Latest / Pod Save America / “The voter suppression will continue until morale improves.”

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“The voter suppression will continue until morale improves.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm John Lovett.
0:23
Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about what
0:26
Speaker 1: our political leaders are doing and not doing about the
0:28
Speaker 1: rise in anti-Asian violence, why Republicans are saying that passing
0:31
Speaker 1: voting restrictions is now their number one priority, and new
0:35
Speaker 1: polling that shows how Democrats can fight back, plus a
0:38
Speaker 1: new segment where each of us picks an under-the-radar headline
0:40
Speaker 1: that we want to talk about. But first, Lovett, how
0:43
Speaker 1: was Lovett or Leavitt this weekend?
0:44
Speaker 2: Fortune Feimster. Very funny. Talk to Chase Strangio. Love fortune.
0:50
Speaker 2: Talk to Chase Strangio about trans rights. And it was
0:52
Speaker 2: a really good conversation. We like went a little bit
0:53
Speaker 2: deeper talking about how people's fears of gender, people's fears
0:59
Speaker 2: to a changing definition of gender kind of factor into
1:01
Speaker 2: what's happening in the trans debate. It was a great conversation.
1:03
Speaker 2: And we quizzed a listener. And the high notes, we
1:06
Speaker 2: had some A plus high notes. They're very moving. It
1:09
Speaker 2: was a good episode.
1:10
Speaker 1: Awesome. Also, two more Crooked shows to check out this
1:13
Speaker 1: week and every week. What a Day is your morning
1:16
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1:19
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1:28
Speaker 1: subscribe and listen today. And check out this week's episode
1:31
Speaker 1: of America Dissected, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed talks to former
1:35
Speaker 1: Chicago City Health Commissioner and member of President Biden's COVID-19
1:38
Speaker 1: Transition Task Force, Dr. Julie Morita. All right, let's get
1:47
Speaker 1: to the news. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala
1:50
Speaker 1: Harris spoke in Atlanta on Friday about last week's deadly
1:53
Speaker 1: shooting that left eight dead, including six Asian women. Biden
1:56
Speaker 1: had previously called out anti-Asian racism in his primetime address
1:59
Speaker 1: on the pandemic. And even though the FBI director said
2:03
Speaker 1: on Thursday that the shooting doesn't appear to be racially motivated,
2:06
Speaker 1: he said, Both the president and the vice president, who's
2:08
Speaker 1: the first American of Asian descent to hold that job,
2:11
Speaker 1: drew a direct link between Atlanta and the frightening rise
2:14
Speaker 1: of anti-Asian hate and violence over the last year. Let's
2:17
Speaker 1: hear a clip.
2:18
Speaker 3: They've been attacked, blamed, scapegoated, and harassed. They've been verbally assaulted,
2:24
Speaker 3: physically assaulted, killed. It's been a year of living in
2:28
Speaker 3: fear for their lives. Silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit.
2:36
Speaker 3: We have to speak out. We have to act.
2:40
Speaker 4: For the last year, we've had people in positions of
2:43
Speaker 4: incredible power scapegoating Asian Americans. People with the biggest pulpits
2:51
Speaker 4: spreading this kind of hate. Whatever the killer's motive, these
2:56
Speaker 4: facts are clear. Six out of the eight people killed
3:01
Speaker 4: on Tuesday night were of Asian descent.
3:05
Speaker 1: Seven.
3:06
Speaker 2: were women.
3:08
Speaker 4: The shootings took place in businesses owned by Asian Americans.
3:13
Speaker 4: The shootings took place as violent hate crimes and discrimination
3:19
Speaker 4: against Asian Americans has risen dramatically over the last year
3:24
Speaker 4: and more.
3:25
Speaker 1: Tommy, why do you think it was important for Biden
3:27
Speaker 1: and Harris to draw this connection to anti-Asian hate, even
3:30
Speaker 1: though the motive remains under investigation from a law enforcement perspective.
3:35
Speaker 5: Sure, yeah.
3:36
Speaker 6: I mean, I think Biden and other elected officials can
3:39
Speaker 6: show support for people in Atlanta who are hurting and
3:41
Speaker 6: pledged to offer help, while also making a broader point
3:44
Speaker 6: that there has been a global increase in crimes against
3:47
Speaker 6: the Asian community. That's true in the US, it's true
3:50
Speaker 6: in the UK, France, Spain, I think lots of countries.
3:54
Speaker 6: I think it stems from this toxic increase in xenophobia
3:56
Speaker 6: and nationalism generally, with a very targeted, specific effort to
4:00
Speaker 6: blame the coronavirus on China and on the Asian American
4:05
Speaker 6: or AAPI community. There's also a gender-based piece of this. Clearly,
4:11
Speaker 6: we've heard a lot about the shooter's motive and his
4:14
Speaker 6: hatred of women. The UK is also having a big,
4:17
Speaker 6: important conversation about gender-based violence right now. So I think
4:21
Speaker 6: what the vice president was referencing there was Trump used
4:25
Speaker 6: a lot of racist language against China early. He called
4:28
Speaker 6: it the China virus. Remember some horrible staffer referred to
4:32
Speaker 6: the coronavirus as Kung Flu to a journalist. That language
4:36
Speaker 6: was parroted by other Republicans, by conservative media outlets. There
4:39
Speaker 6: was a proliferation of anti-Asian forums and hate groups online.
4:43
Speaker 6: And unfortunately, that kind of behavior often translates into real
4:46
Speaker 6: world harassment and violence, and it's unacceptable. So I think
4:49
Speaker 6: it's appropriate for law enforcement, for Biden to say, we're
4:51
Speaker 6: going to gather all the facts before we talk specifically.
4:55
Speaker 1: About this instance.
4:56
Speaker 6: But these broader trends, these broader factors are undeniable, and
4:59
Speaker 6: we need to do something about them.
5:01
Speaker 1: Lovett, what do you think? I mean, I do think
5:03
Speaker 1: that even though the motive is still under investigation, like
5:09
Speaker 1: there just hasn't been enough attention from the media, from politicians, though,
5:15
Speaker 1: you know, Biden did address it in his primetime address,
5:17
Speaker 1: which was good, about this unmistakable rise of anti-Asian hate
5:22
Speaker 1: and violence over the last year. So it was important
5:24
Speaker 1: to draw that connection.
5:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's it is sad. is sad on
5:31
Speaker 2: many levels that it takes a crime like this to
5:34
Speaker 2: have a national conversation we probably should have been having
5:37
Speaker 2: already to Tommy's point. Yes, there is this sort of,
5:40
Speaker 2: there's this global rise of nationalism. We've seen it in
5:43
Speaker 2: our own country that creates habits of thought of politics
5:46
Speaker 2: that leads to targeting of all kinds of people. And
5:49
Speaker 2: it has been used to target Asian people in the
5:52
Speaker 2: wake of Republicans looking for a scapegoat around the coronavirus.
5:57
Speaker 2: I do think that this combines two issues. One is
6:02
Speaker 2: regular mass shootings in the United States. The other is
6:07
Speaker 2: anti-Asian bigotry that's on the rise, that's on the rise in,
6:10
Speaker 2: we see increased hate crimes. It's also, I think, a
6:14
Speaker 2: harder piece of this to quantify is like, I know
6:18
Speaker 2: that there are Asian people in my life who have
6:20
Speaker 2: had terrible things shouted at them on the street for
6:23
Speaker 2: the first time in their lives or more frequently than
6:26
Speaker 2: in the past. just over the past year because of
6:29
Speaker 2: the racism that Trump and others have drummed up against
6:32
Speaker 2: Asian people. I think there is something troubling that happens
6:35
Speaker 2: after mass shooting, which is there is this race to
6:37
Speaker 2: find out the motivation. The motivation is important. It's important
6:41
Speaker 2: that we understand why this person did what they did.
6:43
Speaker 2: But a debate about the motivation, especially when there's not
6:45
Speaker 2: enough information, does make that mass shooter a protagonist. It
6:49
Speaker 2: makes their issues, their personal motivations, their values, their reasons
6:55
Speaker 2: more central than what actually happened, which is the destruction
6:57
Speaker 2: of a number of lives. Um, and I think that
7:00
Speaker 2: that is concerning because ultimately whatever the motivations that this
7:05
Speaker 2: person had, it does not change the underlying conditions in
7:08
Speaker 2: our country, which Tommy described, right? We have a long
7:10
Speaker 2: history of policy and, uh, bigotry against Asian people. We
7:15
Speaker 2: have a grievance based Republican party that looks for various
7:18
Speaker 2: scapegoats or people to target, uh, to, to make the enemy. Um, and, uh,
7:24
Speaker 2: All of that, I think, is in play regardless of
7:26
Speaker 2: what the motives of this one person turned out to be.
7:29
Speaker 2: There is a buffet of hateful ideologies for broken, angry, violent,
7:34
Speaker 2: narcissistic young men to choose from. There are incels, which
7:37
Speaker 2: is misogyny. There is anti-Asian hate, which has only grown
7:41
Speaker 2: online in the past year. There's anti-LGBTQ extremism in communities
7:46
Speaker 2: you can become a part of. There's anti-Black and anti-Semitic
7:48
Speaker 2: communities you can become a part of. So in the
7:51
Speaker 2: one sense, of course, the motive matters. In another sense,
7:53
Speaker 2: What we see is a mass shooting that will ultimately
7:56
Speaker 2: follow a pattern that connects mass shootings that have used
8:00
Speaker 2: a bunch of different ideologies as their justification, and that
8:04
Speaker 2: will have other pieces that connect them, like the fact
8:06
Speaker 2: that this person was able to buy a gun on
8:09
Speaker 2: the day he committed the crime.
8:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's also important to understand what are
8:14
Speaker 1: potentially mixed and complicated motivations as a warning flag to
8:19
Speaker 1: prevent people other mass shootings, right? So that in addition
8:23
Speaker 1: to racism at play here, there's misogyny that you mentioned,
8:26
Speaker 1: there's potentially discrimination against sex workers, there's fucked up religious beliefs,
8:29
Speaker 1: there's potentially mental illness. And from a law enforcement perspective,
8:33
Speaker 1: if we want to prevent further mass shootings, we should
8:37
Speaker 1: be able to be on the lookout for all of
8:39
Speaker 1: these potential motivations in potential mass shooters. In addition to,
8:44
Speaker 1: like you said, there's been very little talk after this
8:47
Speaker 1: about gun laws. which, you know, I guess we don't
8:51
Speaker 1: do it anymore because Congress never passes anything. But again,
8:54
Speaker 1: you know, the House just passed background checks again. Two
8:57
Speaker 1: of the sponsors in the Senate, Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey,
9:00
Speaker 1: seem like they could be in a good position to
9:02
Speaker 1: take that up in the Senate again and try to
9:04
Speaker 1: pass more gun background checks, which is, you know, doesn't
9:06
Speaker 1: solve the whole problem. But it's a small piece of it.
9:08
Speaker 1: It's an important thing, too.
9:09
Speaker 2: And it's also I think you see you see you
9:13
Speaker 2: see some people saying, hold on a second. You don't
9:15
Speaker 2: know that racism is involved here. And I find that
9:18
Speaker 2: really frustrating too, because there is no, this shooting takes
9:22
Speaker 2: place in a context in which Asian people and Asian
9:25
Speaker 2: women in particular are dehumanized. It's in our history, it's
9:29
Speaker 2: in our culture, it's in our politics right now. There
9:31
Speaker 2: is no way in which the shooting took place in
9:33
Speaker 2: that culture, in that society. So there is, it's ridiculous
9:37
Speaker 2: to me, the parsing that some want to do to
9:41
Speaker 2: avoid it confirming the priors they bring to these kinds
9:44
Speaker 2: of debates.
9:46
Speaker 1: I also think that's why it's so important that Kamala
9:47
Speaker 1: Harris said what she said in that clip that we
9:50
Speaker 1: just played. So the president said in his remarks that
9:52
Speaker 1: we have to act. He then called for the passage
9:54
Speaker 1: of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which was introduced by
9:57
Speaker 1: Representative Grace Meng and Senator Mazie Hirono. The bill would
10:00
Speaker 1: force reviews of federal, state, and local COVID-19 related hate
10:03
Speaker 1: crime data and strengthen the hate crime reporting systems. Some
10:07
Speaker 1: members of Congress and many AAPI activists are saying that
10:11
Speaker 1: focusing on hate crimes is a good but not sufficient step.
10:15
Speaker 1: Why is that and what other steps do activists want
10:17
Speaker 1: the government to take? Tommy?
10:19
Speaker 6: So this is a tough one. I mean, I'm by
10:22
Speaker 6: no means an expert on this, but my understanding is
10:24
Speaker 6: that there are some federal hate crimes laws on the books,
10:27
Speaker 6: and then there are state laws in 47 states that
10:31
Speaker 6: involve hate crimes. But it can be hard to track
10:33
Speaker 6: these hate crime incidents because some states do and some
10:37
Speaker 6: states don't collect the data. The data is inconsistent at best.
10:40
Speaker 6: And hate crimes prosecutions can be challenging because you have
10:43
Speaker 6: to show intent or motive in this specific incident. That's
10:47
Speaker 6: easier when someone paints a swastika on a building, right?
10:51
Speaker 2: The intent there is obvious.
10:53
Speaker 6: It becomes challenging in less overt instances where the perpetrator
10:58
Speaker 6: isn't as clear about what their motive is. So I
11:01
Speaker 6: think activists want to recognize that this is a big challenge.
11:05
Speaker 6: There's a lot of pieces to the solution. But they
11:07
Speaker 6: don't want to over-police neighborhoods that are experiencing this uptick
11:11
Speaker 6: in crime because we can know that sometimes that can
11:13
Speaker 6: lead to life being worse for people in neighborhoods that
11:17
Speaker 6: are suddenly more policed, right?
11:19
Speaker 1: And not better. So we want to help the victims here.
11:20
Speaker 6: And so you're also seeing advocates talk about the need
11:23
Speaker 6: to increase funding for helping victims report incidents, including in
11:26
Speaker 6: their native language, to help people get mental health support.
11:30
Speaker 6: They want to fund crisis intervention that isn't coming from
11:33
Speaker 6: the police themselves. A lot of the conversations we had
11:36
Speaker 6: around the Defund the Police movement over the summer are
11:38
Speaker 6: coming back up here.
11:39
Speaker 1: And it's good.
11:39
Speaker 6: I mean, it shows that I think we've at least
11:41
Speaker 6: progressed in some ways that showing that, you know, the
11:44
Speaker 6: solution to violence isn't necessarily just cops, more draconian laws.
11:49
Speaker 6: It's got to be looked at more comprehensively than that.
11:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Axios reports that AAPI community groups have actually
11:56
Speaker 1: called on the White House to set aside $ 300 million
11:59
Speaker 1: for some of the safety and relief programs that Tommy
12:01
Speaker 1: just mentioned.
12:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:02
Speaker 1: Republican politicians are already deep in reflection over their own
12:06
Speaker 1: role in fueling this anti-Asian hate and violence. Many of
12:09
Speaker 1: them have parroted Donald Trump's use of the term China
12:11
Speaker 1: virus or even Kung flu. And surprise, surprise, they still
12:15
Speaker 1: don't see anything wrong with that. Republican Congressman Rodney Davis
12:18
Speaker 1: told CNN that phrases like China virus and Kung flu are, quote,
12:21
Speaker 1: no different than saying UK variant. And here's House Minority
12:26
Speaker 1: Leader Kevin McCarthy on whether he regrets using the term
12:29
Speaker 1: China virus.
12:30
Speaker 4: Do you regret using terms like Chinese coronavirus?
12:34
Speaker 3: I don't know.
12:34
Speaker 5: Does CNN regret that? Does the Democratic committee that started
12:39
Speaker 5: out regret that? I would wait to see why the
12:42
Speaker 5: shooter did what he did. But the virus came from China,
12:46
Speaker 5: and I think the knowledge we had at the time
12:48
Speaker 5: is exactly that. I don't think people, from the standpoint
12:53
Speaker 5: to go after any Asian from China, any shape or form,
12:56
Speaker 5: and I condemn every action to that.
12:58
Speaker 1: Love it. What do you think? Why are those phrases
12:59
Speaker 1: any different than saying UK variant? Aren't Donald Trump and
13:02
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy just describing where the virus came from?
13:06
Speaker 2: I noticed none of you are criticizing Mickey Rooney for
13:09
Speaker 2: his performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's. So, yeah, I mean, look,
13:16
Speaker 2: they want to decry the incidents, but they still want
13:19
Speaker 2: the benefit from making this about scapegoating China. I mean, obviously,
13:25
Speaker 2: we don't... I don't know if we need to actually
13:26
Speaker 2: say what the difference is. The difference is there was
13:28
Speaker 2: a political goal in trying to get their base and
13:31
Speaker 2: get people to blame someone else. It was, look who's responsible.
13:34
Speaker 2: It's not Donald Trump who's responsible for a failed response.
13:37
Speaker 2: It's not the federal government. It's not Republicans who didn't
13:40
Speaker 2: take this seriously enough. It's not anti-mass politicians. We know
13:43
Speaker 2: who's to blame. It's China. Blame China now. Focus on China.
13:47
Speaker 2: Focus on that place. Focus on those people. They're the
13:50
Speaker 2: ones that you should blame. That's why they did it.
13:52
Speaker 2: That is why it is different. And look, Kevin McCarthy
13:56
Speaker 2: has the same position on virtually every issue. He wants
14:00
Speaker 2: all the benefit of right-wing misinformation and propaganda, and he
14:04
Speaker 2: also wants to practice it at time. And then when
14:06
Speaker 2: questioned about it, he will issue a tiny little correct statement.
14:11
Speaker 2: phrase while embracing every other part of the of the
14:14
Speaker 2: rhetorical strategy and grievance strategy that propels all of their politics.
14:20
Speaker 1: Tommy, what do you think? Where's the where's the line there? And,
14:24
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of these Republicans saying, you know,
14:26
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio is like this, too, like, oh, I never
14:28
Speaker 1: wanted to say anything bad about Chinese people, but it's
14:30
Speaker 1: important to take on China. Like where's the line between
14:32
Speaker 1: taking on China and fueling shit like this by calling
14:35
Speaker 1: it the China virus? Yeah, I mean, look, so there's
14:37
Speaker 1: like sort of different levels of this.
14:38
Speaker 6: There are some people like Tom Cotton who have suggested
14:42
Speaker 6: that maybe the coronavirus was manufactured in a lab, maybe
14:45
Speaker 6: for a bioweapon, maybe it's just part of research and
14:48
Speaker 6: then it got out. I think the line for me
14:51
Speaker 6: has to be drawn at blaming the Chinese government's handling
14:55
Speaker 6: of the coronavirus from Chinese citizens, right? We know the
14:59
Speaker 6: Chinese government covered up what was happening. They blocked effort
15:02
Speaker 6: to investigate the coronavirus, but heroic Chinese doctors were sounding
15:06
Speaker 6: the alarm early. They provided us the gene sequence to
15:09
Speaker 6: this virus that have led to these vaccines being available
15:13
Speaker 6: in record time. So that to me is the distinction. Like, yeah,
15:16
Speaker 6: people aren't demagoguing the UK variant right now or the
15:20
Speaker 6: Brazilian variant, but if there's some country that, you know,
15:25
Speaker 6: McCarthy can demagogue down the road where there is a
15:27
Speaker 6: new variant, you could absolutely see an increase in xenophobia
15:30
Speaker 6: about some new iteration of this disease. So I think
15:33
Speaker 6: it's something to keep an eye on. I also just
15:36
Speaker 6: think that, look, these Republicans, the thing that animates them
15:40
Speaker 6: is telling social justice warriors like us that we can't
15:43
Speaker 6: tell them what to do or think or say. And
15:45
Speaker 6: it doesn't matter to them if their language leads to
15:48
Speaker 6: people getting hurt or hate crimes or if this online
15:51
Speaker 6: demagoguery translates into offline violence. They don't care The thing
15:55
Speaker 6: that animates the party is telling people like us we
15:58
Speaker 6: suck and that we can't censor them and that we've
16:00
Speaker 6: shadow banned them on Twitter and they've lost followers and
16:02
Speaker 6: it's our fault or something like that. Right.
16:04
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing they focus on. Also, if there's
16:07
Speaker 1: another variant that comes from China and we want to
16:10
Speaker 1: call it. The China variant. That's a lot different than
16:12
Speaker 1: calling it fucking Kung flu. Come on. You know, and
16:17
Speaker 1: Donald Trump said that. And remember when he said it,
16:19
Speaker 1: they were no one wanted to talk about it. No
16:21
Speaker 1: one wanted to condemn it. And the Republican side also
16:23
Speaker 1: has Democrats passed a resolution condemning racism and violence against
16:27
Speaker 1: Asian-Americans in September. We don't know. People don't remember this
16:31
Speaker 1: because they get a lot of coverage. Only 14 Republicans
16:34
Speaker 1: voted for that bill that simply condemned racism and violence
16:37
Speaker 1: against Asian-Americans. And one House Republican who didn't vote for
16:40
Speaker 1: it called it woke culture on steroids, a resolution that
16:44
Speaker 1: simply condemned racism and violence against Asian-Americans. So it's a
16:49
Speaker 1: little much.
16:50
Speaker 2: And I just like we hold them to know there's
16:53
Speaker 2: no standard. There's no actual kind of serious conversation to
16:57
Speaker 2: be had about why it matters when Republicans do this.
17:00
Speaker 2: They are playing off a very old idea, which is
17:03
Speaker 2: that Asian people are less American. It is why Japanese
17:06
Speaker 2: citizens were interned during World War II. It continues all
17:08
Speaker 2: the way to people having terrible things shouted on them
17:11
Speaker 2: at the streets in New York City right now. The
17:14
Speaker 2: reason it's different is because people like you have spent
17:17
Speaker 2: a lifetime making it different. That's why it's different. It's
17:21
Speaker 2: different because you're targeting people. And you're making them the target.
17:24
Speaker 2: And Trump is giving people permission to make them a target.
17:27
Speaker 2: That's why it's different. You're different. The reason you're saying
17:29
Speaker 2: it is different. You're the reason it's different.
17:40
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about voting rights. Two big headlines
17:42
Speaker 1: over the weekend. New York Times, in restricting early voting,
17:45
Speaker 1: the right sees a new center of gravity. The Associated Press, quote,
17:50
Speaker 1: on all hands moment, GOP rallies behind voting limits. So
17:54
Speaker 1: pieces go on to say that just about every major
17:57
Speaker 1: right-wing group got the Susan B. Anthony List, the Heritage Foundation,
18:01
Speaker 1: the Family Research Council, the Tea Party Patriots, all your all-stars.
18:06
Speaker 1: They have all now put all of their own issues
18:08
Speaker 1: aside and they've prioritized voter suppression above everything else. They
18:13
Speaker 1: are raising tens of millions of dollars to fund these efforts.
18:16
Speaker 1: They've got Republican state lawmakers who've introduced more than 250
18:19
Speaker 1: bills across 43 states intended to make voting harder. Ted
18:23
Speaker 1: Cruz led a call with some of these lawmakers last
18:26
Speaker 1: week where he said, There's no room for Republicans to
18:29
Speaker 1: compromise on H.R. 1, that they will try to rebrand
18:32
Speaker 1: the For the People Act as the Corrupt Politicians Act,
18:35
Speaker 1: and that if it passes, Democrats, quote, will win and
18:38
Speaker 1: maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate
18:41
Speaker 1: and state legislatures for the next century.
18:42
Speaker 2: I like that part.
18:43
Speaker 1: Don't threaten us with a good time. Don't threaten us
18:45
Speaker 1: with a good time, Ted.
18:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
18:51
Speaker 1: Tommy, Republicans have been trying to restrict voting rights for
18:54
Speaker 1: decades now. So that part's not new. But why do
18:57
Speaker 1: you think it's become their top priority now?
18:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, Lindsey Graham also said, if we don't
19:01
Speaker 6: do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose
19:03
Speaker 6: the ability to elect a Republican in this country. Look,
19:07
Speaker 6: these are all the same awful groups that we've been
19:10
Speaker 6: watching dominate Republican politics for decades. Normally, they manifest their
19:16
Speaker 6: political activities with initiatives that attack abortion rights or attack
19:22
Speaker 6: the LGBT community. Right now, they're just surfing the wave
19:26
Speaker 6: of outrage that Donald Trump has kicked up. The base
19:30
Speaker 6: of the party is owned by Trump. He has told
19:32
Speaker 6: that base for months now that the election was stolen.
19:36
Speaker 6: And so all these groups swoop in to fundraise off
19:38
Speaker 6: of that anger and exploit these people for their money,
19:41
Speaker 6: for their email addresses, for their volunteer time, for their
19:45
Speaker 6: votes down the road. So I think it's one an
19:48
Speaker 6: incredibly cynical effort by these groups to fill their coffers
19:52
Speaker 6: and increase their political power. But two, I think they're
19:55
Speaker 6: incredibly worried that Democrats might get rid of the filibuster
19:59
Speaker 6: past H.R. 1 and expand voting access for a lot
20:03
Speaker 6: of people, especially people of color, right? Republicans want to
20:06
Speaker 6: make it harder for people of color, especially black people,
20:09
Speaker 6: to vote because they think that will help them win elections.
20:12
Speaker 1: Like that's the overarching strategy. It's very, very simple. Lovett,
20:16
Speaker 1: what do you think? I think clearly, you know, as
20:18
Speaker 1: Tom mentioned, the big lie looms large here, right? The
20:23
Speaker 1: voting base of the Republican Party believes that Donald Trump,
20:25
Speaker 1: in fact, won the last election and that the only
20:29
Speaker 1: reason that Joe Biden is president is because Democrats rigged
20:31
Speaker 1: the election and stole it from him by using their
20:34
Speaker 1: mail-in ballot magic. Um, is there anything else going on,
20:39
Speaker 1: going on here?
20:40
Speaker 2: I think it's, well, I think, yes. I mean, I
20:41
Speaker 2: think it's very fitting that this, you know, Ted Cruz basically,
20:46
Speaker 2: it's interesting that Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton in the
20:48
Speaker 2: past week have been like, uh, their policies are for
20:51
Speaker 2: bad criminals. Uh, that's, who's going to be held. That's,
20:53
Speaker 2: who's going to be helped by this. But it's fitting
20:55
Speaker 2: that Ted Cruz said that about undocumented immigrants and, uh,
21:00
Speaker 2: child molesters. Those were his examples, uh, uh, are going
21:02
Speaker 2: to be the people voting, uh, on a call with ALEC,
21:05
Speaker 2: the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is a mercenary organization
21:08
Speaker 2: that exists to accrue power, deregulate, and support big businesses
21:13
Speaker 2: in states. They don't have an ideology, really. They just
21:15
Speaker 2: want to protect the business interests that fund them and
21:18
Speaker 2: the billionaires and others that fund them. Because it's about power.
21:22
Speaker 2: I think the big lie creates a nice opportunity for
21:25
Speaker 2: them to use it to accrue power. And Ted Cruz
21:29
Speaker 2: sees it as an opportunity to distinguish himself in the
21:31
Speaker 2: Republican field, because most Republican voters, eight out of 10,
21:36
Speaker 2: believe that Donald Trump was the rightful president. And that
21:39
Speaker 2: is a way for him to make himself a leader
21:41
Speaker 2: of the movement he is desperate to be embraced by.
21:45
Speaker 1: I think they are also, and this has been sort
21:47
Speaker 1: of a longer project of theirs, just trying to lock
21:50
Speaker 1: in minority rule, right? The base of the Republican Party
21:53
Speaker 1: grows older and whiter, and they have a choice. They
21:58
Speaker 1: could try to expand their base by reaching out to
22:00
Speaker 1: black voters and Latino voters, which, you know, Donald Trump
22:03
Speaker 1: did somewhat better with those voting groups in 2020. They
22:06
Speaker 1: could continue to try to go on that path and
22:08
Speaker 1: reach those voters. Or they could try to just stop
22:12
Speaker 1: Democrats from voting and stop people who vote for Democrats
22:15
Speaker 1: from voting, which is also predominantly black and Latino voters.
22:18
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing is to not, we
22:20
Speaker 1: talk a lot about voting access as we should, but
22:22
Speaker 1: don't sleep on the redistricting part of this here too, right?
22:26
Speaker 1: Republicans know that they have enough majorities in these state
22:29
Speaker 1: legislatures that if they are allowed to draw the districts,
22:32
Speaker 1: now that we have redistricting after the last census, they
22:35
Speaker 1: will be able to potentially lock in a House majority
22:38
Speaker 1: and keep the House of Representatives for a decade by
22:41
Speaker 1: packing voters into districts and splitting up other districts. So
22:45
Speaker 1: I really think that this is the big prize for
22:47
Speaker 1: them is they want to draw these maps in 2021.
22:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, voter suppression will continue until morale improves, I think
22:53
Speaker 2: is the way that I see it. And it connects,
22:57
Speaker 2: by the way, it connects to the kind of cancel
22:59
Speaker 2: culture stuff in that, like, it's all about telling a
23:02
Speaker 2: group of aging white voters that, like, their power is
23:06
Speaker 2: under threat and we're the only people that will maintain
23:08
Speaker 2: your cultural hegemony, that will maintain your political power. Like,
23:11
Speaker 2: we are your last hope. And if you don't elect
23:13
Speaker 2: us right now, you may never get a chance again. And,
23:17
Speaker 2: you know, there is some truth in it. They are
23:19
Speaker 2: losing votes. power in the culture. They are losing power
23:21
Speaker 2: in our democracy because we are a multiracial, multi-ethnic society
23:27
Speaker 2: in which the country is changing and it makes a
23:30
Speaker 2: lot of people really uncomfortable. Yeah.
23:32
Speaker 1: And demographics aren't destiny, but in one respect, the country
23:36
Speaker 1: is getting younger and Republicans are doing much worse with
23:40
Speaker 1: younger voters as each four years. So every four years,
23:42
Speaker 1: the electorate gets a little bit more democratic just because
23:45
Speaker 1: of the younger voter issue. So Republicans are sounding the
23:48
Speaker 1: alarm on this just as Senate Democrats are holding a
23:50
Speaker 1: hearing on the For the People Act this week. House
23:53
Speaker 1: Democrats are also holding a hearing on a bill that
23:55
Speaker 1: would make D.C. the 51st state, renaming it State of Washington,
23:59
Speaker 1: Douglas Commonwealth, in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. who's getting
24:02
Speaker 1: more and more recognized these days. That was, what a
24:07
Speaker 1: moment that was. What a callback. I think if Republicans
24:11
Speaker 1: and right-wing groups are making voting rights a top issue,
24:15
Speaker 1: it's a pretty strong sign that Biden and the Democrats
24:17
Speaker 1: and every progressive organization should do the same. What do
24:19
Speaker 1: you guys think? What should we be doing to fight back?
24:22
Speaker 1: Love it.
24:23
Speaker 2: We should pass H.R. 1. We should pass the John
24:25
Speaker 2: Lewis Voting Rights Act. We should make D.C.
24:26
Speaker 1: A state.
24:27
Speaker 2: We should do all these things as soon as possible.
24:30
Speaker 2: I'm glad to see that Schumer has at least said
24:31
Speaker 2: that they're going to bring H.R. 1 to the floor,
24:33
Speaker 2: the plan of which is to let it be filibustered
24:35
Speaker 2: and let it get killed. We have more and more
24:38
Speaker 2: Democratic senators open to filibuster reforms, including holdouts like California's
24:44
Speaker 2: own Dianne Feinstein. We are headed towards some kind of
24:48
Speaker 2: a reckoning on the filibuster and on voting rights, which
24:50
Speaker 2: is what we have to do. We have to go.
24:54
Speaker 1: Tommy, what do you think?
24:56
Speaker 6: I think it's really good that lots of people are
24:57
Speaker 6: talking about it. I think listeners to the show know
24:59
Speaker 6: that we are obsessed with and seized by the need
25:01
Speaker 6: for filibuster reform and the need to pass H.R. 1
25:04
Speaker 6: and fight back against state-based voter suppression efforts and fix
25:07
Speaker 6: the problem of money in politics and deal with gerrymandering.
25:10
Speaker 6: I think it's a very good sign, though, that you're
25:13
Speaker 6: starting to hear lots of people who probably didn't know
25:15
Speaker 6: what a filibuster was one or two years ago talk
25:18
Speaker 6: about it all the time. Trevor Noah is doing segments.
25:20
Speaker 6: Late night shows are talking about it. It's just a
25:23
Speaker 6: bigger part of the conversation. I think This is one
25:26
Speaker 6: issue where the far left to the sort of most
25:31
Speaker 6: moderate parts of the Democratic Party should be able to
25:34
Speaker 6: come together because the Republican Party wants to voter suppress
25:38
Speaker 6: us out of existence. They want to draw a map.
25:40
Speaker 6: Like everyone's talking right now about how Biden is or
25:42
Speaker 6: isn't selling his stimulus. And, you know, should he be
25:44
Speaker 6: doing a roadshow or Sunday shows or an Oval Office address?
25:48
Speaker 6: None of that matters if Republicans draw congressional maps with
25:52
Speaker 6: surgical precision. that just lock us out of being able
25:56
Speaker 6: to win the seats.
25:57
Speaker 1: That's how it works.
25:58
Speaker 2: You use computers and really.
26:00
Speaker 1: Great sets of data.
26:01
Speaker 2: Fucking computers.
26:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, fucking computers. And you can draw maps where it
26:05
Speaker 6: doesn't really matter. So that's what we're up against, right?
26:08
Speaker 6: We're up against getting locked into these horrible maps for
26:11
Speaker 6: literally a decade, as we did in 2010.
26:13
Speaker 1: And we got to fight back. Well, to your point, Tommy,
26:16
Speaker 1: about Biden selling the stimulus package, look, I In the
26:21
Speaker 1: Obama White House, I would be very annoyed when people
26:24
Speaker 1: would think that we would solve a big problem with
26:26
Speaker 1: an Obama speech because then we would have to write
26:28
Speaker 1: an Obama speech. But I do think the bully pulpit
26:31
Speaker 1: here matters. And I think that Joe Biden and every
26:34
Speaker 1: Democrat needs to get out there over the next month
26:36
Speaker 1: when H.R. 1 is on the floor. And look, there's
26:38
Speaker 1: an inside game on the filibuster that, as you pointed out,
26:40
Speaker 1: is also becoming an outside game. And that's great. But
26:43
Speaker 1: I think where the passion and energy is going to
26:45
Speaker 1: come from is people wanting to protect and expand voting
26:48
Speaker 1: rights in America. I saw a story a couple of
26:50
Speaker 1: weeks ago that a lot of civil rights groups are
26:52
Speaker 1: thinking about like another march on Washington.
26:54
Speaker 5: Right.
26:55
Speaker 1: Like I think this needs if the right sees this
26:59
Speaker 1: as the number one issue and they are pouring all
27:01
Speaker 1: this money and they're doing all this grassroots activism like
27:04
Speaker 1: it has to be matched on our side. We need
27:06
Speaker 1: to take this as seriously as they do, because like.
27:08
Speaker 1: For people who are like, well, you know, voting rights,
27:10
Speaker 1: they can... I've heard some people say, well, the tougher
27:13
Speaker 1: they are and the more restrictions they put in place,
27:15
Speaker 1: then psychologically it makes our voters say, well, we're going
27:17
Speaker 1: to fight really hard to vote anyway and to find
27:19
Speaker 1: a way to vote. That may be true, but... If
27:22
Speaker 1: you think we can take this lying down that we
27:24
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to worry about this, just look at what
27:26
Speaker 1: they're doing on their side. Look at how important they
27:29
Speaker 1: think this is to their political future. And it should
27:32
Speaker 1: scare the shit out of you. And we should be
27:34
Speaker 1: organizing just as much. And it should be from Joe
27:36
Speaker 1: Biden to every single Democrat on down to be making
27:39
Speaker 1: voting rights the fucking issue for the next several months.
27:43
Speaker 5: Yeah.
27:43
Speaker 6: I mean, look, I interviewed B. Wen, who's a state
27:46
Speaker 6: rep in Georgia. And we talked about the Georgia voter
27:48
Speaker 6: suppression bill on the show a few weeks back. One
27:50
Speaker 6: of the provisions in that bill is they want to
27:52
Speaker 6: limit voting during early voting to only one Sunday. Why?
27:56
Speaker 2: Because black churches.
27:57
Speaker 6: Do something called souls to the polls where everyone gets
28:00
Speaker 6: together after church and goes to vote. That is people
28:04
Speaker 6: are saying that that is modern day Jim Crow. That
28:05
Speaker 6: is that is racist, clearly, purely racist voter suppression tactics.
28:11
Speaker 6: It is also, frankly, an attack on Christian voters. And
28:14
Speaker 6: you're like, that's the kind of level of cynicism we
28:16
Speaker 6: have to be fighting against and talking about it. Because
28:19
Speaker 6: I think when people hear that, that's obviously appalling. And
28:23
Speaker 6: the idea of filibustering, again, a piece of legislation about
28:28
Speaker 6: voting rights has god awful echoes in our pretty recent
28:31
Speaker 6: history that I think will continue to elevate the issue
28:34
Speaker 6: and get people talking about it and talking about the
28:36
Speaker 6: actual motivation here from these Republican organizations, which is to
28:40
Speaker 6: just suppress the votes of black and brown voters, period.
28:43
Speaker 2: It's also at the national level. We're talking about how
28:47
Speaker 2: to focus people on the fight at the national level.
28:49
Speaker 2: But these fights are playing out at the state level.
28:51
Speaker 2: And Republicans are really relying on the fact that people
28:53
Speaker 2: have no idea what's in these bills, are not paying
28:55
Speaker 2: attention to state politics nearly as much as they should.
28:58
Speaker 2: None of us do. And so a lot of this
29:01
Speaker 2: is playing out basically in the dark. They'll pass these
29:04
Speaker 2: voting restriction measures. They'll get a little bit of local coverage.
29:07
Speaker 2: They don't get the attention they deserve. And all of
29:08
Speaker 2: a sudden, the rules are stacked against against Democrats, against
29:11
Speaker 2: people of color, and the only hope we have for them,
29:13
Speaker 2: either fighting at the local level, but also putting in
29:16
Speaker 2: place some basic standards at the national level to prevent
29:19
Speaker 2: these restrictive measures from taking effect.
29:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think lifting up some of the, I mean,
29:26
Speaker 1: these are like, these are some of the all-time worst
29:28
Speaker 1: Republican arguments of all time around voting rights, right? And
29:32
Speaker 1: lifting up some of the crazier bills, like Tommy was
29:35
Speaker 1: just mentioning with the souls to the polls issue, is
29:39
Speaker 1: going to be really important. Just just at the hearing
29:42
Speaker 1: today on on D.C. statehood, we had some real gems
29:46
Speaker 1: that The Heritage Foundation's Zach Smith said D.C. residents already
29:50
Speaker 1: impact the national debate because members of Congress see their
29:53
Speaker 1: yard signs while driving to work. And then a Republican
29:57
Speaker 1: representative actually said D.C. would be the only state without
30:00
Speaker 1: an airport, car dealership or landfill to be a state.
30:04
Speaker 1: That was his argument.
30:06
Speaker 2: I don't the land.
30:08
Speaker 1: Why are we on landfill? What does that even mean?
30:12
Speaker 1: So they don't have great arguments, guys. And speaking of arguments,
30:16
Speaker 1: we do have some new polling on voting rights that
30:17
Speaker 1: we did with our friends at Data for Progress, where
30:20
Speaker 1: we tested Democratic arguments in favor of H.R. 1 against
30:23
Speaker 1: Republican arguments opposed to H.R. 1. The good news is
30:27
Speaker 1: that support for the bill holds up even after you
30:30
Speaker 1: give people the Republican arguments, though some of those Republican
30:33
Speaker 1: arguments are more effective than others. What was your takeaway
30:37
Speaker 1: from the polling in terms of what Democrats should both
30:40
Speaker 1: emphasize and be ready for? Love it.
30:44
Speaker 2: I would say like the to me, the biggest takeaway
30:47
Speaker 2: was not what individual arguments did, but rather how the
30:52
Speaker 2: numbers change once people find out it's a partisan issue. Right.
30:55
Speaker 2: Like Republicans are far more in favor of H.R. one
30:57
Speaker 2: until they find out it's a Democratic proposal. And to me,
31:00
Speaker 2: you know, Republicans are pushing a lot of this because
31:03
Speaker 2: of the big lie that and because of some of
31:05
Speaker 2: the motivations and fears that we talked about. But because
31:08
Speaker 2: a lot of this is based on a lie, there
31:10
Speaker 2: are a lot of assumptions baked into these Republican proposals
31:15
Speaker 2: that aren't necessarily true, like the assumption that mail-in voting
31:18
Speaker 2: somehow in a normal election will benefit Democrats. And so
31:21
Speaker 2: to me, what I took away from this is if
31:23
Speaker 2: you want to fight back against the argument that this
31:26
Speaker 2: is particularly partisan, we should be saying that Republicans, that
31:29
Speaker 2: Democrats want to make it easier for Democrats and Republicans
31:32
Speaker 2: to vote. We want nonpartisan gerrymandering commissions. We want to
31:35
Speaker 2: make it easier for everyone, no matter their political affiliation
31:39
Speaker 2: to vote. And Republicans are so afraid of voting that
31:41
Speaker 2: they want to punish their own voters and make it
31:43
Speaker 2: harder for their own voters to show up at the
31:45
Speaker 2: polls just because they're afraid of democratic voters. I think
31:48
Speaker 2: we need to be making this a non, we should
31:50
Speaker 2: be explicitly nonpartisan.
31:52
Speaker 1: I think that's super important.
31:54
Speaker 6: Totally agree. Also, a good example of that is, again,
31:56
Speaker 6: in Georgia. I mean, Georgia Republicans were totally in favor
31:59
Speaker 6: of no-excuse absentee voting until they lost in this last election,
32:03
Speaker 6: and now they're not in favor of it. So I
32:05
Speaker 6: think explaining some of that cynicism and hypocrisy is important
32:08
Speaker 6: as well.
32:09
Speaker 1: But just to emphasize Lovett's point, when you look at
32:12
Speaker 1: the language in the poll, and we can tweet this
32:15
Speaker 1: out too, everything that is framed as, you know, expanding
32:20
Speaker 1: and protecting access to voting for all voters, no matter
32:23
Speaker 1: which party or, you know, requiring districts to be drawn
32:26
Speaker 1: by a nonpartisan commission so that no party has an
32:28
Speaker 1: unfair advantage. These are the things that are most popular.
32:31
Speaker 1: This is the strongest arguments. And then the Republican strongest
32:34
Speaker 1: arguments is the other rising of this, right? Like, you know,
32:37
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants are going to vote illegally. Ex-felons are going
32:40
Speaker 1: to vote illegally. Not everyone should be voting in this country, right? Like,
32:44
Speaker 1: They want to otherize this issue and make it about Democrats,
32:46
Speaker 1: their constituencies, and a power grab. We win by saying
32:50
Speaker 1: this is for everyone. This is for every single person
32:52
Speaker 1: in this country. It's a civil rights issue. It's an
32:54
Speaker 1: equal access issue.
32:59
Speaker 4: All right.
33:05
Speaker 1: We're going to try a new segment where each of
33:07
Speaker 1: us throws out a quick take on an under-the-radar story
33:10
Speaker 1: that interested us for whatever reason.
33:12
Speaker 5: Give me a ping for silly.
33:14
Speaker 3: One ping only, please.
33:17
Speaker 1: Tommy, why don't you kick us off?
33:19
Speaker 3: Sure.
33:19
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just going to have two.
33:21
Speaker 6: One, I just want to note that Barack Obama's all-chalk
33:23
Speaker 6: NCAA bracket was garbage and has been destroyed by recent events,
33:28
Speaker 6: so I'll get.
33:28
Speaker 1: That out there. Here's my real one.
33:31
Speaker 2: Yep, sorry about that. Mine was garbage, too.
33:33
Speaker 6: So tomorrow, Israel holds its fourth parliamentary election in two years.
33:37
Speaker 6: So Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has been in office for
33:39
Speaker 6: five years. He's now Israel's longest-serving leader. He's a controversial
33:43
Speaker 6: one as well. Netanyahu is facing so many corruption allegations
33:47
Speaker 6: and different charges that they had to number them. Case
33:49
Speaker 6: 1000 involves him allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars
33:53
Speaker 6: worth of luxury gifts like cigars and champagne.
33:55
Speaker 1: Must have been good champagne.
33:57
Speaker 6: Case 2000 alleges that Netanyahu did special favors for an
34:00
Speaker 6: Israeli media mogul in return for better coverage. Case 4000
34:04
Speaker 6: is similar. It's allegations of special favors for media coverage.
34:07
Speaker 6: Bibi's son is basically the Don Jr. of Israel. He
34:10
Speaker 6: is so stupid and terrible and right-wing that he has
34:14
Speaker 6: said things that his own father had to disavow. Israel's
34:17
Speaker 6: political system is very different than ours. They don't elect
34:19
Speaker 6: a president. It's not binary Republicans versus Democrats. They elect
34:22
Speaker 6: representatives to their parliament that conness it. So lots of
34:26
Speaker 6: parties will run. It's a motley group. And then the
34:29
Speaker 6: seats are awarded proportionally to parties that get over 3.25%
34:32
Speaker 6: of the vote. The prime minister is.
34:33
Speaker 5: Chosen to.
34:36
Speaker 6: When someone can figure out how to build a coalition
34:38
Speaker 6: that brings together 61 of those 120 seats. So this
34:41
Speaker 6: election is very important and should be on people's radar
34:44
Speaker 6: screen because Israel is a key ally in the Middle East.
34:47
Speaker 6: We send billions of US tax dollars there every year.
34:50
Speaker 6: And also, I just wanted to have a little empathy
34:53
Speaker 6: and solidarity for our progressive friends in Israel. Like Bibi
34:56
Speaker 6: Netanyahu was Trump before Trump. We had to deal with
34:59
Speaker 6: our Trump for four years. The Israelis have been dealing
35:02
Speaker 6: with Bibi Netanyahu in power since 2009. It's also a
35:05
Speaker 6: cautionary tale because Netanyahu was prime minister from 96 to 99.
35:10
Speaker 6: He lost and then he came back. So let's not
35:12
Speaker 6: make that mistake. Also, I just feel for anyone who
35:15
Speaker 6: had to go through four elections in two years, that
35:18
Speaker 6: sounds like a huge pain in the ass.
35:20
Speaker 1: Is there a chance we can finally get rid of
35:22
Speaker 1: him in this one? Can you Nate Silver this for
35:24
Speaker 1: us or what?
35:25
Speaker 2: It's hard. Go to the board, Tommy.
35:29
Speaker 6: What Netanyahu keeps doing is he'll build his coalition with
35:32
Speaker 6: parties that are further and further to the right, including
35:34
Speaker 6: some who believe some troubling things. But then the people
35:37
Speaker 6: that run against him ultimately just lose their will and
35:40
Speaker 6: cut deals with him and go into coalitions with him.
35:43
Speaker 6: So there hasn't been any organized opposition. So Ben Rhodes
35:46
Speaker 6: had a conversation with this really cool inspiring new labor
35:50
Speaker 6: party leader on Pate of the World a couple weeks back.
35:52
Speaker 6: You can check that out if you want to hear
35:54
Speaker 6: about the future. But yeah, we'll see. I mean, look,
35:57
Speaker 6: Netanyahu is just a survivor. He knows how to win
35:59
Speaker 6: these things. So Biden will probably be dealing with him
36:02
Speaker 6: for a while.
36:04
Speaker 2: Love it. What do you got? All right, gentlemen. As
36:08
Speaker 2: we speak in Cocoa, Florida. I love this. There is
36:12
Speaker 2: an important milestone. It is unfolding right now. And it
36:16
Speaker 2: is this. There is a company using a special kind
36:21
Speaker 2: of technology to build a tunnel, an underpass, a rail underpass.
36:26
Speaker 2: And what makes it special, it is the first time
36:28
Speaker 2: in the United States a rail underpass has been built
36:30
Speaker 2: under a highway and the traffic on the highway is
36:33
Speaker 2: continuing to flow. So it's called box jacking and they
36:37
Speaker 2: slide these big giant prefab boxes under the highway and
36:40
Speaker 2: the traffic can still run. The reason this is important is,
36:44
Speaker 2: you know, we talk a lot about how We have
36:46
Speaker 2: to invest in infrastructure. We're about to have a big
36:48
Speaker 2: debate over a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure package, but we don't
36:52
Speaker 2: talk enough about how we do it and specifically how
36:54
Speaker 2: the United States does it poorly. We are incredibly behind technologically.
36:58
Speaker 2: The company building this tunnel is an Italian company. They've
37:02
Speaker 2: already done this thousands of times, but it's the first
37:04
Speaker 2: time that this exact kind of tunnel is happening in
37:06
Speaker 2: North America. It's also incredibly expensive to to build infrastructure
37:10
Speaker 2: United States. And that is, uh, unfortunately making it really
37:14
Speaker 2: difficult to build projects basically anywhere. And it's not about
37:17
Speaker 2: Democrats versus Republicans. This is happening in places with Democrats
37:19
Speaker 2: have total control. Uh, Alon Levy, he's a, uh, a
37:23
Speaker 2: researcher who does a lot of, um, great work and
37:26
Speaker 2: looking at the cost of infrastructure projects. Listen to these
37:29
Speaker 2: numbers in Spain, building a train station costs about $ 14
37:31
Speaker 2: million in Los Angeles. It costs $ 120 million. That's more
37:34
Speaker 2: than 10 times the cost. Out of several hundred subway
37:38
Speaker 2: lines all around the world, the five most expensive are
37:41
Speaker 2: in New York, all well above $ 1 billion per kilometer
37:44
Speaker 2: versus $ 250 million globally. That's four times the cost. Tunnels
37:47
Speaker 2: in Seattle cost $ 1 billion per kilometer. In Paris, it
37:50
Speaker 2: costs $ 300 million. In Madrid, it costs $ 130 million. These
37:53
Speaker 2: are in countries, they have labor standards, they have environmental standards,
37:56
Speaker 2: and distill between three and 10 times the cost. So
37:58
Speaker 2: it's not about geography. It's not about the wealth of
38:01
Speaker 2: the country. If we don't solve the high cost of infrastructure,
38:04
Speaker 2: no matter what we do, No matter how much we spend,
38:07
Speaker 2: it won't matter. Our economy will push up against this
38:11
Speaker 2: kind of a cage. And so my hope is that
38:14
Speaker 2: Secretary Mayor Pete will make this a priority. We can
38:17
Speaker 2: start solving the many, many little problems in professionalizing the
38:20
Speaker 2: way we build things, in contracting procedures, in legal procedures,
38:24
Speaker 2: in a host of different ways to start bringing down
38:26
Speaker 2: the cost of these projects. It's an incredibly important issue
38:29
Speaker 2: we don't talk about, and it is central to the
38:31
Speaker 2: future of the country. Question. Question.
38:33
Speaker 6: Didn't Elon Musk recently announce that he had invented the subway?
38:39
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, I don't know a lot. I'm not,
38:41
Speaker 2: I'm no expert, but I'm very confident that eccentric billionaires
38:45
Speaker 2: are not the solution.
38:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems right.
38:48
Speaker 2: And tunnels for Teslas. And listen, you boys know this.
38:52
Speaker 2: I got one of those things. All right. Before we
38:54
Speaker 2: went on Joe Rogan. I didn't know he was going
38:56
Speaker 2: to go on Joe Biden. But no, Elon Musk does
39:01
Speaker 2: not have all the answers. The answer is, unfortunately, making
39:05
Speaker 2: sure we don't understaff the government and outsource all the
39:07
Speaker 2: work to private contractors. It's figuring out how to do
39:10
Speaker 2: environmental protection without bogging down projects for more than a decade.
39:14
Speaker 2: It's how we spend money. It's how we oversee money.
39:16
Speaker 2: It's complicated, hard stuff. And one thing we have to do,
39:19
Speaker 2: which America hates to do, is we have to learn
39:21
Speaker 2: from other countries. We need to send smart, capable public
39:25
Speaker 2: servants to Europe, to Spain, to Italy, to learn how
39:28
Speaker 2: they do these projects and then come back and bring
39:30
Speaker 2: that expertise. That's how we ended up.
39:33
Speaker 3: With, you know.
39:34
Speaker 1: The big dig. The big dig. Secretary Pete, if you
39:39
Speaker 1: are listening, that was Lovett's job interview for DOT. He
39:45
Speaker 1: would like a position, preferably not a Senate confirmed position,
39:49
Speaker 1: but anything else you got in that department. Ambassador of infrastructure.
39:53
Speaker 2: Short of that, short of that, Secretary Pete, would love
39:57
Speaker 2: to talk to you about this. We'll have a very
39:58
Speaker 2: good conversation about infrastructure spending. I feel like this is
40:02
Speaker 2: your issue. You could be a hero.
40:05
Speaker 1: I hope so.
40:06
Speaker 2: Secretary hero, Mayor Pete.
40:10
Speaker 1: All right. So I know that there is a stiff
40:13
Speaker 1: competition for the title of America's dumbest senator. But the
40:17
Speaker 1: New York Times over the weekend made what I consider
40:19
Speaker 1: an airtight case with their profile of Wisconsin's Ron Johnson.
40:25
Speaker 1: He is refusing to say that vaccines are safe for COVID,
40:30
Speaker 1: but still pushing hydroxychloroquine. Remember that? He thinks the January
40:35
Speaker 1: 6th attackers were fake Trump protesters, that there was only
40:38
Speaker 1: violence on the House side, and that he would have
40:41
Speaker 1: been more scared if they were Black Lives Matter protesters,
40:45
Speaker 1: of course. And here's the best part. He believes that
40:50
Speaker 1: Greenland is called Greenland because it was green at one
40:54
Speaker 1: point and, quote, it's a whole lot whiter now, which
40:58
Speaker 1: means that we've experienced climate change throughout geological times. When
41:03
Speaker 1: asked about Johnson, retiring Wisconsin Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner told
41:09
Speaker 1: the Times, quote, Wisconsin voters love Mavericks. They really love Mavericks.
41:15
Speaker 1: You go way back to Joe McCarthy.
41:18
Speaker 6: Mavericks.
41:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Joe McCarthy.
41:19
Speaker 2: Got it.
41:20
Speaker 1: Like Joe McCarthy. So favorably compared to Joe McCarthy, the
41:24
Speaker 1: reason this is an important story is Ron Johnson is
41:26
Speaker 1: up in 2022. It's going to be one of the
41:29
Speaker 1: big competitive Senate seats. Whether or not he runs, he
41:32
Speaker 1: has not yet said he's going to run again. He
41:34
Speaker 1: originally said that he would, you know, this would be
41:37
Speaker 1: his last term. And of course, he's only raised, I think,
41:39
Speaker 1: half a million dollars, so he hasn't raised much. But
41:41
Speaker 1: he's been saying lately that because he is now this,
41:44
Speaker 1: you know, he's drawn so much ire from the left
41:47
Speaker 1: that because the left hates him, he might have to
41:49
Speaker 1: stay in this fight. So that is Ron Johnson, America's
41:53
Speaker 1: dumbest senator. The Greenland thing.
41:56
Speaker 6: I was upset that you left out his 2014 claim
41:59
Speaker 6: that ISIS militants were going to catch Ebola on purpose
42:03
Speaker 6: and then cross the border. That's a real demerit to you, John.
42:06
Speaker 6: The thing about a guy like Ron Johnson is my
42:08
Speaker 6: instinct is to assume that they're just like cynical and
42:11
Speaker 6: willing to lie.
42:11
Speaker 2: But the truth might be far worse.
42:13
Speaker 6: I think he's dumb or delusional enough to really believe this.
42:17
Speaker 6: So actually, everyone should just set a recurring donation to
42:20
Speaker 6: the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Do like 10 bucks a month.
42:23
Speaker 6: You could help get rid of them.
42:25
Speaker 2: It's interesting. For a time, you would have said Jim Inhofe,
42:29
Speaker 2: worst senator, Ted Cruz always in the conversation. Ron Johnson
42:34
Speaker 2: quietly kind of going for the mantle of the absolute
42:39
Speaker 2: worst senator. He is what would happen if an email
42:42
Speaker 2: forward became a person. And you know what? It does
42:51
Speaker 2: seem as though with him, it's hard to know when
42:53
Speaker 2: the cynicism ends and the idiocy begins but that might
42:57
Speaker 2: make what makes him kind of a powerful enemy and
42:59
Speaker 2: that like he truly believes the dumbest fucking shit.
43:03
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that too he is dangerous nonetheless
43:06
Speaker 1: right because like someone who's that ignorant and stupid can
43:08
Speaker 1: still be dangerous because he's in this position of power
43:10
Speaker 1: but like your josh hollies your ted cruz's i'm not
43:13
Speaker 1: gonna say that they're they're they're brilliant by any means
43:17
Speaker 1: uh they're they're not the sharpest tools in the shed
43:19
Speaker 1: either But they are they're cunning. Right. They're cynical. They
43:23
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. They know they're Tom Cotton. Right.
43:25
Speaker 1: People like that. Mitch McConnell. I think he I think
43:29
Speaker 1: Ron Johnson genuinely believes the bullshit that comes out of
43:32
Speaker 1: his mouth. I believe he is that fucking stupid. This
43:34
Speaker 1: man is dumb as a fucking pile of rocks. He's
43:37
Speaker 1: just every time you see him speak, when you watch
43:40
Speaker 1: him on Fox, you listen to him.
43:41
Speaker 2: He is so stupid, you know.
43:43
Speaker 6: I'm not sure who to blame for this. I think
43:45
Speaker 6: I'm going to point my finger squarely at Elijah, but
43:47
Speaker 6: we missed a great opportunity to chase some clout and
43:49
Speaker 6: not do a bracket of the dumbest people in politics.
43:53
Speaker 6: You know, lesson learned. Lesson learned over here.
43:56
Speaker 2: We should do a bracket. We should do a bracket.
43:58
Speaker 2: That's okay. I'm doing a bracket with that.
44:00
Speaker 1: Elijah jumps in and says, just start with the final four.
44:03
Speaker 6: Next week we'll do an elite eight or a final four.
44:06
Speaker 6: That's our pledge to you on Monday.
44:07
Speaker 1: I like that. Dumbest people in politics.
44:10
Speaker 3: All right.
44:11
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Have a good one. And
44:13
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you later this week. Pod Save America
44:23
Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
44:27
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited
44:31
Speaker 1: by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks
44:34
Speaker 1: to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and
44:38
Speaker 1: Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
44:41
Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
44:45
Speaker 1: film and upload these episodes as videos every week.