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“Cold Stone Schemery.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm John Lovett.
0:23
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's pod, Lovett talks to Pod Save the People's
0:26
Speaker 1: Kaya Henderson, who used to run the D.C. public school system,
0:29
Speaker 1: about the debate over reopening schools in the fall. Before that,
0:33
Speaker 1: we'll talk about Trump's commutation of Roger Stone's prison sentence,
0:36
Speaker 1: the White House effort to publicly discredit Dr. Fauci, and
0:39
Speaker 1: the politics around negotiating the next round of economic relief
0:42
Speaker 1: in Congress. But first, Lovett, how was the show this weekend?
0:46
Speaker 2: Great episode, I love it or leave it.
0:48
Speaker 4: Josh Gondelman came on for the monologue, who is always
0:51
Speaker 4: a delight. Shea Serrano came by to talk about everything
0:53
Speaker 4: from sports and the pandemic to the best James Bond movies.
0:57
Speaker 4: And Alice Wetterlin came and introduced us to an acquaintance
1:01
Speaker 4: of hers with a tell-all book. And it was a delight.
1:05
Speaker 1: Fantastic. Also, if you haven't yet heard the final episode
1:09
Speaker 1: of That's the Ticket, Dan and Alyssa's bonus series on
1:12
Speaker 1: the vice presidential selection process, it's right here in the
1:15
Speaker 1: Pod Save America feed. So check it out. Excellent series.
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm sad it's over. And here's something exciting. On Tuesday's
1:23
Speaker 1: America Dissected, Abdul El-Sayed will interview Anthony Fauci himself. I'm
1:28
Speaker 1: sure the White House is thrilled he'll be on a
1:30
Speaker 1: Crooked Media podcast. So don't miss it. We'll be playing
1:34
Speaker 1: a few clips from the interview later on in this show.
1:37
Speaker 1: Check it out.
1:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe don't tell him, but I guess too late. Well,
1:41
Speaker 3: we'll see. We'll see.
1:43
Speaker 2: All right, so.
1:45
Speaker 1: We're going to talk all about the new White House
1:47
Speaker 1: offensive against the federal government's most trusted public health official
1:50
Speaker 1: in a bit. But first, we've got to talk about
1:53
Speaker 1: Trump's decision to commute Roger Stone's entire prison sentence. As
1:57
Speaker 1: you may all remember, Stone is Trump's friend and longtime
2:00
Speaker 1: political advisor who was convicted by a jury of seven
2:03
Speaker 1: felonies that included lying to Congress and witness tampering. But
2:08
Speaker 1: on the other hand, Stone refused to provide evidence to
2:10
Speaker 1: federal prosecutors that Trump may have committed perjury in his
2:13
Speaker 1: written answers to special counsel Robert Mueller. So, as a reward,
2:17
Speaker 1: Trump saw to it that Stone doesn't have to serve
2:19
Speaker 1: a day of his 40-month sentence. And on Friday, the
2:23
Speaker 1: White House released a press statement that ended, quote, Roger
2:26
Speaker 1: Stone is a free man, exclamation point. Even a few
2:29
Speaker 1: Republican senators criticized this decision, with Mitt Romney calling it, quote,
2:33
Speaker 1: unprecedented historic corruption. And Pat Toomey, conservative senator from Pennsylvania,
2:39
Speaker 1: pointing out that Stone was convicted based on an investigation
2:42
Speaker 1: conducted by a Republican-led committee. Tommy, I put this in
2:48
Speaker 1: the category of not surprising, but still shocking. What was
2:51
Speaker 1: your reaction? How big of a deal is this?
2:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think quoting Dan Pfeiffer's, his hero,
2:57
Speaker 5: his mentor, Mitt Romney is right. I mean, it is
3:00
Speaker 5: pretty historic corruption. Roger Stone was convicted of obstructing a
3:05
Speaker 5: congressional investigation. five counts of making false statements to Congress
3:09
Speaker 5: and tampering with a witness. He committed those crimes to
3:12
Speaker 5: hide the truth about a foreign government's efforts to help
3:15
Speaker 5: get his boss, Donald Trump, elected. And then Trump used
3:18
Speaker 5: the power of the presidency to absolve him. So that's
3:21
Speaker 5: a pretty big deal, pretty big corruption of our entire process.
3:24
Speaker 5: As you mentioned, John, specifically what we're talking about is
3:26
Speaker 5: the fact that Trump clearly knew about Stone's outreach to
3:29
Speaker 5: WikiLeaks and had knowledge about the email dumps that were coming.
3:34
Speaker 5: Michael Cohen- said he overheard Trump and Stone talk about WikiLeaks.
3:38
Speaker 5: Paul Manafort said Trump personally told him to stay in
3:41
Speaker 5: touch with Stone about WikiLeaks.
3:43
Speaker 3: So this was pretty well documented.
3:45
Speaker 5: But when Trump was asked about this, his written answers
3:47
Speaker 5: to Mueller said, I don't recall any such conversations about it, right?
3:51
Speaker 3: He lied.
3:52
Speaker 5: So from the beginning of the investigation, Stone and Trump
3:55
Speaker 5: were signaling that they would cover up for each other.
3:57
Speaker 5: Stone said something very subtle to the Like, I will
4:01
Speaker 5: never roll on Donald Trump, is I believe one of
4:03
Speaker 5: the quotes. And then in 2018, Trump returned the favor
4:07
Speaker 5: by tweeting, it's nice to know that some people still
4:09
Speaker 5: have guts when he refused to cooperate.
4:12
Speaker 3: And so here we are.
4:13
Speaker 5: Trump is not removed from office after impeachment. Stone is
4:16
Speaker 5: a free man. I'm sure he'll be handsomely rewarded with
4:19
Speaker 5: some book deal or TV contract or a job on
4:21
Speaker 5: the campaign. But broadly speaking, this is also part of
4:24
Speaker 5: a pattern. Jack Goldsmith, he's a professor at Harvard Law,
4:27
Speaker 5: wrote a piece where he argues that 31% If 36
4:31
Speaker 5: individuals Trump has pardoned or given a commutation had some
4:35
Speaker 5: sort of personal or political benefit. So it is completely
4:38
Speaker 5: using that process in the justice system for his own
4:42
Speaker 5: personal gain. And that is a big deal, even if
4:44
Speaker 5: we are exhausted by him years into this.
4:48
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think? This is sort of a story,
4:50
Speaker 1: sort of a throwback to all the crimes and corruption
4:53
Speaker 1: of 2017 and 2018, 2019, I guess.
4:54
Speaker 4: Yeah.
4:54
Speaker 3: So.
5:00
Speaker 4: Roger Stone says quite publicly over and over again, you know,
5:04
Speaker 4: please pardon me, please commute my sentence.
5:06
Speaker 2: I didn't turn on you. And it would have been
5:08
Speaker 2: much easier if I did. He actually says both parts.
5:09
Speaker 4: He doesn't just say I didn't turn on you, right?
5:11
Speaker 4: There's an interpretation of I didn't turn on you, which
5:14
Speaker 4: is to suggest maybe there's some defense that's along the
5:17
Speaker 4: lines of there's a witch hunt against you and I
5:20
Speaker 4: didn't play along. But when he says it would have
5:22
Speaker 4: been much easier for himself to not turn on you,
5:24
Speaker 4: what he's really saying is if I had admitted what
5:27
Speaker 4: I'd done, I might have been able to get out
5:29
Speaker 4: of jail time. I might have been able to turn
5:30
Speaker 4: on you and cop to some of the crimes, the many,
5:33
Speaker 4: many crimes that we're alleged to have committed together. You know,
5:35
Speaker 4: as of this moment, there are multiple conversations, private conversations
5:39
Speaker 4: between Roger Stone and Donald Trump that we don't know
5:42
Speaker 4: what was discussed.
5:43
Speaker 6: Right.
5:43
Speaker 4: We have implications of what were discussed. We have secondhand
5:47
Speaker 4: accounts of what might have been discussed. We know what
5:49
Speaker 4: their behaviors were around those calls that Donald Trump talked
5:52
Speaker 4: to Roger Stone and then said, oh, there's going to
5:54
Speaker 4: be basically.
5:55
Speaker 2: Like, oh, great crimes coming down the pike. Can't wait,
5:58
Speaker 2: you know. But this is a successful.
6:01
Speaker 4: Effort to prevent us from knowing what happened. in the
6:04
Speaker 4: relationship between Roger Stone and Donald Trump. It is a
6:07
Speaker 4: successful coverup. And it shouldn't be lost on anybody that
6:12
Speaker 4: Michael Cohen is getting sent back to jail because he's
6:15
Speaker 4: a fucking moron who was like, I don't know, getting
6:17
Speaker 4: tacos and refusing to not get a book deal. Truly
6:21
Speaker 4: mind-numbing idiocy. But Michael Cohen, who turns on Trump in
6:25
Speaker 4: some way, ends up back in jail. Roger Stone, who
6:27
Speaker 4: held out, is rewarded for it. And that's the message
6:29
Speaker 4: he's sending. And it happens over the course of a
6:33
Speaker 4: few days in which we have a Supreme Court ruling
6:36
Speaker 4: that says, while we are entitled to Trump's taxes in theory,
6:40
Speaker 4: in practice, he's above the law, in which Bill Barr
6:44
Speaker 4: has been clearing house in the Eastern District in New
6:46
Speaker 4: York and the Southern District in New York in D.C.
6:49
Speaker 2: As well. So, you know, it has been.
6:51
Speaker 4: A terrible week for the rule of law.
6:55
Speaker 3: Terrible.
6:55
Speaker 2: Just terrible.
6:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like.
6:57
Speaker 1: We're used to Trump using, you know, pardons and commutations
7:01
Speaker 1: to help his friends out. Like that's nothing new at
7:03
Speaker 1: this point, even though it is deeply corrupt. This is
7:06
Speaker 1: the first time he's done it to actually reward someone
7:09
Speaker 1: who's helped cover up one of the president's potential crimes.
7:14
Speaker 1: The judge who sentenced Stone, Amy Berman Jackson, said this
7:17
Speaker 1: during the sentencing. She said, quote, he was not prosecuted
7:20
Speaker 1: for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for
7:22
Speaker 1: covering up for the president. And Jeffrey Toobin noted that
7:26
Speaker 1: this is worse than anything that Nixon did. Even Nixon
7:30
Speaker 1: didn't pardon or commute the sentences of anyone who could
7:32
Speaker 1: have implicated him in the Watergate scandal. He had thought
7:35
Speaker 1: about it and realized that that was too far because
7:39
Speaker 1: it could be politically damaging for him. One reaction to
7:42
Speaker 1: the commutation came from Robert Mueller himself, who broke his
7:44
Speaker 1: silence over the weekend in a Washington Post editorial where
7:47
Speaker 1: he made clear that Stone, quote, remains a convicted felon
7:51
Speaker 1: and rightly so. So, We haven't heard like a word
7:55
Speaker 1: from Mueller since the end of the investigation. Tommy, why
7:58
Speaker 1: do you think he chose to speak up now?
8:01
Speaker 5: Because, you know, Bob Mueller gets the current media environment.
8:04
Speaker 5: And I think two op-eds every two years is the
8:07
Speaker 5: way to combat a president who attacks you in your
8:09
Speaker 5: investigation every day.
8:11
Speaker 3: I don't know.
8:12
Speaker 2: He's very old.
8:13
Speaker 5: They did a horrible job messaging this. It is, you know,
8:16
Speaker 5: fucked up the entire understanding among the country about this process.
8:20
Speaker 5: It's deeply frustrating and it makes me want to scream.
8:23
Speaker 5: I want to offer one quibble with my friend Mitt Romney,
8:25
Speaker 5: who I did quote earlier, that this is unprecedented. People
8:29
Speaker 5: forget that George H.W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary
8:33
Speaker 5: of Defense, for their role in the Iran-Contra scandal.
8:36
Speaker 3: There were five of them.
8:37
Speaker 5: And that probably helped prevent them from testifying against Bush
8:42
Speaker 5: or Reagan. So this shit has happened before.
8:44
Speaker 3: And it's gross.
8:45
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, I read the op-ed. I'm glad
8:48
Speaker 5: it's out there. It's just, it's so frustrating.
8:52
Speaker 3: It's so frustrating.
8:52
Speaker 4: It is.
8:54
Speaker 3: Op-eds do nothing. Come on, everybody, stop writing op-eds. They
8:56
Speaker 3: do nothing.
8:57
Speaker 2: Robert Mueller got batted around.
8:59
Speaker 4: He got batted around by Bill Barr. He got batted
9:02
Speaker 4: around by Donald Trump. And his op-ed, this great defense,
9:06
Speaker 4: he says, well, he was right. As if he's sort
9:09
Speaker 4: of standing up for the principles of the investigation, standing
9:12
Speaker 4: up for the conclusions of the Mueller report, as if
9:15
Speaker 4: there's some kind of parliamentary debate, some kind of like,
9:20
Speaker 4: intellectual exercise over time. That's going to determine the effectiveness
9:24
Speaker 4: of his probe. He's sort of writing for history in
9:26
Speaker 4: some way. Meanwhile, we're left with one recourse, which is
9:29
Speaker 4: the election because the guardrails around the rule of law
9:32
Speaker 4: have failed.
9:32
Speaker 2: They've just failed. We should stop. They're not failing. They're
9:35
Speaker 2: not letting us down. They have failed. And that's that
9:38
Speaker 2: because this is a successful coverup. This one worked.
9:41
Speaker 3: That's it. Yeah.
9:41
Speaker 5: Here's, here's my lesson from 2016 to today. Law enforcement
9:45
Speaker 5: and national security officials have proven to have catastrophically bad
9:49
Speaker 5: judgment when it comes to political and communications matters.
9:53
Speaker 3: Leave it to someone else.
9:55
Speaker 1: Talking to you, James Comey, I mean, you know, after
9:58
Speaker 1: the op-ed, Lindsey Graham, who had previously rejected requests from
10:01
Speaker 1: Democratic senators to have Mueller testify in front of judiciary,
10:04
Speaker 1: says he will now grant that request. I mean, I
10:07
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on there. I don't know what
10:10
Speaker 1: good it does having Mueller come before the judiciary. I
10:12
Speaker 1: don't know if Graham wants this because now he wants
10:15
Speaker 1: to cross-examine him and try to discredit the whole Mueller investigation,
10:19
Speaker 1: and he thinks that's a good move for him. I
10:21
Speaker 1: don't know if Democrats will be able to get him
10:23
Speaker 1: to say whatever. The question I have is, this was
10:26
Speaker 1: obviously a horrible thing that happened over the weekend. We're
10:29
Speaker 1: sort of already moved on to another news story, even
10:32
Speaker 1: though the president basically just commuted the sentence of someone
10:35
Speaker 1: as a reward for not implicating him in a crime. Like,
10:39
Speaker 1: as bad as it gets. But, like, is this an
10:42
Speaker 1: issue that Joe Biden or the Democrats should be talking
10:45
Speaker 1: about on the campaign trail from now to November? Or
10:47
Speaker 1: is this, you know, should we be just talking about,
10:51
Speaker 1: you know, the pandemic and the recession and sort of
10:53
Speaker 1: the big issues that are affecting people's lives?
10:57
Speaker 4: I am willing to be, like, I don't, I think
10:59
Speaker 4: it's a very tough question. I am sympathetic to those
11:02
Speaker 4: who want an activist, democratic, congressional response that is ongoing.
11:07
Speaker 4: In reality, I do think what often the criticism is,
11:10
Speaker 4: is not that things aren't taking place right now, but
11:12
Speaker 4: that there hasn't been a kind of steady drumbeat ongoing, never,
11:16
Speaker 4: you know, basically never letting Trump score a goal, never
11:18
Speaker 4: letting anything by for the past year and a half.
11:20
Speaker 4: And there are frustrations with the way in which oversight
11:22
Speaker 4: has been conducted, obviously. But, you know, I look at
11:25
Speaker 4: this and my view is there's basically three things we
11:29
Speaker 4: have to do. There's one, defeating Trump in the election, obviously.
11:34
Speaker 4: There is two, after he is gone, resisting the very,
11:39
Speaker 4: very powerful urge driven by Republicans and even some Democrats
11:43
Speaker 4: to move forward, not look back. We need to focus
11:45
Speaker 4: on the next midterms. We need to focus on meat
11:48
Speaker 4: and potatoes issues. There's gonna be a great pull towards
11:51
Speaker 4: not looking backwards and we need to be resistant to
11:53
Speaker 4: that and make sure there's a process set up to
11:55
Speaker 4: go back through and investigate the crimes and corruptions and
11:59
Speaker 4: malfeasance and coverups of the Trump administration. And as part
12:03
Speaker 4: of that three, There's going to need to be a
12:05
Speaker 4: robust effort to look at some of the holes in
12:08
Speaker 4: our system that Trump was able to drive a Mack
12:11
Speaker 4: truck through and start closing them around disclosures, around the
12:15
Speaker 4: ways in which the president is allowed to intervene in
12:17
Speaker 4: the Justice Department. There's going to be a bunch of
12:19
Speaker 4: reforms that are needed, and we need to make sure
12:20
Speaker 4: we pursue those reforms. What we do in the next
12:24
Speaker 4: three to four months before the election, I'm not totally
12:28
Speaker 4: sure what the best course of action is, but I
12:29
Speaker 4: do think our minds should be completely focused on the politics,
12:33
Speaker 4: completely focused on what it will do to affect our chances.
12:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:37
Speaker 5: I mean, I wonder if Graham is just tweeting it
12:39
Speaker 5: to show it to Trump as they're on the golf
12:41
Speaker 5: course together or forward it to him later. But I
12:43
Speaker 5: feel strongly the Democrats should never, ever again talk about
12:46
Speaker 5: impeachment on a campaign trail. There is considerable evidence that
12:50
Speaker 5: swing voters hate it. They think it's partisan.
12:52
Speaker 3: They don't want to hear about it. It turns them off.
12:54
Speaker 3: It can backfire.
12:54
Speaker 5: I would never use that word again. I do think
12:57
Speaker 5: you can talk to voters... about the fact that Donald
12:59
Speaker 5: Trump pledged to drain the swamp and he's actually made
13:02
Speaker 5: a corrupt system far worse. He's rewarded his family. He's
13:05
Speaker 5: rewarded his cronies. He's rewarded his donors. You can lay
13:08
Speaker 5: out a bunch of evidence that can include pardons and
13:10
Speaker 5: commutations for those people. I agree with Lovett, like post-election,
13:14
Speaker 5: we got to look back at what happened, scrub it,
13:16
Speaker 5: figure out all the holes and fix them.
13:18
Speaker 3: But I don't want to hear impeachment ever on the
13:20
Speaker 3: campaign trail.
13:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
13:22
Speaker 1: And I also think that sort of like talking about
13:24
Speaker 1: rule of law sounds a Where this fits in the
13:30
Speaker 1: larger sort of campaign message is this is yet another
13:33
Speaker 1: example of Trump only focusing on himself, his interests, his ego,
13:37
Speaker 1: how to take care of him, and not focusing on
13:39
Speaker 1: you as the whole country's falling apart. All he cares
13:41
Speaker 1: about is making sure his buddy doesn't go to jail. Meanwhile,
13:45
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, 13,000 people applying for clemency in
13:49
Speaker 1: jail for nonviolent drug offenses, and he doesn't give a
13:51
Speaker 1: shit about them. But if you're Roger Stone and you
13:54
Speaker 1: protected Donald Trump, You get a get out of jail
13:56
Speaker 1: free card. So, you know, it's one small point, but
13:59
Speaker 1: I agree. I don't think it's going to be the
14:01
Speaker 1: biggest issue. And I think people watching a whole bunch
14:04
Speaker 1: more hearings, Mueller testifying, I think it's going to go
14:07
Speaker 1: sort of like right over people's heads as they're trying
14:09
Speaker 1: to grapple with a once in a lifetime pandemic. So
14:14
Speaker 1: right as the White House was bragging about freeing a
14:16
Speaker 1: convicted criminal who covered up the president's crimes, they were
14:18
Speaker 1: also orchestrating a hit job on the country's most trusted
14:21
Speaker 1: public health official, Dr. Anthony Fauci. That's right, the White
14:25
Speaker 1: House is anonymously sending reporters opposition research on Fauci that
14:29
Speaker 1: points out some of his earlier comments about the virus
14:32
Speaker 1: that he made before we knew as much about it
14:34
Speaker 1: as we do now. And the White House is doing
14:36
Speaker 1: this because Fauci has been giving interviews where he tells
14:39
Speaker 1: the truth about the pandemic, like when he said on
14:41
Speaker 1: a FiveThirtyEight podcast that, quote, when you compare us to
14:44
Speaker 1: other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great.
14:47
Speaker 1: I mean, we're just not. Trump reportedly hasn't spoken to
14:49
Speaker 1: Fauci since June and said on Hannity last week that he's, quote,
14:54
Speaker 1: a nice man, but he's made a lot of mistakes. Tommy,
14:58
Speaker 1: why would the president and his team openly attack the
15:00
Speaker 1: country's most trusted public health official in the middle of
15:04
Speaker 1: a pandemic?
15:05
Speaker 5: The big picture reason is that they're impossibly stupid. And
15:10
Speaker 5: it is part of the pattern where they would attack
15:12
Speaker 5: people like Colonel Vindman during impeachment and others who worked
15:14
Speaker 5: for them. But like the specific reason for Fauci is,
15:18
Speaker 5: you know, I think the New York Times Sienna poll
15:21
Speaker 5: showed that 67 percent of voters trust Fauci for information
15:24
Speaker 5: about the coronavirus. And then a July 10th ABC poll
15:28
Speaker 5: showed a 67 percent disapproval of Trump's handling of the coronavirus.
15:33
Speaker 4: Right.
15:34
Speaker 5: So Trump, despite all evidence that the response is failing,
15:38
Speaker 5: is still pursuing the strategy where they pretend the virus
15:40
Speaker 5: is going away. And Fauci telling the truth in interviews,
15:45
Speaker 5: even though they've locked those down and installed a Trump
15:47
Speaker 5: crony to make sure he doesn't do a lot of interviews,
15:51
Speaker 5: it makes that argument harder. They also just have a
15:53
Speaker 5: personal grudge against him.
15:54
Speaker 3: He's popular. He's respected.
15:57
Speaker 5: And Trump is not. And that upsets Trump personally. And,
16:01
Speaker 5: you know, it's just they're petty people. A touch of
16:04
Speaker 5: media criticism here, like out of context quotes from Fauci
16:08
Speaker 5: in I don't know, February or January when we knew
16:11
Speaker 5: literally nothing about the virus, the novel coronavirus, because it
16:14
Speaker 5: was brand new. That's hardly interesting. The news to me
16:17
Speaker 5: is that the White House is doing this. I wouldn't
16:20
Speaker 5: publish some misleading attack like that on background. Say it
16:23
Speaker 5: on the record or blow these people like you don't
16:25
Speaker 5: have to take this on background or honor some off
16:28
Speaker 5: the record agreement with these people. That is the news
16:31
Speaker 5: of this. Publish who said it. Tell us who's doing this.
16:34
Speaker 5: That's more interesting.
16:35
Speaker 2: Love it.
16:36
Speaker 1: Like, obviously, this is dangerous to discredit Fauci in the
16:39
Speaker 1: middle of a pandemic.
16:40
Speaker 3: It is repugnant.
16:42
Speaker 1: But just from like a pure political standpoint, like imagine
16:47
Speaker 1: if Trump decided to hug Fauci and be like, this
16:50
Speaker 1: guy is super respected and trusted in the country by
16:53
Speaker 1: people in both parties, by past presidents. People seem to
16:56
Speaker 1: like him. I'm going to stand with him at these
16:59
Speaker 1: briefings and he's going to sort of lead the nation
17:01
Speaker 1: through this. And I'll just shut up. And he's the
17:04
Speaker 1: expert like that would help Trump politically.
17:08
Speaker 4: Yes, it's pretty self-destructive, which obviously adds insult to injury
17:13
Speaker 4: because he's doing everything for his own benefit, but can
17:15
Speaker 4: only think in kind of 24 hour increments. I mean,
17:17
Speaker 4: we went through in part because the work that is
17:20
Speaker 4: required of a president does not pay dividends, even on
17:23
Speaker 4: something like this right away. There could be PR victories,
17:26
Speaker 4: but whether it's securing masks and the reagents and whatever
17:32
Speaker 4: you need for testing, building up our capacity to test,
17:36
Speaker 4: building up contact tracing, putting in place plans over time,
17:39
Speaker 4: over the past six months, to make sure schools were ready.
17:41
Speaker 4: None of these produce an immediate news cycle benefits. So
17:44
Speaker 4: he doesn't see the, uh, see the value in doing
17:47
Speaker 4: it for even a second. But what he does see
17:48
Speaker 4: value in doing is, uh, we went through, uh, China's
17:51
Speaker 4: to blame news cycle. It's, it's the Wuhan virus. They're
17:54
Speaker 4: the ones responsible. Then we went through a, a WHO
17:57
Speaker 4: news cycle, right? We're going to pull out of the WHO.
18:00
Speaker 4: They're the ones to blame. Now we're in a, Fauci
18:02
Speaker 4: news cycle. And I think what's ironic is, you know,
18:04
Speaker 4: you read that quote from Fauci about our response. And,
18:07
Speaker 4: you know, even in that quote, it's this measured language.
18:10
Speaker 4: You know, I would not say we're doing great, whatever
18:12
Speaker 4: the kind of measure tone he'd take. I think if
18:15
Speaker 4: there's a big criticism that you can level against Anthony Fauci,
18:18
Speaker 4: it is that he has been too deferential to the
18:20
Speaker 4: Trump administration in order to maintain his position, in order
18:23
Speaker 4: to continue to be in the place where he thinks
18:25
Speaker 4: he needs to be to do the most good for
18:27
Speaker 4: the country. I mean, even now he's sort of Tommy
18:30
Speaker 4: pointed out, they've got these goons preventing from doing TV interviews.
18:34
Speaker 4: I don't think that they're not shackled at the wrist.
18:37
Speaker 4: I mean, I think Fauci is starting to kind of
18:39
Speaker 4: bristle at the bridle that the administration has put on him,
18:43
Speaker 4: but I think he should be doing more. I think
18:44
Speaker 4: he should be speaking out even more. And yeah, this
18:48
Speaker 4: isn't what he should be doing. You can look across
18:50
Speaker 4: the country, governors that have made mistakes, governors who have
18:53
Speaker 4: done a good job, the ones that I think are
18:55
Speaker 4: in the best political standing are the ones who have
18:56
Speaker 4: simply said from the beginning, I'm going to defer to
18:58
Speaker 4: my experts.
19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, it's a good question about like
19:03
Speaker 1: what if you're Tony Fauci, what do you do now?
19:06
Speaker 3: Right.
19:06
Speaker 1: Because, you know, the White House can jump.
19:09
Speaker 3: I mean, he does.
19:10
Speaker 1: He's an employee of the federal government. His bosses are
19:13
Speaker 1: in the White House. He is a civil servant. So
19:15
Speaker 1: it's not like Trump can just fire him, though. I'm
19:18
Speaker 1: sure he'd try to find a way. But, you know,
19:21
Speaker 1: like how do you. How do you think you use
19:23
Speaker 1: your voice? I mean, he's out there basically telling the
19:26
Speaker 1: truth right now. He's not highly critical of Donald Trump,
19:29
Speaker 1: but he's telling the truth about the state of the pandemic,
19:31
Speaker 1: which is that we're not doing great. This is the
19:34
Speaker 1: big sin to the White House, right? Because the White
19:36
Speaker 1: House message, Donald Trump's message is everything's fine. What you're
19:40
Speaker 1: seeing isn't really happening. Everyone who's telling you we shouldn't
19:43
Speaker 1: reopen faster. They're just worry warts and public health experts
19:47
Speaker 1: and all these liberals and they don't want me to
19:48
Speaker 1: win elections. I just want to reopen the country. Everything's
19:51
Speaker 1: going to be fine. This whole thing is going to
19:53
Speaker 1: go away. So the fact that Tony Fauci is out
19:55
Speaker 1: there telling the truth, which is that we are screwed
19:58
Speaker 1: right now, is so bad that they want to muzzle
20:00
Speaker 1: him and now attack him. So if you're Fauci, like,
20:03
Speaker 1: what do you what do you do?
20:05
Speaker 5: I mean, he reportedly wants to see the vaccine process
20:08
Speaker 5: through to the end, which if that's his real motivation here,
20:12
Speaker 5: I'm cool with it, man.
20:13
Speaker 3: Stick around. Shut up when you got to shut up.
20:15
Speaker 3: Talk when you need to talk.
20:16
Speaker 5: He's also saying things like, you know, localities might need
20:19
Speaker 5: to lock down again if cases surge locally. That to
20:23
Speaker 5: me is an important message. I really do wish people
20:26
Speaker 5: were hearing that because I don't, you know, I think
20:28
Speaker 5: there's gonna be a lot of resistance at this point.
20:30
Speaker 5: So I see how hard it is to balance those things.
20:33
Speaker 3: I don't know.
20:34
Speaker 5: I think the story of the coronavirus pandemic and the
20:37
Speaker 5: way it's being handled is kind of telling itself when
20:40
Speaker 5: you see like 15,000 new cases on Sunday in Florida
20:44
Speaker 5: as they open up fucking Disney.
20:46
Speaker 3: World or whatever.
20:47
Speaker 5: So I'm a little less worried about the messaging at
20:49
Speaker 5: this point than I was early on during these task forces.
20:52
Speaker 5: I do really worry about the execution of some of
20:55
Speaker 5: the treatments, the vaccine, all the things happening behind the
20:58
Speaker 5: scenes that we.
20:58
Speaker 3: Don't hear about.
21:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:00
Speaker 1: And I do think you're right, Tommy. Like if he,
21:02
Speaker 1: you know, Tony Fauci being there for the vaccine developments,
21:06
Speaker 1: the treatment developments, the rollout. Like if he can, from
21:09
Speaker 1: a substantive point of view, forget about the message, help
21:12
Speaker 1: make that process more effective and safe or whatever, I'm
21:15
Speaker 1: happy with him being there and speaking out when he can.
21:18
Speaker 5: I mean, Ivanka is about to license the patent for
21:21
Speaker 5: the vaccine if we're not careful.
21:23
Speaker 3: So yeah, we need some guardrails. Thank you.
21:33
Speaker 1: So we mentioned this earlier, but you can hear Abdul
21:36
Speaker 1: El-Sayed's interview with Dr. Fauci on tomorrow's America Dissected podcast.
21:40
Speaker 1: Here's a clip from that conversation.
21:42
Speaker 7: How do you, in the face of politicization... by a president.
21:49
Speaker 7: How do you maintain a focus on the public's health
21:51
Speaker 7: and how do you walk a line that allows you
21:54
Speaker 7: to maintain integrity to the science while also staying away
21:59
Speaker 7: from some of the explicit politics of the moment? I
22:01
Speaker 7: know many of your colleagues haven't done it nearly as
22:04
Speaker 7: well as you have. So, you know, what's the secret?
22:07
Speaker 7: And then the other question is, have you ever just
22:09
Speaker 7: at some point wanted to throw your hands up and
22:10
Speaker 7: walk away and just say, you know what, at this point,
22:12
Speaker 7: like I'm done with this?
22:14
Speaker 2: No, not really.
22:15
Speaker 6: Um, Because I think that the issue at hand is
22:19
Speaker 6: so important that I think walking away from it is
22:23
Speaker 6: not the solution. I think that would just make things worse.
22:26
Speaker 2: Well, what I try to do.
22:28
Speaker 6: And I have really been successful, as you say, I've
22:32
Speaker 6: now advised six separate presidents, all very different individuals, also
22:38
Speaker 6: coming from different perspectives, but also being an administration or
22:43
Speaker 6: a presidency leader at different times in our history, which
22:46
Speaker 6: required different types of approaches. 9-11 was very different with
22:53
Speaker 6: the anthrax attacks, the pandemic flu and Ebola and Zika,
22:57
Speaker 6: and now COVID-19. The thing that I've done and been
23:02
Speaker 6: able to successfully navigate sometimes these very choppy waters is
23:07
Speaker 6: stick always to the science. Don't ever let anything that
23:11
Speaker 6: even smacks slightly of any ideology get in the way.
23:15
Speaker 6: You've got to just stick with the science, present things, advice, recommendations,
23:21
Speaker 6: or what have you, based on evidence and science. And
23:25
Speaker 6: if that clashes with something that is political, then don't
23:29
Speaker 6: get involved in any of that. Just continue to stick
23:33
Speaker 6: with the science. And it works. It really does.
23:36
Speaker 1: So check out more on tomorrow's America Detected of Abdul's
23:40
Speaker 1: interview with Dr.
23:41
Speaker 7: Fauci.
23:43
Speaker 1: So even though the president was busy trashing Fauci this weekend,
23:45
Speaker 1: he also decided to wear a mask in public for
23:47
Speaker 1: the first time during a trip to Walter Reed Medical Center.
23:50
Speaker 1: Trump told reporters before he left for the trip, quote,
23:53
Speaker 1: I've never been against masks, but I do believe they
23:55
Speaker 1: have a time and a place when you're in a hospital, especially.
23:59
Speaker 1: Trump's campaign staff immediately took to Twitter to praise their
24:01
Speaker 1: boss's decision to finally wear a mask, posting the photo
24:04
Speaker 1: with comments like hashtag America first. Joe Biden is finished
24:08
Speaker 1: and good night, Joe Biden.
24:09
Speaker 3: Love it. What do you think?
24:10
Speaker 1: Is Joe Biden finished now that Donald Trump.
24:12
Speaker 8: Wore a mask?
24:13
Speaker 4: Look, we know there are many reports that they print
24:15
Speaker 4: out pro-Trump tweets for him so that he can see them.
24:18
Speaker 4: So this is a, these are tweets for an audience
24:21
Speaker 4: of one. They're going to print them out, show it
24:22
Speaker 4: to the bus. There's a real, like Nathan Lane and
24:25
Speaker 4: the bird. Obviously this is incredibly serious. It's both on
24:29
Speaker 4: the Fauci front and on this front. The fact that
24:31
Speaker 4: we're debating this is again, how Trump's ego sort of
24:34
Speaker 4: swallows up our politics, right? Like when will Trump wear
24:36
Speaker 4: a mask? It's such an entry level basic thing you
24:40
Speaker 4: should have done months ago.
24:40
Speaker 2: It's disgusting.
24:41
Speaker 4: But there is this like Nathan Lane in the birdcage
24:44
Speaker 4: thing of like, I'm not going out there looking like this.
24:48
Speaker 2: Look at me.
24:48
Speaker 4: I look ridiculous with this costume on. I'm not going
24:51
Speaker 4: to put this mask on. What do you mean they're
24:52
Speaker 4: waiting to see me? Well, I'll do it, I guess.
24:54
Speaker 4: But only if the chorus boys are with me. Beautiful men,
24:57
Speaker 4: military men. Put them in the masks too. And then
24:59
Speaker 4: we'll go out there and we'll put on a show
25:01
Speaker 4: for them.
25:01
Speaker 2: And they'll love it. They'll love it. Do they love it?
25:03
Speaker 2: They love it.
25:04
Speaker 4: They love the show I put on with my big
25:06
Speaker 4: brawny military man in our masks.
25:08
Speaker 2: That's the guy.
25:09
Speaker 5: Did you take a Purin tablet to help you prepare
25:12
Speaker 5: for the role?
25:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.
25:13
Speaker 4: I mean, I just don't understand how I'm supposed to
25:15
Speaker 4: perform under these conditions. I do need a Purin tablet, Tommy.
25:18
Speaker 2: Thank you. That was very good. That's a great movie.
25:21
Speaker 3: That was unexpected. Underrated movie.
25:24
Speaker 5: What you guys couldn't see was Fauci blinking, help me
25:26
Speaker 5: in Morse code throughout the clip, so make sure you
25:28
Speaker 5: watch it online.
25:29
Speaker 3: Wait, like... I mean, it's so funny, right? Like, congrats.
25:33
Speaker 5: You did the bare minimum. You walked around a hospital
25:36
Speaker 5: full of wounded troops with a mask on. What a
25:39
Speaker 5: fucking hero. I mean, for his staff to feel obligated
25:42
Speaker 5: to tweet about how cool he looked just speaks to
25:46
Speaker 5: the depth of this man's depravity and ego. It's just,
25:49
Speaker 5: it's so sad. If he'd done it months ago, things
25:52
Speaker 5: could have been different.
25:54
Speaker 3: It's just, it's so frustrating.
25:56
Speaker 5: It's also frustrating, endlessly frustrating to me that the political
25:59
Speaker 5: world including politicians and the press, are the ones shaping
26:02
Speaker 5: the boundaries of this debate, talking about how masks are politicized.
26:06
Speaker 3: They aren't. They shouldn't be. Everyone can wear them. We'll
26:09
Speaker 3: all be fine. It's just exhausting.
26:13
Speaker 1: The idea that Trump putting a mask on is what's
26:15
Speaker 1: going to end Joe Biden's campaign is also, it feels
26:18
Speaker 1: like his staffers are a bit out of touch with what's.
26:22
Speaker 3: Going on right now.
26:24
Speaker 4: You mean to tell me that you don't think Boris
26:26
Speaker 4: Epstein has his finger on the pulse from his Sinclair
26:29
Speaker 4: recording booth?
26:30
Speaker 3: It's the worst.
26:32
Speaker 1: You're right. He polarized the electorate with this bullshit three
26:36
Speaker 1: or four months ago by attacking masks and making fun
26:39
Speaker 1: of masks and mocking and doing all that other kind
26:41
Speaker 1: of stuff. And, you know, if he had done it then, well,
26:45
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we wouldn't be having, you know, infections
26:48
Speaker 1: skyrocket in some of these states right now when instead
26:51
Speaker 1: of like having anti mask activists out there protesting, putting
26:55
Speaker 1: a piece of fucking cloth over your face.
26:56
Speaker 3: Thanks to the president.
26:57
Speaker 2: So it's not just him, though, either, though. It's not
26:59
Speaker 2: just him.
27:00
Speaker 6: Right.
27:00
Speaker 4: Ted Cruz today on an airplane refusing to wear a mask.
27:03
Speaker 4: Jim Jordan refusing to wear a mask there.
27:06
Speaker 2: We've seen.
27:06
Speaker 4: Republican leaders, Republican politicians across the country at events this weekend,
27:11
Speaker 4: at events this weekend in big rooms, crowded with people
27:13
Speaker 4: refusing to wear a mask. You know, it will be
27:16
Speaker 4: an important question that we answer over time why the
27:20
Speaker 4: United States was so vulnerable to this virus when other
27:22
Speaker 4: countries were able to control it. But man, it's not
27:25
Speaker 4: just Trump. It is a toxic Republican reaction to just
27:30
Speaker 4: basic decency and courtesy and compassion for fellow human beings.
27:34
Speaker 4: It is a Rear guard action against humanity is what
27:38
Speaker 4: it is.
27:39
Speaker 3: All right.
27:40
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the not so V-shaped recovery the Trump
27:43
Speaker 1: administration has promised us. It was only a few months
27:45
Speaker 1: ago that Jared Kushner talked about his hope that, quote,
27:48
Speaker 1: by July, the country's really rocking again. Not so much.
27:52
Speaker 1: But we still have double digit unemployment. And over the
27:54
Speaker 1: last week, several major American companies have announced plans to
27:57
Speaker 1: lay off tens of thousands of workers. Some of this
27:59
Speaker 1: due to the pandemic getting worse again. According to one
28:01
Speaker 1: estimate by Goldman Sachs, quote, more than 70% of the
28:04
Speaker 1: country has either paused or reversed opening plans. Congress is
28:08
Speaker 1: about to start negotiating this week and next over the
28:11
Speaker 1: next and likely final round of economic relief before the election.
28:14
Speaker 1: And they've got a tight timeline. Unemployment benefits expire at
28:17
Speaker 1: the end of the month. Nancy Pelosi said over the weekend,
28:19
Speaker 1: the benefits must be extended. The Republicans in the White
28:22
Speaker 1: House have been opposed to extending the extra $ 600 per
28:24
Speaker 1: week benefit that most workers are getting. Mitch McConnell said
28:27
Speaker 1: that his primary objective is liability protections for corporations. so
28:31
Speaker 1: that they can't get sued if their employees come back
28:33
Speaker 1: to work and get sick with COVID. Tommy, how much
28:36
Speaker 1: leverage do Democrats have here in these negotiations? And how
28:38
Speaker 1: much room for compromise do you think there should be?
28:41
Speaker 5: I think Democrats have a lot of leverage, but it's
28:44
Speaker 5: very hard to know what the actual White House position is.
28:46
Speaker 5: Because if you read about what Mnookin thinks, it seems
28:50
Speaker 5: a little more reasonable. But as we were recording this,
28:52
Speaker 5: a tweet went around in our Slack where Larry Kudlow
28:55
Speaker 5: is calling for a payroll tax holiday. return to work
28:59
Speaker 5: bonuses and a capital gains holiday. So just to pause
29:02
Speaker 5: for a second, no one needs a cap gains holiday.
29:05
Speaker 5: You don't need to sell your stock now and just
29:07
Speaker 5: walk away. A return to work bonus seems like the
29:10
Speaker 5: opposite of helpful because it will incentivize going back to
29:13
Speaker 5: work and being around people and getting sick. So that
29:15
Speaker 5: part is frustrating. But look, the response is a disaster.
29:18
Speaker 5: It's getting worse. And the economic pain has been delayed
29:21
Speaker 5: for a lot of families because of the response by Congress.
29:26
Speaker 5: And Now we're at this point where it's about to
29:28
Speaker 5: expire on July 31st, and the administration is in the
29:31
Speaker 5: position of mismanaging the virus and then failing to fix
29:35
Speaker 5: the economy for the rest of the year. And that's
29:36
Speaker 5: just untenable for them because obviously the two are connected.
29:40
Speaker 3: So, you know, the cynical.
29:42
Speaker 5: Piece of it is Politico reported that laid off workers
29:45
Speaker 5: in 2020 battleground states may be hurt the most when
29:48
Speaker 5: the $ 600 per week unemployment insurance boost expires. States like Pennsylvania, Michigan,
29:53
Speaker 5: and Florida have some of the highest unemployment numbers in
29:55
Speaker 5: the country, and they will see a $ 3 billion per
29:57
Speaker 5: week reduction in when it goes away. So Democrats should
30:01
Speaker 5: be fighting for that extra money. They should fight for
30:04
Speaker 5: an extended stimulus. I want to see unemployment insurance extensions
30:07
Speaker 5: that are generous and also automatically extended until some fair
30:12
Speaker 5: target is met that indicates a recovery is ongoing so
30:15
Speaker 5: that Mitch McConnell can't shut off the spigot if Joe
30:18
Speaker 5: Biden is elected. I also think the suggestion that businesses
30:22
Speaker 5: deserve blanket liability until 2024, that's the Mitch McConnell proposal,
30:28
Speaker 5: is crazy. We cannot allow businesses to force workers into
30:33
Speaker 5: unsafe environments. We've seen it in factories and chicken processing
30:37
Speaker 5: plants and all kinds of places already. They can't allow
30:40
Speaker 5: that to happen. We should fight tooth and nail for
30:42
Speaker 5: this stuff. He's like, I really think workers will get
30:46
Speaker 5: it if you make this case. This is pretty obvious stuff.
30:50
Speaker 3: Love it.
30:50
Speaker 1: What do you think?
30:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
30:52
Speaker 4: I think we need to fight to make sure that, look,
30:57
Speaker 4: A lot of our crisis has been born of the
30:59
Speaker 4: fact that the government is always treating it like it's
31:01
Speaker 4: about to be over in two months. It's not going
31:02
Speaker 4: to be over in two months. It's not going to
31:03
Speaker 4: be over in six months. Probably not going to be
31:05
Speaker 4: over in a year. So we should be open to
31:08
Speaker 4: compromise in part because it is so desperate that we
31:11
Speaker 4: get people relief. We have a bunch of moratoriums on
31:14
Speaker 4: evictions that are about to expire. We have this emergency relief,
31:18
Speaker 4: the $ 600 a month that's about to expire. There's a
31:21
Speaker 4: ton of small businesses that were just barely hanging on
31:25
Speaker 4: and are looking at a year of hardship and pain
31:28
Speaker 4: and probably not going to be able to survive it
31:31
Speaker 4: and may decide to shut their doors. A lot of
31:32
Speaker 4: this is going to hit all at once. And it's
31:35
Speaker 4: going to be, if Joe Biden can become president, an
31:38
Speaker 4: incredible mess that he inherits. So, you know, you look
31:41
Speaker 4: at something like, you know, so yes, you need like
31:43
Speaker 4: triggers to make sure that relief can continue, even if
31:47
Speaker 4: there's a Democratic president and Republicans all of a sudden
31:49
Speaker 4: decide that they no longer believe in helping people again.
31:53
Speaker 4: But you also need to make sure that we don't
31:55
Speaker 4: do things like a capital gains tax holiday, which would
31:57
Speaker 4: not only do nothing except just provide a huge windfall
32:01
Speaker 4: to some of the richest people in our society, but
32:03
Speaker 4: it will take a huge amount of taxable money out
32:07
Speaker 4: of the system. And we're going to need to raise
32:09
Speaker 4: revenue to kind of do some of the big ticket
32:12
Speaker 4: items that a Democratic administration with a Democratic Senate and
32:15
Speaker 4: Democratic House want to do next year.
32:17
Speaker 2: So we have to sort of just hold the line there.
32:20
Speaker 4: On anything that will hamstring a Democratic administration or the
32:24
Speaker 4: economy next year?
32:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just from a political standpoint, I think
32:29
Speaker 1: this fight is incredibly important to have over the next
32:34
Speaker 1: few weeks and will shape a lot of the fall campaign,
32:38
Speaker 1: partly because, you know, we have talked many times about
32:41
Speaker 1: how the only thing that's keeping Trump in this race
32:44
Speaker 1: is this perception by the electorate that he is still
32:47
Speaker 1: stronger on the economy, that he can manage the recovery
32:50
Speaker 1: that he's some fucking businessman that can get us back
32:52
Speaker 1: to where we were and all that kind of stuff.
32:54
Speaker 1: And we know that what hurts that image is this
32:58
Speaker 1: idea that Trump is for his rich friends and corporations
33:02
Speaker 1: and that Joe Biden and the Democrats are actually fighting
33:04
Speaker 1: for working class, middle class, poor Americans. And this fight
33:09
Speaker 1: has to be sort of depicted as the perfect example
33:12
Speaker 1: of who each side is fighting for. And, I mean,
33:16
Speaker 1: you couldn't have a starker difference between Mitch McConnell, whose
33:20
Speaker 1: top priority is to make sure that companies are protected
33:23
Speaker 1: so that they can force workers to go back to work,
33:26
Speaker 1: even if they get sick and not be held accountable
33:28
Speaker 1: if their workers get sick. And the Democrats who want
33:31
Speaker 1: to make sure that workers can continue to get unemployment
33:35
Speaker 1: benefits plus that $ 600 extra benefit if they have to
33:38
Speaker 1: stay home through no fault of their own. They're all
33:41
Speaker 1: talking about getting rid of the $ 600 benefit. You take
33:44
Speaker 1: away $ 600 per week from millions and millions of workers
33:48
Speaker 1: who are getting that. What do you think is going
33:49
Speaker 1: to happen to the economy when all these businesses are
33:52
Speaker 1: still closed and more businesses are closing because the virus
33:55
Speaker 1: is taking hold in more states? Money is going to
33:57
Speaker 1: come out of the economy. There's going to be less
33:58
Speaker 1: money to spend. There's going to be more job loss.
34:01
Speaker 1: And the recession is going to deepen. And so, like,
34:03
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, this shouldn't just be a
34:06
Speaker 1: fight in Congress. I think Joe Biden should be involved
34:08
Speaker 1: in this, too. I think every leader of the Democratic
34:09
Speaker 1: Party should make very clear that Democrats are going to
34:12
Speaker 1: stand up for a recovery that helps the middle class,
34:15
Speaker 1: that makes it safe to go to work, that helps
34:17
Speaker 1: workers first. And Republicans are fighting for the corporations who
34:21
Speaker 1: want to force people back to work before it's safe
34:23
Speaker 1: to do so. It just seems like this is a big,
34:25
Speaker 1: big fight. And, like, you know, it's pretty obvious where
34:29
Speaker 1: each side should be.
34:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not like American workers were overpaid before the pandemic, right?
34:33
Speaker 5: I mean, about half of American home renters before the
34:36
Speaker 5: pandemic were spending more than 30% of their income on housing,
34:39
Speaker 5: which puts them at a really scary tipping point. And
34:42
Speaker 5: it's also not about money because the stock market is
34:46
Speaker 5: rallying in an absurd, irrational way. because the Fed is
34:50
Speaker 5: spending trillions of dollars to prop it up. They are
34:53
Speaker 5: literally buying corporate bonds, Apple, GE, Comcast. They are buying
34:57
Speaker 5: corporate bond ETFs. That is helping all these stock owners,
35:01
Speaker 5: and now we're offering them a cap gains tax holiday?
35:04
Speaker 2: That is nuts.
35:04
Speaker 5: So our friend, Austin Goolsby, a former colleague, did a
35:07
Speaker 5: study at the University of Chicago that found the fear
35:10
Speaker 5: of infection and not the lockdown is what drove the
35:14
Speaker 5: economic contraction in the spring. That I think is the
35:17
Speaker 5: case that Joe Biden needs to make. You need to
35:20
Speaker 5: tie the pandemic response to the economic response. They're not separate.
35:24
Speaker 5: They can't be separated. And that's how I think Biden
35:27
Speaker 5: can really chip away at Trump's numbers on sort of
35:30
Speaker 5: business stuff, the economic handling of the economy, et cetera,
35:34
Speaker 5: et cetera, is by really making that case.
35:36
Speaker 4: So a couple other quick points on this. One, there's
35:38
Speaker 4: also just an incredible perverse part of this debate, which
35:42
Speaker 4: is Republicans like McConnell, Lindsey Graham, others, saying that the
35:46
Speaker 4: reason they're against the $ 600 is because it disincentivizes work,
35:51
Speaker 4: because in some cases people might end up with a
35:53
Speaker 4: little bit more money than they would have gotten from
35:55
Speaker 4: their jobs. As if right now there's jobs for people
35:58
Speaker 4: to go back to, as if right now we're in
36:00
Speaker 4: this great economy where people are.
36:01
Speaker 2: Refusing to go back to work, sick.
36:03
Speaker 4: It's perverse, because they have no compunction about giving money
36:06
Speaker 4: to all kinds of businesses, to all kinds of rich people.
36:08
Speaker 2: That's a sickness, too.
36:10
Speaker 4: One of the Democratic priorities is around schools. I talked
36:13
Speaker 4: about this with Kai Henderson today, but you know, Donald
36:16
Speaker 4: Trump is fighting to reopen schools. We're not talking enough
36:18
Speaker 4: about it. And I think anything Democrats can do to
36:20
Speaker 4: say they're trying to help schools locally, get them resources,
36:23
Speaker 4: get them help, make up for the fact that there's
36:25
Speaker 4: no real plan from the government is really important. And
36:28
Speaker 4: just one other small piece about all of this is
36:30
Speaker 4: that because this may last such a long time, the
36:35
Speaker 4: companies best able to weather it are going to be
36:36
Speaker 4: some of the biggest corporations in America and a process
36:39
Speaker 4: that was already happening in slow motion, the kind of
36:43
Speaker 4: shift to big businesses, the shift away from small companies
36:46
Speaker 4: is going to accelerate. That's incredibly dangerous because small companies
36:49
Speaker 4: create the character of our cities. They create the character
36:51
Speaker 4: of our communities. And that kind of sapping of that
36:54
Speaker 4: sort of part of our culture, of that part of
36:57
Speaker 4: our economy is incredibly financially dangerous, but it's also just
37:01
Speaker 4: something that I think Democrats need to talk about more.
37:04
Speaker 7: Yeah.
37:04
Speaker 1: And I agree with your points on me that like,
37:06
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm Joe Biden and I'm putting out
37:08
Speaker 1: my economic plan, point number one of a five point
37:11
Speaker 1: plan is to help boost the economy, fix the virus,
37:14
Speaker 1: stop the virus. Like you've got to connect the two.
37:17
Speaker 1: And by the way, that's what people are doing. The
37:19
Speaker 1: fact that Joe Biden is winning in these polls, even
37:21
Speaker 1: though people still think Trump is better on the economy,
37:24
Speaker 1: is because the main issue for people is the virus,
37:26
Speaker 1: not just because of their health, but because they know
37:28
Speaker 1: that the virus is also stopping the economy. from getting
37:31
Speaker 1: back to normal.
37:32
Speaker 3: So I do.
37:32
Speaker 1: And I think that when the Democrats negotiate this, like
37:35
Speaker 1: I know they're going to try to negotiate in good faith.
37:37
Speaker 1: And if they get a great deal, it's important to
37:39
Speaker 1: move forward on that deal because that's just going to
37:41
Speaker 1: actually help people who are really hurting. But I would not,
37:45
Speaker 1: they have almost all the leverage here. I would not
37:47
Speaker 1: give up too much because If they end up in
37:50
Speaker 1: a fight where Mitch McConnell said, no, I am just
37:52
Speaker 1: not going to extend that $ 600. That's my final offer,
37:54
Speaker 1: but I will extend unemployment benefits in general. Like I
37:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't take that deal because I would go, I would
38:01
Speaker 1: say that I'm going to go to the American people
38:02
Speaker 1: in November and say, Republicans would rather give corporations more
38:06
Speaker 1: tax cuts and the ability to make workers go back
38:09
Speaker 1: to work, even when it's not safe than to give
38:11
Speaker 1: $ 600 more a week to people who are struggling in
38:13
Speaker 1: this economy. Take that to the voters.
38:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also, I love it.
38:17
Speaker 5: I'm really glad you did the interview on the question
38:19
Speaker 5: of reopening schools today because, look, again, people were working
38:24
Speaker 5: full-time jobs and couldn't make ends meet anyway. What happens
38:28
Speaker 5: if their kids can't go to school? They're gonna have
38:30
Speaker 5: to pay extra for childcare because the kids are home
38:33
Speaker 5: and schools aren't closed. I mean, this is so blind
38:35
Speaker 5: to the reality of what's happening in the country right now.
38:38
Speaker 5: And it is so needlessly cruel that I do think
38:41
Speaker 5: like Not only do we have a political advantage to
38:44
Speaker 5: fight this, but I actually think that we are going
38:47
Speaker 5: to get to an outcome if Mitch McConnell has his
38:49
Speaker 5: way that's harmful to the country, to the recovery effort,
38:52
Speaker 5: to all of the above. And it's just it's not
38:55
Speaker 5: worth doing something that is harmful.
38:58
Speaker 3: All right.
38:58
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Lovett's conversation with
39:00
Speaker 1: Pod Save the People's Kaya Henderson.
39:11
Speaker 4: She is the former chancellor of DC Public Schools and
39:13
Speaker 4: co-host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the People with new
39:16
Speaker 4: episodes every Tuesday.
39:17
Speaker 2: Kaya Henderson, welcome to the pod.
39:20
Speaker 1: Thanks, John.
39:20
Speaker 8: I'm excited to be here.
39:22
Speaker 2: Thank you for doing this.
39:26
Speaker 4: Look, I think a lot of people, myself included, I
39:27
Speaker 4: don't have kids and lucky for them that don't exist.
39:31
Speaker 4: But I've been just so overwhelmed by the news about schools.
39:34
Speaker 2: It seems so enraging.
39:38
Speaker 4: It is so sad to see this kind of slow
39:41
Speaker 4: motion crisis coming towards us in the fall, because you
39:45
Speaker 4: know better than anyone how much is on the line
39:47
Speaker 4: for these kids, for the teachers, for their parents. You know,
39:50
Speaker 4: this interview is happening in a week dominated by stories
39:56
Speaker 4: and controversies around reopening. Donald Trump has begun threatening schools
40:00
Speaker 4: to reopen. You've been somebody that's obviously you're an expert
40:04
Speaker 4: in schools. You have contributed to blueprints for how to
40:07
Speaker 4: reopen schools safely. What does it look like to you
40:10
Speaker 4: to bring students back into schools in a responsible way?
40:15
Speaker 2: Well, I mean.
40:16
Speaker 8: Responsible, the question is who gets to define responsible? I
40:23
Speaker 8: think the challenge here is that this is a situation
40:27
Speaker 8: where everybody's point of view is actually quite valid. Whether
40:31
Speaker 8: as a parent, you want to send your kid to
40:34
Speaker 8: school or you want to keep your kid home, both
40:37
Speaker 8: of those are really valid perspectives. If you're a teacher,
40:41
Speaker 8: whether you want to come back to school or you
40:43
Speaker 8: are worried about your safety and would prefer to stay
40:46
Speaker 8: home or stay Maybe you live with somebody who is
40:49
Speaker 8: immunocompromised and so you're worried about what might, both of
40:51
Speaker 8: those are valid. You know, if you are a district leader,
40:56
Speaker 8: for example, on the one hand, you want to keep
40:58
Speaker 8: your young people as safe as possible. And you know
41:01
Speaker 8: that every minute that they're missing, not just instruction, but
41:05
Speaker 8: the socialization that happens in schools, the exposure that's happening
41:09
Speaker 8: in schools. is really critical. And we know that we're
41:11
Speaker 8: going to literally lose generations of kids as a result
41:15
Speaker 8: of this.
41:17
Speaker 2: All of these are valid viewpoints.
41:18
Speaker 8: And I think the challenge around responsible opening is there
41:24
Speaker 8: is no perfect answer, right? So how do we get
41:28
Speaker 8: it as right as we possibly can? I think the
41:30
Speaker 8: way we do that is making sure that people have protection,
41:35
Speaker 8: making sure that we're thinking about how we maximize space differently,
41:40
Speaker 8: think about classrooms differently, think about the deployment of our
41:44
Speaker 8: human capital, our talent in different ways. I think there's
41:48
Speaker 8: an opportunity to create different options for young people and families.
41:54
Speaker 8: You might have the option, if you want to go
41:56
Speaker 8: 100% virtual, that should be an option for families who
41:59
Speaker 8: want to do that. And we should also have an
42:01
Speaker 8: in-school option for.
42:03
Speaker 2: Families who need to.
42:04
Speaker 8: I who literally, we're talking about reopening the economy, they
42:09
Speaker 8: can't go to work if they don't have a place
42:11
Speaker 8: to send their young people. And so I think the
42:14
Speaker 8: problem here is one of the most perplexing decisions to
42:19
Speaker 8: make as a large urban superintendent, at least in the Northeast,
42:24
Speaker 8: is snow days, right? And snow days are kind of
42:27
Speaker 8: a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
42:31
Speaker 8: And this is one of those situations where there is
42:33
Speaker 8: no right answer. And so what can we do that
42:37
Speaker 8: is responsible, that is safe, and that meets the needs
42:41
Speaker 8: of a lot of different stakeholders, I think is the
42:42
Speaker 8: question that we're all wrestling with.
42:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:45
Speaker 4: I mean, it does seem though that from what I've
42:48
Speaker 4: seen from a number of at least the bigger school
42:50
Speaker 4: districts is that there's this balance between some amount of
42:53
Speaker 4: online learning, some in-person learning, smaller classes, shifts, that sort
42:57
Speaker 4: of thing. But even that, I guess I have sort
43:00
Speaker 4: of two questions I can... One is, how much do
43:03
Speaker 4: you worry that that solution is inadequate just for the
43:06
Speaker 4: kids to get a good education?
43:07
Speaker 2: Do you worry about that? I mean, even that is.
43:10
Speaker 4: Not the full education that we want our children to have, right?
43:14
Speaker 8: It is absolutely inadequate.
43:15
Speaker 6: I mean.
43:16
Speaker 8: If you think about a regular school year, it's 180
43:20
Speaker 8: days and it's roughly six to seven hours a day
43:24
Speaker 8: of instruction. Now I'm not saying that every single moment
43:27
Speaker 8: is absolutely maximized, but it is far more than what
43:32
Speaker 8: kids are getting now in the distance learning environment because
43:36
Speaker 8: this was an emergency response to a global pandemic. We
43:39
Speaker 8: weren't set up to do this. At most, many of
43:42
Speaker 8: our school districts are only giving kids two or three
43:45
Speaker 8: hours of instruction a day, in some cases, not even
43:49
Speaker 8: a day. And so when you think about our young
43:52
Speaker 8: people who are already behind or our little learners who
43:55
Speaker 8: are learning how to read and do math and build
43:59
Speaker 8: foundational skills, there is just no way that a couple
44:02
Speaker 8: of hours a day in an environment that none of
44:06
Speaker 8: us are acculturated really to operate in is the right
44:11
Speaker 8: answer for academic success. It just is not.
44:14
Speaker 2: But we also.
44:15
Speaker 8: Know that you can't put 3,000 kids in a school
44:18
Speaker 8: building or 800 kids in a school building. And so again,
44:21
Speaker 8: I think people are doing the best they can with
44:23
Speaker 8: what they have. How do we bring as many kids
44:25
Speaker 8: back on a rotational basis as possible? How do we
44:29
Speaker 8: think differently about using our best teachers to reach even
44:32
Speaker 8: more kids? But one of the challenges is not all
44:37
Speaker 8: of our kids are logging on. There was an article
44:39
Speaker 8: in the LA Times a little bit ago about 40%
44:43
Speaker 8: of kids in LA Unified School District had not logged
44:47
Speaker 8: on since the beginning of distance learning. And so those kids,
44:51
Speaker 8: we don't know where they are. We don't know what
44:52
Speaker 8: is happening to them. And that's not a recipe for
44:54
Speaker 8: academic success.
44:56
Speaker 4: And it seems like It'd be nice to be able
44:59
Speaker 4: to not dwell on all the ways in which this
45:01
Speaker 4: is terrible. But it is, you know, I do think
45:03
Speaker 4: it's horrible. But, you know, what you immediately imagine is, okay,
45:08
Speaker 4: you know, parents with two incomes, families with two incomes
45:13
Speaker 4: that have more flexibility, families with means that have more flexibility,
45:17
Speaker 4: they can figure out ways to to make this work.
45:20
Speaker 4: But the kids that need school the absolute most, that
45:24
Speaker 4: need it the most, are the ones that are going
45:25
Speaker 4: to be the least able to do online learning, least
45:28
Speaker 4: able to make it work, that they're going two days
45:30
Speaker 4: a week and don't know where they're supposed to go
45:32
Speaker 4: the other three days a week, five days a week.
45:36
Speaker 8: That is absolutely right, John. In all of the ways
45:40
Speaker 8: that America is unequal, this is yet again a situation
45:46
Speaker 8: where the wealthy people will figure it out. They have means,
45:50
Speaker 8: they have flexibility. You know, I see wealthy people who
45:53
Speaker 8: are pulling their kids out of school, period, and hiring
45:57
Speaker 8: tutors or, you know, paying a college student to come
46:00
Speaker 8: and manage not only distance learning, but, you know, other
46:04
Speaker 8: supplemental activities. I see, you know, all kinds of innovative
46:08
Speaker 8: solutions that are happening from people with means. But the
46:12
Speaker 8: working mother who has three kids or the working parents,
46:17
Speaker 8: you know, in many cases, Even dual parent families can't
46:21
Speaker 8: hack this situation. And we're not doing, I mean, we
46:26
Speaker 8: have decided to prioritize a whole bunch of other things
46:30
Speaker 8: before we prioritize America's children and America's families.
46:34
Speaker 4: So obviously, you know, we've all talked about the lack
46:38
Speaker 4: of leadership or the opposite of leadership that's come from
46:41
Speaker 4: the president, that's coming from Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education. Obviously,
46:45
Speaker 4: a lot of what school districts are dealing with is
46:47
Speaker 4: solving an unsolvable problem because the work wasn't done in advance.
46:50
Speaker 4: The things that could have been done to make plans,
46:53
Speaker 4: help schools prepare, just didn't happen.
46:55
Speaker 2: Nobody did it.
46:56
Speaker 4: If you were advising the Secretary of Education with any
47:01
Speaker 4: kind of competence or compassion for children who's actually kind
47:04
Speaker 4: of engaged in this fight, who belonged in the job
47:07
Speaker 4: and didn't buy it, like it was floor seats at
47:10
Speaker 4: a sporting event that I couldn't name because I don't
47:14
Speaker 4: know what floor seats are. If that was the case,
47:17
Speaker 4: you know, one of those seats where you can yell
47:19
Speaker 4: at the refs. That's what Betsy DeVos wanted. She wanted
47:22
Speaker 4: a seat where she could yell at the refs. If
47:24
Speaker 4: you were advising that secretary of education, what would be your...
47:27
Speaker 4: Or if you were that secretary of education, wouldn't mind
47:29
Speaker 4: that either. If you were doing that job, what would
47:32
Speaker 4: you do?
47:34
Speaker 8: I mean, this is what is so baffling to me, John, is.
47:40
Speaker 8: We have decided that bars and restaurants and gyms and
47:44
Speaker 8: tattoo parlors opening are more important than schools opening. And
47:50
Speaker 8: I just don't understand how in good conscience we make
47:54
Speaker 8: that decision as a country. I work in the international
47:56
Speaker 8: education space as well. In other countries, people are prioritizing
48:01
Speaker 8: getting schools open because it's critical to your, not just
48:05
Speaker 8: short-term economy, but to your long-term economy as well. And so,
48:08
Speaker 8: you know, I hope if I was secretary of education
48:11
Speaker 8: that I would be working for a president who I
48:13
Speaker 8: didn't have to explain that to. That, in fact, our
48:16
Speaker 8: number one priority would be getting schools open, not just
48:19
Speaker 8: getting schools open. And this is I mean, I will
48:22
Speaker 8: tell you, I have experience in this.
48:24
Speaker 3: Right.
48:25
Speaker 8: I was chancellor of D.C. public schools when D.C. public
48:28
Speaker 8: schools was and still is under mayoral control. We were
48:32
Speaker 8: no longer governed by an elected school board. We reported
48:36
Speaker 8: directly to the mayor. And we were able to turn
48:40
Speaker 8: that district around in part because we reported directly to
48:43
Speaker 8: the mayor. I was able to go to the mayor
48:46
Speaker 8: and say anything from, I need help with buildings, I
48:50
Speaker 8: need help with nurses, I need help with whatever. And
48:53
Speaker 8: the mayor would deploy the city's resources to schools first.
48:57
Speaker 8: The mayor took the architect who was designing the baseball stadium, right,
49:02
Speaker 8: which is a boogajazillion dollar project, right, and said, the
49:07
Speaker 8: baseball stadium is not more important than schools. This guy
49:11
Speaker 8: is crushing it on the baseball stadium. May he rest
49:13
Speaker 8: in peace, Alan Liu. I'm taking him off the baseball
49:16
Speaker 8: stadium because we should be crushing it in schools. I
49:19
Speaker 8: want the Department of Health to help Kaya think about
49:22
Speaker 8: how we provide health services in our schools. I want
49:25
Speaker 8: the Department of Sanitation to go pick up the garbage
49:27
Speaker 8: here so they don't have to worry about that. I
49:29
Speaker 8: want them to work on teaching and learning. And the mayor,
49:32
Speaker 8: I worked for three consecutive mayors, And each one of
49:36
Speaker 8: those three mayors prioritized schools in ways that had never
49:40
Speaker 8: happened before. And so we were able to turn around
49:43
Speaker 8: what was the lowest performing urban school district in the country,
49:46
Speaker 8: in part because the executive, just like the president, should
49:50
Speaker 8: prioritize schools and put the city's resources the same way
49:55
Speaker 8: we should be putting the country's resources against schools as
49:58
Speaker 8: the number one priority.
50:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's heartbreaking because, you know, The president refuses to
50:05
Speaker 4: wear a mask. There are stories now that he may
50:06
Speaker 4: wear a mask. We have a secretary of education completely
50:08
Speaker 4: disconnected from these issues. And, you know, there's all these
50:11
Speaker 4: videos of, you know, people refusing to wear masks, this
50:14
Speaker 4: kind of like churn of this political battle.
50:16
Speaker 2: It's July.
50:17
Speaker 4: There's still two months till school. If we had an
50:19
Speaker 4: actual president, an actual secretary of education saying, hey, America,
50:23
Speaker 4: we have two months to do everything we can to
50:27
Speaker 4: get our kids back in school. We have two months
50:30
Speaker 4: to save the fall. Like that could be a really
50:32
Speaker 4: an organizing, it could be an optimistic fight, something that,
50:36
Speaker 4: masks aren't just about stopping something, right? It's something that
50:38
Speaker 4: could help us protect ourselves, can protect our kids.
50:41
Speaker 2: It makes me crazy. I don't even have a question.
50:43
Speaker 2: I'm just enraged. I'm enraged. I'm enraged about it. I'm
50:48
Speaker 2: enraged with you, John.
50:50
Speaker 8: One though, I will say hats off to governors and
50:53
Speaker 8: mayors who are trying to figure it out absent the
50:58
Speaker 8: federal leadership role that could be happening right now. But
51:02
Speaker 8: I wanna say that it's not just about what the
51:05
Speaker 8: feds are and aren't doing. Like this is actually a,
51:10
Speaker 8: all of us are responsible for this. And I think
51:13
Speaker 8: often about something that Arne Duncan, our former secretary of education,
51:18
Speaker 8: once said that really made me stop in my tracks
51:22
Speaker 8: and made me evaluate what we as Americans really think
51:25
Speaker 8: about our young people. And he said, if we didn't
51:28
Speaker 8: change gun control laws after Sandy Hook, like that taught
51:33
Speaker 8: me that we didn't care about America's kids. He will say,
51:37
Speaker 8: I thought America didn't care about black and brown kids
51:40
Speaker 8: because as long as those were the kids who were
51:42
Speaker 8: getting killed Right. Like nobody seemed to want to do anything.
51:46
Speaker 8: But when we didn't do anything after white kids in
51:49
Speaker 8: Connecticut were shot down, that made me very clear that
51:52
Speaker 8: we don't care about our children in America. And every
51:56
Speaker 8: time he says that, it pierces me to my heart because.
51:59
Speaker 8: We are making that same exact, not just the feds,
52:03
Speaker 8: all of us. Why aren't citizens, you know, demanding in
52:07
Speaker 8: the streets that we make sure, I mean, the same
52:10
Speaker 8: way that in wartime, we tell companies, we need you
52:14
Speaker 8: to do something different. We need you to make this
52:16
Speaker 8: or do that or whatever. Why aren't we marshalling? Why
52:19
Speaker 8: aren't we telling everybody? We need you to do something
52:21
Speaker 8: different to make sure that these schools can accommodate as
52:24
Speaker 8: many young people as possible. and that they're doing it
52:26
Speaker 8: safely and that teachers are safe and whatnot. We have
52:29
Speaker 8: to reckon with who we are as Americans and what
52:32
Speaker 8: we believe about our young people.
52:35
Speaker 4: So thank you for bringing it back to an action-oriented
52:39
Speaker 4: and not just me lamenting situation. So you've run a district,
52:45
Speaker 4: you're involved in these plans. I think a lot of
52:47
Speaker 4: people feel a little bit hopeless, right? They don't know
52:50
Speaker 4: what to do. They feel this coming. Some have kids
52:52
Speaker 4: and they're worried about their kids and trying to figure
52:54
Speaker 4: it out. Personally, some don't, but are concerned. What should
52:57
Speaker 4: people hearing this, like if they want to do whatever
52:59
Speaker 4: they can now in the next few months to make
53:01
Speaker 4: sure that the schools in their area are safe, that
53:03
Speaker 4: they have the plans in place, what would you urge
53:05
Speaker 4: people to be doing?
53:07
Speaker 8: I would urge people to talk to their elected officials, right?
53:11
Speaker 8: Local elected officials and statewide elected officials have the opportunity
53:16
Speaker 8: to bring whatever resources that they have to bear against
53:20
Speaker 8: this school problem. And I think in lots of places
53:22
Speaker 8: that is happening. I do think that as media is
53:28
Speaker 8: interviewing people, we're talking about all kinds of things in
53:31
Speaker 8: the same way that every time we ask some silly question,
53:34
Speaker 8: we should be asking, why haven't you arrested the police
53:37
Speaker 8: who shot Breonna Taylor? We should also be asking, what
53:41
Speaker 8: are you doing to make sure that more and more
53:42
Speaker 8: young people can go back to school in a safe way?
53:45
Speaker 8: It is just a drumbeat that we as citizens have
53:48
Speaker 8: got to be prioritizing everywhere we go. If you're going
53:51
Speaker 8: to tweet something, tweet about what we need to do
53:53
Speaker 8: to reopen schools, what we need to do to keep
53:56
Speaker 8: teachers safe, what we need to do to keep kids safe,
53:59
Speaker 8: what we need to do to keep parents safe. That
54:01
Speaker 8: is the question that we should be. It should be
54:03
Speaker 8: a cacophony where there's not room to answer any other
54:07
Speaker 8: question but that one.
54:09
Speaker 2: Kaya Henderson, thank you so much. for being here.
54:12
Speaker 4: There's so many other things we should be talking about,
54:14
Speaker 4: but I really, you know, there's so many other important
54:16
Speaker 4: issues around education.
54:17
Speaker 8: No, we should be talking about this.
54:19
Speaker 4: But I wanted to focus on this because, you know,
54:21
Speaker 4: it genuinely makes me really upset because I feel like this,
54:26
Speaker 4: it's a historic crisis. And, you know, we may get
54:28
Speaker 4: out of the coronavirus in a year, but the kids
54:31
Speaker 4: who don't get the education now will not, they will not,
54:33
Speaker 4: they will be permanently punished by our failure. And I
54:36
Speaker 4: just want to make sure that we keep our attention
54:38
Speaker 4: on that.
54:39
Speaker 8: Thank you, John.
54:40
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right.
54:45
Speaker 1: Thanks to Kaya for joining us today. And we'll talk
54:48
Speaker 1: to you guys later.
54:49
Speaker 2: Bye, everybody.
54:53
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
54:56
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
55:00
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
55:03
Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
55:07
Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support, and to
55:10
Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
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Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
55:17
Speaker 1: every week.