Latest / Pod Save America / "Am I The Masshole?" (Live from Boston)

Transcript

"Am I The Masshole?" (Live from Boston) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: What's up, Boston?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I'm Jane Koston, host of The Argument at The New
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: York Times.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Also joining us tonight, your mayor, Michelle Wu. And the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: junior senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Gen Z's Ed Markey is here.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the news. The 2022 midterm
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: primaries are in full swing. You may be surprised to
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: learn that the Republican Party is not sending their best.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It's a slate of candidates that include a Russian roulette-playing
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: spousal abuser, a quack TV doctor who peddled fake COVID treatments,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: a right-wing news anchor who wants to jail journalists, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: a slew of QAnon supporters, insurrection attendees, and election deniers
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: who've been battling it out to win the endorsement of
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: the twice-impeached, two-time popular vote loser, former Apprentice host Donald Trump.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he's still around. So Trump has been on
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: a bit of endorsement spree this week. In Georgia, he
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: just spent $ 500, 000 to help David Perdue defeat Governor Brian Kemp,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: who refused to steal the 2020 election for Trump in Georgia.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: In Pennsylvania, he shocked some of his own supporters by
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: picking TV's Dr. Oz over MAGA hedge fund millionaire David McCormick.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: And in Ohio, just hours ago, Trump endorsed a hillbilly
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: elegy author turned Peter Thiel puppet J.D. Vance over a
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: crowded field of various Republican goobers. And of course, Trump's
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: endorsements all across the country are based on the only
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: qualification that truly matters to him, support for his attempt
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to overturn the last election, and if necessary, a willingness
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to help him steal the next one. Jane, we have
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: now had the conversation many times on this show about
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: whether Trump's grip on the Republican Party is still as
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: strong as it used to be and how much his
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: endorsement still matters. And I realize that those are both
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: two different questions, but where do you come down on this,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: on Trump's strength in the party at this point?
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: I think he is less strong in the party because
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: he doesn't need to be as strong in the party
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: because the whole party is like him now. So if
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: you can get Trump, but not Trump, it's like, if
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: you could get a sequel. It's like if Speed 2
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: had been good. Everybody's just going for like, what if
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: we could get Speed 2, but Keanu had agreed to
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: do it, and it didn't involve a cruise ship, and
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: it didn't destroy a town. That's very specific Speed 2 talk.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I'm very sorry.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: But yeah, like, you're seeing that, I mean, of course
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: he picked Dr.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Oz.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: You've heard of Dr.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: Oz.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Ergo, Trump has heard of Dr.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: Oz.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: All he does is watch TV.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: And so I think, though, that what you're seeing, you're
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: seeing Republicans being horrified by this. And I'm like, but
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: this is who Trump was the whole time. He is
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: powered by watching a lot of television and by spite
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: because he's like many elderly.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: People, you know.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: And so I think that like what you're going to see, though,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: is that, you know, in Georgia, that doesn't seem to
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: be helping his endorsement, especially because, again, his endorsement seems
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: to have nothing to do with what conservatives want him
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: to do and everything to do with what Trump wants
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: to do, which has been the story of his entire life.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: So I would say that it matters less, but actually
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: he matters less because the party is more like him now.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Dan, what do you think? Is he still as strong
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: or less?
• 4:22
  Speaker 6: I think it's stronger than it's ever been. I mean,
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: you think about it this way, which is he has
• 4:27
  Speaker 6: been largely absent from the world.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: He's off of Twitter.
• 4:31
  Speaker 7: He.
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: Most people, unless you watch Fox at weird hours at night,
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: do not see Donald Trump. And yet the entire party
• 4:40
  Speaker 6: is abiding by the big lie. And I think the
• 4:42
  Speaker 6: question is, I'm not sure how important his endorsement is,
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: but what you don't want is Trump actively campaigning against you.
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: And that'll be the test in Georgia with Brian Kemp.
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: But the whole primary, whether Trump is endorsed or not
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: endorsed in all of these states, is spinning around the
• 5:00
  Speaker 6: big lie. and how Trumpy a candidate can be, which
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: is very good news for Democrats because in a really
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: suboptimal political environment, you want the Trumpiest candidate you can find.
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: And whether it is in Arizona, where you have another
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: Peter Thiel puppet in Blake Masters who was running, you
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: have a guy named Jim Lehman who was running, who
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: ran an ad whose entire message was, let's go, Brandon.
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: And that ad is viewed as having helped him in
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: the primary, which tells you everything you need about the
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: Republican Party, Or you mentioned Pennsylvania, where you have a
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: primary between a candidate endorsed by Trump and Dr.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Oz and a candidate.
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: Advised by Stephen Miller and David McCormick. You have Herschel
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: Walker in Georgia. You have Adam Laxalt in Nevada, who
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: is basically sort of the Conor Roy of this big
• 5:50
  Speaker 6: Nevada political dynasty who is running on the big lie.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: He was the chair of it. I mean, there is.
• 5:59
  Speaker 6: The best thing that can happen for Democrats is a
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: bunch of the candidates that Trump wants to win, win
• 6:04
  Speaker 6: that nomination.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Lovett, would you be surprised to know that Trump's favorability rating,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: his favorability, unfavorability is as high as it's ever been?
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It's chilling. Well, here's what I'd say. You ever have
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a job and you worked with somebody you couldn't fucking stand?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 6:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Someone who never shut up, always came into your office,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: used your mess privileges because their office was another building
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and couldn't get the apples with peanut butter on their
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: own account, so they put it on your account. Too specific?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Very specific.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Very specific.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: The point I'm making is when you're dealing with someone
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you hate and you have to deal with them every day,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you hate them even more. And then they leave because
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: they got a new job or their coup failed. And
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: then you see them at the other side of a
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: restaurant a couple years later. And obviously you remember that
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: they're the worst person you ever worked with and maybe
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the worst person you'll ever work with in your life.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: But that same vitriol that you felt from seeing them
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: every single day, you just can't muster it. You just
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: can't find it. The analogy complete.
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: So....
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And anyway, look, George W. Bush's approval rating has rebounded.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: It is hard to maintain all the intricacies of failure
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and horror that go on for the previous two Republican
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: presidents that happen to also be the worst two presidents
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: in 100 years. Yeah, sure.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: So... See, I don't know what that's like, because I'm
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: mad at historical figures who died many years ago. Like,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: I'm still really mad at Woodrow Wilson. So, I think
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: more people need to get on my level and just
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: carry on spite as long as physically possible.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Listen, he was bad. Listen, uh... Trash.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: No one likes a grudge more than me. I'm with you.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I love a grudge. I'm still mad at Joe Lieberman.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I did not plan for the Woodrow Wilson detour here, but...
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell, enough about Trump for a second. Not a
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: lot of Mitch McConnell fans here. Weird. I just thought
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: that was a different crowd. So Mitch McConnell said in
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: an interview this week that he feels pretty good about
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: his party's chances of taking back the Senate, but he
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: was also unusually honest for Mitch McConnell and said that
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: it's possible for Republicans to screw it all up by
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: nominating candidates who are unacceptable to a general electorate. Dan,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: how much do you think the relative extremism of the
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: candidate matters versus just the general political environment. And what
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: are some of the primaries to watch?
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: It's important to note that Mitch McConnell is only honest
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: when it serves his cynical ways. And so he's trying
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: to send a message to the party, which is do
• 9:04
  Speaker 6: not fuck this up. And they can do it by
• 9:07
  Speaker 6: nominating some of these terrible candidates. Like in Arizona, as mentioned,
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: if they nominate either of the two candidates competing for
• 9:14
  Speaker 6: Trump's endorsement over Mark Brnovich, who's the Attorney General, who
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: is also terrible. Don't get me wrong.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: No one thinks we have any heroes here.
• 9:23
  Speaker 6: I don't want to make sure that no one here
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: is pro-Mark Brnovich.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Three people in Mark Brnovich t-shirts just walked.
• 9:34
  Speaker 7: Out.
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: But Mitch McConnell's been through this. In 2010, when the
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: Republicans won 63 House seats, the Democrats held the Senate
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: because Republicans nominated terrible candidates in Nevada and Delaware. In 2012,
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: they had another shot to take the Senate. They blew
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: it again because they nominated terrible candidates, two of whom
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: endorsed rape on the campaign trail. And so he's trying
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: to send a message to these people.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Not to.
• 9:57
  Speaker 6: The problem for Mitch McConnell is Republicans hate him as
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: much as we do. The fact that he doesn't like
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: these candidates is good for those candidates.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: That is like a.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: They're going to use that in ads about how Mitch
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: McConnell hates us. It's like the one weird trick to
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: get me elected is to say that Mitch McConnell hates me.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, Mitch McConnell probably does hate me personally.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I think he hates all of us.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: But that's for different reasons.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Tommy, Trump's endorsements of Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania and J.D.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Vance in Ohio surprised a lot of Republicans, even surprised
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of people in Trump's inner circle who endorsed
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: some of their primary opponents. Why do you think he
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: backed those two candidates, and what should people know about Dr.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Oz and J.D. Vance?
• 10:42
  Speaker 8: They're great.
• 10:42
  Speaker 9: I mean, so there's some reporting... Some reporting says that
• 10:45
  Speaker 9: Melania likes Dr.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Oz.
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: I found that interesting. I think it's more likely that
• 10:49
  Speaker 9: Trump can... He could smell a snake oil salesman, you know?
• 10:52
  Speaker 9: He likes guys who are famous and rich from TV,
• 10:54
  Speaker 9: so that's where Dr.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Oz comes in.
• 10:56
  Speaker 9: What was funny about Trump's endorsement of Dr. Oz is
• 10:58
  Speaker 9: he cited... a medical examination he gave Trump on TV,
• 11:03
  Speaker 9: but then also the fact that he went to Harvard
• 11:05
  Speaker 9: and had a bunch of New York Times bestselling books,
• 11:07
  Speaker 9: which is a weird way to appeal to Pennsylvania Republican
• 11:11
  Speaker 9: primary voters.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: You know? They're always looking at that New York Times
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: bestselling list.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Those aren't like, they're kind of a... Dr.
• 11:17
  Speaker 9: Oz was sloppy seconds here because the first guy Trump
• 11:21
  Speaker 9: endorsed dropped out of the race for spousal abuse allegations.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So again, some truly horrible people here.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: J.D. Vance.
• 11:29
  Speaker 9: I think got endorsed because the other super Trumpy candidate
• 11:34
  Speaker 9: is a guy named Josh Mandel and he is just
• 11:37
  Speaker 9: really horrendous. There was a report in the daily beast
• 11:41
  Speaker 9: that said, uh, Trump called Josh Mandel a charisma free
• 11:45
  Speaker 9: weirdo and a dork.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It's a, it's a tough Passover for Josh Mandel. Tough,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: tough sitting at the Seder tonight.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Um, J.D. Vance also.
• 11:59
  Speaker 8: I was setting up your joke.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I know, it was beautiful.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I know, we set up and heard the joke. He
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: was passed over.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I can't make that joke.
• 12:04
  Speaker 10: He was passed over twice.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: You can do it. He was passed over twice.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: He was passed over twice. It's your joke.
• 12:15
  Speaker 9: Sorry to interrupt.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Why is this night different than every other night, Josh Vandell,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you fucking loser? You're a loser tonight. You were a
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: loser yesterday. You'll be a loser tomorrow. It's the only
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: good thing that comes out of this. Fucking asshole. Enjoy
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the maror.
• 12:33
  Speaker 9: Josh Mandel tried to beat up a senior citizen at
• 12:41
  Speaker 9: a U.S.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Senate debate like three weeks ago.
• 12:44
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: He also tweeted about how all you'd need was God,
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: the Bible, and Bitcoin, which like.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Come on, man.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: Also, I'm from Ohio.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: We're not supposed to be like this.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: No.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: We're not weird.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: No, we're weird, but we push down the weirdness, and
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: then we explode at the age of 45 like normal people.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: J.D.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Vance, though, J.D. Vance at one point called Trump cultural heroine.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now he's got a bunch of Peter Thiel money,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: so Trump's like, all right. And then he's like, oh, wow,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: people really love this heroine. I should start dealing some
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: in Ohio.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll say anything. Lovett, in all of these races,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: your only chance of even having a shot at Trump's
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: endorsement is supporting all past and future coup attempts. Can
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: you talk about the... We've been talking about the Senate races.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about the consequences of that dynamic on
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: other races beyond just the ones we've mentioned and also
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: talk about sort of what Democrats should do about all
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: this between now and November?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll say, first of all, fascism is like
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a red sock in the whites. Careful. It'll get on everything.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: You can't contain it. The whole thing comes out just
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit fascist. The point is he's endorsing up
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and down the ballot, and all across the country there
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: are these local races now where there are these Trumpy
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: figures running, and I know the national media, everyone is
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: going to focus on the House and the Senate, some
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: of these bigger races, but there are local races all
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: across the country now for roles that are really important
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: in how we run elections. And the people in those
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: jobs can make the difference between a Trumpist who doesn't
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: believe in democracy and only thinks a Republican can win,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and a person who legitimately believes in free and fair elections.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: And the more people we can turn out and make
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: understand the stakes for those elections up and down the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: ballot locally, the better we will do in November. So
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: we have launched midterm madness as part of Vote Save America.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: We are asking everybody to sign up for a region.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I will be the coach of the East.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: I got the West.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: See, we're in Boston.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know why they gave me the West. Yeah,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: I got the Midwest.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not proud of it. I have the South. Is
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: that the first draft pick?
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: It's because Dan loves Florida.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love Stacey Abrams. I'm here for Wisconsin. And look,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know what their coaching philosophy is. My coaching
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: philosophy is that of a very sweet dad of a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: very small kid. Everyone gets to play, and it doesn't
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: matter how good you are, you get to be in
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the infield.
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: I would have guessed that your philosophy was King Richard-esque.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: The point is, we're trying to get 10,000 sign-ups in
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: each region. We're trying to get 40,000 people to sign
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: up in the next month so that we have people
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: on the ground doing what they need to do. We
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: know that these midterms are going to be a goddamn slog,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: all right? But we're going to put on our fucking gloves,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: all right? We're going to get in the mud. Should
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I stay in a sports analogy?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: What are we wearing gloves for?
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So we're going to put on our baseball mitts and
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: our pads and our helmets. And we're going to get
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: our brooms because it's also the broom one. Quidditch? Curling? No, no, no,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: with the sweeping. It's curling, depending on where you are.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: The point is, the point is, go Celtics, go Sox.
• 16:18
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And go to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms and sign up for
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: region right fucking now. Look, we know that politics has
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: not been as exciting as it once was for good
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: or for ill. 2016 through 2020, there were a lot
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of ones and twos and nines and tens. We are
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: living in fours, fives, and sixes these days. But we
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: still got to do it. We're the ones that do
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: it no matter what. And then we get the people
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: in our lives to do it too. So go to votesaveamerica.com
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: slash midterms. Boston, we feasted on your sumptuous beans, sipped
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: your finest Dunkin', and took in the gorgeous luggage carousels
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: in your beautiful airport. Now we give you something in exchange.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It's time for OK Stop. And boy, do we have
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: a doozy. Let me paint you a word picture. During
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: an appearance at Yale, a student asks Ted Cruz and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: conservative commentator Michael Knowles a very important, potentially world-changing question.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: You know how this goes. We will watch a video,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and when we have something to say, we'll say, okay, stop,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: let's roll the clip.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: My name is Evan.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Assuming that would end global hunger, would you fillet another man? Okay, stop.
• 17:55
  Speaker 9: First of all, first of all, it never does. New
• 18:07
  Speaker 9: season of Fear Factor just dropped.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Boy.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And you have anything to add? All right, we can
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: keep rolling.
• 18:21
  Speaker 9: Dare I ask him to repeat? Well, actually, I do
• 18:26
  Speaker 9: have an answer to this.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop. Okay, stop.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: I am just, I just would like this to be
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: known that all three of these people are being asked
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: a question about whether or not they would fillate someone
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: to end world hunger.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Do you see these three people? They're in hell. This
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: is what hell is like for them.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And honestly, I wish this moment would last forever.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: I wish they would be forced to sit here in
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: this moment thinking about it forever.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, we can keep going.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: I actually think it is better that the Yaley answer this.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, stop. That's a Yale thing? I didn't know that
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: that was a Yale thing.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Let's keep rolling.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: There's a line in American Psycho about that Yale thing.
• 19:17
  Speaker 9: I think that's what our questioner is alluding to. Like
• 19:21
  Speaker 9: a typical left-wing undergraduate, you are engaging in consequentialist ethics.
• 19:26
  Speaker 8: You are attempting.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: To justify flagrantly immoral behavior to achieve a good end.
• 19:33
  Speaker 9: And I tell you, my friend, the ends do not
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: justify the means.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: Ew.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I have a philosophical objection to this. I feel like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: freshman year, you learn about how consequentialism doesn't make sense.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Then you study philosophy for a while longer, and then
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you learn senior year, actually, it's the only thing that
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: does make sense.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like it comes full circle in the end.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: You know what happens when you come full circle?
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: You solve world hunger and another thing that's not discussed
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: in this video at all is it really does matter
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: who the guy is because look if it's Pennywise the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: clown you still have to do it but you need
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: some time to wrap your head around it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 9: Ted Cruz's face says I would fillet anyone to end
• 20:30
  Speaker 9: this conversation let's move on here or be president.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Let's continue Absolutely not.
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: I am curious with that young fellow, if it would
• 20:47
  Speaker 9: solve world hunger, would you vote for Donald Trump?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: I just want to point out here, Ted Cruz does
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: not answer the question.
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: He's not a no. The Fox News headline would be,
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: Ted Cruz refuses to rule out flating another man.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: I also like that he makes voting for Donald Trump
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: and filleting a man equivalent, which I'm just like, I mean.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, in a sense, he's right.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, yeah. I mean, Ted Cruz has been
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the last five years sucking Donald Trump's dick, so. So, yeah,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: we know what Ted Cruz will do. All right. He'll
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: suck a lot of dick before it comes to any
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: world hunger.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: He'll do it for a speaking slot at the Republican convention.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I'll just also make one other point, which is at
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: this current moment in time, right now as we sit
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: here in the Wang Center, ironically, here in the Wang.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: We have elected officials backstage.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: You bet we do. I can't stop thinking about it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: Well, we did.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: We used to. We used to.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Somebody don't let Ed Markey, don't let the mayor and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Ed Markey leave. Lock the doors. At this moment in time,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is more open to sucking a penis than
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin is to passing Build Back Better. Dan, you've
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: been noticeably quiet during this segment. Any final points?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: No, I think you've nailed it. I think you got
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: them all.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And that's okay, stop.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. That clip seemed better in theory than anyway.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: That was hard to get through.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Speaking of, you know what I mean?
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: All right, let's talk more news. This week, we learned
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: that the world's richest man is attempting a hostile takeover
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: of Twitter. where he is currently one of the platform's
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: biggest trolls. Elon Musk explained his $ 40 billion bid for
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the company by saying that taking Twitter private would allow
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: him to change the platform's content moderation policies so that
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: more people are able to, quote, speak freely within the
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: bounds of the law, calling it extremely important to the
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: future of civilization. It isn't. It is not. It is not.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I agree. It wasn't.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: It wasn't. It isn't. Twitter... was not too thrilled with
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Musk's offer. And today they responded with what's known as
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: a poison pill strategy that will make it harder for
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Elon to just take over the company without directly negotiating
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: with the board, which he now is going to have
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: to do. Dan, let's start with this. Can Elon Musk
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: actually pull this off? And why does it matter if
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: he owns Twitter?
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: I would like to know that I got this question
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: because I told John this morning that I listened to
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: a 35-minute podcast on the topic.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, your fault.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Hey, Dan.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: You deserve this.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: When we launder Ezra Klein in the weeds to our audience,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: that's something we do in private. That's not something we explain.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: We just do it. It was what a day?
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: Poison pill us, Dan.
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: So the answer to the question is he can. He
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: may not be able to because what the poison pill
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: provision means is that Twitter can basically keep issuing stock
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: to dilute Musk's stake. So they can just give cheap
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: stock to chosen people so he can never get to
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: a number sufficient to.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Take over the company.
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: It's something they put in there to avoid a hostile takeover.
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: But Musk actually has all the leverage here because the
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: stock was at like $ 39 when he announced his stake.
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: It went to $ 49.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: The day he did it.
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: And now he's trying to buy it for $ 54. So
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: if you're a Twitter shareholder, Musk wants to buy your
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: stock for more money And that stock has been in
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: a very long time and more money than will likely
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: be for a very long time. And so whether he's
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: going to end up buying the company or not, that's
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: an open question, but he's going to be able to,
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: what this Poison Bill version will do, allow them to negotiate.
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: If you force a negotiation where he can implement, maybe
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: able to implement the policies he wants or take a
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: larger stake or end up getting the whole thing. So
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: whatever else I think happens here is that the Twitter
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: is going to look more like Elon Musk wants Twitter
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: to look like before this is over.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: And why, you know, for the average Twitter addict like myself,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: why does it matter?
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: Well, have you missed Steve Bannon? Have you missed Donald
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: Trump on Twitter? So there's two things that Twitter has
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: done in the last couple of years that have changed
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: the experience for people, we would argue, for the better.
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: They put a bunch of content moderation policies in place
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: to try, I don't think they have been as nearly
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: as successful as need to be, but to try to
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: stem abuse. And they have removed, started removing people for
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: violating the rules. And that includes just random Twitter users
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: who use hate speech, but also prominent people like Marjorie
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: Taylor Greene and Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and all
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: these other people. And what Musk wants to do is
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: bring those people back. He wants it to be a
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: quote unquote free speech platform. What that shows is for
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: as smart as Elon Musk may be, he doesn't understand
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: what free speech is because the freedom to speak is
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: not the freedom to.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Be able to be on Twitter.
• 26:16
  Speaker 9: Yeah, he hasn't thought about this for one second. He
• 26:18
  Speaker 9: did a TED Talk today where he was asked about
• 26:20
  Speaker 9: what he thought about content moderation and free speech, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 9: he had not a single thing to say.
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: I mean, his first act when he bought the stake
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: of the company was to tweet a Twitter poll about
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: whether they should close the Twitter headquarters and turn it
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: into a homeless shelter because people aren't going to work
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: there enough.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: He accused a random cave diver in Thailand of being
• 26:39
  Speaker 9: a pedophile. I mean, that's his idea of free speech.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: Also, he's the same person who, when asked about, like,
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: there's this famous, like, oh, you can't shout fire in
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: a crowded theater. That's actually a reference to a Supreme
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: Court case that had to do with curtailing speech, specifically
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: anti-war speech during the First World War.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And he was like, yeah, obviously.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, there are certain people who talk about
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: free speech platforms in a way that tells me that
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: they don't go outside enough. and maybe some people should
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: go outside more often.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Well, so there were some fairly overdramatic reactions to Elon's
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: bid on where else but Twitter. One journalism professor tweeted, quote,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar, Germany.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: You go outside, sir, go outside, rub your hands on
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: some fucking grass.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: You go outside and you feel the grass between your
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: little fingers and your pale skin. And you remind yourself
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that there are birds and there is blue sky up there.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Go on, John.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: There was a journalism professor. Jane is a journalist. What's
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: your level of alarm as someone who uses Twitter quite
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: a bit?
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think that there are a couple
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: of levels here. I should not use Twitter a lot.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Journalists should not use Twitter a lot. I got on
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: Twitter at the beginning to talk about sports. Sports Twitter
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: was nice. Then politics Twitter became like sports Twitter, but
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: from hell. Because politics matter, but sports don't matter, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: they do matter in a different way. And so I
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: think that the way that people get so hyped up
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: within the silo of Twitter into believing that they are
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: important and what they are saying is important is what
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: leads you to comparing Elon Musk owning Twitter to the
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: Nazi takeover of Germany, which is.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: A little different.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Fucking stupid.
• 28:32
  Speaker 8: A little different.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: It's ridiculous.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: And I think that, again, it's worth mentioning that when
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: you look at the statistics, most Americans aren't on Twitter.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Most Americans who are on Twitter don't tweet that much.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: And many of them don't talk about politics at all.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: And so the people who are the most anxious about
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: this or the most excited about it are all the
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: people who need to go outside and touch the grass
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: and look at the birds. Because have you ever... If
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: you are on Twitter... and you're on Twitter a lot,
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: have you ever tried to explain a Twitter thing to
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: someone who isn't on Twitter?
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they look at you like you're fucking crazy.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, and being dead.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Like, any Twitter-based event, like, I try to tell my
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: mom about it, and I'm just like, oh, this is
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: why she doesn't think I have a real job? So, no, like,
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: my alarm is at how people are responding to this, plus...
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: how people, what people think free speech is when Twitter
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: is a private platform. And it could just be, Twitter
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: could be an entity where it's just like only Jane
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Koston can talk and they could do that. It would
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: be a weird platform, but like they could do it. It's,
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: there's a, my alarm is.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Not that yeah no I mean my opinion on this
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: is if Elon buys Twitter and shuts the whole thing
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: down I'd be like oh probably saves me some time.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Right yeah I do think like it's um So often
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: this conversation about free speech, you see Joe Rogan and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Bill Maher going back and forth about cancel culture. So much,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, all these people. It's like, hey, you're not
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: talking about the world. You're talking about Twitter. A platform of, what,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: 200 million people, very few of whom actually use it
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: every single day, or actually obsessive users that kind of
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: fill the site. It's a small percentage of that 210
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: million that are actually actively producing the conversation that is Twitter.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And I think there is a big... cultural society challenge
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that we have where, okay, we've created these new digital
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: spaces and they are privatized. They have some kind of
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: a public role. A lot of journalists are on them.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are on them. Those conversations do
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: ultimately matter. And I think so much of our struggle
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is around how we analogize what those spaces are, right?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, I think because he is a creature of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the internet and bored, sees it as the public square.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Of course, it's not.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Is it a chat room? Is it a bulletin board
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: at a coffee shop? How we analogize it, the stories
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: we tell about what Twitter actually is, what all of
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: these digital spaces is, is actually a really big and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: hard conversation because it's not intuitive. And those analogies do
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of work. That intuition kind of skips a
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: lot of steps, causes you to make certain assumptions.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, Twitter's user base is tiny compared to most
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: other social media platforms. The reason that we talk about Twitter,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: aside from us being on it, is because every journalist
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: in the world is on Twitter, and now every elected
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: official and politician is on Twitter, and so Twitter becomes,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: even though it's not used by a lot of most
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: people out there, it becomes the assignment desk for most
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: of the media, and so that people who don't use
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Twitter get news about the world that's filtered through the
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Twitter bubble, because that's where all the journalists are. That's
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: why we talk about this.
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: Just to put some numbers on this, basically eight in
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: 10 Americans are not on Twitter. 7 in 10 Americans
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: are on Facebook, right? 13% of Americans get their news
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: from Twitter. Nearly half of Americans say they get some
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: of their news from Facebook. 90% of tweets come from
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: 10% of users. So it is a bubble within a bubble,
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: that conversation. And we all live in that bubble, and
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: it has importance, but I think that importance is so
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: dramatically overstated, and it's hard to actually find real-world indications
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: that it's important. Just look at the conversation we were
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: having about Trump. He has been off of Twitter for
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: two years. We all thought Twitter was his secret weapon,
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: how he slayed the Bush family and Ted Cruz, who
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: was obviously preoccupied with something.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: But now here he is.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: He's on Twitter.
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: And his control of the Republican Party is stronger than
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: it was when he was on Twitter.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: Even before he was kicked off Twitter, I remember writing
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: something about how Trump's entire issue in 2020 was that
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: he was extremely online.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: And by that, I mean, he.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: Would do speaking events where he'd be like, did you
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: hear about Nellie Orr? And he would be talking about
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: things where it just is like, I wrote an article
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: about Bruce Orr and I don't even know what you're
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: talking about. And he would do stump speeches about like,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: we got to repeal section 230. And he'd be doing
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: this in front of like mine workers in Ohio, who
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: I'm sure were like, now I care a lot about
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: the Communications Decency Act of 1996, but I'm not really
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: sure like other people need to. And it's like, Being
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: extremely online is sometimes really fun, but if you start
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: believing your own hype about being online, that's really bad
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: for our politics.
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: The thing that's so funny about Trump being online is
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: that all the things he tweeted about, some other person
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: went online, printed it out on a piece.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Of paper, and gave it to him.
• 33:33
  Speaker 9: Elon, ironically, though, is the greatest advertisement for not using
• 33:37
  Speaker 9: the company he wants to buy. The man invented an
• 33:40
  Speaker 9: electric car industry... He created a spaceship industry, but we
• 33:46
  Speaker 9: all find him annoying because he's a stupid troll.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: And he tweets a lot.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you don't follow him, if you don't
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: know about him on Twitter, you're like, oh, that's a
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: really interesting person. If you do know about him on Twitter,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: you're like, ugh.
• 33:58
  Speaker 9: That guy.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: It's tedious.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Well, let me ask a political question here about Trump
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: because a lot of the fear now is that if
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Elon buys Twitter, takes Twitter private, that he will allow
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Trump back on Twitter.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Lovett, how concerned are you about that possibility, and do
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: you think it will affect his potential 2024 bid?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I refer you back to my answer from segment A.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Trump is never less popular than when his flaws are
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: in our face. His lowest points have come when we
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: gave him our full attention, when he was trying to
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: repeal health care, when the Access Hollywood tape came out.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: The only reason Hillary Clinton didn't become president is because
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: James Comey decided He was too tall to live in
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a democracy. So my view on this is simple. I've
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: said it many times. I think what Vice President Kamala
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Harris did to get Trump off of Twitter was a huge,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: huge fucking mistake.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: Oh, man.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Nothing. Speaking of Twitter, you better not go on.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Listen, Kay Hive.
• 35:01
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: We have a fragile piece.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: You just shattered that fragile piece.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I can hear them buzzing. I'm so fucked on Twitter,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: no less. There's a red dot on your forehead. The
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: point is, I do not think we have been well
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: served by Trump getting to be mostly a memory while
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: building support and the machinery to run again in 2024.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I think being regularly reminded of what a repulsive human
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: being he is is not disadvantageous to us.
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: Get him back on Twitter right now. We absolutely need
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: him on Twitter. It's not a popular opinion, but we
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: need it.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: No, I agree.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I'm in agreement on that.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: God, look at us. Look what's happened to us.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: No, because here's the thing. You can't wish him away
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: because if he's not on Twitter, he's still strong in
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party. They're still going to have a Republican
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: primary for president. It doesn't matter that he's not on Twitter.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter that we're not. We do this all
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: the time, and people are like, Why are you talking
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: about Trump? People think if you don't talk about Trump,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: he's just going to go away. He's not going to
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: go away because there's a fucking Republican primary.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: He's not Beetlejuice. He's not Beetlejuice. He's the Babadook. He
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't appear when you call him. He appears when you're
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: sad and scared.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: I also think there's that whole thing of people who
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: are like, oh, Twitter elected Trump.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: It was the meme magic. And I'm like, no.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: a lot of people not voting, that that's what did it,
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: about 75,000.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: People not voting.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Or Facebook, too.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's something about believing that the thing you happen
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: to like is very, very important, and it happens to
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: be important because you like it, that I think is
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: very infectious in our society. And I think that Trump
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: being back on Twitter and then it turning out that, yeah,
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: he's still the jag off he always was. Has anyone
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: ever said Jagoff on this podcast?
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Probably. No one else has talked about Ted Cruz and
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: World Hunger.
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: It's a big day for this podcast.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I just want to make just one little note. Obviously,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I know that Vice President Kamala Harris isn't the person
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: who had Trump removed. There's just a little bit of
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a debate between me and the K-Hive when she called
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: for that in a debate with Elizabeth Warren. They were
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit disgruntled with the tone that I took
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: about the topic. I didn't think it was necessarily worthy
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of a presidential debate. I did never apologize. In fact,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I doubled down. That hissing tells me you remember. And
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And the point I'm only making, just in a kind
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: of jocular way, is kind of ultimately, I think, in
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the end, removing it from Twitter didn't necessarily redound to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: our advantage, but actually it has nothing to do with
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, and please don't come for me. I live
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: a happy life. I want to be left alone. Thank you.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Love it. It's too late for you, buddy. Using the
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: podcast to do some personal business. All right. When we
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: come back, if she's still here, Boston Mayor Michelle Wood.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 37:48
  Speaker 9: Without further ado. Joining us now is the newly elected
• 37:53
  Speaker 9: mayor of Boston. In November, she made history as the
• 37:56
  Speaker 9: first woman and person of color to be elected this
• 37:59
  Speaker 9: city's mayor.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Michelle Wu, welcome to the pod.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: Please tell me you have not heard the last 15
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: minutes of this show.
• 38:17
  Speaker 10: Well, the doors are actually locked.
• 38:19
  Speaker 9: Oh, good.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you couldn't leave? Good, good, good.
• 38:21
  Speaker 9: Sorry about all the other stuff. We are, A, so
• 38:26
  Speaker 9: happy to have you here.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: And also, as a.
• 38:29
  Speaker 9: Bostonian, so great to have you. Well, I'm from Dedham, technically,
• 38:33
  Speaker 9: but it's so wonderful to have you elected.
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: Welcome home.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: So, question for you.
• 38:38
  Speaker 9: So, we talk a lot about climate change, and it
• 38:44
  Speaker 9: can feel very depressing sometimes. you know, Joe Biden's doing
• 38:46
  Speaker 9: what he can at the executive level. Congress is kind
• 38:50
  Speaker 9: of stuck, but the weather reports, the things you read
• 38:52
  Speaker 9: to get worse and worse and worse. The thing that
• 38:54
  Speaker 9: made me hopeful was the other day I was listening
• 38:56
  Speaker 9: to a conversation that my co-host Ben Rhodes had with
• 38:59
  Speaker 9: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, who was talking about
• 39:02
  Speaker 9: all the things cities can do to really leave the
• 39:04
  Speaker 9: charge and move the needle on reducing carbon emissions. I
• 39:07
  Speaker 9: know this is something you've talked a lot about in
• 39:09
  Speaker 9: your campaign and that you're working on right now. Can
• 39:11
  Speaker 9: you tell us, like, how can Boston lead the way
• 39:13
  Speaker 9: and kind of fill the gap that's left by Congress
• 39:17
  Speaker 9: being gridlocked?
• 39:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah, first of all, it's really exciting to be here
• 39:20
  Speaker 7: with you all. Thank you for having me. And I'm
• 39:24
  Speaker 7: most excited to be here with our federal partner here.
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: The senator and I sometimes will do a little Green
• 39:30
  Speaker 7: New Deal road show around announcing different policies. And we
• 39:34
  Speaker 7: need that kind of partnership across all levels of government.
• 39:36
  Speaker 7: So we're still waiting. We're fingers crossed. We're putting every
• 39:40
  Speaker 7: federal recovery dollar, ARPA dollar to good use on a
• 39:43
  Speaker 7: Boston Green New Deal.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: We're waiting for more.
• 39:45
  Speaker 10: We're getting ready.
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: But the reality is that cities are where you can
• 39:49
  Speaker 7: actually move fast.
• 39:50
  Speaker 10: You can innovate. You can prove what works.
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: Once you can see something, once people experience that in
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: their lives, you really can shift what's possible in people's imagination.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: Do you also think that because Boston is a coastal city,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: you are seeing some of the first manifestations of climate
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: change when you're looking at flooding? That's the same thing
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: that we're seeing in Florida and elsewhere. Has that changed
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: your perspective on the need to do it?
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Act now?
• 40:17
  Speaker 7: New England in general and the Boston area in particular
• 40:21
  Speaker 7: have had some of the highest temperature changes measured already
• 40:26
  Speaker 7: in sort of in a climate pattern way. And that's
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: meant that in the summers, the number of high heat
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: days over 90 degrees, we are already experiencing a significant.
• 40:35
  Speaker 10: Jump in that. And then in the intensity of.
• 40:37
  Speaker 7: Storms, it's not rare now to have the bomb will
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: get in, bomb cyclone, winter storms that line up with
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: high tide that then mean flooding that has taken out
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: infrastructure like T stations for months at a time.
• 40:53
  Speaker 9: So when I think of like, you know, climate action,
• 40:56
  Speaker 9: I think of like cap and trade or major tax
• 40:58
  Speaker 9: credits for new industries or solar panels. Like what does
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: it look like for a city like Boston to really
• 41:03
  Speaker 9: prioritize emissions reductions or set like an ambitious target? Like
• 41:06
  Speaker 9: I know you have for, I think, what is it, 2030?
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: You're looking at 100% renewables?
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: So the beauty of doing things at the local level
• 41:14
  Speaker 7: is that you can really show how interconnected all of
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: our issues actually are. And so when we say Boston
• 41:20
  Speaker 7: Green New Deal, we mean, of course, climate resiliency, but
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: it's also housing that's affordable and energy efficient so that
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: people don't have to pay utilities inside. It's also closing
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: our racial wealth gap with small businesses and the green
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: jobs that this will bring. And so just in the last,
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: I've been in an office of almost 150 days now.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: We have.
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: Signed legislation to divest Boston's funding, the sort of free
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: cash as a city from fossil fuels and other harmful industries.
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: We have introduced three fare-free bus routes that now are
• 41:54
  Speaker 7: proving public good, public chance it should be a public good.
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: We just announced we're making a major purchase of electric buses.
• 42:03
  Speaker 10: That will help not only clean the air.
• 42:06
  Speaker 7: Move off of our diesel buses that we're still using,
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: but ensure that we have vehicle-to-grid technology that can be
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: deployed in times of power outages.
• 42:14
  Speaker 10: And we're also training our high school students to be
• 42:17
  Speaker 10: able to service and maintain these electric.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Vehicles as well.
• 42:20
  Speaker 9: So just to follow up on the fare-free bus routes
• 42:26
  Speaker 9: you mentioned, I was wondering, one, I know you ran
• 42:28
  Speaker 9: on that. It's something you promised and you put into practice.
• 42:31
  Speaker 9: place early on in your administration, why did you decide
• 42:33
  Speaker 9: to run on making these bus routes fare-free? And then
• 42:36
  Speaker 9: also just like stepping back, I mean, I'm not a mayor,
• 42:40
  Speaker 9: but like if I were a mayor trying to incentivize
• 42:42
  Speaker 9: the use of public transportation, I might think, what if
• 42:45
  Speaker 9: all public transportation was free so people weren't driving in,
• 42:48
  Speaker 9: so that the poorest people weren't paying fares? I mean,
• 42:50
  Speaker 9: obviously you'd have to pay for that infrastructure in some
• 42:52
  Speaker 9: other way, maybe through taxation, but I mean, I'm wondering
• 42:55
  Speaker 9: how you're thinking about that.
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: It's really important to connect The day-to-day experiences of so
• 43:01
  Speaker 7: many of our residents, and one big part of why
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: I have been so adamant that we need to do
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: better on public transportation is that I know what it's
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: like to be a mom pushing a big double stroller
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: with two kids in it to try to get to
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: daycare drop-off and to work on time and what it
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: means when the train doesn't come often enough or the
• 43:18
  Speaker 7: bus is too crowded or the disparities that you see
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: because of the pricing schedule. It ends up compounding so
• 43:26
  Speaker 7: many of the other challenges that our families are facing.
• 43:29
  Speaker 7: And the other big thing to remember is that this
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: is really part of Boston's legacy. We are home here
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: to the nation's first public school, the first public park,
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: the first public library, the first subway tunnel anywhere in
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: the country. And we often talk about that as just
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: kind of old stuff, right? You walk on the Red
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: Brick Freedom Trail and you see all these historic markers.
• 43:51
  Speaker 7: But in fact, these were times when we recognized that
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: we if we stepped out first to invest in the
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: common good, the common wealth, our public good, our shared future,
• 44:00
  Speaker 7: that actually we changed the course of history in doing so.
• 44:03
  Speaker 10: Public transportation is the same way.
• 44:05
  Speaker 7: If we want to meet our climate goals, if we
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: want to close the racial wealth gap, if we want
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: to fix some of the traffic and congestion and air
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: quality issues, the best thing that we can do is
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: get more people on buses and trains and out of
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: fossil fuel powered cars.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: I wanted to ask, I wanted to go a little
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: bit back to, you were talking about housing and affordable housing,
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: and I think something that we're seeing in cities across
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: the country is that you are seeing skyrocketing housing prices,
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: and this really very ugly back and forth about what
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: building new housing could mean, whether that's building new affordable
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: housing is good or building new affordable housing is bad
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: because it could cause more waste or something like that.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: How do you think about that, and how do you
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: think about, I mean, I think Boston's been doing a
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: really good job on trying to answer the problems of
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: homelessness and the many different types of homelessness, but I'm
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: curious how you're thinking about housing, especially, you know, I
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: just took a quick glance at some of the recent
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: realty charts in Boston, and I mean, I live in.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: D.C., but woof. So I'm just curious how you're thinking
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: Out of the pool of funds that we have for
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: our ARPA dollars, our federal recovery dollars, we've.
• 45:16
  Speaker 10: Said we need these to not be 10,000 photo ops, but.
• 45:21
  Speaker 7: Focused on transformational change, things that will leave a lasting impact.
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: And for our residents, the challenges that existed before the pandemic,
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: exacerbated by the pandemic, housing is that foundation. So the
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: majority of our funds, the biggest chunk of that will
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: go to housing stability in creating new affordable housing, preserving
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: existing public housing that is badly dilapidated because we haven't
• 45:43
  Speaker 7: had support and funding from the federal government for a
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: long time.
• 45:46
  Speaker 10: In boosting homeownership so.
• 45:47
  Speaker 7: That people are in control of their housing costs and
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: we close a racial wealth gap. What we need to
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: do is have a regional approach to that. And so
• 45:58
  Speaker 7: I'm really excited that the mayors across Metro Boston have
• 46:02
  Speaker 7: come together and we're picking up sort of where we
• 46:05
  Speaker 7: left off before the pandemic of tying together our goals
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: and understanding how housing is intimately connected to transportation access,
• 46:14
  Speaker 7: climate justice and everything else our families need.
• 46:18
  Speaker 9: Absolutely um we just had a long whiny conversation about
• 46:24
  Speaker 9: elon musk maybe buying twitter but i i noticed you
• 46:27
  Speaker 9: know the boston globe wrote up a big piece about
• 46:29
  Speaker 9: how you clearly are the person actually tweeting when you
• 46:32
  Speaker 9: tweet i.
• 46:32
  Speaker 10: Know this more extremely online than i should be i.
• 46:34
  Speaker 9: Will i can confirm this because i dm'd you trying
• 46:36
  Speaker 9: to get a friend a job and you wrote me
• 46:38
  Speaker 9: back right away and you were so nice but um
• 46:40
  Speaker 9: It's been really fun seeing you.
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: Did I get them the job?
• 46:42
  Speaker 10: I don't think I did.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: You were great. You were great.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: She went back to school.
• 46:49
  Speaker 9: It's been really fun watching you get elected and then
• 46:52
  Speaker 9: you're like a normal person and you take the T
• 46:56
  Speaker 9: and you ride the train and ride the bus. And
• 46:58
  Speaker 9: I saw you tweeted it. You tweeted at the MBTA like, hey,
• 47:03
  Speaker 9: we're getting double charged.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: We had to double pay that day.
• 47:06
  Speaker 9: They were double charging people who got like kicked off
• 47:08
  Speaker 9: a train and had to get on a bus and
• 47:09
  Speaker 9: they get recharged. Are you drunk with power with your
• 47:12
  Speaker 9: Twitter feed on?
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I've always been like that on the T.
• 47:15
  Speaker 7: And I actually met the two lovely people who run
• 47:18
  Speaker 7: the T's Twitter handle a few years back.
• 47:21
  Speaker 10: And I was like, I'm so sorry. They're incredible human beings.
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: You know, I'm glad I wasn't part of the Twitter
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: conversation because I have way too much to say about
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: where the line is between where we are as a
• 47:35
  Speaker 7: society right now with free speech, an incredibly powerful ability
• 47:40
  Speaker 7: for any individual to have access to a platform that
• 47:43
  Speaker 7: can reach tens of thousands, millions of people, but also
• 47:46
  Speaker 7: in the context of such normalization of hate and harassment
• 47:53
  Speaker 7: and politics being really connected to that, especially in most
• 47:57
  Speaker 7: recent years. For me, I've been thinking about Twitter a
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: lot lately because now it's It used to be a
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: platform where I knew people reaching out, I could check
• 48:11
  Speaker 7: it and see constituents and respond to issues in real
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: time and feel like I was being available and accessible
• 48:16
  Speaker 7: and seeing things that were happening that wouldn't make it
• 48:19
  Speaker 7: to that hearing at City Hall, right? But when it
• 48:22
  Speaker 7: becomes flooded with such hate, when you're kind of targeted
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: by right-wing news sources and that whole stuff descends on
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: a city or on an individual, it just crowds out
• 48:34
  Speaker 7: a lot of the the direct human to human interaction. Yeah.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Last question for you.
• 48:41
  Speaker 9: So you said 150 days you've been doing this job,
• 48:44
  Speaker 9: best part, worst part so far, anything really surprised you?
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Any upside that we didn't know about?
• 48:49
  Speaker 10: The best part. I mean, the best part is that
• 48:53
  Speaker 10: at the city level, we can get things done every
• 48:59
  Speaker 10: single day.
• 48:59
  Speaker 7: You know, I have a, um, I keep a count,
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: I actually don't know what the exact number off the
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: top of my head now, something in the like 1360
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: range of how many days left until the end of
• 49:08
  Speaker 7: the term, because every single day has to count. And
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: in city government, that is the pace that we have
• 49:13
  Speaker 7: to move at the urgency of our families and communities
• 49:17
  Speaker 7: and not at the usual speed of bureaucracy. And we
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: can do that at the local level where everything's very tangible.
• 49:22
  Speaker 7: I think the worst part is that we are so
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: affected sometimes by the national currents of what this moment
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: in politics looks like across the country and across the world.
• 49:35
  Speaker 7: I really believe that local government, obviously I'm a little biased,
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: but I believe that this is where we can earn
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: trust back, where we can show that it makes a
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: difference when you reach out and connect and get involved
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: in politics and your local government, where.
• 49:49
  Speaker 10: You can see people face to face.
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: And so we're trying to be a model here in
• 49:55
  Speaker 7: Boston of what that means when we throw the doors
• 49:58
  Speaker 7: wide open, get City Hall out of City Hall into
• 50:01
  Speaker 7: our neighborhoods, and just keep our eyes focused on how
• 50:03
  Speaker 7: we keep moving forward All right.
• 50:08
  Speaker 9: Well, I can say personally that your election was very
• 50:14
  Speaker 9: exciting and inspiring to us. And thank you so much
• 50:16
  Speaker 9: for being here. Mayor Wu, thank you again. And coming
• 50:19
  Speaker 9: up next will be Senator Ed Markey.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: So stick around. He is a champion. for two of
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: my favorite and equally important policies, the Green New Deal
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: and permanent daylight saving time. Please welcome Senator Ed Markey.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Senator. How you doing?
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: You know, I'm doing great. You have unleashed the spirit
• 51:02
  Speaker 8: of Boston here tonight.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Just absolutely incredible.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Unleashing the spirit of Boston is exciting and terrifying as
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: a rule. So let's start with the most important issue,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: daylight saving time. So we got it. So this is
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to make daylight saving time permanent. No more early sunsets.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: We got it through the Senate on what's called unanimous consent.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: That's where Nobody objects to it, so it passes. And
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: then a few senators were like, wait, hold on a second.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't agree.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I screwed up a little. I would have objected. So
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: it's kind of stuck right now. Is that right?
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: We got it through the Senate, and now it's over
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: in the House of Representatives. And my philosophy is this,
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: that I like birds. I just don't want them chirping
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: at 5 a.m. in the morning outside of my window.
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: And I'd rather have the hour of sun in the
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: evening when I can use it for other purposes. And
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: I also believe that when the sun is out in
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: the evening, it actually makes the corners of people's mouths
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: turn upwards. And they're kind of walking on sunshine for
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: that extra hour in the evening.
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: And it just makes people feel good.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I agree. However, Massachusetts makes sense. In standard time winters,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the sun here sets at about two in the afternoon.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: You people are trudging. Kids are coming home from preschool
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: midday in the pitch black dark. It's Anchorage. Here's my compromise,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: all right, to get this through, to not lose some
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: of these people that are a bit more skeptical. Here's
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: my compromise, all right. We do, basically, we amend the
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Uniform Time Act of 1966, and instead of making everybody
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: choose permanent daylight saving time, we just say, if you
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: want to switch to permanent daylight saving time as a state,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: you can. If you want to be on standard time,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: you can. If you want to keep switching, you go
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: for it. Just give permission to all the states that
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: have already voted in their legislatures to adopt permanent daylight
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: saving time to do so if that's what they've approved,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: and then all that will happen is we'll have a
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: new time zone map And states that switch will switch.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: States that don't won't. Some will be standard. Some will
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: be permanent. And everybody wins. Are you in? Are you
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: in on the Lovett proposal? Can we get your support tonight?
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: So the Lovett proposal is why you wouldn't want it
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: for other issues. You're kind of like a states' rights
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: guy for daylight savings time.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: You know what? Yes. Yes, I am. On this one thing.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: On this one thing. Well, here's where I am. So
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: with Marco Rubio. I don't know who that is.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: I hear you.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: I hear you. I've literally never heard the name.
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: Well, what we were able to do was the Republican
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: conservative senator from the Sunshine State partnered with the liberal
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: Democratic senator from the brain state. And we partnered to
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: get it passed in the Senate. And now I have
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: to deal.
• 54:10
  Speaker 8: With the House of Representatives.
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, I don't know, maybe I could
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: just commission you to be on my staff.
• 54:20
  Speaker 8: For the next couple of months to cut this.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Put me in. I won't do any security forms and
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I won't do a background check, but I'll help.
• 54:27
  Speaker 7: All right?
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: I'll help on the outside. I'm not signing anything. Well,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what.
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: I am 100% committed to year-round daylight savings time. But
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: if a compromise is needed... I think we have to
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: put your ideas on the table in order to find
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: a way to President Biden's desk because everyone deserves to
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: have sunshine, a little bit of sunshine in their life
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: every single day.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I completely agree.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask you about this because it
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: actually broke today and I was actually surprised by it.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: So CNN has reported that these texts from one of
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: your colleagues, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, that he was
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: actively trying to overturn the election, that he was texting
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Mark Meadows saying, we've got to figure out a way
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: to get these legislatures to overturn the election. He was
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: more involved and more active than previously known. What was
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: your reaction to that? Were you surprised by just how
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: involved Senator Lee was in his effort to overturn the election?
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm not surprised in a Republican Party, which is
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, which is really
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: a party of the invasion of the body snatchers, where
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump now controls the agenda. And I'm also not
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: surprised that perhaps at some moment that there was some reservations.
• 56:03
  Speaker 8: That they had about how far they were going. But.
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: I don't think we can give out gold medals for
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: just protecting the Constitution for a brief moment in people's
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: careers because even a broken clock is right twice a day.
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: But the reality is that this is a party that
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: has lost its way. And from my perspective, for what
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump did on January 6th, I believe that he
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: belongs in jail. I believe that what he did was
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: a crime against our Constitution.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Disagree. Now let's talk about the Green New Deal. In
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: this moment where we're feeling the effects of these high
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: gas prices because of what's happening around the world, On
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the one hand, there is this push now to say,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: this is why we need clean energy. This is why
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: we need to make ourselves, to unyoke ourselves from fossil fuels.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, the Biden administration announced today they're
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: going to auction leases on 145,000 acres of public lands
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: in nine states. What do you think about that, their
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: decision to begin these leases again?
• 57:31
  Speaker 8: We cannot drill our way out of this problem.
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: Our federal lands should be protected.
• 57:44
  Speaker 8: And right now, by the way, the oil and gas industry.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: Already has 9,000 permits on public lands in the United
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: States to drill on and they're not. They have 4,000
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: permits off our coastline on federal land to drill on.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: They are not.
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: They also have 4,000 leases, permits on their own private land,
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: and they're not drilling on it.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And why is that?
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: Because they don't have a stake in reducing gasoline prices.
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: They're actually drilling for wealth in their own stocks, taking
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: their war profits over the last years and pouring it
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: into their own wealth and not into new wells. So
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: we don't need to give them any more money. any
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: more of the.
• 58:32
  Speaker 8: Public lands of our country. What we need is a
• 58:37
  Speaker 8: clean energy revolution.
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: We need wind and solar, all electric vehicles, battery storage technologies.
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: And the truth is that for every 15 million all
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: electric vehicles that we deploy in the United States, we
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: back out all of the Russian oil.
• 58:54
  Speaker 8: The next 15 million all electric vehicles, that would back
• 58:57
  Speaker 8: out all of the Saudi oil.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Et cetera, et cetera.
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: The power is in our own technological genius that has
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: to be unleashed, and then we will solve this problem.
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: without having to have oil and gas companies have any
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: more of the precious federal lands in our country.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Where are you, last question on this, where are you
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: on this sort of deal where basically we'll relent to
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: some short term oil and gas drilling to get this
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: longer-term green energy investment that's far bigger, right? Even some
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: progressives in the House have come out for it, to
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: try to get Joe Manchin, to get Joe Manchin to
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: this yes that he's buried 500 feet underground that we've
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: been digging to find for the last two fucking years. Well,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: here's where we are.
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: First of all, it's so great to be here with
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: our great new mayor, Michelle Wu.
• 59:55
  Speaker 8: She ran.
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: She ran on a Green New Deal. And we have
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: a Green New Deal mayor in Boston. And I introduced
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: the Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 8: Just three years ago.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: And that has created a revolution. And we are the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: revolutionary state. And we can feel it. And The mayor is,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: we already have one green monster over at Fenway Park.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: She's going to turn the whole city into one big
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: green monster. And I'm just so proud of her. And
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: my feeling is this, very simply, that.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 8: When we look at what.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: Putin has done, when we look at this invasion of Ukraine,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: when we look at the dramatic spike in the price
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: of oil, the response has to be in Europe and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: in the United States that we are going to destroy
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: the business model of Russia and of Saudi Arabia. And
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: we're going to just stop this crazy dependence on imported oil.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: It is a catalyst for conflict. It's the Green New
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: Deal which is the pathway to peace. And the only
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: way to do it is not to have more drilling.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: It's rather to unleash this incredible young generation, the Green
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: New Deal revolution that will, in fact, make it possible
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: for us to look into the rearview mirror to think
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: that there ever was such an era that we were
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: so dependent on imported oil and gas.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: So... We can... We got a bill. It says we'll
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: do the clean energy provisions of Build Back better, but
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to get Manchin, we're going to do a short-term oil
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: and gas. How do you feel about it? I think that....
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 8: First of all, there are no Republicans in the room.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 8: We'll just start right there.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: So let's just stipulate that it's a party without a
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: conscience in terms of climate change. So we have to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: negotiate with Senator Manchin. And my own belief is, because
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: I've been working on this for decades, we've never been
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: closer to getting a bill that passes that will put
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: us on a pathway by 2030 and 2035 to be
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: able to really say that we have done what is
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: necessary and we won't need any of that oil or gas.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: We put 70% of all the oil we consume into
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: gasoline tanks. If we're producing 40% of all of our
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: new vehicles are electric by 2030, that the business model
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: of the oil and gas companies will be on the
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: pathway to oblivion. They can have all the leases they want.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: We won't need their oil. So we just have to
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: get all of those tax breaks in place. They call
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: it socialism, Fox News. You know what I say? A
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: hundred years of tax breaks for oil, gas, and coal.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 8: Give us some of.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: That socialism for wind and solar and all electric vehicles,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: and we will solve that problem.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: All right. I think we've... All right. All right. Thank
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: you so much for being here. But before we let
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: you go, we couldn't leave Boston without exploring what makes
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: this city unique. And here to help us do that,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: please welcome back to the stage your hometown heroes, John
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and Tommy. Hi, guys.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Senator.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Happy Patriot's Day again. All right, you guys go here. Boston.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: You're cut from your own cloth. And that cloth is
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: a jersey you wore to a too-nice restaurant. The concierge
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: at our hotel was wearing a Celtics t-shirt. I've never
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: seen that before. He is your key, he is your
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: drink voucher. Go Sox.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: Is that okay?
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: You could work on that.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: What do you think? John, do it. How did he
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: say it?
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: How was that Boston accent, Senator?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: Do you want it from Southie or do you want
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: it from Beverly Farms? We have multiple accents. We actually
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: grow up bilingual. We have the accent out on the
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: street and then the accent your mother wants you to use.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: So it can be vase or vase, depending upon where
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: you are.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: It's in The Departed. It was Leonardo DiCaprio. You speak
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: both languages, Winchester and Celtic. Remember that great scene?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: I was born in Winchester.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: The point is... Oh, my God. I feel like I'm
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: going to get beat up in the town, you know?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: The point is, Bostonians are known for a subset of
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: interesting behaviors. The good, the bad, the screaming out of
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: your window because I'm driving the wrong way down a
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: one-way street. And we wanted to see just how pervasive
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: these local customs are in a game we're calling, Am
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I the Masshole? And I want everyone here to know
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: that when I said the word masshole backstage to a senator,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: His eyes went, but he's a good sport and thank
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: you for staying for this ridiculous event. Here's how it works.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask if you have indulged in these
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: charming local customs. If you have, raise your hand or
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: call out the answer. And at the end, we will
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: decide who the biggest mass hole is. Senator, are you ready?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 8: I'm ready to go. All right.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Please raise your hand or shout out if this is you.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: You have driven the wrong way down a one-way street. Wow,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: we have a yes from John. All three of them. Wow.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: It's hard to tell.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: You've used furniture from your kitchen to save a parking spot. Senator,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: he's never done it. He's never done it. It's a
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Southie thing. Okay, I think no answers there. Have you
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: ever gotten out of your car? On my street.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: Everyone knows who dug out that hole, okay? And no
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: one wants to find out what happens if you park there.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: You really don't have to put a piece of furniture
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: out there. You know the consequences already. It's norms, not
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: laws on Ed Markey's block still.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Have you ever gotten out of your car to yell
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: at another driver? I'm so brave when I'm mad. Just me.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Have you ever said, I would go gay for Tom
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Brady even if no one asked? John and Tommy say yes.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: It's a tough question. Senator Markey refusing to say he'd
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: go gay for Tom Brady. I see you, Ted Cruz.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Tom Brady for World Hunger?
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: You've met a guy who knew a guy who knew
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: a guy who knew Whitey Bulger.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: Yes!
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: We got a yes from Senator Ed Markey.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Many guys.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: Shout it out if you know the correct name for
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: a water fountain.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: Bubbler.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: All of them got it. You've watched Candlepin Bowling on TV. Everybody.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Candlepins for cash.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: People don't do that all the time on Saturdays?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: Weird.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: You've driven to New Hampshire to buy alcohol on a Sunday.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: John and Tommy, yes. You've unironically been to Wahlburgers.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: Wow, wow. At the airport. It's fine.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Please tell me if you can name the official dessert
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: of Massachusetts born at the Omni Parker House Hotel.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: Boston cream pie.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: Boston cream pie. I heard it, though. Here's one of
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: my many problems with this place called Boston. It's a
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: fucking cake. It's not a pie. It's just a cake.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Am I crazy? It's a fucking cake. Right? Tell me
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: it's not a fucking cake.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: Like a donut filled with cream?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: What the.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: It's got a layer of cake. It's got a layer
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: of cream. It's got a layer of cake. It's got
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: frosting on the top. What are we doing here, Boston?
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Have you ever worn a Bruins jersey to church? No, Senator.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't do that.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: You pronounce car keys like it's a type of pant.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: Cackies.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: Cackies.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Cackies.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Next question. It's a test. Sweet Caroline. The audience got it.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: The audience got it. Final question. All right, Senator. In
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: your heart of hearts, you believe Boston is better than
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: New York City because which is a dump town for
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: fools covered in rats, barely even freezes in the winter,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: and the pizza's overrated too. Your thoughts, Senator?
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: In Boston, in Boston, you were born a Democrat and
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: a Red Sox fan and not baptized for seven more days.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: So the answer is yes.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 8: The New York Yankees are the evil empire.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's pretty clear. Senator, you've won the game.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: It's not even close. This guy puts you to shame.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: His accent, you guys have lost it. You guys have
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: lost it. Thank you so much to Senator Ed Markey
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: for being here. Thank you. That was so fun. So
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. That was so great.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: That's our show for tonight. Thank you to Ed Markey.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you to Mayor Michelle Wu. Thanks to Jane Cosen
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: for being here. VoteSaveAmerica.com.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Sign up.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: We'll see you later, guys.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: Bye, everybody. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: slash crookedmedias.