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“Raise Caitlyn Jenner’s taxes!” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: On today's show, President Biden prepares to roll out an
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: ambitious agenda ahead of his first address to a joint
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: session of Congress. The potential recall in California gets more
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: attention now that Caitlyn Jenner has declared her candidacy for governor.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: And Republicans trot out some truly ridiculous arguments against D.C. statehood.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Then Tommy talks to Hunter Biden about his new book,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Beautiful Things. But first, you don't have to watch Wednesday's
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: joint session speech alone. We're reviving the group thread. Yay,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: group thread. Exciting.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I missed it.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I missed it, too. So come follow along with us
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: and some other folks from the Crooked Media universe. The
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: whole family is going to be here at YouTube.com slash
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Crooked Media on Wednesday night, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Come join us.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: It'll be fun. All right.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Let's get to the news. On Wednesday evening, Joe Biden
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: will mark 100 days in office with his very first
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: address to a joint session of Congress. We'll dig into
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the speech in a second, but I do want to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: start with the political context. Virtually all the major news
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: organizations released polls over the weekend that give the president
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: an average job approval of about 54%, with 41% disapproving.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Basically the mirror image of Trump's polling at this point
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: in his presidency. Nearly 70% of voters are pleased with
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Biden's handling of the pandemic and majorities approve of both
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: his COVID rescue plan and his infrastructure plan. But he
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: only gets around 30% for his handling of border security
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: and immigration. That's his worst issue. And his approval among
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Republican voters is around 10%. I'll stop there to give
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: you guys a chance to react. Tommy, anything in these
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: numbers that you found surprising or at least notable?
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Also, I know we pretend 100 days is a big mark,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: but you'd think that these media outlets would talk and
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: space out their polling since it's very expensive and clearly
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: redundant here, but I digress.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Just a polling dump.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: It's just like, we don't need all the same numbers.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: A couple of things jumped out at me. One, 78%
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: of Republicans strongly disapprove of how Biden is handling the job.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: That is higher than the equivalent number of Democrats who
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: strongly disapproved of how Trump was doing at this point.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: And it's almost double the comparative number for Obama in 2009.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: To me, that just shows how deep and how damaging
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the Trump election lie really was. And I think if
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: reporters or anyone else that want to wring their hands
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: about polarization, look no further than that number. Polarization is
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: really the theme of this whole thing. I mean, Dan
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: made this point in his newsletter, but Biden has done
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: an incredible job handling COVID. He's gotten shots in arms faster,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: and he mailed cash to millions of people. But his
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: approval rating now is just barely over his election number,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: which speaks to how hard it is to move numbers
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: these days. You also see it on the numbers within
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: the economy. So 58% of Americans rated the economy negatively.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: That's unchanged from a previous ABC poll in September of 2020.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about the ABC poll here. But what's interesting
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: here is Democrats' views on the economy went from 18%
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: positive in September to 49% positive today. Republicans viewed the
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: economy positively. 69% of Republicans viewed the economy positively in September,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: and 35% of them view it positively today. So The
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: numbers stayed in the same place, but the parties just
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: completely flipped their views of the economy based on who
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: is in charge. That just speaks to how we're just
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: being pulled in the direction of whatever team we're on.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: The good news for Biden is the COVID rescue package
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: remains popular. The infrastructure spending he wants to do is wildly,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: shockingly popular. It's even popular to raise taxes on businesses
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: to pay for it. A lot of good things for
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: him in terms of agenda and the things he wants
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: to do, the challenge is just going to be the
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: fact that like the country is just supporting whatever team
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: they're on. And that's a tough place to be if
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: you're trying to move numbers.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I do want to stay on that for a second,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: because I think, as you said, and as Dan pointed
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: out too, polarization sort of is the defining characteristic of
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: politics today. I think it's being driven primarily by the
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: different information ecosystems we all inhabit, right? Like The idea
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: that 70% of the country approves of how Biden's handling
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the pandemic, and it's the number one issue on voters'
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: minds in a lot of these polls, and yet it's
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: not driving the approval rating necessarily. The approval rating is
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: at 54%, which is just a couple points above his
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: vote share in the 2020 election, which was 51%. And also,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: even when you get into questions of ideology, most voters
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: still think that he's somewhere in the middle, right? 42%
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: say he's moderate in the NBC poll. 48% say his
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: views are just about right in the Washington Post poll.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: So it's not like you've got a bunch of voters
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: out there saying they don't like him because of his ideology,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: because he's too liberal or too conservative, whatever. It's partisanship.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It's pure partisanship driving these numbers, which makes you realize
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: that Biden is playing on a very narrow, narrow field
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: between now and 2022 and now in 2024. And there
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: aren't many minds that that he can convince or Democrats
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: can convince either way, no matter what they do, good
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: or bad. Love it. What did you think? What did
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: you think about that?
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: I think I would see it differently than that. So
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I'm not disagreeing with what you're describing when you call
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: it polarization, but it's really not polarization. I think what
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: we're seeing is like a Fox News tax tax The
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: grace period that a Democratic president would get from Republicans
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: or a Republican president would get from Democrats just didn't happen.
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: Even Barack Obama in 2009 had higher approval rating numbers
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: amongst Republicans at the beginning of his term. And I
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: think what you saw over the course of the Obama
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: administration over eight years is the rise of this Fox
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: News ecosystem, which had always been there, obviously, with right-wing
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: talk and right-wing radio. But the rise of Facebook, the
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: rise of these closed information ecosystems, what you see is
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: Republican support for Barack Obama starts dropping from where it was,
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: low 30s, high 20s. It starts to drop and drop
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: and drop. And then it craters, stays around 10, 15, whatever,
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: so a low number. And it never comes back up.
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: It never comes back up. And Joe Biden has not
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: been afforded the same grace period because the information ecosystem
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: is now so closed that there's no space for that
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: to happen. And like, you know, His approval rating amongst
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: independents is in the 60s. His approval rating among Democrats
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: is in the 90s. His approval rating among Republicans is very,
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: very low. And people will say, oh, like this is
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: a mirror image of what happened under Trump. But independents
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: under Trump stayed relatively low. They moved between like, you know,
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: the 30s and the 40s.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: When I said marriage, I mean, it's like Trump is
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: different than sort of Trump is outside what you'd expect
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: from typical polarization because Trump's approval rating was shit at
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: But that's like you said, it's purely because of independence.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: The Democrats and Republicans for each successive Democratic and Republican president,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: you're seeing that even more Democrats are approving of the
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Democratic president and even more Republicans are approving of the
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Republican president as we go on to successive presidents. with
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the independents basically being the only group that sort of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: swings back and forth.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: But what's interesting is in the numbers is the Democrats
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: and the independents move a little bit more together because
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: they're living more in reality than.
• 7:53
  Speaker 6: This cordoned off group of Republicans.
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: And so when we call it polarization, really it is this,
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: you know, 30 to 40 percent of the electorate that
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: is now fully isolated itself. And they will be at
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: zero for a Democrat and they will be in the
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: 90s for a Republican.
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: And we just have to.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: Except, you know, I see some pundits say, oh, you know,
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden's approval rating may be above 50, but it's
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: the lowest for any new president. But that's the tax.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: That's like the Fox News tax that we're going to
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: have to accept. And the electorate is behaving like election
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: day is tomorrow the entire time. You know, polarization, spikes, polls,
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: people move apart before presidential elections. Now that's just sticky
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: and that's just continuing. Right.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I do think, Tommy, I don't know if you agree
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: with this, but like to me, this validates Biden's strategy
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: or at least it explains Biden's strategy so far, which
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: is like do a lot of big things, pass a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: lot of your policies, which are popular without politicizing them,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: or at least to the extent that you can.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Like he's always talking about how his plans will help
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Republicans and. You know, the Republicans support his plans. He
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: also tries to stay out of these culture wars to
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: the extent that he can while still standing up for
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: progressive values. Like, it does seem like the Biden people
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: understand that with their approval rating among Republicans as low
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: as it is, and they're not really going to fix that.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: They can't afford to piss off either independents or Democratic-based voters.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, in the CBS poll, they asked, like,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: do you want to see congressional Republicans try to compromise
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: and find common ground, blah, blah, blah. Like, 70% of
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: voters want to see the parties find common ground. common ground.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: When then you ask these same voters in the CBS poll,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: and what have the Republicans in Congress done? 61% of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: them said they opposed Joe Biden as much as possible,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: whereas 58% of them said Joe Biden is trying to compromise.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: So I think that absolutely validates the Biden strategy, despite
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: all the hand wringing about like, how does Joe Biden
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: define bipartisanship? He's kicking the shit out of Republicans in
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Congress when it comes to this exact metric. So I think,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: you know, ultimately, like, I think we make too much
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: of these bipartisanship numbers in these polls. Like, sure, people
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: want to see Washington get along and, you know, play nice.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: But in reality, I think they'll they care much more
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day about the sort of
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: policy things we're talking about, like the COVID relief bill
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: than they do, you know, tone.
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: Well, I feel like you can look back and say, okay, well,
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: they decided to pass the COVID relief bill without a
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: single Republican vote. How has that affected the approval rating
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: of the COVID relief bill? It's incredibly popular.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter.
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: Once it's passed, it's passed.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: You know, what's interesting is you see that the bigger
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: issue now is that the infrastructure plan, while popular, is
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: less popular than the COVID rescue plan. And part of
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: that is it's not because, oh, Joe Biden hasn't gone
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: after Republicans on the infrastructure plan. It's Enough people don't
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: know what's in it. And also, I think that with
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: the American Rescue Plan, you have the checks and people
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: could understand that they were going to get a check
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: in the mail. Part of this whole fucking thing, why
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: it drives me nuts that we keep talking about infrastructure
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: and how to define everything as infrastructure as opposed to
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: just jobs, is people need to know what's in this
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: plan for them. Like the Biden strategy is very simple.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It's like, let's do things that make people's lives better,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that they can see is going to make their lives better.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And even with polarization as it is, we're going to
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: go into 2022 knowing that we could be fucked in
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the midterms just because of the way polarization is. But
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: from now until then, we're going to get everything done
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that we possibly can to improve people's lives, to give
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: us the most fighting chance possible in the midterms.
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like you see on the infrastructure, the
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: infrastructure proposal that two to one people support making major
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: changes to get Republican votes. But it's like, well, If
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: there's no real understanding of what Republican changes would be
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: versus Democratic changes, what actually are the ideological divides on
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: the issue?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, sure.
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: Major changes.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: Whatever.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: Major changes to get Republican votes. Sounds good to me.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: It's play acting.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it is.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about Wednesday night. The president's first speech to
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Congress isn't technically a State of the Union. It's just
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: referred to as an address to a joint session. So
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: there's that. Biden is delivering his later than most presidents
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: and to a smaller in-person audience because of COVID protocols.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Only 200 people will be in attendance. Members of Congress
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: can't bring guests, no cabinet members, only Chief Justice Roberts
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: from the Supreme Court, and only the chairman of the
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs from the military. The speech will also mark
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: the first time that two women, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: have ever sat behind the president on the dais.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: You want to talk about what you and I endured
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: while writing these monstrous speeches and what the goal is
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: supposed to be?
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: Well, I feel like every administration starts out with a plan.
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: to deliver a shorter, tighter, message-driven, non-laundry list version of
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: this speech. And then that plan meets the reality of
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: all the different pieces of the agenda that need to
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: be included. And that the state of the union or
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: the joint address, it becomes a deadline.
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: Everybody loves a deadline.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: And it becomes this kind of organizing moment through which
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: a bunch of different fights play out. But of course,
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: that internecine arguments over policy agenda items doesn't tend to
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: redound to like, exquisite writing, you know, does it tend
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: to lead to the best rhetoric?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: It's tough. I mean, we did. You know, that's why
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: you you try to keep it as short as possible.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: You try to inject moments of levity, which thank God
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: you were there for a long time in the White
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: House and you helped with this. I think we have
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: a clip of one of your your best jokes from this.
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: This is unbelievable. We got rid of one.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: dairy farmers to spend ten thousand dollars a year proving
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that they could contain a spill because milk was somehow
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: classified as an oil product. With a rule like that,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk. I'm
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: federal agency looking over his shoulder.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: Now, let's be clear here. That was your joke. That
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: was your joke. My joke, which I think was deemed
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: too edgy. It was too edgy for the State of
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: the Union.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: It wasn't.
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: It was just a different, worse joke.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: But my joke was, I don't see why we're making
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: such a big deal out of a problem that can
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: be solved with Oreos. That was my joke.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you can see why that really would have
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: cleaned things up if we just added that in there, too.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: I just... Yeah, no, that was my joke. It was
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: fucking terrible. I will blame everyone else in the federal
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: government for seeing the speech, and not one person flagged that.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Not one person flagged that awful joke, including Barack Obama.
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: It worked.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: It worked.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: It was fine.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: It was fine.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I thought I was going to quit the next day. Tommy,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: what do you think that the small in-person audience and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: lack of guests does to the speech? And also, apparently,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: I saw this in Punchbowl the other day, a bunch
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: of Republicans in the House and the Senate... have already
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: said they're not going to attend.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: So, I mean, I guess if Congress, if they can't
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: bring guests, that means that Matt Gaetz can't bring another
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Holocaust-denying journalist, which is a thing that actually happened. I
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: don't totally get these COVID protocols. I mean, especially if
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: they're all vaccinated, but whatever. Those who watched the Oscars
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: last night probably got a decent dry run of how
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: it might look and feel different, which is just smaller.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: There's a little less energy in the crowd. You know,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: it's just like the room feels bigger. I wonder if
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Biden can bring guests because often the White House has
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: a guest, you know, sits in the in the box
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: of the first lady. And those individuals bring some of
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: the biggest emotional moments in these speeches.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: You can imagine Biden bringing out a veteran who'd served
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: multiple tours in Afghanistan to thank him or her for
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: their service and highlight that the war is ending. And
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: those are usually resonant and sort of like a clip
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: for the news. Again, like if these Republicans no show,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I think that it ultimately is not that big of
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: a deal. But I do think that will add to
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Biden's case that he is being more bipartisan and reasonable.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: And then these Republicans just are like petulant brats who
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: no-show the joint session. I mean, that seems very silly
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I would note it in the speech to try to
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: fuck them. I would do it in a very nice way.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: But if there's a bunch of them who doesn't come
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: and be like, and look, I'm trying my hardest to
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: work with Republicans on all these priorities. Some of them
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: didn't even want to show up tonight. I hope that
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: can change. Sorry, you couldn't make it. Twist the knife
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: a little. Lovett, I don't know if you remember, but the...
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: In the first year we did this, Obama floated. You know,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: he's like, I think one of the most annoying things
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: about the State of the Union is that like one
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: side gets up and claps and the other do. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: then there's everything's interrupted with applause. And maybe we should
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: tell Congress in advance, we should talk to Nancy and
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Harry and say, you know, don't have them stand up
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: and no one should clap. And so it could just
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: be like a shorter speech that's like more emotional. And
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I think immediately like Axelrod and- gibbs and everyone was
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: like yeah that's not a good idea what was the.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: Year but what was in their year where they were
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: like let's not sit let's not sit on opposite sides
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: of the aisle let's each go with a republican.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah everyone like every every democrat republican like brought
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: an opposite member of the party trying to sit so
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: it was like some fucking performative theater bipartisan bullshit that
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: was terrible but i like i think that the lack
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: of people in there um the fact that there's not
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: going to be as much energy and applause speaks to
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: the need to have an even shorter speech as usual
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: that's more thematic and less and that includes less applause
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: lines which by the way biden has done this before
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: he's practiced this because his whole campaign he was robbed
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of huge crowds that you usually get during a presidential
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: campaign it's the way he gave the convention speech it's
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: the way he gave the election night speech so he's
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: sort of practiced in this but i do wonder if
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: it's going to be shorter because of that and i
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: think it could be more effective.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: That way i do also think well first of all
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: what i would what I hope is happening is if
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: Republicans refuse to go, Nancy Pelosi is like, okay, those
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: will just be more applauding, standing Democrats in the space.
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, like I do think it can be a shorter speech.
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: It's also.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: Like it is every time you see a space that's
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: usually filled, that's spread out, it reminds everyone of the
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: gravity of the moment and why he was elected and
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: the task before him.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I think it is Yeah, there's going to be masks, too, right?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Like Kamala and Nancy will have masks on, I'm sure.
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: It's I think the last part of, you know, hopefully
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: we're moving out of this pandemic. And if we are,
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: this will be one of the last major events in
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: which his the you know, it is defined by the
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: reality of the pandemic and that will be infused in
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: the speech. And I think only adds to the credibility
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: he has gained on this issue. as somebody largely respected
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: even by a lot of Republicans for his leadership on COVID.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: I do think in terms of what he needs to achieve,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I would probably spend less time on what we've already
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: achieved with the pandemic. People understand that. His approval rating
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: is very high on that. And one of the reasons
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I think the American Rescue Plan was able to pass
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: so easily is They sold that bill really well and
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: including what was in that bill really well and everyone
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: understood that. And I don't think people know that about
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: either the American Jobs Plan or the American Families Plan.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And I would spend a lot of time just really
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: making sure that every single person at home knew exactly
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: what they were going to get out of these bills
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: and how their life was going to change. That would
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: be my main goal. I don't know if you guys
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: think there's anything else they should be– he should be
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: trying to do.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, I like that you guys are– still lobbying
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: for shorter speeches and less work from retirement. I respect
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: that very much. Three of us were talking about tone.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: This is my personal take based on no data, no
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: focus groups, literally what I want to hear. I think
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: that over the last year plus, Biden has done an
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: amazing job consoling the nation through COVID. The cliche about
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Bill Clinton was he felt your pain, but the reality
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: with Joe Biden is that he has endured more pain
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: and all this genuine heartbreak and more than anyone should
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: have to endure. And what's admirable about him as a
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: human being is the way he's channeled that into empathy
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: for others. But I would really like sort of what
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Lovett was saying. I would love to see the balance
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: tip heavily on the side of optimism here, And I
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: don't think it has to be blind optimism or lofty
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: rhetoric about how we've always succeeded. It can be contingent optimism,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: meaning you can say, we've gotten 200 million shots in
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: arms because we passed the COVID relief bill. People could
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: stay in their homes because we sent them checks. We
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: let them defer mortgage payments. I am so optimistic about
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: the future of this country and the economy, but we
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: need to pass this infrastructure bill to get to that
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: even better place.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Like, but I just, I don't want to see us
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: wallowing in how awful things have been because I think
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: people are pretty well aware of how shitty the past
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: year and a half has been at this point. And
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I think I, at least I am just desperate for
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: whatever feels like reality, the new or getting back to
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: like sort of new reality.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I just could not agree more. I mean, I was
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: feeling it watching the beginning of the Oscars last night, right?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: It's like, and, you know, ratings for the Oscars are down,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: ratings for all these award shows have been way down. And,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: you know, my own completely untested theory is part of
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: it is everyone has suffered this past year, many people
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: far more than others, people have grieved. And everyone's dealing
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: with that in their own lives. And when you're tuning
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: into some public event, like there is a limit to
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: how much I think we all want to be reminded
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: of that all the time, right? It is appropriate to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: have a moment of silence for those we've lost and
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: to talk about the people we've lost and the grief
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: we're going through. There's absolutely a moment for that. But
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: then like, you really do have to lift people up
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: at some point because it is, it's just tough to
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: watch and it's tough to keep reminding yourself over and
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: over of that.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: I also, um, You know, there's this like some of
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: the polling around youth approval of Biden has like started
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: this conversation about like just the transformative nature and surprisingly
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: transformative nature of these first 100 days. And a lot
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: of people have also noted this, that that maybe Joe
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: Biden's one of his superpowers is. is he makes every
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: position he takes seem like a moderate consensus view. It's just,
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: it is infused.
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: It's part of his history. It's part of his age.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: It's part of his fact that he's an old white guy.
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: But this is also an opportunity, I think, to make
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: moderate an expansive, progressive definition of politics, to make an
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: argument for the scope of what he's doing in a
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: larger way. Yes, talk about the policies, talk about what
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: they'll do. But now that I think He has the
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: kind of now full backing of Democrats and a lot
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: of respect from progressives as he moves into this next
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: phase of trying to get infrastructure done, trying to get
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: this family plan done. I think it's an opportunity to
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: make a larger case. This is my philosophy. This is
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: my ideology. And stating a claim for this new Democratic
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: consensus in front of the biggest audience it'll have for
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: a very long time.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure he'll do that when he almost certainly
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: will talk about his American Jobs Plan and his new
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: American Families Plan, which reportedly calls for as much as $ 1. 8
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: trillion in spending on national child care, universal pre-K, tuition-free
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: community college, paid family and medical leave, bigger Affordable Care
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Act subsidies, and a four-year extension of the child tax
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: credit that would cut child poverty in half. Biden will
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: also reportedly finance the plan by proposing higher taxes on
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: the wealthy, specifically a higher capital gains tax and a
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: higher top marginal income tax rate. Um, this may sound
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: like a lot of great stuff in one bill, but
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: just to give you an idea of how challenging this
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: will be for Biden, he already got a letter from
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: 17 democratic senators asking him to add healthcare reform to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the American families plan, including an expansion of Medicaid, lowering
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: the eligibility age for Medicare and negotiating lower drug prices.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: Love it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: What do you think the pros and cons are of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: adding all that to the American families plan? Like should
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Biden add healthcare and why do you think he wouldn't?
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: Well, I, It's not, it's not the healthcare bill. It's the,
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: it's a different set of policies. Like I, I want
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: to do those things too, but there's a, you know,
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: I think Saki's talked about this in the briefing room
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: that this bill isn't the, isn't the sum total of all.
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: The administration's priorities.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: If the, if the view is like, we should be
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: doing these healthcare pieces first, like that, there's an argument
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: to be made for that. But on the other hand,
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: at the same time, you have Joe Manchin saying he's
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: not ready to do all kinds of things to pay
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: for this. He's not sure about the expense. Like There
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: are bounds on both sides of this issue. I get
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: pushing to make it more expansive and turning this into
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: a kind of more omnibus health care bill, too. But
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: like getting this giant, massive change to the way in
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: which we do family leave, medical leave, child care, it's
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: a big, giant proposal.
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: And like we can make it even bigger.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: But like, I don't know, it just seems like saying like,
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: why isn't this everything is like is tough to justify.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: It is tough because I think, you know, I know
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: that Jen said it's not the end of his agenda,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: but it sort of is the last train leaving the
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: station before the.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, right.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: We only have two more reconciliation bills. We have the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: American jobs plan that's got to go in one. And
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: then you basically got to have the American families plan
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: go in the other. And then that's all she wrote. Unless, again,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: we're like hoping for the miracle of getting rid of
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the filibuster for just any old legislation. But they're not
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: going to be able to probably do another budget bill.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: There might be one more that you get in right
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: before the midterms, but it's hard to do it in
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: a midterm year, right?
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: You could do it at the beginning.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: You could, like, I don't totally understand why the beginning
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: of 2022 is a period of time where Democrats feel
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: like they can't legislate.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm wondering if the American Families Plan, I think
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: that the American Families Plan reconciliation bill might be stealing
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: it from the beginning of 2022. That's how you're getting
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: in an extra one in 2021.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: The parliamentarians, like, you can do any, we're unlimited. We
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: get all the reconciliation bills we want.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it changes every other day.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: It's really tough. And I think that like the Biden
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: people are thinking they probably, you know, learned another lesson
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: from from the Obama administration is they've learned many like,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: do we really want to dive into a big health
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: care fight on top of everything else if we're going
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: to shore up and expand the Affordable Care Act with
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: all these extra subsidies? That said, expansion of Medicaid, lowering
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: the eligibility age for Medicare, and negotiating lower drug prices, incredibly,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: incredibly popular things, super important, would change a lot of lives.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: But that's not to say that, of course, all the
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: other things they're going to do in the American Families
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Plan wouldn't also change lives. I mean, this is some
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: pretty big stuff. Universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, the child
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: tax credit alone, basically Social Security for kids, making it permanent.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: would be a huge, huge legacy item. So it's tough.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: It's really tough. So Tommy, Republicans are freaking out about
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: the higher taxes on the wealthy, of course, which Axios
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: referred to as eye-popping. Are these tax hikes eye-popping? How
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: should Biden handle the coming tax attack on this?
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I think that he should lean into this fight. So
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: the fact that Biden wants to pay for this infrastructure
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: plan by increasing taxes on businesses is actually more popular
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: than the plan itself. And so what we're talking about
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: here is Trump cut the corporate tax rate from 35%
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: to 21%. Biden is saying, let's raise the corporate tax
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: rate back up to 28%. I don't think anyone thinks
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: the sky is going to fall then. I don't think
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: that's eye popping. And voters are also broadly supportive of
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: increasing taxes on the very wealthy. And so what Biden
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: wants to do is return the top marginal income tax
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: rate to 39.6%, which is where it was before the
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Trump tax cut. And then he wants to fix part
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: of the tax code that is just clearly unfair that
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: says money you make from investments will be taxed at
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: a lower rate than money earned from work, right? So
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: a millionaire who sells a stock that they've owned for
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: more than a year pays a 20% federal rate. That's nuts.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Biden will basically make that tax rate the same as
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: what that person would pay on income. And they'll get
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: rid of loopholes that allow rich people to save tons
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: of money on taxes when they die and they pass
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: on assets like artwork or like stocks So I think
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: the whole thing is pretty logical. Someone who just passively
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: owns an asset shouldn't pay less tax on income derived
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: from that thing than an individual who's a construction worker
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: or a doctor or some other job. And then to
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: the eye-popping description, I mean, the top marginal tax rates
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: were in the 70% bracket in the 70s. They were
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: as high as 94% right after World War II. Those
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: are eye-popping numbers. I think what most people think is
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: that the really eye-popping offensive thing about US tax policy
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: and what it is allowed to happen in this country
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: is the economic inequality. So it's funny, like Republicans, you
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: can tell they're just like desperate to call Biden, you know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: sort of a tax and spend liberal. But When you
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: look at the Democrats' tax cuts, including the March stimulus,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the net effect is to drive down tax rates on
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: low and middle income people so much so this year
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: that those earning less than $ 75, 000 on average will owe
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: nothing in federal income taxes. That's where we want to
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: be as a party, cutting taxes for people making less
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: than 75 grand, raising taxes on billionaires who are passing
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: along artwork to their kids. It feels like a no brainer.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I would have a huge portion of the speech Wednesday
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: night taking on this tax issue. I would be running
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: ads about it. I would be goading Republicans into this fight.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: It is the most popular issue that we could fight on.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And like you said, Tommy, the corporate tax increase is
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: more popular than the infrastructure plan. And the tax increase
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: on wealthy individuals and capital gains taxes is even more
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: popular than the corporate tax increase because, you know. corporations
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: say oh if you raise taxes on us we'll pass
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: them on to consumers and sometimes people buy that stuff
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: like that but raising taxes on wealthy individuals on the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: top one percent or in the case of the capital
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: gains like the top 0.4 percent is like a 70
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: percent issue uh donald donald trump was least popular two
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: times in his presidency two times of all the bad
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: shit he did the insurrection, the caging children, everything, the
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: two times he was the least popular was when he
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: tried to pass that tax cut for the rich and
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: we try to take people's health care away. That's when
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: he was least popular. And so like if Republicans do
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: not want to have a fight, at least the smart
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Republicans do not want to have a fight about taxes.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: And Biden should take it to them every single day
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: from now until the midterms.
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I by the way, I assume the reason he's
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: starting with the cap gains rate, ultimately, if you include
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: like the Obama surcharge above the top marginal rate is
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: because he's actually negotiating with Democrats from wealthier states. That's
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: where this negotiation will largely take place. Yeah.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: I mean, the Republican position is no taxes on inheritance,
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: no tax on wealth, lower taxes on corporations, and the
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: ability for families to perpetually pass on assets while never
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: paying taxes as those assets gain in value.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: It's a workers' party now. It's a workers' party.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: The Republican position, the official position is for, that is oligarchy.
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: That's what that does.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: That creates a giant pool of basically permanently untaxable wealth
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: that grows and grows and grows and is passed down
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: from generation to generation.
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: And that is like aristocracy. That's what that creates.
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: A situation in which wealth is rarely taxed and is
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: able to accrue in value over generations without ever actually
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: being taxed as it grows is a recipe for creating
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: an aristocracy. That is what they want to do. And
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: that is what they have succeeded in doing over the
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: past few years.
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: And we have to roll back.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: We haven't yet talked about the potential recall election brewing
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: here in our home state, but it's getting a lot
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: more attention now that Caitlyn Jenner announced last week that
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: she's joining the list of candidates who intend to challenge
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Governor Gavin Newsom if the effort moves forward. The current
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: recall petition was first introduced before COVID hit in February 2020,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: but it gained steam when a judge lengthened the window
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: of time to collect signatures as a result of the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: pandemic and conservatives grew frustrated with Newsom's public health restrictions.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Recall supporters say that they have the nearly 1.5 million
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: signatures they need to get on the ballot sometime this fall,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: but we'll know for sure any day now when election
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: officials finish verifying those signatures. Jenner is one of several
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Republicans running, including John Cox, who lost to Newsom by
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: almost 24 points in 2018. and a bunch of other
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: goobers who might potentially run, including Trump Twitter troll Rick
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Grinnell and adult film actress Mary Carey, who ran against
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Gray Davis in the 2003 recall. All right, first, Tommy,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: how common are recall elections? How do they work? And
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: why would a recall be potentially more challenging for Newsom
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: than just a regular election?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: So one thing that folks should know is that this
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: recall could cost the state up to $ 400 million. But
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Gavin is up in 2022. So we might drop $ 400
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: million to recall a guy a year early. That is
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: so stupid. Also, you can recall a politician for basically
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: anything in California. It's not like impeachment where there's some
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: bar you need to reach. You basically need to get
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: signatures from 12% of the voters who voted in the
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: last election to or about 1.5 million people. California is
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: a huge state. You could probably recall Gavin Newsom with
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: like just QAnon believers and anti-vaxxers, which is basically what's happening.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: And as John noted, it's especially easy this year because
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: the organizers got this extra 120 days to collect signatures.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: So it's likely that we will go forward with the
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: recall and voters will ultimately be asked to vote on
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: two things. One, should Gavin Newsom be recalled? And two,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: if he's recalled, who should replace him? Now, The whole
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: fight is over part one, but the thing to know
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: about question two, about like who gets on the ballot
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: is it's again, absurdly easy to get on the ballot.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: You basically have to pay like four grand. In 2003,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: there were 135 candidates on the ballot and you could
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: see exponentially more this time. And so like the reason
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: this is such a bad and dumb process is you
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: just have to win with a plurality. So you could
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: see a Rick Grinnell or a Caitlyn Jenner win with
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: like 15% of the vote. So the good news for
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Gavin is it seems very unlikely that this will work.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Lots of money is pouring in from billionaires and national
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: political parties. But when Gray Davis was recalled in 2003,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Gray Davis was way less popular. And the Democratic registration
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: advantage in the state today is triple what it was then.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: So it's a waste of time. I think it's really
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: annoying for Gavin and his folks. But we do need
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: to pay attention to Because there could be another variant.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: There could be a bad fire season. You never know
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: what could happen. And the people behind this effort are
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: some dark, dark, weird, crazy people. The guy leading the
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: recall effort who filed the petition is a retired cop
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: who posted on Facebook, microchip illegal aliens. It works. Just
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: ask animal control. That's kind of the caliber of person
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: that is behind this.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: So it's worth watching. recalls are circuses.
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: It's a, yeah, no, it's a circus.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: Like, so gray Davis, much less popular state was less
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: democratic and it got to 55% on the first question of,
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: do you want to recall? Uh, and even though there
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: were a ton of people on the ballot, I think
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: Schwarzenegger got like 48%. So it like it coalesced around
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: Schwarzenegger because he was somebody who would actually was a celebrity.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: Obviously it was incredibly well known and also had some involvement, uh,
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: in politics, man, you know, this was supposed to be
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: a crank thing. And then the pandemic happened. I will
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: say if they do have the votes and it seems
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: like they do for the recall, this will be the
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: most expensive French laundry visit, most expensive restaurant meal in
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: like human fucking history. Because it really did like it
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: turned something that was about right wing politics, big VC
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: real estate donors who kind of fund this shit every
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: time into like a larger question about his pandemic response,
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: which is.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: You know, bummer.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Just to underline some of the facts Tommy was giving us. So,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you know, a couple of polls so far. Basically, the recall,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: do you want to recall Newsom is polling at around
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: 40% in the last couple of polls recently. His approval
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: rating is currently at 52%. By contrast, Gray Davis's approval
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: ratings when he was recalled in 2003, the only other
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: governor to ever be recalled in California history. He was
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: in the low to mid 20s. the low to mid-20s.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Of course he was recalled. So Newsom is still, you know,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: it's down from Newsom's approval rating earlier in the pandemic
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: and earlier in his term when he was up at 57-60,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: but he's still at 42. And as Tommy pointed out
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: on the registration, Democrats also account for 46% of the
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: registered voters versus just 24% for Republicans. So that's just
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: the shape of the state, the shape of the electorate
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: just makes it really, really tough. We're also sitting, by
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the way, right now with the lowest per capita COVID
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: infection rate of any state in the continental US right now.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I think only Hawaii is doing better than us.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, governing any state during COVID was really hard.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: We still don't have a handle on why and when
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: these waves came back. So I have some sympathy there.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: I do think people were particularly pissed about reopening a
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: little too early and then some of the questions around schools.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: But I do think by the time this vote actually occurs,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: that should all be solves. But yeah, I just think
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: the thing to underscore is like 12%, you need signatures
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: from 12% of equivalent of the people who voted in
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: the last election. That just means that like everyone, every
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: governor could be recalled at any time because there's always
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: like 12% of your opponent's base that hates you enough
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: to sign one of these signatures. And if you have
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: some billionaire backing a direct mail campaign or an effort
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: to organize it, it's very easy to do. And then
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: the judge gives them another 120 days. I mean, this
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: is very, it's a messy situation, but boy, these California
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: rules are stupid.
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: They're so stupid. They're so stupid. What are we doing here?
• 38:00
  Speaker 6: We're going to spend, he's good.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: He's up.
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: He's up in a fucking year. What are we? It's
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: like ridiculous, ridiculous.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: Nuts.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: So they are stupid. We are living with them. Unfortunately,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: we cannot get rid of the rules. We're facing this.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: What if you're love, if you're Gavin Newsom and you
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: see Caitlyn Jenner enter the race, are you happy? Are
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: you not happy? Like what's your what's your strategy if
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: you're Gavin Newsom in this in this recall election, which
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: he will likely face?
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: I don't think anybody's happy. I don't think you're happy
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: about any of this. I will say, like, I do
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: see a bunch of different people kind of like casting
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: out for what to say around Caitlyn Jenner. I saw
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: Karen Bass talking about the fact that she didn't think
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: Republicans would get behind a trans candidate. I do think
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: the fact that Caitlyn Jenner is a former Trump supporter
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: who is now meeting with Trump campaign manager, former campaign
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: manager Brad Parscale, and that her strategy seems to be
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: entirely rooted in xenophobia and the same kind of Trump politics,
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: death penalty, attacking the DAs, blaming Gavin Newsom for the
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: decisions of separately elected district attorneys, I think is where
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: I would be focused on. This is a Republican-backed, Trump-money-backed,
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: real estate interest-backed effort, and I would be attacking the
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: whole effort and then Caitlyn Jenner as the face of
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: it for being a right-wing Trump-backed... I see people calling
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: Caitlyn Jenner the Republican candidate. I would think about calling
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: her the Trump candidate, given how much Trump interest is
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: now behind her, and I would be focusing on that.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think? What do you think about
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Caitlyn Jenner's entrance to the race, and how would you
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: run against her?
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, Caitlyn Jenner jumped into the race and immediately...
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: demonstrated why she shouldn't be running and doesn't know anything
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: about politics. Like Lovett just mentioned, she attacked Governor Newsom
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: for decisions made by the San Francisco district attorney. But
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: in California, we vote for our DAs. Gavin doesn't appoint them, right?
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: So like, come on, get your shit together. I would
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: like the real, the campaign is on this first question
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: of should Gavin Newsom be recalled? And if I'm his team,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: I'm going to talk about all the things I did well.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: I'm going to keep sort of like doing the job well,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: get shots in arms, get schools reopened, right? Like show competence.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: And then just say, the way this works is if
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: you vote to recall me, there's a serious chance that
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: you're going to get some hardcore MAGA person, whether it's
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Caitlyn Jenner or Rick Grinnell, one of the most like
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: unhinged assholes to ever, you know, come out of Republican politics.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: So like, you know, that's what it could be. Like
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: the downside risk of recalling Gavin Newsom is so high
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: given how much these votes get split and the fact
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: that you can win with plurality that like, you know, you're,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: you just shouldn't risk it. It'd be my message.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I think you're, I think that's exactly right. It's, it's,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: it's me, Gavin Newsom versus Trumpy and chaos. Because if, if, if, if,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: if you vote and the recall happens, any, any one
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: of these fucking nut cases could end up being your governor.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: And by the way, Like here's our state, lowest COVID
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: infection rate. All of the public health restrictions will be
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: lifted on June 15th. Needs to make sure that all
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: the kids are back in school by the fall as well,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: because you don't want any other issues. But if all
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: those issues are solved, right? Like if the pandemic sort
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: of starts fading in people's minds, or at least some
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: of the public health restrictions, part of the pandemic and
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: people are vaccinated, things are going well, and the state's
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: got surplus budget right now too, then he can tout
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the job he's done and say, it's either me or chaos.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: and a bunch of MAGA people, and that's that. But
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: it's not great. Not great that we're going to have
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: to deal with the whole, the Caitlyn Jenner show for
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: the next however many months.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: I think if you ask, like if you talk to
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: Gavin's people off the record, like this is very annoying.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: They feel like they're very well positioned to beat question one,
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: which is should we be recalled? But you just don't
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: know what you don't know. Like none of us saw
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: a pandemic coming a little over a year ago, right?
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: Like bad things can happen in the state. He could
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: get blamed for it. And so they're taking it very seriously.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: They brought a new staff to bring it on, but
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: it's just, this state is like so close to ungovernable
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: that you throw a fucking recall election on top of that.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: And it's just, it's absurd. I just can't believe we're
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: doing this.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: And then there's the question of whether or not you
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: want some kind of democratic stalking horse in the candidates.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: And like, I like, it is going to be inevitably
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Gavin Newsom's position that you don't want that, that you
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: don't want.
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: To introduce the complexity.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: They don't want that at all.
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: You don't want to, but, but, One of the lessons
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: from 2003 is you don't want that till all of
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: a sudden you wish you really had rallied behind one person.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: In 03, they had Cruz Bustamante on the ticket and
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: just Schwarzenegger mopped up. So yeah, I don't see like someone, look,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: celebrity and name ID is everything. We've all learned that
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: the hard way recently, but I don't know if Caitlyn
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Jenner is the one to do it. Like Schwarzenegger was
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: certainly next level in terms of fame. But yeah, this
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: thing could cut a million different ways.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's why Gavin is vacuuming up endorsements
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: as fast as he possibly can from Democrats so that
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: no one else runs. On the other side, Caitlyn Jenner
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: has not received many endorsements, including not a single endorsement from,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: not a single word spoken from a Kardashian or a Jenner. Khloe, Kendall, Kourtney.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: It's tough. None of them.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: None of them have endorsed the offer yet. It is
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a sad state.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: That what we want to say is this is, of course,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: ridiculous and there's nothing to worry about.
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: But we stopped being able to say that quite some
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: time ago.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: We all just came from the Trump era. If you
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: want to help stop the recall effort, there is a website, stoptherepublicanrecall.com.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: You can find ways to volunteer and donate to make
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: sure this nightmare doesn't happen.
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: One more thing to mention before we get to Tommy's
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: interview with Hunter Biden. The House passed legislation on Thursday
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: that would make the District of Columbia the 51st state,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: granting it two senators and appropriate representation in the House.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: The proposal is now in front of the Senate, and
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Republicans are offering quite a few reasons that they're not
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: happy with it. And Lovett, I believe you've prepared a
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: game for the occasion.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: The District of Columbia. The museums are free, but the
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: people are not. The House has now passed a bill.
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: To make D.C.
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: The nation's 51st state, which would be called Washington-Douglas Commonwealth,
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: named after, of course... Douglas Emhoff. The bill heads to
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: the Senate where Democrats will either change Senate rules and
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: pass the bill with 50 votes or Joe Manchin will
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: use the powers of Kilgrave to find 10 Republicans to
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: support the addition of one beautiful new star to the
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Stars and Stripes. Republicans are scrambling to justify their opposition
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: to granting full and equal citizenship to one of the
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: most diverse regions in the country without saying that they
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: just don't want to create two Democratic senators in perpetuity
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: with a dash of it's pretty black and that just
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: bugs us. This has led to some pretty ornate justifications
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: for opposing statehood. So let's see if John and Tommy
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: can tell the real quotes from the fake ones in
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: a game we're calling DC is a state of mind.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Are you ready?
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: John and Tommy.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: So ready.
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: Some of these are real.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: Some of them are fake.
• 45:09
  Speaker 6: Here we go.
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: There's no, I mean, obviously they're all fake, but some
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: of them were really said. There's no question that DC
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: residents already impact the national debate. For the members here today,
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: how many of you saw DC statehood yard signs or
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: bumper stickers or banners on your way to the hearing today?
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: I certainly did. Where else in the nation could such
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: a simple action reach so many members of Congress?
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: Tommy, I'll start with you.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: Real.
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: That's real.
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: That's Zach Smith from the Heritage Foundation.
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: Next quote.
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: Look, if you're not fracking, you're not a state. It's
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: as simple as that. But I'm here today to talk
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: about the border crisis.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: John?
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Shit.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Real.
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: No, it's fake. I made it up.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: That was good.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: That was good.
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: The twist at the end gave it some.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: The Franken thing totally sounds like something they'd say.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Tommy, over to you.
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: D.C.
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: Wouldn't even qualify as a singular congressional district because of
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: its low population.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Real and said in front of Liz Cheney, who has
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: a lower population, I believe.
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: Yes, that's correct. That's from Congresswoman Nancy Mace.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: D.C.
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: Wouldn't even be the smallest state it would be ahead
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: of Vermont and, yes, Wyoming.
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: John, over to you.
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: Wyoming has three times as many workers in mining, logging,
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: and construction and 10 times as many workers in manufacturing.
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: Wyoming is a well-rounded, working-class state.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Fake.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: That's real.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: From Senator Tom Cotton. If you put it through the
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: Google translator, well-rounded does mean white. That's how you translate
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: that quote. Tommy, you're absolutely crushing it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: Next quote over to you. Enough with the power grab.
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: There are only eight Starbucks locations.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: Fake because there's way more Starbucks than that.
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: That's correct.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: There are only eight Starbucks in Vermont. Alaska has around 20. D.C.
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: has 91.
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: It also wouldn't be a good reason. John, back to you.
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: The founding fathers never intended for Washington, D.C. to be
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: a state.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Real.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: Yes, that's real from Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota,
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: which is one of the smallest states in the country
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: because we made two Dakotas. Fun fact, when President Harrison
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: signed the papers granting statehood to the Dakotas, there was
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: a rivalry of which one got to become a state first.
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: So they shuffled the papers and it's not recorded. We
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: don't know which state became a state first, South Dakota
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: or North Dakota.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting?
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: Fascinating.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: I like that. Yeah. Yeah.
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: It's random.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Let's combine them.
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: Let's combine them.
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: Tommy, to you, DC would be the only state without
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: an airport, without a car dealership, without a landfill.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Real.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: That is real. That was Congressman Jody Heiss of Georgia.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: Of course, DC does have car dealerships. And while it
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: may not have a landfill, it does have a repository
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: of trash called the Heritage Foundation.
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: Tommy, you've won the game.
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: It was a real, it was a stunning defeat.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: It was a rout.
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: It was a rout. When we come back, I don't know, something.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: John, over to you.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden about his new book, Beautiful Things.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: I am very excited to be joined today by Hunter Biden,
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: who is the author of the new book, Beautiful Things. Hunter,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: thanks for doing the show.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Tommy. Thank you.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember this, but we met
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: once before.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: A hundred percent on a plane.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Do you remember this?
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: 2004.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: I'm 24 years old. We're seated next to each other.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: The flight to Boston to the democratic convention. I just
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: been allowed to go by my boss. You made the
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: enormous mistake of asking me why I was headed to Boston.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: And then I think I vomited, um, anxiety and excitement
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: at you nonstop for two hours. So thank you for that.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: Um, um, Yeah, I remember we talked about your uncle. Yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, who was a political writer.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: And then I think about two hours, like an hour
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: 59 into the flight, I said, you know, I realized
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: I forgot to ask you what you're doing here. And
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: you just said to me, I think, oh, you know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: my dad's speaking. You know, you didn't really get into
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: it in any way. Didn't big time me. It was
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: just like, oh, yeah, go and see my dad.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: No, it's so funny because I absolutely remember that vividly, vividly. Yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: That's so funny. God.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: Well, a long time ago. So listen, thank you for
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: doing this. The book, again, is Beautiful Things. it is,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: I felt like it's sort of like two separate books
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: that are inextricably connected, right? There's the part about, you know,
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: the loss of your brother, Beau, and the stories about,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: you know, like the love and resiliency of your family.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: And then there's an account of battles with addiction and
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: a journey to sobriety. And I was hoping we could
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: start by just, you know, talking about Beau, because, you know,
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: what became clear to me from reading the book was
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: that you guys were more than just brothers. You know,
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: you often talked about yourself and Bo or yourself and
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: your dad and Bo is almost like one entity that
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: was bound together by love and by tragedy and these
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: connections that were just unbelievably strong. I was wondering if
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: we could just start by talking about him and that
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: bond you shared with your family, because I do think
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: it's so important to understanding you.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: I love talking about it. So thanks, Tommy. I mean,
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: you had met Bo a number of times, right, Tommy?
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: And he was a special person. to everybody who met him,
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: literally everybody who met him. And for me, I think
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: that Bo and I would have been as close as
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: we were by the nature of my family and the
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: way that we were a year and a day apart.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: And we were the firstborn in my family of that generation.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: And so we were kind of everybody's playthings, my aunts
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: and uncles. But when my mom and sister died, it
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: drew us even closer together in the sense that we
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: were the focus of everyone's love in my family for
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: a very long period of time, trying to make us
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: whole again. And I often, and I talk about this
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: in the book, I felt, I feel a sense of
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: guilt almost in, And talking about that period of time
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: in my life as a trauma, because what I remember most,
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: what is at the forefront of my mind, is just
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: the incredible amount of love that was given to us.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: But in particular, the incredible amount of love that was
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: my brother, period. We were together constantly. And we were
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: with my dad. constantly we had this rule where we
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: could go to um with my dad wherever whenever we
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: wanted um and you know we probably took it took
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: advantage of it a little um too much sometimes but
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: uh so we were you know we'd be on the
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: train with him down to dc running around the halls
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: of the russell senate building my dad took the train
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: back and forth every day and then um that Bond
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: just existed until the day he died. We literally spoke.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: I think people, somebody wrote a thing like, oh my God,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: the president has to call his son every day. Like
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: that must be a burden. My dad has called me
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: every day since the day I left for college. And
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: it's a lot easier to get in touch with me
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: now than it was at other times. But Bo was
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: my rock. And I always kind of considered us two
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: sides of the same coin Uh, and, uh, he was
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: as proud of me as I was of him. And, uh,
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: and it was a, uh, and that's what the, you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you started here because really, you know, the
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: book is really a love story. It's a love letter
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: to those, to the people that, um, they never gave
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: up on, uh, on me. Um, uh, and it's a
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: story that a lot of families I think will understand
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: because so many people are going through it right now. Yeah.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, the book is like a love story about
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: your family. And I feel like I learned a lot
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: about who you are as a group, the character of
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: your father, you know, and it's beautiful in that sense.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: It's also includes some incredibly raw descriptions of tough times
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: in your life, including when Bo was sick. And it
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: was hard to read, but there was part of me
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: that came through this thinking like, it's good for people
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: to read this. Because when my dad died from cancer,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: I couldn't help but notice how often I saw uplifting
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: stories about people beating it, or it described euphemistically, right,
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: as like this person fought valiantly against the disease. And
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: at times it made me mad because my experience was
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: like fucking hell. You know what I mean? Watching someone
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: like deal with how cruel a disease can be and
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: how painful it can be and how traumatizing. that experience was.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: And you know, you said in the book, and you
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: said here, like, you refuse to give yourself the excuse
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: of trauma or tragedy, leading to addiction. But it was
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: hard not to read that and just feel like the
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: accumulation of what you had experienced, or to see how
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: that could read lead to turning to alcohol or relapse
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: down the road. And I just don't know. I was wondering, like,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: you're so you're almost hard on yourself to rule that out.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: And I kind of wondered why.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And I, you know, the thing is, is that
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: I don't, um, I don't rule it out. Uh, but
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: I never want to use it as an excuse. And
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: I also don't, um, uh, want anyone to come away
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: with the impression, which they won't if they read the
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: book of that, my experience is anyway unique. I mean, Tommy, you,
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: the amount of, I mean, you loved your dad and,
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: and having to, uh, go through that is, um, is
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: too often a story that I don't know any, that
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: has not touched someone in some way, whether it's grief
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: and loss, someone dying of cancer, or whether it's a
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: tragic loss, like the loss of my mother and my
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: sister in an auto accident. And what the book is really,
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: I hope, saying to people is you're not alone. And
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: by the way, you know, is that you're not alone
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: in the fact that, that your, your brother, your dad, your,
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: your daughter lost their battle to cancer. It wasn't because
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: they didn't try hard. I know that I understand that
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: frustration that you had. I would get really angry too,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: not angry, frustrated and confused. And I, you know, there's,
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: too many, uh, words to could probably possibly describe that feeling.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: Maybe there's no word that can fully describe the feeling
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: of saying we're fighting too. Like what, what the hell
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: are you talking about? Like, right. And, you know, uh,
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: and then grief is a, is a really funny thing. And,
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: you know, I knew a way to, um, that was
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: kind of the answer to all things for addicts, for
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: someone that suffers from addiction, what I believe is ultimately
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: a brain disease is, is, you know, people ask, why
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: do you do drugs? Well, because they work and they
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: work until they don't. It's the fastest way I know
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: of erasing that pain. And it's the, it's the fastest
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: way to, to, to hold different health for me.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, and so, Look, a lot of memoirs, a
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: lot of books, especially if like you're not a politician,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: but you're someone who's sort of like come from that world,
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: they often sand off the edges or omit the worst details.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: You clearly did not do that. You talk in great
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: detail about alcohol and drug abuse, including extended periods of
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: like sort of nonstop crack use. Why did you decide
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: to just lay it all out? Was that a tough decision?
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: No, it wasn't because when I decided to write the book,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: I knew that the book that I wanted to write
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: was the whole, the full story of the depths of
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: my addiction. Because I don't, I didn't, I think that
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: the value of the story and the reason I'm so
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: vivid about it was to let people know that are
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: suffering sick in the same way that I was. And
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: it's millions of people is that they're not alone. Is
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: that I was, I was truly there. I understand guys.
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: And by the way, to take some of the stigma
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: out of it, take the shame out of it. I mean,
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: I wrote it with the fully cognizant of the fact
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: that my dad was at that time when I wrote
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: the book, the former vice president of the United States
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: and the nominee for, well, he wasn't the nominee at all,
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: but by the time I had finished the book, but
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: a lot of people didn't think he was going to
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: be the nominee. Well, before I finished the book, but
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: the point is, is that, I wanted to let people
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: know that I was there. I was one of those
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: people in that room with them. And someone said to me,
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: we've all been in rooms in which we couldn't die.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: And what he meant by that is that we've all
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: done things that we're not proud of in our addiction
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: and sometimes not even in our addiction in which I
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: wanted to let people know that I was in those
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: room too, and I got out, I made it out. Yeah.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: So there's a period in the book you know when
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: you're you kind of get back to LA and you
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: sort of I think you write that you essentially decided
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: to succumb to addiction and kind of give up on
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: you know like the sense of self you once had
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: this past life and that's when the like the Giuliani
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: attacks about Burisma and everything else really started to ramp
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: up you're obviously like you know using heavily at that
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: point but were you monitoring these things in real time
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: like What was that like to just see this shit
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: just pop up?
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: The truth is that in a way, I had completely
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: insulated myself from it because I was so focused on
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: my addiction. I was so focused. When you're in that,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: at least at the level of addiction that I found
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: myself in, in which I was smoking literally every 15
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: to 30 minutes. And if I wasn't smoking, it was
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: looking for, you know, a way to replenish my, my supply. And,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: and I would get messages in from, from people that
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: cared about me, that loved me and said, Hunter, you gotta,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: you know, address this. You gotta, you know, this story
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: is being written. And it just compounded my, uh, determination that,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: you know, I, um, you know, I'm the lost cause
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: I did. I'd given up on myself. I'd given up on,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: you know, I didn't, uh, I'd lost Bo. Um, uh,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: my daughters desperately, desperately, desperately were constantly, um, uh, trying
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: to save me. I mean, they're, they're the most constant
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: other than my, my dad, um, in, in my life,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: but I decided to just disappear. And strangely enough, what
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: happened was, is that Adam Entos, who's a New Yorker writer,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: got in touch with a friend of mine who is
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: my lawyer, but also my brother's oldest friend and my
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: oldest friend, one of my oldest friends. And he said,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: I'd like to talk to Hunter. And the reason I
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: talked to him is because, you know, I was a snob.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was the New Yorker. I was like,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: I'm going to talk to this guy. You know what
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: I mean? Because I always wanted to write for the
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: New Yorker since I was 16 years old. And he
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: kind of saved my life. It's really interesting. He didn't
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: have any intention of that, but it was really interesting.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: It opened my heart just crack enough to meet Melissa.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you really laid it out to him. It resulted
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: in this 11,000 word piece that came out in, I think,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: July of 2019. Putting on my like political hack hat
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: for a second, in a sense, it was brilliant, right?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: Because as you said in the book, no one's calling
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: up saying like, hey, we're hearing rumors, the Daily Mail
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: and TMZ are reporting. You just fucking laid it all
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: out there. But did you get a call from the
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: campaign that was like, hey, is this coming?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: Tommy, you guys would have killed me. If you guys
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: had gotten wind of this, there is no way. that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: you would have ever allowed it to happen. You would
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: have shut it down so fast. Like I knew, by
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: the way, any professional would have. And I had enough sense,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: and I've been around this long enough to know, that
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: if I had told anybody inside the campaign that, by
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: the way, I'm talking to Adam Entos about all of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: these Giuliani accusations, but I decided also to get into
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: a full description of the level of my crack addiction.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: I think people would have literally, um, and, but in fairness, um,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: and you know, all the players, um, uh, when it
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: did become evident that that's what I had done, they
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: were fully supportive of, um, of, uh, of, of, of
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: speaking the truth because ultimately at the end of the day,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: what I realized is this is that, you know, like,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: we're not much different than anybody else as a family. Right.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't know any family that doesn't have
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: someone that they love, that they respect, that they believe is, um,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: is worth it. That has struggled with addiction. Um, uh,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: or in addiction, I include, um, the most addictive drug
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: in the world. Um, in my opinion, it's alcohol, the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: most destructive. And I don't know anybody that, um, uh, that, uh, when, uh,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: It came out, you know, I think everybody was a
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: little bit shocked because I think what really shocks people, Tommy,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: is crack. Yeah. I think that more than anything, it
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: carries such a, it's such a loaded word and it
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: conjures things that are not necessarily true, but it really
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: kind of shocks the conscious a little bit. Yeah. But anyway.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people saw in me and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: in our family, saw their families and saw themselves.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do too. And look, I've worked in politics
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: for a while. You've been around politics your whole life.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: Neither of us expects it to be gentle or always high-minded.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: That said, like to your point about every family experiences
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: some sort of level of addiction, Donald Trump's brother, Fred,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: died at 43 because of alcoholism. You know, Donald Trump
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: said that had a profound impact on him. But they...
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: they didn't just go after your business dealings. They went
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: after your substance abuse problems, right? Like that little prick
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: Don Jr. like makes jokes about it, right? Like did
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: that level of viciousness surprise you at all? Because it
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: surprised me. I know he's a horrible human being devoid
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: of empathy. That like, it's still, it surprised me on
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: a human level and on a political level, because I
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: just thought to myself, attacking someone for an addiction seems
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: like a fucking crazy thing to do.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: Well, just so there's a bunch of a few different
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: ways that I think about it. I think you do, too.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: You put on your political hat. OK. And you wonder,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: what the hell are they doing this for? Because it
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: seems so vindictive, small and mean. Like, who are they
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: appealing to?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: By doing this. And you just try to figure out
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: that part, which is hard to figure out, because I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: don't think most Americans are small, vindictive and mean spirited. Um,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: then you put on the other, uh, uh, hat is, uh,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: what's their end game? Um, is, uh, what is the,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: you know, what's the, what's the greater grand strategy here?
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: And you realize there is no great strategy. They are
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: just small and vindictive and mean. And, um, but on
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: a personal level, I, I have been. My dad's been
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: a senator since I was two years old. He's been
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: in the middle of national politics my entire life, including
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: at the highest levels with you guys in the administration.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: And I've never experienced or witnessed or know any time
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: in history in which there has been that level of meanness.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, Tommy, you're a student of this.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't think there has been. from
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: soup to nuts with me. And so I finally figured
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: out what it was. I really do believe they consciously
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: understood that the most important thing to my dad was
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: me and his family, not just me, but me, my sister,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: my brother, and his family. And if they could attack
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: me and keep me locked in my prison of addiction, um, or, uh,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: or do worse to me that, um, to his one
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: remaining son, that it would be almost impossible for him
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: to in some way, but they don't know him. They
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: don't know him. They don't know us. And what they
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: didn't count on was that, um, that has always just
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: made us stronger. It made us, um, if we were,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: we were, um, steel where we were reinforced steel by
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: the end of this campaign.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: Well, speaking as a guy who's, um, day can be
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: ruined by a mean tweet. Uh, I have enormous respect
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: for your resilience there and your father's resilience too. I mean, like,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: I guess, you know, for your, for, for your dad,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: for your family, I mean, it must've just been agony
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: watching someone they love so much just be the subject
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: of these attacks. Like where's Hunter? Like what, what is
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: the end game of the where's Hunter attack? Like you're
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: going to like pop your head out of some like
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: bank in Ukraine. Oh, here at like, what the fuck
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: did they think they're going to find?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: Excuse my language. I don't know. I don't know. I mean,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: that's the thing is like, as I said in the book,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: I'm right here. And, you know, I mean, they've done
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: a really good job of continuously harassing us on a
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: personal level. I mean, you know, Bullhorn is outside the house.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: Melissa was pregnant and, you know.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: The text to your daughter really broke me. Like some
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: random person said harassing text to your daughter. I was like,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: how far have we fallen that someone would do that?
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's kind of almost a constant, and particularly
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: during back of the campaign. But it's really crazy, Tony.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: Just the actual story of it is I talked to
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: Adam Entos when Giuliani kind of ramps up these attacks,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: which he clearly is doing this deal in Ukraine, which
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: led to the impeachment and backfired on him. and then
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: all the personal attacks start in the, um, uh, but
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: by then the New Yorker article came out. And so I,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: I felt incredibly inoculated by the fact that, like I said,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: you don't need a laptop. You have my book. Right. And,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: and then that, that was when I met Melissa and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: she started the hard work and I started the hard
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: work of, of getting clean and sober. Yeah. And so
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: all that period of time, when you think that it
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: was like the weight of the world was on me,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: is it, I knew I only had to do one
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: thing right every day, and that was not to pick
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: up a drink or a drug. When you have that
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: level of focus and you realize how close you were
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: to death and how awful your existence was, then you
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: get to wake up next to someone that loves you
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: and reconnect with all of the people that so care
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: about you. And I have to say, literally it's the,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: it's my brother gave me the key to my own,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: the prison of my own making, which was beautiful things.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: And that's the title of the book is I get
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: to wake up every day and I started this practice
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: of just literally counting through my head, all of the
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: things that I have to be grateful for. And, um,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: and there were so many, uh, that at least when
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: I would set the table that way with all the
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: beautiful things that I have in my life, um, All
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: the other stuff just became background noise. Not that it
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: didn't break through sometimes. It wasn't fun, but it was
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: a beautiful moment in my life at the same time.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I want to talk about the recovery elements
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: because I found it really interesting and really helpful just
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: to kind of understand it better. Because, look, I have
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of alcoholics in my family. My father was
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: an alcoholic, but he was sober before I was kind
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: of old enough to be aware of it. And it always, like...
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: it always struck me as almost surprising. He was like
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: a guy who flew fighter jets and like drove up motors, right?
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: Like he felt it's funny that someone in your life
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: can feel so in control. And then to know that
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: there's this other thing where they have no control. So,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: you know, and I never sat down with him and
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: said like, what are the basics? I was wondering if
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: we could do that. Like what, for listeners, like what
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: is AA? What is the 12 step program? Like how
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: does that work and how does that help someone who's
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: battling addiction?
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: Well, for me, I think I can talk about it in, uh,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: in the way that it has helped me. And number
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: one is to realize that you're not alone. I think
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: the biggest thing of walking into a room of other
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: people that raise their hand and say, I'm an alcoholic
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: or I'm an addict, um, uh, is to realize that, uh,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: that you're not the only one. And then to hear
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: the specificity of what it was like for them, what
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: it's like now and what they're doing to get better. Um,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: is such an incredibly liberating thing because many addicts feel
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: when they're trapped in their addiction is that no one
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: could possibly understand what it's like or how their problems
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: are greater than the problems that anybody else has. They're
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: so unique that they can't be solved. And what you
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: realize in those groups, in the support groups, in whichever form,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: whether it's AA or many others that are out there,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: is the first thing you realize is you're not alone.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: And what addiction wants for you is for you to
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: remain alone. It wants to be the only answer that
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: you have. And when you start to realize that there
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: may be another answer, it just is a, it's an
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: incredibly deliberating feeling and, and hopefully hang on to it. Yeah.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: So, and you also tried some more sort of intense approaches,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: like sort of taking other powerful drugs like Ibogaine or
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: ketamine to help reduce addiction. did that experience help at all?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: Like what was that like?
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: I think that every, every piece of it helped every
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: time that I, um, uh, reached out for a solution, um,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: I reached out for, um, I took a helping hand. Um, uh,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: I think it, um, it had a, hopefully a cumulative effect.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: I think that, uh, my, um, uh, and, and it's
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: all about the level of intention that you put into it. Um,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: my experience with Ibogaine was very powerful, um, but not
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: something that I necessarily would recommend to everybody, but I,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: I know the science behind it now. And I know
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: the science behind how it is particularly effective in treating
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: people with PTSD and, uh, and particularly as it relates
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: to opiate addiction. Um, I know the science behind the
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: way in which, uh, uh, ketamine infusion therapy is helping
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: people with severe traumatic experiences, uh, And I think that
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: there are so many things that we have not explored
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: that could be useful. But the one thing I do
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: know too is that I don't think that there's any
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: silver bullet. I think that the, and I do know this,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: is that ultimately at the end of the day, no
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: matter what, it's a decision that you have to make.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: day by day, sometimes, sometimes minute by minute. Because, you know,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: as I said before, the drug that has been the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: most damaging to me and I think damaging to all
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: of society is completely ubiquitous. It's in front of you
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: all the time, which is alcohol. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: And it's marketed to you and everything, whether you know
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: it or not. There's a really stark line in the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: book where you write, there's a popular theory that an
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: addict needs to hit bottom before he or she can
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: be helped. The addicts I know who hit bottom are dead.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: That terrible conventional wisdom, I thought was a good reminder
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: that there is no instruction manual that I've seen for
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: how to help someone you know or you love that
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: you see dealing with addiction. In the book, you describe
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of different attempts to get sober, including a
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: surprise intervention by your family that just doesn't go well.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: It's really heartbreaking. Do you have advice for folks who
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: might be listening who maybe have an addict in their
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: life and they want to help them before they sort
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: of hit that rock bottom point. Like, is there anything
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: you'd suggest of like how to deal with it?
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: Number one, don't give up hope. I know how awful
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: it is. It's the, the, the pain that an addict
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: can cause. And I'm not talking about when addicts act
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: out in ways that are violent and, and, and criminal.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, that is, that is something that I think that,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: is obviously you have to protect yourself against no matter what,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: but if you have someone that you love, that is
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: just not getting it and you keep reaching out to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: help them and they keep rejecting that help is just
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: know this. It's not about you. It's not that your
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: love isn't enough. It's not that you, you know, that
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: you're not enough for them. It's not about you. It is,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 4: it is a, It's a disease of the brain. They
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: have literally the neurons that are firing and what is
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: being told to the addict is that there's only one
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: answer to their pain. There's only one answer, which is
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: to continue to reach for the drug that they've become
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: physically and in many ways psychologically dependent upon. So what
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: I say is this, is that I know this. When
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: I was in the middle of that tunnel of addiction,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: and there was not light on either side, the chances
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: of me finding my way out, unless someone came into
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: the tunnel with the lantern to guide me out were zero.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: And so I just say to all of those people
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: that have someone that they love and that they know
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: is worth saving is just never, never stop trying, never
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: stop trying.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: And I want to ask you in a minute about
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: the person who helped you get out of that tunnel.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: But just one more question. There's a juxtaposition in the book,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: I think, of your situation and the privilege and money
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: you made through consulting, including the Burisma contract, and the
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: reality of the typical crack user or crack seller in
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: the communities in America, particularly that the drug is ravaged. And,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: you know, your experience is obviously like pretty atypical, right?
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: Like the money allowed you to fall off the grid.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: It allowed you to buy huge quantities of drugs. And
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: at times it seemed to protect you because, you know,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: when sort of users or dealers are coming in and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: out of hotel rooms in LA or when the staff
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: finds paraphernalia, right, their reaction isn't have him arrested. It's,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: you know, politely kick him out. So looking back, I
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: just wonder how you viewed sort of the money you
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: made through your clients that enabled that addiction and also
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: maybe the ways that protected you from consequences that might
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: have landed a lot of other people in jail?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's completely unfair. And I think that I
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: am 100% still here today and not in a jail
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: cell or in an institution. because of my privilege and
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: not just the privilege of a family that loved me,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: but the privilege of the fact that I had been
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: very successful up until the point that I wasn't and
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: had the ability to make a choice in many respects
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: of staying in a motel at $ 89 a night along
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 4: 95 in Connecticut or at a $ 300 a night you know,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: suite in LA. And what I always say is that,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: you know, what we have to start to, uh and
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: this is this is the conversation i'm i'm all in
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: for is addiction drug use is a mental health problem
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: it is a uh it's a a problem that can
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: be addressed and we need to be able to start
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: to discuss it as a mental health problem within the
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: structure of our health systems. And it is not a
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: criminal problem. It is not a problem that can be
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: solved or addressed by the criminal justice system. One thing
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: we're absolutely certain, I can say with I'm 100% certain
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: about is the criminal justice system has done nothing to
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: be able to solve our addiction epidemic that we are,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: that we've been in. And now it's just gotten worse,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: particularly with the pandemic. And, you know, I got the
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: opportunity of high-end rehabs and alternative treatments when 99% of
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: the people they get, the only answer they have is
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: jail or an institution. Yeah.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: Have you, do you like lobby your dad or like
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: DOJ or lawmakers on, on sort of these, the need
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: to decriminalize these things? Cause like, I agree with you.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: It seems like a conversation that's starting, but is, is
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: not picking up steam fast enough sometimes.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: Well, I understand the question, but as you know, I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: don't lobby my dad about it. I mean, I wrote, um, uh, I, uh,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: I know what I believe. I'm ready to engage in
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: the discussion in a public way with you. I know
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: that I think that we just have to start to
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: rethink it. I think one of the people that has been,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: I don't think has been, I know, knows more about
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: this from a personal level, but also from a policy
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: level is Patrick Kennedy, who's done an enormous amount of
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: work when he was in Congress and still continues to do.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: And I think it's something that it's a really opportune time, Tony,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: to begin to really look at this because, like I said,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: right now, I don't know if you've seen the numbers
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: from the CDC as it relates to addiction and overdose,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: not just as it relates to opiate, but across the
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: board during this time of the pandemic. And it is
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: just staggering, staggering. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: Last question.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: So, you know, you.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: miraculously you met your wife, uh, Melissa, uh, in LA,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: you fell in love, you figure out a way to
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: get sober. I mean, can you tell the story of
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: like how this happened, how it's going? Um, because it's pretty,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: it is, it's a truly miraculous ending to, to the story.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm, uh, yeah, I got to
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: write a book too, so that people know that it, it, uh,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 4: it actually works. Um, but because it is a, uh,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: it seems miraculous, but one of the things I've since
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: written the book and, telling the story, what I found
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: is that, you know, I'm not the first person that
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: ever fell in love at first sight. And I ended up,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: I don't know why I should ever be this lucky.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: I know that I have my guardian angels of my
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: brother and sister and my mom. And I'd love to
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: think that they had a hand in it. But what
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: I always say about Melissa is this, is that She
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: was a stranger that had a familiar soul. It felt
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: like coming home, but I knew that I had already,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 4: I rejected that love from home so many times that
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: it took someone that didn't have all of that, my
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 4: immediate rejection of like literally, like I talk about at
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 4: the intervention, like I ran, I literally ran away and
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 4: whatever it was, you know, my heart was open just
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: enough for me to allow Melissa to do, start the
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: hard work. And man, it was hard, Tommy. I'll tell
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: you what, I mean, I was drinking a quarter vodka
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: a day and smoking an enormous amount of drugs and
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: anything else that I could put in my body to
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: just numb myself. And, uh, and you know, Melissa took
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: my keys, took my phone. She, I mean, she took
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: my pants. I mean, I literally couldn't leave the house
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: and she had to do that work for a long time. Uh, but, uh,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: you know, I ended up in a pretty great place.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: Well, that is, um, It's a great book.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: The book is Beautiful Things.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: I think everyone should read it because, I don't know,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: it's rare to read it on its account of addiction
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: and of recovery and of a human story about a
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: family and love. And I think it's just very much
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: worth your time. So thank you for writing it. And
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: thanks for talking to me today.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: It's great to see you again, Tony. You too. It's
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: been a long, long time.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: See you on a flight to Boston in a couple
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: of weeks, maybe.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Thank you, buddy.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you to Hunter Biden for joining us today. We'll
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: see you guys Wednesday night at Group Thread. And then
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: Dan and I will have a pod on Thursday about
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: the big joint address. Bye, everyone.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: Our associate producers are Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: every week.