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“Barack Obama on 2020.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 1: We have a very special episode of Pod Save America today.
0:26
Speaker 1: Barack Obama's here.
0:27
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought you were going to say BTS. Yes,
0:29
Speaker 2: we know we just did an interview with Barack Obama.
0:31
Speaker 2: I have BTS on the brain, John. That was really fun.
0:35
Speaker 2: That was like a throwback 45 minutes.
0:37
Speaker 1: He has lots to say. He talked about sort of
0:41
Speaker 1: his pitch to undecided voters, talked about Joe Biden. Working
0:45
Speaker 1: with him, his foreign policy.
0:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, his character, his foreign policy. We talked about what
0:49
Speaker 2: it's like to wake up and see the President of
0:51
Speaker 2: the United States tweeting that the Attorney General should indict you,
0:55
Speaker 2: if that's weird.
0:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
0:56
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for that. That was an interesting answer. He
0:59
Speaker 1: talked a lot about Fox News and the right-wing media infrastructure.
1:03
Speaker 1: We talked about what it's like governing with this kind
1:06
Speaker 1: of Republican Party and how Joe Biden can deal with
1:08
Speaker 1: this kind of Republican Party if he is, in fact, elected. Yeah,
1:12
Speaker 1: and why you need to vote.
1:13
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm hoping we have some new listeners
1:15
Speaker 2: to this. So if you need any information about where
1:18
Speaker 2: you need to vote, the issues on your ballot, a
1:20
Speaker 2: sample ballot, go to votesaveamerica.com.
1:23
Speaker 1: We got you covered. Figured I'd plug it, John.
1:25
Speaker 2: Why not?
1:26
Speaker 1: And Barack Obama reminded us of this at the end
1:29
Speaker 1: of the interview. Go fill out your census because it
1:31
Speaker 1: was just a horrible Supreme Court decision where they stopped
1:33
Speaker 1: counting the census and Obama wants you all to fill
1:35
Speaker 1: out your census. So that's directly from him.
1:37
Speaker 2: Now you got to do it.
1:38
Speaker 3: Sorry.
1:39
Speaker 4: All right.
1:40
Speaker 1: Here is our interview with Barack Obama. On today's show,
1:48
Speaker 1: the 44th president of the United States, our former boss
1:52
Speaker 1: responsible for hiring the two of us, Barack Obama.
1:55
Speaker 4: Still questioning that decision.
1:59
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the pod.
2:00
Speaker 4: It's good to be back. You guys look good. Thank you.
2:03
Speaker 4: We're trying.
2:04
Speaker 1: You too. You too. So, you know, I'm fairly confident
2:07
Speaker 1: that Pod Save America listeners know who they're voting for
2:11
Speaker 1: at this point. But we have about 300,000 volunteers who
2:14
Speaker 1: are phone banking, text banking every day. A lot of
2:17
Speaker 1: the polling shows that the people who are still deciding
2:21
Speaker 1: who to vote for and especially whether to vote at all,
2:24
Speaker 1: tend to not have a college degree, tend to be younger.
2:27
Speaker 1: They tend to be voters of color. This cycle, they
2:30
Speaker 1: tend to be younger black and Latino men specifically. These
2:33
Speaker 1: voters generally have a negative view of Trump, but they
2:36
Speaker 1: pay less attention to the news and are less likely
2:38
Speaker 1: to believe that voting will actually make a difference. What
2:41
Speaker 1: is your pitch to these voters?
2:43
Speaker 3: Well, let's take some examples just from this year, right?
2:48
Speaker 4: We know that.
2:51
Speaker 3: COVID-19 disproportionately affects minorities. So those voters you just described,
2:58
Speaker 3: they've got a member of their family who may have
3:01
Speaker 3: been killed by COVID or disabled by COVID or laid
3:06
Speaker 3: off as a consequence of COVID. And whatever you think
3:12
Speaker 3: about whether the federal government can help on big major
3:19
Speaker 3: issues like systemic racism, one thing we know is that
3:25
Speaker 3: just basic competence can end up saving lives. And so
3:32
Speaker 3: one thing I would say to anybody who's skeptical about
3:37
Speaker 3: what government can do generally is to just take the example.
3:41
Speaker 4: Of when we were in office.
3:43
Speaker 3: You might not have been happy with everything I did,
3:45
Speaker 3: all my policy choices.
3:47
Speaker 4: I didn't.
3:49
Speaker 3: Eliminate poverty in America. But when we had a pandemic
3:54
Speaker 3: or the threat of pandemic, we had competent people.
3:57
Speaker 4: In place who would deal with it.
4:01
Speaker 3: And that's an example of the kind of thing that
4:04
Speaker 3: government can do and we've seen it do. And that
4:10
Speaker 3: I think is important. For those who are concerned about
4:16
Speaker 3: the criminal justice system, as you guys know, I've talked
4:21
Speaker 3: about this a lot, I am hugely proud of the
4:24
Speaker 3: demonstrations and activism that young people have displayed. And a
4:30
Speaker 3: lot of those folks may be skeptical about what the
4:33
Speaker 3: government can do. Some of them may have been frustrated
4:36
Speaker 3: about my failure to have completely transformed the criminal justice
4:42
Speaker 3: system to eliminate racial bias. Part of that is because
4:46
Speaker 3: 90% of criminal sentencing typically is taking place at the
4:52
Speaker 3: state rather than the federal level, so the federal government
4:55
Speaker 3: doesn't have power. But the truth of the matter is
4:58
Speaker 3: that when I was in office, Eric Holder said to
5:03
Speaker 3: US attorneys, we're not gonna judge you on getting.
5:08
Speaker 4: The maximum sentence every single time.
5:11
Speaker 3: He changed the criteria so that the federal government in
5:16
Speaker 3: cases that were involving drug cases, for example, wasn't throwing
5:21
Speaker 3: the book at folks and trying to maximize the number
5:23
Speaker 3: of people going to prison. That may not eliminate mass incarceration,
5:28
Speaker 3: but it does change the lives of potentially thousands, tens
5:33
Speaker 3: of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. Us initiating a
5:37
Speaker 3: consent decree in a place like Ferguson so that they
5:42
Speaker 3: can't make a move in terms of how their police
5:44
Speaker 3: department works without first clearing it with civil rights attorneys
5:49
Speaker 3: to make sure they're not reinforcing.
5:50
Speaker 4: Bias, that makes a difference.
5:53
Speaker 3: And one of the things that I've been emphasizing is
5:56
Speaker 3: the degree to which it's not just the presidential candidates
6:01
Speaker 3: that are on the ticket. You've got district attorneys and
6:06
Speaker 3: state's attorneys who are going to be responsible for whether
6:09
Speaker 3: or not police misconduct is charged and departments are held accountable.
6:16
Speaker 3: You've got mayor's races in which the mayor is going
6:19
Speaker 3: to decide who the police chief is and what the
6:21
Speaker 3: contract is with the police union. So on every issue
6:26
Speaker 3: that young people in particular care about, let's agree, let's
6:32
Speaker 3: stipulate that, yeah, the government's not going to solve every
6:36
Speaker 3: problem overnight.
6:37
Speaker 4: But you know what?
6:38
Speaker 3: It can make it better. And better means lives saved.
6:44
Speaker 3: Better means the air a little less polluted. Better means
6:49
Speaker 3: that maybe some people don't get charged for crimes that
6:53
Speaker 3: they shouldn't be charged for, and some people don't get shot,
6:58
Speaker 3: and that's worth fighting for.
6:59
Speaker 4: And the idea that.
7:00
Speaker 3: You'd give away your power because you're not getting 100%
7:05
Speaker 3: when you could get 30%, 40%, 50% better, that doesn't
7:11
Speaker 3: make any sense. And that, I think, is the most
7:13
Speaker 3: important thing that I... I focus on when I'm talking
7:17
Speaker 3: to young people in particular, don't let the best be
7:22
Speaker 3: the enemy of the good in this situation. There are
7:25
Speaker 3: constraints in our system. Even a well-meaning president can't solve everything,
7:31
Speaker 3: but they can make some things better. And just like
7:34
Speaker 3: the Affordable Care Act, us getting 20 million people health
7:38
Speaker 3: insurance and locking in pre-existing conditions and everybody being under
7:43
Speaker 3: 26 being able to be on their parents' plan, We
7:46
Speaker 3: still had millions of people without health insurance, but for
7:49
Speaker 3: those 20 million or those people with pre-existing conditions who
7:53
Speaker 3: had tried to get.
7:53
Speaker 4: Insurance, that was a lifeline. That was a lifesaver.
7:58
Speaker 3: And you can spend 15 minutes, half an hour voting
8:04
Speaker 3: to do that.
8:06
Speaker 4: Good. A quick plug.
8:07
Speaker 2: If you go to votesaveamerica.com, you can find your sample ballot.
8:11
Speaker 2: You can see all those down ballot races that are critical.
8:13
Speaker 2: If you're in California, you can see ballot initiatives.
8:15
Speaker 1: So check it out.
8:16
Speaker 2: VoteSaveAmerica.com, shameless plug.
8:19
Speaker 3: Mr.
8:19
Speaker 2: President, so presidents have the most discretion when it comes
8:23
Speaker 2: to foreign policy, but those issues rarely get a lot
8:25
Speaker 2: of attention during the campaign. Voters may have heard that
8:28
Speaker 2: Joe Biden supported the war in Iraq back in the day,
8:31
Speaker 2: but not a lot else about him. You spent countless
8:34
Speaker 2: hours with Vice President Biden talking about national security. What
8:38
Speaker 2: did you learn about how he thinks about diplomacy and
8:40
Speaker 2: counterterrorism and the use of military force that others would
8:43
Speaker 2: not have seen?
8:45
Speaker 4: Well, a couple of things.
8:47
Speaker 3: One, and I think this is most important, is when
8:52
Speaker 3: people ask me what surprised me most about the presidency,
8:58
Speaker 3: what I always tell them is I understood but didn't
9:02
Speaker 3: fully appreciate the degree to which we kind of underwrite
9:07
Speaker 3: the international order.
9:09
Speaker 1: True.
9:11
Speaker 3: In the sense that even our enemies expect us to
9:13
Speaker 3: behave like adults on the international stage. If there's a
9:18
Speaker 3: crisis somewhere, people don't call Moscow or Beijing.
9:22
Speaker 4: They call us and say, what are we going to
9:25
Speaker 4: do to help? If there is an.
9:28
Speaker 3: Ethnic cleansing, if there is a conflict, if there is
9:31
Speaker 3: a natural disaster. And the reason that we can serve
9:35
Speaker 3: in that role, even if we're not perfect, is that
9:39
Speaker 3: we have the infrastructure, we have experienced diplomats, we have
9:45
Speaker 3: institutional traditions that allow us to show leadership on the
9:50
Speaker 3: international stage, whether it's in the Paris Peace Accords, whether
9:53
Speaker 3: it's on the Iran deal, you name it. And the
9:58
Speaker 3: thing that over the last four years, it's not as
10:01
Speaker 3: if Trump has been.
10:05
Speaker 4: All that active internationally. I mean, the truth is he
10:08
Speaker 4: doesn't have.
10:08
Speaker 3: The patience and the focus to really substantially change a
10:15
Speaker 3: lot of US foreign policy. What he's done is he's
10:20
Speaker 3: systematically tried to decimate our entire foreign policy infrastructure. And
10:25
Speaker 3: the thing I know about Joe is that he respects
10:31
Speaker 3: people who know history and have expertise and he's going
10:37
Speaker 3: to pay attention to somebody who has worked in Africa.
10:45
Speaker 4: To find out how should I deal with a.
10:48
Speaker 3: Particular crisis there, as opposed to calling it a bunch of,
10:53
Speaker 3: I won't say the word, countries. He has a respect
10:59
Speaker 3: and understanding for what American leadership can do. And let's
11:04
Speaker 3: take the example of human rights, because I've just been
11:08
Speaker 3: writing about this.
11:11
Speaker 4: Any U.S.
11:11
Speaker 3: President, when I became president, one of the things I
11:14
Speaker 3: discovered coming into office is you're in charge of this
11:17
Speaker 3: big apparatus. You've got all these legacy systems. You've got
11:22
Speaker 3: the Pentagon. You've got the intelligence community. A bunch of
11:25
Speaker 3: choices have been made, some of which you don't necessarily
11:27
Speaker 3: agree with. It's an ocean liner and not a speedboat,
11:31
Speaker 3: so you trying to change policy is really difficult, right?
11:36
Speaker 3: But even in those circumstances where you have to balance U.S.
11:43
Speaker 3: interests versus human rights interests, for us to go around
11:46
Speaker 3: and just talk about human rights, for me to meet with.
11:51
Speaker 4: A dictator, yes, I may have to deal with them
11:55
Speaker 4: because we've got other interests at stake.
11:58
Speaker 3: But for me to bring up in a meeting, you
12:00
Speaker 3: know what, you locking up journalists or you mistreating this
12:06
Speaker 3: minority ethnic group, is.
12:07
Speaker 4: Something that the United States objects to, that gives them pause.
12:15
Speaker 4: It in some cases may.
12:18
Speaker 3: Tilt the balance in a way that you create more
12:22
Speaker 3: space for human rights activists or freedom of speech or
12:25
Speaker 3: environmental activism.
12:28
Speaker 4: And that's something I know Joe cares about.
12:30
Speaker 3: The other thing I think that's important, you mentioned Joe
12:33
Speaker 3: having a, voted for the war.
12:36
Speaker 4: In Iraq, he learned a lesson from that.
12:38
Speaker 3: And as you know, he was probably the person who
12:41
Speaker 3: was most restrained in terms of use of military force
12:46
Speaker 3: among my senior advisors during the course of my presidency.
12:51
Speaker 3: He consistently believed that we should show restraint and humility
12:57
Speaker 3: and think through the use of military power and had
13:04
Speaker 3: huge confidence and faith in the use of diplomacy as
13:07
Speaker 3: a strategy for.
13:09
Speaker 4: Showing American leadership.
13:11
Speaker 3: And that instinct, I think, is going to trickle out,
13:14
Speaker 3: partly because he's going to have to rebuild a State
13:16
Speaker 3: Department where some of the best people have been driven
13:20
Speaker 3: out systematically because they weren't willing to toe Trump's ideological agenda. Right.
13:30
Speaker 1: So the two of you, you know, became really close
13:32
Speaker 1: over the eight years that you served together. Do you
13:34
Speaker 1: have an anecdote about Joe Biden that most people don't
13:37
Speaker 1: know tells a story about what kind of a person
13:39
Speaker 1: or leader he is?
13:41
Speaker 3: You know, I think the thing that I always, when
13:46
Speaker 3: I think about Joe, I always think about the fact that,
13:53
Speaker 3: and this is not a particular anecdote, this is more
13:56
Speaker 3: just day to day interactions. Um, He was always the
14:02
Speaker 3: guy in every meeting who asked, how's this helping regular folks?
14:11
Speaker 3: The whole aspect of him about Scranton and getting on
14:19
Speaker 3: Amtrak and talking to the conductors and knowing their names and.
14:23
Speaker 4: Wanting to.
14:26
Speaker 3: Spend as much time as possible with voters and just
14:29
Speaker 3: hear about their lives. and identifying with the ordinary day-to-day
14:35
Speaker 3: struggles of the American people, that's not a shtick. You know,
14:38
Speaker 3: that's who he is. Now, that's part of the reason
14:41
Speaker 3: why he was always late, because if you got in
14:44
Speaker 3: a rope line with him, you know, I was pretty
14:47
Speaker 3: good about working the rope line. You know, this whole
14:49
Speaker 3: myth about me being aloof and stuff, you guys were there. Like,
14:52
Speaker 3: I loved hugging grandmas and kissing babies. And I'd take
14:56
Speaker 3: my time in rope lines, and if he and I
15:00
Speaker 3: were campaigning... I would have been really giving everybody a
15:05
Speaker 3: lot of attention. I'd be at the end of the rope.
15:07
Speaker 4: I'd look back.
15:08
Speaker 3: He was a third of the way through, man. He
15:11
Speaker 3: was still telling a story or listening to somebody. And
15:17
Speaker 3: that heart is who he is. And that's why a
15:24
Speaker 3: lot of times when you're thinking about the presidency, It's
15:30
Speaker 3: great to look at policy and do they have, what
15:33
Speaker 3: were their 10-point plans on this or that or the other.
15:36
Speaker 3: But a lot of it is what's their basic character?
15:42
Speaker 3: Are they people who instinctively care about the underdog? Are
15:50
Speaker 3: they people who... are able to see the world through
15:57
Speaker 3: somebody else's eyes and stand in their shoes? Are they
16:01
Speaker 3: people who are instinctively generous in spirit, right?
16:06
Speaker 4: And that is who Joe is.
16:10
Speaker 3: And I've never seen him, and you don't, you know, look,
16:14
Speaker 3: when you run for president, pretty much every, all your
16:18
Speaker 3: flaws are exposed.
16:21
Speaker 4: And once you're president, then they're really exposed.
16:25
Speaker 3: But you don't hear stories about Joe being just mean
16:29
Speaker 3: to somebody, right? People may fault him for other stuff,
16:35
Speaker 3: but you don't hear Joe being disloyal to somebody or
16:41
Speaker 3: mistreating them or being standoffish and pushing them away when
16:48
Speaker 3: they were asking for help. And that is the thing
16:51
Speaker 3: in him that I think should give people a lot
16:54
Speaker 3: of confidence That along with the fact that he understands
16:59
Speaker 3: the importance of surrounding himself with people who are smart
17:03
Speaker 3: and believe in science and believe in expertise and believe
17:09
Speaker 3: in institutional knowledge and experience.
17:13
Speaker 4: And so you get that combination.
17:16
Speaker 3: It means that his North Star will be good, but
17:20
Speaker 3: at the same time, he'll have a lot of people
17:22
Speaker 3: around him who are able to translate his good instincts
17:26
Speaker 3: into actual policy that works.
17:36
Speaker 2: Speaking of bad instincts, President Trump keeps tweeting that the
17:41
Speaker 2: Attorney General should indict you or indict Vice President Biden
17:45
Speaker 2: for spying on his campaign. The allegation is absurd.
17:48
Speaker 4: It's false.
17:49
Speaker 2: It's seemingly part of just his general rage. at any
17:52
Speaker 2: discussion of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. It's remarkable
17:56
Speaker 2: to me how used to this kind of language the
18:01
Speaker 2: DC has become, the press corps has become.
18:04
Speaker 1: Is it weird for you when he tweets that you
18:06
Speaker 1: should be indicted?
18:07
Speaker 3: Well, look, as you said, this is something that even
18:12
Speaker 3: his fellow Republicans tend to just pretend doesn't happen.
18:22
Speaker 1: Didn't read the tweet.
18:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't read the tweet. I kind of dodge
18:27
Speaker 4: reporters when they're asked about it. The allegations are.
18:31
Speaker 3: So absurd that even Republican controlled committees, you know, looking
18:39
Speaker 3: into it, have dismissed them. And, you know, Attorney General
18:46
Speaker 3: Barr has dismissed them. But, you know, This is an example,
18:54
Speaker 3: I think, of a larger problem. Well, two larger problems,
19:00
Speaker 3: which don't get as much attention, understandably, when you've got
19:03
Speaker 3: high unemployment and a pandemic raging, because it doesn't touch
19:07
Speaker 3: people's day-to-day lives. But one of the central foundation stones
19:14
Speaker 3: of a democracy is the idea that you do not.
19:22
Speaker 3: You do not allow the politicization of the criminal justice system,
19:28
Speaker 3: the intelligence system, the military, right?
19:31
Speaker 4: That that is stuff that you keep out of politics
19:36
Speaker 4: because it's too dangerous.
19:37
Speaker 3: You don't want, you can't have a democracy in which
19:42
Speaker 3: political opponents are subject to this kind of inflammatory language. Now,
19:50
Speaker 3: he did this same thing with Hillary and the lock
19:53
Speaker 3: her up theme. And so I'm not surprised by it,
19:58
Speaker 3: that it continues. I'm disappointed that Republicans who know better
20:05
Speaker 3: have not checked in on this. I think a very
20:10
Speaker 3: important question after the election, even if it goes well
20:15
Speaker 3: with Joe Biden, is whether you start seeing the Republican
20:21
Speaker 3: Party restore some sense of here are norms that we
20:30
Speaker 3: can't breach because he's breached all of them and they
20:35
Speaker 3: have not said to him, this is too far. So
20:40
Speaker 3: that brings me then to the second issue, and that
20:44
Speaker 3: is the whole misinformation, social media, media infrastructure, the conservative
20:51
Speaker 3: media infrastructure. We've had this conversation before. That is a
20:56
Speaker 3: problem that is going to outlast Trump. Trump is a
21:01
Speaker 3: symptom of it and an accelerant to it, but he
21:05
Speaker 3: did not create it. We saw it. when, during my
21:12
Speaker 3: campaign back in 08, and we saw, you know, you
21:16
Speaker 3: guys had to deal with it directly during our administration.
21:21
Speaker 3: It has gotten turbocharged because of social media and because
21:26
Speaker 3: the head of our government, our federal government, has resorted
21:33
Speaker 3: to it. But, you know, when you look at insane
21:37
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories like QAnon, seeping into.
21:43
Speaker 4: The mainstream of the Republican Party.
21:47
Speaker 3: What that tells you is that there are no more
21:51
Speaker 3: guardrails within.
21:53
Speaker 4: That media ecosystem.
21:55
Speaker 3: And I think one of the biggest challenges all of
21:58
Speaker 3: us have, this is not just a progressives versus right
22:03
Speaker 3: wing issue.
22:04
Speaker 4: This is really a genuine American society issue.
22:10
Speaker 3: Is how do we reestablish some baselines of truth that
22:17
Speaker 3: at least the vast majority of people can agree to?
22:23
Speaker 3: And then we can have a whole bunch of debates about,
22:25
Speaker 3: all right, yeah, climate change is real, but, you know,
22:30
Speaker 3: Republicans think, yeah, we just have to adapt because we
22:33
Speaker 3: can't give up our and progressives say, no, we should
22:42
Speaker 3: use these alternative technologies. We can have that debate, and
22:46
Speaker 3: I have some pretty strong views about it, but if
22:49
Speaker 3: you say climate change is a hoax, then there's nothing
22:53
Speaker 3: we can do.
22:54
Speaker 4: The same is true with COVID.
22:57
Speaker 3: If you say, yes, COVID is a genuine, really big problem,
23:05
Speaker 3: a serious disease, here's the science, we can agree to that,
23:08
Speaker 3: And then, you know, you have a country like Sweden
23:11
Speaker 3: that decides, well, we think we're going to try to
23:13
Speaker 3: approach this through herd immunity. But at least there's some
23:17
Speaker 3: coherence to their argument. I disagree with it. I don't
23:21
Speaker 3: think it is proven out. But we're within the same
23:27
Speaker 3: reality in our debates. We're going to have to find
23:31
Speaker 3: ways to do that. I don't have a quick answer
23:33
Speaker 3: for that because part of what happens within Sweden when
23:38
Speaker 3: you get these echo chambers is they become impenetrable, right?
23:45
Speaker 3: Any bit of information that contradicts the worldview and the
23:52
Speaker 3: conspiracies within it or the conspiracy theories within it, it
23:55
Speaker 3: gets rejected as part of the conspiracy and part of
23:59
Speaker 3: the liberal plot. But I do think that that's going
24:03
Speaker 3: to be a big challenge that we all have.
24:05
Speaker 4: And I'm concerned about that.
24:08
Speaker 1: Well, it goes to governing too. I mean, and you
24:11
Speaker 1: know this from your time in office, majority of voters
24:13
Speaker 1: want leaders who will bring the country together, try to
24:17
Speaker 1: work together in a bipartisan way. They also want leaders
24:20
Speaker 1: who will end the gridlock in Washington and actually get
24:23
Speaker 1: something done on the big issues. How do you govern
24:25
Speaker 1: in a way that's both bipartisan and productive when the
24:30
Speaker 1: only way to break the gridlock with this version of
24:32
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is through huge Democratic majorities, getting rid
24:37
Speaker 1: of the filibuster, other big structural reforms, all of which
24:40
Speaker 1: will be seen by Republicans and much of the media
24:43
Speaker 1: as extremely partisan.
24:45
Speaker 3: Well, look, as you know, this is exactly what we
24:49
Speaker 3: confronted with and we had really big majorities. But because
24:52
Speaker 3: of the filibuster and Mitch McConnell systematically wanting to throw
24:59
Speaker 3: sand into the gears, no matter how much outreach we made,
25:04
Speaker 3: as long as Republicans could maintain unity.
25:07
Speaker 4: And McConnell was very explicit about this.
25:09
Speaker 3: He said, okay, here's one thing I've learned is as
25:12
Speaker 3: long as we can keep Republicans off Obama's bills, even
25:15
Speaker 3: when it's their proposals that used to be Republican proposals,
25:21
Speaker 3: then we can rob them of the veneer of bipartisanship
25:27
Speaker 3: and that polarization plays to our advantage, right? I mean,
25:31
Speaker 3: he was very systematic and strategic about that. What I
25:35
Speaker 3: have concluded is, is that the answer is to change
25:40
Speaker 3: some of these structural impediments to just getting stuff done.
25:45
Speaker 3: I mentioned at John Lewis's funeral my belief that I
25:51
Speaker 3: think we should test it. I think we should give
25:53
Speaker 3: Republicans a chance to work with us around reasonable issues.
25:57
Speaker 3: I don't think we should be maximalist and ask for
26:00
Speaker 3: 100 percent.
26:01
Speaker 4: Of what we want all the time.
26:03
Speaker 3: But I think that if you continue to see the
26:07
Speaker 3: kind of systematic rejection of even reasonable compromise, there comes
26:13
Speaker 3: a point at which you just have to change how
26:16
Speaker 3: the system works. The filibuster would be one. I would
26:21
Speaker 3: argue that around voting, us going ahead and just making
26:27
Speaker 3: it easier for people to vote, making it harder to
26:31
Speaker 3: suppress the vote, is.
26:35
Speaker 4: Not partisan. It is an expression of our democracy.
26:40
Speaker 3: It will be portrayed as partisan, but that's an argument
26:45
Speaker 3: I think we have to welcome.
26:46
Speaker 4: I think we have to go ahead and have that argument.
26:49
Speaker 3: Look, if you have one major party, perhaps the only
26:53
Speaker 3: major party that I know of in any advanced democracy
26:58
Speaker 3: in the world, who explicitly says we're trying to keep
27:03
Speaker 3: fellow citizens, certain fellow citizens from voting. And we're trying
27:06
Speaker 3: to make it as hard on them as possible. Even
27:10
Speaker 3: the far right in Europe does not say that. They
27:14
Speaker 3: don't say, you know, let's stop other, you know, Austrians
27:18
Speaker 3: from voting or let's stop other Germans from voting. This
27:23
Speaker 3: is unique to us and it's a legacy of, you know,
27:29
Speaker 3: racial discrimination and gender discrimination and was embedded in our
27:33
Speaker 3: initial constitution and had to be fixed through a series
27:37
Speaker 3: of amendments. And so I think that we should welcome
27:43
Speaker 3: the argument that making it easier for people to vote
27:50
Speaker 3: and eliminating the last vestiges of Jim Crow and poll
27:54
Speaker 3: taxes and all that stuff, is not a partisan issue.
28:00
Speaker 3: And anyone who argues against that is behaving in a
28:04
Speaker 3: partisan fashion. And I think we can win that argument
28:07
Speaker 3: with the majority of the American people.
28:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:10
Speaker 2: I mean, your last answer sort of gets at this
28:13
Speaker 2: ongoing four years later debate about whether Trump is an
28:17
Speaker 2: aberration or whether he is sort of the next phase
28:21
Speaker 2: of a Republican party that has been built on racial
28:23
Speaker 2: grievance and built on cruelty to immigrants and Fox News
28:26
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories. And It's a bit of an esoteric Washington debate,
28:30
Speaker 2: but the answer also shapes how Joe Biden or any
28:34
Speaker 2: Democrat should approach the job because we all hoped that
28:36
Speaker 2: the Republican fever would break after the 2012 reelect, and
28:40
Speaker 2: clearly it didn't. Things have gotten worse. Do you have
28:42
Speaker 2: a view on this sort of debate about whether Trump
28:44
Speaker 2: is an aberration?
28:47
Speaker 3: You know what? Here's the way I think about it.
28:51
Speaker 3: I would distinguish between... people who vote Republican and the
29:00
Speaker 3: Republican Party and the Republican media infrastructure. And what I
29:07
Speaker 3: mean by that is this, and you guys have heard
29:11
Speaker 3: me say this before. You know, when I was elected
29:16
Speaker 3: to the U.S. Senate, I got about 70% of the
29:23
Speaker 3: vote in Illinois. I got the majority of the vote
29:26
Speaker 3: in Southern Illinois, which is much closer culturally to Kentucky
29:32
Speaker 3: or Southern Indiana or Southern Ohio than it is Chicago.
29:38
Speaker 3: And it did well in a bunch of wineries evangelical counties,
29:41
Speaker 3: rural counties, that I think it's fair to say there's
29:46
Speaker 3: no way right now that I could get those votes, right?
29:49
Speaker 4: If I went back to those same places.
29:51
Speaker 3: And the reason is because they see me only through
29:54
Speaker 3: the filter of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Lord knows what's
29:59
Speaker 3: going on in Facebook, et cetera, right? But when you
30:02
Speaker 3: got those folks one-on-one and they had a chance to
30:05
Speaker 3: meet you and talk to you and you were at
30:08
Speaker 3: a veterans, a VA hospital or a fish fry, you
30:16
Speaker 3: could have a conversation with them. They might disagree with
30:19
Speaker 3: you on a whole bunch of stuff, but they thought,
30:21
Speaker 3: you know what? He seems like an okay guy. I'm
30:24
Speaker 3: not scared of him, even if I disagree with him.
30:29
Speaker 3: And those folks right now are just being fed what's
30:35
Speaker 3: coming through that filter.
30:38
Speaker 4: I do not think that that is inevitable.
30:42
Speaker 3: I think if they were watching Walter Cronkite or they
30:47
Speaker 3: were reading what used to be the local paper that
30:49
Speaker 3: was put out by, you know, some.
30:53
Speaker 4: Cranky conservative guy.
30:55
Speaker 3: With a bow tie, you know, you know, wire-rimmed glasses
30:59
Speaker 3: and a buzz cut, you know, but was like a
31:03
Speaker 3: learned guy who, you know, was kind of serious, but
31:05
Speaker 3: was sort of conservative. If that's where they were getting
31:09
Speaker 3: their information from, I think it'd be, then you could,
31:13
Speaker 3: in fact, have just the normal debates between a more
31:18
Speaker 3: conservative and a more liberal America. And in that circumstance,
31:24
Speaker 3: democracy works. So So the answer, I guess, Tommy, is
31:28
Speaker 3: I think that Trump is expressing or mirroring and in
31:37
Speaker 3: some ways explicitly exploited and took on the crazy that
31:43
Speaker 3: was being pumped out through these venues each and every day.
31:49
Speaker 3: And if that stuff is still being pumped out and
31:53
Speaker 3: Trump goes away, someone else will uh.
31:56
Speaker 4: Meet that market demand.
31:59
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, do I think that that
32:02
Speaker 3: is inevitably who, what the Republican party has to be?
32:06
Speaker 4: No, I don't, I don't think it does.
32:09
Speaker 3: It was fascinating as I was writing the book, I
32:11
Speaker 3: was just looking through some of the old stuff, uh, about, uh, Trump,
32:15
Speaker 3: Trump was really complimentary of me for like.
32:17
Speaker 4: The first two years.
32:18
Speaker 3: So, you know, Obama seemed like doing a great job,
32:22
Speaker 3: you know, uh, thinking, you know, uh, And essentially what happened,
32:28
Speaker 3: because the guy just decided he wanted attention, right, whether
32:32
Speaker 3: it was to promote Celebrity Apprentice or whatever, he looked
32:36
Speaker 3: and saw what was being fed, and he said, oh,
32:40
Speaker 3: if that's what folks want, I can do that with
32:45
Speaker 3: even less inhibition, right? So with even less of a...
32:50
Speaker 3: I don't need a dog whistle. I'm just going to
32:52
Speaker 3: go ahead and say it.
32:54
Speaker 4: And I'll just... you know, and that's how the.
32:56
Speaker 3: Whole birtherism shtick came about. Our country has always had
33:05
Speaker 3: this battle, right, between these darker impulses to exclude, to dominate,
33:13
Speaker 3: to rig the game in favor of certain folks and
33:18
Speaker 3: not others. And then the other side of it has
33:22
Speaker 3: been to expand and embrace the dignity and inherent worth
33:29
Speaker 3: of every individual, regardless of what they look like or
33:33
Speaker 3: where they come from. And that tug of war is
33:37
Speaker 3: always going to be there. And we as Democrats have
33:41
Speaker 3: to remind ourselves that for much of the 20th century,
33:47
Speaker 3: the Democrats were as bad or worse, right?
33:52
Speaker 4: The South was democratic.
33:55
Speaker 3: Dixie crats were the ones who were running filibusters to
33:58
Speaker 3: prevent anti-lynching legislation, et cetera. Uh, and Lincoln was a Republican. So, so,
34:06
Speaker 3: so the issue has less to do with is, is
34:09
Speaker 3: one party or the other inevitably like this one way
34:12
Speaker 3: or the other. It has much more to do with, uh,
34:16
Speaker 3: this ongoing tug of war between our, the better angels
34:20
Speaker 3: of our nature and, uh, our worst impulses.
34:25
Speaker 4: And I have confidence that.
34:31
Speaker 3: We can get back to a point where both parties.
34:38
Speaker 4: Have in it those better angels.
34:41
Speaker 3: But I do think that we're going to have to
34:43
Speaker 3: figure out how to get to voters. What are the
34:47
Speaker 3: workarounds to just penetrate the 24-7 narrative that is being
34:57
Speaker 3: pumped out by folks like Fox News and others.
35:10
Speaker 1: So last question, we'll let you go. So most of
35:12
Speaker 1: our listeners are happily working very hard to elect Joe Biden,
35:16
Speaker 1: even though they supported, you know, more progressive candidates in
35:18
Speaker 1: the primary. What's your advice to those people who want
35:21
Speaker 1: to see not only a more progressive Democratic Party, but
35:24
Speaker 1: more progressive policies enacted in Washington? You were on both
35:27
Speaker 1: sides of this. You were an organizer. You were president.
35:29
Speaker 1: So you've seen it from both sides.
35:32
Speaker 3: Look, I think that, number one, win first, right? And
35:40
Speaker 3: I think everybody's kind of moved into that mindset.
35:46
Speaker 4: You know, we.
35:48
Speaker 3: Let's get through the next three weeks and then the
35:51
Speaker 3: next three months, and then let's figure out.
35:55
Speaker 4: What our internal debates are going to be. So that's
35:59
Speaker 4: point number one.
35:59
Speaker 3: Point number two is that I think it is very
36:05
Speaker 3: important for progressives to continue to press their agenda because
36:13
Speaker 3: there are going to be other forces that are pressing
36:18
Speaker 3: on the White House from the other direction.
36:22
Speaker 4: And that's always the case. That's always true.
36:26
Speaker 3: And there's nothing wrong with making noise about it. And
36:28
Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with holding folks to account. I think
36:35
Speaker 3: the caution I always have for progressives is making sure
36:40
Speaker 3: that as you push for the most you can get,
36:45
Speaker 3: that at a certain point you say, all right, you
36:47
Speaker 3: know what, let's get this done, and then let's move
36:51
Speaker 3: on to fight another day. And healthcare always being the
36:55
Speaker 3: best example of this. As you will recall, we wanted
37:00
Speaker 3: a public option in the Affordable Care Act.
37:03
Speaker 4: We pushed.
37:05
Speaker 3: I needed 60 votes to get it through the Senate.
37:09
Speaker 3: Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and a couple others said, I'm
37:12
Speaker 3: not voting for someone with a public option. At that point,
37:16
Speaker 3: then progressives have to be able to say, okay, let's
37:20
Speaker 3: take what we can get now and then let's build.
37:25
Speaker 3: And every bit of progressive legislation, all of our progress
37:32
Speaker 3: throughout our history typically happens in stages, right? You get
37:37
Speaker 3: a beachhead like Social Security passes, but it excludes progressives.
37:43
Speaker 4: All kinds of folks, right?
37:44
Speaker 3: Domestic workers and agricultural workers, because southern voters or southern
37:52
Speaker 3: congressmen didn't want to have black folks be able to
37:57
Speaker 3: get Social Security because then they wouldn't be a subject
37:59
Speaker 3: to the whims of white employers. And.
38:07
Speaker 4: Should FDR not have passed Social Security? Of course not.
38:10
Speaker 3: He gets it done and then you fight that next battle,
38:13
Speaker 3: which is to include more people.
38:17
Speaker 4: Dodd-Frank. We passed Dodd-Frank.
38:20
Speaker 3: Did we eliminate greed and malfeasance in Wall Street entirely? No.
38:25
Speaker 3: What we did was we put in a bunch of
38:28
Speaker 3: guardrails to make it less likely that you end up
38:31
Speaker 3: having bailouts in the future. Part of the reason that
38:34
Speaker 3: we haven't seen the financial system teeter during this major
38:40
Speaker 3: economic shock was because of those guardrails that we put
38:44
Speaker 3: in place, but yet we still have to move on
38:48
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of other stuff that we weren't able
38:50
Speaker 3: to get done at the time. And I think understanding
38:54
Speaker 3: that that is not a failure, but that is just
39:00
Speaker 3: the process. You push, you consolidate, you push some more,
39:04
Speaker 3: you consolidate, And also to understand, and this maybe is
39:10
Speaker 3: where sometimes I differ with Bernie and even Elizabeth.
39:16
Speaker 4: In how we talk about this stuff publicly.
39:19
Speaker 3: Most of the time when I didn't get something progressive
39:22
Speaker 3: done while I was president, it wasn't because I was
39:28
Speaker 3: getting donations from folks. some special interest or corporation. It
39:32
Speaker 3: wasn't because there were a bunch of lobbyists whispering in
39:36
Speaker 3: my ear. It was because I didn't have votes.
39:41
Speaker 4: And I.
39:43
Speaker 3: Think sometimes we attribute the failure of a democratic or
39:52
Speaker 3: progressive president not getting something done to somehow he, and
40:00
Speaker 3: hopefully at some point she, is being influenced by these
40:03
Speaker 3: other folks, when in fact it's just that we don't
40:07
Speaker 3: yet have the votes and the clout. So progressives, if
40:11
Speaker 3: you want progressive legislation, get out there and keep working
40:17
Speaker 3: after the president is elected. I don't want to put
40:20
Speaker 3: the cart before the horse, but you guys know how
40:24
Speaker 3: frustrated I would be when progressives feeling frustrated would then
40:30
Speaker 3: sit out the midterms. Now I have fewer Democratic votes.
40:37
Speaker 3: Now I've lost the House. Now I've lost the Senate.
40:41
Speaker 3: That is not the right reaction. We get more progressive
40:47
Speaker 3: legislation done. The more Democrats we have in Congress, the
40:52
Speaker 3: more Democratic turnout happens. And again, I don't want to
40:57
Speaker 3: lose track of this because right now we just have
41:00
Speaker 3: what's right in front of us. But if we are
41:04
Speaker 3: fortunate enough that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are elected,
41:08
Speaker 3: we maintain the House and hopefully we regain the Senate.
41:13
Speaker 3: One of the very first things we have to do
41:15
Speaker 3: is to get every person who was as fired up
41:18
Speaker 3: as they were about this election to understand the midterms
41:22
Speaker 3: are gonna matter just as much.
41:26
Speaker 4: Because that's the constraint ultimately.
41:28
Speaker 3: That we all confront throughout this process was when I
41:35
Speaker 3: look back on my presidency, the real envelope, the limit
41:41
Speaker 3: to what I could get done had to do with
41:43
Speaker 3: how many votes did I have in the House, how
41:45
Speaker 3: many votes did I have in the Senate. Obviously, if
41:48
Speaker 3: there are modifications to the filibuster, that makes it easier.
41:52
Speaker 3: But even within the Democratic Party, we have to accommodate
41:57
Speaker 3: for the fact that there are going to be some
41:58
Speaker 3: regional differences.
42:01
Speaker 4: And that's okay.
42:03
Speaker 3: That's part of the big tent, and that's part of
42:05
Speaker 3: the process that we move forward.
42:08
Speaker 1: Democracy is an everyday struggle. That's what you always taught me.
42:10
Speaker 4: That's it, man. It's a garden you have to nurture.
42:14
Speaker 4: This thing's not self-executing.
42:17
Speaker 3: Speaking of which, I'm assuming you guys are plugging the
42:20
Speaker 3: fact that we had a Supreme Court ruling around the
42:22
Speaker 3: census that was adverse to us. The Trump administration has
42:28
Speaker 3: decided to cut off the census earlier than it should
42:33
Speaker 3: have been. If anything, it should have been extended because
42:35
Speaker 3: of COVID. But it is what it is. I hope
42:40
Speaker 3: you guys are plugging the need for everybody who has
42:44
Speaker 3: not responded to the census to get your information in there.
42:50
Speaker 3: That's part of this structural set of issues. Census determines
42:56
Speaker 3: how much representation communities get. A lot of decisions are
43:01
Speaker 3: made based on those numbers, and we've got to make
43:04
Speaker 3: sure that everybody's counted.
43:07
Speaker 1: Easy to do, quick to do, no excuse not to
43:09
Speaker 1: do it.
43:09
Speaker 4: That's it. Important.
43:12
Speaker 1: President Barack Obama, thank you so much for coming back
43:14
Speaker 1: to Pod Save America and good luck out there on
43:17
Speaker 1: the campaign trail.
43:19
Speaker 3: Great hanging out with you guys as always, man. Appreciate you.
43:23
Speaker 4: Thank you.
43:23
Speaker 1: Take care. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
43:30
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is
43:34
Speaker 1: Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick Kyle
43:38
Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long,
43:42
Speaker 1: Roman Papadimitriou, Quinn Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa
43:46
Speaker 1: Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
43:50
Speaker 1: Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and
43:53
Speaker 1: upload these episodes as videos every week.