Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump who?”

Transcript

“Trump who?” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Today is the last pod of the Trump era. We
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: will talk about the 45th president's final days in office,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: how he's changed the Republican Party over the last four years,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: how he's changed America. And on a brighter note, we'll
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: dive into President-elect Joe Biden's ambitious agenda for his first
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: days in office. Then you'll hear Lovett and me talk
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: about what goes into writing an inaugural address, which we
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: taped for the Crooked Media smash hit YouTube series, Speechwriters React.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Is that the one Dan's on?
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Watch out, Pfeiffer. I was going to say, watch out, Pfeiffer.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: We're coming for you. Get his ass. Different reactions.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: New YouTube series. New YouTube series.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: I like the episode where you speech write rubber bands
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: on a melon of some sort.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: That was a really good one.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Love it. Speaking of jokes, how was the show this weekend?
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: We had a great love it or leave it. I
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: talked to Kara Swisher about social media and regulation under Democrats.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: And I talked to her about our conversation with Dominion's
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: CEO and with the Parler CEO, which was... two different
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: conversations she had. And, uh, then I quizzed, uh, uh,
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: Jon Favreau, uh, and Tommy Vitor on their tweets over
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: the last four years. And it was a very fun
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: and entertaining experience. Then I told jokes to random people
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: on Omegle, which is, uh, uh, works really well, except
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: apologies to a few people who, uh, I guess didn't
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: put in the right, uh, keyword and did see, um,
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: strangers' penises. It was not what we wanted to happen.
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: What?
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Well, we gave people a word to put in so
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: that they would only see people who were part of
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: the Love It or Leave It group. I think that
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: there was some....
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: Anyway.
• 2:10
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Well... But the show was good.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Good thing it's a podcast.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Also.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There's no segue.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: No, there's not.
• 2:19
  Speaker 7: We would.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: We would love to watch tomorrow's inauguration with all of you.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Please join us for our transfer of power hour.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Here, speaking of getting rid of dicks we didn't ever
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: want to see.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It's the inauguration.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Here we go. That's a transition. All right.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: That's perfect.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: It's the transfer of power hour group thread starting at
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific. We'll be drinking at
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: 7 a.m., of course. Before all the inauguration festivities get underway,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: all your Crooked friends will be on the group thread
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: at crooked.com slash inauguration. We can't wait. Look, it's early
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: for people in L.A.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: To wake up.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: 7 a.m., that's tough.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? That's two hours before normal L.A.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: people wake up.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: All right, guys.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I want to start with a question for both of you.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: When we recorded our very first Pod Save America, just
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: before Trump took office in 2017... What if I had
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: predicted that he'd be leaving four years later after the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: death of nearly 400,000 Americans, a recession, two impeachments, 10
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: months of not being able to safely leave our homes,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and a violent insurrection of Trump supporters that would lead
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: to the country's first transfer of power where 25,000 armed
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: troops will be required to keep the peace in Washington, D.C.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: during the inauguration? Would you have said... A, you've been
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: following too many resistance Twitter accounts. B, sounds about right.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Or C, is that all?
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Love it? I'll just be, I think it sounds about right.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I just, you know, look, we were, these were the
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: things we were worried about. We were worried about him
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: launching an assault on democracy. We said from the beginning,
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: we said from the primaries, the great fear was what
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: would happen if he was in charge during a real
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: national emergency. I mean, that's what we talked about from
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: the very beginning. And by the way, we were pretty
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: well convinced he was a criminal from day one. So yeah,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: double impeachment, defeated coup, and massive crisis he mismanaged to
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: the point of causing a huge number of deaths does
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: feel like a sad reminder that no one was being sensationalistic.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Tommy?
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: John, I would say, look, you have to take him
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: seriously and not literally. And he's bringing a businessman's acumen
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: to a job that has been, you know, just handed
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: to bureaucrats for decades. And you're going to have moderating
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: forces in there like Jared and Ivanka and Reince. So
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I think you guys are all just being a little
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: too alarmist.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Give him a chance, okay? He's our president now. Trump
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: derangement syndrome.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: Trump derangement syndrome.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: You got a case.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: We haven't even gotten to the night where he became
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: president because he, I guess he blew up an airfield
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: in Syria.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: That was what it was, right?
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Oh my God. I mean, look, up until 2020, there
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: were so many bad things that he did that people
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: had always worried about, right? There was family separation comes
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: to mind, the Muslim ban. Charlottesville. There were numerous Charlottesville.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the racism came through. The xenophobia came through in
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: many ways. There are numerous things that could lead him
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to be one of the worst presidents of all time.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: But there also would be this debate that popped up
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: every time someone said he was one of the worst
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: presidents of all time. Especially some people on the left
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: would say, oh, George W. Bush launched a war in
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Iraq in the wrong country. Hundreds of thousands have died
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: because of that war. And that was always a good point.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And then 2020 comes around. And the pandemic plus all
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of the actions of the last few months where he
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: tried to incite an insurrection against the government based on
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: conspiracies about electoral fraud. plus the pandemic, plus the recession.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is basically everything people worried about with
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, save for starting a nuclear war.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: And you know what? I didn't want anybody to say,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: we have 24 hours left. Can you just button it up?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Can you knock on wood to stop a nuclear war?
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Is that knock on wood?
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: There is a big, interesting, somewhat academic debate going on
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: about whether he's a fascist or not, or how to
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: define him in the Trump era.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And I I don't know that answer. I'll leave it
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: to the smarter people.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: But he is definitely the smallest person to ever inherit
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: the biggest job on the planet. Like four years in,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: he's still worried about his treatment. He's still aggrieved. It's
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: about press coverage. It's about weekend cable hosts not being
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: nice enough. Like no one has ever grown into a
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: job less in the history of jobs than Donald Trump
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: in the presidency.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: It's just like he's a terrible human being. That's all
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: it is. He's a terrible narcissist.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean most days he just didn't do the job.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he just gave up.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I mean– When he did the job, he caused great
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: harm and damage to the country. But most of the time,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: he just didn't even do the job at all. And
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: especially in these last couple of months when he was
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: just consumed with himself and winning the election. He cares
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: about no one but himself. That's the whole theme of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the whole fucking Trump era. He will be the first
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: president since Andrew Johnson in 1869 to skip the inauguration
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of his successor, another impeached one-term president who was a racist.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: After not getting the big military send-off that he reportedly wanted,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: The soon-to-be ex-president will instead leave Joint Base Andrews at
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: 8 a.m. on Wednesday and fly directly to Mar-a-Lago, where
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: he will play golf in Wallow in Grievance. So not
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: much different from most days of the last four years.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: I really liked, by the way, there's apparently an email
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: going around trying to get former Trump stuff to try
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: to show up at Andrews Air Force Base at 7.15 a.m.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: in the freezing cold to wave him goodbye.
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: Six.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: No, call time is six.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Call time is six for the 7.15 wave. That's why
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: no one's going.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: And they're so desperate that it said, you and five
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: plus ones. And it even went to Scaramucci.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Scaramucci got it.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all of the people that he hates, all the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: people that like had a bad breakups with Donald Trump,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: John Kelly, Mooch, everyone's get there trying. They're just trying
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to build a Christmas card list. None of the Republican
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: leaders are going. Mike Pence isn't going. They're all going
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to the inauguration instead. All the inauguration activities. No one's
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: not a lot of people are going. And it's like
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: some staffers are like afraid to be photographed. at a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump farewell ceremony too, which.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Is- Yeah, that'll be your undoing, you losers.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Now we can't. That's a bridge too far. Photo on
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: the last day.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: How significant do you think it is that Trump is
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: refusing to attend the inauguration? Tommy?
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, I never want to see his dumb face
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: ever again, but I think it's harmful. I mean, not
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: every president has attended his successor's inauguration. The traditions have
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: changed over time, right? They used to like ride in
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: a car together from the White House to the inauguration
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: and back. I think Teddy Roosevelt got rid of part
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: of that tradition. But I do think that one of
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the most important parts of America is this peaceful transition
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: of power from one president to the next, even when
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: they're bitter rivals. And I think that he's slapping that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: tradition in the face. I think that this departure ceremony
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: and whatever speech he gives could end up emboldening and
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: inflaming all the people we just saw trying to storm
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the Capitol and overturn the results. It's not great that
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: half of Republicans seem to think that the party didn't
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: do enough in the first place to back his election lie.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it sends a bad message domestically. It sends
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: a bad message abroad. It's the last act of a sad,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: sad man.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Love it. I'm glad he's not going.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: I think the fact that we did not have a
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: peaceful transfer of power because of Trump sent a very
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: bad message about the peaceful transfer of power He is
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: not a fan of one. He does not represent it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: He can't embody it.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: So get out.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Have to just make sure we defeat the.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Movement that empowered him.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: You know, I, there was the, you, you know, I
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: was kind of, I stopped myself for three full days from, um,
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: joining the, uh, is Trump a fascist wars of Twitter? Uh, uh,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I almost did. I had a couple really good points
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: that I think would have really settled it. Uh, but I,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: but I didn't, but I didn't do it. I think though, like,
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: is he a fascist even though he was incompetent?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: What is fascist?
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: I think the thing that is most frightening, and I
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: think it is one of his biggest legacies beyond the
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: mass death and the judges, which I would put at
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: two and three, is that regardless of how successful he
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: was of an authoritarian, regardless of the guardrails that failed
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: or didn't fail or held up in the end, I
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: think what is most chilling is the kind of fascism
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: he engendered in people's hearts that that it's not just
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: that he didn't believe in the peaceful transfer of power.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: He spoke to and encouraged and engendered and nurtured an
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: anti-democratic in this movement that will long survive him. So
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: as president, I mean, so regardless of whether he attends
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: or not, the damage is done. He wouldn't be going
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: as a representative of our democracy. He would be going
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: as an antagonist to it.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, like I saw that Joe Biden said
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that he was happy he's not attending. I'm personally, you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I don't want to see him anymore either. I also
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: don't think it's necessarily about like decorum or tradition or
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: civility or any of that kind of stuff. Why I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: wish he went is because he should send a message
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden won the election, right? Like the centrality
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of this lie that the election was stolen from Donald
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Trump is just perpetuated by the fact that he's not
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: attending the inauguration, right? It's a wink and a nod again.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to his supporters that this isn't legitimate. Joe Biden's victory
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: isn't legitimate. And by the way, like there's a whole
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: bunch of people out there plotting, um, to potentially cause
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: more violence around the inauguration. And now Trump's telling them,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and don't worry, I'm not going to be there. You know,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: like I, I kind of think, so I think he
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: should have gone.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: You're right. Love it.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It's not like it would have undone all of the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: damage in any way, but at some point we're going
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: to need to start hearing some apologies from Republicans and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: for saying that the election was stolen when they fucking
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: knew that it wasn't. All right, so let's talk about
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: what's next for everyone who hitched their wagon to Trump.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: The family is reportedly following him to Florida, Don Jr.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and Kim Guilfoyle, Jared and Ivanka, who apparently might want
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a primary Mark or Rubio in 2022. They're even letting
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Tiffany go to Florida. She's looking for a house there too. Meanwhile,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Politico says that a lot of Trump staffers who stuck
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: around until the end of the administration... are worried they
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: won't be able to get jobs because of Trump's attempted coup.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Here's one staffer to Politico on background, of course. The
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: people who this is hardest on, aside from obviously the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: people in the Capitol and the police and the people
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: who are hurt, are the people who stake their reputations
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and their political, financial, and career fortunes on defending the president.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And he's just made it harder on us. First of all,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I love the parenthetical. Aside from, of course, the people
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: who were killed because of the insurrection. I realize it
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: was a little bit harder on them. Spare a few
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: tears for the out-of-work Trump staffers, guys. Tommy, what do
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you think about all these Trump staffers who are just
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: so worried they're not going to find a job again?
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: How do we make sure that happens? I mean, you
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: should be worried.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a stain on your reputation that is permanent,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: and you have to live with that. But what sucks
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: about this is that the most senior people, the people
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: who enabled him the most, who are the most culpable
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: for where we ended up, will probably be okay. You
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: mentioned Ivanka. She thinks she's going to be a senator
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: or something, primary Marco Rubio. I mean, The arrogance entitlement
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: of these people who think that they've somehow earned another
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: government job is just staggering to me. But if you
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: take Jared Kushner, right, like every six months there was
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: an article about how big his portfolio was. He was
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the shadow secretary of state. He was handling U.S.-Mexico relations,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Middle East peace. He was going to solve the opioid crisis.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Remember when he was going to modernize government?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: That was a fun little moment.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: He's going to save the day with COVID, but then
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: he fucked everything up. Right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: So basically what he ended up doing was spending the
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: last few months flying around the Middle East and paying
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: off various countries with US government dollars and programs that
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: were not currently at war with Israel to announce that
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: they weren't at war with Israel as part of these
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Abraham Accords, whatever. So I say that context because I
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: think that will help Jared be fine. Like he has rich,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: powerful friends in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel. And They're
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: going to take care of him financially, right? And so
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I have more contempt, I think, for some of these
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: people who are quitting two weeks out than the young
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: kids complaining on background at Politico who are still gutting
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: it out. Because all of these people, like if you
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: were a political appointee, you did enormous damage to the country.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: You helped separate kids from their parents. You lied about
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: the pandemic. You backed a man who told lies from
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: the first minute he was in office until the very end.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And so, like, I don't think the attack on the
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Capitol was some sort of revelation. Like, you knew who
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: this guy was. You worked for him in spite of
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: that character. I would never hire you.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: You have fucking horrible judgment. What are you complaining about?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: You made your bed. Now you have to lie in it.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Love it. You know, McKay Coppins has a good piece
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: in The Atlantic about how the plan is amnesia here
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: on the part of Republicans that Trump they're just going
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to pretend that Trump never happened.
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Um, they're going to all try to move on the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: wall street journal editorial board, sort of like kick this
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: off today by saying like, pay no attention to the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: man's character and all of his flaws. Think about all
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the people in the administration who, you know, were responsible
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: for the passage of policies that really helped the country.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So that's other, that's like a, it's a good example
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: of how the Republican party is going to try to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: sort of distance itself from like the uncouth parts of
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the of the Trump legacy. Is that possible?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's possible. Oh, I think it is possible.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: And I think we are going to be really I
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: think that like, the results are not going to be
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: very satisfying. I think they'll be quite mixed. I mean,
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: I think you'll have people like Sean Spicer, in part
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: because they were kind of goobers from the jump ending
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: up like as like, you know, reporting from the briefing
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: room for Newsmax because they couldn't get speaking gigs because
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: nobody wanted to hear what they had to say. I
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: think people like Gary Cohn, who are, I think, better
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: connected and a bit more savvy, have done a good job, clearly,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: of getting insane editorials drafted at the Wall Street Journal
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: to basically brandish their credentials for speaking gigs, board seats.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: I have no idea.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: But I mean, that was ridiculous.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, we here at the editorial board would like
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: to point out to these 10 people that we think
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: are good.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Not bad. They're good.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: What a strange waste of... What is the goal of
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: that piece? To rehabilitate these 10 people?
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: And then, then it is, there is going to be
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: on the impeach. Like I was thinking about this over
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: the weekend that it's just like the position of Tom
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Cotton and Lindsey Graham and all of these people is
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: going to be, how can you impeach and remove a
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: president from office if he never existed? You know, like
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: that's going to be there. That's going to be their position. And, and,
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: you know, I think it's obviously dangerous. It's dangerous because
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: of the damage that, that this did. And, and, complicity
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: in it. They need to be held responsible. But it's also,
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: have we learned nothing over the past few years? This
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: isn't a conservative movement with some nationalists. The nationalist part
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: of the Republican Party is its establishment.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: It is its core.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: It is its base. It runs the show. And they
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: play these games for years with Rush Limbaugh, with the Levens,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: with Now with Tucker, with anybody they want who can
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: help them stir these people up and get them riled up,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: and then they act like the conservative intelligentsia putting out
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: fucking tax credits for small businesses is what the party's
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: really about, when it's not.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: They want blood now. They want blood.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I would say there's not even many people left pretending
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that anymore, that the party's about like fucking deficits and
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: tax cuts and all the rest.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: That's a small.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Those are like the Mitt Romneys. Those are like the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: normal people. yeah that are saying that left who are
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: like been ostracized by the party at this point now
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: they're just pretty open that they don't like democracy very
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: much yeah you know yeah there's there's a there's a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: county gop chair in georgia today being like ah we
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: got to roll back just about all of these uh
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: voting expansion laws that they passed so we can win
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: an election again i mean they're not even trying to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: hide it anymore um so trump will still be tried
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: in the senate over the next few weeks but um
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Beyond that, you know, hopefully we can stop talking about him,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: at least for a while. But before we move on,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I do want to talk a little bit about his legacy,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: both how he's changed the Republican Party and how he's
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: changed the country. You know, Lovett, you were just touching
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: on this. Let's start with sort of the Republican Party. Tommy,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the final Gallup poll of the Trump presidency found him
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: tied for the lowest approval rating since Eisenhower, but also
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the highest approval rating among Republicans since Eisenhower. In what
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: ways has Trump changed this party?
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: profoundly for the worse.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Look, I think all leaders decide, do they want to
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: rally their citizens by appealing to the good in them,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: their better angels, or are you going to go.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: For anger and fear and paranoia?
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And Trump chose almost exclusively to activate the works in
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party, right? It started on day one, talking
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: about American carnage in his inaugural address, and it continued
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: through yesterday, right, through the attack on the Capitol. And so,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: These strains of rage he drew out, they weren't new
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: and he wasn't the first to do it. The Republican
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Party since the 60s has used racism to appeal to
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: white voters, started over.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: It became more coded over time. Trump made it overt again. Right.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was birtherism. It was Mexicans are rapists.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: It was defending Nazis in Charlottesville. He emboldened other racists
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: to follow suit and be overt like he is. I
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: think the Republicans have always been kind of more conspiratorial,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: like we're a conspiratorial country. But the Republicans have that
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: really paranoid streak in them. McCarthyism, the John Birch Society,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: the post 9-11 Islamophobia. Those parts of the party have
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: ebbed and flowed in terms of prominence over time, but
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: he made them front and center. Like 2015, he's doing
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: interviews with Alex Jones. He's blaming George Soros. He's making
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: us scared of migrant caravans in Antifa. I think Trump
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: will leave office now, but those bigoted, paranoid, factions are
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: now ascended. Like you said, Mitt Romney, those folks are
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: leaving the party. The QAnon Republicans are showing up to
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Washington and they want power now. And so he's decimated
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: their faith in democracy and elections. And I don't know
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: how the Republican Party fixes this. I don't know if
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: they want to fix it, right? Like most of the
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: party probably doesn't think there's anything that needs to be fixed.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: So again, like he woke up these really ugly factions.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: He embraced QAnon.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: He helped it grow.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: He made white nationalists feel emboldened. Militia groups feel emboldened.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: So this is scary stuff to me. And I think
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: it's by no means over when he leaves office. It's
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: a huge problem for Republicans, but it's a huge problem
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: for all of us as citizens that this is what
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: we're now left with.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like 40 years ago, but after
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the 2012 election, when Mitt Romney lost, there was an
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: autopsy about what the Republican Party did wrong. and the
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: conclusion of the autopsy of why they lost was that the,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you know, the party needs to embrace sort of trade,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: free trade and immigration and, and the growing diversity of America. And,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and that's how they're going to, and that's how they're
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: going to win. And then instead they nominated Donald Trump
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and he won anyway. So love it. I guess one
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of the questions, you know, to what Tommy was just
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: talking about, which is like, does the Republican party even
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: want to fix these issues? Like do, can they be
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: successful with, as the party of Trump without Trump at
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the helm.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: I think there's a real, I think there's something interesting, right,
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: about what the party decides to say about democracy between
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: that autopsy and what they've said since the attempted coup, right?
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: It is true that they were able to win the
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: White House again without following what that kind of approach
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: would dictate, right? Like appeal to a multicultural growing majority,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: appeal to people outside the current base. I think that
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: was predicated on the idea that they would want to
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: win a majority of the country and not win the
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: White House with a narrow strip of electoral college victories
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: in a few swing states. And then in the wake
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: of the coup and the attempt to overturn the election,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Republicans were just coming out and saying, if we object
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: to the electoral college now, we're screwed. The electoral college
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: is the only way we're going to win the White
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: House ever again, which is another way of saying we
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: don't plan to broaden our base. We don't plan to
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: change at all. So We said this four years ago.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: If Trump had lost in 2016, that would have been
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: yet another, not just popular vote loss, but election loss.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I think that would have caused a real period of
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: soul searching and change. We defeated Trump. We removed him.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: But the Republicans picked up seats in the House. Democrats
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: managed to win the Senate, but Republicans got the biggest
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: turnout that they've ever had. And so that kind of
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: a split decision, I think, is putting off the reckoning
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: That I think would otherwise have come. And it puts
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: the stakes at 2022. They make them incredibly high. John,
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: you've talked about this. Obviously, it's incredibly high because the
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Republican majority in the House is a majority that will
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: object to the Electoral College if a Democrat wins. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: God help us if we lose the Senate. But it
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: also means that they will be rewarded for the worst
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: tendencies in their party, showing them that they no longer
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: can win without Trump. but with the kind of conspiratorial
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: right-wing fascistic revanchist politics that they have been using is
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: I think the only way to ultimately defeat it. We
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: can't appeal to their shame or their morals.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: We have to defeat them.
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And I think there's two ways this could go. I mean,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: like one interesting example is Arizona, right? So in 2022,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kelly is up again because it was a special
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: election to fill that seat. So the, Most Republicans, most
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Democrats too in Arizona believe that the toughest opponent for
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Mark Kelly would be Doug Ducey, who is the governor
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of Arizona, the Republican governor. Doug Ducey is not moderate.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: He is a conservative. He's a hardcore conservative. He was
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a Trump supporter. But because he has been implementing like
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: public health regulations and restrictions for COVID and because he
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: didn't necessarily object to the electoral college results, they're thinking
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of the state GOP wants to censure Doug Ducey. And instead,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: they might want to run in the Senate primary like
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Andy Biggs, one of the crazy conspiracy theorists who actually
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: helped plan the rally that ended up being an attack
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: on the Capitol against Ducey in the primary, perhaps, to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: then maybe run him against Mark Kelly instead. Now, if
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you're Mark Kelly, you'd much rather run against Ducey. Andy
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Biggs than Doug Ducey. But at the same time, who knows?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Because the other part of this is, and you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: one of the Republicans was saying this the other day,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Ken Buck, he's like, I wouldn't worry too much about
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: losing the suburbs. I think now we are a working
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: class party. And I think the evidence of that is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump did expand the base in 2020, even
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: though he did loss, which he did get more votes
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: than he did in 2016. And he expanded that not
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: only among non-college educated white voters, but he even reached
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: into the Latino coalition and brought some Latino voters on
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: board and even a small number of black voters on
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: board too. And the question is, can the Republicans develop
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: this like working class, non-college educated coalition to like edge
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: out Democrats in some of these close battlegrounds?
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: The one thing I would say is fascinating to me
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: about like what these Republican parties have been saying. There's
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: one in Wyoming that was talking about secession. Like, you know,
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: the Ezra Klein has written about this a fair amount
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: about about like the weakening of the parties, but the
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: strengthening of partisanship. And what's interesting to me is you
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: would think the Republican party of Arizona would be interested
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: in winning a Senate seat more than say, you know,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: putting forward like the most base friendly kind of right
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: wing nationalists that they can find. But it does seem
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: as though these parties are now more kind of not
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: trying to lead the base somewhere or try to help
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: them find the best way to win, but are actually
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: just avatars of it because these party structures are so
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: weak And so much is being determined by like small
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: dollars and by what the what the the agitating, bloodthirsty
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: groups are pushing them to do.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like censoring Cindy McCain out there in Arizona.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I look and party. I don't know.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that's.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Going to be surprised if they run the fucking QAnon shaman.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: The Arizona Republican Party is batshit crazy and they are
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: they are advertising it on Twitter in an effort to
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: grow their reach and following like that's who they are,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: that this is who they're.
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And then look, the same thing is going to happen
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, another state that the Republicans lost, right? the
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: right-wing lunatics in Georgia are going to try to primary Kemp,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: who I already, I used to think was a right-wing lunatic.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And now there's always someone further to the, he is,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: but it's so sad. There's always someone further to the right,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: you know, than Brian Kemp, Raffensperger, Gabes, all these people,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: all these Republican characters.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: Establishment Republicans rally to Marjorie Taylor Greene to prevent a
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: right-wing primary challenge from removing her from her part of
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: the leadership. Like that's where we're heading towards.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: It's a little scary.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: It's, it's, yeah, you have to laugh because otherwise it's
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: fucking terrifying.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Finally, we talked about the Republican party. Let's talk about
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the country.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And what ways did Trump change America over the last
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: four years?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: All right. And what, what did he not change?
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: What did he, what did he not get done?
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: I think, so let me say what we, what we
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: talked about from the beginning, which was, all right, there's policy.
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: There's like institutions and then there's the culture. I think
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: on policy, uh, they will point to their success on judges.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I think that will be his biggest and most lasting
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: political legacy that it will have huge and far reaching implications.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: They're actually not totally known to us because we have
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: to see just how much of Biden's agenda they're successfully
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: able to stymie at the courts. That is going to
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: be a huge and long lasting problem. It is a,
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: it is a grim unfairness that Donald Trump appointed more
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Supreme court justices than Barack Obama in eight years, right?
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: Four years versus eight years. Um, Then you look at
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: the damage done to institutions.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did you forget the tax cut?
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Well, the thing is, yeah.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: They did pass a tax cut. That's it. His one
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: big legislative accomplishment was a tax cut. I guess his
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: NAFTA renegotiation too, which was not much of a difference,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: but it was something.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think we've just gotten sort of used
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: to like, yeah, like, you know, Bush passed bigger tax cuts,
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: like Republicans passed tax cuts, right? That's not unique to
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump. If anything, you would call that McConnell's achievements. Obviously,
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: then I think beyond the pandemic, which will be his
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: greatest and most long lasting and destructive effect on people's
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: day to day lives, given how many people have died
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: and how much havoc it's caused in the failed response
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: and the misinformation he promulgated for the entire time that
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: he was in the White House. I think you look
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: at the damage he has done to our culture. As
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: Tommy said, the right wing nationalism, he's fomented the anti-democratic
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: trends he's fomented. He was more than just a mirror.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: He was an amplifier. He took these trends and he
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: made them far worse. And he accelerated what Facebook was doing.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: accelerated what Fox News was doing. And that doesn't go away.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: And how we grapple with that in the years ahead,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: I think is going to determine whether or not we
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: can keep this democracy.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I agree, Levitt.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I think that like sort of right wing propaganda in
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: this country. And, you know, we've talked about the rise
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: of Fox for a long time now. We've also always
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: had sort of the power behind the presidential bully pulpit
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the first figure to sort of fuse
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: those two things together. And so now right-wing propaganda was
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: coming from the presidential bully pulpit on a daily basis.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: And I think what that does, he brought out the
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: worst in us.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: He made the country vicious. Like little kids chant, build
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: that wall. Like that's not normal.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: It's okay to demonize each other and it's okay to
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: be selfish at each other's expense. That's it. That's what
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: he did for the country. And you know, whether it's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: fascist or whether it's authoritarian, it's certainly authoritarian, right? Like
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: rules don't matter. Power matters. You know, democracy is for
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the weak. This is, this is the legacy of Trump.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And it's not just transforming the Republican party, but because
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: we only have two parties in this country, it is,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: it remains a very, it remains maybe the existential threat
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to the country going forward that we now have one
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: of our two political parties that just doesn't really believe
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: in the basics of democracy anymore. that we're not arguing
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: from the same set of facts anymore, that conspiracies and
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: misinformation have taken root in one major political party. And
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: that's what they stand for. I was thinking about, what
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: is the Republican agenda now? You can't even list a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: policy agenda from that party anymore. It's nothing. It's just
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: owning the list.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Part of it, though, is they are victims of their success.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: They passed their corporate tax cuts. They did a fair
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: amount of deregulation. We'll be able to undo that. They
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: got their judges through. They made the deal. McConnell, McCarthy,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: Paul Ryan, even Mitt Romney at the start, they made
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: the deal. And they got a lot out of their deal.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: And now they're going to pretend that they were never
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: a part of it, that really all they cared about. No,
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: you traded character for tax cuts. You traded democracy for deregulation.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: You own them both.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: There's always more government to dismantle, more tax cuts to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: give out, more regulations. Now we'll find that out in
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the next four years. I will say that The only
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: silver lining of the Trump era is it did remind
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of people of how fragile democracy is, and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: it did get a lot of people off the sidelines
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: who hadn't participated in politics before that. And I do
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: think whether we meet this challenge going forward is going
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to be dependent on whether all those people stay in
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the game.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: I think it reinvigorated and refocused lawmakers' attention on the
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: need to pass reforms that make democracy easier, make it
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: easier to vote, that gives DC statehood, that reduces gerrymandering,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: reduces the influence of money in politics. Those are very big,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: long term challenges. But I think, you know, the seeds
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: of getting us to Trump were sown in a lot earlier,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: especially when it comes to dark money flowing through every
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: single political entity in this country.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you're right.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: We can't we can't have a multiracial democracy if we
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: have minority rule in this country. which is what Republicans
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: have rigged the system to give themselves. So that's why
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: some of the democracy reforms are so important. All right,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: let's turn to the incoming President Joe Biden. On Thursday,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: he unveiled his $ 1. 9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which is
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: designed to fight the pandemic and the recession. It includes
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: an additional $ 1, 400 in recovery rebate checks, Biden's calling them,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: an extra $ 400 per week in unemployment benefits through September,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: $ 350 billion in state and local funding, and hundreds of
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: billions of more for COVID testing, a national vaccination program,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: reopening schools and colleges, childcare, paid leave, rent support, and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a $ 15 minimum wage. Tommy, what do you think of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Biden's plan?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: It's big. This is big.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, this is what double the Recovery Act
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: was in 2009. And, you know, some people might argue
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: that the Recovery Act was too small, and I will
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: heartily agree with you. But This plan comes on top
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: of the previous $ 3. 1 trillion that Congress has passed in
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: terms of relief.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: So this is great.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: I like that they're putting big pieces in there like
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: a $ 15 minimum wage, right? Like Marco Rubio is already
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: crying about some of this, but Republicans jam unrelated tax
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: cuts for rich people into everything they do.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: So we should do the same.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: I think it's good that voices in Congress are pushing
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: him to go bigger, right? Bernie Sanders, the chairman of
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: the Budget Committee, He's going to push hard for even more.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: And he wants to use the budget reconciliation process to
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: pass it with 50 votes so it can't be filibustered.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: But look, I mean, it is horrifying that it took
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: until a Biden administration for the federal government to own
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: coronavirus testing. Trump pushed it to the states. He gave
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: them no money. He wiped his hands of it and
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: he walked away. Biden is taking responsibility. He's owning some
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: of these things. There's tons of money for unemployment insurance.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: There's the direct payments. I think there's a lot of
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: really good stuff in here that people should be happy about.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Love it. What do you think? The biggest ticket item
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: cost-wise in this are these recovery rebate checks. They're $ 1, 400,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: not $ 2, 000 because Congress passed $ 600 checks a few weeks ago.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: There's some consternation on the left about this. I don't
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: know what you think about this, the recovery rebate checks.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Here's what I think. I think more is better. More
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: is better. I agree.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: More is better. But if the original idea was 600
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: and then you're going to up it by 1,400 to 2,000,
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: if we're really going to have a semantic debate as
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: to whether or not that's passing $ 2, 000 checks, I'm going
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: to skip that debate. If you want to say, I'm
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: skipping it. I'm just, I am not participating.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: I'm out.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: I'm out on that semantic distinction. I'm not saying like,
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: if you think we should push for more bigger checks, great.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: Like let's push for bigger checks. But like, I feel
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: like the debate over the semantics was, was sort of
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: lost on me.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, too, man, like I want bigger checks too.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: And I also, I want bigger direct payments instead of
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: tax credits and other mechanisms that tend to be slower,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: more complicated to get people money. But like, it's so
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: frustrating to see people accuse Biden of being dishonest or
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: some people said he's gaslighting because this is a $ 600
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: check plus a $ 1, 400 check. that equals 2000. I mean,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: clearly the initial argument was 600 was insufficient. We should
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: get to 2000. Now, if you, if you want to
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: tell me that some of the messaging around the Georgia
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: runoffs was unclear and that some people thought we were
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: talking about an additional $ 2, 000.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Check, that's fine.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Let's all advocate and organize and work to make it bigger.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: But like, I don't understand why people decide to just
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: leap to bad faith and get, angry and like accused
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Biden of, of, of letting them down before the guys
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: even stepped into office.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: It's, it's very frustrating. It's a big package. Like let's
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: pass it.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: It's frustrating. It's a problem with Twitter. It happened with
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the CNN story last night. So stupid that Schumer and
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: McConnell are entering into a, a, a, you know, an agreement,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a power sharing agreement, right? Which you hear like, why
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: is Schumer giving that up? Well, what's really happening is
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Schumer is majority leader. Democrats are the chairs of every
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: single committee. The committees will be split evenly between Democrats
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and Republicans, but Democrats still control the floor and the schedule.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: So they have all the power. They have as much
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: power as you can have with 51 votes in the Senate. Absolutely.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: And like everyone who sees the Senate knows that, but
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: people just like jumped on Twitter to be like, Oh,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Democrats giving up. It's like, there's gonna be plenty of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: reasons to criticize Democrats. Don't worry. We'll have Plenty of opportunities.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: We do it all the time.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Don't act like you understand this fucking Senate procedural thing.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Like I dialed up some CRS report about how it
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: worked back in the early 2000s to try to figure
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: out how this works. Like people just, there's this cottage
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: industry of people that want to say Democrats are bad.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Both sides are the same. Both parties are bad. And
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: that is cynicism.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: That is not a smart analysis or constructive approach to
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: doing things for people, which is.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Why we all got into politics.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I wish I could weigh in, but I did say
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: I wasn't going to involve myself in this debate. Unfortunately,
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: I will say this.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I will say this.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: I was forced to be reminded of Jim Jeffords for
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: a while. That was just sort of about him switching
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: sides and all that. It's a little trip down memory lane,
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: early Bush administration, no child left behind. But, you know, compassionate, conservative,
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: pre 9-11, a whole different time, a whole different time.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I will just say one more thing on the checks,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the checks debate. So like, The COVID relief package passes
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: on December 27th with only one week left to go
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: in the Georgia runoff. So most of the Georgia runoffs,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: everyone was advocating for $ 2, 000 checks, right? So there is
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: a bill at the end after the thing passes with
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the $ 600 checks supported by all the most progressive members
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in the house, AOC, everyone else that said, We want
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to now increase those $ 600 payments to 2000. We would
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: like an extra $ 1, 400 to bring it up to 2000.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: They all signed on to that bill. And when they did,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: no one complained about that. Everyone was like, yeah, obviously
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: he only passed $ 600. Let's get another 1400 to 2000.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: It's called the cash act. Everyone supported it. So like what?
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. And look, Ayanna Pressley, her response to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Biden's bill was, I think we should have $ 2, 000 checks, $ 2, 000
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: per month.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: That's what I believe.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I believe we should have more. And I was like,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: you know what? That's a completely legitimate way to frame it.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Not like they lied to us. He was dishonest. Just like,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I want more. And I think it should be a
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: check every month.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: Like, great.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: That's the debate we should have. That's the exact right
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: way to do it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Argue for more.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: More is better.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: People are really hurting. And the other thing that is
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: remarkable too, it's like, I'm glad we're having this debate.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: And I think progressives should push no matter where the
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: debate lands, right? That's an important role for them to play.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: But like, man, have we come a long way since 2009?
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: We got Joe Manchin talking about like multi-trillion dollar relief
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: and infrastructure packages. Like the center has shifted. We have
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: learned some lessons. And I think that is a very
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: positive thing.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Well, and also, I think we don't want to, even
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: though it is the biggest ticket item in Biden's bill,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I think we do a disservice by just focusing on
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the direct payments. Like $ 400 extra per week in unemployment benefits,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: which already get you, you know, 70, 80% of the
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: way to your former salary is a good amount. Extended
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: through September.
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Through September is a huge deal, right? The state and
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: local government, the $ 350 billion for state and local government
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: is huge. That's going to save so many jobs. A
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: $ 15 minimum wage. Think about when $ 15 minimum wage not
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: that long ago was like the progressive policy position. Now
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: the Biden folks actually think that they might get some
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Republican votes on a $ 15 minimum wage. And by the way,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: like they should now that that's the one thing that
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: might not be able to get done through reconciliation. You
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: might actually have to have a vote and get 60
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: on a $ 15 minimum wage, but man, I can't imagine
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: a better thing to put in front of the Republicans
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: as one of your first acts than to say, oh,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: you guys are going to be the fucking working class
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: party now? You have a working class coalition? What do
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you think about a $ 15 minimum wage since it gets
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: about 65% support in polls? Great. Make them vote against it.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: I think that's totally right. I made one point about
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: the minimum wage too, which I think is actually I
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: found interesting because I was reading about What I was
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: actually thinking about was, all right, getting rid of the
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: filibuster mansion, some other Democrats are really opposed to it.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: You even have people like Bernie Sanders that have expressed
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: reluctance in the past.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: There's a.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: Reticence about it, fine. But I was just looking into
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: the popularity of the minimum wage. And there's been this,
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: I think, mostly purely rhetorical and almost emotional conversation about
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: Republicans appealing to the working class movement. Raising the minimum
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: wage is popular. It is incredibly popular amongst Democrats and independents.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: It is divided amongst Republicans. But what's interesting is Republicans
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: who make under $ 40, 000 a year support raising the minimum wage.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: It is a place where there's a divide inside of
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Republican politics. And it struck me that if they're going
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: to be pretending to appeal to the working class, even
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: though they're really it's guys with $ 120, 000 pickup trucks, waving flags, fine.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: But looking for those issues where you can say, actually,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: the working class of the Republican Party is with us,
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: I think is really important. And I would love big
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: votes on the minimum wage. Like, do it until we
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: have to get rid of the filibuster. Make that the
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: thing we kill the filibuster on.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Being for popular issues that also divide the other party. Like,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: good politics from the beginning of time. That's just what
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: you do, right? There's also a couple other, like, some
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: real great provisions in this plan. On Obamacare... and the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act, the proposal would do two things. It
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: would make upper middle income Americans newly eligible for premium
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: subsidies on Obamacare marketplaces. This is one of the big
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: deal is that like, if you weren't, if you, if
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: you made too much money, but still not enough money
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to really be able to afford insurance, you didn't get
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the subsidies on the marketplace and the premiums were still
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: too high. So now there's more subsidies for that. And
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: there's going to be higher subsidies for lower income enrollees.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: So taken together, this will fulfill the Biden campaign promise
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of making sure that like no one in America pays
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: more than eight and a half percent of their income
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: on their healthcare, which again, it's not Medicare for all.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: It's not the public option yet, but to do this,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: to squish this into a, to sneak this into a
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: bigger relief bill is a, that's a great, that'll make
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: a difference.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: And hopefully it gets millions more people enrolled and sort
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: of sures up the entire system.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: There's also $ 130.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: Billion to help reopen schools safely. Again, unconscionable that no
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: money was.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Contributed Give any of these schools a reopening. Like this
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: is a life changing thing for parents.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: If their kids can go back to school, we have
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: to get kids back to school. So, yeah, there's a
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: lot in this bill that's good.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: The Biden team has reportedly said they don't want to
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: pass this through budget reconciliation, which would only require 51
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: votes instead of 60. But they're not ruling it out,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: of course.
• 43:32
  Speaker 7: Love it.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Why don't you think they started with budget reconciliation here?
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know either.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I don't, I like, I think it's, I think they
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: want to get, I think it's, I think it's them.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: They want to get caught trying. They want to say,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: we did not shut the door to Republicans at the
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: beginning of this. We want to find partners. We want
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: to find people who were, you know, Marco Rubio, you
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: say you're for $ 2, 000 checks, then come work with us.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Someone has said in the past there for a $ 15
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: minimum wage, come work with us. So they at least
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: want to get caught trying. I think the key is
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: you don't want to waste too much time waiting for
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: these Republican votes. I did see that punch bowl just
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: reported that, um, The House Democrats are just preparing to
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: pass the bill through reconciliation.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, they should.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Maybe also, I mean, maybe it goes back to the
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: conversation we just had where they want, you know, the
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: minimum wage increase to be part of this.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: And they don't think they can get that done through reconciliation.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: So they're thinking, OK, the biggest, most sweeping bill would
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: have to be passed in the normal fashion.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Obviously, it's going to get blocked.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: My advice to them would be start big, go fast,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: don't waste time. trying to convince anybody. Also, no one
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: gives a fuck about bipartisanship right now. People are desperate.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: They need help. Like, get it done.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Just whatever Joe Manchin wants. Again, look, one of you
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: alluded to this. Joe Manchin gave an interview over the weekend.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I thought some of the biggest news was he was like,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: first of all, he had seemed like he was against
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the $ 2, 000 payments He now wants to, like, make sure
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: they're targeted, but he didn't rule it out. And then
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: he said he would do two, three, four trillion dollars
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: in infrastructure spending. If you can do a big plan
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: with 51 votes through budget reconciliation and Joe Manchin in
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the Democratic caucus, who's the furthest to the right of
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the Democratic caucus, is on board with four trillion dollars
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: in infrastructure spending, you'll be able to do some pretty
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: good things.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Remarkable.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: Remarkable. Make the big dig look like a really small dig.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That one appealed to me as a asshole. As
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: a card-carrying big dick fan.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: So over the weekend, Biden also made clear he's not
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: waiting for Congress to get started on his agenda. Incoming
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain wrote a memo
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: laying out Biden's plan for executive actions in the first
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: 10 days, including rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, rejoining the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: World Health Organization, reversing Trump's Muslim ban, halting federal executions,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: rescinding the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: protecting DREAMers, Implementing a mask mandate on federal property and
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: for interstate travel and extending the pause on federal student
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: loan payments. He's also reportedly planning to move on an
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: executive order on the first day to cancel the Keystone
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: pipeline permit. How about that, guys? Tommy, why do you
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: think they're rolling out all of those at once right away? I,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I think.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: There is this sort of like old tradition.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: Politics view where you would maybe drip out one a
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: day and try to maximize press coverage on it or
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: sort of make sure people knew.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: You had an accomplishment. I like this approach. Go.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: This is why elections matter. The Senate is going to
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: be a challenging, frustrating place at times. The filibuster might
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: drive us crazy. Some moderates might drive us crazy. These
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: are big, meaningful things that remind people why it mattered
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: that they voted for Joe Biden. I mean, the message
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: that rejoining Paris sends other countries, the message that not
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: banning an entire religion from entering the country sends, it's
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: an enormous deal. And so, you know, I'm not exactly
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: sure on the political calculation, but I think getting this done.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Immediately is the right way to go.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: And then they can focus on the next thing because
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: like the legislative package is going to take a lot
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: of time and a lot of effort and a lot of,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: you know, arm twisting, whatever you want to call it.
• 47:09
  Speaker 7: Love it.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: What'd you think? It reminded me of, um, we had
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: to read so many speeches on the recovery act at
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the Obama administration. And there was so
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: much in the recovery act, so many accomplishments on education,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: on infrastructure, on clean energy, basically like, and I think
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Ram had said this before, like an administration's worth of
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: accomplishments rolled up into one bill. And I remember it
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: was really hard writing the speeches, trying to make sure
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: that like Obama and the administration got credit for all
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the specific things they did in one bill. And I,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and it, It's a tough balance because on one hand,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: like Tommy said, you want sort of the momentum that
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: can convey a sense of momentum and urgency, right? Like
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: we are just doing a bunch of shit. We're undoing
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: the damage of the Trump years. We're moving forward on
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: all the things people elected us to do. And the other,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: like the media environment can only handle covering so many
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: accomplishments at once. And so I wonder how you balance
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: making sure that the administration gets the credit they deserve
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: for doing all this shit.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. I will say, though, it's interesting. It is different
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: than that in the sense that this is undoing a
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: bunch of harm, right? And there's still plenty of space
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: for a week devoted to an executive order moving climate
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: forward when you have John Kerry in this new role.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: There's also, by the way, I imagine just because it happened...
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: so recently, like there are anti-LGBTQ policies that have just
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: gone into effect through HHS that they'll have the opportunity
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: to undo. All that's a way of saying, I think,
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: like get this heinous shit off the books. And then
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: when you start rolling out further executive actions that move
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: things forward, don't just undo some of this damage. It's
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: not a Trump story.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: It's a Biden story.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: It's just the story of what they're doing.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: To make things better.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I think that's, I think that's, I
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: think that's ultimately, I think it's ultimately great. I also
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: just want to say like, The stopping of the executions,
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: like the Trump administration went on a fucking killing spree.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: It's horrible. They went on a killing spree. It's truly evil.
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: And it is absolutely like a rushed evil effort to
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: kill more people in a few months.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: People with special needs. In decades. It's disgraceful.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: And like it is the fact that it was some
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: of these executions were taking place like in the midst
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: of a coup, right? That they didn't get the attention
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: or the like the press coverage I think they otherwise
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: would have gotten. But man, it has been it is
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: there is a the darkness that propelled this administration. It
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: was evident everywhere, everywhere, all the time for four years.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And I know that it is, you know, I like
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: your point a little bit about undoing the damage versus
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: sort of doing like proactively good things. I just ran
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: through a list of things. Each, each one of those
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: actions is going to have enormous consequences and do enormous
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: good in people's lives. And like, I really do. And look,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: this is part of why you have a big team too.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Like Joe Biden shouldn't be out there on every single
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: one of those, right? Like you can have a whole
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: cabinet to fan out. You have a white house team, right?
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Like I think you need to be creative with how
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: you sell your agenda, right? Like my view is like it,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: pretend it's still a campaign, right? Like you should, one
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: thing I wish we did even more when we were
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in the White House is run everything like we were
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: running a campaign. You know, the only thing is you
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: don't have like a campaign committee to run TV ads
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: for you, but like maybe get outside groups to do
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: that for you, right? Like everything you should be doing,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: you should be trying to sell to different people, reach
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: different audiences and make sure everyone knows what you're doing
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: every day because, you know, they're going to be judged.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration will be judged in 2022. And then again,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: in 2024 on like, What did you get done for me?
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Especially with people who don't follow much attention to politics, right?
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be the ins and outs of
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: what's on Twitter and the debates we follow every day.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: It's just like, how did my life change over the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: last two years? What did this administration do? What have
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I noticed that is different?
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: A couple of these things are urgent, right?
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: Like the mask mandate, even though it is relatively limited,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: like that has to happen now. The freeze on student
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: loan payments, that has to happen right now. The moratorium
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: on evictions, that has to happen right now. Some of
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: these things are just like crisis level urgent matters.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: I also want to do is that like some of
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: what we were trying to do when we were talking
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: about the Recovery Act was try to explain to people
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: how these steps would affect them, whether it's investments in
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: infrastructure or some of the tax credits that were a
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: bit harder to see. And the checks, raising the minimum wage,
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: some of these changes will be evident immediately to people
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: in their daily lives.
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And I also think that, again, we're going to have
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: an impeachment trial sometime over the next few weeks. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I think the Biden administration is going to want to
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: make sure that people know that they are focused on
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: improving their lives in the here and now and not
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: consumed with impeachment, because I guarantee you that a lot
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: of the media coverage will be consumed with the impeachment trial,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: which is unavoidable. But at least the Biden folks can
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: show that they're, you know, working on solving the pandemic
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: and not just consumed with that either.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: When we come back, you'll hear Love It Me talk
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: about what goes into writing an inaugural address on Speechwriters React.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: Look, we're in a mood today, all right? We're recording
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: this at a particular day after the insurrection failed.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Speechwriters React. With Joe Biden's inauguration just days away,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I thought we'd take a look back at some past
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: inaugural addresses, explain what goes into writing one, and take
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a guess at what Joe Biden might have to say
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: in his first speech as President of the United States.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau, former head speechwriter for Barack Obama.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: I'm John Lovett. I was a speechwriter to Hillary Clinton
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: and a speechwriter to President Barack Obama when John hired me,
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: despite the efforts by some to prevent that from happening.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: I'll just say this. I'll just say this.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: One of the people who tried to stop me from
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: getting that job. Very prominent in the Biden administration.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: That's it. I'm just going to leave it there. That's it.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: That's all you're getting.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I can't believe Merrick Garland tried to stop you from
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: getting hired. Stakes of an inaugural probably feel higher than
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: they should. Some of the most famous presidential lines in
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: history come from inaugurals.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: can do for you.
• 53:09
  Speaker 7: Ask what you can do for your country.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: There is a certain pressure... I think, to write an
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: inaugural for history. And you feel that when you start
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the inaugural process, though my experience is, and my advice
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to future speechwriters who are writing inaugural addresses, is to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: not quite think of it as a speech for history,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: but think of it as a speech that should be
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: in the moment and of the moment. and sort of
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: write for the time and place and moment that you
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: find yourself in. Let's start off with one of the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: most famous inaugurals ever. This is FDR's first in 1933.
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: This great nation will endure as it has endured, will
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: revive and will prosper.
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: So first of all, let me assert my firm belief
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: that the only thing we have to fear is... Fear itself, nameless, unreasoning,
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: I was struck in the speech by how similar over
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: the decades and centuries, even the structure, the basic structure
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: of a political speech is right. There's like, it's a
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: very common structure, which is we have all these challenges
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: as a country and, but don't worry, we have everything
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: we need to beat these challenges. All we have to
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: do is my political agenda.
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: That's every single that's and he does that. He talks
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: about the depression, right? He takes he takes office in
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: the in the midst of a Great Depression. He talks
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: about everything that's ailing America. But then he says, well,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: here's all we have everything we need to beat this.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: That's where the line comes from. You know, the only
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: thing we have to fear is fear itself.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: I would say probably my favorite political speech ever given
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: is FDR's acceptance speech of the Democratic nomination in 1936.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: That is the speech where he talks about a rendezvous
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: with destiny.
• 55:33
  Speaker 7: This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: And a speech where he talks about accumulation of economic
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: power as a threat similar to the accumulation of political power.
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: polling place, He must have equal opportunity in the marketplace.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: I always go back to it because I think it's
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: one of the clearest, most confident statement of liberal governance,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: of liberal politics that's ever been given by an American president.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: You notice like Roosevelt doesn't get up there and say,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: you know, we're in this depression. Here's what led us
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: into this depression and here's the policy agenda that's going
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: to lead us out, right? The speech is much bigger
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: than policy, much bigger than his agenda. And it is
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: about trying to not just communicate his vision, but lift
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: the nation's spirits, which obviously needed lifting in the midst
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of a depression.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: As Biden is thinking about how you address a country
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: in which as of this moment, due to misinformation and propaganda,
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: tens of millions of Americans doubt the basic tenets of
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: how our elections are conducted. We spend a lot of
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: time talking about how you combat misinformation and falsehoods and lies.
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: And I think one lesson from this speech and some
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: of the best inaugurals is sometimes the best answer to
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: a lie is not a fact, it's a deeper truth.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: And that if you are, if you have a shield
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: of like basic core values, a basic ideological premise for
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: why you believe what you believe. Facts can help you,
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: but those truths, I think, are ultimately more powerful in
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: dispensing with falsehoods and misinformation and propaganda.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Next up, let's take a look at an address I
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: know all too well, Barack Obama's first inaugural address in 2009.
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: Today, I say to you that the challenges we face
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: are real. They are serious and they are many. They
• 57:40
  Speaker 6: will not be met easily or in a short span
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: of time. But know this, America, they will be met.
• 57:54
  Speaker 6: On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord, On
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: this day, we come to proclaim an end to the
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: that for far too long have strangled our politics. We
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture,
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: the time has come to set aside childish things. The
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: noble idea passed on from generation to generation, the God-given
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: promise that all are equal, all are free, and all
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: You can hear in this, again, sort of The like
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: how it almost mimics that FDR speech that we listened
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: to at the beginning, whether we did so consciously or not.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: And I would say not. But like I say to you,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: the challenges are real. They're serious and they are many.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: They will not be met easily or in a short
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: time span. But know this, they will be met.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Like we wanted him to have a line to land
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: on where people could feel like, yes, we are in
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: the middle of an economic crisis, a great recession. I
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: remember him telling me, look, we want an inaugural that
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: is hopeful, but we also want an inaugural that recognizes
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: how bad everything is right now, because we can't just
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: be way up here telling people, hope change, everything's wonderful.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Like we did for most of the campaign, because now people,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: you know, we're losing 800,000 jobs a month and the
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: banking system is frozen up, you know? And yet, so
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: you have to dig deep in a speech like this
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: to like reflect the severity of the times that we're in,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: but then also try to lift people up from there,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: much like FDR did in that 1933 inaugural. Biden faces
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: a similar crisis, set of crises, right? As FDR did
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: and as Obama did.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: They are three presidents taking office after the abysmal failure
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: of a Republican president to address massive crises befalling the country.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: This is an extraordinary.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: inaugural in that it is a once-in-a-century pandemic. It is
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: a massive economic crisis. And there is also, for the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: very first time, a president taking office as the previous
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: president refuses to accept the results.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: That is extraordinary. I'll have to talk about that.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: That said, to Joe Biden's great credit, he has been
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: giving a version of this inaugural address since the day
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: he announced his candidacy. He has been talking about the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: soul of the country. I will be surprised if we
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: are surprised by this inaugural, in part because of the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: up to and including the likelihood that it ends in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: the quoting of an Irish poem.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Will hope and.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: History rhyme in this inaugural when it has rhymed so recently?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Perhaps, perhaps. This is our moment to make hope and
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: history rhyme.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be two parts of the speech. One is like,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: here's the action we need to take and here's what
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: we need to get done. And the other is, and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: here's how we get it done. We need to like
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: work together, right? I do think now that he has
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: a Senate majority, he's going to wanna put a little
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: bit more emphasis on the part where, he talks about
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: delivering actual results that are going to solve big challenges
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: and change people's lives. Because I think he wants to
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: convey a sense of movement and action in these first
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: hundred days that he can now deliver on because he
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: has more votes than he would have if Mitch was
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: still controlling the Senate. Basically, this is a speech to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin. It's just 15 minutes to Joe Manchin about
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: everything Joe Manchin wants to hear. He's gonna have a
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: couple anecdotes about West Virginia.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: Halfway through the inaugural, he stops and he just says,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I can't keep going. I got Joe Manchin
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: in my field of view and that's the most handsome
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: man I've ever seen in my life.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: And Jon Tester, are you 40?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna say, look, I know that I'm a 77-year-old
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: heterosexual man. I wanna jump Jon Tester's bones right now.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Is that crazy?
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow for a group thread
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: for the inauguration. And thanks for sticking with us for
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the last four years. For how many pods about Donald Trump?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Too many. Yeah, too many.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: It was a really long couple of years.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: What did he? Oh, Jordan. Over 450, Jordan says. What?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Let's never talk about him again.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of, did you see what he tweeted this.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Morning, guys?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Man, the impeachment trial does suck. I want a clean
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: break from this asshole. It's so frustrating that we're going
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: to have to talk about him But hopefully he just
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: gets removed.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: We were against impeachment the whole time.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Honestly, send one of those house managers over. Jamie Raskin's
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: leading the crew. Have him go over. Say, hey, did
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: everyone see what happened the other week? Yeah, I see that.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell was quoted today on the Senate floor saying
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: the president helped incite the mob, right? Okay, convict him.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: That's it, I'm done.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: Remember when that dude dressed like Sasquatch was the presiding officer?
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was bad.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't need a long trial here. We don't
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: need to be cross-examining anyone. No, it's just vote. Take
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: a vote. All right, we're done. We're just going to
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: fade that out at some point. Pod Save America is
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: film and upload these episodes as videos every week.