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"99 days to the election (with Mehdi Hasan)." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. It
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: has been a very exciting week for us here at
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media. John and Emily Favreau welcomed a new baby boy,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Charlie Favreau, into the world, and we are just overjoyed
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: for them. Hannah and I quickly stopped by their place
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: when they got home from the hospital. We dropped off Leo,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: their pup. We got to see Charlie from an appropriately
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: distanced vantage point, and so I can confirm the early
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: news reports from over the weekend that Charlie is, in fact, adorable,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and we can't wait to fill his sweet little brain
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: with our liberal propaganda. But For the next week or so,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: John is going to take a little bit of time
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: off to change diapers and hang with Charlie instead of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: hate reading Twitter. So he is not on the pod today.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And now if you're friends with the Favreau family, really
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: any of them, you know that they don't just arrive
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: on time. They get there early. Charlie is no exception.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: He arrived a couple of weeks before his due date,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: which is wonderful because he is happy and healthy and
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a perfect baby boy. And who does not want that
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: in your life as soon as possible? But It also
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: means that Love It is out this week for a
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: long planned bit of rest to recharge. So I am
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: your sole Monday pod representative today. Now, don't you even
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: consider skipping this episode. We have less than 100 days
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: until the election. We got to stay focused. There's a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of important stuff going on right now. And we
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: are thrilled to have an incredible guest co-host who you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: will love. His name is Mehdi Hassan. Mehdi is a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: columnist for The Intercept. He's the host of the Deconstructed
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: podcast and the presenter. on the Al Jazeera English shows
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Head to Head and Upfront. I guarantee you that you
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: have seen clips of his interviews before. He is known
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: for dogged, unrelenting questioning to the point where you often wonder, like,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: why on earth did this person agree to do Mehdi's show?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Did they not Google him first? But frankly, that's what
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I love about Mehdi. It doesn't matter if we're talking
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: about Trump or Obama or the Democratic Party. He pulls
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: no punches. He suffers no fools. And I promise you
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: will love hearing from him. So here's what we're going
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to cover today. We're going to talk about the state
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of the race now that we have less than 100
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: days to go. We're going to talk about how COVID
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: has reached deep into the White House and finally forced
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Trump to make major changes to his campaign. We'll get
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: into the latest coronavirus relief negotiations in Congress, how Trump
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: went from calling Joe Biden soft on China as his
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: strategy to like the mayor of Antifa, the law and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: order strategy and the politics of fascism that seems to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: be emerging, and some great advice from The Washington Post
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and from Mehdi about how we can learn from the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: mistakes in coverage of 2016 and get it right in 2020.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, you'll hear an interview that Jon
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Favreau recorded with Mother Jones' Ari Berman about voting during
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the pandemic, now that we are so close to election day.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Two quick things before we get to the news. First,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: don't miss Love It or Leave It this week. Love
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: It talked to Eric Holthaus about the best case climate
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: scenario and Guy Branum came on for the return of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: OK Stop, so you know that will be funny. And
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: then yesterday, we kicked off our Every Last Vote Week
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of Action to fight back and make sure that every
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: last vote is counted. Over this week, we're going to
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: be asking you guys to volunteer, to donate where you can,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and then tomorrow specifically to request your vote by mail ballot.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow is National Vote by Mail Day. I didn't get
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: you anything either. Don't worry about it. But if you
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: head to votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote, you can request your ballot
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: now and get it done early. While you're there, you
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: can sign up to text young voters in swing states.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You can tell them to do the same. This election
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: is going to come down to every last vote and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: we cannot afford to lose a single one. We got
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to work hard. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash every last vote
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to find out all the ways you can help. And
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: thank you in advance for everything you're doing. Okay, let's
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: get to the news with Mehdi. Mehdi Hassan, so great
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: to have you in the show. Great to see you
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: from a Zoom distance.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Safely, safely. Zoom social distancing.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, my friend, we have 100 days until the election,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and I bet me saying that out loud made a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: bunch of people want to throw up. But to them,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I say, think back 1,000 years ago to Trump's inauguration
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and how you would have felt that moment to be
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: just a few months away from sending this guy packing.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So this is exciting stuff. It's a time for all
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of us to get to work. So, Mehdi, I thought
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: we could start with just a quick snapshot of the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: state of the race. So, The 538 polling average has
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Biden up eight points. That's obviously quite good. Trump's approval
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: rating is about 40% approved, 56% disapproved. That is quite bad.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Biden's numbers in key swing states are strong too. Fox News,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I love that, have Biden up in polls. Nine points. Yeah,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Trump's favorite poll is Biden up nine points in Michigan,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: 13 points in Minnesota, 11 in Pennsylvania. Other polls have
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Biden winning in Florida by as much as 13. NBC
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: has him up five in Arizona. So look, that's obviously good,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: but that's a snapshot in time. The question is why?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Why is Biden up? What's driving these numbers? And the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: polling experts say the answer is COVID. That Fox News
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: poll we mentioned, 29% of respondents said COVID is the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: most important issue facing the country. 15% said the economy.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: That's not normal, right? Usually the economy drives these elections.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And Harry Enten from CNN argues that in these rare
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: instances when a non-economic issue is driving the campaign, usually
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the candidate who's best seen as able to handle that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: problem wins. So my question is, Betty, do you agree
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: with that? Is this a COVID election and the rest
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: is noise?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's partly a COVID election. It would be
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: mad to say otherwise. I mean, I do push back,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: and I know you have on the show before as well,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: against this idea of it's COVID versus the economy, even
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: in polling terms. For me, the economy is COVID. COVID
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: is the economy. There is no growth. There is no
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: employment issues without dealing with the coronavirus. So I always
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: find this kind of weird dichotomy that people are trying
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: to present this stark choice. Do you think the COVID-19
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: is important or do you think the economy is important?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I want 40 million Americans or whatever it is to
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: get their jobs back, which means you have to tackle
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: the pandemic. So I don't buy for a start the
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: way it's framed by pollsters or by commentators. But clearly,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: COVID is at the front of people's minds, especially now
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: this summer with it kind of raging back in some
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: of these Sunbelt states, et cetera. But even without COVID,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: let's be clear, Donald Trump is a historically unpopular president.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Whichever Democrat was going to take him on this year,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: even if it wasn't Joe Biden, even if there was
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: no pandemic, would have been in a very good position
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: to take him down. And that's just a reality. I
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: think what we did on the left is we kind
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: of overcompensated. We didn't see him coming in 2016. Most
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: of us, not all of us, there were the Keith
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Ellisons and Michael Moores who said he could win. But
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: many of us, myself included, thought he wouldn't win, he
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: couldn't win. And I think there was a kind of
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: PTSD off the back of that. And we overcompensated. We
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: went from saying he's a joke who can't win to
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: saying he can't be beaten. Even now, friends of mine,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: apolitical friends of mine, people who are not involved in journalism, media, politics,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: just average Joe, you talk to them about elections, they're like,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Trump's won. He's going to get reelected, especially in minority communities.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: You know, in Muslim circles, brown circles that I've been,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: there's a real defeatism, like, oh, he's going to win again.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: And I kind of say, that's not true, actually. The
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: evidence suggests he's more likely to lose than win. That
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean he can't win. Of course he can win.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Anything's possible, and the Republicans are the masters of cheating.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: But when you look at polling, he's historically unpopular. I
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: think only Harry Truman comes even close to him in
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: terms of unpopularity as a sitting president going for reelection.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: And he was still 10 points more popular than Trump
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: and managed to get reelected in 1948. I think he's
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: had a consistent, what? What's this? 40%, 38%, 42%? Yeah,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: it's about.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: A ceiling, yeah.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Unless you're Rasmussen, he can't break 40 on any particular
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: given day. So that's unheard of as well for most presidents.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: He looks in a very weak position. Why? Partly coronavirus.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: partly his own historic unpopularity and incompetence, partly Joe Biden.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I was a critic of Joe Biden. I didn't want
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: him to be the Democratic presidential nominee. But two things
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: happened with Joe Biden that's helped. Number one, he does
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: get to kind of not have to have a high
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: profile and do rallies and speak a lot because the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: more Joe Biden speaks, the more mistakes he makes. So
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: it's great that he isn't actually doing that much. And
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Trump is kind of doing all the speaking and shooting
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: himself in the foot. That's a good thing that it's
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: not a conventional campaign. I think that's definitely good for
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden. And the second issue with Biden is even
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: those of us who were opposed to Biden always knew
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: that he had a huge advantage, one that we don't like,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: but it's just the world we live in, which is
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: he's an old white guy. And an old white guy
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: has automatic advantages in a race against Donald Trump and
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party. Because the Republican Party playbook, Tommy, as
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: we know, as you and I have discussed on our
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: shows many a time, is racism, sexism. Black guy, racism. Woman, sexism.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: What do you do when it's not a black guy
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: or a woman? They have nothing left in their playbook.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: They are turning the pages. They don't know where to go. Oh,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: he's a Marxist. That doesn't work. Nobody believes Joe Biden
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: is a Marxist. So, you know, they really, oh, he's
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: got dementia. Well, who else has dementia? You know, person, woman, man, camera, TV. See,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I can be president. So their playbook doesn't work. And
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I think that's helped Biden hugely. I think the Republicans
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: are the ones who are on the defensive. They're the
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: ones flailing right now with no real strategy come November
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: and a completely insane person in the White House making
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: everything worse for them.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I do worry. If COVID hadn't happened with
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a strong economy, I think this would have been.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: A tough race.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: But I have the PTSD you're talking about. And one
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: way I'm trying to work around it is to look
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: at governors. So states like Arizona, Texas, Florida that you mentioned,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: they didn't take COVID seriously. They're really struggling now. Their governors,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Doug Ducey, Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, their approval ratings have
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: just tanked. And meanwhile, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: took a ton of heat from Trump because he wouldn't
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: let the Republican convention happen in Charlotte with no social distancing,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: is now up 20 points in his campaign as approval.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: 59%.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Even Gavin Newsom, Democrat in California, and California is one
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: of those states, is one of the few non-Republican-led states
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: that's doing really, really, really badly right now. Even his
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: poll ratings haven't tanked like Ron DeSantis has because while
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: California is doing badly, it's clear that the governor is
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: not in la-la land, is not denying it, is not
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: denying reality. I think even Republicans in Florida have woken
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: up to the fact that they have a governor who
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: is denying reality. And you see that in the polling.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: His approval ratings are cratering. Even Republicans in Florida in
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: big numbers are starting to support things like a mask mandate.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And I think that's really an interesting development.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I share your frustration with this idiotic political
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: debate about the economy or COVID. It's both. And that's
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the only way we're going to save lives. Now, look,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I think for listeners who heard our bullishness on this windup,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a lot can happen between now and Election Day. We
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: know that. Some history, some context that will humble me.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Like at this point in 2016, WikiLeaks hadn't dumped the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Podesta emails. The Comey letter was months away. At this
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: point in 2008, Lehman Brothers was about a month and
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: a half away from bankruptcy. In 1998 at this time,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Dukakis was winning by double digits. The infamous tank photo
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: had not yet happened. So lots of time, right?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And we live in a crazier time than any of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: those election years where the news agenda changes by the hour,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: let alone the day. So I'm not complacent at all.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Anything could happen in the next 99, 98 days, definitely. And,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: you know, if you had told me six months ago
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the biggest story of the year would be a pandemic.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't have known that. There was no coronavirus in January, mid-January,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: late January. If you had told me during the coronavirus
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: height in March that actually coronavirus would be taken over
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: in the news agenda by anti-racism protests, George Floyd, we
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: didn't see that coming either. So anything could happen. What
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I worry most about, Tommy, and I know you'll share
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: my worry here, is a foreign war. Could the October
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: surprise be something to do with Iran? We're not following
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the Iranian crisis, which is ongoing in the back of
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: our you know, the stuff going on there in terms
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: of a flashpoint. So anything could happen, unfortunately. All I'm
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: saying is, as of today, Joe Biden's in a very
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: strong position. If the election were held today, it would
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: be a landslide victory. And he's not Hillary Clinton, rightly
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: or wrongly. Hillary Clinton faced unfair misogyny. But the reality
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: is Biden is more liked than Hillary. And he's seen
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: as more trustworthy. I'm not saying that's right or wrong,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: but he's seen as more trustworthy than Hillary. And that's,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: you know, that wasn't the case in the summer of 2016.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I share your anxiety about Iran. Some might argue we
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: are or someone is engaged in a low wage war
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: with Iran because things keep exploding every couple of days. But,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you know, that's a bigger topic. But one big thing
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: ahead of us, Mehdi, is the VP selection. You've been
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: making the case that the state of the race now,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Biden's strength means he should pick Elizabeth Warren.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Why is that?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Like, what's the pitch for Warren, do you think, right now?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I think the pitch for Warren is very straightforward. It's
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: three very simple points. Number one, she is best prepared
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: to be president on day one. Biden says that's his
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: number one criterion. I agree with him. That should be
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: the number one criterion. When you pick a VP who's
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: a heartbeat away from the presidency and the president himself
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: may have heart issues, head issues, all sorts of issues.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: at some point, yes, you want someone who can take
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: over a moment's notice and can do the job. That
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: person is undoubtedly Elizabeth Warren. You know, Biden's people are
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: talking about, you know, Rooseveltian rhetoric. He's going to be
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: another FDR. Yeah, I believe that when I see it.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: But there is a person who can turn Rooseveltian rhetoric
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: into reality. That's Elizabeth Warren. So that person should be
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: there in the White House at the side of Biden,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: ready to take over at a moment's notice, execute a
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: clear vision. Number two, she would boost him in the polls.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: You want to go back to what we were just
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: talking about. If you are still worried about Biden in
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: some of those swing states, If you look at the
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: polling done by YouGov for Data for Progress, makes it
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: very clear that amongst persuadable voters who still haven't made
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: up their minds on Biden in battleground states, Warren is
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: the candidate that would help them make up their mind.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Warren would do most to get them on board. a
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Biden nomination. That's what the polling shows more than any
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: other candidate. And finally, yes, there's this pressure for a
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: person of color to be on the ticket. I get that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I'm a person of color. I hate all white tickets.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris amongst the black women being considered would probably
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: be the best bet if you were going down that road.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: But on the other hand, I believe that Elizabeth Warren
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: would be best in terms of policies for minority communities.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: And black voters say they prefer Warren to any other candidate,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: including Kamala Harris. That's what the polling shows. Don't shoot
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: the messengers.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Those are good relevant data points. Two thoughts in response. One,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I have no idea who Biden's going to pick, but
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I do think that the worst things are going to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: get for Trump, the more likely it will be that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: he jettisons Mike Pence to try to shake things up
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and swap out someone new on the ticket. So let's
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: get that rumor going. Let's get that one over to
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Pence's house. Two, I thought it was interesting to wake
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: up this morning and see a report in Politico about
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and her VP prospects who you just mentioned.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And the gist is that many in Biden's camp think
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that on paper, she's the most qualified. She's the obvious choice.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: But some, specifically Senator Chris Dodd, former Connecticut senator who's
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: on the VP search committee, he questions her loyalty to Biden.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: This all dates back to that first debate in 2019
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: when Kamala Harris hammered Biden on the issue of busing
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and school integration. And it was a tough night.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: The quotes on that piece are awful about, you know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: she should be more apologetic. She should be more contrite
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: type language from Chris Dodd. It's not going to help
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Biden at all. This idea, you know, Biden's already associated
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: with our old white boys club. And, you know, I
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: have a lot of criticism of Kamala Harris. I get
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: attacked by the K-Hive all the time for daring to
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: bring up her prosecutorial record in California, which I think
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: is bad and I think will hurt her in the
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: long term. But, you know, if you want to reject
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris, reject her on the substance. Don't reject her
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: on bullshit grounds like this. And don't let Chris Dodd
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: be the one. who rejects Kamala Harris, especially in this
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: moment of time. Chris Dodd, who's got all sorts of issues,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Me Too issues that we probably don't have time to
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: get into. He's got all sorts of Wall Street issues
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: that we don't have time to get into. He's the
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: last person who should be telling Joe Biden who should
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: be the vice presidential candidate. But unfortunately, given Biden's kind
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: of the people around him and his own sensibilities, that
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: is what it's going to come down to. It's not
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: going to come down to policy. He said it himself, Biden.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: He said, you know, someone he gels with. You worked
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: for Obama. Biden said, you know, had this great relationship
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: with Barack. He wants that chemistry again that he believes
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: he had with Barack Obama, which again causes problems for
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: people like Elizabeth Warren, who has a long history of
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: clashing with Biden, which is why if I was a
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: betting man, I would say he probably won't pick Elizabeth Warren, sadly,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: because he's clashed with her far too many times. Although
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: apparently the reporting suggests that him and Warren are now
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: speaking once every seven to 10 days, and she raised
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: more money for him than any other person other than
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama. So maybe that will influence him. Fingers crossed
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: that that will influence him. But yeah, it's between Warren
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: and Kamala Harris. Those are the two most qualified and
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: obvious candidates. I think if he went anywhere else, that
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: would be weird. And I'd love to see the reasoning
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: for it.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, time will tell. And yeah, I too found it
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: interesting to hear that Warren and Biden are talking that often.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I also, you know, that political story I mentioned about
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, I roll my eyes at anything that quotes
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of donors. That's a good rule of
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: thumb in politics.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: But one last quick thing on the VP thing. We
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: obsess over the role of a vice presidential candidate in
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: an election. All the data shows the vice presidential picks
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: don't really influence elections. What we should more be worried
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: about is Joe Biden is going to be almost certainly
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: a one term president. You know, God bless his health.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: He lasts a full four years. Maybe he doesn't.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: He's old.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: He's got health issues. Anyone like that. And I would
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: say this if Bernie Sanders was a candidate, too. You
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: need to have a vice president who's ready to step
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: into the breach and take over. So you're really not
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: just picking a VP this time. You are picking a
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: president in waiting. And therefore, there should be much more
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: consideration given to the policy record, the substance, the experience.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: not just how this will play in November.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Matty, how dare you bring substance into this conversation? I'm
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: offended by that. No, I totally agree with you. The
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: stakes are higher than ever in a lot of ways
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: because of that, the role that person will fill. Okay,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: so this is the coronavirus election. Let's talk about it
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: for a minute. As of this morning, we are just
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: under 4.3 million confirmed cases in the US, nearly 150,000 deaths. Today,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: we learned that Robert O'Brien, Trump's national security advisor, has
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the coronavirus. So Matty, let's linger on this news for
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: a minute. According to CNN, And to see staffers, people
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: who work for O'Brien, learned that he has COVID from
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: news reports. O'Brien had just gotten back from meetings in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Europe with the French, British, and German officials. So good
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of him to spread this thing around there. The White
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: House is trying to claim that there's no risk to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the president or VP. I don't believe them for a second.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: You know, Trump's valet got it. His son's girlfriend got it.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Secret service agents got it. Staffers got it. Now his
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: national security advisor got it. How the hell has Trump
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: avoided getting this thing? I don't get it.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: It is a great question. It's a question everyone is asking. Everyone,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: even apolitical people, the first question is, how has he
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: dodged it? Remember when Bolsonaro and his team came to
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: visit Trump right at the beginning? They all tested positive.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: How come Trump doesn't have it? This guy doesn't wear
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: a mask. He shakes hands. And we know he gets
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: everyone tested who comes near him. The hypocrisy. This is
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: a guy who says testing is overrated. And yet anyone
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: who comes near him has to be tested. He himself,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: according to his press secretary, gets tested multiple times a day.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: The hypocrisy of our, you know, we talk about the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: word elitist. I mean, that's the definition of elite. Testing
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: for me, not for you. So he protects himself in
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: that way. But yes, even then, how has it not
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: crept through to him? I don't know. There's a theory
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: on Twitter amongst many that he did have it and
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: they covered it up. I don't know. I can't comment
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: on such things, but it is bizarre. And this whole
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Robert O'Brien thing, you know, that story about him getting it,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: but then going home last week and not telling the
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: NSC staffers about it and then finding out from the news,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: it's yet another reminder that he, like everyone else who
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: works in this White House, is a really shitty person, right?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: In January 2017, I think I was one of the
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: first columnists to describe this administration as a kakistocracy, ruled
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: by the worst people. And every time there's a crisis,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: there's a reminder. So instead of focusing on Robert, I
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: want to think, I want to be a good person
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: and think Robert O'Brien, I disagree with him. I don't
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: like him. He carries water for a fascist, but wish
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: him well with his health. But I can't do that,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: because the first thing I think is, what a piece
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: of shit. He screwed over his own staff, who he
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: may have infected, who don't get tested multiple times a
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: day like the president. So that's what, I mean, they're
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: just horrible, horrible people. And yes, I don't know how
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Trump's avoided it. He's risked the lives of so many
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: people in Tulsa. His Secret Service agents tested positive. Organizers
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: on the day tested positive. And even now in Florida
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: with the convention that was supposed to happen until very recently,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: he was going to risk the lives of all those
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: people because he's a sociopath who doesn't care about human
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: life and would happily sacrifice thousands of his own voters
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: in order to get a good photo op.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm glad you're at the convention because that's what
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about next. I just Look, if
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor isn't meeting with the president several
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: times a day, that is very weird. There are things
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: they should be talking about. We're in wars right now. Two,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: if that idiot went to Europe and infected Angela Merkel,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to lose my shit.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Is that an act of war?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Stay away from her. Yeah, it should be an act
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: of war. Here we go.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Well, they claim the Chinese, you know, if you go
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: on the batshit far-right conspiracy circuit, their claim is that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: China deliberately infected the world, let people leave China knowingly
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: that they could transmit the virus. Well, the Trump administration
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: is guilty of the same thing, both in Oklahoma, both
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: in terms of deporting people with COVID-19 to Guatemala, who
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: they knew had it, both in terms of Robert O'Brien
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: going to Europe, knowing he might have it and spreading it.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: The irresponsibility of these people, not just Trump, I mean,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: it's always the enablers around him. Robert O'Brien was until
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: very recently a mainstream Republican, not a kind of crazy
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: MAGA type. And yet, look, he behaves in the same way.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the disrespect, the stupidity. Okay, let's talk about the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: convention because I think it's hard to overstate what a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: disaster this process has been. The Republicans first raised and
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: spent around $ 38 million to set up their convention in Charlotte,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, before deciding they had to move it to Florida.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So that money is gone. It is lit on fire.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It has been burned. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, who
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: suffers from a condition we call resting dumbface, told Trump
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that it would be no problem to host the event
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in Florida. He promised them he wouldn't make them wear
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: masks or social distance. And now DeSantis' leadership is a
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: big reason why cases are exploding in Florida, which gets
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: us to last week. Trump abruptly announced that the convention
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: was canceled. He tried to portray that decision as being
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: about safety, but the reality is that officials in Jacksonville
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: didn't want them there. The attendees were going to have
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to book hotel rooms and vendors and lose more money.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So this was more about logistics. Matty, the bigger question
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I have is, do we think finally canceling the convention
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: hurts Trump? Did he have an advantage if he was
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: to have a convention and Biden didn't?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I think it hurts him in one central way, which
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: is the only thing he's ever been good at, and
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I use good in a very loose sense, is the rallies,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: is the showmanship, is the television events. You know, we
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: all know that he was certainly helped by CNN running
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: hours of uncritical, uninterrupted live coverage of his rallies in
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: 2015 and 2016. Even Zucker's kind of admitted they shouldn't
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: have done that. And this time round, that's what his
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: plan was to do again, was to turn up to rallies.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: say all sorts of shit, get his base worked up,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: dominate the news agenda, because we know Donald Trump is
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: the number one news assignment editor in America. He can
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: decide the day's news headlines in a way that no
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: one else can. No previous president has ever had that
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: kind of grip over the daily news agenda, simply by
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: saying mad shit at events like an RNC convention or
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: a Tulsa rally. And I think that has hurt him.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: And that's why he was so hell-bent with doing it,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: because he knew he needed it as one kind of
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: last gasp effort reviving what looks like a failing campaign.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: They were so desperate, Tommy. Did you see the story
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: in the Washington Post that at one point RNC officials
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: told city officials, could they put attendees on a cruise ship?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: on a fucking cruise ship. I mean, this is where
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the virus began for a lot of Americans back in
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: February and March, on cruise ships. I mean, imagine the dumbness, cacistocracy,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: ruled by the worst people, that we're going to have
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: a convention. We're not just going to endanger you in
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: an indoor hall or an outdoor hall or no mask.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: We're going to ask you to go on a ship.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Whose idea was that? I mean, absurd. So the levels
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: of absurdity, the levels of desperation. By the way, did
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: you also see the Trump quote that he gave when
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: he said he's canceling the keynote in Jacksonville? He said,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: and I quote, I've got it here. I could see
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the media saying, oh, this is very unsafe. I don't
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: want to be in that position. The media saying it.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: So even when he's canceling it, he won't say that
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: he's not thinking it's unsafe. It's the media would accuse
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: him falsely of it being unsafe. So even at the
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: very moment he's doing something semi-responsible, as usual, he shoots
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: himself in the foot by revealing it. He's a complete fraud,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: and he's not actually taking it seriously. And another important
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: quote that all of your listeners and viewers should really
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: take on board, the damning quote of all, which should
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: be in every Democratic ad between now and November. David Carney,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: who is not a flaming liberal, advisor to Texas Governor
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Greg Abbott, said, and I quote, the president got bored
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: with it. it being COVID-19. The president got bored with it,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: so the Texas governor's staff had to just talk to
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Mike Pence because Trump didn't want to talk to him
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: anymore about what was happening in Texas. For me, that
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: is the most damning and clear. I mean, we all
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: know it to be true, but to hear it from
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the mouth of a loyal Texas Republican is interesting.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I imagine even casual observers will look
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: at what's happening and think this has just been incredibly
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: mismanaged and why on earth would we give this guy
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a shot at managing the country again? I mean, look,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: it's still fascinating. Here we are, weeks away. It sounds
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: like the Republicans are still going to kick their thing
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: off in Charlotte. Trump will still give some keynote at
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: some point, but the rest is a mess. I saw
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: a detail in some of the reporting about the TikTok
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and how they came to this decision is that the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: White House plans to adapt to not having a convention
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and sort of keep the media spotlight on him by saying, look,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: our persuadable voters watch morning network TV shows. So Trump
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: will be out on more of those I don't know
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that that's a good idea because things go badly when
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: he leaves his little safe space.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. So just without contradicting what I said earlier, while
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: he's good at the rallies and why they've helped him
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: in the past, when it comes particularly to the coronavirus,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: he has been so bad, so self-destructive, so self-defeating. If
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: he just shut his mouth, he would have a better,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: you know, a smaller deficit in the polls with Joe Biden.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: That's the advantage right now. Biden's not saying as much.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Trump's saying loads. Bringing back the briefing last week, madness.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Why would any advisor allow Donald Trump to go to
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: get one good day's headlines from idiot journalists saying change
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: in tone? It's not worth it. The mad shit he's
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: going to say between now and November. We know he
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: can't help himself. Even if he has half a good day,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: it'll be cancelled out by seven days of madness. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: doing any kind of rally, doing any kind of free-flowing...
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: You remember how many weeks ago was Rampgate? Do you
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: remember that, where he did a rally? One of those rallies?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: He just spent 15 minutes, 15 minutes of a live
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: rally talking about how it was a slick ramp, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: he had shiny shoes, and he had to... It was
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: just batshit crazy. You want to show that to the world,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to America?
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: In the run up to an election, I just think, great,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: bring it on. I think he's going to just every
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: time he runs his mouth, it's painful to watch. But
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: it's actually finally seeming to be self-destructive with suburban women,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: with independent voters, et cetera, et cetera.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. No, look, the details of the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Democratic side are starting to leak out today. Stephanie Cutter,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a Democratic strategist in charge of producing the Democrats event.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: says it's basically entirely virtual. They rolled out some themes.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: But my question, Matty, like long gone are the days
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of broker convention and real news happening at these things.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It is scripted events. It's scripted speakers. Some of them
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: are newsworthy, right? Today is the 16th anniversary of Obama's
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: 2004 convention speech, which was a hell of a night
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: for me and launched his political career. Do you think
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that these virtual events can or should get the same
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: amount of coverage this year? And maybe more importantly, Do
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: we cover conventions in a way that's fundamentally stupid here
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: in the US?
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I think we cover all conventions, conferences. I mean, I've
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: covered British party politics before I moved to the US
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: in 2015. I went to the annual Labour Party, Conservative
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Party conference in the UK. They do it every year there.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Everyone knew the whole thing was ridiculous. It was just
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: an excuse for journalists to get drunk and politicians to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: get drunk and some people to sleep together. And I
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: came to the US and I went to the 2016 conventions.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I went to RNC, DNC. It's just Yeah, it's not substantive.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: We know that. It's not about substance. The speeches matter, obviously,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: on the night, especially with the new candidate unveiling them.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I alone can fix it. Remember that? That was his
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: classic fascist one line. That's when he first unveiled his
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: kind of fascist vision of America to the world. And
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I think, look, yeah, it's not going to make a
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: big deal whether it's remote or physical. It's just not.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: The reality is we have a pandemic killing a thousand
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: people a day in this country. we need to focus
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: on that. If people at the Democratic Convention can focus
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: on that and come up with some good ideas and
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: reminders that they are actually credible when it comes to
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: the issue in the way that the other side is not, fine,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: let's cover it. But otherwise, yeah, it doesn't really matter
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: to me whether it's Zoom or in person. I just
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: don't see that.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: As a big deal. Yeah, I mean, look, I've been
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: to a few conventions myself. Like, they can be fun.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: The parties can organize. It's good to hear from candidates directly.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It's good to hear from up-and-coming voices in the party.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But these things cost $ 60, $ 70, $ 80 million to pull off.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I think they are Probably the number one symbol of
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: how the US political process is too long, too expensive,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: too much of a spectacle.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And stage managed. You mentioned just that, broken conventions. 2020,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: 16 weeks ago, you and I would have been on
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: this podcast talking about, is there going to be a
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: broken convention? Bernie versus Biden. How quickly that went away.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Now we're talking about virtual conventions where Biden's already the nominee.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: He's been the nominee for weeks. It's all a formality.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Get on with it. Bring on November. Just get this
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: thing over.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Get up.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Agreed.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Two more quick things on COVID. So like, you know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the great thing about canceling your convention is you have
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: more time for sports and leisure. Trump played golf for
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the 280th time over the weekend, including a round with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Brett Favre. He played catch with Mariano Rivera at the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: White House last week, ostensibly to prepare to throw out
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the first pitch at Yankee Stadium in August, which he
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: then canceled. Many resistance Twitter people like me, we have
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: long raged about Trump's golf habit in the hypocrisy given
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: his attacks on Obama. To date, no one has given
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a shit in terms of the electorate Is that changing
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: because of the pandemic? Do you think these things are
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: more salient now when you see Trump and Brett Favre?
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I do. I do. And like you, I've been screaming
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: about the Gulf since day one. But the pandemic has
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: really brought it home in the way that I've tweeted
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: about this endlessly about the normalization of Trump's complete abdication
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: of responsibility. the way he just has made it normal
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: to turn up at his own properties he doesn't just
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: play golf he plays golf at his own property so
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: he makes money out of playing golf which is a
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: crucial point and how he's normalized it you know there's
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: a report study out a few weeks ago that he'd
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: spent a year of his presidency 365 days at his
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: properties playing golf or doing other things at his properties
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: of his own That got normalised. I accepted defeat. It's normalised.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Nothing to do about it. But I do think you
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: make an interesting point that during the virus period, yes,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: people lock down, unable to see loved ones, unable to
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: play sports, unable to relax with their friends, cancelling events,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: cancelling travel plans. Yet this guy who's tested multiple times
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a day, doesn't wear a mask, turns up like clockwork
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: at his properties every weekend. No matter the weather, no
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: matter what's happening in the political, you know, the thousand
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: people die five days. What was it on the weekend?
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Five straight days of 1000 people or more dead in America.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: This guy turns up with his ridiculous thumbs up next
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: to that guy next to the quarterback at his golf course.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, Tommy, you've worked in government. You worked. Would
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: it can any sane press person working for a politician say?
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: That's a good idea, Mr. President. Take that picture, tweet it. No,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: nobody would in any other normal climate for any other
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: normal politician, Republican or Democrat. He does this because he
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: gets away with it. Hopefully he's not getting away with it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: And what annoys me is he only won't get away
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: with it unless we all talk about it, but not
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: just us, but his political opponents. And, you know, the
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Lincoln Project has been doing these amazing attack ads. I'm
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: not a fan of all the people behind it, obviously,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: as someone on the left, but I don't believe that,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: you know, criticizing the ads is silly. The ads are amazing.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And I just don't understand why we don't have more
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: ads like that from Democrats. from the Pelosi's and Schumer's
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: and Biden's of this world. And Biden's done some good
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: ads I've seen, but I just want to see more
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of that. I do want to see people dying and
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Trump playing golf. Yes, I do believe that will be
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: salient in 2020.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. I think we'll get there.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: The other major thing happening over the weekend and right now, frankly,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: is the ongoing congressional negotiations over COVID relief. And we
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: got Senate Republicans want to cut the supplemental unemployment benefit
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: from $ 600 a week to $ 200 a week. until states
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: can create a system where they figure out how to
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: cap your benefit at 70% of your previous pay. It's
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: worth noting that Trump's own labor secretary had previously said
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: that creating a system like that is impossibly complex. It's
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: basically unworkable. And states are already having a hard time
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: managing the massive influx of people who are unemployed. McConnell
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: has also held bent on passing liability protections for businesses
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and schools. Of course. Mehdi, things are getting dire. Benefits
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: have expired, people are struggling, the negotiations are a mess.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: What do you think Pelosi should do here when offered
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: this skinny plan that is a half-assed benefit along with, say,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: liability protection for businesses?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: It's easy for me to say, but I would say
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: reject it. I know there's been an argument about rejection
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: since day one, since the first piece of legislation in March.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: And there was a debate then, and the argument from Democrats,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: which was a good argument, I'm not dismissing the argument,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: which was, people need help now. Now is not the
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: time to make a political point or grandstanding. Now is
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: the time to get them that help. Some of us said, fine.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Then it happened again. Number two, second piece of legislation,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: third piece of legislation. And I think AOC and others
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: have pointed out, how many times will we kick the
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: ball down the road? How many times do we say,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: you know what? Next time. Next time we'll take a stand.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: At what point do you say, you know what? We
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: cannot sign off on it. This is a disgrace. It's
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: an insult. People need proper help. not scraps from the
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: table while you support corporations and billionaires. And that only works,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: of course. I mean, it's a two-part strategy. You can
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: only reject something if you're then willing to go to
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: the country and fight like hell to say why you
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: rejected it and why everyone should be on the phone
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: and in the streets pushing back against that ridiculous legislation.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: The problem is most people, Tommy, you know, listeners to
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America and listeners of Deconstructed might be following
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: politics closely. Average Americans don't, right? The average American does
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: not watch the news, does not look at the content
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: of legislations. So they'll get the check, Trump's very clever, $ 1, 200
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: check with name, great. They hear about the $ 1, 200 check,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: and they're redoing that, surprise, surprise. But they don't maybe
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: know about the evictions if they're not a renter themselves,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: or even if they're a renter, they're not aware that
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: moratorium ended at the weekend, that the $ 600 ended at
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: the weekend. It's gone. The deadlines came and went. Mitch
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: McConnell took a break. The Senate went home last week, shamefully.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I say shamefully, but the man has no shame, so
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: it's really not shamefully. But the problem is that you
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: have to be able to fight, Tommy, and that requires
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: a different mindset, which I just don't believe Nancy Pelosi has.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I think she's too much of a compromiser. I've been
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: a critic of her leadership for a long time. It's
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: not the right leadership for the time we're in. You're
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: not just facing fascism and white nationalism. But yes, you're
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: facing a humanitarian crisis. That's the only word for it.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: We don't like to use that phrase because we apply
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: that to developing countries. But it's a humanitarian crisis when
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: people are losing their homes, losing their jobs, lining up
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: at food banks. And that requires a much stronger response.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Steve Mnuchin came out over the weekend. I picked up
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: the quote before I came to talk to you. We're
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: not going to use taxpayer money to pay people more
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: to stay at home. Says Steve Mnuchin, who like every
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Trump child was born with a silver shovel in his mouth.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: He was born to a Goldman Sachs partner, his dad.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: He himself became a multimillionaire Goldman Sachs partner and is
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: now grotesquely lecturing Americans on how they should survive, on scraps.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: And when he says, by the way, we're not going
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: to use taxpayer money to pay people to stay at home,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: the people who stay at home are taxpayers too, you idiot.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: So this is the problem. This is a perfect opportunity.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: We talk so much about populism. Oh, Trump, he's managed
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: to get working people angry at DC, angry at the swamp,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: angry at corporations. Well, this is the moment for Democrats
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: to say, you know what? These people are the elites.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: They are the Marie Antoinettes of our time, the Kushners
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: and the Mnuchins and the Trumps. Take them down in
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: November and now don't accept this shit that they're shoveling
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: towards you of 400 bucks or while they give half
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: a trillion dollars to corporations, no questions asked. No, I
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: don't think you just keep accepting one McConnell bill after another.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I think a bad bill that is a compromise will
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: actually harm people. And look, Republicans usually win these fights
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: when they have lots of time and they have corporate
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: money to message them. That's how you end up with
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the inheritance tax being framed as about farmers and not
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: about Don Jr. being able to buy a second beach house, right?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So public opinion is with Democrats here. And Lindsey Graham
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: said that half of Republicans are going to vote no
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: on any additional stimulus. So that means the Republicans need
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of Democratic votes and the Republicans own whatever happens.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: So I agree with you. I think Pelosi should go
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: to the mattresses, right? Ted Cruz is also out there
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: saying that unemployment benefits are keeping people at home when
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: they should be working. It's like, hey, Ted, That's the point.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: The pandemic is worse now than before. We have to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: get the virus under control.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: The only response to Ted Cruz should be, sorry, record
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: numbers of people are dying in Texas. More people died
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in Houston in the month of July than in the
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: previous four months. Ted Cruz, shut your mouth and deal
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: with people dying in Texas. We don't need your commentary
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: on unemployment benefits. Deal with your state that is now
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: one of the epicenters of the global coronavirus crisis. And
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I think the problem is, though, Tommy, Nancy Pelosi and
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of these Democrats I often feel like it's
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: pointless to ask them to do this because it's just
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: not who they are. Their mindset, it's not about politics. Oh,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: he's left, he's right. It's not about donor money. I mean,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: that's a factor, no doubt about it. I'm on the left.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: I believe there's far too much big money in politics.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: But it's also about who they are. I think in
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: their DNA, they grew up in politics. They do politics
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: in a way which is inherently cautious. They come at
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: it from a position which is Democrats are always in
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: a defensive crouch, always trying to find some middle ground.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: You even have Democrats now talking about, how do we
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: pay for this? Democrats are saying this. I want to
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: shoot myself in the head. Right now, you're saying this seriously?
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, when Pramila Jayapal came to them in conference
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: and said, you know what? You're doing this HEROES Act.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: You know it's not going to pass. It's a messaging bill. Therefore,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: best message possible, put my proposal to cover everyone's salary
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: 100% until this crisis is over, which is what they've
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: done in some European countries. Pelosi said no and they
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: had a falling out over this and many other Democrats
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: said no because they thought how do we pay for it?
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: That's bullshit. I mean seriously now is a time to
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: go big go big or go home Sorry, it's a cliche,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: but seriously just go home if you're not willing to
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: save the American people from the worst humanitarian crisis in
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: living memory.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, I could not care less about how we are
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: going to pay for this right.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Now and Republicans don't either That's the key point.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't they don't and they never will they
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: never will One thing I did want to raise with you, Mehdi,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: is like if you and I talked three weeks ago,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: it looked like that China was going to be the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: focus of this election, right? We had Republicans pouring literally
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars into ads on TV calling Biden soft
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: on China. And I checked in with the Biden camp
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: over the weekend. And I don't think those ads are
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: on TV anymore. They might be digital ads, but they're gone.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: And they've gone all in on calling Biden the mayor
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: of Antifa, right? And so we'll get to that law
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and order message in a minute.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Well-known Antifa member.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know Joe. But so- I just wanted to
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: raise this because I know, you know, you and I
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: both care a lot about foreign policy and listeners might
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: not realize that Trump has dramatically ratcheted up tensions with
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: China lately, right? It started with the Wuhan virus rhetoric,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: but there have been reports that the White House wants
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: to ban all Chinese Communist Party members from traveling to
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the U.S. That's an estimated 92 million people. Last week,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the U.S. ordered closed the Chinese consulate general office in Houston, Texas,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: claiming it was part of an espionage ring. It probably was.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: but we should just know the Chinese say they will
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: reciprocate and close a US facility. The administration has been
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: delivering a series of speeches about China, including one by
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo, where he said, quote, the free world must
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: triumph over this new tyranny, which had a bit of
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: an axis of evil vibe to me, Mehdi. Mehdi, what
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: do you make of this escalation from the Trump administration?
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: And if you have advice for what they should be doing,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to hear it, though I know it's a
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: very hard problem.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: So it's a worrying time, no doubt about that. Relations
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: between the two countries are at a low point. Some
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: are saying, you know, there's not been this bad a
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: relationship between the US and China since the late 1970s
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: when diplomatic relations were normalized between the two countries. You
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: mentioned Mike Pompeo. He gave a speech at the Nixon
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Library of all places. Nixon went to China, basically disowning
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: the approach of Nixon and Ford and Bush Sr. and
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: other presidents. saying basically China exploited engagement, got what it wanted,
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: screwed everyone over, which is not a fair description of
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: what has happened over the last 40 years at all.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: But yes, sounding axis of evil is sounding regime change-esque,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, seriously. Regime change in Iraq or Libya is
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: one thing. Regime change in Beijing, that's a big talk
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: there from Mike Pompeo. It is very worrying. Many of
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: us worry about a conflict between the two countries, even
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: an accidental, unwitting conflict between the two sides would be
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: disastrous for the world and for the two countries.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: But, you know.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: The problem, of course, is that there is no strategy,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: as usual. So Pompeo could go and make noises, but
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: what's his plan? To go to war? No, of course not.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: What does he actually want to do about it? Oh,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: we're going to ban 92 million people. Of course they're
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: not going to ban 92 million. You can't ban 92
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: million people. But of course, Trump's solution to everything is
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: to try and ban it. Terrorism will ban Muslims. China
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: will ban the Chinese. It's a ridiculous gesture. I'm all
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: for targeted sanctions, actually. Trump signed targeted sanctions legislation against
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Chinese Party officials, Chinese Communist Party officials who've been directly
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: linked to or involved in the crimes against the Uyghurs
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: in Xinjiang, which you and I have talked about before, Tommy.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: There's a cultural genocide, what's being called a demographic genocide
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: going on in Xinjiang province, up to a million people
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: maybe in camps being brainwashed, tortured, held against their will.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: AP just had a story out a few days ago,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: a horrific story about Uyghur women being forced to undergo abortions,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: forced sterilizations, draconian, inhuman response by the Chinese to what
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: they call the problem of the Uyghurs or Muslims in Xinjiang.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: basically cut the population forcefully. That is genocide, right? Trying
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: to destroy a minority population. So the world has to
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: do something about it, has to say something. And the
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Trump administration belatedly has come to this and said, you know,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: we're going to bring in sanctions. We're going to target
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Chinese officials. A lot of right-wingers have jumped on the bandwagon, Tommy.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: If you look at Twitter these days, Ben Shapiro and co,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: they're talking about Uyghur Muslims, the first Muslims any right-wing
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: has ever actually spoken out in favor of. Surprise, surprise.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Wonder why? Because they're in China, right? My enemy's enemy
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: is my friend. So it's almost like, remember the last
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: time this happened? Afghanistan, 1980s. Anyways, when the communists come along,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: suddenly we care about Muslim minority. They don't give a shit.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: We know from John Bolton's book that Donald Trump encouraged
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: President Xi Jinping to build camps to put Muslims in.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, the President of the United States, encouraged genocide abroad.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Let that sink in. Again, another story that was a
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: 24-hour news story. We've all moved on. No one talks
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: about it anymore. No one asks him about it. He
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: encouraged genocide in China. And this is the problem. There's
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: no strategy. There are problems in China that need to
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: be dealt with. This administration, this president, this party can't
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: do it. I mean, until the other day, he loved
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: China more than any other president has ever loved China.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the whole irony of the whole
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Biden is the candidate of the Communist Party. Donald Trump,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: just if you could look at his Twitter feed, and
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: if you look at some of the stuff he's saying,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: he said, and I quote, this is what he said
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: about China from January onwards. They were working hard, working
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: very hard, working really hard, leading a successful operation, and
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: doing a very good job on the coronavirus. He said
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: he appreciated their efforts and transparency. He said, I want
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: to thank President Xi. Called him a friend multiple times.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: And here's my favorite, Tommy. I hadn't heard this until
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I went and looked into it. In Davos in January,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: he said, he's for China. I'm for the US. But
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: other than that, we love each other. Now, we've talked
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: about the Kim letters, love letters, and we laugh about
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Chairman King and Trump. How about Xi Jinping? I think
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Xi Jinping and Trump get a pass. I think Xi
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Jinping gets a pass in and of itself. I think
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: he's one of the world's worst dictators, if not the
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: world's worst dictator right now. Not just because of Xinjiang,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: but Hong Kong. And what he's doing in China, even
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: by Chinese dictatorial standards, this guy is extreme. And yet,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Trump says, I'm in love with him. Again, sorry to
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: do this. Hashtag, imagine if Obama did it. Imagine if
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Obama said, I'm in love with him. with a dictator
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: who the rest of the Republican Party was slamming. And
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: he goes from this love affair with Xi Jinping to
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: suddenly Wuhan virus, it came from China, they're our number
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: one enemy, regime change. That's just bizarre. That's not how
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: you handle a country like China, which does need to
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: be tackled on issues like the Uyghurs, but not by
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: this erratic, crazy, reckless, completely ill-thought-out nonsense from the White House.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, quite possibly the single biggest problem that Joe Biden
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: will inherit from Donald Trump in terms of foreign policy.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: But maybe Trump, his goal here is to emulate Xi Jinping, right?
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Because if you look at the campaign's new message, it's
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: law and order, right? And so if you look at Portland,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the goal clearly is stoke the flames of a culture war,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: demonize all Democrats, demonize protesters, call them the radical right.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: There are reports trickling out about how personally involved Trump
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: is in all of this. He's calling the DHS secretary
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: in the morning for updates on what's happening in Portland.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: The these agents in Portland are no longer just defending
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: federal buildings. They're moving out blocks into the neighborhoods. The
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Daily Beast reported that Trump wanted an ostentatious show of
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: force and to see protesters, quote, shaking in their boots.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: One official gave up the game. by telling the Washington
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Post that, quote, it was about getting viral content online.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: It always is.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: You've been arguing for a while that it is time
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: to start saying the F word, fascism. What do people
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: need to know?
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: So what people need to know is that Donald Trump
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: is an authoritarian. That is indisputable. I don't think anyone
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: debates that. The issue is, you know, oh, has he
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: gone far enough to be a fascist? Has he met
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: whatever thresholds? people have in their imagination of what a
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: fascist is. And often it's just reduced to Adolf Hitler
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: or Benito Mussolini. Jason Stanley, who's a professor of philosophy
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: at Yale, written a brilliant book on fascism, good friend
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: of mine. He made the point on Twitter a couple
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: of days ago. He said, you know, fascism apparently only
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: comes from Germany and Italy. That's what fascism is. You know, sarcastically,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: this idea that we've just, we think that can only happen.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: In that way.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: No, fascism takes on board. Each country responds to fascism differently,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: produces different forms of fascism. There is an American form
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: of fascism which has been around for a while, since
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: even before Hitler. In fact, Hitler paid tribute to Jim
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Crow laws in Mein Kampf, when he was writing Mein Kampf. and,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: you know, neo-Nazis were gathering in the 1930s. Henry Wallace,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: vice president under FDR, his second vice president, wrote a
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: famous article for the New York Times in 1944 at
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: the height of the global war against fascism. And I've
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: got the quote here, because I knew you'd ask me
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: about fascism. And he said at the time, this is
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: what he said, he said, the American fascists are most
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They claim to
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: be super patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: by the Constitution. Sound familiar to anyone right now following
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: the news? I mean, look, Trump, you mentioned China. We
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: just talked about China. In 1990, a year after Tiananmen Square,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Trump did an interview with Playboy magazine in which he
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: praised the Chinese for their show of strength. against the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: protesters in Tiananmen Square. That's who he's always been, an
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: admirer of autocracy, an admirer of state-sponsored violence. That's what
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: he enjoys. Yes, he doesn't have some thought-out ideology as
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: a Hitler or a Mussolini does, but he definitely likes
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: the tactics of fascism. The state-sponsored violence, the criminalization of
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: the free press, the use of paramilitaries on the streets,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: the talk of them and us. the xenophobia, the nationalism.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: It's all there, all of the ingredients. And look, yes,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: maybe we're not Germany 1943, but are we Germany 1933?
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Are we the Germany of the Reichstag fire? The Germany
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: where Hitler was seen as an idiot who could be
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: controlled by the conservative elites to get what they wanted
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: done in terms of tax cuts. Are we in that
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: period of time? I don't know the answer. I suspect
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: we are. But I'd like us to have a discussion
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: about this and talk to the experts and look at
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: the evidence in front of us. How can you look
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: at what's happening in Portland, Oregon and say, oh, this
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: is just any other bog standard authoritarian American president? It's not.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Come on. You mentioned the Daily Beast. Another quote in
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: the Daily Beast that I saw jumped out at me.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Former senior Trump administration official told the Beast, Trump would
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: often talk about lining up drug dealers and gang members
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: in front of a firing squad. If it was solely
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: up to him, that's how the country would solve crime
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: in Democrat-run cities. We just gloss over this and move on.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: What?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: A former official is saying that Trump says he wants
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: to line people up and shoot them. This is absurd.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of respect for due process here.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, Richard Nixon didn't come anywhere close to this.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: And look, along these lines, I mean, lost in the
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: incoherence of that interview with Chris Wallace was a claim
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Trump made that the Supreme Court's recent ruling against his
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: attempt to roll back the DACA program somehow gives him
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: new authorities on immigration and healthcare. And I remember thinking, like,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: that is maybe the big news out of this interview. Like,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: what is he talking about? Initially, nobody knew, but apparently
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: he was referencing an argument advanced by a Bush administration
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: lawyer named John Yoo. In case listeners at home don't
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: know who John Yoo is, can you remind us and
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: why this should make us a little nervous?
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. And before I get to John Yoo, just touching
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: on the Trump-Wallace thing, What he said was just a
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: new version of what he's always said, which is, I
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: should have complete power. I should be Xi Jinping. He
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: said this at coronavirus presses. He says, Article 2 of
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: the Constitution gives me total power and authority. He is mad.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: This is what he believes. And of course, Republicans have
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: always believed in a strong executive, right? Dick Cheney and
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: and the unitary executive theory that the president can basically
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: do anything. But they only believe that for Republicans. They
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: didn't think your boss, Barack Obama, had executive power. He
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: was a tyrant and a dictator, Obama. But Republican presidents
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: should always have no controls, no checks and balances. And
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Trump is part of that school of thought. He himself
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: just wants to be a dictator, right? So he reaches
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: out for whatever argument he can get, Article Two. And
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: then obviously someone saw this National Review article by John Yoo,
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: which basically said that the DACA court ruling, which the
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court didn't say DACA's good or bad, I'm not
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: a lawyer, but my understanding is what they said was
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: the process that Trump used to try and get rid
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: of DACA, he can't do that. And John Yoo's argument was, well,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: if he can't do that, that means the next president
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: can't undo what Trump's doing. Trump can do whatever he
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: likes using executive power.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Tortured argument that a lot of more qualified law professors
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: have said is completely bonkers, as have the ACLU. But
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: this is John Yoo. John Yoo was part of the
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Bush administration, which says the president can do whatever they like,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: as long as they have a Republican next to their name.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: And the thing that John Yoo pushed under George W.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Bush was torture. That was his pet issue. He was
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: in the Office of Legal Counsel. I think he was
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the time. And he wrote
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: the famous torture memos in 2002-2003. which gave Bush and
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: the CIA and others the authority to torture people, literally
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: torture people. In fact, you, he came up with the
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: argument that it's not torture unless it's organ failure, unless
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: it's permanent damage to the body, or unless you die
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: while it's happening. Otherwise, fine. You want to slap someone around?
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: No organ failure. You want to waterboard someone? They're not dead. Fine,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: go for it. That was his legal argument, which never
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: stood up in any court of law, violated the Geneva Conventions. And,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: you know, I would say two things. Number one, one
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: of the biggest mistakes your boss made, Barack Obama, in
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: office was not prosecuting people like John Yoo. This whole,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: we're not going to look backwards, we're only going to
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: look forwards on torture. The reason John Yoo is able
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: to write national review pieces today and go on CNN
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: and Fox is because he was never really held to
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: account for the crap he did for George W.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Bush.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: He should have been. The rest of them should have been. And,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: you know, we talk about cancel culture today, canceling people.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: John Yoo is a law professor at fucking Berkeley, right?
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: The home of all lefty liberals in America. How the
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: hell is John Yoo a law professor at Berkeley if
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: we're supposedly canceling people? I don't want him to be
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: fired from Berkeley. You want to talk canceling? I don't
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: just want to cancel his career. I want to see
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: him in prison.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: You and I should have a long debate someday about
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: exactly this question because I think it's a worthwhile debate.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: But it is insane to me that this man is
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: still allowed to publish pieces, work at a law school,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: and taken seriously in Washington DC.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Liberal law school.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Run out of town. Liberal law school. So the last
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: subject I want to talk to you with is about
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the media because you are an expert. Margaret Sullivan from
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post wrote this piece about why the media
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: coverage of 2016 was disastrous and how we can get
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: it right in 2020. And we do a lot of
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: media criticism here at Pod Save America, but you are
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: a professional. You're a trained journalist. And the best part,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I think, about your perspective is you came up in
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the UK where the press is less deferential. It's more brutal.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: It's unsparing. And you are unsparing in your criticism of
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: the political media. So let me briefly summarize Sullivan's criticism
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: of the 16 coverage for the listeners. Basically, she says
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: it relied too much on polling. It overplayed, the press
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: overplayed the email story. They were out of touch with
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: the anger in the electorate and the racism and sexism
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: that was often driving it. The media let Trump play
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: assignment editor. They didn't understand Facebook's influence and generally didn't
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: adapt to modernity. What do you think of that list?
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Anything you'd add?
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent. I think she nailed it. I'm a
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: big fan of Margaret Sullivan. She's one of the few
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: journalists who gets it. And she basically covered everything, the
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: whole Trump being a shiny new toy for the media,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I think is the phrase she used, which was spot-on
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: description of the way he was treated was like, yay,
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: someone different and entertaining. And he was a fiscal stimulus
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: for the media in 2016.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: CNN made record profits.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: MSNBC, Fox, wherever you were on the political spectrum, you
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: made record profits as a cable news provider. The New
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: York Times had a record boost in subscriptions once he
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: was elected. I mean, that was a silver lining to
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: the times of the Trump election. The New Yorker and
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: others all did really well out of the Trump phenomenon.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: and they treated them in that way. It's a kind
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: of shiny new toy. So I think she's right. There
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: were so many failures. My biggest worry, which she touches
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: on in this piece, but I think she could have
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: been even more unsparing about, is that they haven't learned
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: the lessons. So, you know, one of the things we've
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: talked about over the last year, journalists, is have we
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: learned the lessons of 2016? And we haven't. We have
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: not learned the lessons of 2016. And therefore, you still
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: see the both sides coverage. You still see the resistance
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: to calling a lie a lie. You still see the
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: euphemisms for racism in the New York Times and the
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Washington Post. Racially coded, racially whatever it is, inflamed, all
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: this nonsense. Say racist. Say freaking racist, right? So, I
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: think those are the huge problems. The inability to really...
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: I think, again, it comes back to my criticism of Pelosi.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: It goes back to who these people are. Democratic politicians
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: are the way they are. It's in their DNA. Political journalists,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: DC press corps, it's the way they are. It's the
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: way they've always been. They don't know any other way.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: They've always covered it a certain way. And when someone
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: like Trump comes along and disrupts the entire press, they
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: can't compute. They can't cope. And they try and use
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: the same methods which don't work. It doesn't work at
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: all to do a both sides. We know today that
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: free speech is under assault. Democracy is under assault. Civil
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: liberties are under assault. All of the progress that the
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: US has made on racism is under assault. And the
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: only way you can cover that fairly is to point
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: out that it's the Republican Party and Trump that is
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: leading that assault. And neutral journalists can't do that. They
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: can't call it out. Because that would be one side. Well,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: hold on. What's the Democrats? Where's their role in this?
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: They have to be blamed too. And of course, the
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Democrats have problems. But right now, the white nationalist is
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: the guy in the Oval Office. And I think they just,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: and then they say, oh, we can't be biased. We
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: can't take a side. Yes, you can. Sorry, you can
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: be pro-fact. You can be pro-truth. You can be pro-civil
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: liberties and you can be anti-racism and anti-authoritarianism. There's nothing
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: stopping journalists from doing that other than if they do
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: go down that road, they'll have to start saying some
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: unpleasant to themselves home truths to their viewers and readers
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: about the modern Republican Party.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Yes. One thing I think that she missed just from
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: a whiny Democrat's perspective that is a pre-Trump problem, which
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: is One of the big differences between running as a
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Democrat and running as a Republican is the way conservative
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: media can drive the narrative. Benghazi is the best example.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: It was a tragedy. There's lots to criticize in the
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: government's security measures for those individuals. But the coverage was disproportionate.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: It was partisan. It was driven by constant Fox News coverage.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: And there's no analogous capacity on the left. And we
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: know that because- We recently learned that Russia was paying
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: Troops.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Trump did nothing to stop them. It's no longer a story.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: It's disappeared. It's no longer a story is the epitaph
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: of the Trump presidency and media territory. I mean, if
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: I go through the things that were... I mean, I
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: was just tweeting last night about something about Trump. Oh,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: you know, he tweeted yesterday about mothers, the scam of
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: the mothers in Portland. And he put mothers in quote marks.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: And I was like, are they not mothers? I mean,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: sometimes I don't know why I do this to myself,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: but sometimes I'm like, even with bizarre Trump standards, what
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: does that even mean? And somebody reminded me about his
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: history of attacking protesters. And do you remember, is it
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Martin Gugino, I think his name was, the 75-year-old guy
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: in Buffalo who was just pushed down to the pavement?
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Trump attacked him, if you remember. Trump called him anti-first,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: said he was a troublemaker. All totally false. 75-year-old white pensioner, right? Normally,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Republicans would be first to the defense of this guy.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: He's in hospital. We don't even talk about it. All
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I do is criticize Trump. I'd forgotten about that. It's
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: no longer a story, as you say, because we in
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: the media, even those of us who are critics of Trump,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: don't have that infrastructure or quote unquote echo chamber to
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: really do harm to the Republicans by constantly saying, what
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: about this? What about this? What about this? Don't forget this.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: The way that the Republicans could over Benghazi or over Ebola.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: We don't do it. I mean, partly it's Trump just
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: overwhelms us. To quote Steve Bannon, he floods the zone
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: with shit, which means we can't cover everything. But on
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: the other hand, we don't circle back to things. So
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: one classic example I often ask is, Trump does a
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: lot of interviews. Why does no one say to him,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: you know what? You told AOC and Ilhan Omar to
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: go back to where they came from. Let's talk about that.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: I would love to see him press on just that
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: one issue because it's indefensible. No Republican can defend him.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: No one has. It's one of the few issues you'll
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: note that no Republican has ever come out and defended
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: him on. They don't criticize him, but they don't defend
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: him because it's indefensible by any stretch of the imagination.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: There's no cover for it. No one asked him about it.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: It's a year ago. That year ago is 20 years
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: ago in Trump dog years. So that's a real problem
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: when it comes to coverage. And you know, one thing
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: I will never forgive the DC press corps and the
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: moment where I Really really knew that they're completely irredeemable
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: sadly most of them if not all is you know
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Sarah Huckabee Sanders was two years White House press secretary
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: carrying water For a president who basically incited violence and
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: hate against the media every day called them fake news
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: called them scum called them enemies of the people She
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: herself attacked the press from the podium. She then abandoned
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: the briefing she lied to them so much that Robert
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Mueller included one of her lies in his report to
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the press and yet when she quit and They held
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: her a going away party, the White House press corps.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, just.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't have gone?
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I wouldn't have gone. I mean, I think
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: anyone who did go, shame on them for organizing the
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: damn thing. And, you know, when ordinary people say, you know,
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: as people on Twitter say to me, the problem, Mehdi,
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: is it's access. Journalists, you know, and I try and
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: defend my colleagues, but yeah, that is access. It's access online.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: It's a fear of power. You look at the way
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: that even in the briefings, Tommy, have you seen some
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: of these journalists? You talk about British journalists. British media
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: has a lot wrong with it. But at least some
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: journalists in England can ask tough questions. You look in
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the briefings, there's a couple of them who can ask
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: tough questions, mostly women, by the way. And a lot
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: of the rest of them are just intimidated by Trump
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: or by Kayleigh McEnany or whoever it is. They're very deferential.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: They get spooked easily when they're attacked. They don't really
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: push back hard enough. Maybe Jim Acosta occasionally. But, you know,
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: there's the access, the deference, the fear, the both sides.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, the both sides is the killer, Tommy. That's
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: what's going to kill us in the run-up to the election.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: When even the New York Times is both sides-ing Trump
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: in 2020, you know we're screwed. And it's an old phrase.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe some of your listeners have heard it before. There's
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: an old line about journalism. What is the job of
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: a journalist? If someone says to you, it's raining outside,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: and someone else says to you, it's not raining outside,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: your job is not to say person A says it's raining,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: person B says it's not raining. Your job is to
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: open the fucking window and find out if it's raining outside.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: That's right. Okay.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: We will finish on a positive note here, which is
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Sullivan's fixes. Okay. So she says, focus on voting rights
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: and election integrity. Good idea. Present polling with more context. Good.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Don't let Trump play assignment editor. Don't fall for manufactured
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: crisis like the email scandal. Understand the influence of social media.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: To your point, I would like to include in that list,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: be more adversarial. It drives me crazy when people like
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo come on Sunday shows, they get deferential treatment.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: I don't care if they come back. The host shouldn't
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: care if they come back. Everyone should watch your shows
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: and to see the way guests are pressed again and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: again and again when they're not answering. I feel like
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: if everyone did it, where else are the Trump people
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: going to go? They can't only go on Fox. Yeah.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: And even on Fox, Chris Wallace is relatively, by cable
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: news standards, a good, tough interviewer. What was interesting about
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: that interview with Trump that everyone praised was, and I
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: tweeted about the time, and it was... you know, oh,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: Chris Wallace did this great interview. Okay, but why didn't
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: other people do it? Rather than just go, isn't Chris
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Wallace great? Well, why didn't the rest of the TV interview?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, Trump has pretty much sat down with most
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: top American TV. You know, he doesn't do it often,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: but if you go through the list, he's done Stephanopoulos,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: he's done Chuck Todd. He's done all, most of them.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: He hasn't done Jake Tapper, I believe. But he's done
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: most top TV hosts. He's done most Sunday show hosts.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: He's done 60 Minutes. Why haven't they been able to
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: kind of put him on the spot in that way?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Why haven't they been able to offer follow-ups? I think
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: they need to have a real long, hard look at themselves.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: A lot of these journalists who have interviews with Trump
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: either on tape or on print and ask themselves, really,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: you know, history will judge you when this guy, when
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: this serial fabricator, when this deranged narcissist, when this white
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: nationalist was sitting in the Oval Office and you got
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: a chance with him to sit down with him. What
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: did you ask him? What did you do with that time?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. Mehdi, thank you so much
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: for doing the show today. Everyone should follow your work.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: At The Intercept, they should subscribe to Deconstructed, your podcast,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and check out everything you're doing with Al Jazeera English,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: head to head, up front. It's fantastic work. I love
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: talking to you, man. I love that you give me
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: a couple of jabs to the face.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: You're welcome back on Deconstructed anytime. Thank you.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And have a great day. Appreciate it.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Tommy. It's fun.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Okay. When we come back, you're going to hear Jon
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Favreau's interview with Mother Jones's Ari Berman about voting during
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the pandemic. Now that we are less than 100 days out.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: Ari Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones covering
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: voting rights. He's the author of Give Us the Ballot,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Ari, thanks
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: for joining us.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Hey, John.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: Good to see you from afar again.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: So people are hearing a lot of crazy lies from
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump about voting by mail. You're a journalist who
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: spent more time on this topic than just about anyone.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: How safe is voting by mail?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, John.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: The president has engaged in a massive propaganda effort around
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: vote by mail, calling it rigged and dangerous and fraudulent.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: But in fact, vote by mail is very safe. There
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: is very little fraud when it comes to vote by mail.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: The Conservative Heritage Foundation, which is a close ally of
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump, found only 143 criminal convictions for mail ballot
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: fraud over the past 20 years. So that equals 0.00006%
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: of fraud out of total votes cast. So you can
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: see it's not a very big problem.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Also, I think we've had, you know, The military has
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: been voting by mail for I don't know how long, decades.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: We have multiple states that vote by mail. This is
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: a practice that has gone on for so long in
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: this country that the idea that it's some new thing
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: that we should worry about is just absurd, right?
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's absolutely right. Voting by mail is going to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: be used in larger numbers than ever before, but it's
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: not a new invention. It's not like we invented vote
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: by mail in the year 2020. States like Oregon have
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: been doing it for a few decades now. It works
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: really well there. Both Republicans and Democrats like it. The
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: military has been voting by mail for decades. Overseas voters
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: have been voting by mail for decades. So we have
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of data on this. We have data that
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: shows that vote-by-mail doesn't lead to large-scale voter fraud. We
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: have data that people like using vote-by-mail, and we have
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: data that vote-by-mail increases voter turnout. So we're going to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: see an expansion of vote-by-mail, but there's not going to
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: be anything really different in terms of how it works
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: this year than how it's worked in years past.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: In fact, I believe there's some people who voted by
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: mail in the past who live and work in the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: White House. Isn't that right?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Imagine that.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: There are, according to the Washington Post, there are 16
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: top Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, that have voted
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: by mail. So you have Trump voting by mail. You
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: have Pence voting by mail. You have Attorney General Barr
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: voting by mail. You have Kellyanne Conway voting by mail.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to read the whole list. But on
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: and on and on you go. Basically, every top member
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: of the Trump administration has voted by mail. And Trump
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: is trying to create this crazy distinction between vote by mail,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: mail ballots, and absentee voting. But they're the same thing.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: It's people voting by mail.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: Every time I see him say that on Twitter, I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: want to scream because it's just like, no, there's not
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: enough people pointing out that there is absolutely no difference
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: between voting by mail and absentee voting. It's the same thing.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: And Donald Trump is trying to draw this distinction between
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: the two. It's crazy.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: It's the same thing. He's basically saying, well, if you
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: vote absentee, you have to go through a process. Well,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: in every state, you have to go through a process.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: If your ballot is automatically mailed to you, you still
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: have to go through a process of sending it back.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: If you request an absentee ballot, you still have to
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: go through a process to get it. And so it
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: really doesn't make any sense what Trump is saying. I
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: think what he's trying to do is he's trying to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: say that states should not make it easy to vote
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: by mail, that states should not, for example, mail ballots
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: to every registered voter like Oregon does, like Washington does,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: like California is going to do this year. In my view,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: that's actually what we should be doing. If you look
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: at the data, the best way to do vote by
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: mail is to have it be universal and to send
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: a ballot to every registered voter. And I think Trump
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: is so afraid of that because that way of voting
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: by mail is going to lead to the largest increase
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: in voter turnout because it's going to get ballots in
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: the easiest way to the largest number of voters.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: So 2020 will be the first time that a lot
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: of people vote by mail. How easy is it to
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: do that right now?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: It's very easy to vote by mail in most states.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: In seven states in the country, ballots are mailed to
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: every registered voter. So you'll actually get a ballot where
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: you live if you're registered. You won't have to do
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: anything to get it. And that's really the gold standard.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: That's what Oregon and Washington and California, states like that,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: are going to do. In 34 states, you can request
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: an absentee ballot for any reason. That means that anybody
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: in those states can vote by mail. And that includes
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: basically every swing state in the country. So in all
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: of the states that are going to decide the next
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: presidential election, people will easily be able to vote by mail.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: Then there is about 10 other states in which you
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: have to have an excuse to vote by mail. Most
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: of those states allowed you to vote by mail due
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: to coronavirus in the primaries. And the hope is that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: they'll allow you to do that in the general. Now,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: there are some notable exceptions where it's very, very difficult
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: to vote by mail. One of those places is Texas, where,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: for example, if you're over 65, you can vote by
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: mail for any reason. But if you're under 65, you
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: can't actually cite fear of contracting COVID as a reason
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: to vote by mail, which I just think is so absolutely,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: totally insane. The Republican attorney general there has said that
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: fear of contracting COVID is an emotional condition, not a
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: physical condition, even though there are 10,000 cases a day
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: in Texas right now. So in a few states like Texas,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: Republicans have created a situation where it's easy for their
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: voters to be able to vote by mail, particularly voters
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: over 65. And it's harder for Democrats, those under 65,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: to be able to vote by mail. But the good
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: news is that in most of the country, anyone can
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: vote by mail, and it's very easy to do so.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: What do we know about voter turnout in states where
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of voting by mail?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: We know that voter turnout increases when you make it
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: easy to vote by mail. So just look at what
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: happened in the primaries. Four of the five states with
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: the highest increases in voter turnout mailed ballots to all
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: registered voters. So that policy works. In 13 of the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: 15 states with the highest voter turnout in the primaries,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: 60% or more of the electorate voted by mail. So
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: what we're seeing is that in states with high turnout,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: a lot of people decide to vote by mail because
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: that's the safest way to vote in a pandemic. And
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: I think that's what the Trump administration is so afraid of.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: They're afraid of the fact that there will be unprecedented
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: voter turnout in November and that voters will decide to
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: cast ballots by mail because it's the safest way to
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: do so. and they think that's gonna hurt their voters,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: even though, in my view, Republicans are just as likely,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: if not more likely, to wanna vote by mail as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: Democrats will be.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: Well, that was gonna be my next question, is I've
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: seen a lot of stories recently that Republican operatives in
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: various states are now trying to tell the White House,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: stop having the president attack vote by mail because they
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: want vote by mail because they believe that if more
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: of their voters get ballots to mail in, they will
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: have better turnout in Republican sections of certain places in America.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: If you look at who the GOP's core voters are,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: they are older, more rural voters that are going to
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: need vote by mail more than just about anybody. And
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: so what President Trump is doing by trying to dissuade
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: people to vote by mail is he's essentially disenfranchising his
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: own voters. And that's why Republicans in Wisconsin and Florida
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: and all of these states are saying, no, we actually
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: want people to vote by mail. And they really reached
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: an absurd level in Florida, John. You may have seen
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: this mailer that was done by the Florida Republican Party,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: where they took a tweet from President Trump that says,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: absentee voting is good, and they highlighted that, and then
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: they blurred out the part where he.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Said mail voting is bad.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, they are doing quite the jujitsu here
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: trying to finesse this issue. And what we're seeing is
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: that in states like Florida, Democrats have now a huge
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: advantage in terms of requesting mail ballots. And that's a
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: big reversal because in Arizona and Florida and other swing states,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: Republicans were ahead when it came to vote by mail.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: They've completely lost that advantage because of what the president
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: has been saying.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: Are there any drawbacks of vote by mail that you've seen?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so vote by mail isn't perfect. There are a
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: few things to keep an eye on. One thing is
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: the fact that if you don't turn your ballot in
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: on time, it can be rejected. So in the primaries
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: so far, 65,000 absentee ballots have been rejected because they
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: arrived too late. Now, that's not that big of a number.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: That's only 1% of total ballots cast. However, if the
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: election is close... You have to keep an eye on,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: are these ballots being.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: Returned in time?
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: So I would urge everyone who wants to vote by mail,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: make sure you request your mail ballot early and make
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: sure you send it back early. Because the closer to
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: the election you get in terms of requesting it, that's
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: going to put more stress on election officials. That's going
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: to put more stress on the postal service. Another potential
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: drawback of vote by mail is ballots can be rejected
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: if you don't sign them, for example, if you don't
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: sign them neatly. They might be thrown out because of
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: things like mismatched signatures. So you have to be careful
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: when you vote by mail. Some states have very strict
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: laws about this. So voting by mail, I think, is
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: really good, particularly in a pandemic. But you have to
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: be careful in terms of how you do it. You
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: have to request a ballot early. You have to fill
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: it out carefully. And to me, all of the rules
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: governing mail voting are a reason why we should make
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: mail voting easier, not harder, because there are already a
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: lot of rules surrounding mail voting that And if they
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: become more restrictive, not less restrictive, fewer people are going
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: to use it as a result.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: I've talked to a lot of folks on the Democratic
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: side who say that as much as we want to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: make vote by mail much easier and universally accessible, really,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: that they also want to preserve some in-person voting options
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: that are safe for the fall because there are a
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: number of Democratic constituencies or people who tend to vote Democratic,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: and this is especially true apparently of a lot of
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: black voters, who don't have a lot of trust in
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: vote by mail, partly because of voter suppression efforts over
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: the years, and they worry that their ballot somehow won't
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: be counted. And so they actually want to go vote
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: in person. Do you think it's important to sort of
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: preserve these in person voting opportunities for people in the fall,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: even as you know, you know, we may be dealing with,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: with COVID?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think in-person voting is still really important. I
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: don't think it's either or. I don't think you vote
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: by mail or you vote in person. You have to
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: have both options. And we've clearly seen that in the primaries,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: because one of the most disturbing things that happened in
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: the primaries is there's been very long lines to vote.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: Five-hour lines in Wisconsin, six-hour lines in Georgia, seven-hour lines
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: in Nevada. And one of the reasons why the lines
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: were so long is because so many polling places were closed.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: And so These states were encouraging people to vote by mail,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: but they weren't preserving enough polling places. And what happened
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: was you either had constituencies that wanted to vote in person,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: or you had constituencies that didn't get their mail ballots
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: for one reason or another. And if you don't get
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: a mail ballot, your only recourse is to go vote
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: in person. And so I think we should expect that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: in November, we're going to see unprecedented mail voting, but
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: a lot of people are still going to want to
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: vote in person. And it's going to be critically important
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: to have enough polling places. And I think one thing
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: is also really important is that to make sure there's
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: enough poll workers, because poll workers tend to be older.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: I saw a statistic that 58% of poll workers are
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: 60 or over. So they're the highest risk category. So
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: if you're young, if you feel like you're in a
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: safe enough position, I would encourage people to become poll workers.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: Because if you don't want your polling place to close,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: someone has to be able to staff the polls who's
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: not at risk and willing to do this kind of work.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're trying to do that this week as well
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: as to try to make sure as many people as
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: possible who are young and healthy can sign up to
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: be poll workers so that a lot of people who
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: are elderly and at risk don't have to do that.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: One of the most important things, obviously, we need for
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: Vote by Mail to be successful is a working post office.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: Trump has been trying to screw that up too. What
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: worries you about how he's treated the U.S. Postal Service
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: and sort of the state of the U.S. Postal Service
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: right now as we head into this election?
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: I'm very concerned about what the Trump administration is doing
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: to the post office. They named the former top fundraiser
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: for the Republican convention as Postmaster General, which is totally
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: unprecedented to put such a partisan person in that position.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: He recently announced major changes to the post office. One
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: of the things the Trump administration is trying to do
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: is to eliminate overtime for postal workers and also to
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: say that they don't have to deliver packages the same day.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: So what's that going to mean? That's going to mean
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: that postal workers are not going to be able to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: work as many hours and mail is not going to
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: be able to be delivered as efficiently in the middle
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: of a pandemic in which you're going to see unprecedented
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: vote by mail. So I don't think it's coincidence that
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: suddenly the Trump administration is attacking and politicizing the post
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: office at the very moment when vote by mail.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Is more important than ever.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: I think they are using the post office as a
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: vehicle for voter suppression. And that's why it's so important
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: that Congress funds the post office. Congress has already given
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: the post office $ 10 billion. But the post office hasn't
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: been able to access that money because Steve Mnuchin is
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: putting all of these considerations on them using the funds.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: So that's insane.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: They're not even able to use the money that they've
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: already gotten. And also, they are running out of money.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: And one of the things Democrats did in the HEROES Act,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: which they passed in May, they included $ 25 billion for
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: the post office. And so the post office says they
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: need that money or they're going to run out of it.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: And to me, again, this should not be a partisan issue.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: Just in the same way that Republicans vote by mail,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: Republicans get mail. I mean, there's not an inherent bias
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: when it comes to mail. And again, a lot of
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: Republicans live in rural areas where they absolutely rely on
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: the post office. So this is one issue where it
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: seems like there should be some sort of bipartisan agreement
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: that we need the post office in general, and we
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: specifically need it in an election in which vote by
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: mail is going to be used in unprecedented numbers.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: So as you said earlier, in the swing states that
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: will decide the election, it does seem like voting by
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: mail is accessible in all those states without an excuse.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: Now that we've been through most of the primaries and
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: we're looking towards the fall and you've been covering a
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: lot of the voting problems that we've had in these primaries,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: what sort of worries you the most as we look
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: to the fall about ensuring voting access in November?
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: What worries me is we've never done this before. We've
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: never had a presidential election in a pandemic to begin with.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: And then we've never had people vote by mail in
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: such large numbers. So during the primaries, for example, in Wisconsin,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: they went from 6% of people voting by mail to
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: 60% of people voting by mail, which is just an
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: unbelievable increase from one election to the other. And election
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: officials were overwhelmed. The post office was overwhelmed. Voters were
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: confused by the process. And now voter turnout is going
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: to be two to three times higher in all of
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: these key swing states than it was during the primaries.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: So I'm worried that even if everyone is well-intentioned about
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: this process, the system could just get overwhelmed by the
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: volume of mail voting. That's one thing that concerns me.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: The other thing is that clearly there are people that
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 4: don't want this process to go well, that the Republican
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: Party has been engaged in a very long effort. You
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: could say a 50-year long effort to try to suppress voters. Certainly,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: it's accelerated since the 2010 election when all of these
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: new restrictions on voting went into effect in places like
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And they're
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: going to double down on the efforts during a pandemic.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: And the Republican Party is currently trying to weaponize coronavirus
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: to make voting more difficult. They're trying to make it
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: more difficult to vote by mail. They're also trying to
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: make it more difficult to vote in person. The good
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: news is that in the primaries, a lot of these
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: efforts seem to have backfired, that there's been record.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: Voter turnout so far.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: And so I'm hopeful that people are going to be
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: so motivated to vote that they're going to be able
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: to overcome whatever barriers are put in front of them.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: But I also think that in the way that we
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: saw high turnout in Georgia and high turnout in Wisconsin,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: voter suppression efforts could actually motivate people to vote and
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: say to people, if my vote didn't matter, why are
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: they trying so hard to suppress it?
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you one thing that keeps me up at
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: night that I actually think we can all have an
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: effect on by educating people about it now, is, you know,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: in 2018, for example, Arizona's a state that has a
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: lot of vote by mail. On election night, it seemed
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: like Kyrsten Sinema was behind Martha McSally. A lot of
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: networks didn't think that she was going to win, right?
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: We didn't know that she was going to win. A
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: couple of days later, she ends up winning by two
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: or three points because it took time to count these ballots.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: I have a fear that with so much voting by mail,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: some of these states on election night will look closer
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: than they will end up. And Donald Trump may even
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: declare victory in some of these states. And I worry
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: that sort of the reporters covering these races won't really
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: price in the fact that in a couple of days,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: the outstanding ballots may be may favor Joe Biden or
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: the Democratic candidate. And this could start causing the trouble
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: where Trump declares victory when he didn't win at all.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: Is that something you're worried about or is that just
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: sort of a fear that I have?
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: I'm incredibly worried about that scenario and it's completely plausible
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: to me because one of the effect of Trump urging
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: Republicans to vote in person is that in-person ballots are
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: counted sooner than mail ballots in most states because in
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: a lot of states, Ballots don't have to arrive till
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 4: election day or after. And so that means that it
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: takes longer to count mail ballots. So you could have
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: a situation where more Republicans are voting in person and
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: their ballots are counted sooner and more Democrats are voting
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: by mail and their ballots are being counted later. And
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: so it makes it seem like there's a lot more
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: Republican votes than Democratic votes when in fact it just
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: takes longer to count the Democratic votes. So I think
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: that's absolutely possible in a lot of key states that
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: the Republicans could be up early but the Democrats are
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: going to be up when all votes are counted. And
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: that's just going to be because votes are being counted,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 4: but Republicans are going to do everything they can, just
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: like they did in Arizona, just like they did in
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: California in 2018, saying the system is fraudulent, saying it's rigged.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: And I think that's why it's on all of us
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: as journalists, in addition to election officials, saying we're not
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: going to declare any kind of winners until all the votes,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: or at least enough of the votes, are counted. Wisconsin's
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: election in April was a complete disaster, but one of
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: the things they did well was they just held all
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: the results for a week until all the ballots were counted.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: And so therefore, there was no speculation on election night.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: Everyone knew that the results were coming out a week later.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: There was nothing untoward about it. And a week later,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: the ballots were counted, and we knew who the winners were.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: And so I think we need to have some sort
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: of agreement on this now. And I think all of
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: the major institutions in America that have credibility, whether it's
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: local election officials, the media, other government agencies outside of
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: the Trump administration, have to start educating people about this
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: because you're completely right that Trump's going to do whatever
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: he can to try to delegitimize the result, especially if
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: it looks like he might lose.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's incredibly important that everyone in a
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: position of influence who is a reporter, who is a journalist,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: and this doesn't have to be partisan, right? We have
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: to socialize the idea now with the American public that
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: it may not be election night, it may be election week.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: And that we're all just going to have to go
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: to bed on election night without the results, without knowing
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: who won the election. And that just we're in the
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: middle of a pandemic that just may be what we
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: have to do this year.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 4: There's another scenario that also worries me a lot, which
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: is the Supreme Court. We've already seen a number of
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: decisions from the Supreme Court that have put in effect
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: bad voting laws for the primaries. So they've put in
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: place restrictions in Florida and Alabama. in Wisconsin and Texas,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: pretty much consistently, the Supreme Court has intervened in 2020
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: to say that Republicans can basically put in effect any
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: restrictions on voting they want, even in a pandemic. So
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: what worries me is there's all of this litigation about
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: the rules of mail voting. When do ballots need to
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: be postmarked by? Do the signatures have to absolutely match?
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: Those kind of things. If the election is really close
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: in certain states, you can absolutely imagine that this stuff
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: is going to be litigated to the Supreme Court. And
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: I'm very concerned if we have a Florida 2000 situation
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: where it's 537 votes or a few thousand votes in
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: a number of key swing states, it's going to go
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: to the court and the court in that case will
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: say that the Republicans are going to prevail and Donald
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: Trump is going to be elected. I really hope that
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: doesn't happen. But unfortunately, there's already a precedent for that
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: in this country. And when it comes to voting rights,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 4: John Roberts is not a swing vote. And I think
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 4: it's really, really important for people to understand that. This
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: is the guy who authored the majority decision gutting the
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act. This is the guy that said federal
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 4: courts can't review gerrymandering. This is the guy that said
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: that states can do aggressive voter purging. So he's not
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: a swing vote when it comes to voting rights. And
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: basically what I hope is, number one, the election isn't close,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: but number two, that we know what the rules are
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: ahead of time. And there's agreement on that so that
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court doesn't again decide the winner of the
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 4: election like they did in 2000.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: Fortunately, the answer to all of these concerns, no matter
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: which way you slice it, is massive voter turnout. Ari Berman,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us. Senior reporter at
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: Mother Jones, your book is Give Us the Ballot, The
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Go check it out.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: Thanks again for the time.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much, John.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: Great to talk to you.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you again to Ari Berman. Thank you to Mehdi
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Hassan for guest hosting today. Thank you to all you
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: listeners who made it to the outro, who have gone
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: to votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote and who are pitching in and
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: doing your thing. Dan and Alyssa, We'll be here on Thursday.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau is threatening to be back a week from today,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: that next Monday. We'll see if that holds up. But thanks, everybody.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: Talk to you soon.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Konian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: every week.