Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Loses It Over Fox News Poll

Transcript

Trump Loses It Over Fox News Poll · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Dan, welcome back from vacation. We missed you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I had a great vacation, but I'm excited to pod.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I was like, Excited to pod. We're excited to have you.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we got with one week to go
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: before the debate, Joe Biden heads to Camp David to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: prep and Donald Trump can't figure out whether to lower
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: expectations or to raise them. And both sides are planning
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: ahead for the post-debate spin slash social media slash deceptively
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: edited fake war, whatever it's going to be. So we'll
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: talk all through that. Then we have a lot of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: new polling to go through and some of it is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: actually good for Joe Biden, but not all of it.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And then later, Former White House counsel Bob Bauer stops
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: by to talk about playing Donald Trump in debate prep
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden in 2020, the Supreme Court, and his
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: new book, The Unraveling, about just how unethical our politics
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: has become. Dan, I told Bob this. It was interesting
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: that he wrote this sort of long look back about
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: his life and time in politics and came away with
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: his concerns about how unethical it all is. Because I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: think of him as one of the more upstanding people
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: we actually got to work with.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. One of the best, most solid, most serious
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: people you could.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Ever meet with.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And very, very funny.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Very, very funny. And apparently was an excellent Donald Trump
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: in 2020. And I got to tell you, Dan, I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: came away, he couldn't comment, but I came away thinking
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that he's reprising his role as Donald Trump in the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: 2024 debate prep sessions.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: And I say this with all love for Bob, but
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: I can't think of a better person to do that.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's very true. But first, Dan, our book, Democracy
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: or Else, Comes out on Monday. Look, you have been
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: on the New York Times bestseller list, which is our goal.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: What do you have to do to get there? Who
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: do we grease? And will you make a gigantic bulk
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: purchase on my behalf?
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I've already made several bulk purchases because I'm competitive. And
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: if I was on the list, if you guys were
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: on the list, I wanted to have that little dagger
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: that they give for bulk purchases.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: They always give to Ted Cruz.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, Don Jr., they all get the little dagger.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Because the RNC buys them in bulk. The very serious
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: answer here is here is how you get on the
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: bestseller list.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: This is the key.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: People who are listening to this podcast right now, what
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: they do is they go grab their phone, which they
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: already have because they're listening to this podcast, and they
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: pre-order the book. You go to crooked.com slash books to
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: do that. You can do it wherever you get your books,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: but that is the best way because every pre-order gets
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: dumped into the New York Times bestseller list the moment
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: the book goes on sale. That gives you a huge
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: surge of momentum, which then puts you up the rankings
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: on all the sites, which then gets you more publicity,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: which gets the book featured more. So we cannot live
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: in a world where this book is not on the
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: New York Times bestseller list and not yet the top
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: of the New York Times bestseller list. So everybody listening,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: go pre-order it right now.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: It is very simple. You know you're going to buy
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: it eventually. So buy it now and have more impact.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I'm also, I'm excited for our first just like scathing review.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to come from the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: left or the right, but it's coming, baby.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: And it's going to hurt. I don't think you're going
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to get a scathing review.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I've read the book.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: It is great. It is funny. The illustrations are great.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: You're not going to get a scathing review.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Hopefully, what you want is you want to enrage someone
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: on the right. Ben Shapiro and a bunch of other
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: people went nuts over my last book and it was
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: incredibly helpful.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Uh, we're working on that.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Largely because it was called battling the big lie and
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: it was largely about them.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: So it was like, right. So mission accomplished on my part.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You took them on by name. Um, yeah, we
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: have some, we have some plans, uh, to, to engage
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: our friends on the right, but more about that later. Um,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: You're actually going to moderate a book event for Democracy
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Realist on Thursday, June 27th before the debate. Thank you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: for that. Also, I'm working on your request to be
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: able to mute Lovett's mic like Jake Tapper and Dan Bash.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: That's not what I want because a lot of people
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: are calling this a book event. I'm calling it a
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: survivor interrogation event.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: You can't answer anything.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I have talked to some people we know in the CIA.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I have some ways in which we're going to ask
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: the questions that we're going to dupe them into answering it.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So just stay tuned, people.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: If you're saying we're going to waterboard love it, then
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: this trip just got interesting. We also have a book
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: event in New York on Tuesday, June 25th. Tickets to
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: both shows include copies of the book. Go to crooked.com
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: slash events to get your tickets now. And if you're
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: not in the New York or Boston area or you
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: can't make it, go to crooked.com slash books to pick
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: up a copy of Democracy or Else. You'll enjoy it,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: we promise. And as you know by now, Crooked Media
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: is going to donate all the proceeds from the book
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: to support Vote Save America and 2024 candidates. So you
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: are reading for a good cause or just Putting something
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: on your shelf for a good cause. Either is fine
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: by me. All right, Dan, let's get to the news.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: So the first debate of this election cycle between Joe
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Biden and Donald Trump is going down a week from
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the day of this recording. Hard to believe that. It'll
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: be on Thursday, June 27th at CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is finally back from multiple foreign trips. He's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: heading to Camp David as we speak to prep. He'll
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: be joined there by Ron Klain, the former White House
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: chief of staff and the debate guru for Democrats for
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: like the last 20 years. We don't know yet for
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: sure who's playing Trump in the mock debate sessions. I
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: suspect it might be Bob Bauer, but we'll talk more
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: with Bob in a few minutes. You'll hear all about that.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: We do know that Biden will be at the podium
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: on the right hand side of the TV screen after
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign won a football style coin flip. Biden
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: picked tails because as you and I both know, tails
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: never fails. And Biden's team opted to pick their podium
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: position and let the Trump campaign decide whether they wanted
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: to go first or second in closing statements. So Trump
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: is going to go second with his closing statement, which
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: means he has the last word. This is so stupid.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess like this is the best way
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: you pick these little minutiae. You flip a coin, but
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems so silly.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: I'm curious as to why, like you obviously have a plan, right?
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: When you go in overtime in football, like you were
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: told by the coach, we're going to defer. We're going
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: to kick off all of that. So the Biden people
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: decided that they were going, if they won the coin toss,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: their first choice would be podium position. So I'm just
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: very curious as to why that was more valuable to them.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: His good side maybe?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That's got to be the thing.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Or maybe, more likely, it's Donald Trump's bad side.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I bet Donald Trump cares a lot about what side
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: he's on, and I bet that they think they'll be
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: in his head if he has to have his bad
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: side facing the camera.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, God, I hope that's true. We don't know much
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: about Trump's plans for debate prep. One of his senior
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: advisors recently said that they don't have any because Trump
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't need to be, quote, programmed by staff. That much
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: is true, sir. We believe you. But you can tell
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: it is on his mind. Here's Trump at a rally
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Is anybody going to watch the debate? He's going to
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: be so pumped up.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: He's going to be pumped up.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: You know all that stuff.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: That was missing about a month ago from the White House?
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: Worth of cocaine.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: I wonder who that could have been.
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Actually, I think it was Joe. But I said, we'll
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: They didn't think I was going to do it.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: They thought I would say, no, I don't want to
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: do it because CNN is so, you know, it's fake news.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: But I think maybe they'll be honest. I think I
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: think fake Tapper would really help himself if we're honest.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: But you'll see immediately if it is or not. I'll
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: probably be Dana Bash is the other. I'll be debating
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: three people instead of one instead of one half of
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: a person.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: It's just typically incoherent. Dan, can you lower expectations for
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: your debate opponent when you've been accusing them of dementia
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: for the better part of four years?
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Probably not, would be my guess.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: And not just accusing them, there is a pro-Trump super
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: PAC ad on the air right now in many of
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: these battleground states that has the accusers driven by having dementia.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: It's the number one most run ad from the Trump side,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I think, thus far in this race.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: What Trump's doing there is bizarre.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, in some ways you can sort of, you know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: kind of reverse engineer some sort of strategy to it
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: where he is trying to set up if he does
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: not do well, like the sort of false logic he
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: has here is if Biden does well, it's because he's
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: on cocaine. And if Trump does not do well, it's
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: because everyone is against Trump and it's a rigged system.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: And he went into it knowing it's right because of
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: fake Tapper and Dana Bash because they're from CNN and
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: all of that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: But it's not, you know, it's just.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Not a fully baked strategy, which I guess is not
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: unusual for Trump, but it's just, he's kind of all
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: over the map. He's mostly doing the cocaine. Biden on
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: cocaine is a real, It's a real zinger that the
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Trump rally people love, and I think it's why he's
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: going with that more than some debate strategy, per se.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, all of this sort of debate expectations management,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it feels like a thing from the before times to me,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: because I can remember in 2004, the Bush campaign was
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: out in advance of their first debate saying that John
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Kerry was the best debater to ever run for president
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and better than Cicero. And the way like the kind
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of game worked at the time was the press gobbled
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that stuff up and they were like, oh, what a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: great line. And they kind of like reported it at
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: face value. But now, I mean, it was obviously nonsense then.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It's nonsense now like to accuse Joe Biden of doing cocaine.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: But you're right. I mean, it's just kind of incoherent.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And I guess the crowd likes it.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I don't think the debate expectation thing ever
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: really mattered that much.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Like the press is not stupid.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: They know who these people are.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: They're not, no one ever believed that John Kerry was
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the best political debater since Cicero. Like there was no,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: like based on what that was from, like I was
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: thinking back to Obama's first debate against McCain, which we're very,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: very nervous about. He, you know, untested on the national stage,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: huge questions about experience, where if he were to fumble
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: on that debate, it could change the whole race. And
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: so we spent all this time talking, like, really downplaying
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Obama's communication skills, which seems absurd, right? Since how he
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: rose to prominence was through communications. But we were reminding
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: people about what a terrible job he did in all
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the primary debates. I think it was 90 seconds was
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: the answer increments in the first debate. We'd say, well,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: it takes Obama 90 seconds to clear his throat before
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: he could get to an answer because he is famously long-winded.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: And then we spent all this time just selling people
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: on the idea that McCain had all this debate experience
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: from floor debates in the Senate, which are just dueling speeches, right?
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: It's like dueling banjos of oratory. It's not an actual debate,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: but we all try. Cause it's kind of what, like
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: you're just, everyone's.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Just playing a role in a play right in the run.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Up to debate. And nothing you do about it. It
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: is so funny to call up a bunch of reporters
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and be like, Hey man, on deep background, do you
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: know how much my boss sucks?
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Look, we are nervous about, See that other guy whose
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: ass we're kicking in the polls who, you know, but
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: he's incredible.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: You know, it's the same.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: It was like, it was like the Bush-Kerry thing was
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: the same thing. It's like every other thing they ever
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: said about Kerry was that he was a weak loser.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: And they're like, but on the debate stage, whoa, watch
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: out guys.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Big man. Yeah. I think you're exactly right though. It's
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: safe to say that unless Biden just totally bombs, Trump
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: is going to blame the moderators and then go back
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to this line that he was on drugs. Now, when
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I first got a job working for President Obama, then
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: State Senator Obama, my boss, Robert Gibbs, who went on
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to be the White House press secretary, said, the first
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: rule of spin is that it has to be believable.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Accusing Joe Biden of taking debate PEDs doesn't seem believable
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to me, but I don't know. It's become an article
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of faith in conservative circles. Do you think you have
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to push back at that? No, I don't think you
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: have to push back at that.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: I think- I've argued this in every forum I have
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: that the press should cover Trump more aggressively when he
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: accuses the sitting president.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Of doing cocaine.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: In a pre-Trump world, that would be the biggest story
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: in American politics for six straight weeks. But what the
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: cocaine PEDs thing is, it is a way for Republicans
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: to resolve the cognitive dissonance between the Joe Biden that
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: exists within the MAGA media ecosystem and in their heads
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: who has dementia, incognitive decline, is a puppet, can't stay awake,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: doesn't know what inflation is, that's a common Trump line,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: and the Joe Biden who appeared at the State of
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: the Union. You can't have both of those things in
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: your head without concocting some sort of story to explain them,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and so they have landed on this. Yes, for the
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: vast majority of the electorate, spin must be believable. And
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: for the tradition, you know, for the mainstream press who
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: used to matter so much, who were the narrators of
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: the campaign, spin had to be believable. But if for your,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: in this media environment with your hardcore base, particularly on
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: the right, who exists in this hermetically sealed media ecosystem,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to be believable. It just has to be enjoyable.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: And that's what that is. That's right.
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: That's funny to think back in 2007, uh, Billy Shaheen,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: who was then Clinton's, the New Hampshire campaign co-chair, uh,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: raised Barack Obama's youthful cocaine use and then had to
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: resign from the campaign because it was a huge scandal
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that backfired on them. So you're right. We've come a
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: long way from that to a place where the former
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: president accuses the current president of doing cocaine before the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: State of the Union. But I digress, Dan. So one
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of the emerging battlegrounds in the race is these so-called
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: cheap fake videos that Those are different than deep fakes,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: which are made with AI-generated imagery. A cheap fake is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the cool new term for an old concept, which is
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: using genuine footage but editing it in a deceptive way.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: One example of a cheap fake was this recent video
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: of Biden and other world leaders at the G7 last week.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: They were watching a skydiving demonstration. And at one point,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: one of the parachutists landed kind of out of frame.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Biden walks over, gives them a thumbs up. He's talking
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to them. And then people, including the New York Post,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: edited that video to take out the skydivers and make
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it look like Biden had just kind of wandered off
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and had to be brought back into the group for
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a photo. All of this is to say the Biden
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: campaign is reportedly more concerned about how moments from the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: debate will get clipped out and shared on social media
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: than the debate itself as sort of a single event. Dan,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I know that folks I used to talk to who
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: worked on Al Gore's 2000 campaign felt like they won
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: some of the debates against Bush in the moment, but
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: lost the spin war afterwards. Do you think that spin
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: war is even more important now that we are living
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: in this social media era?
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I was one of the people who worked on that campaign, Tommy,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: because I'm old. And that is mostly true.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've gone back and watched those debates over
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the years, which is not an exciting statement in my life.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: And Gore did poorly. He didn't win those debates in
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: the moment either.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: But there was this famous thing where It's just, it's
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: so different how debates were is that all the press
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: who were covering it were in one room to watch
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: it on a big screen as they typed away on
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: their overly large laptops and, uh, or wrote in hand
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: to then call into the, I dictate it to the desk,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: which is wild. And they had the, in the first debate,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: they had the closed circuit feed from inside the room,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: which was only the mic of the person speaking. But
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: if you were watching it on television, you would, you
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: got a different feed and you heard Gore sighing because
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Gore's mic was live the whole time. You heard him
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: sighing every time Bush said something in a very exasperated,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: annoying way. And so the reporters walked out of the
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: room thinking Gore had done fine. But then when they
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: got to the spin room, they discovered in part from
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: the Bush command, but also because the entire nation heard it,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: that Gore had been sighing.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: The whole time. And that was, that was bad for it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Now, In this case, there are two things that have
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: changed a lot in debate since then. One is now
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: you spin during the debate. Like back in the day,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: when we worked in the Obama campaign, we would email
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: out fact checks to reporters who would never open their–
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: why would they stop watching?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You get like 150 of them.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: They're coming.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: They're flying in. Every group is sending them, and no
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: one's ever reading them. It's just like a gigantic busy
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: work project for– researchers and writers.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: But then Twitter happened, right?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, the reporters who were
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: watching the speech were also following Twitter. That's partially why
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Obama did so poorly in the 2012 first debate, because
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: people were watching the reactions of Obama supporters online during
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: the debate. And famously, Andrew Sullivan, the conservative columnist who
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: was an Obama supporter, basically melted down on Twitter about
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: how bad Obama was.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Chris Matthews melted down on television. People saw that.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Ben Smith, who was then at BuzzFeed, declared Romney the
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: winner like nine minutes into the debate.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Which became a thing. And so the spin room doesn't
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: really matter anymore.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: There will still be people who go into a room
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: and they'll have interns behind them with giant signs with
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: their name. I still have my giant sign from the
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: first Obama McCain debate with my name on it hanging
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: in my house because it was very cool, but it
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: does not matter anymore. There will be online spin, but
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: what will matter the most is, and this is what
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: the Biden people are rightly worried about, is.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Maybe 50 million people watch this debate. So that is
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: a third of the electorate.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: And that third of the electorate is watching is going
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: to be disproportionate people who've already made up their mind.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: And so how people will confront it will be clips
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: shared on TikTok and social. And are those clips going
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: to be favorable to Biden or unfavorable to Biden? And
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: that is deeply concerning. And this will be less cheap
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: fakes than just out of context, quick moment, right? Like
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: everyone's going to have the same video feed. So I
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: don't think you're gonna be able to like, make it
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: seem like Biden wandered off.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: But you will, you will, if the, you know, there
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: will be, you know, you can see a super cut
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: of moments where Biden stutter comes forward, which will make
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: it seem like he was not in it, you know,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: like on his game for the debate when he actually was,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: or a moment where he, you know, as he did
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: in that one press conference where he said the president
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: of Mexico, when he met the president of Egypt, you know,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: so there could be moments like that, but there could
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: be than driven with the algorithms on TikTok particularly to
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: make people who didn't watch the debate feel worse about
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: his performance.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, there will just be kind of an arms
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: race where everyone is getting their video editors together to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: try to tell a story from 90 minutes of debate.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: It could be Biden stutter, like you said, that could
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: be a negative one for Biden, or it could just
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: be like Trump's angry and incoherent again. Remember this guy,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: this is what you hated about the first debate back
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: in 2020, when the two candidates interrupted each other something
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: like 76 times. So that is kind of a discreet
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: challenge around this debate itself. But on this cheap fakes issue,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Biden campaign does seem incredibly frustrated with
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the proliferation of misleadingly edited videos of him. I feel
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: their pain in some sense. When the New York Post
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: takes a video directly from the RNC and kind of
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: makes it even worse looking and then posts it as
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: their own, that is out of bounds for a media
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: gathering organization that ostensibly, you know, claims to be just,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you know, a news company and not an opinion company.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: But it does seem like at the end of the day,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: like there's going to be one of these cheap fake
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: type videos every single day from now until the end
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of the election. There's almost nothing you can do about
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it except make a bunch of your own stuff, right?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: And like kind of fight fire with fire, either by
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: putting out videos of Trump where, you know, you're highlighting
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: some sort of weakness of his, or you're just putting
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: out stuff where Biden looks sharp and on top of things.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And that vision of him gets to someone in their
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: algorithm in the same way that the video of him looking,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you know, lost to the G7 does.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: This is, I mean, this is very challenging for the
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Biden folks for a whole host of reasons. Like they're
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: at an algorithmic disadvantage, right? Positive Biden clips don't trend
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: on TikTok like negative Biden clips for a whole host
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: of reasons. which then creates a disincentive for people to
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: put out positive Biden clips because you're not getting engagement.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: What I think, there are a couple thoughts around this.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: One is these clips don't exist in a vacuum. They
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: only matter if they dovetail with the larger conversation that's happening, right?
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Where there's like, everything happens in surround sound now, right?
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: So you see this and you're kind of hearing other things.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: And if so, and if Biden does well in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: debate and the takeaway is, and the conversation about the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: debate is Biden did well, he beat expectations. then those
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: clips are not going to make sense in the context
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: of that larger conversation. More broadly, there is a whack-a-mole
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: element to all of these things, where it's every day
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: they're coming out. The Biden folks are going after the.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: New York Post.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: They're sending out 7,000 tweets about it. They're angry about it.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: They're trying to stop it. And you do want to
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: respond to the ones that you can with as much
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: force as you can. But ultimately, the way to combat
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: it is that the president has to be omnipresent in
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: the media. He has to be doing things all the time.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: You have to be seeing him. Those things have to
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: be the sort of things that break through. Like one example,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: and I understand why they didn't do this, but I
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: think you have to lean your mentality towards viral content
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: that'll be positive for your side. You know, the president
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: went home between the Normandy ceremony and the G, where
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: were we at?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: The G8, G7, how many Gs?
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: G7.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: G7, yeah. We're at the G7 now. We kicked those
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Russians out.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: But had he stayed in Europe, he could have gone
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: to the Phillies game in London. Like that's a thing
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: where he goes to that. that's a big viral moment.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: You're going to have to find more macro viral moments.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Just be everywhere.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: My hope and expectation is the president will be out
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: campaigning just about every day after this first debate. And
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: then you will have the opportunity to push back with
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: those positive moments. But now because he is out there less,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: or not that he's out there less, he's doing stuff
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: all the time.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: He's much busier than Trump.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: It's just he has to do a lot of presidential
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: things that don't really break through in the same way
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: that campaigning political stuff do, where you're creating the conflict
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: by going after your opponent or getting out of the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: White House. And hopefully we'll be able to do more
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: of that going forward. But the only way around is through,
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: and it is with doing as much stuff as you
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: possibly can. You're not going to beat these one by one.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump getting to go to like ultimate fighting
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: competitions and hang out with Dana White and get cheered
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: by a crowd is a lot more fun and a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: lot more viral than attending the G7.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: What is the democratic equivalent of going to a UFC event?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I tried to ask Adisu about this.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, during the Obama era, it was probably going to,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: you know, the NBA finals or something like that, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure what.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: It's a pot safe America show in Brooklyn, my friend.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's better than that. Don't ever say that about him.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Last thing on debate stand. Um, I came across this
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: report from a group called open to debate. Uh, they're
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: out of Princeton university. They had a bunch of researchers
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: watch every single debate from the last 20 years, a
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of times, poor bastards, um, and came to some conclusions, uh,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: including that the debates have gotten worse and worse. They've
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: gotten more confrontational. They've gotten less substantive. The main recommendations
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: they came up with are that the moderators should be
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: more empowered to interrupt and stop candidates from deflecting or
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: refusing to answer questions. They also called for more expertise.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: They like the idea and called for it as well
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of the ability to mute mics when candidates aren't talking,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: which is going to be in place for these debates
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: at the Biden camp's insistence. Dan, I mean, were the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: debates always bad in your opinion or do you think
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: they've gotten worse?
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: The report is so funny to me because they're like,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: they watched every debate of the last 20 years. So
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: that's five presidential elections times three debates plus one vice presidential.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it was primary ones.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Maybe they watched, if they watched primary ones, then God
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: bless them because there were hundreds of those. But if
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: it was just the presidential general election ones, then you
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: watched 20 debates.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Congratulations.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: The other thing that's funny is they're like, Things have
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: gotten so much worse. We're not really sure why, starting
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: in 2016.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: All of them are like, there was one personal attack
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: until 2016. And then starting in 2016, there have been
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: 76 of them. And it's like, there was very little interruption.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: And then in 2016, there was so many more eruptions.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: And it's like, I wonder... What changed in presidential politics
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: in 2016?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Could it have.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Something to do with Donald Trump arriving?
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I think debates have always been stupid. It is important
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: to have.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: A moment where people will tune into the campaign and
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: see the candidates, but a debate performance under any format,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: like traditional Lincoln-Douglas, like Socratic method debates, the way we've
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: been doing them, town hall, all of those are terrible
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: proxies for what kind of president you would be.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Right. That's the funny thing about being president. Debating has
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: become this key part of how we select a president,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: but you never actually debate anyone as president. People stand
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: up and salute you when you walk in the room.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: They kiss your ass. They don't push back on you.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It is completely divorced from the reality of the job. Yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is fine, but we shouldn't pretend that
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: someone being good at debates means they'll be good at president.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Far from it, actually.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the question really is whether this
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: debate is going to matter. Obviously, it's impossible to know.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, my instinct is that this one will matter
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a lot for Joe Biden because it's an opportunity to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: show that attacks about his age are wrong. I also
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: think it'll matter for Trump because, you know, he has
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a chance now to prove to voters that he is
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: less of a ranting, raving lunatic than he was the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: last time they saw him debate. But at the same time,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's happening in June and the odds of
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: us remembering what they even talked about Come November seems
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: pretty low, but I mean, where do you land on
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: like the, does this debate matter question? This will be,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: in my estimations, likely the most impactful moment of the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: campaign to date and possibly throughout the whole campaign and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: probably more impactful than either of the convention speeches. And
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: obviously a second debate in September should matter more than
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a first debate in June. There is one giant looming
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: question about Joe Biden is, and it comes up in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: every poll, every focus group, every conversation you have with
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a voter in your life is, is he too old?
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And this is his first best opportunity because people, because
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of changes in the media environment, because of sort of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: how he is as a communicator, people don't see Joe
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Biden speak ever, right?
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: And so this is a moment to do this. And
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: one of the few things.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: That actually break through in American life these days is
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: big events, right?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Right, live ones too.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Big live events where people will get together, tune in,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: talk about it simultaneously on social media, post clips about
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: it afterwards. And so this is a huge moment, right?
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: And when I had Sarah Longwell on the podcast last week,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: she made the point that it doesn't really matter what
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden says, it matters how he says it, right?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's on that stage, but Joe Biden is actually
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: just debating the caricature of himself portrayed by Republicans. And
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: can he beat that, right? Can he beat it by
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: enough that voters will say, I trust him? Because I
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: have come sort of to the conclusion that in, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: we're gonna talk about polling in a minute, but Biden's
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: age is infecting all of the polling It's one of
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: the reasons why we're like, why don't people trust him
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: on these issues?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Because they think he's too old.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And so if you can address the age thing, you
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: will address pulling on the economy, pulling on immigration, pulling
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: on strength, all of those things. And this is a
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: great opportunity to do it.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: It's high stakes.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's not going to be easy with Trump
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: acting like a lunatic on stage, but this is the
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: best chance to do it.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: And you have to imagine a lot of people will
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: be watching.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Let's turn to the polling, though, Dan, because we have
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a rule around here that we don't focus too much
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on the results of any one poll, but we are
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: willing to relax that rule when the poll causes Donald
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Trump to have a series of public meltdowns. So that's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: what we got in a Fox News poll released on Wednesday.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So this latest Fox News poll shows Biden up two
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in the national head to head. Last month, he was
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: down one point and he hasn't led since October. It's
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: a pretty big change. In this poll, when the third
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: party candidates are added in, Biden's lead is only one point.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: But very little gets Trump angrier than when Fox appears
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to betray him. And he has taken the opportunity to
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: trash Fox. And he's blaming his imaginary enemy, Paul Ryan,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: who is on Fox's corporate board of directors. So this
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: is one of his posts from Truth Social today. Trump said,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: nobody can ever trust Fox News. And I'm one of
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: them with the weak, ineffective rhino, Paul Ryan, on its
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: board of directors. He's a total lightweight, a failed empathetic
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: speaker of the House and a very disloyal person. Romney
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: was bad, but Paul Ryan made him look worse as
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: a team. They never had a chance. Rupert and Lachlan,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: get that dog off your board. You don't need him.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: All you need is Trump. Make America great again. Very thoughtful,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: coherent truth there. He later wrote another truth post calling
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the poll trash in capital letters and saying it uses
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: an intentionally pro-Biden sample. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, Dan,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I know this is hard for you because on the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: one hand, you want Joe Biden to win. But on
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the other, you agree that Paul Ryan is a lightweight
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and failed empathetic speaker of the House. But who are
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you siding with here?
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not siding with Trump, to be very clear,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: because there's not a chance that Paul Ryan would ever
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: be effective enough to influence anything. Like his entire life
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: is just being a revolving door of failure. So I
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: don't imagine that he is, all of a sudden he's
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: in there like rigging the polls for Donald Trump.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: So, or rigging the polls against Donald Trump. So I
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: don't think that's happening. I mean, this poll is very.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Interesting on a whole host of fronts, as always. We
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: take every individual poll with a grain of salt. A
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: poll that has Biden up a couple points is the
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: same as a poll that has Biden down a couple
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: points because of margin of error. But what is interesting
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: about this one is, A, Fox is a high-quality pollster.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I know that seems impossible to imagine, but they have
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: a polling unit with a record of integrity and accuracy.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: They're either A or A-plus polls from 538, I can't
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: remember which, but top-ranked pollster. This poll has Biden's deficit
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: on the economy in the single digits. which is as
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: close as it's been against Trump in a very long time.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: And to put that in perspective, the New York Times
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: had it at more than 20 points in their poll
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: back in May. And so if that is the case,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: and we've also seen there's also narrowing on immigration in
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: this poll.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And if few other issues. If that's the case, what.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: That says is that the sustained advertising the Biden campaign
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: has been doing over the last several months here, while
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: the Trump campaign has not really been on the air
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: other than in Pennsylvania and Georgia and some in spurts,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Biden campaign and pro-Biden sides are massively outspending, is that
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: that is beginning to affect the electorate. People are beginning
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: to pick that message up, and you see some movement
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: for Biden. It also comports, even though we're not going
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: to take this poll overly seriously, even if it's enjoyable
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: to do so, is it does comport with the movement
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: we've seen in the polls since the conviction, which is
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Biden picking up a few points, right? A few points
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: here and there, and that is enough to push him
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: in the lead in some of these national polls.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think this poll isn't winning independents
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: by nine points. In May, they were with Trump by
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: two points. Biden's now winning double haters by 11 in
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a two-way race. And you're right on these economic numbers.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: They're improving sort of across the range of questions that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: were asked. So 32% say the economy is in excellent
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: or good shape. That's not a great number, but it's
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: up two from May. 59% say they're getting ahead or
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: holding steady financially. That's up five from last summer. 44%
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: feel optimistic about the economy. That's up nine points. from
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: 2023 Biden has 41% approval on the economy. That's not great,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: but it's his highest in two years. And then Biden's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: approval is 45 favorable, 55 unfavorable, which again is underwater
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and not great, but basically everyone is significantly underwater in
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: this poll. The only person I think who was break
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: even was Jill Biden, um, who is at like 46, 46.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: So Biden's also winning with voters who are asked, uh,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: which candidate cares about people like you, by 51 to 45.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: That's a good sign, but he's losing the question of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: who is a strong leader by 43 to 53. So,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you can see where he has a lot
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: of work to do.
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, we should, it's just always worth remembering that
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Biden won the popular vote by four points last time
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: and won the electoral college by 40,000 votes over three states.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: So you have, there is a gap there that you're
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: going to have a slight lead in the national polls
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: is good, But it's not the same thing as winning,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: which is why most of the models still have Trump
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: as at least a slight favorite because his battle– we
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: have not seen– and this is also what's interesting, is
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: we have not seen the numbers in the battleground states
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: move in the same way the national polls have moved,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: which is the reverse of how you would imagine it
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: to be because the ads are running in the battleground states.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: So normally in.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: Past elections, the national polls are a lagging indicator. Here
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: they're moving faster than the battleground polls, and I'm very
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: curious as to why that is.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to– Democrats are coming home. Biden is
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: finally leading the 538 national average for the first time,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I think, in this year. He's up by two tenths
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: of a point. Now, again, that's not a lot, but
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: it's not only an average. It's sort of a trend
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: of the averages. So I don't know. Do you think
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: this is still just sort of not statistically significant, Dan,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: or are you watching these trends and feeling better broadly?
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel better broadly, right?
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, you have seen post-conviction some gains for Biden
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: and some gains is good. There is more work to do,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: but it is a positive sign, right? The debate is
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: going to matter more than anything else, right? If Biden
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: has a good debate, that's going to help. If he
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: has a bad debate, that's going to hurt a lot.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: But what we have seen, slight movement towards Biden since
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: the conviction.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Will that stay? Maybe.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: You know, we have a long time in the election.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: We also know that a lot of the voters who
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: could be persuaded by Trump's conviction to vote against Trump
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: have not really tuned in yet. So we may even
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: not have fully realized the impact of the conviction yet.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: But it tells me that the conviction had an impact
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: in this race. I think that's just an important data
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: point as we think about how this will play out.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: It is an important data point for the Biden campaign
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: strategy going forward, which is why I think they put
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: up that ad that you guys talked about on Tuesday.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It's also an important rejoinder to all the people who
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: saw the guilty verdict come in and said, this just
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: sealed the election for Donald Trump. I mean, those.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: People should not be talking about politics for a living.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple other pieces of polling news over the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: last couple of days just worth mentioning, Dan. These were
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: less rosy for Biden, especially with some of the specific
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: groups he really needs to win. So there were some
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: new results from ECE's research, which is basically a consortium
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: studying the Latino vote in America. They found that on
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: immigration specifically, Latinos trust Trump more than Biden, though the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: margin there is much narrower than what they saw with
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: non-Hispanic voters. The good news is that talking about immigration
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: solutions seems to be effective in moving people to the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Biden camp. After looking at the data, Ekes concluded that
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Biden should emphasize keeping families together, that he should keep
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the focus on immigrant communities that are deeply embedded in
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the country. So it's interesting research and recommendations there. And
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: then separately, the New York Times did a meta-analysis of
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: public polls from this cycle to see what they could
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: conclude about Biden and Trump's support among women. They found
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that Biden's lead with women has dropped from 13% in
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: 2020 to 8% today, and that the losses are most
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: pronounced among non-white women. They found that inflation is the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: most important issue with women voters, the same as it
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: is generally across the board, but that abortion and democracy
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: could be key motivators. So, Dan, a lot of information there,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: but were there any key takeaways from any of those
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: surveys for you?
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought the ECHI survey was fascinating, and it
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: really did point to how Democrats should be talking about
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: immigration going forward. What I think happened in the wake
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: of how the Republicans focus on the border, the cynical
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: stunts of sending migrants to Democratic cities. The reaction to
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: that is that we focused as a party so much
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: on border security, right? We try to out-tough Republicans on
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: the border without talking about the broader immigration picture. That's
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: why I thought it was very important that Biden made
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: this announcement earlier this week about helping find legal status
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: for people who are undocumented but are married to American citizens.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: There is a message here, and it comes through in
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the ECU's poll, is we can work to keep American
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: families together, that we can be humane and decent and
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: find a less chaotic immigration system for the people who've
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: been in this country, who are embedded in our communities,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: while still keeping the border secure and stopping there from
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: being chaos at the border, right? That is, lo and behold,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: the message that was at the core of the Democratic
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Party on immigration for a decade. And we have lost
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: it over the last six months. And I understand why
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: the Biden folks sequenced these announcements, the border security executive
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: order and this one in the way they did. A
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: lot of it probably had to do with the timing
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: of when they were done, because you have to sort
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: of really.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Legal proof these things.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: But now that both of them are out there, you
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: have to, I think, tell the broader story about both, right?
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: And still to this day, even though support for government's
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: immigration reform is down from where it was five, six,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: seven years ago, that is still what people want. They
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: want a comprehensive system that has border security, but also
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: a pathway to citizenship for the people who have been
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: in this country for a long time.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: We have to pay fines.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: You have to wait your turn, but a pathway because
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: it's too chaotic right now. And I think a message
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: that sort of gets back in the old hits that
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Democrats had on immigration would be a very positive thing.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: And this poll makes that very clear that it's with
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: the broader electorate, but also with the very specific Hispanic
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: voters that Biden is losing from 2020.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. And I'm just glad that Eki's
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: highlighted the sense of like, humanity and decency and the
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: need to keep families together, because that has gotten just
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: completely lost from the conversation. It's all about border security.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And you're right. I mean, like when the Trump administration
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: was separating families, that was really one of the nadirs
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of the entire presidency. And I think reminding people of
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: those facts and talking about, you know, human beings and
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: just trying to keep people together and not rip people apart,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, from their loved ones is really important. Last
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: question on this, Dan, just big picture. We get bombarded
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: with so much survey data. Some of it is national polls.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Some of it is about specific sort of cohorts of voters.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: When you were working on the campaign or in the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: White House and you were taking in all this data
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: and all the private data, how did you keep it
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: from making you kind of lurch from message to message
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: in a way that could be incoherent or just kind
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: of like. getting overwhelmed by the deluge? Because, you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you can find ways to slice and dice messages to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: reach out to specific groups, but, you know, that can
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: take away from sort of the broader message you're trying
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: to put forward to the American people.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: You need to have an overall theory of the case, right?
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: That is your argument for why you're can't be reflected. Like, no,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: this is such an outdated, antiquated concept. But, My subsect newsletter,
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: The Message Box, is named after a very specific exercise
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: that used to be done at the beginning of every campaign,
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: where you write a quadrant on a whiteboard. And then
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: on one side, you write your campaign's message about yourself, right?
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: What are you going to say about why you should
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: vote for me? Then you write what you believe your
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: opponent's message is about themself, right?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Like, what are they saying?
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: What are they saying in their ads about why they
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: should be voted for? And then you write your message
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: about your opponent. Why not your opponent? Then you write
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: your opponent's why not message about you. And from that exercise,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: you develop a theory, an overall narrative about why you're
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: a candidate. And you have to come up with that
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: before you ever do a bunch of polling, right? That
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: is change you can believe in, right? That is the
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Obama– that's how Obama came up with it, right? It
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: is Bill Clinton's– it's the economy, stupid, healthcare, change more
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: than the same, whatever it was on the sort of
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: infamous Carvel Post-it note. You do that and then you
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: don't look at all those polls as a way to
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: tell you what to say. You look at those polls
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: to tell you how people are interpreting what you're saying.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: You make tweaks to it.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: But you can see Democrats have been– it's not really
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: just the Biden votes, it's all across the map, is.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: That we have.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Been flummoxed by the polls because we don't under, like
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: it is, we're losing voters we didn't think we would
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: lose ever, right?
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Young voters, Black voters, Hispanic voters.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: And so we are like ping-ponging back from message to message, right?
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Like one day it's inflation, we're doing inflation. And then it's, oh,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: it's border security. So we're doing a border security thing.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: And then Donald Trump's a convict. And then Donald Trump
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: is for himself. But also he has dementia too. And
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: We've been in this way, in this sort of mold
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: really since 2016 with Trump is you should start with
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: the narrative and then use the data to help you
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: understand the narrative. And we're using the data to tell
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: us what to say. And that never works.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: No, that's a recipe for incoherence. One last thing before
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: we go to break, Dan. There's been a bunch of
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: bad news for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's campaign lately.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: So the first piece is he has officially been ruled
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: out of next week's CNN debate because he is not
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: yet on the ballot in enough states to actually win.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: He probably will end up on all the ballots in
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: those states, but he has not gotten there yet. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: he also hasn't reached the polling threshold, which is a
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: problem that didn't get any better with the release of
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: this most recent Fox News poll, which found that Kennedy's
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: support has been ticking downward month over month. And critically,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: that his favorability rating has gone from plus three to
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: negative 11, which is not good. In a two-way race,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: it seems like Kennedy supporters split evenly to Biden and Trump.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So it's still not entirely clear what his impact is
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: on this race. Kennedy put out a statement about the
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: debate decision, calling it undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly. He has
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: another problem, though, which is fundraising. According to a report
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: in Politico, Kennedy's campaign spent more than double what it
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: raised in May, and his total cash on hand is
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: now falling. It's just north of $ 6 million. It is
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: important to note that his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, is
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: a billionaire, and she can give the campaign as much
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: money as she wants to give it. But She gave
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the campaign about $ 8 million in April, but nothing in May.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: So interesting to note. Dan, it's not clear to anyone,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think, maybe not even Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: what his goal is here. It could be stroking a
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: giant ego. It could be him trying to just generally
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: raise awareness about his anti-vaccine views. It could be that
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: he's a spoiler for Trump or just really hates Joe Biden.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Either way, it's not going great for him. Do you
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: feel like we've seen peak RFK in this election cycle?
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Not yet.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: I think typically third-party candidate numbers go down as you
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: get closer to the election, right? Is there sort of
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: this– you go from undecided to third-party to an actual–
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: to one of the two-party candidates. Or you– we saw
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: this in some of the New York Times-Siena polling– repolling
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: after the Trump conviction is you had people go Trump,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: then make a way station at RFK Jr., and then
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: they end up at Biden, right? And so this is
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: usually the time where the third-party candidates are at their peak. However,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: this race– if Kennedy were to tap Nicole Shanahan's money
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: for broad-based advertising, he could raise his numbers. He sort
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: of maxed out the right-wing– Podcast circuit.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Podcast circuit, right?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Like I saw him on the Kill Tony– I saw
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: a clip of him on the Kill Tony comedy podcast,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: which is just– he's everywhere in the podcast world, right?
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Just everywhere.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: But there's only so much– you can't– you're not going
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: to reach the broadest swath of the electorate that way.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: So are they going to run real ads, right?
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: And are they going to run them in battleground states?
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Will he ever get the 15% to get on the
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: debate stage? I mean, that would be a tremendous performance.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: Nothing we've seen since Ross Perot to do that. But
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: can he get– he will likely get on the ballot
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: in enough states to get there.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: So hard to say.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: And you just have so many double haters that like
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: what if this debate is one of those moments, which
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: is very possible, where we all walk away from being like,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: holy fuck, that was terrible, right? And if you're a
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: double hater– or someone who's really not in the politics
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: that may push you to Kennedy.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: So, you know, we'll see, I think is the way
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: I would take it.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, someone named Kennedy might feel like a safe place
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to park your vote. The other thing for Kennedy that's
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: been challenging is, you know, he came in, I think
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: everyone just assumed he was coming in to be a
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: spoiler for Trump or to at least just go after Biden.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: But then quickly the Trump folks started to view him
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: as a threat. I think his welcome became a little
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: less friendly on some of these right-wing shows, right? You
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: have like kind of like TPA, USA, conservative group types
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: coming targeting Kennedy and going after him instead of trying
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: to prop him up anymore. I mean, it's kind of
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: funny that Nicole Shanahan is slowly realizing that this very
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: expensive vanity project that she's engaged in is basically just
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: getting her like press scrutiny that she probably doesn't want,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: including about her personal life. So that probably isn't very
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: fun for her. But I mean, last question on this,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: are there any third party candidates that worry you more
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: than Kennedy?
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: No, they actually all worried me about the same.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: There was a USA Today Suffolk poll from some of
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: the battleground states, including Michigan, that look just at black voters.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania, I think, yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: And Cornel West does surprisingly well, right? He's getting enough
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: points to be problematic. Jill Stein is on the ballot
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: in some very alarming states, like Wisconsin.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: She gets a couple points. That matters, right?
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: So they're all where every single one of them is
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: worrisome to me. Kennedy's probably the most worrisome because we
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: have seen polling that shows he has a particular appeal
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: among Latino voters. And that could be, obviously, devastating in Nevada.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Arizona, and elsewhere. Um, but all concerning worry, worry, I
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: worry about them all.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Wonderful. Me too.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Uh, okay.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: We are going to take a quick break, but we
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: come back. You're going to hear my interview with former
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: white house counsel, Bob Bauer. Uh, we talk all about
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: his role in 2020 playing Donald Trump, uh, during these
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: mock debate prep sessions with Joe Biden. It's a fascinating
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: look into how debate prep works. what it's like to
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: get into the character of Donald Trump and much, much more.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: So stick around for that. My guest today is the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: former White House counsel for President Obama, President Biden's personal
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: attorney and the author of the new book, The Unraveling
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis. Bob Bauer,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: great to see you.
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: Good to see you, Tommy.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Bob, it's great to see you again. You're one of
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: my favorite people to work with, both on the campaign
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: and in the White House. And there's a lot to
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: talk about in this book. But we have this debate
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: coming up, and you write about the debate preparations that
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I wanted to start there. Donald Trump, Joe Biden are
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: debating in less than a week somehow. You write about
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: preparing candidates for debates, including President Biden in 2020. You
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: actually played Donald Trump in President Biden's mock debate sessions.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: How did you.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Prepare for that role? Did you have to go full
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: method like Leonardo DiCaprio and The Revenant? Was there a
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: scaled back version? How does this work?
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: So when you do debate prep, and I've done it
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: for other candidates, you try to give them as much
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: of the experience that you project they're going to have
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: with the arguments and the way the arguments are going
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: to be made and the tone that's going to be used.
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: But you're not doing an SNL impression. I mean, it's
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: not theatrics. because that's just a distraction and you're trying
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: to help the candidate prepare and not sort of boost
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: your prospects for being invited to host a comedy show.
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: And so the first order of business is to get
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: that right. And that requires you to immerse yourself in
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: just material, audio material, video material, written material, everything going
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: years back that you can find about that candidate that
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: will help you approximate the style and the arguments likely
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: to be made for the candidate you're representing and trying
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: to help prepare.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Now, you also played Bernie Sanders in 2020.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: I did.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: In the primary.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I did. You were like Meryl Streep of debate prep.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: How do you get that range?
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't know.
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: I enjoyed doing it, but it's really an assignment that
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: you get and you take it. I could have been
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: assigned another Democratic primary opponent and I was assigned Bernie Sanders, so.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: I did it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I love it. Any chance you're hopping off this Zoom
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and heading up to Camp David to reprise your role?
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: I can't answer a question like that.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: I very much respect the fact that you asked it.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: That is a wonderfully pregnant no comment, everybody. Okay. You
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and I both remember well the first debate between President
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012. It went quite badly
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: for President Obama himself. There was a full-on meltdown among
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: progressives afterwards. And one of the reasons why President Obama
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: didn't do well is because incumbent presidents get rusty. You
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: are used to having people stand up and salute when
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: you walk into a room. Staffers who used to push
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: back on you maybe don't when you are the commander
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: in chief. Donald Trump will not hesitate to attack President Biden,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: sometimes in vicious ways. He will not hesitate to raise
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: personal matters like Hunter Biden's legal issues. In debate prep sessions,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, Does the team go there and sort of
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: prepare candidates to hear what can be very painful personal
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: insults so that you have that experience kind of live
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and you practice the response?
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: They have to. I mean, they have to.
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: It wouldn't be a debate prep unless you were thinking
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: through what, on some reasonable basis, recent history, what you've
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: seen out there on the campaign trail, what is my
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: candidate going to face?
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: What sort of arguments are going to be made? In
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: what ways?
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: Approximating, as I said, the tone as much as you
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: possibly can, the style as much as you possibly can.
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: But if you were for some reason to short that
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: and you were just not to do that, I don't know,
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: out of some misplaced deference or anxiety, then you would
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: really be ill-serving your candidate because that's going to happen,
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: or so you think, and therefore that candidate, your candidate,
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: has to be prepared for it.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's got to be really hard, right? Because, look,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: if you're at the debate prep, I mean, you have
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: a relationship with this candidate on a human level, saying
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: something about someone's son or daughter to them, whether or
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: not you're kind of playing a role it feels wrong.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, is that tough to get through?
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: I found in debate prep, everybody walks in knowing perfectly well,
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: it may be uncomfortable, but that's your job. It's what
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: you have to do. And I don't think it's taken personally.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: I mean, do you love having to do that? I mean,
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: take a few examples that are maybe a tad lower
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: in temperature than the one you're using.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: You're lying about your record. You know, you didn't do
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: this and you didn't do that. But here are some
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: terrible things that you did do. And everybody knows you
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: did them.
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: And that's not fun either. Right.
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: You turn to a public official or a candidate who's
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: not yet a public official and you just level these.
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: Charges at them. Sometimes, as you can imagine, their charges.
• 49:58
  Speaker 6: That either rest on the thinnest factual foundation or they're
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: completely fact free. And no, that is not that's not entertaining.
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: I remember I won't cite the candidate and I won't
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: cite the occasion.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: It's not in the book.
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: I write about debate prep, but this particular episode I
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: didn't include. I remember throwing some trade-related accusation at the,
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: actually it was not, it was a healthcare-related accusation at
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: the candidate, not by the way, President Biden. And the
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: candidate I was preparing asked for a timeout. And so
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: everybody was curious to know what's the timeout. And he
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: turned to me and he said.
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: There's no chance in the world that X, my opponent
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: is going to say that. And I said, well, why not?
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: And the answer was because it's so obviously not true.
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: And my response was, well, that's exactly why he's going
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: to say it. And he's already said it before I
• 50:50
  Speaker 6: picked it up.
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: Uh, so no, it's not fun for the candidate you're
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: preparing and it's not fun for you in preparing the candidate,
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: but it's the job.
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Um, big picture on the job. What do you think
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the key is to a successful debate against someone like
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who is more likely to interrupt, more likely
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: to be personal, more likely to shout over you or
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: kind of creepily loom in the background, as Hillary Clinton
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: learned in 2016?
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: Let me speak generically, because I can't really speak to
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: this debate prep. I have to be cautious about that.
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: But I think, you know, generally speaking, the key to
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: a good debate, of course, preparation first and foremost, thorough preparation.
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: But I think Candidates, in answering questions, want to communicate
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: an authentic sense of who they are. They can use
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: the excesses of their opponent to their advantage. They're in
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: front of many, many millions of people, and people are
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: going to take their measure. And so if one candidate,
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: to borrow a famous expression, decides to go very low,
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: it serves the candidate on the other side to stay high,
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: not to take the bait. I mean, that's generally what
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: I've seen work best in debate preps over the years.
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: and that has served the candidates themselves very well.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Last question on debates. I think there's a sense among
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks, and Republicans, Democrats, and voters, that
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the recent debates haven't necessarily served the electorate well when
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it comes to talking about issues or getting good information out.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I was honestly happy to see that President Biden decided
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: to go around the debate commission to negotiate directly with
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: networks and get this new schedule going because, you debate
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: plan had the candidates debating after states had already started voting,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: which just seems absurd on its face. But one material
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: change for this upcoming debate next week is there's no
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: studio audience and the candidate microphones will be muted when
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: they're not talking. Do you think that will have an
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: impact to just make the discourse better?
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: I certainly hope so.
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: And as you know, when I write about this in
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: the book, I had real reservations about the presidential debate structure.
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: That is to say, I'm sorry, the one that was
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: typically sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. And I
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: was part of a study group that the Annenberg School
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: at the University of Pennsylvania assembled to look at reforms
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: in the debate process. And certainly, some of what you
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: know will be the features of this particular debate I
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: think are an improvement. Not having all this hoopla, an audience,
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: moderators having to counsel people not to shout or laugh.
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: Or hoot or whatever it is.
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: Let the two candidates standing side by side, Kennedy-Nixon style,
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: speak to the American public, and then cut the theatrics out.
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: And the theatrics, by the way, are cut out in part.
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: That emphasis against theatrics is served by muting a microphone
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: so that one candidate can't break in and try to grab,
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: quote unquote, a moment. And that gets me to a
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: point I do feel strongly about. When debates are covered,
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: the coverage often focuses on the lines.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: The moment, right?
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: What is most exciting, which will immediately get the most attention.
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: What you hope for is a debate that's not defined
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: just by the line. It's defined by the 90 minutes
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: that the two candidates are being required to address questions seriously,
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: and then treat the voters seriously and let them hear that.
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: Whereas if you have them in a sort of cage
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: match fighting style, that might suit the The video clips
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: that are going to be posted about the debate and
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: draw a large audience the next day. But I wouldn't
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: say it's the best thing for the process.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, could not agree more. OK, in your book, The Unraveling,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you say that you feel like we are experiencing a
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: crisis in public faith in politics writ large. And one
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why is because people who work in
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: politics treat it as blood sport. Winning seems to justify
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: almost any tactic. You're quite introspective in writing the book.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: And you write about times in the past where you
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: feel like you were part of the problem. And I,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: first of all, I just have to say, Bob, like
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: I've worked on a bunch of campaigns now. I've worked
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: with a few, but not a lot of people that
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: I felt were kind of scummy and unethical. You are
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: like nowhere near that list. You are like the, on the, the,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: for this other side, you know, like a lawyer who
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: kept people on the straight and narrow. So I was
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: wondering like, what, what sparked this, this introspection? Is this
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: like a, an act of political absolution? Like, well, how
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: are you feeling writing this thing?
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I appreciate that comment. I really do.
• 55:15
  Speaker 6: And I do feel like we worked on campaigns that
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: were tough minded and very much committed to winning, but
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: stayed really within the lines. But having said that, I
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: just thought for us to have a serious conversation about
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: the state of our politics, which are bad. And I
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: will say a little bit more about that just in
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: a second. that it was important for me to kind
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: of own up to choices that I faced, some of
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: which I don't regret at all.
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: I was happy to be seen as a lawyer who.
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: Was a can-do lawyer, could help campaigns win, or a
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: can-do government lawyer who could help chart a path for
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: the president to fulfill.
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: A policy objective.
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: But I also wanted to be clear that there were
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: sometimes choices I made that were more complicated than the
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: time I saw them to be. And I think it's
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: important for that self-reflection at this particular time when we see, A,
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: how very wrong things have gone. I mean, how much
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: trouble we are generally in in our politics. And B,
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: how much attention people who have positions of responsibility in
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: politics and government need to pay to those issues.
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: I mean, it really is in their hands.
• 56:18
  Speaker 6: A norm is just a free-floating abstraction, like don't treat
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: your adversary like an enemy.
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: Try to defeat, but not destroy.
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: But that abstraction doesn't have any life to it, except
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: in particular circumstances where somebody has a choice. about how
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: to write an ad or how to write a press
• 56:37
  Speaker 6: release or what to say in a debate or what
• 56:39
  Speaker 6: to say online. And so those choices are ones that
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: I think now, particularly given our current circumstances, people like you, me,
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: and others who've been very much involved, people in government,
• 56:49
  Speaker 6: have to always be thinking seriously about because these institutions
• 56:52
  Speaker 6: are in peril.
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: These norms are in peril.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: We Democrats often point the finger at some of the
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: sort of boldface names in Republican politics like Lee Atwater
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: or Karl Rove for really sending us off a cliff
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: when it comes to just gutter politics. But it wasn't
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: obviously wasn't just Republicans or Republican operatives that did this.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: You write there's a story in the book where you
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: write about a McGovern aide who talked about jingling keys.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Can you explain the context here in that story?
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: And let me be very clear to say, this was
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: a claim that he made, and I had no reason
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: to believe, and I wasn't told that George McGovern knew
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: about it. But we were in a room during a
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: tough cycle in which eventually, by the way, McGovern and
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: other Democrats in the Senate lost in the Reagan landslide.
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: And he was talking about his kind of can-do approach
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: to things. And years before, he claimed, when McGovern was
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: facing a conservative opponent in South Dakota who had among
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: a key credential that he was a war hero. He
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: had been captured and tortured, held in Vietnam, I think
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: for an extended period of time. And it apparently written
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: somewhere in a memoir that he remembered distinctly to this day.
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: And it just gave him the, he just reacted strongly
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: to the memory of a particularly sadistic jailer walking down
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: the corridor, jingling his keys. He's approaching to open the
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: door and visit whatever horror on the captive that he was.
• 58:20
  Speaker 6: And he told the story about a debate in which
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: he claims he positioned himself slightly off stage. And when
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: his candidate and this war veteran took the stage to
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: debate at some point, he quietly jingled his keys and
• 58:34
  Speaker 6: he professed, he claimed that it really threw the opponent off.
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: And I remember there was a I was young and
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: I was. back on my heels about this, there was
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: a little bit of embarrassment, but there was also a
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: significant amount of kind of admiring laughter, like, wow, now
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: that's really thinking through something at a critical moment that
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: could be helpful to your candidate. You look back on
• 58:57
  Speaker 6: that and you say, no, no. And it's hard for
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: me to imagine that George McGovern knew about that. I
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: didn't know him well, but if it actually happened, but
• 59:07
  Speaker 6: I was trying to describe a mindset.
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: It Yeah. If you're trying to trigger a Pavlovian response
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: in a person who was tortured as a POW, you
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: have lost the threat. You should get out of politics,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: go do something else.
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: So one issue that worries me a lot that you
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: also write about is money in politics. And it's an
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: area where some critics will point the finger at you
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: and me and the Obama campaign for being part of
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: the problem, because one thing we did in 2008 was
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: opt out of the public financing system and rely instead
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: entirely on private fundraising. And so, look, whatever you think
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: about that decision, things have gotten way worse since that
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: time because of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: allowed corporations and groups to spend unlimited amounts on our elections.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: There have been subsequent decisions in the courts or by
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: the FEC that have loosened up the rules even more.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: It feels to me, and I want to know if
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: you disagree, like our campaign finance system is just broken.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Where do you rank the question of money in politics
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: on your list of reasons why we're in this crisis
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: of faith in politics? And do you have recommendations for
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: how we could fix it?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: So in that chapter, I acknowledge I've always been a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: skeptic about overregulation of political money. I mean, set aside
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: the fact that it has never been successful in this country.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: Every time a roadblock is put up, uh, the parties, candidates,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: whatever become determined to get around the roadblock and employ
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: lawyers and sometimes don't even bother with lawyers to try
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: to do that. And so I do think the campaign
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: finance system in that sense that the overregulation of politics
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: is a self-defeating exercise.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: And, uh, That's one point I would make. I go
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: on in length about this. I'll just make that one
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: point to begin with.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 6: But secondly, I think we do have to be mindful
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: that campaign finance reform, in my experience, is something that
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 6: is embraced somewhat opportunistically. When Democrats had no money, or
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: they thought they didn't, when I started out in the 70s,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: early 80s, Republicans, they believed, and I think so routinely,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: out-raised them and out-spent them in major races. Democrats were
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: very concerned about getting money out of politics. We've become
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: a lot more competitive, and you and I recall the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: Obama campaign had plenty of money, and our supporters wanted
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: us to spend every last dime. In fact, we had
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: so much money, if you recall, Tommy, we had a
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: surplus when the campaign was over.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: We didn't have another way to spend it.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 6: And I sometimes, in asking people about sort of what
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: they mean about there's too much money in politics, I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: ask them the following question in the Democratic audience.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: What limit would you Democrats... be.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: Prepared to live with in spending money to defeat Donald Trump.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: And I have yet to get a taker.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, I think that's a
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: fair criticism. But then I hear about the British political system,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: for example, where you've got like a six-week long election
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: and pretty well-defined spending limits. And I think to myself, man,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: that sounds nice, no?
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: Well, it would be constantly impossible for us to compress
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: our campaign period in that way.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: But this is where ethics matters.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: And let me... and I explain this in the book,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: there's sometimes law is the answer to the problem, and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: sometimes a heightened ethical sensibility and accountability is the answer
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: to the problem, although it may be not as dependable,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: although the legal reforms aren't all that dependable. Take the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: example of a candidate who raises money from people who
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: are thinking of supporting them or are supporting them. At
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 6: what point is that just representative democracy. You raise the
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: money from the people who like you, who like what
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: you've done or will like what you do. And at
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: what point does it become a kind of corrupt transactionalism?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: If you have somebody come to you about a policy
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: issue and make their case and then offer to raise
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: money for you, do you accept that offer in that context?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: And there are a lot of gradations of complication in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: this world. The largest protection against corruption of the system
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: are candidates who have ethical sensibility. And this goes back
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 6: a long way. I wasn't a voting citizen when he
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: was in the Senate, but Paul Douglas of Illinois was
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: a reformer who held in the Senate seat for many years.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 6: He wrote a book called Ethics and Government. And in
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 6: that book, he talks about ethical sensibility on the part
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 6: of public officials. They owe a certain degree of care
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: and judgment to managing issues that I don't think can
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 6: really be successfully managed by clamping major restrictions down on money.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of what you're writing about and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: thinking about is basically like an age-old means versus the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: ends moral debate, right? And it's especially fraught in this
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: country with a winner-take-all system because we basically have an
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: ideologically split country. We're split 50-50. Now, the extremes of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: each party sort of move inexorably further away from each other,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: but we remain split, which is like an interesting thing
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: about our electorate. But, you know, a swing of 100,000
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: voters here or there. can lead to radically different outcomes.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: So it really is, it's very easy in that context
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: to justify these when it all costs tactics. And you
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: also constantly hear people in both parties arguing, we need
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: to get tougher because the other guys are tougher, right?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Trump says it all the time about Democrats. They're tough,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: they're vicious, they fight dirty. We don't, we feel like
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: we Democrats are, can be squishy and wimpy at times.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: It's this slide where each side feels constantly pushed to
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: be more extreme. Do you have a recommendation for how
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: to arrest that slide?
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: Well, no, I agree with you. That is the pressure.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 6: And it's understandable when the stakes in an election are
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: really high and people think that loss is unthinkable. Here's
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 6: where I come out. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. I
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: reject the premise that you can't be tough in your campaigns.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 6: You can't be hard charging. You can't be aggressively competitive
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: and win.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: Ethically. I think you can.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: You and I look back on the Obama campaigns of
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 6: 2008 and 2012, and those weren't easy campaigns for all
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: sorts of reasons, including the election of the first black
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 6: president in the history of the country. We're proud of
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 6: those campaigns. Did we do everything exactly the way looking
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 6: back from a strategic or other point of view?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: We should have done it.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 6: I mean, nobody's perfect, but we were proud of those
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 6: campaigns and we won them both.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: And I'm proud of the 2020 campaign that I was
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: involved in.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: And he won.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 6: So I just reject the idea that the choices between
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: a kind of do-whatever-it-takes politics and losing.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: I think you can be aggressive.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: Hard-charging, really outsmart and outgun the other side without starting
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: to look like them and act like them. Because that
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: spiral is one that we can pretend that we can
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: one day get out of, and we may never get
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: out of it.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: We may be trapped in it.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's fair. But I imagine there's some listeners
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: hearing us talk and thinking, This Trump brings a new
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: level of risk, right? He tried to stage a coup.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: He calls the January 6th insurrectionists warriors now. He's talking
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: about using the DOJ to punish his enemies in a
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: second term. And there's this, I think, legitimate fear that
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: a second Trump term could irreparably damage our country and
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: our democracy itself in ways that, you know, we just
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: can't go back on. Given that risk, I mean, what
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: would you say to someone who argues, you know, that
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: justifies some real bare knuckle stuff?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: Well, I'm not troubled by bare knuckle in the sense
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 6: of really aggressive politics. I don't I'm not troubled by that.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 6: But Richard Nixon engaged in bare knuckle tactics to try
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: to win reelection in 1972. And quite rightly, he lost
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: his office and many of his senior aides ended up
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: indicted and in jail, either by conviction or plea. I
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 6: think that it depends on how you define bare knuckle.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: I have to have faith and I do have faith.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: And I'll give you one reason why I do. that
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: at the end of the day, there is still such
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: a powerful desire to retain the fundamental democratic culture, small
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 6: d democratic culture of our country, that we can depend
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: upon that, we can appeal to that, we can fulfill
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 6: its promise, and still defeat someone like Donald Trump. I'm
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: quite confident that we can do that. And the only
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 6: thing I want to say, I don't want to ramble
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: on is, in my nonprofit, when I say nonprofit, my
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 6: non bipartisan voting work, that I do at the same
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: time that I'm very involved in this campaign. I co-chair
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: a couple of organizations with Ben Ginsberg, who was Mitt
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 6: Romney's general counsel, longtime Republican. We travel around the country
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: to support election officials and to bring them together with
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: community leaders and to show them support and to support
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: them in the conduct of professional elections. And in those conversations,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: we have Republicans in the room, Republican community leaders and
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: Republican election officials, as well.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: As Democrats on both sides. And they may not be
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: prepared to go and shout it.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: On social media, There's definitely an atmosphere of fear that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 6: has developed in the Republican Party, which is just dreadful, reprehensible,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: the fear of retribution, the fear of being called out, trolled, harassed.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: But in those rooms, I sense a commitment to the system.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: They probably agree with Trump about regulations. They agree with
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 6: him about taxes. They agree with him about a whole
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 6: host of things. Maybe down the line.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: They agree with everything in the Republican Party platform, for
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: all I know.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 6: But they do believe that they live in a democracy
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: and they want that democracy respected and they're deeply troubled
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: by the wing of the party, the Republican Party, which
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 6: is not the entire Republican Party, but it is the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: dominant wing of the Republican Party that basically has no
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: use for them. It's not only defying the norms, it's
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: frontally questioning them.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 5: It's repudiating them.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 6: And I don't find comfort even among Republicans that I
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: deal with around the country with that at all.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Hopefully those people can kind of regrab the reins of
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party sooner rather than later.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: Well, I agree. I think that's, yeah.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: It's a real problem. I mean, one sort of associated
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: and worrisome trend, I think, is the extremity of the courts.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: We have a conservative majority in the Supreme Court that
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: it seems increasingly activist and partisan and frankly, just shameless.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: They don't seem embarrassed by accepting lavish gifts from people
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: with business before the court, or they don't seem embarrassed
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: by criticism of these conflicts of interest. In fact, they
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: mostly just lash out and they blame the press for
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: or Democrats, or in some cases, their neighbors who are
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: just walking the dog and get screamed at or have
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: a flag flown in their face. Do you have ideas
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: for how to address this total disregard for ethics or
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: accountability in the Supreme Court itself?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 6: So a lot of the complaints, and you say in
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: a polarized politics, it's not surprised that the Supreme Court
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: wasn't spared the fate of other institutions.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: It used to be at the top of the list.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: You'd have Congress way, way at the bottom, then the
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 6: presidency at various points. But the court and the Supreme
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: Court in particular would enjoy generally favorable public ratings. And
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: that has changed because it's been swept up in the
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 6: general unhappiness and the electorate division polarization.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: And the like.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: I spent a lot of time on these issues over
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 6: the period of time that I was on the Biden
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: Supreme Court.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 5: Commission, the presidential commission on the Supreme Court.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: And of course, there have been periods in American history
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: where the court has come very much into sort of
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: into contention and in some.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: Quarters in disrepute.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: Because it was viewed, think about the Roosevelt era and
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: the great court packing controversy, as weighing in on major
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 6: issues in a way that was undemocratic and ideologically driven.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: And I think that the only answer right now to
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 6: that is for pressure to be appropriately put on the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 6: court to pay attention to these criticisms. They did finally,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: for example, adopt an ethics code.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: It wasn't Precisely what I was looking for.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: It wasn't fully satisfactory, but they did it because they
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: responded to the public criticism and all nine justices signed
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: on to it. As I said, it's deficient in any
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 6: number of respects, but at least it's a step in
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 6: the right direction. Likewise, as you know, there were criticisms
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 6: of the management of their emergency orders docket, the so-called
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: shadow docket, where they were deciding major issues without argument,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: without briefing. and frankly, even without transparency about which justices
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 6: had voted which way. And that even became a topic
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 6: of conversation on the court, and they began to step
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 6: somewhat back from that. And so I think that it's
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 6: really in public debate that this is going to take effect.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 6: It may not be immediately apparent, won't necessarily cause people
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 6: who don't like Justice Alito to see him fleeing and retreat.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 6: It will have an institutional impact, or at least we
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 6: have to hope so, because we can't live without some
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: fundamental respect for these institutions.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: They play such a critical role under our system. Yeah.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that's been, I think, challenging for
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: Democrats is there is, you know, there's a sense in
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: the country of a broader frustration with the political system
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: and politics itself and the feeling that it hasn't worked.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: And yet we are the party that believes in institutions
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: and tries to defend them. And you see that in
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: defending the justice system or the FBI for, you know,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: trying to do its job and investigate, for example, interference
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: in the 2020 election. intelligence community. But you and I know,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: as people who have worked in government and also just
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: read history books, that these institutions are flawed at best.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: And at times in our history, they've done wildly unethical things, right?
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, FDR, who's a hero to a lot of people,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: was getting regular briefings from J. Edgar Hoover about his
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: political opponents, something that would be enormously problematic if it
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: came out today. How do you think we can strike
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: a balance between defending institutions while not seeming to suggest
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: That they are perfect or can't be criticized or at
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: least trying to hear people who feel like actually my
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: experience with the justice system is that it's been broken
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: in some way.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: So that's the key question. And I'm glad you put
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: it that way because I think it's really important. What
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 6: happens in these debates is each side drives the other
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 6: one into refusing to give any ground whatsoever.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 5: They just can't give up.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: And so if the attack is on a particular institution
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 6: and it's ferocious enough and the good faith motives of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 6: the people attacking are suspected, then the defense of that
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: institution becomes kind of uncompromising. And as you point out,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: they then become blind to the possibility that there are
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: significant institutional problems. And again, I go back to the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: Republicans that I talked to even today. Let me give
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: you two hopeful examples if I could really quickly. Two
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 6: reform initiatives. The American Law Institute organized two working groups
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 6: that I've been involved with. I co-chaired each of them
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 6: with Jack Goldsmith, who I wrote a book about presidential
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: institutional reform with called After Trump a few years ago.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 6: He's a well-known and highly published professor of law at Harvard.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 6: And we co-chaired working groups to look at, in the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 6: first case, reform of the Electoral Count Act, and the
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 6: other case, reform of the Insurrection Act, by which presidents
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 6: can deploy without any apparent statutory limits troops to, you know,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 6: quote unquote, insurrections, rebellions.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: Illegal combinations, conspiracies. There's a lot of vague language in
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: the statute.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: In both those cases, we put together behind closed doors,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: fully bipartisan groups that included officials of both the Obama
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: and the Trump administration. And we agreed we'd have these
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 6: conversations behind closed doors. If we couldn't reach agreement, we'd
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: walk away without a word to one another or to
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 6: anyone else. And if we could agree, we would put
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: something out in our name as a group. To give
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: you an example, I was a In both cases, we had,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 6: for example, in the Electoral Count Reform Act, one of
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: the participants in the work group was Don McGahn, who
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: was Donald Trump's first White House counsel. Judge Mukasey participated.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: Judge Michael Mukasey participated. Courtney Elwood, who used to be
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: the general counsel to the CIA under Donald Trump. And
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: then Democrats you would recognize immediately on our side, like
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: Jay Johnson in the Insurrection Act reform, who was Secretary
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: of Homeland Security, General Counsel of the Defense Department. Obviously,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: a Democrat through and through and.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: A senior official in the Obama administration.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: Mary DeRosa, remember Mary DeRosa, who was the national security
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: legal advisor in the Obama administration.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: So just some of the.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: People involved were hardcore Republicans, hardcore Democrats, including people from
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: the Trump and Obama administrations, two administrations that could not
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: be more unalike.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 5: And in both cases, we reached agreement.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: In both cases, we put out consensus points about potential
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: institutional reforms. And in one case, Electoral Account Act reform,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 6: we participated in what turned out to be a successful
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: congressional debate.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: I testified.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: We were very involved with the staff in helping to
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 6: work through some of the drafting issues. And we're going
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: to hope to make similar progress on Insurrection Act reform.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: So we can do it, but we've got to, with
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 6: the people who are willing to participate in good faith,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 6: close the door, keep everybody out of it for a minute,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 6: and say, let's have a conversation about that is candid
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 6: and fair-minded and respectful of points of view, and let's
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 6: see where it takes us.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: Is it always gonna be successful? No, but we have
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: to do that kind of thing.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I think the blueprint there, which is getting
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: people into a room, speaking to each other face-to-face like
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: human beings, that is definitely the path forward for solving
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of the problems in this country. Unfortunately, our
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: politics is increasingly being fought in a social media battle.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: And in the book, you write about your extreme frustration
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: with some of the social media platforms in the 2020
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: election for their failure to fact-check misinformation by political candidates.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: Four years later, the Biden campaign is understandably very frustrated
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: with this wave of misleadingly edited videos of President Biden
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: that seem to go viral every day. Correct me if
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong here, but I would imagine that the conversation
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: with these tech platforms gets more complicated when you are
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: the president himself because you could run into real First
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: Amendment problems. How do they manage this? Is there anything
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: the White House can do to constructively engage?
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: Well, on the policy side, I'm sure there is.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: But I do want to stress, and that's what I
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 6: cover in the book, on the campaign side, the president's
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: a candidate like any other.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: At the time, he wasn't the president. He was former
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: vice president. Now he's the president.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 6: And he can engage as a candidate, even as he
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: occupies the White House. Now, there are choices to be made.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: Going back again to the question of choices, how do
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: you go about doing it? How much transparency do you
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: provide the public about what you're saying and why you're
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 6: saying it? The arguments of support of what you're trying
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 6: to accomplish. And that all should condition how you proceed.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 6: But I think, like in 2020, we are going to
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 6: be heard, the campaign is going to be heard, and
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 6: has to be heard on these issues. Because as you
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 6: point out, they play a really significant role in some
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 6: of the problems that we're facing in this democracy, the
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 6: quality of the debate, the quality of discourse, the treatment
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: of the voters, the treatment of opponents.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: It's a very serious problem.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The book, again, is called The Unraveling Reflections on
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis. Bob Bauer, thank
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: you for doing the show. And thank you. I think
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: it's really actually valuable when people like you at your
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: level are introspective and reflect on both the good and
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: the bad in a public life and in a career
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: in politics. So thanks for writing the book.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much for having me. I really
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: enjoyed the conversation, Tommy.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks again to Bob Bauer for doing the show. Dan,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: great to see you. I guess we'll be back on
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: Monday per usual, I guess, unless the Supreme Court dumps
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: a big nightmare's worth of cases on our head tomorrow.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: We might be forced to do something, but cross that
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: bridge when we get there, I guess.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been refusing to open any emails about that,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: just in case.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Smart. Smart move. All right, buddy. Talk to you soon.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 7: If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 7: consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 7: slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling... don't forget to
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 7: follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 7: YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 7: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 7: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 7: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 7: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Reid
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 7: Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 7: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 7: with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 7: support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 7: news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 7: Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 7: Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pelleviv,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 7: and Molly Lobel. Music 40 Acres and a Mule, it's
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 7: often described as a promise, one that the federal government
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 7: made to people who were formerly enslaved. But it was
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 7: so much more than that. 40 Acres and a Lie
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 7: is a new audio series from the investigative podcast Reveal.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 7: The series uncovers how more than 1,200 formerly enslaved people
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: were given actual land titles only to have them taken away.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 7: You can find this deep historical investigation on the Peabody
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 7: Award-winning show Reveal. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.