Latest / Pod Save America / “Civility down the toilet.”

Transcript

“Civility down the toilet.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Democrats in Congress inch closer to to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: agreement on Joe Biden's agenda, despite what you may hear
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: from a few whiny centrists and credulous reporters. Congresswoman Pramila
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Jayapal talks to us about how progressives intend to bring
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: both bills over the finish line. And we'll take a
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: few minutes to answer some of your questions. I forgot
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we were doing Q & A.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Me too. By the way, we already recorded the conversation
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: with Pramila Jayapal.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: We did.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It was delightful.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: It was a good conversation.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: She is a joy. Before we start, be sure to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: catch the final episode of This Land. which is out now.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Award-winning journalist Rebecca Nagel concludes her investigation into a string
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of custody battles over Native American children that all lead
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: back to powerful right-wing forces trying to dismantle American Indian
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: tribal rights. To hear how it ends, binge all eight
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: episodes of This Land wherever you get your podcasts. It's
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a fantastic series.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I am so impressed by this season. The first season
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: was great, but Rebecca went through 10,000 pages of FOIA
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: documents and traced this. Yes, she did. This started with
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: a small story about an adoption case, and it really
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: She unraveled something very big and impressive.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: And just like the first season, there's going to be
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a Supreme Court case. Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Love that. Love them.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's get to the news. Last week ended
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: exactly where we thought it would. Nancy Pelosi indefinitely postponed
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Thursday's scheduled vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And Joe
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Biden told congressional Democrats that vote, quote, ain't going to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: happen until they all come to an agreement on the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: rest of the president's economic agenda, which he calls the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Build Back Better plan. A group of nine centrist Democrats
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in the House had tried to force the infrastructure vote.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: but the 100-member Progressive Caucus blocked it, fearing that once
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: infrastructure passed, the centrists would walk away from the rest
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of Biden's agenda. Sure enough, they issued a bunch of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: whiny statements in response to the vote being postponed. Josh Gottheimer,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: who had predicted with, quote, a thousand percent certainty that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: he'd be celebrating the passage of the infrastructure bill with, quote,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a nice glass of champagne, attacked Pelosi and compared his
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: progressive colleagues to right-wing Republicans, while Kyrsten Sinema, called the delay, quote,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: an inexcusable, ineffective stunt. But the president himself expressed optimism
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: about both bills passing when he spoke this morning.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I've been able to close a deal with 99% of
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: my party.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Two.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: Two people. That's still underway. I don't think there's been
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: a president who's been able to close deals that's been
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: in a position where he has only 50 votes in
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: the Senate. and a bare majority in the House.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It's a process.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: It's a process.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: We'll get it done. Look, I need 50 votes in
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: the Senate. I have 48.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So Biden in the White House reportedly didn't even try
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to pressure House Democrats into voting for the infrastructure bill. Lovett,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: what do you think that was?
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: He wants to pass both bills. He's been clear from
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: the very beginning. He wants to pass both bills. And
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: they're tied together because that is the only way to
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: ensure that he has the full support of 100% of
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: the votes that he needs. I don't know why. It
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to me to be more complicated than that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: But, you know, Nancy Pelosi, she was scheduling it anyway.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Everyone's like, why did Biden do that? Blah, blah, blah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Why did he throw his lot in? Seems like he's
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: always wanted to pass both bills. Right, Tommy? Yeah.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: I guess the legislative calendar doesn't end in September. Like
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: you might have thought if you read the news. There's
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: more time.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Actually, the world ends in September.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Part of this is like everyone has, especially people in
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the press, have the memories of goldfish. Remember this whole
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: episode in late June where Biden briefly said he wouldn't
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: sign an infrastructure bill without Build Back Better passing? And
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: then everyone freaked out and he had to walk it back.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: But even when he walked it back, he still said
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: he was going to try to pass both bills in tandem.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you see in the Sinema statement
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: as well kind of the– like the continuation of that
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: bit of kind of confusing politics, which, you know, there's like,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I think the Gottheimer statement is a fit of peak
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: and it's a bit performative and it's, you know, not
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: letting an opportunity go to waste to, you know, secure
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: his bona fides as a moderate lashing out at some
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: of the progressives. Fine, whatever. He's having a day. But
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: like Sinema, her statement, I think, kind of ties back
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: to where, where kind of the heart of the negotiation
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: has been between progressives in the House and moderates like
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Sinema and Manchin, which is for either progressives her actual
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: view or her negotiating position is the less they are
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: tied together for her, the stronger her position is in
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: debates over what should be in the final reconciliation package.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what kind of linked the sentiment in Josh Gottheimer's
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: statements to me was two people who seem to put
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: the process of legislating, again, ahead of the results and
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: the things that we're trying to pass. And I just
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: think that if that's how you approach the job, you
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: have lost the thread. I don't know what you're doing.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: What they are accusing progressives of, which is like holding
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the bipartisan infrastructure bill hostage to get their other bill passed,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: is exactly what they did when Godheimer and his crew said,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: we won't vote for the budget resolution in the House
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: unless you schedule a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Which is like, well, my reaction to their statements is,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: you know, they're letting off some steam because they're pissed.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: But they could have, if they really wanted to be
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: assholes in their statements, they could have said, I'm not
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: voting for Build Back Better. until there's a vote on
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the bipartisan infrastructure bill. No one said that in their
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: statements when they were all pissy on Friday night, did they?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a little bit of, there's a little
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: bit with the Gottheimer statement. It's kind of like centering
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: himself in the narrative. And it's, and I think that
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: what is exposed here is like this moment where he's like,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: you know, when he was like walking through the hall saying,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: I'm a thousand percent confident we're not done yet. Like
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: that's not where the action really was. And I think
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: you can look at Pelosi's commitment in the context of
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: hoping there would be more clarity from the Senate side
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: that by the time we got to whatever, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: which we're talking about from weeks earlier, that we'd finally
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: have a bit more in terms of what Manchin was for,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: what Sinema was for, that they could get to some
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: kind of a commitment. But that just didn't happen. That's actually,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that's not because of the House Progressive Caucus. That's not
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: because of the moderate House members like Josh Conheimer. That's
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: because of what's happening in the Senate, between the Senate,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: between Schumer, the Senate, and the White House.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: So it's clear that like Biden, progressive Democrats, most other
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats in the party, all of us, we all think
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: that One of the reasons that the centrists want the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: bipartisan infrastructure vote to pass so bad is because if
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that happens, then they can sort of walk away from
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Build Back Better, or we're worried that they may walk
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: away from Build Back Better. But even if you take
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: them at their word and say that they're doing this
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: all in good faith, here's what I can't figure out.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you guys think about this. They
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: keep saying, we have this big win on infrastructure. We
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: should want to pass that. We promise we'll negotiate in
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: good faith and Build Back Better after that. We should
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: be going home right now taking credit for a bipartisan
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: infrastructure bill right now. Let us have that victory. Let
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the president have that victory. Why do they want to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: go home in October of 2021 to take credit for
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a bipartisan infrastructure bill when we're like a year out
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: from an election where that's going to matter? Can you
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: guys figure that out?
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Because they're not very good at politics or smart. I mean,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Kirsten Sinema called it an ineffective stunt to gain leverage.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I would argue is pretty effective.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And like, what is this like.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Paternalistic tone about, you know, telling Joe Biden what we
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: should run on when, like, why don't we pass all
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: the really important stuff and then go campaign on all
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: the really important stuff.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Or you can pick and choose, you can choose whatever
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you want to campaign on.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Go build a bridge on your own time.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It's like, are you worried that the, like, there's going
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: to get some childcare stink on your highway bill? Like,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I don't really understand. And, and the other piece of
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: this too, is it's like, it really is like, there is,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It would be one thing if what you had was
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: the progressive version of the bill, the Biden version of
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the bill, and the like cinema mansion version of the bill.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: But Biden and the progressive caucus are aligned and they
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: are together trying to fight for as much of the
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Biden agenda as they can get through the moderates in
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: the House and the Senate.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we predicted that the most annoying reporters
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and pundits would freak out over a delayed vote, but
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: they really outdid themselves on this one. New York Times
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: called it a big setback for Biden's agenda, said he was, quote,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: throwing in his lot with the left and compared House
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: progressives to the right wing Freedom Caucus. CNN said it
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: raised questions about the party's ability to govern. Axios led
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: with the left seizes control. But the big winner was
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: The Washington Post's Annie Linsky, who tweeted the following about
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a picture of the president walking through a cemetery where
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: his son, daughter and former wife are buried. He was
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: doing this on Sunday and she tweeted, quote, Biden goes
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: to church and walks through a graveyard in Wilmington. as
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: his legislative agenda is dying in Washington. Linsky later deleted
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the tweet, which had also been retweeted by New York
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Times reporter Michael Scheer, and she apologized for being insensitive.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So the tweet was obviously gross and mean, but I
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: thought that overshadowed just how bad the analysis was about
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Biden's agenda dying in Washington. Like, what is your take
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: on the overall media narrative that we're getting from some
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: of these political reporters, Tommy?
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: They're looking for something exciting. I mean, it's not dead yet, Right.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're just going to keep negotiating. And that's
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: a lot more boring than saying, you know, Biden's on
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the ropes. You know, the legislative agenda is done, whatever.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: They're not wrong that like this wasn't a great outcome,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: that the more time that goes on, the harder it
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: could be to pass things like you'll hear more issues
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: pop up. But yes, I mean, obviously, the Inulinski tweet
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: was ridiculous. But I mean, I think the rest of
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: it is just sort of typically hyperbolic.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really hard. I think
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: we don't know. I think you can look at this
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: as a real setback in terms of getting to two
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: bills passed, or you can look at this and say,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: for the first time, it seems like they're really heading
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: towards actual numbers, which is something we've talked about in
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: this pod.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually, I think it's, I think it's, it was,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I think it was a good outcome.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Like now we're really talking numbers. Like you just, this
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: is something that felt like we were missing in the
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: previous two weeks. We talked about it on Monday. You
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: talked about it with Dan. Like, Where is the actual
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: hard negotiation with a little bit of evidence of it
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: in the public about what we're driving towards? And now
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: we know, you know, Manchin's at this 1.5 bar. We
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: started at 3.5. Some things are going to have to
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: come out. Some things may get delayed. Some things may
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: be capped, whatever. But it's a negotiation. It's the part
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: where they're actually... Getting into the numbers. And I find
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: that reassuring. I was actually really I felt worse on
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Monday when the the infrastructure bill was cooked and there
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: was this really amorphous debate about what the reconciliation bill
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: would be. Now it feels a bit more solid.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Also, my my one fear heading into this was that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: if Pelosi pulled the vote or the vote failed, that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: you would have some center saying. Well, I don't care
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: that it failed. I am not voting for Build Back
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Better until I get a vote on infrastructure. And the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: fact that this happened and none of them said that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and now they're all at the table is, I think,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a good sign.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, Josh Gottheimer thought he was
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: leading an army and he looked behind him to find
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: only his ass hanging out. You know, I mean, there's
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: not really a real... movement there. I mean, the challenge
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: is that Biden wanted the compromise to be 2.3 trillion.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: They were hoping to get Manchin and Sinema to 2.1.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: It seems like they're still standing firm on 1.5. So
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: that's a lot of money. They're still pretty far apart. Like,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: hopefully they can figure it out. But yeah, it's I mean,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: it is far from done. The whole thing could, of course,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: fall apart. But I do think you almost needed a moment.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Like last week to get everyone paying attention and serious
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: in the same room. I mean, Jayapal tells us this later,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: but like you know, now Biden's really involved. The White
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: House is super involved. Negotiators, they've been involved the whole time,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: but now they're like really, really involved.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: But even like, even like Pelosi's office, even like, you know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: the House leadership seemed frustrated that the president wasn't more involved.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Like that was all over the press. So clearly they
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: were the ones saying it. So yeah, it's good.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: That was a bad tweet. And I would just urge
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: anyone listening, like when you see a bad tweet, I
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: think you can comment on it and have a great time.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Everybody calm down. It was like, it was a bad tweet.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I saw so many people, like, looping, like, the editors
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: of the Washington Post, like, demanding heads on pike. Like,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: it was Sunday. Go outside.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It was a garbage, crazy tweet. And then she apologized
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: for it. Belatedly took her an hour or whatever. But
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: at some point, we could have a whole other conversation
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: about Twitter and stuff like that. But it's like, you apologized.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: You got her. She's done.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: You got her.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: You got her.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: The reason I raise it is I actually found it
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to be one of, but not the most, I think,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: over-the-top takes out there. And it was this one. from
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: the Atlantic. Come Halloween, all that Biden might have to
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: show for his negotiations with Congress over the past several
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: months is a first-ever U.S. debt default. the presidential equivalent
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: of sticking your hand into the candy bag and pulling
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: out a razor blade instead. Which was one of the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: most bizarre razor blades.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I thought that was going to end at like good
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and plenty or something.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: No, it ends at a razor blade. At a razor blade.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: That's what the global financial crisis is in this metaphor.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Weird. I'm going to look, whatever. We all send bad tweets.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I'll take people at their word that they apologize and
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: didn't mean them. It is funny that the folks sending
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: and retweeting that tweet are also the civility police who
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: are getting really upset at activists who dare to follow
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Kyrsten Sinema into a school or into the bathroom, which, look,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: going into the bathroom, that's a little off. I don't
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: want anyone in the bathroom with me either, but it
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: is funny that those people are policing that.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Wait, everybody poops.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Did you guys hear that?
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Everybody poops.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Civility alert. Redhead. Civility alert. Paging Chuck Todd. Paging Chuck Todd.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Tip O'Neill. Ronald Reagan.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: You were kneaded with a bourbon.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: It's still going. Tommy, we do recognize your voice. Redhead.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Redhead. Oh my god, it's a lot of dialogue. It's
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of siren dialogue.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: You can cut it anytime. That's the sound you hear
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: in Washington when a civility debate breaks out.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I hate them. I hate every part of them. I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: hate all the, like, as soon as I saw that
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that happened, I was like, I want to mute it
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: from my feed. I don't want to hear either side
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of it. I think it's so fucking stupid.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Like, Apparently she hasn't held a town hall in three years,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: which would help you understand the frustration of activists who
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: feel like they can't get a question answered unless they
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: go to a fundraiser. Yeah.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, which is a problem in itself. One more
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: thing about the press narrative. Like, I think there's two
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: parts of it that drove me nuts. One is the,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you know, the press says everything is dying when it's
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: not really dying because they always want to jump to conclusions.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: The other, there's an ideological element to it, which is.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And Dan made this point in his message box over
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the weekend. Like, I do think a lot of political
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: reporters have a bias towards moderation, balance, centrism. They always
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: like to call out the ideological extremes in both parties.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So this whole like Biden threw his lot in with
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the left thing is such a misreading of the situation
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and a misreading of the history. Like just about every Democrat,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: including Joe Biden, ran in 2020 on a set of
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: proposals that cost a lot more than this bill right now.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And then they all won. They won by a majority
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: of votes and they all took power. And then Bernie
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Sanders put out six trillion dollars and then they all
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: compromised down to three point five trillion dollars. This was
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's agenda. It's not a surprise. It's not like
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: he threw in with the left. It's literally what just
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: about every single Democrat in Congress ran on and won
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: on in 2020. It drives me fucking nuts.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: That part I agree with. I don't really think it's surprising.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: a big deal for the press to declare like what
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: a big vote goes down because an artificial expectation was
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: set by the leadership around that vote. Of course, they're
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: going to report on that as being a failure. It
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean it's like dead in the water. It was overstated,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: but I agree with you on that. Like it, yes,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: it is not throwing the left when 90% of the
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: caucus is with Biden on this.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: The Biden setback stuff from the press did not. It's,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's silly and I disagree with it, but
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: it did not bother me as much as the ideological
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: stuff that Biden would love because what the press wants
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: is they want a narrative that that Joe Biden lost
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the midterms because he tacked too far to the left.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: They've been looking for that narrative since the beginning. And
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that's what they're driving towards because they're lazy and they're
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: comfortable with that narrative and they've used it before.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And also like it's a it's a search for the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: new and like saying that Democrats no longer have the
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: ability to govern. Like there's one, I think, ironclad truth
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: of the last decade in American politics. Go back further
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: that there's a governing party. That's Democratic Party. There's a
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: political party. That's Republican Party. We are in the midst
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of a negotiation trying to figure out how to just
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: get the debt summit raised because the Republicans have abandoned
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: any any pretense of helping to prevent a global financial crisis.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It is not the time to say that, oh, can
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Democrats govern? We're the only ones trying. One other piece
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: of this that has been, I think, something I hope
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: we do in the future is, I think it's okay
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: if we talk about what these bills cost per year
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: and not the full 10-year total. I think that, come on,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: we are in this, the press is obsessed with with
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the top number. They make it all about the top number,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: and I think we can see that a little bit.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: But I will say, we played right into this at
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the negotiations because a lot of, and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: progressives too, this is, we're like, $ 6 trillion. No, we
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: want $ 3. 5 trillion. And everyone was sort of bragging about
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the number we got.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Which was a mistake. I completely agree. That is not
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: just the press, I think.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Because I think when she went, you'll hear this later,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: but Congressman Jayabal talks about how like we're not starting
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: from a number. We're starting from the policies.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: And seeing what kind of policies we can get through.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And I think that we.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Everyone's finally got there now.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It was a little late.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: So the big question now is what does a potential
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: compromise on Build Back Better look like and how does
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: this get done? Pramila Jayapal, who we're going to talk
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: to in a minute, said on Sunday that she expects
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the final bill to spend somewhere between the $ 1. 5 trillion
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that Joe Manchin wants and the $ 3. 5 trillion that the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: president and all but a few Democrats in Congress want.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: But bringing down the price tag will require some pretty
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: tough choices. The Washington Post's Jeff Stein had an excellent
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: piece on this that I highly recommend. He reported that, quote,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Do you fully and permanently fund just a few important
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: policies and build back better? Or do you try to
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: fund them all with less money over just a few years?
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know. The devil is so in the details
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: on this. I mean, like a lot of the proposals are,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: do you do everything a little bit? Do you means
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: test a bunch of things? Which is to say, do
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: you make dental benefits for Medicare kick in only if
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: you're under a certain economic threshold? Or do you just
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: pick and choose a few things? Like the one thing
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I really want in this bill is climate change funding,
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: because I worry that this is one of our last
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: chances to have full democratic control for a while. The
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: planet's burning, you guys might have noticed. And Biden is
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: about to go to this international conference at the end
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: of the month where he's going to ask China and
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: India and every other country to do something on climate change.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: And it kind of helps to have done something yourself.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: So that's the thing I really want there. But I
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: don't know, you're seeing really smart people argue both sides
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: of this, and it's hard to know. Yeah, I agree.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: You'll hear some with respect to do a few programs,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: do them really, really well, do them fully funded. We
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: talked to Congressman Jayapal. She talked a bit more about
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: show people a bunch of different ways their lives can
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: be made better, and then all of a sudden you'll
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: find the will to make them permanent after the fact.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I agree with Tommy on the climate pieces. I also
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: think that the child tax benefits that we know have
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: had such a positive impact on child poverty, I think
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: that that is something that should continue. There was a
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: moment even in the negotiations over the 3.5 where it
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: wasn't about capping or sunsetting certain provisions to save money,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: but actually not having them kick in for three, four
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: or five years. And I find that to be like
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: an odd decision. Like, oh, we don't worry. We passed
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: a dental benefit. It kicks in in 2025. Like I
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: have trouble understanding the politics of that. But beyond that,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I don't have trouble understanding the politics of that. They're shitty.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Of course, I have trouble understanding the logic of that.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I have never heard a justification for that. That makes sense.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: By the way, the House did that. Biden, the White
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: House's position is that they should kick in immediately. And
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: for some reason, the House did the weird 2028 thing.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: That was strange. But all that's a way of saying, like,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I want people to see positive benefits in their lives
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: as soon as humanly possible. Beyond that, I think these
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: are hard choices. And there's good arguments to doing a
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: few fully or having a few sunset to get them
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: all in.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I totally agree with both of you guys on climate.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I have written down here, you have to do climate
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: because we're facing extinction.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: That's my note. Yeah, that's a good note.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I think that you should do as much healthcare as
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: possible because A, we need it and it's important to people,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and B, it's the most politically popular. Again, we've all
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: seen a million polls now of the Build Back Better agenda,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and at the top of the polls, the tax increases
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: on the rich and the corporations. So that's going to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: happen no matter what because that's how we pay for
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the thing. But number two is always prescription drugs through Medicare.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: It's expanding Medicare for dental and vision. It's some of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the ACA subsidies. Like that's all the next kind of stuff.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: So I would do that. I do think politically the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: challenge is I think there's a couple challenges politically. If
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you do a few programs and do them well thing,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you have a very large fractious caucus where everyone has
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: different opinions and different interests and you have a bunch
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of different interest groups out there and, you know, activist organizations,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. you start killing off programs altogether, you
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: might not have the votes to pass the bill, which
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: is why I feel like they're going to end up
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: doing a little bit of everything because they're in a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: situation where you don't get every Democrat minus three in
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the House on board, you don't have a bill.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Which is why I do think you also end up
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: coming back to some means testing in some of these
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: places because it's a place where you can make up
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: some money while still delivering people who need the most help.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: And like, there's good arguments for not doing means testing.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: And I think one thing that I think progressives point out,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: which is true, which is like, sometimes you have like,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: in order to get the actual financial benefits, the cost
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: benefits of mean testing, you actually have to lower the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: threshold because there's so many administrative costs associated with it.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: But it's just, yeah, I mean, some of the things
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: you're talking about, right? Climate funding, national paid leave, child
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: tax credit, universal pre-K, free childcare, affordable housing. I mean,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: it's so hard to choose. I mean, my fear is
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: that we are so bad at means testing things. You know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: look at what happened with some of the most recent
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: COVID stimulus bills. And again, like on this, you know, putting...
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: dental and Medicare. I mean, they're talking about cutting it
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: off for people making over $ 39, 000. I mean, if you've,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: let's say you're poor and you have not gone to
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the dentist for a long time, you go and you
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: have like three root canals. It's going to cost you
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: thousands of dollars, maybe even 10 grand to get that done.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, a quarter of your income
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: is gone. So I don't know how you do this well. Yeah.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes when you hear means testing, people are like, well,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: rich people shouldn't get these benefits. I get that, but
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: that's not where a lot of these thresholds are, as
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you point out, which.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Is It was like 300% of poverty.
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I think that doing it, doing more for a couple
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of years, especially if you can get some of these
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: programs to last through 2024, then if you're Democrats, your
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: bet is either Democrats win in 2024 and we extend
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: them or Republicans win and they face a cliff of
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: all these very popular programs being run out. And then
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: maybe at that point, Republicans extend them because They know
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: they're popular and they'd rather fight culture wars than fight
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: on some of these economic issues, which is basically what
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: you saw in the Trump years, especially around some of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the COVID relief stuff.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And by the way, you know, it's been a long
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: time since the Tea Party. We're talking about spending multiple
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: trillions of dollars. There's no massive outpouring of protest. Yeah,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I do think that that logic makes sense because,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: by the way, if some of those programs don't get
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: continued and they do get sunset to have them kind
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: of kick in earlier and use the money now, that's
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: no better than having not created them in the first place.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: That's right. Most of the Tea Party protests had more
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: to do with the race of the person spending the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: money than it did about the spending itself. Another thing that,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: you know, 10 years later, people haven't really wrapped their
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: heads around when they're doing punditry about the Tea Party.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting take that the Tea Party was more
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a cultural and identity war than a war over taxes
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and budgets.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was completely astroturfed by the Koch brothers
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: and stuff, too.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back, we'll ask Pramila Jayapal
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: what her preference is and how she thinks Democrats can
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: land this plan. We are back with a member of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Congress who is probably most responsible for getting the original
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: two track strategy back on track to help ensure that
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's entire agenda is passed. The chair of the
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: House Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal. Congresswoman, thanks for coming back
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: on the show.
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: Thank you. I'm so happy to be back with you.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: We're happy to have you. So you seemed pretty confident
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: on Sunday when you told Dana Bash that Joe Manchin's $ 1. 5
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: trillion offer is, quote, not going to happen. How much
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: confidence do you have that Manchin or Sinema isn't going
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to say at one point, this is my final offer,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: take it or leave it, I'm willing to walk away
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: with nothing?
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: Well, I just feel like we're at the beginning of
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: the negotiation, which is what we wanted to have a negotiation.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: I mean, we thought it had already been negotiated at 3.5,
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: but clearly that's not the case. So I feel like
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: we're at the beginning of that, but I wanted to
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: clearly signal that the number comes out of the priorities
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: and the president's agenda, the Build Back Better agenda. And
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: so there is a point at which it's simply not
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: possible to do the things that we want to do.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: And That's how I feel about the 1.5 number. But,
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: you know, obviously I understand we're going to have to
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: get everybody on board here. And we are completely committed
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: to doing that and have told the president that, you know,
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: told people who have said that Senator Manchin wants to
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: speak to progressive leaders that I'm happy to do that
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: with him anytime. This is the important part, John, right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: Like we're in the process of delivering transformative change for
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: people and we're going to do everything we can.
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: To get that done.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: You also talked about including more programs in Build Back Better,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: but maybe for a shorter period of time. Could you
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: make the argument for that approach over selecting a few
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of the most important programs and permanently funding them?
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: So my feeling is that we have several key things
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: that are appealing to different kinds of families. So paid leave,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: for example, if everyone got 12 weeks of paid leave,
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: that would benefit an enormous percentage of people across the country.
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: At the same time, we've got families who've got young
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: kids who desperately need childcare, and we've got people who
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: really need to go to community college or trade school
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: for two years so that they can get the jobs
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: that we're going to create in the infrastructure package and
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: other places. And so I don't want to pit one
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: thing against another, but I do believe that if we
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: fund things for, say, five years or six years instead
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: of 10 years, then people will see what that means
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: for their lives. They will be able to wake up
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: in the morning and not just see a road that's
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: been built, which may take a little while or may
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: not be in their district, but they'll actually be able
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: to say, hey, now I can go back to work
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: because I have childcare or I can take care of
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: my loved one because I have paid family leave, those
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: kinds of things.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Have you found Josh Gottheimer's sleeping form surrounded by Red
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Bull cans and problem solver business cards somewhere in the Capitol?
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: And did you consider tucking him in like a little cherub?
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: No.
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: I leave all of that beautiful imagination to you guys.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Dodging the question, did you make sure he wasn't chilly
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: or not?
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: Have you not noticed.
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: That I wake up very zen every morning and I
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: love all of my colleagues and I want them all
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: to be on this final bill.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: You've shown incredible restraint, I thought.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Let me ask a real follow up about that, actually,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, it seemed like Congressman Gottheimer.
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: I thought you were going to ask me if I
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: was going to bring him a blanket.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: No, go ahead.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: It seemed like Godheimer was pretty frustrated when he released
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: this kind of statement. And one thing he did in
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: that statement was he took a an idea from The
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: New York Times that somehow the progressive caucus is behaving
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: like the Freedom Caucus, which I found strange because this
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: is a group of people trying to pursue what the
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: majority of the caucus wants, along with what President Biden wants.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: And that the better comparison to the Freedom Caucus is
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: what some of the moderates are doing. What do you
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: make of that comparison to the Freedom Caucus?
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: Well, I've never liked the comparison to the Freedom Caucus.
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: You guys might have asked me about this when I
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: was on your show once or twice before. People always
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: want to make that comparison. Why on earth would we
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: want to be anything like a caucus that doesn't even
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: believe that January 6th was real? You know, I mean,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: this is just not a comparison that makes any sense.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: And then as you said, we are behind the president's
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: Build Back Better agenda, the same agenda that all Democrats
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: ran on in the House, the Senate, and what we
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: ran on to deliver the White House. And fundamentally, we
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: had 96% of Democrats in the House and the Senate
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: on board with the $ 3. 5 trillion Build Back Better Act.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: It was really only just a 4% that weren't. And
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: so I don't think Look, I think people have to
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: say whatever they've got to say and hopefully everyone gets
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: upset and then comes back to the table recognizing that
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: we're all on the same team. We're all trying to
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: deliver transformative results. And so I've tried to stay in
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: that place. But I don't think that the country sees
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: it that way. I think that, you know, the reality
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: was we had a deal.
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: As the president says, here's the deal. You know, we
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: had a deal.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: And the deal was that the two bills were going
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: to move together. That was the position of the Progressive Caucus.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: And right after we said that three and a half
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: months ago, the speaker took that same position, the Senate
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: majority leader, the president, everybody. And that was also the
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: deal by which at least 11 senators voted for the
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: bipartisan bill out of the Senate because they were assured
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: that the two would move together. It was really the
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: small group of people. And I don't even wanna call
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: them moderates. This is not a progressive versus a moderate fight.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: This is a everybody and the 96% of Democrats in
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: the House and the Senate and the White House, And
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: then the 4% that don't agree. All of that said,
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: the reason we're at the table is because we have
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: such slim margins that we need to get 100%. It's
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: not enough just to have 96%. We got to get
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: everybody on board and we understand that.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin seems to have drawn a few red lines
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: in negotiations. One of them is around the Hyde Amendment,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: which restricts abortion coverage. He said that the bill would
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: be dead on arrival if it doesn't include the Hyde Amendment.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: You said on Sunday you wouldn't vote for a bill
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that does include the Hyde Amendment. Wouldn't that sink the bill?
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Or is there some potential compromise I'm missing here that
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: could satisfy both parties?
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: Well, look, I've been clear that I want to repeal
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: the Hyde Amendment. That is also what the president's position is.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: But what I was actually saying, and I think sometimes
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: these things get just it's difficult on TV in a
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: short thing. But what I was actually saying is that
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: the Hyde Amendment is the law, unfortunately, for people like
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: me that believe it shouldn't be. I would like to
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: repeal it, but I'm not suggesting that we put the
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: repeal into this bill. What I am saying is that
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: the Hyde Amendment is already law. So why would we
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: add it into the bill as a political statement when
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: it's already the law. We don't need, this happens a
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: lot here in Congress where people are like, oh, I
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: want to show everybody that I'm anti-abortion, you know, and
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: I don't want federal funds to go to abortions.
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: And I'm like, well, they don't already.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: So don't put it in the bill because you make
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: those of us who actually want to repeal it, vote
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: for it again.
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: And we don't need to number one, because we don't
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: believe in it.
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: And number two, because it's already law and we're not
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: proposing anything in this bill to repeal it. We have
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: a separate bill to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which I
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: am proudly a co-sponsor of, but we do not, it
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: just is ridiculous to talk about it in this bill
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: because that's.
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: The law currently.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Got it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And then on climate, Manchin said he supports investing in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: clean energy, but not making fossil fuel companies pay. Can
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: you imagine a clean energy standard that could work without
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: those kinds of penalties?
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: You know, I can't imagine it, but that doesn't mean,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: you know, we have to talk it through. And I
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: feel like on every single one of these things, if
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: I just, it kind of happened with the Hyde Amendment yesterday,
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: you know, it's sort of like then you negotiate it
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: in public. And I just don't know what he wants.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: I want to see in detail exactly what it is.
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: For us, the priority has been to have the Clean
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: Electricity Performance Standards in And then to have a set
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: of tax credits that also are like both the stick
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: and the carrot of helping companies to do the right thing.
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: And I just don't really understand what it is he's
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: asking for. And I think at the end of the day,
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: if we don't really have both a carrot and a stick,
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: we're not going to cut carbon emissions. And the president
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: is going to go to COP26 in a couple of weeks.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: And he's not even going to be able to say
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: that the United States can be a leader on fighting
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: climate change.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the other holdout in the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: She put out a statement as well that was also
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: pretty frustrated, talking about the fact that she feels as
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: though she has been forthright with some of her demands.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like in the past few days you've
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: gotten more clarity on what her negotiating position is?
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: I know that she is making that clear to the
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: White House. I don't know that we're privy to all
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: of that as yet. So a lot of the negotiating
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: is happening behind the scenes. And I've tried to tell
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: my colleagues who are you know, on the progressive side
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: who are saying they're frustrated because they haven't said what
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: they want. I actually don't think that's true. I think
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: they are particularly her. I think she is saying some
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: of what she wants.
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: I'm just not privy to all of that.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: There will be a point at which you know, hopefully
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: either we all sit down in a room together or
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: we sit down in rooms right next to each other
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: and there's subtle diplomacy going on. I mean, I'm open
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: to any of those ideas, but I do think that
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: there's been amazing progress made and that's why I think
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: it was so important. I mean, actually, I feel like
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: everything we thought would happen, I'm just saying we're, you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: give me the globe and the, you know, the crystal
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: ball because I feel like everything we thought would happen
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: did happen. When we split the two apart, we pitted
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: roads and bridges against child care, something we never should
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: have done. The infrastructure package is important. It's got 15
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: percent of the president's agenda in there. The other 85
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: percent is contained within the Build Back Better Act. And
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: I knew that if we split them apart, this would happen.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: That's why we wanted to link them together. And then
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: we saw when it tried to be split again with
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: what some of my colleagues did, the same dynamic started
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: happening where we were arguing about passing one bill and
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: leaving behind the other, because you guys know politics better
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: than anybody else in the podcast world. And you know
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: that five and a half months was spent on this
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: infrastructure bill. We are already at, in the beginning of October.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: And if we don't get this reconciliation bill done as
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: quickly as possible, It stretches into next year, it stretches
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: into the end of this year, and it just becomes
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: harder and harder. So delay, in my mind, delay means
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: death on the reconciliation bill. And that's why it's so
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: important we keep them together and pass them quickly.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Hypothetically, if you were a senator blocking a reconciliation bill
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: and then were protested by people who wanted to see
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: action and those protesters followed you into the bathroom, I
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: know that if I was in that situation, I would
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: give up. I would just say whatever you need me
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: to say, I am for it. if I can have
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: some privacy in the shitter. That's sort of what my
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: position would be.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Especially if they took the toilet paper.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Right, they might have taken the toilet paper. We don't know.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: We don't know. That's a separate track. That's another negotiation.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: What would your posture be in that circumstance? How quickly
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: would you concede to all their demands?
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: Well, I would never be in that situation. You know that, right?
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: I would be doing the right thing right at the beginning.
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: So nobody would have to follow me into the toilet
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: and take my toilet paper away.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: We will. I'm glad we have you on record there.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: I can't believe you made me say that.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: This is just, it's wild. Is there anything else the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: president and the White House could be doing to be
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: more helpful right now? I know there's all these anonymous
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: griping that they're not doing enough here and there. How
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: do you feel about what they're doing and could they
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: be doing anything else?
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: No, I feel like, look, I'll say that I think
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: they could have started earlier. I'll just say that. I
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: think I tried to say that a couple of months ago. Now,
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: on their behalf, I can also say that, you know, Afghanistan,
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: you name it, we got a lot of things that happened.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: But I was worried that we were spending so much
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: time celebrating the bipartisan bill and not enough time actually
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: working on and negotiating and talking about what the Build
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: Back Better agenda has in it. or the build back
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: better act. And so in some weird way, all of
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: this attention has allowed us to describe on national television
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: over and over and over and over again, what.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: Is in the build back better act. And so I
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: think that's been good.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: Um, I do think that over the last couple of
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: week to two weeks, they've been deeply involved, very deeply involved. Um,
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: some of which I know about some of which I
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: don't know about. And I think, I think that they, um,
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: they knew we were serious. I mean, they knew I'm
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: not somebody who just does this all the time and
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: then doesn't have the votes to deliver. If I say
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: we've got the votes is because I'm really confident we've
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: got the votes.
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: And we had the votes. We had more every day, actually.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: The more shenanigans went on, the more people got frustrated
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: and said, no, I'm not going to do this. I'm
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: I think the White House knew that and they were
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: really trying to get us to a place where maybe
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: both on content and on process moving forward, we could
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: find some agreements. But clearly, we just there wasn't enough time.
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: So now I heard that the president is going to Michigan,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: which I'm really excited about. I want him to be
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: out there just. talking about what this does, everything that's
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: in the Build Back Better Act, the tax piece of it.
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: I mean, this is a president that is proposing that
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: the wealthiest corporations and wealthiest individuals that made billions during
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: the pandemic as people were being evicted from their homes
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: actually finally pay their fair share.
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: And that is a phenomenal idea.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: And that's why when I was at the White House
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: the last time, I guess it was about a week ago,
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: and I said, Mr. President, I really hope you talk
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: about this as a $ 0 bill. And I was very happy.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: Am I claiming this is mine? Kind of, but I
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: don't know if it really was. But the very next
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: day he went out and started talking about it as
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: a bill that really doesn't cost anything because it's all
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: going to be paid for with these taxes on the
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: wealthiest paying their fair share.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I've seen politicians take credit for doing far less. So
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: I think I should take the credit.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I will say that you you seem pretty zen. I
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's just a savvy negotiating stance, but
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you feel pretty confident that we're going to get a
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: good bill by at the end of the day.
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: I do. I really do. And here's why.
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: Seventy percent of the American people support what's in the
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: Build Back Better Act. More if you add in the taxes.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: The president of the United States. came down five months ago,
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: Capitol and delivered this in his speech to us. This
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: is not, as I said on one of the shows yesterday,
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: this is not some crazy left-wing wishlist. I have that,
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: by the way. But this is not that. This is
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: the president's agenda, an agenda that Democrats agree on and
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: that people, the American people want to see get it done.
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: And I think the very last reason I feel confident
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: about it is we, I'm an organizer and the best
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: things come out of the worst crises. Like the things
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: that really make a difference and transform people's lives come
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: out of those moments of crisis where everyone kind of
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: wakes up and says, oh my God, it can't continue
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: this way. And I feel like that's where the country
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: is on child care, on paid leave, on health care,
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: on care for seniors to have dental vision and hearing,
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: on immigration, on housing. Like these things that we have
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: picked as progressive caucus priorities five months ago are the
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: things that are most necessary and most popular and very
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: much now part of the president's agenda.
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: And the Democratic agenda.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much agree.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Last question. A dazzle of zebras is on the loose
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: in Maryland. That's a great name for a group of zebras.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Please help us decide on a good name for a
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: group of centrists. Here are some pitches. A playbook of moderates.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: A swamp of moderates. You stop me when you get
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: to one you like. A means test of moderates. A
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: focus group of moderates. A super pack of moderates, a
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: fundraiser of moderates, a triangulation of moderates, or final option,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: a green room of moderates. Where's your head at? This
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: is important. This is important stuff.
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: Well, because I take these answers extremely seriously, let me
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: think about that. In fact, I'll put out a poll
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: to my Twitter followers and see who likes what.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: That will do it.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: We'll take it. That's a great deal.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Another deal made.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, thank you so much for joining and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: making the time. Good luck on the negotiations and come
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: back soon.
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: Thank you both so much.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, let's answer some listener questions.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Questions.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Here's a combo of questions. Some of these are for Tommy.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Rebecca asks, is Tommy planning on watching season two of
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Emily in Paris, or has he regained taste in television?
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Kate asks a similar question, but with a creative twist.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Has Tommy started writing his Squid Game Emily in Paris
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: mashup fan fiction yet? And then Caleb asks all of us,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: generally favorite shows you guys are watching or who have
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: watched recently. Tommy?
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: My pitch, Kate, was Squid Game and Great British Bake Off.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Now I love it, sort of poo-pooed it.
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: I just think, no, I think that seeing Paul Hollywood
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: fight someone to the death is like a cool idea.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: With Prue with a gun.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Spoiler. It's like, hey Prue, you fighting Dirty? Dirty proof?
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: What's a game proof?
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Are you going to watch the season two of Emily
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: in Paris?
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I might.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: I might.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: It's not even a question.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: You know why? Because you don't even have to look
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: up from your phone once. You kind of know what happens.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: It's a person is in Paris. There's no conflicts. And
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: then the show's over. That's what happens.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: That sounds like a guy that's setting up to watch
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: season two of Emily in Paris.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Any other favorite shows you guys are watching that you
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: want to share with everyone?
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: The other two? Yeah.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I was hoping someone would say that.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: It's not a show, but I'm playing the DLC for
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: the game Outer Wilds.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: You got mad at me when I called you DLC.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Downloadable content, not Democratic Leadership Committee.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: What is downloadable content?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: It is when a game, they release an additional part
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: of the game that you can download to kind of
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: continue to explore the world.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: The kids these days are doing all kinds of crazy
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: things in the video games.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: And the game Outer Wilds.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Is that like an extra Nintendo cartridge?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Sure. It's like an extra Nintendo cartridge.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: Is this like Myst?
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Sure. It is actually not. I would say spiritually, not
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: an unfair comparison and not unfair to call it a successor.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Away from video games for a while.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Outer Wilds. Play Outer Wilds. One of the best games
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: ever made. It's not a long play. A little bit
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: of a learning curve. Give it the time. Don't do
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: what Akilah did, which is Google the ending.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: It really frustrated me, Akilah. I just rewatched Secession.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I can't wait. I can't wait. Very excited for that.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Caleb also asked us, PSA tour soon?
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yes.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: What? Oh. Tommy's not coming.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Shit.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: 2022. Get ready. Unless Fauci cancels that as well as Christmas.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Tommy can't be in the same place.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: A quick PSA to liberals. Um, when Fauci says something
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: like that is being misinterpreted by some Republican on Twitter,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: don't quote tweet them and spread their insane claim that
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Fauci is trying to cancel Twitter for your mostly mediocre jokes.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: Screenshot it. Screen. Yeah.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Learn to screenshot. I have to remind myself I'm, I'm,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a tough thing to remind yourself of,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: but you have to do that. Um, Danita asks, if
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: you had to go on a weekend couples retreat with
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: a Republican lawmaker, who would it be and why? Tommy?
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Matt Gaetz. He's down to party. That's just so bad.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: That's a joke.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: That's not appropriate. That's a joke. John Boehner. Because the
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: weed and the wine would be on him.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: And you're going somewhere sunny because that tan's not doing itself.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: That's better than your initial take that will surely get
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: you canceled. Oh, God.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: He's turning invisible like Michael J.
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: Fox.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: He's being canceled. He can't play the guitar anymore.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: We're watching it happen right now.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: It's in real time. Marty, it's about your kids. They've
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: been canceled. Your boy tweeted something. Marty, that's not the
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: voice that Christopher Lloyd uses.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: That's pretty good.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Zach on Twitter asks, what would you bring to a
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: dinner party on Joe Manchin's houseboat?
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I feel like Manchin is a bourbon guy.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Bring them some bourbon huh.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Some chips and dip maybe some handcuffs so they can't
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: leave until they're done figuring out what they need to
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: figure out.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah no i would um i've said this before but
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: i would pull up the anchor on the almost heaven
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: i'd bring the rest of the um the rest of
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the democratic i'd bring biden pelosi schumer yeah sanders and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: then just drift out to sea until they strike a
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: deal yeah just a got gotheimer and a little um
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: A little raft behind us, just pulling the ring. A
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: little dinghy.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Just every day we float over a couple bottles of water,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: some saltines.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Love it. Angela asked, what's your most embarrassing interaction with
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: a celebrity?
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: That's such a great question, and I'll tell you.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: You asked for this question, so clearly you have a good.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: You see, there's a theory on the internet called Darth
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Jar Jar. This is a theory that suggests in episode
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: one of the Star Wars prequels, that George Lucas was
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: setting up Jar Jar Binks, one of the most annoying
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: characters in the history of cinema, as a villain, and
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: that that would have been revealed in episode two. That
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: the whole plan was to make this annoying character, but
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: planted inside of the film were the seeds of the
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: fact that this was actually a Sith Lord that was
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: going to reveal themselves as the supervillain, the twist of
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: this series in the way that Darth Vader being Luke's
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: father was the twist of Empire. He talked a lot
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: about the episodes rhyming. That was the theory. But when
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: everyone hated Jar Jar Binks so much, he abandoned it
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: and then introduced Count Dooku and General Grievous and kind
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: of the films went off the rails and there was
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: no kind of satisfying twist. So Ronan brought me as
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: a plus one to a party. I saw George Lucas
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: at the event and I decided to psych myself up
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: to ask him about this. Ronan turned to me and said,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: do not ask him about Dark Jar Jar. Don't do that.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: We're at a party. Do not go to George Lucas.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: And so I did something which was so embarrassing, which
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: is I went up to George Lucas and at just
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: a private function, to ask him a question about Star
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Wars lore. And I said, I don't know if you
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: ever heard this theory before, but there's this theory about
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Darth Jar Jar. Is there any truth to it whatsoever?
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: And he looked at me like I was the dumbest
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: motherfucker on planet Earth. It was one of the most withering,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: like no joy in his voice, no enjoyment of the proposition,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: just entirely his face scowled. And he just said, no. absolute, what? No. Never. Nonsense.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: And then I saw the back of George Lucas. Wow.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: Wow. I felt bad.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I got very sweaty.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't you want to talk about that? That's like his thing.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Why was he so mean about it?
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I think that a lot of nerds have gone out
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: to George Lucas at events and said, I'd like to
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: talk to you about Star Wars.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like my free time. I am at
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: a White House Correspondence Center once. I stepped on the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: train of Julianna Margulies' dress and I apologized immediately and profusely.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: And she just was not having it. She was very
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: angry at me. I tripped. I'm klutzy. It wasn't great.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: I prefer to be out there with the people, you know.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Me in a shovel-ready job.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: One time Tommy really embarrassed himself in front of Dan.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: Actually, it's true.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Slept broadcaster Dan Pfeiffer.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Jackie on Twitter asks, has Steny Hoyer ever been on message?
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: No.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Easy.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Couple ones we're cutting here. Anisha on Facebook, who do
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: you think would be potential primary challengers to cinema? Ruben Gallego,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: congressman from Arizona, I believe.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Just getting my donation finger ready.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Thinking about it.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: Already up there, yeah.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Congressman, progressive, Arizona. Could be interesting.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Fingers casting about, looking for an act blue page.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Love it. You once listed the 10 best fast food
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: items and there was not one Wendy's item. Do you
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: wish to address this most heinous oversight?
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: No. Next question.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: Wendy's is just, mediocre.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: It's Carl's Jr. with baked potatoes. Let's move on.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Indica or sativa, love it? Sure.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. You're like, hey, Isaac, who asked this?
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: You're kidding yourself if you think there's a real distinction.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: There is not.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: It's all the same shit. They've been crossed over so
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: many times.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: I think more importantly, I think there is, I think
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: the nuance, it's not that there isn't a distinction, it's
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: that the distinction is more nuanced.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: I think the distinction is entirely subjective. Like some person
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: along the way is like, this strain is chill and
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: this one is energy. And you're just, there's no like
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: real science to it.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's get into it. I mean, the reality
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: is that each of these strains have a mix of
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: different kinds of what are they called? Cannabinoids that are
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: inside of them that are totally different. that are slightly
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: different in certain ways. And they're all in different combinations
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: and like Indica Sativa as a divide is I think, um, honestly,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: it's like the progressive, progressive moderate divide in the house.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: You know, actually when you dig into it, that's not
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: really what we're dealing with here. Not in this case.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't know.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I'm really stoned.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I think that's right.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: He is pretty stoned. It is Monday afternoon. Uh, That's
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: all the time we have.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: That's all the time we have.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Pramila Jayapal for joining us and telling us
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: what she prefers in Dekar Sativa. She did. She did
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: not do that. No, she did not. And we'll talk
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: to you later this week.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse. And Olivia Martinez is our
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, Madison Holman, and Justine
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: episodes as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.