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“Joe Biden is President.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Today is the first pod of Joe Biden's presidency ever.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Dan and I are going to talk all about the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: history made in yesterday's inauguration ceremony, talk about all the events,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the speeches, break it all down, and then talk about
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the first couple of days, first couple of weeks of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's presidency and what he is trying to achieve.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Before we start, check out our other crooked content this
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: week on Pod Save the World. Tommy and Ben talk
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: about Joe Biden's foreign policy agenda. On Alyssa Mastromonaco's Let's
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Break It Down YouTube series over at YouTube.com slash Crooked Media.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: She and Dan talk about what it takes to plan
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: an inaugural. So go check that out. And check out
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the very first episode of Rubicon Season 2. which launches tomorrow, Friday.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Brian Boitler will walk you through the decisions that will
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: shape the first hundred days of the Biden administration. Subscribe
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to season two of Rubicon wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. On Wednesday, just
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: before noon, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the 46th president of the United States. Kamala Harris was
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: sworn in as the 49th Vice President of the United States.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Although the ceremony began under cloudy skies and even a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: few snowflakes, by the time Biden approached the podium, the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: sun was out and former President Donald Trump was nowhere
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to be seen. Dan, we have waited for and hoped
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: for and worked for this day for the last four years.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: How did it feel to see Joe Biden replace Donald
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Trump as president?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Good. It felt good. Wow.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Very eloquent.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I had so much joy on the day that the
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: election was called for Joe Biden on that Saturday. My
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: family and I went to Oakland, Kamala Harris' hometown, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: we drove around and we saw all the people. It
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: was just this incredible communal joy and I was so happy.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Then throughout the post-election period, I was never really worried
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: that Trump was somehow going to steal the election from
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden. So in some ways, I kind of went
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: into yesterday thinking like this is a ceremonial moment and
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: like what is he going to do first and thinking
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: about it. But it was way more emotional than I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: thought it would be. And I sort of started to
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: get that feeling during his farewell speech in Delaware the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: day before. But watching the whole thing just for this
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: moment of amidst everything that's happening right now and everything
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: that's happened over the last four years, this moment that
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: felt like normalcy, joyous normalcy around a president who wants
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: to do the job, who wants to be a leader
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: for all Americans standing up there and giving a speech
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: that was not crazy. And not trying to divide America.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: There was so much of it that was just such
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: a happy, happy day. It exceeded my expectations in every
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: way for the quality of the execution, the quality of
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the speech, and my own personal emotional reaction to it
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: was much greater than I anticipated.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of different emotions. I felt like
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: those of us who were watching... had survived a crash
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: landing because of, particularly because of the last several weeks,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the insurrection. Like you, I did not have much concern
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump would successfully steal the election from Joe Biden.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't have like that sense of alarmism. My alarmism,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and I know you had this too, was that by
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: continuing to tell that lie about the election, that he
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: would stir up his supporters and sure enough, That is
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the that is the threat that we had to face.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So there was a sense of relief that we have
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: been basically that America has been given another chance. Democracy
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: has been given another chance. But then that sort of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: morphed into joy and hope. And, you know, I said
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: on Monday's pod when I was talking about this with
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: John and Tommy that Donald Trump should have gone. to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: this inauguration, because I think it would have sent a
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: message that he did believe in the transfer of power.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: He did believe that Joe Biden won the election.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: But as I.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Watched the day unfold, I was really happy he wasn't there.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I was really, and I was really happy that his
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: fucking Twitter account was shut down so that we didn't
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: have to hear from him. Because I think if he
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: had been there, it would have made it a very
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: different day. And the commentary about the day and the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: analysis about the day would have all been about Trump
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: and Trump's reactions and what he said and how and
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: how he was looking and his expressions and all that bullshit.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And the fact that he wasn't there really, for me,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: sort of completed the turning of the page from one
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: era to another. And it was it's also was like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: hard to believe at times like when that night. last
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: night when we were like, I was prepping for the pot.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I went to, I wanted to see the press release
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: for all the executive orders that Biden signed. So I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: went to whitehouse.gov and just seeing on whitehouse.gov Joe Biden's picture.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It was like a small thing, but I'm like, oh,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it's real. He's there. It actually happened. There's no more Trump,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: but Joe Biden is our president. And then like seeing
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: pictures of Joe Biden in the Oval Office, which of
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: course he's been in the Oval Office before, but not
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: sitting behind the Resolute Desk. Signing executive orders, seeing Jen
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: at the briefing, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: give the briefing, like all of these little things. It
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: was almost hard to believe that it was really happening
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: because not just because these four years have been so long,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: but also these two months since the actual election have
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: felt so long because of we had to go through
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: an insurrection.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I had sort of a slightly different view of that,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: which it wasn't when I saw Jen at the briefing.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden in the Oval Office, Joe Biden and Jill
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Biden walking into the White House, Ron Klain in the
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: White House. It wasn't that I can't believe it's actually happened.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: It was sort of I can't believe the last four
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: years happened. Like, did I wake up and it was
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: January 21st, 2017, and just all the people who were
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: supposed to be in the White House were in the
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: White House? But to your point about Trump not being there,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: That is the Trump skipping the inauguration and skipping us
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: having to get full on cable news commentary about his
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: expressions and who he shook hands with and the awkwardness
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: of the limo ride with Biden or the tea between
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Melania and the first lady. That was skipping all of
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: that was his one gift to America over four years
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: of completion. It just made it so much better that
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: he had no involvement in it. And everyone was glad
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: he wasn't there. There was no one. I agreed with
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: you for the theoretical symbolism of him being there. But
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: when you actually saw it happen, having him just completely
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: absent from the stage made it so much more powerful.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I will say I was also just deeply happy for
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, who– wanted this his entire life since he
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: was one of the youngest senators ever elected to the Senate.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: He's 29 years old. He has endured, as people have
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: talked about many times now, tragedy, loss, but also he
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: has lost many presidential elections. He has dealt with everything
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: you can imagine someone can deal with, both personal tragedy,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: professional disappointment, and he just kept going. And his the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: fact that his like enduring faith and optimism was finally
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: rewarded at this moment after this long career, after very,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: you know, it just it made me really, really happy
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: for him. And of course, it's bittersweet because, you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: some of the people he's loved most in his life
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: couldn't be there because he lost them too early. Um,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: but he, um, I was just, I was really happy
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: for him and I was really happy for Kamala Harris too. Um,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: she was just like beaming every time you saw her
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: over the last, over the last day and, and for
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: both of their families as well. So it was just,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it was a rare happy moment for America right now,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: which we don't get to have very often.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I was thinking a lot about Joe Biden over the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: last couple of days here and like what this meant
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: for him personally. And he ran in 1988 and very
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: well could have won that nomination. He decided not to
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: run in 1992 for health reasons. He ran in 2008.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: He almost ran in 2016, but couldn't because of Bo
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: and his cancer. But he won in what was the
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: right moment for him. This was the moment that America
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: needed Joe Biden.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And I think, and this happens with Every candidate who
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: becomes president, it is difficult to see that candidate as
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: president almost until it happens. And then some of them
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: grow into the job and some of them do not.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It was hard for us.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Are you thinking of anyone? Is there anyone who has
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: recently not grown into the job?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: No, I was going to say, I think it was
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: hard for all of us as much as we believed
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: in Barack Obama and loved Barack Obama and loved working
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: for him and believed in that campaign. I at least,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I can't believe... Barack Obama is going to
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: be president. I remember all of us in the first
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: week of the White House when Barack Obama invited us
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: all into the Oval Office, all the press and communication staffers,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and we're all wandering around the Oval like, what are
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: we all doing here, including him? You know, so it
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: takes some time to grow. And then, of course, some
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: people like our former, last former president, Donald Trump, just
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: never grow into the job. But Joe Biden, like, we'd
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: have to pretend he was a fantastic candidate his entire
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: life when he ran in other campaigns. I think in
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: this campaign, he became a much better candidate. He became
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: much more disciplined. He, I think, sensed the weight of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the moment and the responsibilities that would come with the job.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And when I saw him up there delivering that inaugural address,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a bit, it dawned on me,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, he really is the right man for the moment.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And it's not just because the moment found him, but
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: because he worked to make himself the right person for
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the moment. Like, I think he improved himself as a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: candidate And ultimately as a president or prepared himself to
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: be a president over these over this last year, which
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: was impressive. So we've promised to quit talking about Trump.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: But of course, it is hard to go cold turkey.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: So I do just want to get your reaction to
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: his very small send off ceremony, which I am happy
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: to have slept through yesterday morning.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: You and Tommy were, I woke up at like six o'clock, 6.30.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: There was like an hour of texts on my phone.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: You guys were both up at five. I don't know
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: what was going on there. But the Washington Post described
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the event as having, quote, more of a feel of
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: a county fair than a big budget extravaganza. I just
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: like the fact that he wasn't at the inaugural. So
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: now we can sort of cordon off this moment from
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the day as the Trump moment and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: then forget about it. Here's a little taste of what
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: it sounded like at the event, including Trump's very last
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: remarks as president.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Goodbye. We love you. We will be back in some form.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: So have a good life. We will see you soon.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Let's just watch in silence as this Air Force One
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: takes off and the Trump family leaves Washington, leaves the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: seat of power.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: Yes, it was my.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump taking off to my way as the CNN
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: panel laughs in the background after telling everyone he'll come
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: back in some form and to have a nice life
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: to me is perfect. I could not have scripted it
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: any better. That's it.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Look, John. The way we're supposed to understand Donald Trump
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: is as a TV man. He is a man who
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: scripts things.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: He's a showman.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: He's a showman. He's really a TV producer more than
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: a president. And you have to think about him in
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: that way. And in this way, it was the perfect
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: ending to this sad, terrible story. It was just he,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: you know, we had these hopes. throughout the election when
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden was winning these very fake polls that had
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: him up 10 points nationally and 15 points in Wisconsin
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: or whatever else that Donald Trump would get this gigantic
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: national humiliation. And that did not happen because polls were
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: wrong and our electoral system was completely fucked up. And he,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: even though he lost the popular vote by 7 million votes,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: it was very, very close. And, but in the end,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: he got that humiliation. It was the, he was, he, he.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: He, He shrank with each passing day. He left as
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a very small, small man, which is what he is.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: But I think more of the country than ever before
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: has now sees him like that. And, of course, so
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: does the world. So that is fitting. He did give
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: his remarks right after pardoning 73 people. One last flurry
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of pardons, including Steve Bannon and Lil Wayne, of course.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: He did not try to pardon himself, anyone in his family,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: or Rudy. Any of this surprise you? Any of this
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: last minute pardon stuff?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: If you had asked me right after the election, would
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump pardon every member in his family and himself?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Of course. But this is the consequence of what happened
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: at the Capitol. Because there was a, according to reports
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: from CNN and others, there was a big meeting with
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: his legal advisors over the weekend about pardon strategies. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: they kept telling him that if you push the envelope
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: on these pardons, you are more likely to be convicted
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: in the Senate and face all the consequences that come
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: with that. So there was this slight sort of Damocles
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: hanging over this. I mean, he's still in a normal world.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: These pardons are fucking insane. They're just like randomly corrupt people.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: They're friends and political advisors. And we just think of
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: it this way. He pardons Steve Bannon, who is a
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: wall street connected white supremacist whose crime was bilking Trump
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: supporters over building a fake wall to stop a fake
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: immigration threat, which that is actually the perfect.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Once again, perfection.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: That is the writer's room for season four. God, like that,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: like in a normal world, these would be massively controversial parties.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: They're just not as terrible as they could have been.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And he's gone. And so everything's sort.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Of interesting because it's, Trump has pardoned some Democrats in
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: his four years. But the common theme to a lot
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of these pardons is that the person was deeply corrupt.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: He loves pardoning corrupt politicians, Democrat or Republican. He's bipartisan.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: But if you are a swampy politician who has committed
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: some white collar crime or stolen some money from people
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: or built the taxpayers in some way, you've got a
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: friend in Donald Trump. Like, I just don't know how
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: much clearer of a message he can send with these pardons. Unbelievable.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Back to the inauguration. Enough Donald Trump. Like everything else
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: in our lives over this last year, the events of
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the inauguration were quite different, not only because of a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: raging pandemic, but because of the MAGA terrorist attack carried
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: out against the actual site of the inauguration just two
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: weeks earlier. Instead of the million plus people who usually
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: watch from the National Mall, the Biden team installed 200,000
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: American flags to represent people who couldn't attend in person.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and then lit up the flags with 56 pillars of
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: light at night in honor of the U.S. states and territories.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: On the night before the inauguration, the president, the vice president,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and their families also held the first national memorial service
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: for COVID at the Lincoln Reflecting Pool for the 400,000
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Americans who've died. Here is a clip of Vice President
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Harris's remarks.
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: For many months, we have grieved by ourselves. Tonight, we
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: grieve and begin healing together. Though we may be physically separated, we,
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: the American people, are united in spirit. And my abiding hope,
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: my abiding prayer, is that we emerge from this ordeal
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: with a new wisdom to cherish simple moments, to imagine
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: new possibilities, and to open our hearts just a little
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: bit more to one another.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: So there was also, you referenced this earlier, a very
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: emotional speech from Biden as he left his home state
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: of Delaware. There was, after the inaugural ceremony, a wreath
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: laying at Arlington Cemetery with the Obamas and the Bushes.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: There was a virtual celebration on Wednesday night instead of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the traditional inaugural balls. What message do you think the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Biden team was trying to convey with the inauguration events
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and how well did they execute on that?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: I was blown away by what they pulled off at
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: this inauguration. I do not have the creative imagination to
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: think about how you would pull this off because inaugurations
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: in history have almost always been symbolized and defined by
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the crowds that gather. You think about the millions who
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: saw Obama in the people who in 1960 came to
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: see JFK. And it's always viewed that way. It's why
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and Sean Spicer had such a conniption fit
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: over their small crowd size in 2017. And so as
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: you were sort of thinking about this inauguration, it was like,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: how is this going to work without the crowd? How
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: are you going to be able to replicate the majesty
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: and the sort of historical moments here? And they did
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: an incredible job. And from a message perspective, it was
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: unity and a return to normalcy in a very abnormal time.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And I thought they.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, I have a problem
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: with the return to normalcy message because of what you
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: just mentioned at the end there, because it's an abnormal time.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I don't see what... And I know the Biden team
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: has been trying to push this as well, but I
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: don't see any of this as a return to normalcy
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: because nothing about how we're living right now is normal. Like,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: we're still stuck in our homes. There's a raging pandemic.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: But what I think is, it's interesting, like, I think
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: it's a return to reality because the the, the, the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: person who was trying to pretend that everything was normal
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: for the last four years was Donald Trump. Like think
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: about the Republican convention, you know, like they'd have crowds
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of people outside the white house, a super spreader event
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and fireworks going off and everyone is celebrating all the time.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump pretended the pandemic wasn't there. And like,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: What the Biden folks did and what they did around
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: this inauguration is like, yeah, let's have a memorial service
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: because we just lost 400,000 Americans and we're still losing
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: them every single day. So we should match that reality
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: with a somber ceremony. And I think so much of
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: what the Biden folks have done is it's a return
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to living the reality that we're all living through right
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: now and not having a government, not having a leader
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that seems completely out of touch with what most Americans
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: are going through in their lives, which I think is
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: extremely admirable.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I very explicitly tied return to normalcy amid abnormal times to,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I think we're basically saying the same thing, which is
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: what the Trump administration was doing is delusion, right? We're
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: going to pretend this pandemic is going to happen. We're
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: going to try to pull the wool over people's eyes
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: because we think it helps us politically We have access
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: to the best drugs in the world, and so we'll
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: be fine. Fuck everyone else is sort of their attitude.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: But this is a unique crisis, but there is a
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: traditional tempo instead of behaviors for how our leaders and
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: our government responds to crisis. Where there is tragedy, you
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: mourn those. You send out You try to heal the
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: people who have been hurt from it. You try to
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: speak to everyone. You try to bring people together to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: solve the problem. Trump did none of those things. And
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: it was a– like we were trying to put the
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Trump– we collectively trying to put the Trump era behind
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: us but wearing masks, right? That's sort of the– we're
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: doing the things presidents should be doing but we're doing
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: them wearing masks because we're in the middle of a
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: pandemic that is exponentially worse because the last guy did
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: not care enough to even do the job.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think it was important. I mean, just
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I hadn't realized how much I needed to watch the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: people who lead us like in mourning along with the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: rest of us until I saw that service.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Like it is hard to even fathom the number of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: lives we've lost in this country over the last year.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And so many times we have just moved right past
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it because of the fucking circus that Donald Trump has
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: put us through. with everything else. And so we're talking
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: about coups and what he's doing in his Twitter feed
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: as people are just dying in this country every day
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: from a pandemic that is not being controlled like it
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: could be controlled. And so I thought they did a very,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: very good job at, and it's a balance, right? Because
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: you don't want to make the whole ceremony somber, but
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I think they balanced sort of those somber moments and
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: those memorials really well with more sort of uplifting moments.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: in joyful moments and performances by artists that we know.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And in that way, it was it was normal. But
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: it was also I also thought to myself, too, that
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I was sort of sad for all the the Biden folks,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the campaign team, the folks are going with the White
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: House that like they don't have that traditional celebration that
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you get to have around an inaugural weekend, not just
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the parties, but like just coming together, you know, like.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I know that from here. Like, I wish we could
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: have celebrated with the whole cricket team, right? Like, it
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: felt the same way it did when we won the election. Like,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: it's bittersweet in that we won and everything we worked
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: for so hard is here, but we didn't all get
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to be together. And it's tough that this fucking pandemic
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: has robbed us all of that.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw a bunch of people that we used
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: to work with who worked for Joe Biden on Instagram
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: watching the inauguration in their house on TV. And it
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: is the... I mean, this has been the whole experience
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: of 2020, the pandemic, the insurrection, the election is just
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: this detachment from it because we're watching it through our
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: TV screens without other people. And yeah, I was very sad.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Which is unnatural, unnatural and unhealthy.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not good. Well, it's actually, it's healthier than
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: being in large crowds without masks, but it is.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Technically, it's healthier.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: It's the least unhealthy option we have before us, but
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: it is still unhealthy.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Correct. Let's talk about the inaugural address itself. So from
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: what I understand, Biden knew the heart of what he
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to say from the beginning of the speechwriting process,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: which was led by his longtime message guru, Mike Donilon,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: who's now going to be a White House senior advisor,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and Vinay Reddy, the new White House director of speechwriting.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Biden told them at the very beginning he wanted to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: convey two major themes, unity and and he wanted to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: talk about truth itself, particularly after the insurrection. Here's one
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: moment from Biden's 21-minute speech where he calls for unity.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I know speaking of unity can sound to some like
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: divide us are deep and they are real, but I
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: also know they are not new. Our history has been
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: a constant struggle between the American ideal that we're all
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: are created equal, and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear,
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: and victory is never assured. Through Civil War, the Great Depression,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: World War, 9-11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setbacks, our better
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: of us, enough of us have come together to carry
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: all of us forward. And we can do that now.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So I love the speech. I will say as someone
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: who has been involved in two inaugural addresses, they are
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: some of the most difficult speeches to write. A lot
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of inaugurals end up being presidents and their speechwriters trying
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to do an impression of JFK's inaugural. And they become
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: like a lot of flowery rhetoric, a lot of empty calories,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: don't actually say much. People are trying to write for history.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: They're not trying to write for the moment. I think
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: if I'm being honest, I think we tended to do
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that a little bit in the 2009, in the first inaugural.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I like our second inaugural much better. But Biden, I
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: think he made an argument. Like you can agree or
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: disagree with it, but you can tell that he deeply
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: believes in the need for unity and he made the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: argument for it. And he did so by acknowledging reality,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: which he did in the clip we just heard. You know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: he talked about the dark forces in this country that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: we've always had to overcome. He talked about nativism, racism.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: He mentioned in another part of the speech, white supremacy.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and domestic terrorism, the first president that's ever mentioned white
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: supremacy in his speech. So he did not gloss over
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the forces standing in the way of unity. But what
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: he says in that last clip, and it's interesting because
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: he ad-libbed in the middle there, he said, you know,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: at each moment in this history, enough of us. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: then he said, again, enough of us came together to
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: carry all of us forward, which in itself was an
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: acknowledgement that he doesn't expect us to all come together
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: like Republicans, Democrats, and insurrectionists. Like, he knows. I think
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it was a subtle acknowledgement from him that there is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a portion of the country that calls to unity are
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: going to fall flat on. And yet, throughout history, when
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: we've had these moments of deep division before, enough Americans
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: have come together to pull the country forward. And I
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: thought it was a realistic yet hopeful sentiment in that speech,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and I really liked it. What do you think?
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: You basically used the exact words I was going to
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: use to describe speech, which is realistic optimism, which is
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden is incredibly optimistic about what America can do,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: but he's very realistic about the challenges. You mentioned the
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: fact that he used the term white supremacy first time ever.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: And I saw someone mention that yesterday and I was like,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I wonder if that's true. It's like, you know, what's
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the fact I don't need to Google that that was
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the first time someone said, Oh, president said white supremacy
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: in the inaugural address. That is definitely the first time.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And I look, I thought it was, uh, it's always,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: it's impossible to separate a speech from the moment in
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: which the speech is being given. And this is obviously
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: this incredible momentous moment. We are filled with joy from
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the departure of Trump fear from what's going to come
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: from both the pandemic. The economic recession and the fact
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: that we are two weeks removed from a group of
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: our citizens trying to violently overthrow our government. And what
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I thought was really impressive with that speech was the
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: strength and confidence that Biden brought to it. It was realistic,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: as you said. I also thought the enough of us
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: line was the key line in there. But it was
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: a speech– for the moment that projected the strength that
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Americans wanna see their leader. Because for all of Trump's phony, strongman,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: authoritarian schtick, he was a weak person. And what Biden
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: gave was a speech of strength, someone who had confidence
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: in who they are and confidence in what America is.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I saw a few people talking about the speech, writing
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: about the speech, saying that You know, there was some
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: typical bromides and rhetoric that you'd hear in inaugural addresses,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: but bet because it followed Trump, it was more powerful.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: And I disagree that there certainly was rhetoric in there,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: especially in the beginning and at the very end that, yeah,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that could have been in other inaugural addresses that you've
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: heard before when he says democracy prevailed. Other presidents could
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: say that it's made more powerful by the fact that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: democracy has just prevailed over an attempted coup. I get that.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: But there were definitely parts of that speech that no
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: other president would have been able to give at other
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: moments and that were very unique to the moment. You know,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised that Biden referenced the lies that
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: led to the insurrection two weeks earlier. Let's listen to
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a clip of that.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: power and for profit.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: And each of us has a duty and a.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Responsibility as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders. Leaders
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: To defend the truth and defeat the lies.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Lies told for power and lies told for profit. That
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: is not something you hear in every inaugural address. Lies
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: for profit. Was that a shot at Fox News and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: right-wing media? Or am I just reading something into that?
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: That's how I read it.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty good of Biden to take
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: that on. And I wasn't sure that he would.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, it was an incredibly strong
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: speech as well. At least I thought America and I
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: needed to hear after what's happened over the last two months,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: let alone the last year or the last four years.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I will say one more clip of this. My favorite
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: passage in the speech, and this is usually my favorite
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: passage in any speech, is one that only Joe Biden
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: himself could have delivered. Here's a clip.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: If we're willing to stand in the other person's shoes,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: as my mom would say, just for a moment, stand
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: in their shoes. Because here's the thing about life. There's
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: when you need a hand, there are other days when
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: we're called to lend a hand. That's how it has
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: to be. It's what we do for one another.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a beautiful passage because first of all,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden talking about not knowing what fate will deal you, obviously.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: he knows that better than most because of the tragedy
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: he's endured in his life. But it wasn't just another
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: call for unity. It was something deeper. It was a
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: call for empathy and for solidarity. And to me, it's
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: a pretty solid progressive governing philosophy that there are some
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: times when you need a hand and there are other
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: times when you're called to lend a hand. That is
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: why we have social insurance programs. That is why we
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: have progressive taxation, because you don't know what fate is
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: going to deal you. And so we all come together
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: as a community and we give a little bit because
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: someday it might be us that needs that health insurance.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Someday it might be us that need that social security.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And I remember that was always, that was an Obama
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: philosophy that went through a lot of his speeches. And
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: it sort of ties the two men together because I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: think that's what Biden has always believed as well. And
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it comes from his own personal experience.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: When I was watching the speech and watching Biden deliver
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: it in that moment, the clip that I could not
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: get out of my head was from the end of
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: his speech the day before, his Delaware farewell speech, where
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: he talked about how this was a speech that Bo
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: should be giving. And I think the way to understand
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Biden's confidence, his strength, his humanity, his empathy is through
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: the prism of tragedy. And if you can get through
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: the things that he has gotten through. That gives himself
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: confidence that he can take on this gargantuan task of
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: being president in this moment with these circumstances, but also
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: gives you confidence that other people can do it too,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: that the country can do it. And it's just, he
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: has been, like you said, there were moments during the
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: primary campaign where he was not the best candidate, but
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: really since he became the nominee, He has never wavered
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: and has had this real quiet confidence about his approach
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to the election in the debates, in the convention speech,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: and certainly every moment since the election day that I
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: think is a direct result of sort of the strength
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you get through coming through the sorts of tragedies he's
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: been through in his life.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And it makes you into the kind of person– That is,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: at least it has made him into the kind of
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: person who is the complete opposite of Donald Trump and
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: everything that we went through the last four years, which
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: was characterized by selfishness and meanness and smallness.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: And what what Biden is arguing here is, no, the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: way this country succeeds, it's not just unity. It's not
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: just like sitting down with Mitch McConnell to get things done.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: it is empathy. It is solidarity is understanding what our
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: fellow Americans are going through, what our citizens, what our
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: fellow neighbors are going through and trying to put yourself
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: on those people's shoes. And that out of, out of
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that understanding, you know, a good, effective, progressive government is born.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: And I think if he, if that is his North
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: star for the next four years, he'll do well. Um,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: so I know there's a, I know there's obviously we've
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: talked about a lot of commentary on Biden's inauguration representing
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: a return to normalcy. There are a few aspects of
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the ceremony that would not have seemed normal all that
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: long ago. The most noteworthy being that Kamala Harris was
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: sworn in as the first woman, the first black woman
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and the first woman of South Asian descent to serve
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: as vice president. And while you usually don't see Lady
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Gaga or J-Lo on the inaugural platform, the real standout
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: was Los Angeles's own Amanda Gorman. who at 22 is
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: the youngest poet to perform at a presidential inauguration. Let's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: take a listen to Amanda's poem.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: We will not march back to what was but move
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: to what shall be, a country that is bruised but whole,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: Our blenders become their burdens. But one thing is certain,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: if we merge mercy 22, man. Emily pointed.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Out to me last night, she's like, that speech was
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the one moment where you did not look at your
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: phone the entire time and were just glued to the
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: screen for the entire poem. And I was like, I mean,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I was just, I was spellbound. And it reminded me,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: first of all, that it was the perfect poem for
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the moment. It reminded me in many ways, and there's
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of echoes here, of the first time I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: heard our old boss speak at the Democratic Convention in
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: 2004 and some of the themes he touched on about America.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: And I was blown away by the poem. I thought
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: it was incredible.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was unbelievable. I mean, just... As a poem itself,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: it's incredible. To be able to deliver that poem at
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: 22 years old in front of the entire world with
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: that level of confidence and poise is unbelievable.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And like Joe Biden, she has overcome a speech impediment
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: It was so impressive and so emotional and such a
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: fitting and appropriate inclusion in this inauguration in this moment,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: the inauguration where Kamala Harris is becoming the vice president
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: of the United States. It's just, it is a different
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: vision of what America can be, but we are not yet.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: We have not all, we have, we have failed at,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: but what we can be. And like I, the Kamala
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Harris's vice president part was incredibly powerful and emotional as well.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: And it's all tied in with the Amanda Gorman poem.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: And we watched it in our house because this is
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: a moment. Our daughter, she wore her first but not
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: last Kamala Harris t-shirt from Ray Gunn in Des Moines.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: And it's just like we'll always remember this moment. And
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: the fact that it comes after Donald Trump and everything
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: he stood for, everything he said is just so incredibly powerful.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I did think– several times I thought, what would this
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: be like if Trump was giving– His second and our
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: girl like that, like we have Amanda Gorman. They would
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: have had like a Kushner nephew giving a haiku about
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: how great Dr. Trump is. Like the poem would be
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: about Trump, right? Not about America. The songs would have
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: been about Trump, not about America. And it was, it was,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, both parts of that were just so incredibly powerful.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, you know, Charlie is six months old
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: and we have been saying over the, last couple of months,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: especially as we've gone through this post-election madness, like boy, Charlie,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to have a story to tell you someday
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: about your first six months on this, on this earth. Uh,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and what went on because of course, um, you know, anyway, um,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: but when that happened yesterday, when, when Kamala was sworn in,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I thought when he's old enough to remember and old
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: enough to be aware of this, he won't, all he'll
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: know is Joe Biden is president and Kamala Harris is
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: As vice president. And that's pretty amazing. And we'll just
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: tell him a story about the time that Donald Trump
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: almost destroyed the country. And it will have a happy ending.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: It did make me sad because if we were in
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: a normal world and this was a normal inauguration, we
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: would have taken Kyla, who is enamored with Kamala Harris
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: for two reasons. Kamala Harris, also born in California, but
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: most importantly, also has a K in her name. So like, Yeah,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: that's big. Yeah, it's very big. But at least we
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: got to at least I mean, it happened and we
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: got to we got to see it on TV. And
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's a it's one of those things people
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: remember forever, not unlike Barack Obama's inauguration in 2008.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: OK, let's talk about President Biden's first day in office.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: He got right to work after he was sworn in
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and signed a number of executive orders, including things like
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: mask requirements on federal property. I think they're also going
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: to do interstate travel. Rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the World Health Organization. Ending the Muslim ban. Stopping construction
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: of Trump's wall. Protecting DREAMers. Also a 100-day moratorium on
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: all deportations. They're going to extend a moratorium on evictions
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and foreclosures. Extend a freeze on student loan payments. and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: reversed Trump's orders that allowed the federal government to discriminate
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Dan, what is
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the message behind all of these executive orders being signed
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: at once? There's a whole bunch of other executive orders
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: they're signing today and in the days to come in
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: these first 10 days. What's the message they're trying to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: send there?
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: That we are not going to wait one second to
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: try to fix the problems this country is facing. I mean,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: this is, it is... incredibly unusual. The normal course of
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: business here would be inauguration, post-inauguration lunch, hours of parades.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Everybody goes back and puts on their formal wear and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: goes to 10 balls celebrating 10 states. And then you
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: get up and do all of this the next morning.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Obama signed his first real executive orders on the 21st.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: The next morning was when he banned torture and signed
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of other executive order he planned to do.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: The Biden team did not wait. I mean, obviously there
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: were no inaugural balls, but they went right to work
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: and started doing all those things right away. And it was,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, very, it was very well orchestrated and sent
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: a very clear message that there's a lot of work
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: to do and we're not going to wait to get
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: it done.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, how do you balance,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: because I know that we struggled with this in the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: first year of the administration, how do you balance sort
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: of the need to show action, momentum, movement by signing
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: all of these orders one right after another, and also
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: make sure that, uh, people understand what you've accomplished because
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the media cycle moves so fast. And if you do
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: 10 things at once, you know, you could pull someone
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: three weeks from now and people won't know that you
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: reversed the Muslim ban, or maybe they won't know that
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: you protected dreamers, you know, some of the, some of
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: the executive orders that didn't get as much attention. Like,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: how do you plan for that from a communications perspective?
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: I think there are two elements of it. One is
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: public opinion is not a pop quiz. You do not
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: need people to delineate all the things you did. You
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: need them to take an impression that you were doing
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the things you said you were going to do. Particularly
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: in these early days, a flurry of activity that is
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: all about fulfilling your campaign promises is the right thing
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: to do. Now, in our I could nerd out about
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: this or be annoying about it for hours, but I
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: will shorten it here. But in this current communications environment,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: there's not such a thing as a news cycle anymore.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: So you can find ways to communicate about these things hours, days,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: and weeks after they happen. You can dispatch people to
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: communicate in– Facebook groups or on digital publications that are
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: unique to that, right? And I imagine the Biden team
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: will have this. It's like, what's the long tail communications
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: plan for how we're going to communicate to people that
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: we know care about the Muslim ban so they know
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: what happened, so they know that we undid it? Who
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: are we going to communicate with about the climate world?
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: There's all kinds of groups of people who congregate on
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: the internet and elsewhere to talk about climate. Who are
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: the influencers you get that information to so they can
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: carry it on? It's not just the New York Times
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: story where they have a paragraph that sums up seven
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: of the 10 things you did. That's sort of the
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: old way of thinking about it. The long way is
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: how do you educate people outside of the traditional view
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: of what the news cycle is, if that makes sense.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: No, that definitely makes sense. It does seem like these
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: were in two buckets, these executive orders so far. One
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: is sort of Executive orders that undid the damage of
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the last four years and undid most of sort of
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Trump's actions that can be easily undone. And then executive
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: actions that relate to COVID, that relate to sort of
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: the most urgent crisis the country is facing right now.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: You know, the Biden team seems to be sort of
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: trying to set expectations on this. You heard from Ron,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: you heard from Jen, like it's going to take a
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: couple months to turn this around now. There's an administration
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: source on background today saying that like the Trump vaccination
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: rollout plan, there was no plan. It is a disaster.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: They're going to have to start it from scratch. One
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: of the executive orders was formally installing Jeff Zients as
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the COVID organizer, the COVID czar, if you will. What
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: do you think? How does the Biden administration handle sort
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of inheriting a complete mess on COVID from the Trump
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: administration today? knowing that most people in America are like, okay,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: we got rid of Trump. We got Joe Biden. Let's
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: fix this pandemic now.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, you texted me basically at 1206 wanting to
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: know where your vaccine was.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, yeah, I guess I was,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: I'm asking for a friend and that friend is me.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's two elements of it. One
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: is expectation setting and they've done some, I mean, Trump,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: certainly helped lower the bar of expectations by essentially giving
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: up the job of president the day after the election
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: and doing nothing, focusing all of his energy on fomenting
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: insurrection as opposed to- Yeah, right.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: It takes a lot of work. It's a full-time job.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: And did you see that clip where Ainsley Earnhardt, whatever
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: her name is, from Fox News talked about how hard
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Trump worked? Because they said he said, you know, no
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: one will ever say that Trump wasn't a worker. And
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: she listed some things he does, and she included watching
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: all the shows Yeah, cool.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a president too. I do a lot.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Yes. So it is, one, we cannot let people forget
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: the mess that Biden inherited. This is something that Obama
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: dealt with, with the economy.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't buy us all that much time, Dan.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Well, it actually did. Because I went and looked at
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: the polling on this. And did you know that in
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: May of 2016, more Americans held George W. Bush responsible
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: for the current economic situation than Barack Obama?
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's good, but didn't really help in the
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: 2010 midterms.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there are all kinds of problems. Yes, but
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: you have to, in every set of remarks that you
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: wrote for Obama about the economy, it began with talking
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: about the mess.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: We would joke about this.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: With the mess we inherited, right? We inherited this terrible
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: mess that started before the financial crisis, but was made
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: worse by it. And Biden has to continue to make
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: that point. I don't think it's going to be a
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: particularly tall task to remind people that Donald Trump was
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: a terrible president who completely fucked up the pandemic. But
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: that's one. And second thing is setting expectations. And they've
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: been doing that from the beginning. They continue to do it.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: I think having a metric, like 100 million vaccine doses
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: for 100 million people or whatever the exact language they
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: use is very good. Like, Everyone wants the vaccine right now.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: We want it right now because we want our family
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: members to be safe. We want our parents to be safe.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: We want to see our grandparents, our kids, all of that. Yes.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: But you want to create a metric to be judged by.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: So they have done that. And if in 100 days,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: less than 100 million vaccine doses have been administered, then
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: that will not be success. If more than that have been,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: then that will be success. And so people are going
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: to be very impatient very quickly. This is probably going
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: to be a pretty short honeymoon. because things are so tough.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: But setting expectations, reminding people about who's accountable for the
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: mess we're in, and then showing progress. And that can
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: be passing legislation for the relief checks, that can be
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: some of these executive orders and other things, are the
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: sort of the three parts of that.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I think the other part is, and this leads us
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: to the press briefing last night, sort of clear and
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: constant communication with the American people, particularly if things go wrong,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: if deadlines slip, right? Like people are going to be
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: more understanding if for some reason, you know, we didn't
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: get enough vaccine supply for reasons beyond our control because
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: some drug company fucked up or supply chain had an issue. Um,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: People are going to be more understanding if you tell
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: them immediately, tell them what happened and are in constant
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: communications with folk. Like I think one of the big
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: problems of the as crazy as those briefings were because
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump made them crazy. It was almost when they
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: were when they stopped and we were all in the
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: dark and you just had governors, mayors and everyone else
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: sending a million different messages about the pandemic. that became
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: even more complicated for people and people became even more
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: frustrated because no one had any idea what the hell's
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: going on. So I do think, you know, clear and
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: constant communication is helpful on this front too.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the incredibly hard challenge for the
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Biden administration is we're going to talk about all kinds
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: of things. Does he have coffee with Mitch McConnell enough?
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Or is his message exactly right? Or was he five
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: minutes late to an event? All of that will get
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: a ton of attention. What really matters for the medium-term
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: health of the Biden presidency is how many people get
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: vaccinated how quickly. And the hard part is there's only
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: so much the Biden administration can do to make that happen.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: They can leverage every resource in the government to distribute.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: They can use the Defense Production Act and other ways
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: to try to expedite production. But it still, at the
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: end of the day, comes down to states, counties, cities, doctors, hospitals,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: pharmacies putting the needle in people's arms. And that's very hard.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: We have been Like Hallie and I have been... Mainly
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Hallie have been working for days to try to figure
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: out how to get our parents signed up for vaccines.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: And it is an absolute clusterfuck everywhere.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I'm dealing with the same thing with my parents here.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: And it is like... It's tough.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: It's like our county, very easy sign up. My in-laws' county,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: absolute disaster. Every hospital has different rules. Like they're one doctor.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: They are....
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Only still doing health workers. They've even gotten people over 75.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Another hospital down the street is doing people 65. It
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: is just an absolute cluster. And Biden has influence on that,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: but not control. And so that's going to be very hard.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: And that's the point where you have to be constantly
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: talking about it, looking like you're doing things, looking like
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: you're putting every ability you have. You have to demonstrate
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: you're doing everything you possibly can so that people understand
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: that if things are not going exactly right, it's not
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: for a lack of focus or lack of communication.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: You got to show your work. You got to get
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: caught trying. And then, you know, I think about when
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Biden managed the Recovery Act and some of the tough
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: language he used, like, I'm going to manage the hell
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: out of this. And when people are, you know, wasting
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: money or there's fraud or abuse, I'm going to call
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: it out. That doesn't necessarily apply to that. I don't
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: know if there's gonna be fraud or abuse. There might be.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: But you know, calling out when people screw things up too. Like,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you know, Biden said a week ago, I think, I
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: can promise you we're going to manage the hell out
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: of this operation. That's the promise. And that promise is not,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: it's going to go perfect. I'm going to be able
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: to control everything. Everything's going to be fine. It's that
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to manage the resources that we have really,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: really well. And, you know, and that's the standard that
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: he should be held to. So first day of the
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Biden administration also included the very first press briefing from
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: new White House press secretary, Jen Psaki. who promised to
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: bring truth and transparency back to the briefing room, which
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: starts with once again holding regular press briefings. Why do
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: you think Jen held a briefing on the first day,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: actually the first night, which is somewhat unusual? Usually there's
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: not a White House briefing the night of the inauguration.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: I was thinking back to 2009. I don't think Robert
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: Gibbs briefed for like the first three or four days.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Because it's incredibly hard to do. There's no infrastructure to
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: give you all of the guidance. You don't yet have
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: full 360 view into what the government is doing. Because
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: there's still, even though we're in this changeover, there's still
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people at all the agencies still doing
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: things you may get asked questions about. And it was
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: part of the we are getting to work right away thing. message.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: And it, I mean, it, it was, I mean, Jen
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: is a friend of ours. She's our, our colleague. She
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: for many, many years in the campaign, the white house,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: but what she pulled off to do that was unbelievable.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, to be able to pull off that briefing
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: on the first day and essentially flawlessly was absolutely incredible.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: She was, it was just really was impressive. And it
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: was surreal for me to hear her say the president
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: is And have it be Biden, not Obama?
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Did you see her almost at one point, she said,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: President Biden? She caught herself really quickly. Well, no, I mean,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: just so people understand how difficult the White House briefing is.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: God damn, I could never do that. So Jen has
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: a binder in front of her that her staff will
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: put together, right, of answers on every topic under the sun. Now,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I don't care how many topics you plan for. There's
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: also probably the possibility of questions that you just don't
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: know that come at you from left field that you're
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: not ready for. So you need like the knowledge of
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: the subjects, first of all, for every subject under the sun.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Then you need to keep in mind the message from
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the administration that you're supposed to get out because you
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: are supposed to like communicate a message and not just
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: sort of like list off you know, list off items
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: in a briefing book. And you're going to get follow-ups.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: You're going to get sometimes confrontational follow-ups. I mean, like,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: and then you have to, like, keep yourself composed and
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: have a good tone and not get angry with reporters. And, like,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: to keep all of those things together while you're on
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: live television, it's, for everyone who's done it, for everyone
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: who's done the job, it seems like a very, very
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: difficult job.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: To end a If you are three years in the administration,
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: the prep process for one briefing is half the day, right?
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: Right, yeah.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: I remember with Gibbs when we were there, most of
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Gibbs' day was you guys and Tommy and LeBolt and
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: everyone just prepping him for– going out into the briefing room.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: And then when he was done, it was like, take
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: an hour to read the news and catch up on
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: email and then start again the next day.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I really don't know how they pulled
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: that off. And it was, I mean, obviously Jen worked
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: in the White House for many years. She handled the,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: she was the chief economic spokesperson in the first term
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: or the first few years of the first term before
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: she became the deputy communications director. She was the state
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: department spokesperson briefing in front of the whole world. So
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: she is There's no person I think who's ever been
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: more qualified for this job than her, but to be
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: able to go out there and do it on day one.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: And it was just, it is, I know we're, I
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: don't know what the term return to normalcy is, right?
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: But that's what it was. It was just like, we're
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: going to go.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: That was definitely a return.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: We're going to go get, we're going to show you
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: that we're going to go give a briefing where we're
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: not going to show a campaign video. We're not going
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: to yell at people. It's not going to be performative
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Jim Acosta bashing or whatever else. It's just like, you're
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: going to ask questions. I'm going to do my best
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: to answer them. You may like the answers. You may
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: not think they're sufficient. I'll try to get you better
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: answers the next time. And that's just how we're going
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: to do this. And we're going to try to do
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: it every day.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Speaking of what's easy, performative Jim Acosta bashing is much
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: easier than doing a good job at the briefing. I
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: could get up there and do that.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: That takes a lot less prep.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I could go pick a Fox News reporter, have them
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: ask me a question, and then just like fucking shit
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: on them for a couple of minutes. Yeah, no, give
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: me that job.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: So overall, last question, how do you think the Biden
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: administration should approach these first few weeks? They've got a
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Senate impeachment trial to deal with for the former president, unprecedented.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: They got an enormous COVID relief package. Basically, their economic
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: plan and their pandemic plan all rolled into one that
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: they're going to try to pass. We've already got today,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell has not even allowed the Democrats to officially
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: take power in the Senate, even though we have 50
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: votes plus Kamala Harris, meaning 51, because there is something
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: called an organizing resolution that Schumer and McConnell have to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: agree to before they can sort of formalize how the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Senate's going to work. And McConnell has basically said to Schumer,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: I will not agree to this organizing resolution unless you
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: promise during these first couple of years to not use,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: to not nuke the filibuster, to not get rid of
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: the filibuster. And if you don't promise to not get
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: rid of the filibuster, I'm going to filibuster this organizing resolution,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: which means that Republicans will still be committee chairs and
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: we won't be able to move forward under a Democratic Senate.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what to say about the fact
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: that Mitch McConnell wants to use the filibuster to prevent
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: the majority from taking control unless the majority decides to
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: get rid of the filibuster. He's basically making the best
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: argument against the filibuster in decades. But let's put that
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: aside for a second.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, what Biden has to do is do what
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: he has been doing. Be a normal president who wakes
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: up in the morning, doesn't tweet like a giant asshole.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Does real things, speaks to the whole country and do work.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: But I think the key for them is going to
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: be to read everyone in on the play. This is
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: the timeline in which we expect to get things done.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: This is the challenges we have It's just being very
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: transparent about what they are trying to do, which is,
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: I think, essentially why Jen is going to brief every
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: single day of the week is so that they can
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: do that. And let's just show progress. It is an
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: administration that is being staffed with incredibly competent, experienced professionals,
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: and let's let them do the work. And In the
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: first few days and weeks here, they'll have the ability
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: to trip over the low bar of expectations of Trump.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Just not being Trump is going to be good. But
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: before too long, people are going to start demanding some
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: sort of results. And you sort of have to tell
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: people what to expect and when to expect it, which
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: sort of– Joe Biden is in this situation. Joe Biden
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: always says– I think he says his dad said this,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: which is compare me to the alternative, not to the almighty.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: And once you're president, you're not the almighty, but there's
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: not an obvious alternative.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: But what you can do is you can give people
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: the curve to grade you on, right? This is by
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: this date, we want to get this done. Our goal
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: is to get these relief checks passed out of the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Senate by, I don't know, pick the date, right? Whatever
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: is reasonable. I mean, obviously, we're being a little slowed
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: down by a senatorial insurrection where they're holding power even
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: though they've lost the election. Mitch McConnell's nonviolent insurrection is
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: what we will call this. But it's really is to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: lay out a sort of some, what are the first
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: handful of things you want to get done and when
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: you want to get them done by, and then judge
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: me based on that.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Here's what we're facing in the next two years from
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the runway between now and the midterms. You know, in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the midterms, the president's party usually loses seats, partly because
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: of the dynamic that you just mentioned, where it's not
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: a campaign anymore where there's two people that you're judging
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: them against each other. It's Joe Biden's the president. And
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: so voters expect Joe Biden to fix shit. And so
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: Democrats have two years to get stuff done. Number one,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to help alleviate the pandemic. So they have to like,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: they're going to be judged. If they make a lot
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: of progress on the pandemic, they will be judged favorably.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: If not, they won't be. And also to just get
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff done, right? Like people, And
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: when I say people, I mean, like the people who
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: vote but don't necessarily pay attention to every political development
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: like we do. They need to see change in their lives.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: They need to feel change in their lives from the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Biden administration over the next two years. And that sounds
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: very simple. But I think when and we've experienced this, too,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: when you're in government and there's a million things going
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: on at once and there's a whole bunch of events
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: that come up beyond your control that you have to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: respond to. even the best laid plans sort of go
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: awry because now you're responding to some scandal. You're responding
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: to some, you know, events that happened overseas, right? Like
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you're just always responding to a million things. The message
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: goes away from you, but you have to keep in
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: the front of your mind that like, I need to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: deliver on behalf of the American people. I need to
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: bring about change. I need to deliver on these campaign
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: promises and people need to know that we delivered on
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: those campaign promises because if they don't, it's already a
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: tough map for us in 2022, particularly in the house.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: And in a normal time, you might say, okay, well,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: it would suck if we lose the house, but you know, that's,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: that's politics. Well, now the other party it's an anti-democratic, uh,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: you know, quasi authoritarian party. Now they could end democracy
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: if they take control. So not much room for error here, people.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: So I do think like, no matter what, over the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: next few years, they have to, they have to prioritize,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: you know, Derek Thompson wrote this in the Atlantic about
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: what the Biden administration needs to do. And the headline
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: of his piece was big, fast, simple. And I do
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: agree like, because It is A, difficult to pass legislation
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: and get stuff done in the first place. And then B,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: it's tough to make sure that people know what it
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: is that you did. that you don't just pass a
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: bunch of legislation, make a bunch of executive orders, sign
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: a bunch of executive orders, and it just gets sort
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: of lost in a flurry and people don't really understand,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: like you said, what the game plan was or what
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: they've actually gotten done. So that is really, I think,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: important over the next two years, which I know they know,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: but it's just easier said than done.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: But I mean, this is my optimistic take on this,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: which is I don't think we should underestimate reaction when
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: things return to mostly normal, right? When we have controlled
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: the pandemic, enough people are vaccinated. We have reached herd
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: immunity or whatever you call it. And people are going
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: to baseball games again. They're going to kids' birthday parties again.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: They're seeing their grandparents. That is at the end of this.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: In some way, shape, or form. How long that takes,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: what that does to Biden's approval rating or whatever else
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: in the interim between now and you get to that moment,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: when you get to that moment, there's going to be
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: a political power in that that … is going to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: override a whole bunch of things that happen between now
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: and then about, did he say the right thing? Did
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: he do the right thing? What was the messaging strategy?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: The point is like, this is substance, right? Ultimately. And
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: this is my, the thing I will say on behalf
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: of Jen Psaki and Kate Bedingfield, who's the new White
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: House communications director is messaging is very important. Communication is
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: very important, but how many people's arms do you get
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: a needle in? How soon is going to matter more
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: than anything else?
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: That's not a message problem. That's not a communications problem.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's a needle problem.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's a needle. That's and look, you're right. Like
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: if this if the midterms were November 2021, then, yeah,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: maybe we're cutting a little close by November 2022. Yeah,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: we should all be back to normal lives. And if
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: we're not, there's bigger fucking problems. So many Democrats win
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: house seats.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: OK, well, that's all for today. Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: And we will talk to you guys next week. For
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: the first full week of the Biden administration. Exciting stuff.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden is fucking president.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is president.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: Trump is golfing in shame and Mar-a-Lago as we speak.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: You mean former celebrity apprentice host Donald Trump? That's what
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: I'm calling him.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: I meant twice impeached president Donald Trump.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Twice impeached, two-time popular vote loser, one-term president, twice impeached
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, the least popular president in the history of polling.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: is golfing today. That's how it should always be said.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Perfect ending. Bye everyone.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. and to
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: every week.