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“A largely accurate affair.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, Jon catches up with Ari Berman
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: from Mother Jones about the recent Supreme Court rulings on
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: partisan gerrymandering in the census... Before that, we're going to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: talk about Trump's dictator buddies, Kamala Harris's momentum and the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: direction of the Democratic Party. Light stuff. Also, the latest
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: episode of This Land is out called The Land Grab.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Big news on this podcast in general. The Supreme Court
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: did not offer a decision on the Murphy case and
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: has asked for it to be retried next term. So
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: now you have a little while longer to catch up
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: on the podcast. Thislandpodcast.com. Subscribe, listen, and you can find
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: out what is at stake in this podcast. incredibly compelling
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: story that we're now going to have to wait a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: couple more months, maybe a year. We'll see to figure
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: out what the Supreme Court's doing here. Fascinating. We have
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: no information either about why they decided to retry it.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: We were afraid that the court would rule before you
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: got to episode seven of the podcast, which was built
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: as a cliffhanger for the ruling.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Now the cliffhanger lasts.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Now the cliffhanger lasts a couple months. But you know what?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: That's life.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That's life. That's life. But anyway, check it out. It's
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a fantastic podcast. Dan Pfeiffer will be talking to Colorado
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Senator Michael Bennett later today for the next installment of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: our 2020 Candidate Series. Almost at the end. Just a
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: few more stragglers, plus Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Can't
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: get Bernie or Biden in the studio. I think Bernie
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: we're making some progress on, I think. Biden, I'll tell you,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: it's a problem. Anyway, so Dan's interview with Bennett will
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: be going out later this week. Dan and I will
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: also be recording a mailbag edition of the podcast. that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: will go out Thursday. We're going to probably do that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. So please send us your questions on Twitter, Facebook,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and Instagram. Send us your questions. We'll answer them. Some
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of them, maybe. Also, uh, love or leave it. You
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: guys had a great show last week and.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: We had a great show that's out now, but on
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Tuesday at the improv, we're recording a July 4th special.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: It's just gonna be me and Emily Heller. It's gonna
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: be a great time.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Fantastic.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Buy some tickets.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Uh, all right, let's get to the news. Uh, Over
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the course of a relatively short trip abroad, the president
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of the United States kissed the asses of three different
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: murderous tyrants, Vladimir Putin of Russia, who attacked our election,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who ordered the murder
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of a Washington Post columnist, and Kim Jong-un of North Korea,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: who's trying to build nuclear weapons that can reach the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: United States. On Sunday, Trump became the first sitting United
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: States president to ever set foot in North Korea, an
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: impromptu meeting at the demilitarized zone that came about after
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Trump tweeted the following. If Chairman Kim.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I can't.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: The tweet's so funny.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I can't.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: If Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: meet him at the border slash DMZ just to shake
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: his hand and say, hello, parentheses, question mark, end parentheses,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: exclamation point. Um, after their conversation, Trump said that he
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and Kim agreed to resume the nuclear talks that fell
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: apart after Trump walked away from a deal in Hanoi
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: four months ago and ended the talks. Um, Lovett, how
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: big of a deal is this? Did the meeting change anything?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Historic first steps into North Korea?
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I saw a lot of people, I
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: saw some journalism that lifted this moment up as being extraordinary.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: And I suppose it is pretty nuts to have the
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: president just walk across the DMZ into North Korea to
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: say hi to his buddy.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Based on an impromptu.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Impromptu in quotes.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Well, apparently Trump mentioned his impromptu meeting a week ago
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: to The Hill, and then they had to get The
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Hill to not publish it because it was a security problem.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Of course, Trump is a security problem, so what are
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: you going to do? But, you know, it's an image, right?
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump thinks in images. His whole presidency for him
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: is about images. He's a president for television. It's the
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: only part of the job he cares about.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So....
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: So when he crosses into North Korea, it makes for
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: a big photo op.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: That's what he wanted.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: But what I was struck by is it's a photo
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: op without all the pieces of it that are supposed
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: to make it big and important. So I was thinking
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: about other famous presidential moments, right? You think of Carter
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: meeting with Egypt and Israel. You think of Nixon in China,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: important moments. But what undergirds them is the diplomatic work
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: and meetings and considerations that make the actual involvement of
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: the American president valuable and part of the negotiations themselves,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: but less work went into a detente between Donald Trump
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: and North Korea than between like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: So like that, the diplomatic legwork that went into Katy
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Perry and Taylor Swift becoming friends in public had more
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: of the look of a foreign policy apparatus than what
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is currently doing at the G fucking 20.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It was at least teased, you know?
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: It was teased.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: There were some underlying negotiations that had to take place first.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: They all understood the goals. They agreed to a set
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: of conditions. There was the communique.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, here's where we are in North Korea. We
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: had talked about how this is a very difficult challenge
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: for any U.S. president, Democrat, Republican, or Trump. But where
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: we are is Trump comes into office in 2017. They
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: conduct a nuclear test, you know, then Trump starts going
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: nuts on Twitter, you know, fire and fury, rocket man,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: all the bad shit, like, you know, bring us closer
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to war. And then they start these negotiations. And since then, basically,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: we have a few hostages back. Some remains of U.S.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: service members have been returned, though that's on pause. We
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: have suspended joint military exercises with the South Koreans, which
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: North Korea wanted. But North Korea is still testing missiles.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: They're still developing nuclear weapons. They're still resisting any kind
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of inspection regime whatsoever. So Trump is basically where every
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: other president has been, except that North Korea has just
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: further along in their nuclear program. And now they're talking about.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: And been elevated by the American president.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And they've been elevated by it. But even talking about
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the problem itself. So now... Now that Trump has restarted
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the talks that he himself pulled out of, in the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: New York Times, David Sanger and Michael Crowley have this
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: piece where they're reporting that the Trump administration is now
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: hoping to negotiate some kind of a nuclear freeze where
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Kim proposes to stop developing nuclear material at a number
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of different sites in exchange for sanction relief. So the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Trump administration's goal at the beginning of the administration is
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. and and inspect you
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: know inspectors in there it's verifiable all this kind of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: stuff they've basically given up on that and now accepting
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the fact that north korea will be a nuclear power,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: but they're just hoping that they don't make more weapons
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and in exchange may possibly give them sanctions relief.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: But you saw that John Bolton also went on Twitter
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: to say that that's not true.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: So on top of all of this.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Well, because I'm sure he's against it.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, for sure.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, he's got a multiple choice test and there's
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: only one answer.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Again and again and again.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That's John Bolton.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, John Bolton's general checkers strategy is to flip the
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: board over in 100% of games.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And then attack it with a nuclear warhead.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: No, so it's, you know, what can I say, John?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: It's a mess.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a sampling of some of the headlines from this weekend.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Washington Post. Trump scores his biggest live show yet in
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: North Korea. Politico. Trump's made-for-TV moment. And our favorite, ABC's
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Karl, quote, In terms of sheer performance, this may
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: be the biggest moment of the Trump presidency so far.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I just want to ask you, do you think it's
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: weird that certain journalists actually report on how they're getting
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: manipulated by politicians with no sense of irony?
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Right. It's... What is it?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: So, honestly, that is, I feel like, a too intellectual
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: a critique for how I feel about it because... I
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: don't even understand what the terms mean. His biggest show yet.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about? Yes, you're exactly right. This
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: is a PR stunt, and they're saying, what a PR stunt, right?
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: And that's a problem, a serious problem.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: This is a stunt to manipulate reporters, and they're like, boy,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: have they ever done that. Wow.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: They got us. This worked on me.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Because look at us. We are just going to broadcast
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: images of this meeting over and over. We're going to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: give you all the headlines that Trump wanted. Boy, have
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: they fooled us.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: But even before you get to that, I don't even
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: buy the argument on their terms because I think it
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: actually is naive in another way in that it fails
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: to appreciate just how much Donald Trump has devalued the
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: presidency and the artifice of his job altogether. So, okay,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the American people turn on their television and they see
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump meeting with Kim Jong-un, maybe in another time,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: a better time, a worse time, a different time, people
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: would think, wow, that's a big deal. What I'm seeing
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: here is monumental.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: It is historic.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: But I don't think we put Trump's behavior into terms
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: like that anymore. I think we see them exclusively on
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: his terms. I think that so much of our political
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: conversation is really kind of is swirling around his narcissism.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: So what we really see is a coup for Donald
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Trump personally. And everyone kind of understands that. How does
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: this play into Donald Trump's role in our politics, his reelection,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: his experience of the world? I don't think anybody sees
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: this as anything having to do with America's interests at all.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think the Trump show and America show are
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: one show to anyone, Republican or Democrat.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I think they are for a lot of Republican voters
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: because they... I don't know if you saw... Oh, my God.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Did you see the Fox & Friends clip where they
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: open the show to talk about what happened in the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: meeting and they play DJ Khaled, All I Do Is Win? Like, seriously,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: they didn't play... Showing Trump and Kim Jong-un. So, like,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Trump's out there, but you're absolutely right that his foreign
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: policy is all about... him. It's about glorifying him as
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a leader. It's about saying that he's a winner.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Rejecting Obama.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And then he's hoping to say that because I'm a winner,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: America's a winner too. Even while, and Tommy always points
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: this out, he is just getting worked on the world
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: stage by every single bad actor out there, right? They
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: are all manipulating him. They all know his number. He's
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: getting nothing for the United States and our security. He's
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: getting everything for either himself, his reputation or his financial standing,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: his next election, right? Because he's got Putin and other
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: countries maybe interfering in our election for him. So he's
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of shit for him, or at least
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: he thinks he is. He's getting nothing for us because
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: these people know his fucking number.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: But even though, like, even Laura Ingraham's heart doesn't seem
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: to be in it. You know, oh, what a win
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump. He sat down with Kim Jong-un and
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: the world will never be the same. I don't think
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: she's buying it. I honestly don't think it's, It's signaling
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to the audience to not be bothered by this and
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: to treat it the way we treat everything else, which
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: is just another partisan cudgel, right? Like what he's doing.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is doing well. It doesn't matter how many
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: times I said Barack Obama shouldn't meet with dictators. It
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter what we've been pumping to you for a
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: decade on this network about dealing with your adversaries. None
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: of that matters. All that matters is here's the talking
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: points for you. Here's how you should feel about it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Don't let it bother you.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And we'll all move forward.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So Trump also met with Putin where he playfully warned
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: him to not launch another attack on our election and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: joked about their shared disdain for journalists saying, quote, get
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn't it?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: You don't have this problem in Russia, but we do. Yes,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: they don't have that problem in Russia because Putin controls
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the fake news media and also has journalists who question
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: him murdered. So that's why they don't have that problem.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Trump also made time for breakfast with Mohammed bin Salman,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: who he called a friend and congratulated him and doing
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: a spectacular job he said in a news conference that
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: mbs was quote very angry and very unhappy about the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: murder of jamal khashoggi and said absolutely nothing about the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: fact that our own intelligence community has overwhelming evidence that
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: mbs ordered the killing himself.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: I wanna i want to understand what conservatives would do
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: i want to understand what like i know we i
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: know it's become passe to even say this but i
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: want to understand what conservatives would do if brock obama
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: with a dictator who had recently cut to pieces and
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: disposed of the body of a National Review writer.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: What would they do? How would they react to that?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: How would they feel about it?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: It's just so, it's even like so beyond that. Like
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the excuses he uses to, and this goes back to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: what we were just talking about with like his foreign
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: policy being intensely personal and about himself. You know, he's like, well,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: here's the deal with Saudi Arabia. They're buying lots of stuff.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: They're buying lots of weapons from us. They have great
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: defense contracts and other stuff too. They're buying other goods too.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So basically his thing is Saudi Arabia is helping make
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: certain defense contractors and other businessmen in this country rich. So,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you know, if they kill a few people, if they
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: kill a few journalists, what are you going to do?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: We need them, you know, which is just like such a.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Well, it's like such a step beyond the kind of,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: you know, Many liberals and many on the left have
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: long critiqued America's bipartisan foreign policy for being too comfortable
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: with some of the most despicable dictators in the world,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: including Saudi Arabia.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: But this goes another step. It goes beyond that, right?
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Not just to disregard it, but to praise.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Him, to welcome him, to make sure he faces no
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: consequences because of his personal relationship to you and your son-in-law.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: What would another Democratic president or Republican president have done
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to Saudi Arabia? if they were in office when Khashoggi
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: was murdered. We don't know. We don't know how far
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: they would have gone. But we know for certain that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't have had breakfast with the guy, said he
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: was doing a spectacular job, called him a friend. They
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have done that. That is uniquely dangerous and uniquely Trumpian.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, almost as if it's... And he's not unaware of this.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: He knows what he's doing.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And Putin, by the way. We kind of skipped over
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the Putin thing, too. Putin, who was like, Yeah, so
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a reporter's like, you know, did you ask him about
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: election interference? Did you tell him not to interfere in
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the election? And he's like, oh, all right, I'll do
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: it now. Don't you interfere in that election? And then
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: they both laughed.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: What the fuck are you doing?
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: It's, I mean, I think this is an issue that
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the Democratic presidential candidates have not done enough to talk about.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I would be all over this all the time.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and yes.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I noticed that... Joe Biden's rapidly responding campaign put out
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a statement from Biden about North Korea just now.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: They got a lot on their plate this weekend.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: They did.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: A lot of tough, tough weekends.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You know, and I saw like Kamala Harris and a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: couple other Democratic candidates tweeted about it, too. But I
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: think this is sort of a sleeper issue that people,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump's friendships with dictators who wish us harm
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: all around the world.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't seem great.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: It's not. It's not great, John.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, Helsinki did matter. It really did matter
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: to people. It seemed to have broken through in a
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: way other Donald Trump malfeasance hadn't. So I do think
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: there's some meat on.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: That bone.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Before we move on, we should also talk about Trump's
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: batshit crazy press conference on Saturday at the G20.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: This is.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: We're just sitting here like... The President of the United States,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: who is an international joke, went... to the G20, and
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: across virtually any issue you can name, made an abject
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: fool of himself, achieved nothing for the United States, left
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: only having damaged our reputation in the world. And, oh,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: by the way, a bunch of foreign leaders had looks
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: on their faces that just said, after this is over,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: we go to a quiet place and make fun of
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Ivanka for an hour.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: That's what my eyes saying. I am the.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I am the leader of Japan. My face has three
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: facial expressions.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: One of them is serious. One of them is very serious.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And now, introducing the third, I'm going to go fucking
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: talk shit about Ivanka.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Those are my three faces.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: It's really inspiring.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Can I butt in? I'd like to butt in. Okay.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Ivanka.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: They're just having a good conversation. It's like that person
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: who just comes up like, oh, I have a story.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, God.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: No, not that person. Who let her here?
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I don't understand. $ 5, 000 dress.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: She doesn't even know what she's talking about. So Trump
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: at this press conference defends Putin, defends MBS, trashes Jimmy Carter,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: trashes John Kerry, says he broke the law, trashes Hillary Clinton,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: said Kamala Harris has gotten too much credit for her
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: critique of Joe Biden. And he also responded the following
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: way when a reporter asked him about Putin's attack on, quote,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Western-style liberalism. Here's the answer from Donald Trump, quote, I
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: guess you look at what's happening in Los Angeles, where
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it's so sad to look, and what's happening in San Francisco,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and a couple of other cities which are run by
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary group of liberal people. I don't know what
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: they're thinking, but he does see things that are happening
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: in the United States that would probably preclude him from
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: saying how wonderful it is.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: It's... It is.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Worth always remembering that we were beat by the dumbest
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: fucking criminals. Donald Trump just doesn't know about liberalism as
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: a broader philosophy of governance. He thinks of it only
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: in terms of American-style liberalism. That's all it means to him.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: He isn't aware of some larger philosophy of liberal values.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like how he thinks about democracy, which
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: is a big inconvenience to him.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: It's not like he's some.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Secret autocrat that's been plotting this all along. He sort
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: of fell into autocracy because he thinks it is the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: easier path to govern. Well, when I'm the president, I'm
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: in charge. I should be able to get done whatever
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the fuck I want to get done. Why are we
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: wasting time with Congress and people voting and all this bullshit?
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a fascist savant.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: It's up to and including when he's on stage at
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: the military academy. He's like, look at these rippling muscles.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: It's very fascist. He wants tanks rolling into D.C. this
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: weekend for the fucking Fourth of July. To protect us
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: from the Fourth of July. They might not get him tanks,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: so they're going to get him armored vehicles.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they don't want to ruin the sidewalks.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: He doesn't know the difference either. He just wants fucking camo.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get him fucking plastic tanks.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't know the difference.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: He just wants some good desert beige or green machines.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: He wants Jonathan Karl to say it was a great
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: made-for-TV moment on the Fourth. That's what he wants.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: And I would not be surprised to hear Donald Trump
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: just sort of riffing, being like, hey, and when the
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: troops walk, you know what would be cool? What if
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: they kept their legs straight? Like, have you ever thought
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: about that? I think it would look really cool if
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: their legs didn't... Like, because it would.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: it would imply a level.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Of control from the state that they're not walking naturally.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: And the rhythm of it, I think, would be very compelling.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: What if they walk like birds? You know, like ducks.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: We call it duck walking. Or, you know, like there's
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: other kinds of, like the way geese walk. Something like that.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: You know, like a bird walk. We call it bird walking.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe they could salute.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Bird stepping.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's like a special salute they could do with
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: their hand.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Like a wave, a special wave where you kind of
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: hold your hand up.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I think just it would look cool.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: And like, I love the American flag, but like. It
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: represents all of the people, but what if there was
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: one that really showed how loyal you were to the ground.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: The soil? People don't need all of those stars to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: count up the states. They know the states. You could
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: just put my picture on it. It would be fine. Also,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: by the way, when they asked him about the controversy
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: over busing from the debate, and they asked him what
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: he thought of busing, and first of all, he said, Well,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: just you wait. I got a plan for that coming
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure he does. And then they asked who
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: they pressed him on busing. And he's like, yeah, well,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you know, busing is something that happens. And I just
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: don't know that there's that many other ways for kids
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to get to school.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: No idea. He has, which is interesting, right?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It's too bad for him because he would love to
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: shit on busing.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: No, right.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: That's what's so surprising about it, because there's no one
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: who's had a fucking like Donald Trump has not really
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: read the news since the 1980s. But when he was
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: reading the news, his fingers went right to the part
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: of the New York Post where white parents in Boston
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: were furious about busing. Like, he should know about busing
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: because it's right there in his fucking racial grievance erogenous zone.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no shit. All right, well, let's talk about 2020.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: So that's Donald Trump. He shouldn't be president.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, update, update.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Listen, hot, hot fucking news out of the G20. He
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: should not be president. It is a fucking joke.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It is, and you know, obviously we did 15 minutes
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: on Trump being bad, but Brian Stelter noted this actually yesterday,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: which is, he's like, is Trump being graded on a
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: curve because we're about to have a conversation about the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, the different candidates, you know, who's doing well,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: who's not. And I do think we're sort of getting
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: back to this 2016 vibe where you have two sides
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of a coin, right? And so there's a bunch of
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: reporting and analysis about Donald Trump being crazy, but you
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: have to balance that equally with, well, but the Democratic Party,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're ready to beat him. They're
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: in disarray. And look, you know, we've been critical of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the party too, but it's hard to have both Donald
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Trump and the eventual nominee or the candidates trying to
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: replace him on that same plane.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, there was an op-ed in the Post
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: that said none of the Democrats seem presidential.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I was like, why? Did they not?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is fucking ridiculous.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Give me a fucking break.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: And then the other piece of this is the fact-checkers
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: have had a real problem here, right? Because the fact-checkers
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: have spent the last two years sort of, you know,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: counting up Donald Trump's Pinocchios and other other, I don't know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: nose growths. I don't know how they measure lies anymore.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: But but they had to go through the Democratic debate.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: And the Democratic debate was a largely accurate affair. These
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: are people who are very, very careful with their words.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: You know, these are these are.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: That's our message for 2020. Largely accurate affairs.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: So Beto says things like, now, if Donald Trump were president,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: if Donald Trump were a Democrat, he is president, technically.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: If Donald Trump were a Democrat, he'd say, you know,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: they stole all your money and they gave it to
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: the corporations, right? But Beto O'Rourke says the Republican tax
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: cut favored corporations. And then they have to fact check it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: And they have to find a way to make favored corporations,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: which it clearly did in virtually every way, find the
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: way in which it may be in some small way alive.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: The truth, same thing with Bernie Sanders saying that three
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: people control more wealth.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Than the bottom 50%.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: The fact check is hilarious because the fact check is like, well, actually,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: the reason the bottom 50% don't have as much wealth
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: as the top three is that they're in a lot
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: of debt.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: That's not better. They asked Donald Trump to explain busing
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and he starts singing Wheels on the Bus. Well, that's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: also off, but in a different way.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: It's wild. We're going to do the whole fucking cycle again.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So we now have polling and fundraising evidence that Kamala
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Harris is gaining support after her strong debate performance in
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Miami last week, part of which involved challenging Joe Biden
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: about his past work with segregationist senators to oppose busing.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: The Harris campaign raised more than $ 2 million in the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: day after the debate, and a new poll by Morning
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Consult found that Harris has moved all the way up
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: to third place in the Democratic field, gaining six percentage
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: points from where she was right before the debate. That's
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: doubling her support in a poll. Lovett, what does she
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: do to... build on the momentum here does she she
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: has she found a line of criticism does she want
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to keep criticizing biden or offer some other contrast with
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: him on another issue or does she try something else
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: here that's a.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Great question and i don't know the answer i i
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: do think it would be a lot if she comes
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: to the next debate with like a ready to go
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: hit on joe biden yeah.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: That probably is a lot you know she also we
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: don't know if they're.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: So it's a little bit further away, but still personal.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: It is a tough question for all of these candidates
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: in a very large field and even a large field
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of front runners, really. Like even the top tier is
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: pretty crowded compared to past elections. And so you have
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to find these moments where you stand up because there's
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: so much noise otherwise. And the debates are the big
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: moments left, you know, because everyone's done their town halls and,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you know, there's the The power of the first town
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: hall that you do on CNN or MSNBC sort of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: wears off after a while. It's not like your speeches
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: are getting carried live. Attacking Trump doesn't necessarily get you
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention. And it does seem like we're
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: heading to the place in the primary, which happens every primary,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: where the way you get attention and the way you
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: get noticed is to critique or at least offer contrast
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: with your fellow primary candidates.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's true.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I also I do think Kamala is in a unique
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: position compared to everyone else, which is that she is
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: she is potentially about to go from being someone beneath
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: the front runners to among the front runners. And in
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: an odd way, she may be getting the look that
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: Pete Buttigieg got that others have gotten. So it is
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: actually a bigger opportunity for her to flesh out her
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: argument for her own candidacy in a bigger way. you know,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: this is something we said before the debate, that we
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: were looking forward to Kamala Harris on the debate stage
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: in part because she made so much of her candidacy
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: about it. It's incredibly impressive that she rose to that moment,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you know, that that's very, very difficult to do. But
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: now that she has this spotlight, it can't just be
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: about making that point again. There's a larger argument she
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: needs to make about why she is the person to
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: be the standard bearer of the Democratic Party that I
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: don't think to this point she has well made.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: No. And I think part of the reason is she
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: she eyes the field and eyes the electorate and thinks
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: she can potentially build maybe one of the biggest, broadest
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: coalitions here of the Democratic base. And I think they
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: have been trying to figure out how does she stand out?
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: And they've answered that question by saying, okay, well, she's
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: a prosecutor. She can prosecute the case against Trump. And
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: by the way, in these hearings and in these debates,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: she's fucking stellar and can kick everyone's ass, and that's
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: a great, great skill to have. The question is, can
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: you put it all together and say, again, Elizabeth Warren,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: you know in five seconds why she's running and what
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: her story is, you know that to be true about
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg, even if he doesn't have all the policies
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to back it up, you know his generational change. And
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Kamala has not sort of nailed that story yet. And
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I would spend some time, and now look, that story
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't get, nailing that story doesn't automatically get you press attention.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: But I think if she's going to contrast herself with
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, it has to be more than about that
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: one issue. And she has to make a larger argument
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: why her and why not Joe Biden or even some
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of these other candidates probably in the coming week. Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And it is it is sort of there. Right.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is part of what Pete is saying.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: It's part of what Warren is saying. It's part of
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: what Eric Swalwell is saying that it is that torch torch.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, the torch, the torch passing. is part of
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: this debate. That's change. We're talking about change. And she
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: can represent change in a way that Joe Biden can't.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: That's her argument.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: And she's to sort of articulate that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Vision, I think.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a New York Times story that Trump and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: other Republicans are a little more nervous about Kamala than
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: they were at first. Do we buy that? And why
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: are they? They've gone to so many different, they're sort
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: of like, I think they whiplash back and forth with
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the electorate and the news cycle. You know, first they're
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: scared of Biden when Biden's up. Now they're scared of
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Kamala when Kamala's up.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't buy it. I didn't even bring my wallet.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I'm not particularly interested in the kind of whatever reverse
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: psychology of leaks from the Trump camp. Who are they
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: worried about? Who are they pretending to be worried about?
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I don't think we should really be playing that game.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: any more than we should be playing the game of
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: listening to who lifelong Republicans think are driving them away.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: We got to we got to focus. We got to
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: play our game to use a sports term.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: We should.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: To use a sport. That's a very.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: We have to play our game.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Adept sports term. Very.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: We have to play the game.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: We came here to play. That's not the game they
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: want us to play.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Right, Elijah?
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So what should Joe Biden be doing here? When he
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: spoke at Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition in Chicago the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: day after the debate, he said that the discussion in
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: this race, quote, shouldn't be about the past. He does
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: seem to be stuck in this dynamic where, like, now
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: every story, anecdote, example he uses is sort of viewed
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: through the prism of does he have outdated racial and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: social views? And he kind of can't get out of
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: this now. And so I wonder what the, I mean,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I saw some people saying, well, you know, his strategy
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: is take on Trump, ignore his rivals. Can he continue
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that strategy?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I will say to you right now, yes, you know,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: the tires are deep in the mud. He's pressing the accelerator.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: It is getting deeper. That's what is happening right now.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: and every word is being seen through this lens. If
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: he wants to be president, he needs to show that
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: he's the right person to be president. And it's definitely
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: not going to be defending opposing busing or your rationale
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: for opposing busing. And the arguments about Joe Biden go
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: to the core of his competence as a candidate. They
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: go to the core of whether or not he can
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: represent people today, whether he's too old, whether he's too establishment.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: These are the questions he has to answer. I don't
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: know the right way for him to answer them, but
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: they're legit.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: This is.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: This isn't a side issue. That's the thing. This is
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: an attack on the core of his argument for why
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: he should be the Democratic nominee. And if he wants
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: to be the Democratic nominee, he has to answer it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: And he has to answer it not just by speaking
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: to the critique, but actually demonstrating that he isn't a
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: candidate of the past. And that's really hard to do
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: for somebody that's been in politics for 30 years.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: It's not impossible.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, he does... I think he has the right
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: idea there with that line, this election shouldn't be about
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the past. And he can use that. Now, his rivals
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: will say... but you have this record that you have
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to answer for and he can't, I don't think he
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: can avoid answering for it. But I think his best
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: hope is to continue pivoting to, because look, you know,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I was even surprised that he raised his hand for
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: some of the very progressive positions that they asked people
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: to raise their hands for during the second debate. He
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: has policy-wise, I think he's certainly not the furthest left
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in the field, but you wouldn't put him in sort
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of the moderate camp either. So he has fairly mainstream
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Democratic progressive policies that he's for today. Um, but his
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: opponents are going to make the whole race. We're going
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: to try to make the whole race about his record
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and not his record during the Obama administration, his record
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: as a Senator before that.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: It's interesting to like, when I think, when I think
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: of Joe Biden on the debate stage, what I picture
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: is someone talking about himself and talking about his record
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: and talking about the past. But I don't actually, like I,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: He needs to say what he's going to do as president.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: Here are the things I want to do. Here's why
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be in this race. Here's what
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: we can do to make most of this opportunity. And
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: when he makes his closing statement, this is a fight
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: for the soul of the country, it also does feel
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: backward looking. Even his answer, what do you want to
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: do as president? I want to beat Donald Trump.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: It all goes to the past or what the past
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: will be if he were to win.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: The day we elect a Democratic president, we will have
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: repudiated Trump. We will have successfully done something very, very hard.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: What's next?
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: And I think to the extent that he hasn't, you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he's not for Medicare for all. He's for more of
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a robust public option to the extent that he has
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: policy differences with other candidates who are a bit further
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: to the left. I think he has to make the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: case for why. Right. Like you have you can't. You
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: can't just pretend, okay, I'm going to sort of fuzz
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: up my positions to make it seem like I'm just
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: as progressive as them, and then I'm going to talk
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: about beating Trump, and I'm going to talk about my record,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to try to do anything beyond
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: that because it's just playing prevent defense at that point.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think that works.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And by the way, it didn't work for Hillary Clinton
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: in 2008 either.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the– exactly. And so I think you have
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: to make an actual case for your set of policies,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: your worldview going forward. that doesn't have to do necessarily
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: with Trump and it doesn't necessarily have to do with
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: your record. What do other candidates have to do to
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: break through at this point? There was news this morning
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: that Pete Buttigieg raised $ 24. 8 million this quarter. He now
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: has 400,000 donors total. That is obviously much more than
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: any of the Democratic candidates raised last quarter. It is
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: around what Obama and Clinton were raising in 08 in
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: a quarter. So that's, and we haven't seen anyone else's
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: number yet. The quarter ended Sunday night. Um, but that's
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: a big deal.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of fucking money. And he's got like
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: 22 million on hand, which is a lot, which means
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: his burn rate, how much they're spending on the campaign
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: is very low too.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Look, the good news for Pete is even if he's
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: not the nominee, he is going to crush that South
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Bend reelection. That, that is so much money to spend
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: to be reelected. No, let's hope he can, because man,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: the billboards, I mean, I don't know what it costs
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: to get a billboard in South Bend, Indiana, but it
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: can't be you can probably get at least 10 of
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: them for $ 25 million.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's in this for the long haul, for sure.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: That's what that means. He is a candidate, and he
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: can be a candidate for a very long time.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: And as he should be. I mean, I think he is.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: It's a lesson for the other candidates, and it's a
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: lesson for Harris, too, which is that the only thing
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: stopping you from becoming a frontrunner is you, really.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it is. If you want to be.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: It's true. That's why they tune in.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: But it's absolutely true.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: No excuses. People blame staff. They blame all this stuff.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: It's like you, yes, if you are truly talented, because
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you could have said that about Kamala Harris. She had
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the staff. She had the organization. It happened because she
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: performed at that debate. She did that for herself. Elizabeth Warren,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: who didn't have a lot of donors and was struggling
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: on fundraising. Her campaign was written off a bunch of times.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: She pulled herself out of that hole.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Pete Buttigieg, Chasten, and Liz Smith in the
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: back of an Uber Black fucking made this happen. So,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: you know, hey, it's America. In parts of the country,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: democracy is alive and well.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: For now.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I think it's, you know, he's going
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: to have to find, I think, probably a moment in
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: future debates sort of like, or a couple moments, actually,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: sort of like Kamala had in this debate. And I
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: think that's tough because you don't get a lot of
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: fucking speaking time when there's all that many people on
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: stage and you really have to figure out a way
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to sort of command the stage. I hate talking about
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: debates like this is the only way because debates are
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a fucking dumb way to pick the president and they're
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: all performance. But, you know, we are living in a
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: media age and there's only so many ways to break through.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: And we know that breaking through in the media is,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you know, it's probably not as important as having a
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: really fucking great organization on the ground in Iowa or
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: But clearly, just having an organization on the ground in
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Iowa and having good retail politics in Iowa and New
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Hampshire isn't enough these days.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: And you know what?
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be embarrassed about caring about how
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: these people hold the debate stage when one of them
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: will likely have to face Donald Trump and will have
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: huge implications for whether we win the election. Yeah, we're
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: going to pick this president on television. One last point
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: on Pete. This is just my own personal reaction. When
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: he shot that look at Eric Swalwell, I haven't... You
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: talked about this in the last part. I know, but
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: I made a joke about it. But I think Pete
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: was very... strong in the debate. He, you know, held
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: his own on that debate stage. But in that look,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: what I saw was the ambition of someone who is
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: a mayor of South Bend, Indiana running for president. I
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: saw the ambition and, you know, we don't talk about
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: ambition and a lot of the times it's, it's gendered,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: but every person on that stage has an incredible amount
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: of ambition and they try to hide it.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Because we don't like someone saying like, why are you running?
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: It's like, well, cause ever since I was a little boy,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: I knew it was the fucking best.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Like nobody, we don't like that. And yet In that look,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: in that intensity, you saw what you need in a candidate.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: So I am actually interested in seeing the other side
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: of the kind of staid and serious Pete Buttigieg.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I'm interested.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I'm interested in seeing the guy that is a mayor
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: of a small town who looked at this field and said, like,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: this is my moment.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, Obama used to talk about this. Even if
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you haven't been dreaming about this or planning this since
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you were a kid, if you were running for president,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: It is because you believe that out of a country
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: of 300 million plus people, you are the best person
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: to lead it. So even if you just decided the
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: week before the race that that's what you wanted to do,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it's still a fucking lot of ambition there. It just is.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: You don't have to have been in kindergarten planning your
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: run like the Clinton campaign accused Obama of doing.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: In that essay. In that essay.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, Liz Warren is taking every fucking photo.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: She's calling people back in her car. She is working
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: so hard.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: When Kamala Harris says, I'm going to win this race,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: you know that she means it. She said that. I'm
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: going to win this race. And you're like, yeah, I
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: fucking believe that, the way she said it.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: They had to replace Amy Klobuchar's podium because underneath it,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: she just broke pieces of it with her hands.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Because she's fucking in it. That's what I like.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: They're all in it to win it. All right. So
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the other big narrative coming out of the debates is
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: this idea that the Democratic Party is moving too far
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to the left, which was the subject of multiple op-eds
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and analysis pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: and other outlets. Here's Alex Burns and Jay Mart in
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: The Times. Quote, Vowing to eliminate private health insurance, decriminalize
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: illegal immigration, and provide government health care benefits to undocumented immigrants,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: high-profile contenders like Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Harris are wagering that they can energize voters eager to
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: dismantle President Trump's hardline policies. But with moderate Democrats repeatedly
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: drowned out or on the defensive in the debates, the
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: sprint to the left has deeply unnerved establishment Democrats who
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: have largely picked the party nominees in recent decades.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: And what a great job they've done.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: They fear that advocating a government-run health care system could
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: alienate suburban and upper-income voters who are otherwise eager to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: eject Mr. Trump from office, while the most progressive immigration
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: policies might turn off the working-class white voters who backed Mr.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Trump after twice supporting former President Barack Obama. What do
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: you think? I love that the Democratic Party establishment voices
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: are always very concerned, but they're fucking too cowardly to
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: put their name on the record. That's the classic.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Well, some of them actually, one of the challenges is
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: they don't always remember their own names because they're actually
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: in soundproof chambers that are unlocked to give comments for
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: these articles.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: It's one of those. You know every once in.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: A while somebody drowns in a sensory deprivation tank?
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Does that happen every once in a while?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Once in a while. Okay. They're in one of those.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: So I think all of this makes a lot of
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: assumptions about how people feel about progressive policies and makes
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of assumptions about how people vote in America.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of assumptions about which people
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: vote which way, because there's... like reading that paragraph, there's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: just like a lot to untangle. There's a lot of
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: things that are sort of conflated there.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: You have to really unpack it. So first of all,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: like on whether or not liberal policies will cost you.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: One of the things that's hardest for, I think, nonpartisan
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: journalists to deal with is what do you do when
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: the left wing policies actually pull quite well amongst Democrats, Republicans,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: and independents?
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: We've talked about this a lot, right?
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: High taxes on the wealthy, expanding Medicare, expanding Medicaid. These
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: things pull well. Even in states where Democrats can't win,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: you have Medicaid expansion in places like Idaho and Utah
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: and Montana. So, you know, you look at the actual,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: where actual voters are, even in some of the most
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: conservative parts of the country, and there is an openness
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: to liberal policies.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: The second thing that these articles always avoid dealing with
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: is that there are also hardcore Democrats who need to
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: be enthused and turn out to vote as well. This
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: is a point you make all the time, which is electability,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: you can slice it and dice it a million ways,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: but fundamentally it is about turning out core people, people
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: who are either lifelong engaged Democrats or the kind of
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: voters who are turned off by the fact that they
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: don't believe politics goes far enough to help them, and
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: the more moderates that you also need from these suburban
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: places to turn out for you.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: How do you prioritize?
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Who can excite who can excite while also keeping moderates
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: coming to the table and supporting you?
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: That's a really hard question.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: There are compromises involved in that, but this just sort
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: of avoids half of the equation.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, going back to your first point
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: about the policies. So you mentioned a number of policies
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: that are wildly popular, raising taxes on the wealthy, wildly popular.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: And it's something that I think you're right, that the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: mainstream media doesn't quite understand they they'll call it like
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: a populist are they going to turn off people on
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: wall street because like you know people in the fucking
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: acela corridor is who they talk to all the time
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and the truth is higher taxes on wealthy people elizabeth
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: warren's wealth tax is extremely popular not only among democrats
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: but among independents and even some republicans you talked about
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: medicaid expansion wildly popular uh among all parties uh even
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: republicans even some republicans um medicare for all is an
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: interesting example that we've talked about a number of times
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Where if you ask people, do you think that everyone
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: should be able to get Medicare and that we should
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: have Medicare for everyone? It's extremely popular. It's pulling over
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: 50% easily. When you tell people that Medicare for all
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: will require the elimination of the private health insurance market
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and most likely middle class taxes to go up, it
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: becomes very unpopular. Now, Medicare for all proponents will say, well,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: this private health insurance thing is sort of bullshit. And
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I've heard them make the point like, what people really
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: want is not necessarily their insurance plan to keep. They
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: want their doctor. And under Medicare for All, all doctors
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: are in the same network. And so if we have
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: a Medicare for All system, yeah, you're going to get
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: your doctor no matter where you go. And then maybe
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: people will like that more, right? But I guess my
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: point is, if you are backing an unpopular policy, a
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: policy that does not command wide majority support in this country,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: you still, it is incumbent on you as a politician,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: as someone advocating for this policy, to talk about it
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: in a way that is most politically effective and popular, right?
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: So you have to make the case for Medicare for All,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a single-payer system, and why this problem is so important
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: that only a single-payer system right away can solve it
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and not, for example, enrolling a bunch of people in
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Medicare and letting everyone in the country choose to enroll
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: in Medicare. It is incumbent on you to make the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: case why the single-payer system is so much more important
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: than a public option system or Medicare for America or
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: any of these other alternatives where you can sort of enroll.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: You have to make that case. And the same thing
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: is true on immigration, right? We talked about this in
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the last pod, but under the Affordable Care Act, Barack
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Obama promised that undocumented immigrants wouldn't be part of this
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: healthcare system because it was tough to convince, it's not
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: about Republican politicians, it was tough to convince Americans a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: lot of Americans that their tax dollars should do that. Now, again,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: as we said, there's an argument to be made for
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: why when an undocumented immigrant goes to the emergency room
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: and they get treated, it's going to end up costing
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: taxpayers more than it would to make sure that that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: person has health insurance and is covered and has preventive care.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Like you can make an argument, but we got to
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: make the argument. And I worry that we're not quite
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: making the argument.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's all true.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: But it's almost as if that's a separate point because
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: the nuances of making the case for single-payer, the nuances
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: for making the case around immigration don't go to the
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: core of the kind of political concerns inside of this article.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I don't believe that the moderate pundits would be less
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: turned off today if anyone had made that kind of
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: an argument.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: That's probably true. But I still think it's hard.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: To it's hard to disentangle all this because you must
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: have to start there by saying, fuck the moderate pundits,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: fuck the Brett Stevens column.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: And and fuck the idea that, oh, we must please
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Republican politicians because we need them. Like all that aside,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: just think about the voters.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Think about assembling a coalition in this country. that can
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: get you 270 electoral votes, and they can get you
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a majority in the Senate. That's what you should be
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: thinking about, right? Like, don't worry about what Brett Stevens thinks.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about Republican politicians. How do you get that coalition?
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, we have, or at least
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: some Democrats have convinced ourselves that all you need to
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: do is increase turnout among the base and go after
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: those voters who stayed home in 2016 or who voted
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: for third party, and then you've magically got the coalition,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: and that's good. And I think that some other people,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: some of these pundits, have convinced themselves the only way
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: for Democrats to win is to win back all these
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Obama-Trump voters. And I think that's incorrect as well. But
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I think the point is, it's not an easy call
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: which side is right, and it's definitely a both-and.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Because what we forget is, in 2012, in 2012, one
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: out of every three Obama voters was a non-college-educated white person,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: which is the exact demographic... that we have been losing
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: for decades and decades. And the idea that sometimes we're like, oh, well,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: they're all sort of like racist Trump voters. They're not,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: because a third of them have been in our coalition
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: through both Obama terms. And by the way, Hillary was
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: actually a little less than one in three, but she
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: still had a bunch, too. And if we do worse
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: among non-college whites than Hillary did, it doesn't matter how
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: much of our base we can turn out. It doesn't
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: matter if we increase African-American turnout to Obama levels. It
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter if we find a whole bunch of new voters.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: It's just the math. 44% of eligible voters in this
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: country are non-college educated white voters. That is the largest
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: block in the country.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: It's, um, I also think so much of this conversation gets, uh, uh,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: separated by, it's amazing how everyone's political preferences flow from
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: their policy preferences. Right.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: So, so that's like the inevitable Twitter debate, which is
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: pretty unhelpful. You know, this is the, this is the
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: point about not trying to please the pundits, not trying
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: to please anybody else. It's a, it's a genuine, um,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: political strategic question, right? We can talk about the policy and,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: and talk about the moral argument for single payer. It's a,
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: it's an argument I, I agree with, but you come down,
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: you come, you come back to what is the best.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: Way to win?
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Now I'm, if the argument is, here's why single payer
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: and getting fully behind that and explaining it as the
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: best way to win, I'm, I'm fine.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: I really am very comfortable with that.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: That's a great way to, that, if that, If having
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: that big of a distinction is the way we need
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: to convince people that we're on their side.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, and I think the same is true on immigration, right? Like,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: we know that there is a large majority of people
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: in this country who are on board with a pathway
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: including the Dreamers, but beyond the Dreamers, all 11 million
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: people who are here undocumented right now. That there is
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: a large majority for ending family separations, for ending these
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: mass detentions, for ending these mass deportations, for building a
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: orderly immigration system. in this country where you can apply
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: for citizenship, you can apply for asylum, you can get
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: your case heard, it's efficient, we spend more resources at
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the border, not necessarily on security, but on judges and
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: immigration judges to make sure these asylum claims are heard.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: There's a large majority in the country in favor of this.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: And I think And, you know, we talked about sort
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: of Castro's proposal to repeal 1325, which decriminalizes immigration altogether
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: on the last pod. And I think when I think
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: about that proposal, the first thing that comes to mind is, OK, well,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: the next Democratic president can achieve everything you want to
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: achieve through that repeal, through executive action. So why necessarily
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: do we need to make that a litmus test for
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: every Democratic candidate for president? when we know that the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: big challenge that we have is not only ending all
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: of these awful Trump immigration policies, but providing citizenship for
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: all the people who are here as undocumented immigrants and,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you know, making sure we have a better legal, more
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: humane immigration system. Like, that should be our number one concern.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And so if you want to be for repeal of 1325, like,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: that's fine. And I think there's good debates on Why
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: it's important, why it's not a good idea, why it's
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: a bad idea. There's a lot of debates on that.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: But I don't think we should be in litmus test
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: territory on some of this stuff.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Well, especially because.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: It is the next president will face an emergency of
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: undoing all the damage Donald Trump has done. and the
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: incredible challenge of building a coalition around comprehensive immigration reform.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: And the odds that this is part of that debate
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: are actually quite small, to be honest.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Almost infinitesimal because you can, you can achieve what you
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: want to through executive action, right? Like, and we've been talking,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: we've been talking to all these candidates. Will you get
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: rid of the filibuster? And some of them will, some
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: of them won't, but like, let's imagine what we have here.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Say we, we win the Senate and we win the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: presidency and there's 50 something seats and, um, What are
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: you going to do? A lot of them, Elizabeth Warren,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: people like that have said democracy reform. A lot of
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: them talked about Medicare for all. So now we're going
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: to get to immigration reform, which no one has said
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: is going to be their first priority, which is too bad.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I would someone's first priority. Maybe it's Castro's. Maybe I
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: could be mistaken. But then you're going to get to
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: immigration reform. You're right. You have to get through. You
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: have to get a bunch of Democratic senators on board
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: from these red states. for comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: 11 million people in this country, spreads a pathway to citizenship,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and sort of ends all of Trump's policies. Like, that's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: going to be a big task. To say the least.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: That's going to be a big task. And I'm not saying, like,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: trim our sales and everything and stuff like that. I'm
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: just saying, because we should be bold and we should
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: be progressive in everything we say, but, like, if you're
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: going to embrace a policy that may not command majority
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: support in the country, think about, I'm not saying don't
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: do that, but think about How urgent is it that
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: we pass this policy to solve one of the problems
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: that we couldn't solve in another way?
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. When we come back, we will have Lovett's interview
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: with Ari Berman of Mother Jones.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: He is a senior reporter at Mother Jones and the
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: author of Give Us the Ballot, the Modern Struggle for
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Voting Rights in America. Ari Berman, welcome back to Pod
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Save America.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: Hey, John, thank you very much for having me back.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: All right, let's get into it here. The Supreme Court
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: ruled on partisan gerrymandering. Not to put too fine a
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: point on it, your piece called it a doomsday scenario
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: for our democracy. Have you grown less alarmist since you
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: wrote that?
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: Not really. I mean, it still feels like a Chernobyl
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: situation for democracy because gerrymandering is getting worse and worse.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: But the Supreme Court is basically saying, we can't do
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: anything about it. And that was the remarkable part of
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: the opinion, was John Roberts didn't make an argument for gerrymandering.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: He just said, well, two bad guys. This is something
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: that the courts, at least the federal courts, can't strike down.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: And so the message that sends to state legislatures, controlled
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: by both parties, is basically, you guys can do anything
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: you want. It can be as extreme as you want,
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: and we're not going to strike it down. And we're
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: entering a new redistricting cycle after the 2020 election. I
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: think a lot of people don't realize the 2019 elections
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: and the 2020 elections at the state level are going
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: to determine who draws new redistricting maps in 2021. So
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: we're not that far away from this point. And the
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court's basically saying to these states, do whatever you want.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: We're not going to strike it down. And I just
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: think that sends the absolute worst message to politicians right now.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: And it raises the stakes for these state and local elections.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: It absolutely raises the stakes for these state and local elections.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: And what I'm hoping is that people actually start paying
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: attention to what's happening in the states, because everyone is
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: following the presidential election 24-7 a year before it's occurring.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: But nobody seems to be focusing on what's going on
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: in 2019 or in 2020. And a lot of state
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: legislatures are up for control. I mean, the Republicans have
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: a huge advantage, but it's not as big as you'd think.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: And I dug into this and Democrats are only a
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: few seats away from flipping a bunch of really important
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: state legislative chambers. And in most states, that's who's going
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: to draw the map. There are some states in which
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: independent redistricting commissions will draw the map. There are some
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: states where there's going to be divided government, but there's
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: a bunch of really important swing states that are still
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: under Republican control. And if Democrats don't take back those states,
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: then Republicans are probably going to pass even more sophisticated
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: gerrymanders compared to the gerrymandering we saw after the 2010 election,
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: which was already really terrible and bad.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: So I suppose this was a natural place to plug votesaveamerica.com,
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: where you can donate to our Fuck Jerry Fund to
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: fight gerrymandering. Also, legally, I'm supposed to say, Fuck Jerry Fund.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, fuck gerrymandering. Otherwise, we'll get sued.
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: I set you up perfectly for that one.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about the.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: I want to come back to sort of the implications,
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: but let's talk about the ruling itself, because as a
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: lot of people noted, it's very hard to tell the
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: difference in practice between a partisan gerrymander and a racial gerrymander.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: The court ruled against a racial gerrymander in Virginia and
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: did so with some conservative votes, but they ruled on
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: procedural issues. They seemed to avoid the actual substance in
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: the case. What are the implications for... efforts to fight
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: racially motivated gerrymandering? And how do you tell the difference
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: between a racially motivated gerrymander and a partisan one?
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: Well, that's a really important point. And that's indeed the question.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: The Supreme Court has actually fairly consistently struck down racial gerrymandering,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: and not just in the Virginia case on procedural grounds,
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: but in more substantive cases from places like North Carolina
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: and Alabama, because even some of the conservative justices don't
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: like when legislators consider race and redistricting. So whether it's
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: Democrats doing it or Republicans doing it, They don't like
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: when that goes on. And so if you can clearly
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: show that the districts were drawn, for example, to try
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: to hurt black voters, something like that, they might be
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: more sympathetic to that. The problem is, where do you
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: draw the line? Because what's going to happen now is
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: states are just going to say, well, we didn't draw
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: a racial gerrymander. We drew a partisan gerrymander. And that's
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: exactly what happened in North Carolina, which was one of
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: the two cases, along with Maryland, before the Supreme Court
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: just now. They passed this racial gerrymander. The court said
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: it was one of the worst racial gerrymanders they'd ever seen.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: It was struck down. It went back to, they basically said,
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: redraw the districts. And Republicans were so brazen, they basically said,
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: the guy who drew the districts, the Republican member of
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: the legislature in North Carolina who drew the districts said,
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: I want to make very clear this is a partisan gerrymander.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: That's actually what he said. I want to make very
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: clear this is a partisan gerrymander. I would draw an
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: 11-2 district. for the congressional delegation but i'm going to
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: try to tend to three ten republican three democrats but
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: i can't ralep into but he said that because you
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: want to make very clear that it wasn't a racial
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: gerrymander so basically if you just admit that you're doing
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: this to disenfranchise democrats not african-americans or latinos then the
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: court's okay with it the problem is many of those
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: democrats are disenfranchising are in fact uh... african-americans or latino
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: so they're basically doing racial gerrymandering by other means by
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: calling it a partisan gerrymander and that's why this decision
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: is so problematic.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: So is that Is that guidance....
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: What I've been having trouble parsing is, is that guidance
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: to people looking to challenge maps to say, even if
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Republicans are calling them partisan, look for the racial implications?
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: Or is the court actually saying that only the motivations
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: matter so that if a bunch of Republicans in a
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: state decide to pretend that racial gerrymandering isn't their goal
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: and do a partisan map that is extremely... disenfranchising towards
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: people of color, that there's no remedy. So, you know,
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: do you see what I'm saying? Is it something that
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: directs those looking to challenge partisan maps to find the
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: racial implications or do those racial implications not matter so
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: long as the Republicans never used racial terms when drawing
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: the maps?
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: Well, that's a good question, and that's going to be
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: something that comes up, because I'm sure Republicans are going
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: to try to do the latter, right? They're going to
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: try to gerrymander, and they're going to have more sophisticated
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: technology than ever before in 2021. So they're going to
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: be able to do things they couldn't do before. So
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: they're just going to run the political data. They're not
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: going to use the racial data. And they're going to say,
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: this is just a partisan gerrymander. And basically, the people
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: challenging these maps are going to have to either show
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: based on intent, so based on statements, or based on outcomes.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: the effect that in fact it is a racial gerrymandering
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: there's also going to be places where there's really bad
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: gerrymandering that doesn't involve race and if that happens there
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: really is no no recourse in the federal courts other
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: than to try to challenge it in state courts. And
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know why John Roberts thought state courts are
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: more equipped to deal with these things than the federal courts,
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: but basically he said, this is a state issue now.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: You can either fight it politically, which is going to
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: be hard when there's really gerrymandered maps, because that was
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: the whole reason you gerrymander, so people can't overthrow you
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: for power. Basically, you either change the legislature, you pass
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: independent redistricting commissions, which are becoming increasingly popular, but they're
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: not going to pass anytime soon in a Republican-controlled state
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: like Texas that doesn't even allow ballot initiatives, or you
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: challenge them through state courts, where a lot of state
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: courts are also controlled by conservative judges. So what this
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: means is, in some states, you will be able to
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: challenge gerrymandering, And other states can be very, very difficult
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: to do so at the state and local level.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: So, you know, one of the, as Justice Kagan pointed
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: out in her dissent, this is a rare situation in
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: which the court recognizes the constitutional problem while worrying over
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: the fact that there's no clear standard for them to apply.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: How do you square not being able to figure out
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: when a map is too partisan with not being able
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: to figure out or with being constitutionally required and legally
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: required to to figure out that it is to disenfranchising towards, say,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: black voters.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: Well, that's why it's kind of a ridiculous distinction. And honestly,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: the lower courts have figured this out. Lower courts have
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: struck down gerrymandered maps in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, in North Carolina,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: in Michigan, in Ohio. There were just two cases recently
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: in Michigan and Ohio that were unanimous opinions, where Democratic
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: judges and Republican-appointed judges said that this was gerrymandering. I mean,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: so if the lower courts can figure it out, then
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: John Roberts, with his two degrees from Harvard, should be
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: able to figure it out as well. I think the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: court is being purposely naive about how they're approaching this.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: And obtuse.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: It's obtuse. They just don't want to, and that's the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: problem here.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: Right, because presumably they could have just said, you know,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: it's hard to define a clear standard, but you know
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: it when you see it, right? You know, like the
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Wisconsin map is so.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: If there is such a thing as partisan gerrymandering, it
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: is the Wisconsin map, right?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you have a situation where Republicans for the state
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: assembly in Wisconsin in 2018 got 45% of the votes,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: but 64% of seats. I mean, so there was a test,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: not to get too wonky here, but I mean, the
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: lower courts were applying a test. They basically were saying,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: is there evidence of discriminatory intent? So were there statements
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: in the record and the like that showed that this
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: map was done for obvious gerrymandering reasons? Was there an
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: effect of it? Basically, did it have the effect of gerrymandering?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: And was it durable? Did it last for a long time?
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: For example, like in Wisconsin, where there was this huge
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: disconnect between the number of votes you're getting and the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: number of seats you're getting. That's not that complicated. And honestly,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: that would rule out all except for the worst gerrymanders.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: You'd only strike down like, you know, a few maps
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: from a few different states under that standard. So it
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have been that hard to do this. And the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: justice absolutely could do that. And they either didn't do
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: it because of self-interest, they didn't want all these cases
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: to be heard, or because they're very political. And they
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: knew that Republicans have done a lot more jurying than
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: Democrats of late. Both parties are guilty of this, but
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: Republicans have done it in far more places, in far
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: more egregious ways since the 2010 election. They knew this
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: was going to help the Republican Party. And by saying, oh,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: the courts can't review it, it made it seem high-minded.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: But really, all it did was ensure that the next
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: redistricting cycle is even going to be more gerrymandered and
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: more rigged than the last one.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: So do you think Democrats need to fight fire with
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: fire in states where they control the ability to redraw
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: the maps? Should Democrats now do their best to create
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: partisan Democratic gerrymanders?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: I don't think so, because maybe I'm naive, but I
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: look at this from the perspective of voting rights, and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: I don't like gerrymandering no matter who's doing it. So
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: I was just as hopeful that the Supreme Court would
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: strike down the Democratic gerrymander in Maryland. as i would uh...
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: i would probably would strike down the republican gerrymander in
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: north carolina i think it's bad for our democracy when
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: either party is trying to read the system i think
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: increasing the democratic party is moving in the direction of
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: fair maps You have Eric Holder's group, for example, saying
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: that they want independent redistricting commissions, things like that. You
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: have Barack Obama taking that position. So I think the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: Democrats are moving more and more towards a good government
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: position on this. And you can say that's unilateral disarmament,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: and I'm sure there is some disconnect between the Obama people,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: some of the good government people, and some of the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: legislatures in these states who probably want to gerrymander now
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: to protect themselves. But that's not something that I support.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: I think gerrymandering is bad for our democracy, no matter
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: who's doing it.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: But the implications there are that
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: .
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: But I think a
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: lot of Democrats even are going to have problems with that.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: You've actually talked to Eric Holder a fair amount recently.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: You just had a piece run. It's out now on
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Mother Jones.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: What did you.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: Learn in spending time with Eric Holder, whose organization is
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: fighting gerrymandering and vote suppression on the local level?
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: Thanks for mentioning that. So I have a new feature
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: out in the latest issue of Mother Jones, and basically
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: it's about the work of Democrats led by Eric Holder,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: the former Attorney General under Obama, to fight gerrymandering. And
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: essentially what happened is the Democrats lost nearly 1,000 state
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: legislative seats under Obama. Republicans were able to take over
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of key swing states, virtually every key swing state.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: The first thing they did was pass these really gerrymandered maps.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: And they're still in power in all of these states
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: nearly a decade later in Wisconsin, North Carolina, in Pennsylvania,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: I'm really concerned about and what really motivated me to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: write the piece is that I don't think Democrats are
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: aware that in 2019 and 2020, these elections are going
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: to determine the next cycle of redistricting and that if
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: attention is not paid to it, 2020 could be a
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: repeat of 2010, where Republicans run the map in all
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: of these states because Democrats aren't paying attention to it. Obviously,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: there were external factors in 2010 that might not exist
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: in 2020, namely the economy was terrible, it was the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: first midterm under Obama, all of these things that you remember,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: of course, John. But still, you have to pay attention
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: to these state races. They're not just going to magically
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: flip if you don't do something about them. And what
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: I saw, spending time with Holder, for example, I went
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: with him to Wisconsin where he was trying to win
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: this really important seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court so
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: they could try to flip that court. Because remember, the
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: Wisconsin Supreme Court has been one of the courts that's upheld,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: for example, the voter suppression laws they've done in Wisconsin,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: just recently upheld the lame duck laws that strip power
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: from the new Democratic governor. So he was trying to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: flip this really important state legislative seat in Wisconsin, and
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: they lost the race by 6,000 votes. And the same
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: Republican group that helped gerrymander the state legislature put a
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: bunch of money behind this really right-wing candidate named Brian Hagedorn,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: who used to be a former counsel to Scott Walker.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: And what Holder told me was this is a wake-up
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: call for Democrats, that if we just focus solely on
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: the presidential campaign and ignore these state races, we're going
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: to be in huge trouble, that the party has made
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: amazing strides. They've flipped nearly 300 state legislative seats in 2018.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: There was a lot of focus on down-ballot races in
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: a way there wasn't in 2010. But if it's only
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: the presidential race and we don't spend the time and
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: the resources on the state races, Republicans are going to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: control state power for the next decade after the redistricting
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: cycle in 2021. So that's really the biggest takeaway I
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: had from spending time with him.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the census.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Trump administration
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: needed a better argument for adding the citizenship question. Donald
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: Trump's trying to buy time to let that happen, even
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: though questionnaires have to be printed soon.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: What happens next? with the census?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: It was a very convoluted opinion. It was kind of like,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: be racist better, essentially. Right.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: You made it so hard for us. The paper trail
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: is too obvious, and you lied to our faces.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: It made it impossible to help you.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: Exactly. If only you were a little bit better at lying,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: this would have been okay. Because essentially what John Roberts
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: said in the census case was that you can add
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: a citizenship question. It's lawful under the law, which the
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: four liberals dissented from. but that you need a better
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: reason for this because the Trump administration's rationale for adding
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: the citizenship question was that they needed it to enforce
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: the Voting Rights Act, which is absolutely ludicrous because the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Trump administration hasn't filed a single lawsuit to enforce the
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act. And everyone knows they're the last people
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: in the world that want to enforce the Voting Rights
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: Act or protect voting rights. And from the very, very beginning,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, who made this decision to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: add the question, was talking to people like Jeff Sessions
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: and Chris Kobach and Steve Bannon who are the most anti-immigrant,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: anti-voting rights people in the Republican Party. And that was
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: even too much for John Roberts. And he said this
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: argument that it's needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: and John Roberts' phrase seems to be contrived, which is
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: the understatement of a century, but nonetheless an acknowledgment of reality.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: And so basically what happens now is he kicked it
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: back to the Trump administration, and he basically said, come
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: up with a better reason. The problem for the Trump
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: administration is, A, I don't think they have a better reason,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: or they're not going to say what their real reason is,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: and that, B, time is running out because the Trump
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: administration has argued over and over that the census forms
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: need to be finalized by the end of June. Well,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: we've already reached that point. So they're going to have
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: to delay this. The census is a huge $ 10 billion
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: to $ 15 billion operation. It can't be moved easily. And
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: then also, there are two other courts in New York
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: and in maryland that are looking at additional pieces of evidence,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: namely that a Republican redistricting mastermind, a guy by the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: name of Tom Hoffler, that he pushed this question to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: try to help, in his words, Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: So there's all of this discriminatory evidence that the Supreme
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: Court hasn't even considered yet. And Donald Trump's talking about
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: extending it, delaying the sentence in his words, but the
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: sentence is cautiously mandated to begin in April of 2020.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: So for all of those reasons, it's very, very difficult
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: to imagine a good faith way to put this question
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: back on the census. That doesn't mean that the Supreme
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: Court won't bail the Trump administration out in the fall
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: or something like that in a replay of a travel
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: ban case. But for now, it's hard to imagine under
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: any normal procedure this question getting back on there.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because the evidence that came out of that,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is the expert who passed away whose
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: daughter found the materials, right?
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: That revealed that there was both a partisan and racial intent.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: It actually goes to the core of this problem and
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: the path, Robert, to setting up, which is if you
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: want to do racially motivated exclusions, you need to come
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: up with a believable partisan or justifiable rationale so that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: we can get away with letting you do what you
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: want to do.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: And that's what this late Republican strategist did. He basically said,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: this is going to help Republicans and whites. We need
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: to say it's going to help enforce the Voting Rights Act,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: but we all know that's not true. We all know
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: it's going to harm Hispanics and other minority groups who
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: are going to be less likely to respond to the census,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: and then they're going to be excluded from redistricting and
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: other things that you can do as a result of
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: the census. So this is going to be a really
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: interesting test. It's kind of the same legitimacy test for
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: John Roberts. Time and time again, he said that he
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: values the legitimacy of the court, but he sided with
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: the Republican Party and with white political power. He did
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: it again in the gerrymandering cases. In the census case,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: he was not. willing to do that. But he also
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: didn't shut the door on this thing. And the fact
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: that he didn't shut the door on it is making
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: a lot of people nervous, because they think the Trump
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: administration is going to do whatever they can to try
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: to get this question on the census, because they really
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: want to be able to diminish the political power of
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: immigrant communities, and by extension, the political power of Democrats,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: since many immigrants live in heavily Democratic areas, both economically
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: and politically. And they're going to do whatever they want
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: to try to get this question back on. And ultimately,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court's going to be okay with it. That's
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: the fear here because this fight's not over.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: So one last question, just sort of stepping back around
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: voter suppression, around gerrymander, on the census question. You know,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: we're in this position where for Democrats, the answer to
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: all of these anti-democratic maneuvers is more democracy, to turn out,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: to donate, to vote, to fight back. Do you worry
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: at all about a point at which these anti-democratic measures
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: will have been so successful that Democrats won't have, that
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: overcoming them with democracy, with votes, with turning out, with enthusiasm,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: won't be able to surmount the obstacles against us. And
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: do you view that as a line we're close to?
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: I think it's already happening, John. I think if you
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: look at a place like Wisconsin, where every single cycle
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: Republicans are getting fewer votes for the state legislature, But
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: a majority of seats, I think we've already crossed that point,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: at least with state legislative elections in a bunch of states.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: We've seen this over and over and over, that democracy
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: is not prevailing in places like Michigan and in places
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: like North Carolina or Wisconsin. And that's why I think
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: it's important not just to pay attention to elections, but
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: to pay attention to the conditions under which the elections
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: take place. I think a lot of times we don't
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: do that. And one of my concerns in the 2016
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: cycle was, After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: it was the first presidential election in 50 years without
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. And there
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: wasn't a single question about it in 25 presidential debates.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: There wasn't a single question about voting rights. So a
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: lot of people didn't even know what was going on.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: And already in 2020, we had two debates. One of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: the debates took place the same night as the census
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: and gerrymandering decisions. And those decisions never even came up.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: So obviously, people can get their news in ways other
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: than the debates. But I think it's indicative of the
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: fact that we're spending so much time talking about polling,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: so much time talking about the elections, and not nearly
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: enough time talking about the conditions under which the elections
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: take place. And so I think we often have to
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: pay attention to these non-sexy structural issues because they, in
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: many ways, are going to determine the outcome of the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: elections that we spend so much time talking about.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: Ari Berman, thank you for joining us.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: Great to talk to you again. Thanks, John.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ari Berman for joining us today. Thank you, Ari.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: Everyone have a great 4th. You know.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: Something happened with the Knicks.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Catch that parade.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: What happened with the Knicks?
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: That's a story for another time. Love it.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: Something happened with the Knicks.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: All bad things happened to the Knicks.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: Bad things happened to the Knicks.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: My Knicks.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: Not my Knicks. James Dolan is bad.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: Thanks, Elijah.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Got our favorite Wesleyan bread over here. All right, everyone.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: Talk to you later.