. Also, the Crooked store is having a massive
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: summer sale through July 31st, up to 70% off your
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: favorite Crooked gear. And as always, we donate a portion
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: of every... order to vote riders. So check it out
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: at crooked.com slash store. All right, let's get to the news.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: President Biden was in my wife, Emily's hometown of Cincinnati
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: last night for a CNN town hall with Don Lemon.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: The president answered 90 minutes worth of questions, but kicked
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: it off with a topic on everyone's mind, the pandemic
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: that just won't quit. Here's a clip.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: So you said last month that this, um, that the
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: virus is in retreat. Do you still feel that way?
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Is that still the virus?
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: Look, here's the, it's real simple. We have a pandemic
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: for those who haven't gotten a vaccination. It's that basic,
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: that simple. 10,000 people have recently died. 9,950 of them
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: or about are people who hadn't been vaccinated.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: So Biden went on to say that the CDC will
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: likely announce that every child under 12 should wear a
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: mask at school. and that he expects full FDA approval
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: for the vaccine sometime between late August and October, which
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: would provide firmer legal ground for vaccine mandates. Mehdi, clearly
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: we're in a new phase of the pandemic where things
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: aren't as great as they seemed a few months ago,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: but much better than they were a year ago. How
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: do you think that Biden and the White House should
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: handle that?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I think they should take it seriously, which they kind
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: of are. I think we've got to stop playing catch up.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: For me, it's less about Biden. It's more about all
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of us as a society in a country who want
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: to keep writing this virus off and saying it's time
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to move on. It's back to normality. The number of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: times I've opened my nightly show on Peacock over the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: last eight months, nine months saying, oh, good news. We're
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: nearly there. Light at the end of the tunnel. Cases
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: are down. And then actually, one step forward, two steps back.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: This is a very resilient virus. The Delta variant is
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a serious thing. And I think that the CDC decision
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: in May on masks, I wasn't a fan of it
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: at the time in hindsight. It could be the biggest
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: blunder that we've seen from this administration. I mean, it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't a political decision. It's not on Joe Biden's abs.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: It came from the scientists and the CDC, Fauci and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Walensky and co. I think it was a mistake. I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: know why they did it, to try and incentivize vaccine uptake.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But you're looking now at the American Association of Academy
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of Pediatrics saying yesterday, kids in school, the rules, as
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, are changing. LA County has brought back indoor
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: mask mandates in public places. I think... I think we're
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: going to regret that as the summer goes on, because
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: we've seen the parts of the country that are unvaccinated.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: We don't know, even with us fully vaccinated people, there's
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a whole debate about breakthrough cases, how high or how
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: easy it is to get it or not. And I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: just feel like at every juncture of this pandemic, John,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: we have been understandably wanting to get on with it,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: like get back to normal, get back to normal. And
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: it's an understandable human reaction, but it just doesn't work
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: in the face of something like COVID-19.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, I try to separate this out into sort
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: of the science and the politics. And on the science,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: I can understand the CDC decision on masks because the
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: science still says that the vaccinations are extraordinarily protective, even
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: with the breakthrough cases on the rise. One of the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: reasons that breakthrough cases are on the rise is because
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: there's just more transmission of the virus. And if you
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: do the math that you're going to get a certain
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: percentage of breakthrough cases, even with the vaccines as protective
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: as they are, you're going to get more breakthrough cases.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: So I understand the science of the mask. I do
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: think the challenge was saying, OK, you know, unvaccinated people
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: are going to put their mask on and that's going
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: to be on the honor system.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: So you can't tell if you're in a store who's
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: vaccinated or not, if no one's wearing a mask, which
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: makes me think that the next place we need to
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: go is, you know, vaccine passports or vaccine requirements.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: If you're a business or you're a crowded event or
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: you're doing something like that, you say, look, we're not
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: going to force you to get vaccinated, but you just
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: can't be part of this event if you're not vaccinated.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But we're too late to this conversation, John. The right
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: have already led the way on this conversation by A,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: demonizing vaccine passports. as some sort of kind of anti-American,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: illiberal anathema, even though mandatory vaccinations for kids in school
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: have been part of our society for decades. Vaccine passports,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: when traveling internationally, have been around for 100 years. And
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: there's even Supreme Court precedent. People should just go Google
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Jacobson versus Massachusetts. At 1905, Supreme Court came out saying
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: states have the right to insist on things. And then,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of course, there's the argument that you know what Republicans
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: are doing at a state level, right? In Montana, they
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: passed a law saying businesses cannot prohibit Any business cannot
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: stop from providing goods to people who are unvaccinated. They're
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: basically treating unvaccinated people as a protected class, like religion, race, gender,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: sexual orientation. It's the new civil rights movement for the right.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as you say, they're finally coming out for civil rights,
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: but it's It's.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: For privileged white ignoramuses in the South who could get
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a vaccine. Millions of people around the world would love
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: some of these American vaccines. The level of privilege and
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: ungratefulness involved in not getting vaccinated in a country like
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: America where it's readily available and free is And then saying,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: not only am I not going to get vaccinated, but
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I insist on being able to walk into a business
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: without a mask on, without being vaccinated, and be treated
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: like everyone else. No, I'm sorry. If they want to
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: turn it into the civil rights movement, go for it.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Because I think eventually, the majority of Americans who do
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: get vaccinated are going to say, how long should we
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: have to sacrifice for these people making everything worse for
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: all of us? I'm pretty hardline on this. And there
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was a tweet that went viral yesterday, which I stupidly
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: shared and then deleted, That's why you should verify of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Macron apparently saying, you can't go to restaurants and cafes.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Why should the rest of us? And afterwards, everyone's like,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: it's a fake quote. And I'm like, OK, it's a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: fake quote, but someone should say it for real. Because
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: whatever that fake quote was.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: I believe it.
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I believe that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a liberal. On this issue, there have to
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: be restrictions. Like I said, go check Supreme Court precedents.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court said in 1905 that, you know what,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: liberty is not absolute for the individual when society collectively
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: is at risk of mass death.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, look, I feel the same way. You know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: I'm here in L.A. and they, you know, reinstated the
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: mask mandate. And I'm completely fine with with wearing a mask,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: of course. But, you know, the county health folks said.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: But everything is on the table if this gets worse.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, okay, we're not going to start going
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: back to lockdowns and restrictions and closing businesses down when
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: we haven't even, the city of LA hasn't even mandated
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: that its own employees get vaccinated. And you're going to
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: start closing things down? No, I don't think so.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It's not going to happen. I mean, no one's ever
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: going to agree on lockdowns, vaccinated or unvaccinated. So the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: only issue now is how do you, A, incentivize people
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to get vaccinated, and B, and the French have done,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: what's not fake is that France has brought in all
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: sorts of better incentives in terms of access to public
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: places and all of that stuff. But, you know, and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: here in America, we've seen the vaccine lotteries have had
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: some uptake. When you offer people money, surprise, surprise, with
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: a chance of money, they get vaccinated. And then separately, yeah,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: we're going to have to start saying, you know, what
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the Republicans call discrimination and civil rights movement. Fine, I'm
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: all for it. Let's have that argument. I suspect they'll lose.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a topic I like talking about these,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and then your colleague Brian Boitler at Crooked is very
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: good on this, which is, yeah, let's have the culture
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: war and let's win it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: I totally agree with that.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: So the president also got a question from Don Lemon
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: about the latest developments in Congress, about his economic agenda,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: which some of the lamest people in Washington have taken
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: to calling the BIF, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. Let's take
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: a listen to the clip.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: You're talking about Senator Ron Portman of Ohio.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: No, but since you mentioned that infrastructure, the bipartisan.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Infrastructure deal failed.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: The procedural vote today, right?
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: But no, but yeah, it did, but that's irrelevant.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Go on. Okay.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: And the Senate negotiators say that they need more time.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: So then, but they expect the vote again on Monday,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: but how much time do you think that they need
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: to get this done?
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: Till Monday. Look, no, I'm not being facetious. I'm not
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: being facetious. You had up to 20 Republicans sign a
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: letter saying, we think we need this deal. We think
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: we need this deal. So I think there'll be By
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: the way, the reason we're talking this way, we need
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: 60 votes to get something moving. And what's going to
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: happen is, I believe, because I take my Republican colleagues
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: at their word when you shake, I come from a
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: tradition in the Senate, you shake your hand, that's it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You keep your word.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Most of the Democratic and Republican senators negotiating the deal
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: seem to agree with Biden that they'll be ready by Monday.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: All the Republicans sent a letter to Schumer basically saying, yeah,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: we're ready to go on Monday. There were few Republican
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: skeptics in the gang. What do you think, Mehdi? Will
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: bipartisanship prevail? The holy grail of Washington?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: There's literally no word that annoys me more than bipartisanship.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Although biff is an annoying word, and I'm glad you
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: highlighted how nerdy it is. I would also say that
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I have an instinctive irritation with biff because biff was,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of course, the baddie from Back to the Future. And
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: biff in Back to the Future, for those of you
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: who don't know, was based on Donald Trump. A lot
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of people don't know that trivia. I did not know that, actually.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: They did model the character on Donald Trump at the
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: time in the 80s or whenever it was.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: RAOUL PAL, They did a good job.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: SIMON DIXON They did a good job. Bipartisanship, it's the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: dumbest thing in the world. I'm with Senator Bernie Sanders,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: who says, when people got their checks from the American
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Rescue Plan, they did not say, did a Republican and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a Democrat vote for me to get this check? How
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: was this check produced? They just care that they got
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: a check. They just care that they're getting child tax
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: credit payments. They want their bridge not to fall down.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think they give a shit if the bridge
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: falls down with the assistance. The bridge was saved by
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: only Democratic votes, not Republican votes. I do have an
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: issue with bipartisanship. There is no bipartisanship. I mean, sorry,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff, all of this stuff is for
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: me is secondary to voting rights. I know we're going
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to talk about it. It was one of the big
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: things on the CNN town hall as well yesterday. For me,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, Okay, they got some Republicans on board. Great.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: We've saved our bridges. Have we saved our democracy? All
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of this is secondary to the only issue that matters
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to me right now, which is preserving our elections, our democracy,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: our voting. And for that, there is no bipartisanship. So great,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: if Joe Biden can get these people on board for
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: 600 billion of new money, great. There's 3.5 trillion on
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the table without the Republicans. That's there. They've said now
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that if they don't get Republicans by Monday, they're going
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to add the $ 600 billion to the $ 3. 5 trillion, which
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: will give us $ 4. 1 trillion, which is a good amount
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of money. I would like to see more, but it's
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a good amount of money. If you take $ 4. 1 trillion,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you add it to the $ 2 trillion from the American
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Rescue Plan. That's $ 6 trillion in six months. John, I
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: was not a fan of Joe Biden. That's a lot
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of money. I mean, you're talking real money now. I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was not a fan of Joe Biden, as you may know,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: during the primary season. If you'd come to me a year,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: year and a half ago and said, Joe Biden will
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: deliver $ 6 trillion, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer will deliver
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: $ 6 trillion in the first six months, I would have
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: laughed in your face. So I will take that $ 6
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: trillion and I will say that's a win. However, that
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: $ 6 trillion is delivered.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: a President Bernie Sanders or President Elizabeth Warren would have
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: been able to deliver $ 6 trillion, even though they probably
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: wanted to. I never would have imagined that.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: No, no, I agree. And if they can get this
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: little bipartisan, hard infrastructure done, for me, it's like, if
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: that's what makes you happy, go for it. If that's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: what's going to make Joe Biden happy, if that's what's
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: going to make the authors of Politico playbook happy, fine,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: get it done. I don't give a damn. I would
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: rather see it done in a partisan way. As Bernie
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: put it the other day, I prefer partisan bills to
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: bipartisan because you get more money.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think I think even more than Joe Biden,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: the whole this whole fucking charade is to please Joe
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema so they can say, OK, we
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: got our bipartisan deal. Now we're ready for the three
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: point five trillion. I have some concern that if the
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: bipartisan deal falls apart. most Democrats will try to add
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: the money to the reconciliation bill. But Manchin and Sinema
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: might say, hold on, hold on. 3.5 might be fine. 4.1
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: might be too much. So I'm like, give them the
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: win and let's move on.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: The issue will be Who did they blame? The issue
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: will be whose fault will it be? And this has
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: been the great debate amongst Democrats since January, which is,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and this was the Schumer plan, which hasn't quite worked,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: which is, we will show Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that Republicans can't be trusted and will block us and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: won't work with us. And then they will see the light.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: They will have their kumbaya. They will have their Damascene conversion.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: And they will come over to fixing the filibuster and...
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: passing things in a partisan way as was supposed to.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I've never bought that because I've never thought the argument,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the problem with cinema and matching is that they don't
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: get it. They get everything. It's just they don't want to.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you guys have played
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the tape. We played the tape on our show that
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: More Perfect Union found of Kirsten Sinema from what, 2011, 2010?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: When she's going on, she's on a brilliant tear about
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: how Democrats should use reconciliation, ignore Joe Lieberman, forget about
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the filibuster. You don't need 60 votes. She knows all
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the arguments. She said them.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: The former Green Party member who has become the thorn
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: in the side of progressives right now. You mentioned the filibuster.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: It's an issue near and dear to your heart and mine.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Let's listen to Biden's answer on that and voting rights
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: last night.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: I would go back to that where you have to
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: maintain the floor. You have to stand there and talk
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: and hold the floor. You can't just say it now.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I understand that.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: But what difference does that, if you hold the floor for,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: you know, a day or a year, what difference does
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: it make?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing for me.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: You talked about people, and this is important for people
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: who look like me. My grandmother would sit around when
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I was a kid, fifth grade, had a fifth grade education.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I learned that she couldn't read when I was doing
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: my homework. She would tell me stories about people asking
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: her to count the number of jelly beans in the jar.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Or the soap.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: So why is protecting the filibuster, is that more important
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: than protecting voting rights? Especially for people who fought and
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: died for that?
• 15:16
  Speaker 7: No.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: It's not. I want to see the United States Congress,
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: the United States Senate, pass S-1 and S-4, the John
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: Lewis Act, get them to my desk so I can
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: sign them.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: But here's the deal.
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: What I also want to do, I want to make
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: sure we bring along not just all the Democrats. We
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: bring along Republicans who I know know better. They know
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: better than this.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Do they know better? So if I was looking at
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: the glass half full here, I would say that Biden
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: once again endorsed bringing back the talking filibuster, which is
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: a reform. He did make passing reference later to an
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: exception for voting rights. So I guess that's progress. If
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: I was looking at the glass half empty, I'd say.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Come on, Joe, what the fuck are you waiting for?
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: What do you think?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: What's going on there?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I'm glass half empty. Look, I've been, as I mentioned
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: a moment ago, I've been very praiseworthy, you know, full
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: of praise for this administration on things they've got right
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that I didn't think they would get right, especially on
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the economic front, antitrust front, monopolies front, spending money front, checks. Good. Tick, tick, tick.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Voting rights is the kind of black mark that this
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: administration gets. They've talked a good game. They have willed
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the ends but not the means. And I, for one,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: am deeply frustrated when I see Joe Biden say to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Don Lemon, well, Don Lemon asked him straight up, you
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: can't do it without getting rid of the filibuster. And
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden disagreed. He said, no. And no one asked him, well,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: how do you plan to do it? He says, I want,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: you just played that clip, I want to sign S1
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and the John Lewis bill. How does it get to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: your desk? He gave a great speech in Philly saying,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: this is the threat to voting rights. But again, no plan.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: It's all very well saying you support S1. Kyrsten Sinema
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: says she supports S1. It's irrelevant what you say you support.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: The issue is, how do you get it done, especially
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: in a place like the Senate filled with all its
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: weird procedures? And as long as you have a 60-vote requirement,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you will not get it done. Biden talks about Republicans
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: who know better. If I was there last night, I'd
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: have said, name them. Name them on the stage. Because
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: right now, there is zero Republican votes for S1. Not
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: even Mitt Romney will come on board for S1. Take
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. There is one Republican
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: vote for it. Lisa Murkowski, she's probably going to run
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: as an independent next time around anyways. So there are
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: no Republicans supporting these bills, let alone 10. So I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: think it's an insult to our intelligence now at this
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: point in July to be told again and again by
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Democratic members of Congress, Democratic senators, the White House that, oh,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: we'll get there. We'll pass it. We have a plan. No,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: there is no plan. Jen Psaki admitted the other day
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in a White House briefing they don't have a specific strategy,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a legislative strategy for getting this done because there isn't one.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: The only way to get it done is to get
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: rid of the filibuster. The only way to get rid
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of the filibuster is to get Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Sinema to agree to that. The only way to get
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: them to agree to that is to put pressure on them,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: either publicly or privately, to quote Jim Clyburn. Do it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in a microphone. Do it on the phone. Just do it.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Carve out an exception on the filibuster for voting rights
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: legislation right now, today, John. The Brennan Center put out
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a new report updating how many states have passed bills
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: restricting the right to vote. Think about this. Think about
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: how bizarre this situation is. State legislatures run by Republicans
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: can pass any bill they like by a simple majority
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: taking away voting rights. At a federal level, to pass
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: a bill to stop that, you need 60 votes, including
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: 10 Republicans. That makes no sense. If a Martian landed
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: on planet Earth and you explain that system, they would say,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that's bonkers. What are you talking about? Who signed up
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: for this? The President of the United States, the Senate
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Majority Leader. It just makes no sense to me how
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: anyone can think at this point. And by the way,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: one last point on this. It's very dangerous to hear
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden talking about people turning out to vote. Ron
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Brownstein of The Atlantic has been doing reporting on this,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that the White House seems to think privately, despite publicly
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: saying it's an existential threat, it's Jim Crow and steroids. Privately,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: they're a bit more relaxed than they're letting on because
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: they think that they can out-organize Republican voter suppression, that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: they can use turnout to get around it, which is nonsense.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Number one, in midterms, people don't turn out in record levels,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: as you know better than me, John, and Joe Biden
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: knows better than both of us. I don't know why
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: he said they'll still turn out in record numbers. They won't,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: not in 2022. And number two, you can't use turnout
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: as a way of getting around the gerrymander. You can't
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: out-organize a gerrymander. The whole purpose of a gerrymander is
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you could have 100% turnout. You'll still lose because they
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: designed the district to have more people than your side.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: So the idea that turnout, and turnout doesn't work against
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a gerrymander. Turnout doesn't work against election subversion, which he
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: mentioned it weirdly in CNN. He goes, oh, for the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: first time, legislatures are going to overturn the results. OK, well,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: if they're going to overturn the results, then turn out. irrelevant, right?
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Because you could turn out and win it by 10% margin,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: and they'll just overturn the result claiming fraud. So none
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: of this makes any sense. It's killing me to see
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: how superficial the debate is, even in DC, to see
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: clever people who know better on the Democratic side saying nonsensical,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: airy-fairy things. And time's running out. Beto O'Rourke's made the point. Mid-August. gerrymandering,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: all of that stuff kicks in census data. You know,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: we do not have time on our side.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: No, look, I'm consistently infuriated by this. I try to
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: put myself in the shoes of the folks in the
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Biden White House, because I do believe that they genuinely
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: want to protect voting rights. And You know, you sort
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: of heard him last night be like, well, if I
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: come out against the filibuster, then this whole debate is
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: about the filibuster and it's not about voting rights. And
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: that's what Republican wants, which sounds like some kind of
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: nonsense that a political advisor would tell you. But I
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: don't understand why Joe Biden just doesn't say, OK, here's
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: what I want. I want. Joe Manchin and the Democrats
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: in the Senate, everyone to put together a bill that
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: just does three things, protects the right to vote, stops
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: gerrymandering and prevents election subversion. Everything else you can put
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: on the cutting room floor. Those are the three most
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: important things, right, to get rid of voting restrictions and
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: do those other things. And then I want you to
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: either find me the 10 Republicans who are going to
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: support that, or if not, it's time to get rid
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: of the filibuster. At that point, I actually do believe
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: that it's really tough for public pressure or pressure from
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden to change Joe Manchin's mind or Kyrsten Sinema's mind.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, they're senators. They're going
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: to do what they want. But my question is, why
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: not try? Why not try? And then if you fail,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: you fail. What's the backlash at that point? They're going
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: to be so mad?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're failing right now. We're failing right now.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: There's another line Biden said last night. He said, which
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: kind of reveals that his heart's not in this. He
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is closer to Joe Manchin than he is to Elizabeth
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Warren on the filibuster. Let's be honest about that. He's
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: never been a fan again. He's a preacher of the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Senate for decades, whatever it is. And he said last
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: night when Don Lemon pushed him in a very personal way, saying,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I'm black, my grandmother couldn't vote, et cetera, et cetera.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: What does Biden say? He goes, why would you keep this?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And he says, because if we get rid of it,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: there'll be chaos. What does that mean? The Senate is
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: going to run around with no clothes on? What chaos
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: is going to happen in DC that's worse than the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: death of democracy?
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: He is worried about Mitch McConnell's threat to completely grind
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the Senate to a halt if this happens, to use
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: all these procedures to like make sure, you know, deny
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: people quorum and all this bullshit, which again, Mitch McConnell
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: can try. But Chuck Schumer is the majority leader. And
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: so it may delay business quite a bit. But Chuck
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Schumer could also. change more rules to sort of stop
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: them from grinding into a halt. We have the power here.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Also, I think we're undervaluing the pressure argument. I would
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: argue that the listeners of Pod Save America and the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: viewers of my show on MSNBC and Peacock, yeah, they
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: follow this stuff and they get it. The average American,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: if I went up, if I went and asked my,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, one of my friends who's not political
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: or a family member, what is the filibuster?
• 22:55
  Speaker 8: They don't have a clue.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: What is budget reconciliation? They've never heard those two words
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: put together in their life. This is a DC media
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: political thing. If you go to an average American and say,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: do you think majority 51 people should be able to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: vote in favor of something and 49 people lose? I
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: think they will accept that point. I think if you
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: go to the American people and say, you know what?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: They just lost a bipartisan bill on a on the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: 1-6 commission, it was lost. What was the vote? 54
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to 35. If you go to an American and say,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: should 54 people lose to 35 people? I think they'll say, no,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't. And I think that is the argument that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden should be using for the bully pulpit if
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: his heart was in this, if he understood how anti-democratic
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the filibuster is and how we need to get rid
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of it. I believe he could make that argument. They've
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: made the argument on the economy, on COVID, on vaccinations.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: They've done a full court press on Capitol Hill to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: get the bipartisan infrastructure deal. We have not seen that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: public pressure. We've not seen the campaign. And I think
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Adam Jentleson, who I'm sure you've had on the show
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: many times, former advisor to Senate Majority Leader, he makes
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the point, no one's asking him to go and win
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: over Mitch McConnell. We're asking him to win over a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: couple of people on his own side who are already
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: kind of on the fence and claim they support voting rights.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: They are susceptible. I'm not saying it'll work, as you say.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It might fail. But what is the alternative? We are
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in the midst of the greatest attack of democracy in
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: my lifetime. What's the alternative?
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, you mentioned voters. We talked about this last week.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: The largest pro-Biden super PAC just did a bunch of
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: focus groups on a whole range of issues. They asked
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: them about the filibuster. And the people who are conducting
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: the focus group said they were even surprised that even
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: some of the more moderate swing voters, even to some
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: like somewhat conservative voters, were completely fine with getting rid
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: of the filibuster once they were explained what it was.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: And once they told them that like, shouldn't a simple
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: majority be able to pass legislation?
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: They were like, of course.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's the most basic American idea, like a
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: simple majority. The idea that, I don't think people understand
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that you need 10 Republicans to pass a popular agenda.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: It makes no sense. And to come back, to come
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: full circle, It is deeply frustrating to see the President
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of the United States, who spent four decades in the Senate,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: who claims this is a huge attack on democracy, saying
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: on live TV that, no, we don't have to get
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: rid of the filibuster to get this done. If Donald
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Trump said that, I would say it was gaslighting. It
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is gaslighting. He knows it has to be got rid
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: of to get done. We all know it has to be.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: There's simply no other way S1 reaches his desk without
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: some change to the filibuster. Let's just be honest about that, please.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's talk about the other big story in politics
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: this week, the battle for the soul of the Republican Party,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: which Republicans with a soul have been losing for some
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: time now. But over the last few days, we've heard
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: a surprising number of Republican politicians and pundits push back
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: on the anti-vax conspiracies being peddled by people like Tucker
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Here's a clip.
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: These shots need to get in everybody's arm as rapidly
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: as possible, or we're going to be back in a
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: situation in the fall where that we don't yearn for
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: that we went through last year.
• 26:03
  Speaker 7: Please take COVID seriously. I can't say it enough. Enough
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: people have died. We don't need any more deaths. Research
• 26:10
  Speaker 7: like crazy. Talk to your doctor, your doctors, medical professionals
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: you trust based on your unique medical history, your current
• 26:18
  Speaker 7: medical condition, and you and your doctor make a very
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: important decision for your own safety. Take it seriously. You
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: also have a right to medical privacy. Doctor-patient confidentiality is
• 26:30
  Speaker 7: also important. And it absolutely makes sense for many Americans
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: to get vaccinated.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: These vaccines are saving lives. They are reducing mortality.
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: But if you really want to stop this nonsense at
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: the CDC, just get vaccinated.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Why do you think that the Delta variant has caused
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: so many Republicans... to start singing the vaccine's praise after
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: months of either pushing vaccine conspiracies or saying nothing while
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: they spread?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: It's a good question. I don't know the answer, actually.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I genuinely am finding these last couple of days amusing
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and intriguing. Did a memo go out? It's across the board.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It's Republican senators.
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: It's governors.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: It's Fox. There's been a little bit of pushback on Fox.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: You saw Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk basically subtweeting Sean
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Hannity on the show, like mocking people who are virtue
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: signaling and trying to do this. It's weird. I don't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: know what's happened. Did they all just get like a
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: poll that came out that they shared? Did they get
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit? It's very, very odd. It's welcomed. It's clearly welcome,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: but it's very odd. I would just say one thing, John.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the struggle for the soul of the Republican Party.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I personally have tried to push back in my own
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: writing when I'm writing scripts for my show. We all
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: immediately put into this battle for the Republican Party, Liz Cheney,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And it's like, there is no battle for
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: It's done.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It was won a long time ago. What battle? I
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: know people in DC and political playbook types and people
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in green rooms. We want to believe this because we
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: meet people from the Lincoln Project. And it's wonderful. But
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the reality is, let's just do real world stuff. Let's
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: not lie to ourselves. There is no battle. I mean,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the battle was lost when Donald Trump beat 17 or
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: 16 top Republican candidates in 2016. The battle was lost
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: when he praised neo-Nazis and Republicans did nothing. The battle
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: was lost when only Mitt Romney voted to convict last year.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: The battle was lost when the majority of Republicans voted
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: to overturn the election in the House in January. When
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: more Republicans voted for him in 2020 than in 2016.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Stop telling me there is a civil war in the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. It's the weirdest civil war I've ever seen
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: when only one side wins all the time.
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: All the time.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember, John, when Liz Cheney survived
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: her vote. Remember that a few months ago? And people
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: were telling me, see? See? Republicans saved Liz Cheney. And
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: then she was then fired a few months later. It's like,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: come on. Let's stop this BS. And I think Kevin
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: McCarthy taking his toys and going home is a reminder
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of that. I think Donald Trump having these pilgrimages to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Mar-a-Lago is a reminder of that. I think Ron DeSantis,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: who you just played... The fact that if Donald Trump
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't run in 2024, the favorite is Ron DeSantis, a
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: mini Trump, a man who came to prominence building a
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Lego wall with his kid as part of his campaign.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I think that tells you everything you need to know
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: about the GOP. But look, if some of them are
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: going to shift a bit on vaccines, great, because we
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: all know, John, no matter what you and I say
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: on our platforms about vaccines, no matter what Joe Biden
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: says on a CNN town hall about vaccines, They're not listening.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: They're only going to listen if people on their side
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: tell them to do it. So hopefully, there will be some.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Although it's a very low bar. Sean Hannity didn't say
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: go out and get vaccinated. He just said, I believe
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: in the science. And then he undermined other policies like
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: going door to door and having mandatory vaccines. It's a battle.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: You still have people like Madison Cawthorn saying, if somebody
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: comes to your door, they're coming to steal your gun
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: or your Bible. You still have Marjorie Taylor Greene being
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: suspended from Twitter this week for vaccine disinformation. She's not
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: some fringe figure. She's one of the highest fundraisers in
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party right now, sadly. So Donald Trump, the
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: most important Republican in America today, he's heading more into
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the disinformation territory on vaccines. He put out a statement saying, well,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: they don't trust the results of the election. So they
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: don't trust that. I mean, the man's, I mean, you
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: have to admire his message discipline. He even makes vaccines
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: about his defeat in the election. He's like, they didn't
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: trust the election results, so they don't trust vaccines. It's
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: bizarre how his deflection is to the election. So unless
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: you get Trump shifting, unless you get Fox across the board,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I would argue, maybe, again, this is me being pessimist
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: glass half full. You can take your Sean Hannity's. You
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: can take your Mitch McConnell's, Ron DeSantis's. Put them up
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, all the crazies on Facebook.
• 30:42
  Speaker 9: I don't know.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure we're anywhere near where we should be
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: in terms of right-wing tipping points.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: No, we're not at all. And I mean, look, I
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: think it's welcome that some of Republicans are having a
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: change of heart. I don't know why either. I don't
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: know if it's a poll or just the very simple
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: fact that their voters are dying.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, their voters have been dying all this time.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: They didn't give a damn before.
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: But it's like, you know, it's hitting it's hitting red
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: states and unvaccinated populations particularly hard. And they're overwhelmingly Republican
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: and overwhelmingly conservative. So I think that, you know, they
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: need those voters at some point. But look, I also
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: think that on the Democratic side, what we need to
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: do is what you were just saying is. Do what
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Republicans would do in this situation, which is keep pushing
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: them even further. OK, that's nice that you said you
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: believe in vaccinations. That's nice that you say, oh, people
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: should get vaccinated. The next step is to call out
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: your fellow Republicans and Republican pundits for the misinformation that
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: they're spreading. Make Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy call out
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Greene for her misinformation. Make them call out
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson. Make Sean Hannity call out Tucker Carlson, right?
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Who's going to do that?
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Sadly, there are not enough people.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: In our media willing to do that.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: That is the fundamental problem with all of our political issues.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Who's going to make them do that on vaccines? Who's
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: going to make them do it on insurrection? It's the
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: question of our time.
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: It is.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: It's back to sort of the point you were bringing
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: up Brian Boitler's tweet on this, which is, you know,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: He saw Mitch McConnell saying this and said, I think
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: this shows the culture war is winnable and not just
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: for partisan gain, but to make Republicans pay for and
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: stop doing sociopathic things. I think when we hear this,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: that Democrats and progressives in the media and people need
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: to push harder, not to say like, great job. You
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: all get a gold star. Thanks for coming over, being pro-vaccine.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Great. Like, no, no, no, no.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: This isn't enough at all. You need to call out
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: all the bullshit that's happening on your side or fuck off.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I mean— I'll give you one example of the cultural
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: stuff where the Democrats always drop the ball, as do
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: people in the media, where Republicans pass a bill in
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Texas basically saying you don't need to teach Martin Luther
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: King anymore. You don't need to say the KKK is immoral.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Did you see any congressional reporter running down to Holloway
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: after a Republican member of Congress saying, do you agree
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: with that? Running off to Kevin McCarthy asking for a comment?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine if the Democrats had done some version
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of that at a state level? I mean, it's amazing how...
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: And that, again... Whether we like it or not, elite
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: media takes its cues from elite politicians. And therefore, it
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: is on members of the Democratic Party to say, this
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: is a story. This is what we're going to talk about.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the Texas bill. We're going
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to talk about the fact that on, you know, why
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: is every member of Congress this morning, every Democratic member
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: of Congress not going out on TV and putting out
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: a statement saying that every Republican should demand Tucker Carlson
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: apologize to Officer Harry Dunn? for calling him not a
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: police officer, but an angry left-wing political activist. Put aside
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the racial stereotype of the angry black man. The idea
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that Tucker Carlson, the highest rated host on the right,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the man who all Republican politicians go on his show,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: why are they not all being asked to call out
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson? If Rachel Maddow on my network had come
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: out and said, a certain police officer is not a
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: police officer, whatever it is, in another context, can you
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: imagine what the Republicans would be doing right now?
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: They would say Democrats should not be able to go
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: on that show anymore. They should call her out. We
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: want a statement from Biden, a statement from Pelosi.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: But whose fault is this, John? Where are the House Democrats?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: How many House Democrats are there? 200 plus House Democrats today.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Where are they? What are they doing today? Whatever they're doing,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I can tell you it's not as important as coming
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: out and fighting and winning these culture wars because the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: culture wars aren't going anywhere. This Democratic strategy of we're
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: going to talk about kitchen table issues. Sorry, that's not 2014.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: That's not happening.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not a it's not a public opinion issue either.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: I guarantee if you polled, should schools be banned from
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: teaching about Martin Luther King Jr.? Like, I know I
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: don't need a poll for that. I know how that
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: would come down.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Should 20 Republicans not give the gold star congressional gold
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: medal to Capitol Police officers? I don't need a poll
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, again, I think I don't need a poll for that.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I think it'll be North Korean style results to that
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: kind of poll.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: So the other loony bullshit from Republicans this week, which
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: you referenced, came from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: requested to fill three of the five Republican seats on
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: the select panel investigating the January 6th attacks with House
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: members who voted to further the insurrectionist goal of overturning
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: the election results. Jim Jordan, Jim Banks. and Troy Nels.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded by rejecting Jordan and Banks,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: which she has the power to do. McCarthy then responded
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: by pulling all five members from the committee, leaving the
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Pelosi-appointed Liz Cheney as the sole Republican on the panel
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: for now, though there's news reports this morning that Pelosi
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: may also appoint Republican Adam Kinzinger. Cheney told reporters that
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: she's supportive of Pelosi's decision and then said this.
• 35:28
  Speaker 9: Any person who would be third in line to the
• 35:31
  Speaker 9: presidency- must demonstrate a commitment to the Constitution and a
• 35:35
  Speaker 9: commitment to the rule of law. And Minority Leader McCarthy
• 35:39
  Speaker 9: has not done that.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Why do you think Pelosi put her foot down on this?
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I'm amazed. I've been someone who's been very critical of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi for not putting her foot down more when
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: it comes to Republican extremism in particular. And I was
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: disappointed a couple of days ago when she said, well,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: voting against the election, that's not going to be a
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: deal breaker. And then within 24, 36 hours, she came
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: out and chucked two of the three off. And she
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: said in a press conference today that she didn't throw
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: them off because they voted against it, because she kept
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Troy Nails on, the freshman congressman who did vote against it.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: Which is confusing.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Which is confusing. Republicans have jumped on that as well
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: to say, well, what is it then? But I think
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Liz Cheney said something very interesting, not in the clip
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: you played, but in the wider conversation. She said, you
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: cannot have two people, one of whom is a material
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: witness to what happened and the other of whom made
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: comments clearly wanting to sabotage the inquiry. And again, it's
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: sad that it requires Liz Cheney to be doing the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: oppo stuff. Where are the 200 House Democrats making this point?
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Why did I have to hear it from Liz Cheney?
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: But she's right. It's a point that's been under-discussed, which
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: is Jim Jordan was at a meeting in the White
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: House on December 21st with Donald Trump, with a lot
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of the other Republican crazies. And at that meeting, they
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: discussed how to overturn the election and what the plan
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: should be for January the 6th. So if you're at
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: a meeting where you're discussing January 6th, yeah, you should
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: not be investigating that meeting. That's just basics. I'm not
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: sure why Liz Cheney's making that point, and it's not
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: in an official statement from Pelosi or from House Democrats
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: doing media rounds. I don't get it. Again, maybe Democrats
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: just don't do politics very well.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: Banks suggested that it was the Biden administration's fault, January 6th,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: that the attacks were actually the fault of the Biden administration.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: He also said, why are we not investigating the left?
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: So that's the other point of Liz Cheney, which is
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: one guy is a material witness, Jim Jordan. And the
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: other guy, Banks, did come out yesterday and say, well,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with this committee because it needs to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: investigate the left. So yeah, you shouldn't be on the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: committee if you don't agree to the terms of the committee.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And in general, like this whole DC, and I know
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are upset on social media today
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: with Politico playbook email this morning saying, well, this is
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: a great, this is really bad. It's not, it's not.
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I'm one of them.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: On the committee investigating 9-11. This is not hard. And
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why more Democrats are not saying this stuff.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Adam Smith, to be fair, chair of the House Armed
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Services Committee, did say it on my show yesterday. He
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: made the 9-11 point. But just like more of them
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: should be pointing out that Jim Jordan is a material witness.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: A lot of these Republicans, we don't know what ties
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: they had to the insurrection. We don't know about the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: supposed tours that were given to insurrections. That's an allegation
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that's been made. We don't know what conversations were had
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: with the White House. We only found out that Mo
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Brooks spoke at the rally on the Ellipse when he said,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: kick ass, take names. We only found out that the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: White House told him to give that speech after he
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: was sued and he came out and gave that as
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: his defense, that he was on federal government business. So
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: what conversations will have between the White House and members
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of Congress? What conversation will have between members of Congress
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: and insurrectionists? Yeah, I would rather not have the accused
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: members of Congress as part of the investigation.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, crazy idea, right? I do want to ask you
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: a media question about this. So Playbook writes this morning,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: that Republicans who voted to overturn the election have a, quote,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: legitimate grievance now, and that Pelosi's move will, quote, make
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: the investigation even easier to dismiss for people who aren't
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: diehard members of Team Blue. My question is, how are
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: these supposedly smart reporters so easily duped by some of
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: the dumbest fucking politicians on the planet? Well, what do
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: you think's going on?
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It's a combo of two things. i think one is
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: it is just being duped by you know their sources
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: and the fact that they have you know they're friendly
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: with republicans and that's just the reality they don't see
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the republicans in an objective way as many others as
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: random members of the public do perhaps um and number
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: two i think it is i think it is a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: sense of This is how we do journalism. It is
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: both sides. And we thought, some people naively thought, that
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: an insurrection, an armed, violent insurrection in which members of
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Congress were almost attacked and killed, in which a New
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: York Times journalist, photographer, was beaten to the ground, right?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow members of the press, there's always a joke, right,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: that journalists only take things seriously when they're at risk. Well,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: these are your colleagues who were at risk on January 6th,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: were running also from the insurrectionists. And yet, that happens.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: And six months later, as you say, the legitimate grievance
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: is the pro-insurrection party complaining that they don't get to
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: be on the insurrection investigation. Don't forget, by the way,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: there was an opportunity for a bipartisan commission. Nancy Pelosi
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: offered that. Schumer offered it. They turned it down. And
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I'm so fed up of every development in Washington, D.C.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: being seen as this is bad for the Democrats. It's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: never seen as bad for the Republicans. It's baked in
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: that Republicans are bad. We have such a, you know,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it's the Trump thing of grading on a curve. We
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: as a media have got so used to Republican bad
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: faith that it's dog bites man. It's like, we just
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: take it for granted. Oh, Mitch McConnell blocked something outrageous,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: but that's what Mitch McConnell does, right? No, that's not
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: what we should expect from the Senate minority leader. It's
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: not what we expected in the past. We've given these
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: people a pass because we just assume. It's really weird.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: We say to ourselves, these are really bad, bad faith,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: obstructionist people. So it kind of makes sense that they're
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: doing that. And then because of that, the bad, bad
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: faith people get away with it. It just makes no sense.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: It's so frustrating to see this. And also, we journalists,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: we are not bystanders. We are part of the story.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: So when we say, oh, the perception is that this
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: will be seen as one-sided, who's doing the perceiving?
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Well, it also shows you how useless it is to have,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: and I'm glad she's on our side on this, but
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: to have a Liz Cheney or an Adam Kinzinger, right?
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Because you think, okay, They're siding with the Democrats. So
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: now it's bipartisan. So reporters will understand it's bipartisan now.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: But reporters have decided that it doesn't count that Liz
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Cheney is on the panel, that it doesn't count that
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Adam Kinzinger is going to be on the panel, that
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: it doesn't count that they're going to have a bunch
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: of Republican staffers on there.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: She's no longer a member of Congress who voted 97
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: percent of the time by her own account with Donald Trump.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: She's no longer the daughter of the former vice president
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: of the United States. She's no longer a longstanding right-wing
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: neoconservative whore. Suddenly now she's a flaming liberal because Kevin
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: McCarthy and Jim Jordan say so. And we must take
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: their word.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: And now we can't count her. We can't count her
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: as bipartisan anymore. Like we can't count her as part
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: of our.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: No, because that's the rule. Them be the rules. We
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: didn't make them. And it's just so ridiculous. And just
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: to put just one thing, John, nothing, nothing. With the
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: greatest respect, like you're saying we the Democrats. Right. You
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: work for Barack Obama. You're a Democrat. you raise money
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: for Democrats. I'm not a Democrat. I like a lot
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: of Democratic policies. I would have preferred, I'm very open
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: on this from a personal point of view, not speaking
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: on behalf of any employer, I'd have preferred for Donald
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Trump not to have won the election. I was glad
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: when he didn't. But the reality is, this isn't even about,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't even fall into the trap. This is about Democrat, Republican.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Because then both sides, journalists as well, would say, see,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: that's why we're taking a middle position. This is not
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: about right and left. It's about right and wrong. It's
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: about truth and falsehood. This is about an armed insurrection
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the people who attacked the Congress were not
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: going to check and see who was a Republican or
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: a Democrat journalist, who was a conservative or a liberal
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: journalist when they did the attacking. So for me, it's
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: not even about party politics. It's about, you know, I
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: said it, I think I said it on this show.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Let me say it again. I think I said it
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: on this show to Tommy. I'm going to say it
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: one more time. The job of a journalist, If somebody
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: says it's raining outside and somebody says it's not raining
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: outside is not to say one person says it's raining.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: The other person says it's not raining. The job of
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: a journalist is to open the fricking window and put
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: their head outside and check if it's raining. Right. So
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that same applies in the context of investigating.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: No, it certainly should. And you're right. The proper frame
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: for this is. a battle to sort of save and
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: preserve democracy and the people who are on that side
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: versus the people who are antithetical to the preservation of
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: democracy and who are Small D Democrats.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Big D Democrats. It's all about small D Democrats.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: We are all supposedly.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Small D Democrats. And that is the better frame for it.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: So there's a new CBS poll out. 67% of Americans
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: describe the attack on the Capitol as trying to overturn
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: the election. 56% of Americans describe it as an insurrection.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: But a little over half of all Trump voters describe
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: it as defending freedom and patriotism. What's your reaction to
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: those numbers?
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: First of all, I talked about it on the show
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: last night on Peacock. It's sickening. I mean, first of all,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I've watched a lot of footage, as I'm sure you have,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: of the actual insurrection. Some of the stuff that, obviously,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the House impeachment managers played. Some of the stuff that
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: came out at the time. I've interviewed Capitol Police officers
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: on my show who were injured badly in the attack.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I've interviewed Brian Sicknick's mother and partner on my MSNBC
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: show and spoken to them about that tragedy and their family.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: It's disgusting to see so supposedly patriotic Americans who claim
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to be the party of law and order and blue
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: lives matter saying stuff like this was about defending freedom.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: And partly you could say, well, they're not to blame.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: They've imbibed all this propaganda from Fox News, from Donald
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Trump saying it was a love fest, from Ron Johnson
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: saying these were patriots, from Andrew Clyde saying these were
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: just normal tourists. So that's the kind of propaganda they've imbibed.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: But I'm sorry, these people have agency. It's disgusting. It's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: not hard to find video from the attack. There's so
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: much of it now coming out. Scott McFarlane, NBC investigative
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: reporter in DC, just showed his Twitter timeline. He has
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: all these videos coming out of the court cases. They
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: are horrifying to watch, horrifying. You listen to Michael Fanone
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: talking about what happened to him, the officer. It's disgusting,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: is my first response to that poll. Then my second
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: response from a purely political angle is, Win the culture war.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at the polling. 67%. I'm just going
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: to read it out here again. I know you just
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: said it. So again, 67% say it was trying to
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: overturn the election. One in three Trump voters say it wasn't.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: More than half of Americans say it was an insurrection.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: One in five Trump voters say it was. In terms
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of investigating, three quarters say we need to know more
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: about what happened. So the polling is very clear. This
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: is a very straightforward culture war issue. America was attacked.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill was attacked. Police officers were attacked. And the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: majority of Americans think that was really bad and something
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: should be done. The minority of Americans who are represented
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: by one of our two political parties think it wasn't
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: that bad, think it was actually kind of good, and
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: think we don't need to know anything more. That's an
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: easy battle to win. I don't understand why. And Joe Biden,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: to be fair, is good on this issue, but he
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: was last night. But it just needs to be full
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: court press. This is a party that is anti-police, anti-law enforcement.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I happen to be someone... who supports the idea of
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: defunding the police, right? That's my personal political position. But
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: from a pure partisan perspective, if I wasn't a journalist
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: with my own opinions and I was someone saying to
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: one side of a political divide what should be done here,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: it's not rocket science. The party that does actually support
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: police officers who are under attack should be attacking the
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: other party who claims to support police officers. This is
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: not hard.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: The definition of a wedge issue is an issue that
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: unites your party and splits the other party. And this
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: issue of whether it was an insurrection, of whether they
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: were trying to overturn the election, the entire attack on
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: democracy from Trump and his forces is an issue that
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: unites our party, splits the other party, and probably we
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: have a vast majority of independents on our side as well,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: which makes me think, again, as we head into 2022,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: 2024 and beyond, we should not forget this issue. This
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: should be front and center. I'm someone who completely agrees
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: with The idea that economic issues are important and kitchen
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: table issues are important. And I think Democrats should talk
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: about them. And I think people really care about them.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: They care about their material well-being, improving their life. But
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: it's not sufficient. And this is the issue of the day.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: This is the existential issue that we face right now.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Right. Exactly. It's also, as you say, not just not sufficient.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I was about to say existential. You beat me to it.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: It's the existential issue of our time, because let's be honest,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: you can't go into 2022, 2024. This is part of
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: the election. Let's not forget, this is not a poll
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that came out about is Barack Obama born in Kenya
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: or not, which was the first inkling that these people
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: have lost their minds and deplorables is an understatement. We
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: already saw that they were conspiracy theorists. They were susceptible
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: to mad racist lies. This is actually about democracy itself.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: So it's not just these people are bonkers. It's these
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: people are bonkers and could destroy the whole damn thing.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So let's be clear. If 55% of Trump voters say
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: that the insurrectionists were defending freedom, next time around, John,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: and there will be a next time, next time around,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: there's an attempt on the election. Next time around, there's
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: an attack on the Capitol. Next time around, there's an
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: armed violent insurrection. There's not going to be even an
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: impeachment trial. There's not even going to be a Mitch McConnell,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy, or Lindsey Graham calling out Trump for 24 hours.
• 48:38
  Speaker 10: Nothing.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Because next time around, the base will not just be
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: OK with it. They'll be demanding it.
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: I mean, this is.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: What Daniel Ziblatt and Steve Levitsky, the political scientist who
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: wrote How Democracies Die, they wrote this Atlantic essay a
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. I urge everyone to go read it.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: This is the point they make. But next time around,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Republican politicians won't be saying, well, what do I do
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to speak out against this? To be fair, a lot
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: of them did speak out after Jan 6 and then
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: went quiet. Next time around, they won't even do that
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: because everything keeps moving. The Overton window keeps moving on
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the right. Next time around, they'll be like, oh, I
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: need to get behind this insurrection. Next time around, you
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: won't see Kevin McCarthy ringing Donald Trump saying, stop it.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: You'll see Kevin McCarthy jumping in front of the crowd saying,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: let's go, because that way is the future of the
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. Pure authority. and neo-fascism.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Mehdi, before I let you go, I do want to
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: turn your attention to one minor but critical victory in
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: the fight against fascism from someone I always knew would
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: come through for us, just like he has in seven
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Super Bowls. Let's take a listen.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of people.
• 49:34
  Speaker 10: Think that we could have won. And in fact, I
• 49:37
  Speaker 10: think about 40% of the people still don't think we won.
• 49:40
  Speaker 8: I understand that.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: You understand that, Mr. President? I understand that. Yeah.
• 49:45
  Speaker 10: And personally, you know, it's nice for me to be
• 49:47
  Speaker 10: back here. We had a game in Chicago where I
• 49:50
  Speaker 10: forgot what down it was. I lost track of one
• 49:53
  Speaker 10: down in 21 years of playing. And they started calling
• 49:56
  Speaker 10: me Sleepy Tom.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: I wish I could have been a fly on the
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: wall for when Donald Trump saw that clip, which you
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: know that he has by now.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. So. I'm not a big follower of American football,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: partly because I only became an American last year. And
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: for me, football is still what you call soccer. And
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: you actually kick it with your feet. So it's bizarre.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I've never understood American football. But the Tom Brady thing
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: was hilarious, just from the Trump perspective. He did it
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: on purpose. It was very well delivered. Joe Biden's response
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: was very well delivered. And I feel like the thing
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: about Donald Trump, those of us who have followed him
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: sadly for years is, This last week, the two most
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: painful things to happen to Donald Trump is number one,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Tom Brady dissing him at the White House. That must
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: have killed him. That must have killed him more than
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: anything else, vaccinations, democracy, the election. That must have destroyed him.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Number two, the Biden administration reversed the Trump administration's policy
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: on shower restrictions and water pressure. That was very close
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump's heart. It was a big deal. He
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: made a lot of his election rallies all about multiple
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: rallies of talking about shower pressure and toilet flushes. So,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: you know, that's the reality we live in today, that
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the guy who might be the next Republican presidential candidate
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: is probably crying himself to sleep at night because Tom
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Brady dissed him and his flush is not as powerful
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: as yours. Little victories.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: We'll take them. Mehdi, thank you. Thank you so much
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: for joining, as always. Everyone, please go check out The
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: Mehdi Hassan Show on Peacock and MSNBC. Peacock is very
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: easy to sign up for. I just did it myself
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago. Great programming and a fantastic
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: show from from Medi each night. So go check it out.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: When we come back, my interview with Eckist Labs co-founder
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: Stephanie Valencia about immigration and other issues on the minds
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: of Latino voters. Welcome back. Last week, an ultra-conservative judge
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: in Texas ruled that the Department of Homeland Security can
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: no longer approve new DACA applicants, that the decision doesn't
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: affect the 650,000 DREAMers already enrolled in the program. Meanwhile,
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: Democrats in Congress are putting together an economic plan that
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: includes a path to legalization in green cards for certain
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants, something that President Biden addressed
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: last night during his town hall. Here's a clip.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: You're five years old.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: You're nine years old. Your mom or your dad says,
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: I'm going to take you across the Rio Grande and
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: we're illegally going to go into the United States.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: What are you supposed to say?
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: Not me, that's against the law. I'm being deadly earnest.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: What could a kid say? What could they do?
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: They come here with really no choice. And they're here
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: and they're good, good people. They've done well. 10,000 of
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: them were first-line workers. These are kids who've done well.
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: And so what we're going to do is, first of all,
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: appeal the case, number one. But number two, we're going
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: to make sure that a number of my Republican colleagues
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: say they support the right of DREAMers to come.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Let's call the question.
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: They should be able to stay in the United States
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: of America.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: Here to talk about how Latino voters are thinking about
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: immigration and a host of other issues, the co-founder, of
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: the polling firm Ekis Research, and my former colleague from
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: the Obama White House, Stephanie Valencia. Stephanie, welcome to the pod.
• 53:20
  Speaker 8: Thanks so much for having me.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: So with the very important stipulation that Latino voters, like
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: all groups of voters, have a diverse set of views
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: that go well beyond prioritizing the issue of immigration, what
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: have you heard from folks in your latest research about
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: everything from the situation at the border to some of
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: this DACA news we've been hearing lately?
• 53:43
  Speaker 8: Well, certainly, as you mentioned, I have always called immigration
• 53:47
  Speaker 8: a gateway issue for Latinos. It's like that threshold issue
• 53:50
  Speaker 8: for Latinos to really understand, does this politician see us
• 53:53
  Speaker 8: as a threat to this country.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: As Donald Trump did?
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: Or does this politician see us as a net positive
• 53:59
  Speaker 8: and a contributor to this country? So the issue of immigration,
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: while it never polls, is like the number one issue
• 54:05
  Speaker 8: that Latinos want to act on, because that usually is
• 54:08
  Speaker 8: the economy, health care, education or other things. it is
• 54:12
  Speaker 8: always a gateway issue for which we view how politicians
• 54:15
  Speaker 8: view us. And so we're at this really critical moment
• 54:18
  Speaker 8: right now. John, you and I worked at the White
• 54:20
  Speaker 8: House when we did DACA after many failed attempts of
• 54:26
  Speaker 8: trying to actually pass the Dream Act in Congress. And
• 54:30
  Speaker 8: DACA is 10 years old now. It has survived multiple
• 54:33
  Speaker 8: attempts to take it down. We've survived a really important
• 54:38
  Speaker 8: one last summer. And here we are again, with DACA
• 54:41
  Speaker 8: under attack and hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth who
• 54:47
  Speaker 8: have lived their life as President Biden just laid out,
• 54:49
  Speaker 8: came here under no fault of their own and who
• 54:52
  Speaker 8: have lived their life here in their entirety. I think
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: there's a huge conversation we're having about immigration in this
• 54:57
  Speaker 8: country right now, particularly after the pandemic and the role
• 55:00
  Speaker 8: that farm workers also played in our economic recovery as
• 55:04
  Speaker 8: the role that essential workers play in keeping our economy
• 55:08
  Speaker 8: alive and the kind of As we go into this
• 55:10
  Speaker 8: next phase of as our population changes, as we get
• 55:14
  Speaker 8: older as a country, we need more workers. And so
• 55:16
  Speaker 8: there's actually a very big question right now about how
• 55:19
  Speaker 8: we think about immigration. It's also intersecting right now with
• 55:22
  Speaker 8: the conversation around what's happening in Haiti and in Cuba
• 55:26
  Speaker 8: and how we receive refugees, whether they're coming and fleeing
• 55:29
  Speaker 8: violence in Central America. or whether they are coming and
• 55:34
  Speaker 8: fleeing political challenges in their home countries like in Haiti
• 55:39
  Speaker 8: and in Cuba right now. So there's a big conversation
• 55:41
  Speaker 8: about what we do about immigration right now. DACA is
• 55:44
  Speaker 8: a really important part of that. And the president has
• 55:47
  Speaker 8: actually been really clear that what is happening in Congress,
• 55:51
  Speaker 8: we want Congress to act and to actually deliver once
• 55:55
  Speaker 8: and for all some finality to these people's lives. And
• 55:59
  Speaker 8: there's a really interesting opportunity and moment in Congress right
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: now with the budget reconciliation package to actually include a
• 56:06
  Speaker 8: legalization provision for DACA recipients, certain TPS holders, potentially farm workers,
• 56:12
  Speaker 8: and other categories of workers, maybe even essential workers. People
• 56:17
  Speaker 8: like Joe Manchin, who are very moderate, have actually come
• 56:20
  Speaker 8: out and said that they support its inclusion in the
• 56:24
  Speaker 8: reconciliation bill. So that's a lot of like forward progress
• 56:28
  Speaker 8: on actually getting this issue done once and for all.
• 56:30
  Speaker 8: So coming back to how Latino voters think about the issue,
• 56:34
  Speaker 8: you know, again, it is one of those things that
• 56:36
  Speaker 8: is never going to be one of the top issues
• 56:38
  Speaker 8: for them, but want to see it resolved once and
• 56:40
  Speaker 8: for all. It's been 10 years since we did DACA.
• 56:43
  Speaker 8: There's like a high level of appetite to see Democrats deliver.
• 56:47
  Speaker 8: Latino voters in this country know that Democrats control the House,
• 56:52
  Speaker 8: the Senate and the White House. And they are ready
• 56:55
  Speaker 8: to see Democrats deliver. They've waited 10 years for action
• 56:58
  Speaker 8: on this issue. And this is an opportunity for Democrats
• 57:02
  Speaker 8: to show that with power they can deliver. So again,
• 57:04
  Speaker 8: this like what's happening in Congress right now with the
• 57:07
  Speaker 8: reconciliation package offers a pathway to certainty for DACA recipients
• 57:13
  Speaker 8: and potential other immigrants that could help to move this
• 57:17
  Speaker 8: issue forward and kind of take it off the table
• 57:19
  Speaker 8: for a while. My message to congressional Democrats is like,
• 57:23
  Speaker 8: deal with this now, because then we can have a
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: conversation with Latino voters on issues that are really, really important,
• 57:29
  Speaker 8: like education and what we're doing on the economic recovery
• 57:32
  Speaker 8: and healthcare and free community college, those bread and butter
• 57:36
  Speaker 8: issues that we often don't get to talk about with
• 57:38
  Speaker 8: them because the issue of immigration always sucks the.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: Oxygen out of the room.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: So Biden was asked about this, including immigration reform and
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: the reconciliation bill. And he said, You know, he supports it,
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: but he also said that's for the parliamentarian to decide,
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: not for Joe Biden to decide. Knowing what you know
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: about the Latino electorate, how would you be advising the
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: president to handle this upcoming fight over immigration if you
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: were back in the White.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: House right now?
• 58:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think there has, you know, the
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: parliamentarian is the most outside of Joe Manchin is probably
• 58:10
  Speaker 8: the second most powerful person in Washington right now because
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: she will decide ultimately what ends up in this budget
• 58:16
  Speaker 8: reconciliation package. And what's interesting about her background, you know,
• 58:20
  Speaker 8: she's technically a nonpartisan.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: She's a appointee.
• 58:23
  Speaker 8: She's not really supposed to have like a partisan side.
• 58:26
  Speaker 8: And she's supposed to kind of call balls and strikes
• 58:29
  Speaker 8: as they are based on law and constitutionality of and
• 58:33
  Speaker 8: how the Senate works. She is interestingly, formerly an immigration lawyer.
• 58:38
  Speaker 8: So it can either potentially play early in her career.
• 58:41
  Speaker 8: She was an immigration lawyer in New Jersey. So on
• 58:44
  Speaker 8: the one hand, she could be potentially more sympathetic. to
• 58:48
  Speaker 8: immigration being included. On the other hand, she knows the
• 58:51
  Speaker 8: law better than most or immigration law better than most.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: And so that could also play against us. Who knows?
• 58:58
  Speaker 8: But I think the case that needs to be made
• 59:00
  Speaker 8: is like Democrats need to act. And if for whatever reason,
• 59:03
  Speaker 8: you know, President Biden doesn't control her, Senator Schumer doesn't
• 59:06
  Speaker 8: control her. So a lot about whether this gets included
• 59:09
  Speaker 8: in the immigration reconciliation is in her hands should it
• 59:13
  Speaker 8: not make it in because she rules that way we
• 59:16
  Speaker 8: have to we as Democrats have to make a strong
• 59:19
  Speaker 8: case on action legislatively as soon as possible especially for
• 59:23
  Speaker 8: DACA given this new kind of legal turmoil that it
• 59:27
  Speaker 8: is now in and the kind of you know, uncertainty
• 59:32
  Speaker 8: that so many people's lives have been tossed in. There
• 59:34
  Speaker 8: needs to be a backup plan to move quickly on legislation,
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: at least including DACA, TPS holders, potentially farm workers and
• 59:42
  Speaker 8: essential workers, which really addresses a lot of kind of
• 59:46
  Speaker 8: the undocumented population in this country today. And I'll bring
• 59:49
  Speaker 8: it back to my first point, which is like, there's
• 59:51
  Speaker 8: a huge economic case to be made for this in
• 59:54
  Speaker 8: this country, given the future of our workforce and the
• 59:57
  Speaker 8: need for kind of younger people less skilled labor and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 8: keeping our economy running. And so there's an economic case
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 8: to be made for it. For, you know, many of
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 8: these categories of workers, there's a lot of support in
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: the business community.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: There's support.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 8: So they have a certainty around the workforce. There's support
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 8: among evangelicals and the Catholic church. So there's a huge
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 8: faith-based component to it. And there's always been a huge
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 8: law enforcement kind of support for this because they want
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 8: to be able to prioritize criminals and real crime in
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 8: communities and create a safe space so immigrants feel like
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 8: they can report crimes in their communities. So this diverse
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 8: coalition that has been built over the last 10, 15
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 8: years around support for immigration reform needs to continue to
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 8: make that really important case for it. And Democrats need
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 8: to show that they can deliver legislatively for this and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 8: take credit because Republicans, again, this is a huge differentiating
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 8: issue with Republicans and where they stand in the party
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 8: of Donald Trump, who wants to treat immigrants like animals,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 8: separate families, lock kids in cages, in a contrast of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 8: seeing immigrants as a net positive for our community or
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 8: for our country and for the economy, which is how
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 8: Democrats view the issue.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: I was rereading your excellent 2020 postmortem, which people can
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: find at equisresearch.us. And at the time it was published
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: in April, You guys said that there still wasn't enough
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: data to fully explain Trump's gains with Latino voters. What
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: has the data you've looked at since then told you
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: about that? And do you all have a working theory yet?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 8: Well, let me just recap what happened with the Latino
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 8: vote in three kind of quick bullet points to just
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 8: show the challenge and the opportunity that exist.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: The first is.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 8: That Latinos swung more than any other group from 2016
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 8: to 2020. We swung eight points from 2016 to 2020.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 8: Whereas the AAPI community only swung one point, the African-American
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 8: community three points, white voters actually swung in the positive
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 8: direction by three points.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: In addition, our.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 8: Share of the electorate is growing and is the, along
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 8: with AAPI voters, are the two groups driving the composition
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 8: and the growth in the electorate. And then third is
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 8: we are still performing under our potential. Only half of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 8: Latino voters decided to show up this election cycle. So
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 8: when we look at the movement toward Trump, part of
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 8: what we have to try to understand was what were
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 8: Latinos experiencing in that moment in time when they cast
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 8: their ballots? And we were all experiencing COVID in the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 8: economy and the economic shutdown in a really unique way.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 8: And as small business owners, Latinos are driving entrepreneurship and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 8: small business creation in this country right now and have
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 8: been for a very long time. So they experienced the
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 8: pandemic and the economic shutdown in a very distinct way.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 8: In addition to that, as essential workers, as I talked
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 8: about earlier, many Latinos were helping to keep the economy
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 8: running as essential workers during COVID and the pandemic, and
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 8: they were putting themselves at risk and on the front lines,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 8: whether it's healthcare workers or restaurant workers or other essential workers.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 8: And so Latinos, I believe, were experiencing this economic shutdown
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 8: around COVID in a very different way than what we
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 8: were talking about, say, in 2018 or 2016, which we
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 8: were talking about immigration in a very real way in
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 8: 2016 and 2018, that immigration became a defining issue and
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 8: a differentiating issue between Democrats and Republicans. And quite frankly,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 8: in 2018, we were at the height and during the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 8: midterms of the family separation crisis. And so that created
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 8: a real definition point between Trump and where Democrats were
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 8: and gave Latinos a very clear choice. Whereas when the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 8: economy and the economic shutdown and COVID was driving what
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 8: was the narrative and what they were experiencing in their
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 8: everyday lives, it gave a permission structure for many Latinos
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 8: to vote for Trump because of the economic shutdown in
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 8: the economy, because we weren't talking about.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: Issues like immigration.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 8: We have a great graph in our postmortem that shows
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 8: what we were talking about even just via Google search,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 8: what people were looking for via Google search. And you
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 8: look and the line is spikes around 2018, around 2016
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 8: on immigration. And then if you look to 2020, it's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 8: almost flatlined. So again, we weren't talking about that one
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 8: issue that could have really differentiated. So that's one theory
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 8: of the case that we have really kind of look
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 8: into and dug into. There's still far more for us
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 8: to study and to think about. One is also like
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 8: how Latinos are getting.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: Their news and information.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 8: 70% of Latinos are getting their news and information from
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 8: social media and more specifically YouTube about politics and elections
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 8: right now. So that is something that we as Democrats
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 8: and progressives need to think about as Republicans have really
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 8: invested so much money in thinking about how to reach
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 8: all people and kind of dominate the YouTube ecosystem with
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 8: quote unquote news. A lot of AstroTurf news type organizations
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 8: who claim to be real news, but are fundamentally persuading
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 8: and shifting the way people look at politics and elections.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 8: So that's like a whole other thing we have to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 8: contend with is like the changing nature of the media
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 8: landscape and how Latinos are consuming that information. OANN just
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 8: said that they were going to launch a Spanish language vertical.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: I saw that. I was just going to ask you
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Latinos need, they need it.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 8: And meanwhile, on the other side, you know, this is
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 8: something we're going to be thinking a lot at Equus
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 8: Research and at Equus Labs, our kind of incubator company.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 8: is how do we go and challenge that? How do
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 8: we go and create new voices and new platforms for
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 8: us to think about how we persuade and reach Latinos
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 8: where they are? Because if they're getting their political news
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 8: and information about what's happening in Cuba, what's happening on
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 8: January 6th, what's happening with impeachment or any other things
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 8: through YouTube, we have to be present as well.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: So I have two follow-up questions to that very excellent
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: answer that I've been thinking about. One, it does seem
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: like at least one of the working theories is that
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: by increasing the salience of the issue of immigration, it
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: actually could drive a Latino vote towards the Democrats by
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: reminding voters just how extreme the Republicans are on this issue,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: which is counter to, I think, what some Democrats and
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: some Democratic strategists do, which is to say, okay, immigration
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: is a very divisive issue that the Republicans love to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: run on, so we should ignore it and talk about
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: the economy. And this makes me think that as we
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: head towards 2022, Democrats in the Biden administration should embrace
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: talking about immigration as one way to potentially drive vote.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: It has to be a both and, right?
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 8: Like we don't want Democrats just to talk to Latinos
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 8: about immigration, but immigration can be a differentiating issue for
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 8: Latino voters. So I think that's how Democrats have to
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 8: think about it. I think you're totally right. Like I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 8: have even just seen the kind of fundamental shifts among
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 8: like pollsters and the Democratic Party and progressive ecosystem shift
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 8: their views on immigration and start to advise candidates and
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 8: the committees very differently about how to talk about this.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 8: And I think if you think about like the future
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 8: of what I just kind of talked about with like
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 8: the challenges and opportunities with Latino voters and where we
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 8: are performing, underperforming and the challenges around persuasion and who
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 8: we lost in 2020, like we have to find those
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 8: issues that are going to really motivate the base and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 8: create those moments of distinction while also kind of creating
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 8: a forward-looking vision for the country on the economy, on
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 8: issues like small business, on education. And what I will
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 8: say is one of the things the Biden administration has
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 8: done very well is, you know, we have a very
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 8: strong cabinet that reflects the future of this country and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 8: four Latino cabinet secretaries who are, quite frankly, in charge
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 8: of four of the most important departments for this country
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 8: in this moment in time. So you have Isabel Guzman,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 8: who is an entrepreneur, who's the head of the Small
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 8: Business Administration. Miguel Cardona, who's a Puerto Rican, who's the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 8: head of the Education Department. Javier Becerra, who's overseeing much
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 8: of the COVID response and healthcare implementation as head of HHS.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 8: And Ali Mayorkas, a Cuban-American refugee who is overseeing what
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 8: we're going to do with Cuban refugees and refugees coming
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: from Central America and also the broader immigration system.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: There's a huge story to go out and tell.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 8: The Biden administration has so much ammunition to go and
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 8: have a conversation beyond immigration with Latino voters.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: So they should absolutely be.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 8: Leaning into that while at the same time showing how
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 8: they are trying to move forward on this issue, showing
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: how Democrats are trying to like kind of find a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 8: pathway forward that is permanent and is addressing both kind
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 8: of the legalization challenges, but also border security concerns that
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 8: many people have that we do have to continue to
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: have a strong kind of policy response to.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: And so there's a lot to be done.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 8: And again, I think people see the value in one
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 8: kind of taking this issue off the table too, as
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 8: I mentioned earlier, you know, if we can solve immigration
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 8: kind of once and for all, or make some very
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: steady headway into taking on this issue, which we have
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 8: literally been dealing with for 20 years. I started working
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 8: in politics in 2004 and I started working on this
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 8: issue in 2004 and have been in part of many
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 8: kind of efforts in the Senate, in the House, in
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 8: the administration, and now.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Outside of the administration.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 8: It's like, we've got to take this off the table
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 8: because once we move past this, we can again have
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 8: that kind of more square conversation on those issues that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 8: are the bread and butter issues that really, really matter
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 8: to Latino voters.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: And sort of on the OAN sort of communication misinformation issue,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: have you seen any strategies or initiatives either on the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: media side or on the campaign side that could help
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: communicate better to the electorate and sort of break through
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: some of that misinformation?
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: Well, quick preview.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 8: It's something that I think we at ECIS are going
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 8: to be taking on and helping to understand the landscape better.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 8: I'm going to give you a really kind of jaw
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 8: dropping example, which is just kind of the difference between
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 8: how Democrats and progressives have been thinking about this issue
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 8: and where we need to really shift the way we
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 8: think about the scope of the problem. In South Florida,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 8: Republicans have built a media echo chamber that has long
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 8: been driven by a very conservative network of Spanish language
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 8: radio stations, Spanish language television, influencers on the ground. There's
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 8: a guy named Alex Otheola, who was previously a Clinton
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 8: supporter in 2016 and became a Trump supporter, is probably
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 8: one of the most well-known now YouTube personalities, Cuban-American, kind
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 8: of my generation, Gen X, millennial generation.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: I'm right on the cusp.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 8: And so that's a giveaway of my age. Um, but, uh,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 8: but he has been, they have invested in him as
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 8: a conservative influencer and he's come up in focus groups.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 8: So they've built this like echo chamber there. Republicans just
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 8: bought this conservative, um, backed media entity just bought one
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 8: of the last more neutral radio stations in South Florida
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 8: in April, in April radio caracole for.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: $ 350, 000, $ 350, 000.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Like, Oh my God.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: Some democratic donors can find that as pocket change in
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: their couch.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 8: While Democrats spent $ 14 million in the last 30 days
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 8: in the South Florida media market alone, literally setting money
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 8: on fire with paid media that probably nobody remembers, right?
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 8: But now Republicans are going to have yet another tool
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: and weapon in their arsenal to reach and engage and
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 8: persuade Latino voters. So we have to shift our thinking
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 8: among progressives in the Democratic Party from just like buying
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 8: radio ads, which are highly efficient. Spanish language radio is
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 8: very efficient. Don't wanna stop doing that. But we have
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 8: to think about buying radio stations. We have to think
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 8: about shifting and again, creating a network of YouTube channels
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: and things like that that reach Latino voters in a
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 8: culturally competent way with good news and facts because the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 8: best counter to disinformation as we know are good news
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 8: and facts and flooding the zone with good news and facts.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 8: The last thing I will just say, Fabs, is that
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 8: we are up against an entire continent of disinformation coming
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 8: from Latin America. There are no borders to check the
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 8: kind of disinformation coming through YouTube, WhatsApp, or other platforms.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 8: And that is fundamentally shaping the way Latino voters, especially
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 8: who are closer to the immigrant experience and who are
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 8: still following news back home and are still well-connected into
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 8: information networks back in their home countries, is shaping the
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 8: way they are experiencing politics today. There's a woman in
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 8: Colombia who literally is a newscaster, and I put that
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 8: in quotation marks because she is by no means affiliated
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 8: with a verified news source. She basically kind of reads
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 8: the news and opines on it, and on election day
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 8: had 700,000 people watching her. And so that's the kind
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 8: of level and scale of information people are getting. And again,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 8: that's influencing how Latinos here in the United States are
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 8: experiencing politics, their trust in government, trust in institutions, trust
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 8: in the process. So that is something we fundamentally have
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 8: to kind of deconstruct and understand. There's a whole piece
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 8: to kind of the social media platform landscape as well,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 8: which we believe the internet platforms are not treating Spanish
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 8: language disinformation with the same level of urgency or kind
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 8: of with parody.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: As they are English language disinformation.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 8: So we track a lot of these disinformation narratives and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 8: oftentimes are kind of taken in English and the platforms
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 8: are addressing it in English, but not necessarily in Spanish.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 8: And so that is kind of, again, a whole wave
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 8: of information that we are up against. And as the
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 8: kind of world is made more connected by the internet,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 8: which in so many ways is a very, very good thing,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 8: especially when we're seeing what's happening in Cuba and the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 8: opportunity to get internet to protesters so they can tell
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 8: their story and we can get the truth of what's
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 8: happening on the ground there. At the same time, it's
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 8: also very complicated because we in the United States, and
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 8: I believe the Biden administration needs to understand how interconnected
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 8: what is happening in Latin America and that geopolitical connection
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 8: back to how Latinos in the US are experiencing politics
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 8: and elections. We can't see them as two different things.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 8: They are very much connected because we are so connected
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 8: by the internet, and now all of these kind of
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 8: news and information distribution channels that are influencing the way
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 8: that people think and experience the world.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: We say all the time that liberal donors have to
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: start taking building a progressive media ecosystem seriously. It sounds
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: self-interested coming from us, but I always say we want
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: more competition out there. And so I'm glad to hear
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: it coming from you as well, who knows this electorate well. Stephanie,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us. Ekis Research is
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: your firm. Go check it out. There's always fantastic information
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: on there. And we really appreciate you coming on the pod.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: Thanks to Mehdi Hassan and Stephanie Valencia for joining us today.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: Everyone have a good weekend and we'll talk to you
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: next week. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: and Nar Melkonian, who film and share our episodes as
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: videos every week.