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“Flyin’ Ted.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dr. Fauci is here to talk variants,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: vaccination timelines, and what he's learned over the last year.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Before that, we'll talk about the battle of Mitch versus MAGA,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: what President Biden wants to do about student loan debt,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and what this week's brutal winter storm can tell us
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: about the failure of Republican leadership in the great state
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of Texas. Two quick housekeeping notes. Representative Gwen Moore of
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin joined the Hysteria crew this week to talk about
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Republican legislators' attempts to suppress votes in Arizona and Georgia.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So check that out. And over on the Crooked YouTube channel,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I joined Alyssa Mastromonaco on her series Let's Break It
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Down to talk about how the State of the Union
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: address was written in the Obama White House. Fond memories, Dan.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Fond memories.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Have you contemplated the fact that there may not be
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a quote unquote State of the Union this year because
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: people can't sit together on the Capitol?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I did not contemplate that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I figured because they were all there for the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: certification of the election slash insurrection that they would be
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: able to be there and sit together.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an open question. It's up to Biden if
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: he wants to do it with all those people there.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine anything worse than writing a State of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the Union address, except for writing a State of the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Union address that would be delivered over Zoom. Look, it
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: was always a great time. I was always a joy
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to deal with during the process. It was just, it
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. Go to youtube.com slash crooked
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: media to hear all of our stories about the State
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of the Union. Check it out. All right, let's get
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to the news. On Tuesday's pod, we talked about Mitch
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: McConnell trying to have it both ways on impeachment by
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: voting to acquit Donald Trump and then tearing him a
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: new asshole in a speech on the Senate floor. In
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a stunning turn of events that literally everyone could have expected,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the former president objected to the minority leader's remarks in
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a 600 word statement that read in part, quote, Mitch
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: is a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack who will
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: never do what's right for our country. No arguments there.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Literally the most truthful thing he's ever said.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: Ever said.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Total agreement with Donald Trump. According to Politico, Dan, that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: was the toned down version of the letter. The original
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: apparently mocks McConnell for having multiple chins because self-awareness is
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Trump's strong suit. He ended by threatening to, quote, back
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: primary rivals who are MAGA loyalists in midterm elections. So
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Mitch versus MAGA, who you rooting for? No one.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Everyone to lose.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: That is probably correct. What do you think, though? Who
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: should we be rooting for here?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I want someone to release the Zack Snyder cut
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: version of the Trump statement. Put it out there, someone.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Leak it. I don't know. I hate Mitch McConnell. I
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: hate Trump. In their current position right now, Mitch McConnell
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: is much more dangerous than Trump in the sense that
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: he can do things other than call into Fox News
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: and OAN.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I have found the coverage of Mitch McConnell's speech to
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: be infuriating. There's actually a pretty good New York Times
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: story today which points out how Mitch McConnell has got
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: himself in a bit of a pickle here by trying
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: to have it both ways and ending up with neither way.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: But the thing that bothered me about the coverage, which
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: is why I find it strange if my reaction to
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Something happening is the same as Trump's. Like that causes
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: some amount of self-reflection. But– and all the coverage of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell's speech and Mitch McConnell's speech itself, it never
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: wrestles with the fact that he himself promoted that big
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: lie for well over a month. And so the question
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I guess comes down to if they are going to
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: have a fight of sorts, whether it's a battle for
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the soulless center of the Republican Party or something else,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: who should we root for? And I don't really know
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: the answer to that. I don't know. What do you think?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I will say just narrowly considering primaries in 2022,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I certainly don't want to promote, nor will I, more
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Trumpy candidates. But I do think that in many cases,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: if a Trump-backed candidate who's fucking cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: wins a primary... We will have a better chance of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: defeating that candidate than we will a Mitch McConnell-backed, more
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: establishment Republican.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: What if it's the opposite?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's only the opposite. I mean, it depends
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: on the state, right? Like, I don't think, you know,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: a completely Trumpy candidate in Pennsylvania necessarily has a better
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: chance in a primary than another Pat Toomey, who's really
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: conservative but not as Trumpy. I mean, it depends on
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the candidate, right? Like if it's a candidate, labeling a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: candidate Trumpy is also tough too, because there's a million
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: different ways to be Trumpy, right? Like you could see
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: someone with Trump's faux populist appeal doing well. You could
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: also see, like, I don't think Marjorie Taylor Greene wins
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a statewide race in Pennsylvania. I don't think she wins
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a statewide race in Georgia either.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: No, I agree with that.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: You know, or if she could win a statewide race
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: in Georgia- if there was a really weak Democratic candidate.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But if you told me on the Democratic side, would
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: you rather face in Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene or David
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Perdue again, I would say Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. And I think there's probably
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: a special exception for a QAnon conspiracy believing people who
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: were kicked off their committees. But there is an interesting
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: question of if Trumpy is right-wing appeal to Fox News, Hannity,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: and McConnell is Paul Ryan policy's establishment-backed Chamber of Commerce
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Republican in an election determined by turnout, it's not, to me,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: a given that the McConnell candidate will be better than
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: the Trump candidate. It's possible that it'll be the opposite.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: You're right. It's going to depend on who that person is.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Is it Merger Taylor Greene, or is it Doug Collins,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: or is it something else? But I think the big–
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the question here is, is Mitch McConnell being in that
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: job or– and we should also note that according– that
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: for this giant battle for whatever the Republican Party, the
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: McConnell people have basically said he's not engaging anymore. He
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: said– He gave one speech and he's like, I got
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: this covered and you moved on. So I don't know
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: what kind of battle this is going to be. And
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: we'll see if he actually does the work, right? But
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: all this time we hear like, we need people like
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: John Boehner or Paul Ryan to be in their position
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: or Mitch McConnell to be in their positions of power
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: to serve as some sort of bulwark against Trumpism, the
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Tea Party, and all of that turns out to be
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: complete and utter bullshit. Mitch McConnell was in his job.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: And Trump incited a violent insurrection that almost murdered all
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: of Mitch McConnell's colleagues. And so I'm not sure that
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: we are that much better off or it makes any
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: bit of difference whether it's McConnell or Lindsey Graham who
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: is in charge of the Senate. I think it's the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: same thing at the end of the day because of
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: where the locus of power is in the party.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Well, and that goes to my point about who do
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you want to win a primary, right? Because normally you'd
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: say– Well, it's dangerous to elevate the Trumpy candidate because, look,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we all did that to Trump in 2016 and then
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Trump won.
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that the country necessarily is better
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: off when established Republicans win primaries or even win general
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: elections at this point because they don't do much of
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: defending the fucking country from Trumpism. You know, I mean,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: it's also like. Some of these are like, you know,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: distinctions without a difference. Like, think about the Madison Cawthorn race.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Remember when Madison Cawthorn won his primary? He was not
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: backed by Donald Trump. The Trumpy candidate lost. And then
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Madison Cawthorn was like invited on fucking Morning Joe. And
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: everyone was like, oh, young star of the Republican Party.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: beat the Trumpy candidate in the primary. And it turns
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: out that Madison Cawthorn is just as fucking Trumpy as
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the rest of them and like showed up at the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Stop the Steal rally.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Dan Crenshaw, same situation.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, same thing.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: So it's like Mitch McConnell candidates aren't necessarily like, they're
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: not like Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say that they're wonderful.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to react strongly to that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I have to be careful around you. But they're not
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: like that necessarily. They could still be pretty Trumpy candidates.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So I'm still looking for the candidate that we have
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the best chance of defeating, which is usually the less
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: extreme candidate.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's what all the political science research shows.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Even to this day, even with Trump winning in 2016,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it still shows that. So McConnell's MAGA problems go beyond
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Trump himself. Lindsey Graham said that if Mitch doesn't understand
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that Republicans need Donald Trump to take back the majority,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: he's just not looking. Ron Johnson said that he doesn't
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: think Mitch speaks for the caucus and that he, quote,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: needs to be a little careful. Sean Hannity called for
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: McConnell to be replaced as leader, as did a county
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Republican chairman in Kentucky. Do you think McConnell's job as
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: minority leader is in any serious jeopardy here?
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: No, I don't actually. Um, You need someone to– the
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Senate caucus writ large is not the House caucus. They're
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: on the Republican side. There is not this block of
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Freedom Caucus people who actually control the sway. It's a
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: lot of MAGA-adjacent institutionalist Republicans who have been there for
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: a while. The people most likely to sort of seize
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: on this moment and challenge it are Josh Hawley and
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz– two people hated by every other senator. It
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: is very, very rare for a Senate leader to be
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: deposed within their own caucus. I'd be curious. People have
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: quit because of scandals like Trent Lott, but I don't
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: know that anyone has been deposed in modern history, at least.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And It just seems very hard to imagine that happening
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: in this case, given who the likely challenges are. You
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: need to be popular and well-liked among your colleagues to
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: take down someone like Mitch McConnell. And Josh Hawley and
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz have spent their lives being neither well-liked nor
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: popular with anyone.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And then you have to ask yourself, like, why would
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: all of these Republican senators who are really pissed at
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell rally around someone like John Cornyn?
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Who's still not quite Trumpy enough. to be beloved by
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the MAGA base, but is also like, doesn't really satisfy
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the concerns of the rest of the caucus. So it
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's, it doesn't seem like it's going
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to happen, nor does it really like if McConnell was
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: replaced by John Cornyn, I think like, or someone like that,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think we'd all be better off.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's the Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy example.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly. In fact, we all, and we said when our favorite,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: our favorite, uh, Republican leader, Paul Ryan left that, uh,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy would be worse.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: He's the same, exactly the same.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: He has been.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: No, actually, at least on one important matter, he has
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: been much braver than Paul Ryan because Paul Ryan made
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Steve King, a valid white supremacist, chair of the constitution
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: subcommittee and Kevin McCarthy kicked him off all of his
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: committees and it basically ejected it from Congress. So there's
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: a small point in Kevin McCarthy's favor. Okay.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I'm a, You know what? I appreciate your feelings for
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Paul Ryan. I appreciate that the grudge is going to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: be held no matter how long we do this show.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I am still mad about putting a white supremacist on
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the Constitution subcommittee.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it was bad. It was very, very bad.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: McConnell's people told CNN that his plan is to never
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: utter the name Donald Trump again, which is really funny.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: This is most certainly not Donald Trump's plan. He broke
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: his longest stretch of silence in four years yesterday. with
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a series of friendly interviews where he was clearly distraught
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: about the death of his good friend Rush Limbaugh, to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: whom he delivered a moving tribute during a call into
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Fox News' Outnumbered. Let's listen to this compilation that Jordan
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Ewell put together.
• 12:45
  Speaker 7: And he was one of the people that said we
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: were going to win. He thought we were going to win. Well,
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: Rush thought we won, and so do I, by the way.
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: I think we won substantially. And Rush thought we won.
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: I was disappointed by voter tabulation. And a lot of
• 13:02
  Speaker 7: other people feel that way, too. But Rush felt that
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: way strongly. And many people do. Many professionals do. I
• 13:09
  Speaker 7: think it's disgraceful what happened. We were like a third
• 13:11
  Speaker 7: world country on election night with the closing down of
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: the centers and all of the things that happened later.
• 13:18
  Speaker 7: And I don't think that could have happened to a Democrat.
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: You would have had... You would have had riots going
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: all over the place if that happened to a Democrat.
• 13:27
  Speaker 7: We don't have the same support at certain levels of
• 13:30
  Speaker 7: the Republican system. And he was furious at it. And
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: many people are furious. You don't know how angry this
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: country is. He was somebody that really felt that was
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: a very important victory for us. We should have had it,
• 13:45
  Speaker 7: that we did have it. But he was somebody that...
• 13:49
  Speaker 7: felt that was a very important election, and I did too.
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: I mean, I did too. You see what's happening now.
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: We played golf together a little bit. He was a
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: very strong guy, physically very strong. Hit the ball a
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: long way.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: What a tribute. What a tribute to Rush.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Remind me to have Donald Trump eulogize me. So I
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to spend too much more time on Trump.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Last question on this. Is there any way for Democrats
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to exploit this sort of Mitch versus MAGA thing? saga
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to push more Republicans out of power.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is the core of politics is uniting
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: your coalition and dividing the other's coalition. And so finding
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: ways in which to make Mitch McConnell the embodiment of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: what Trump and MAGA hates about the Republican Party makes
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: it harder for Mitch McConnell to elect people to the Senate.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Because Trump is not going to be on the ballot
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: in 2022. A large coterie of his children may be
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: on the ballot, but he will not be on the ballot.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And so- This idea that Mitch McConnell, this hated Republican
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: who betrayed the MAGA movement, who espouses all these policy
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: positions that are universally unpopular, but Donald Trump's kind of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: sort of ran against 2016, is to Democrats' advantage. The
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: way we are going to win is if the Trump
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: voters who turned out in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Arizona,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: do not turn out in this election. And Trump and
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell being in a big fight certainly makes that
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: more likely and possible. And we should find ways to
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: keep that fight going as long as possible and communicating
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: it directly to voters.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, back to the original question we asked. Root for
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: chaos in the Republican Party. That's what we need to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: root for. All right, let's talk about the current president.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden took his first official trip away from the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: White House on Tuesday. He flew to Milwaukee for a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: CNN town hall that was totally normal, pretty informative, generally reassuring.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: even a little boring at times. At one point, the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: president simply referred to his predecessor as, quote, the former guy.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: What'd you think? What'd you think of the town hall,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: how Joe Biden did?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly the way you described it. It was so comfortingly normal.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Just a normal president talking to voters about issues. And
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump was not really a.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Part of it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there's, he looms large over everything, but
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It's about helping people deal with the pandemic and get
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: help and student loan debt, which we'll talk about all
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: these other things. It was just normal. I also think
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Biden has really found just this great– and he's been
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: this way since the general election really started. It's just
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: this real comfort in knowing what his strategic home base is.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: He's going to be presidential. He's not going to be
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: overly partisan. He is not going to talk about Trump.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And he's just going to focus on uniting people with
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: sort of the macro definition of that, not the appease
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Lindsey Graham definition of it. And he's just been very,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: very good. And he has found this way to be
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: adhering to the strategic guidance that I'm sure his team
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: has given him while still being completely and totally authentic
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: and human. And it's not an easy thing to do
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: on national television, for sure.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Or an easy thing to do for Joe Biden. Let's
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: be honest, he has spent a lot of his career
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: delivering very sort of undisciplined, loquacious answers to questions. And
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: he now, he still does that sometimes. He still rambles
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: on a little bit, but he's always catching himself. You know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you can always see that he's editing himself now, that
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: he's trying to be more disciplined, that he's trying to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be more strategic in his answers. He was like that
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: during the campaign. I think it's why he ultimately came
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: out ahead in the primary when he was losing badly.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And then of course did really well in the general election. Like,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: He has gotten better. And I think we saw that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in the town hall. As you mentioned, I think one
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: of the most notable moments came when a listener asked
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Biden the following question about student debt forgiveness. Let's take
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a listen.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: We need student loan forgiveness beyond the potential $ 10, 000 your
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: administration has proposed. We need at least a $ 50, 000 minimum.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: What will you do to make that happen?
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: I will not make that happen. It depends on whether
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: or not you go to a private university or public university.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: It depends on the idea that I say to a community,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I'm going to forgive the debt, the billions of dollars
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: of debt for people who have gone to Harvard and
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Yale and Penn and schools, my children. I went to
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: a great school. I went to a state school. But
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: is that going to be forgiven rather than use that
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: money to provide for early education for young people? children
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: who come from disadvantaged circumstances. But here's what I think.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I think everyone, and I've been proposing this for four years,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: everyone should be able to go to community college for free.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: For free.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: That costs $ 9 billion, and we should pay for it.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: And the tax policies we have now, we should be
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: able to pay for it. You spend almost that much
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: money as a break for people who own racehorses. And
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: I think any family making under $ 125, 000, whose kids go
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: to a state university they get into, that should be.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: Free as well.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: So this wasn't really new. Biden campaigned on canceling $ 10, 000
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: worth of student debt. But after the town hall, Chuck
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, who've been part of the progressive
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: push for Biden to cancel $ 50, 000 of debt, released a
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: statement that read, the Biden administration has said it is
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: reviewing options for canceling up to $ 50, 000 in student debt
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: by executive action, and we are confident that they will
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: agree with the standards Obama and Trump used. The White
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: House responded by saying that Biden doesn't favor forgiving up
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to $ 50, 000 in student debt, quote, without limitation, and that
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: they've asked the Justice Department to review whether Biden has
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the executive authority to cancel that much debt in the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: first place. So, A lot to unpack here, Dan. Uh,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think Biden is against the $ 50, 000 cancellation because
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to do it or because he doesn't
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: think he has the power to do it?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: We have to disentangle two questions that I think have
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: become a little sort of aggregated together since the election.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: During the election, much of the discussion around student debt
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: cancellation was about legislation to do that. Since the election,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren, Senator Schumer, and others have pushed forward this
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: idea that he has the executive authority to do that,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: that that is something within his power. During the campaign,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Biden was for canceling up to $ 10, 000 in student debt.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: But he did not go as far as others who
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: wanted a much larger number, including eliminating all student debt
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: or canceling up to $ 50, 000. So that is one aspect
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of it. He's clearly said himself, and he reiterates it,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Jen Psaki reiterated, he reiterates at town hall, that he
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: is closer to $ 10, 000 than $ 50, 000 in terms of what
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: he feels comfortable from either a policy and or political
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: perspective to do. Then there is another question about whether
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: he has the power to do it, whether it's $ 10, 000, $ 50, 000, $ 5,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: whether that is something that exists within the president's commonly
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: accepted executive authority.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: And that is.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Warren and Schumer believe he does. There is precedent that
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: suggests that they are correct. But it's also worth remembering
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: that a president only has as much executive power as
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court says he or she has. And a
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: 5-4 Supreme Court that existed when Barack Obama was president
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: with Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg– may have a very
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: different view of how much power a Democratic president has
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: than a 6-3 court with Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Jen said, and I thought this was a pretty compelling point,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: which is they want an opinion from the Department of Justice.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: They do not yet have an attorney general or a
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: team at the DOJ yet. And once they have that,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: this would be the Office of Legal Counsel, I believe,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: which provides legal opinions to the government on what they
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: can and can't do. And so I imagine that they
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: will put that forward when there is someone in place
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: to render that opinion. Last thing I'd say is the
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: opinion on the books right now says the president does
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: not have that. Now, that opinion was written by the
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: attorneys at the Department of Education, who are Betsy DeVos's attorneys.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: So that is not a binding opinion or one that
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: we should take particularly seriously, but that is what is
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: currently on the books. It does make it a little
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: bit harder to go forward until you have a superseding
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: opinion that says you can do it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: The one other wrinkle here is that if you listen
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to that statement from Schumer and Warren, They said, we're
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: confident that they will agree with the standards Obama and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Trump used. So that was referring, I believe, to the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: fact that both Obama and Trump have used authority to
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: sort of delay student loan payments, cancel some student loan payments.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: This basically comes down to the Higher Education Act of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: 1965 and whether you believe it gives the president the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: authority to cancel debt. There is agreement. that that law
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: gives the president some authority to cancel or postpone some
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: student loan payments. There is not agreement whether it gives
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the president the authority to do a mass cancellation of debt.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Is that what you took from.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: It as well?
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is my understanding. And there's a broader question
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: about whether– and this is in the Department of Education
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: opinion– whether they actually even had the original authority– because
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: it's a spending issue and a spending issue is delegated
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to Congress. Now, I think this is a bullshit opinion,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: but ultimately this is going to end up being before
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court if you were to proceed forward, just
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: as nearly every executive action of any merit or controversy
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: ends up.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: So we should make a point about the politics of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: these two proposals, which we polled with Change Research last month.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: 55% of voters supported canceling $ 10, 000 worth of student debt
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And 52% supported $ 50, 000 worth of student debt. So both
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: proposals fairly popular, and there's not too much of a
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: difference in support for either proposal. So what are the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: risks of going with $ 50, 000 in debt over $ 10, 000? And
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: sort of what are the risks of the reverse going
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: with the $ 10, 000 position over the $ 50, 000 position for Joe Biden?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we should just stipulate, and I think
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: you and I agree here, that put the politics aside
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: for a second. This is the right thing to do.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: We need to deal with the ballooning student debt crisis
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: in this country. 40% of student debt holders did not
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: even graduate from college. So they have the worst of
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: all worlds, which is they have this huge debt and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: did not get the theoretically higher earning potential that would
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: come with that college degree. As Warren and Schumer point
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: out in their statement, this is a huge opportunity to
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: deal with the racial wealth gap in this country. And
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: so I think it's the right thing to do. I
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: would be for as much as is possible. But we
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: should not pretend it's risk-free in either direction. There is a,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: you know, I was thinking about this in the, if
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: you go back to the Rick Santelli CNBC rant that
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: launched the Tea Party and all of that, that was about,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: the core of that rant was a speech to people
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: who paid their mortgage, who bought, who quote unquote, bought
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: homes they could afford. There's a lot of bullshit inherent
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: in that point. And now you are being asked as
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: a responsible homeowner who pays your taxes to pay for
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the mortgages of the people who could not afford their homes,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: who bought homes they could not afford. This is at
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the absolute core of conservative messaging going back to Ronald
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Reagan and Welfare Queens. It is about sort of trying
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: to appeal to white voters by suggesting your– incorrectly and
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: unfairly and divisively suggesting your taxpayers are going to others.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: And so– and just like with the Welfare Queens examples
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: and as happened during Obama and the housing crisis, it's
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: finding specific, like outlier examples of people who, cause no
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: policy is perfect, who went to Harvard and majored in
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: poetry and a bunch of other bullshit that will get
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the right wing fired up who have this debtor being
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: paid off as opposed to what the, what the, the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: average normal story about this is, which is someone trying
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: to improve their lives for themselves and their family who
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: are forced to pay for this outrageous cost of college
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and trying to keep up with that. And, And graduated
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: from college in the middle of a recession, either in
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: 2008 or just now in the pandemic one. And so
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: there's no question this will be weaponized against Biden for
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: doing it. I think there is the other challenge is
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in not doing it. Biden won in part because through
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: his climate plan and through people understanding the unique threat
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: of Trumpism and Trump being reelected, young voters and young
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: activists who were very skeptical of Biden in the primary
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: engaged and did everything they possibly could to get him elected.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And to walk away from this and to not take
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to actually help people that if you do
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: believe you have that has the risk of demobilizing the
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: young voters who helped get Biden elected and that we're
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: going to need to hold on to the House and
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the Senate in 2022.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the right wing, the bad faith right
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: wing attacks on either action is going to be are
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: going to be the same, whether Biden goes with 10,000
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: or 50,000. So then my question is, if you either
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: have the authority to do it via executive action, or
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: you can get it through Congress, I guess via budget reconciliation,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: because it's not getting through otherwise unless you get rid
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of the filibuster. And I imagine this is something, since
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: it has to do with spending, that could be done
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: through reconciliation, though we can double check on that. If
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you can get it done, you're going to get the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: same kind of a tax whether you go with 50
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: or 10. So why not help more people? Now, Biden's
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: trying to make the point that I'd rather spend the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: money on early childhood education. And also it's important to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: make sure that anyone can go to free community college
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: or free state college, public college. If your family's making
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: under $ 125, 000 a year, free community college for everyone, right?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: So ostensibly he's making the point, there's a set pool
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of money. And if we're going to spend it on something,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I'd rather spend it on 10,000 versus 50,000 and use
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the rest of the money for early childhood education and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: for making college affordable for other people who are trying
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: to go. But then the question is, is there really
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: some limited pool of money for this, you know, in
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a world where, thankfully, Biden and the Democrats are much
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: less afraid of the deficit than we all were back
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: in the Obama administration? So I'm not I'm not sure
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: that I understand Biden's reluctance. to cancel $ 50, 000 worth of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: debt as opposed to $ 10, 000 worth of debt, both from
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a political standpoint or a substantive standpoint?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I guess the counter case would be, and I would
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: be for cancel as much as possible because it has
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: a stimulative effect on the economy because it puts more
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: money in people's pockets. It puts more money in the pockets,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: in most cases here, of the people who are the
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: biggest consumers, right? You're putting in the cores of that,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: sort of essentially the core demo, if you will. But
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: the one thing I will say is, and I am
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: more guilty of this than most, is we say, well,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: they're going to attack you for $ 10, 000, they're going to
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: attack you for $ 50, 000, what difference does it make? There
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: is actually, when you dig into a lot of polling
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: and message testing, yes, that is true in the initial attack,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: but the power of your response is somewhat mitigated by
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: the numbers. It very well may be that in a
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: back and forth, that it's only 10,000, it's better than 50,000.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: There's some point in the number there's a case of
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: diminishing returns, but it may be, and the Biden folks
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: may know this, that 10,000, there is some sort of
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: tipping point for people's view on this, and it's closer
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: to 10,000, 50,000. I don't know the answer to that,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: but I don't think it's a guarantee that the politics
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: are essentially the same between the two.
• 29:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems close to me.
• 29:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: But it seems, but it like, I definitely, that's true.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: But when you get to numbers, people don't understand that
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: are too big for anyone to comprehend, right? It's 1.5
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: billion or 900 million. Like that, I think is just
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: sort of all the same, but 10 and 10,000, 50,000
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: are real numbers that people confront in their lives and
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: their paychecks, their bills, their mortgage payments, et cetera.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I will say, you know, as a, as a final
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: point on this, this is the way that politics should work, right? Like,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: It's good that Schumer and Warren and progressives are continuing
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to push Biden on this to go to 50,000, right?
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Like he's saying no, he's saying 10. Everyone else is
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: pushing 50. They should keep pushing him. And if he has...
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you know, a good defense for it. He can push back,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: but like, yeah, I, I think he should do 50,000.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: You should, if you do too, you should keep pushing
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: them on it. It's, you know, it's important.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It's actually comforting and how it's happening, right? The, the,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: the pressure is firm, but respectful. It's not calling him
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: corrupt or anything. It is making the case and they
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: are aggressively doing it. It is the more moderate Senate leader.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: And then, uh, a progressive, uh, Senator like Warren pushing,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's, And the best way to get it
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: done is to really push hard on it. I think
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: it's great to continue to happen.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the winter storm and freezing temperatures
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: that have left millions without power and killed at least 20.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: The situation is particularly scary in Texas, which is facing
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the biggest blackouts at a time when temperatures hit four
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: degrees Fahrenheit. It was colder in Dallas than Anchorage, Alaska.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: In Texas, no power. So the outages, which could last
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: all week, happened for two main reasons. One, the demand
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: for electricity surged to a level that the Texas power
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: grid couldn't handle. And two, the supply of energy dropped
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: because the frigid weather disrupted the state sources of natural gas, coal, wind, nuclear,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and solar power. People are freezing. Some don't have access
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to food or water. Some have died. And the poorest
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: communities have been hit hardest. with one San Antonio resident
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: telling the Texas Tribune, quote, I understand we live in
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a less cared for neighborhood, but we're human like everyone else.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: What am I paying my taxes for? Good question. So first,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it would be great if everyone listening could help out
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: people in Texas right now. The Texas Tribune has put
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: together a list of local organizations you can donate to.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: We've all tweeted it out. Beto O'Rourke has been tweeting
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: about it. You can also just go to texastribune.org to
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: find it. We will tweet the link again. We'll put
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: it in the show notes. Second, Dan, I want to
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: get your reaction to how The Republicans who run Texas
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have responded to this crisis. Governor Greg Abbott attacked the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Green New Deal. Rick Perry said that Texans would rather
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: have more blackouts than have the federal government manage its
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: outdated power grid. The mayor of Colorado City resigned after
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: telling his constituents, quote, no one owes you or your
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: family anything. I'm sick and tired of people looking for
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a damn handout. And Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz, who tweeted
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: this week that he has, quote, no defense from mocking
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: California's blackouts over the summer, hopped on a flight to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Cancun to presumably film an episode of Insurrectionist Gone Wild.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: Flyin' Ted.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I was laughing about, I just wanted you to know,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I was laughing about Flyin' Ted, which Dave Weigel tweeted
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: last night, all night long. Woke up in the middle
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of the night laughing about flying Ted. Where would you
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: like to start, Dan, on all of this? It's hard
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: not to start with Ted Cruz. We can start with
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz and then back into all the policy debates.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I do think that a number of our younger listeners
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: are going to be interested in your Insurrectionist Gone Wild joke.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Do a little Googling and be fucking horrified that there
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: was a moment in time.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Don't Google. Don't Google.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: That there was a moment in time when there was
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: a large industry of selling incredibly misogynistic videotapes.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Disgusting. Mail order videotapes.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I mean– It fits with all of the coverage, sort
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: of the media culture of the 90s from the Britney
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Spears documentary, etc.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, yeah, it is.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Anywho, Ted Cruz, what were you thinking?
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: So for those who weren't paying attention to how this
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: story unfolded, it started on Twitter last night with some
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: people like taking pictures of Ted Cruz in the airport.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: We weren't even sure at first if it was Ted Cruz.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Then it sort of looked like him. Then it was
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the mask. that he has used on the Senate floor.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Then it looked like Heidi, his wife. Then it really
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: looked like Ted Cruz because people took some more pictures
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of him on the plane. And then people did a
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: little sleuthing. The reason that it was hard to believe
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: is because no one could believe that he could be
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that fucking stupid. Everyone knows he's an asshole, but he's
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: known as a clever or a smart guy who's an asshole.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: No one thought he could be so stupid that is
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to leave his constituents literally freezing so that he could
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: hop on a fucking flight to Cancun. But Ted Cruz
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: was that stupid. Ted Cruz was this, and he was
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that big of an asshole. And just as we're recording now,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: he put out a statement blaming his kids. Saying that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: his kids wanted to go on vacation. So he flew
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: down there with his kids, and then he rebooked a
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: flight home today after the controversy erupted.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And what an asshole.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz, just as big an asshole as you thought,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: but even dumber. I mean, for many politicians, this would
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: be career ending.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I would say that.
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: No, no.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is not up, of course, until 2024. So
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: he's got four years. And, you know, there's obviously a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people like, oh, and everyone's going to forget
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: by then. And it's 2024 and whatever. He'll get away
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: with anything. Look, I get it. Like, it takes a
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: couple hours for just about everything in politics to be
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: memory hold. But I don't think it's going to be
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that hard to remember the time that Ted Cruz went
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to Cancun while his state was literally freezing to death.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I just don't think it's going to be that hard
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: to remember.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: It is, as you sort of watch this play out
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: over the last several hours, it is the difference between
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: how this would be experienced by a Democrat or be
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: experienced by a Republican. The right wing media is actually
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: leaping to Cruz's defense. And Dinesh D'Souza, just a horrendous person,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: said that Ted Cruz was doing Texas a favor by
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: going to Mexico to get off the power grid and
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: stop being a drain.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Which which then then even that defense was shut down
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: by someone tweeting that Ted Cruz had asked for a
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: police escort once he got to the airport Wednesday to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: leave for Cancun. So he did take law enforcement resources
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: away from the crisis so that he could fly to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Cancun for a fucking vacation, which he blamed on his
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: kids during a blackout where people were freezing to death.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: I just cannot.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I can't get over.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: I am.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I was convinced that. that was not Ted Cruz or
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: that was him flying back to Texas from D.C. or
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: flying back to D.C.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I did think that. It seemed impossible.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: To imagine that anyone could be this dumb, that anyone
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: could be this dumb. But kudos to you, Ted Cruz.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So the most common disinformation being spread on the right
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: about the energy crisis right now is that renewable energy
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: is to blame for the power outages, especially wind energy.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Here's one of the more absurd takes from Tucker Carlson.
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: So unbeknownst to most people, the Green New Deal came
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: to Texas. The power grid in the state became totally
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: reliant on windmills. Then it got cold and the windmills
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: broke because that's what happens.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: In the Green New Deal. You're without power.
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: Millions are still without power tonight. Several have died. Now,
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: the same energy policies that have wrecked Texas this week
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: are going nationwide. They're coming to your state.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Fucking asshole. Well, what's what's wrong with Tucker's take, Dan?
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Well, first, I don't. How is it possible that AOC,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Ed Markey and Joe Biden enacted the Green New Deal?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And we had no idea. Yeah. It's a trial Green
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: New Deal in Texas. They passed a law. They forced
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it on Texas. No one else has it yet. No,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that Greg Abbott and the Republican legislature
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: in Texas and Ted Cruz and John Cornyn were all
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: big Green New Deal fans. I didn't know that they
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: had tried to implement it in their state.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: Who knew?
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: There's some there's bipartisanship right there.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's probably worth getting into just like a
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: little bit of detail about why this is so wrong,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: because this is one of those things that you're going
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: to have to talk to your MAGA loving uncle about
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: any minute now.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: No, my I saw my mom over the weekend. She's like,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: just got a message from your aunt saying up. Hope
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: you're happy with all your wind energy. Look what it did.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And I didn't even know the whole story yet. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, why is she talking about wind energy?
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And then I started reading that. I was like, oh, okay,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: there we go. This is another conspiracy.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's explain why this is wrong. One, Green
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: New Deal, not in law. Not a thing that has
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: happened yet. So it is definitely not because of the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Green New Deal. Number two, Texas only gets a fraction
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: of its energy from wind. As of at least a
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: few days ago, according to the Austin American-Statesman, yes, it
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: is true that half of Texas's wind turbines are down
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: because of the weather. The other half are up and running,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: and the ones on the coast where it is warmer
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: are actually generating above average amounts of energy. The primary
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: reason that they're having the power outages is because of
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: natural gas, hard to get natural gas energy during unexpected
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: winter weather like this.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: This.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Number three, wind turbines work in the cold. Two of
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: the places with some of the highest per capita wind
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: turbines in the country, South Dakota and North Dakota. I
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever been to the Dakotas, John,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: but it is cold as shit. You can weatherize wind turbines.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: They did not do so in Texas, in part and
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: in fairness, because this is a once in a century
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: cold event. But it can be done and you can
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: have your wind turbines work. They chose not to do
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: that in Texas. That is what is happening here. It
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: has nothing to do with wind energy. It has nothing
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to do with the Green New Deal. It has to
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: do with the fact that Texas is facing a once
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: in a century cold spell that is preventing the access
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: of fossil fuels to fuel the energy needs of the
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: state at this time.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you look at a chart of which energy
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: sources have been disrupted by this storm and how much,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: number one, by far, as you said, is natural gas.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Number two is coal. So two fossil fuels are number
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: one and number two, and then it's wind. The larger
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: issue here is the grid has failed, right? The electric
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: grid in Texas. And the reason it failed is because
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it was not ready for this kind of once-in-a-lifetime severe storm.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And so, of course, the demand for electricity surge, people
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: tried to heat their homes, which the grid wasn't ready
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: for because people don't try to heat their homes like
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: this to this level in February in Texas. And then
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: all of these energy sources were frozen out because they
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: were not weatherized, like you mentioned. So what is the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: solution to this? Because while this is a, we keep
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: saying once in a century weather event in Texas, it's
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Climate change, we know, is making extreme weather events, not
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: just in Texas, but all over the country, much more frequent.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And we do not have an energy infrastructure to deal
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: with the effects of climate change, which are already upon us,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: as we are seeing every day. And so like, All
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: this discussion, Dan, about a new electric grid and building
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: a new smart electric grid, did it bring you back
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to our days in the White House?
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: You mean the smart grid? I mean, how many times
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: did he wrote a speech about the smart grid?
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama was obsessed with an infrastructure plan that would
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: allow us to build a new, smarter energy grid that
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: could transmit all of the renewable energy that our country
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: is now creating and that would sort of withstand weather
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: disruptions like this, that would withstand outages, that it's smarter,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: that it's more efficient. And all of us smart political
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: communications people would all roll our eyes when you talked
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: about the smart grid because we're like, no one knows
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: what the fuck an electric grid is or a smart grid.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: It's going to be hard to explain to people. And
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Obama told us it was really important and he was correct.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: And now... So let's talk about what President Biden can do.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: He's already declared a state of emergency in Texas, sent
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: FEMA to provide generators and emergency supplies. But looking beyond
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the immediate crisis, he also has pretty ambitious climate and
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: infrastructure plans. What in those plans could sort of help
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: mitigate something like this from happening again?
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Well, certainly updating our power grid and weatherizing it and
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: updating our infrastructure writ large is going to have a
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: huge part. This is a big part of his Build
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Back Better plan. There was a lot of reporting this
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: week that the next item in his legislative agenda is
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: the infrastructure plan. I think he met with union leaders
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: earlier this week on that. There is a climate mitigation piece,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: which involves preparing for these once-in-a-century events that we now
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: know happen once every couple of years in some cases.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: And then there is also the continuing to update our
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: energy infrastructure, which has lagged for decades. It is something
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: we've been incapable of doing. Everyone's got to make a
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: joke about infrastructure week under the Trump administration, but it
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: has remained true that we have done nothing significant on
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: a broad scale, non-stimulus related infrastructure plan in an incredibly
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: long time. Yeah.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: And so much of over the last several years when
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: we've talked about climate change, it's about policies that will
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: prevent climate change. Climate change is here. And a lot
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: of the policies around climate change now, including a lot
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of Biden's policies, is around climate mitigation, climate resilience. It's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: fighting the climate change that's already here. One big way
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: that you do that is through building the right infrastructure.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, the other thing that we should mention is
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Texas's power grid is its own power grid. It's not
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: connected to other states like most other states are connected
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to each other. A national power grid that is smarter,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: that is built to carry renewable energy could connect in
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: a way that if one state had an outage because
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: of a severe storm or severe weather event, there could
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: be power stored in another state that could be transmitted
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: to the state that's dealing with blackouts. So like that
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: is the future that we could have if we invested
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: sufficiently in our infrastructure and specifically green, renewable energy friendly infrastructure,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: which is what Biden's plan would do.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Could you imagine if we chipped energy from states that
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: have extra energy to the states who need it in
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: a very seamless way without upsetting the idea of Texas sovereignty.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's wild.
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: It's wild.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure that, I'm sure the green new deal fans,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz will be, uh, we'll be
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: on board with that.
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: That's, that's good. When we come back, I will talk
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to the chief medical advisor to president Joe Biden, Dr.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci. I'm now joined by the director of the
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: medical advisor to President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
• 45:22
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Fauci, it's always great to have a fellow Holy Cross
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: alum on the pod.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: Good to be with you, John.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: So I was very excited earlier this month when you
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: said any American would likely be able to get the
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: vaccine by April. I was a little less excited when
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: you said on Tuesday it's more likely going to be
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: end of May, early June. And a little less excited
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: when President Biden said end of July during the CNN
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: town hall the other night. Can you talk about... why
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: this answer is a moving target and maybe walk through
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: the timeline of how you see the supply ramping up
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: over the next couple of months?
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So, John, thanks for asking the question because there
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: is a bit of confusion about that that I think
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: I could.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: Sort of straighten out.
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: First of all, there are three goalposts here that you
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: want to reach. The one is when do you get
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: past the prioritizations that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: said that when you have a limited supply, the group
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: 1A is healthcare providers and nursing home. Group 1B is
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: elderly and those who are essential members of the community.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: Group C are those who have underlying conditions and on
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: and on until you get to the end, which means
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: anybody and everybody.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: That's the first goalpost.
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: That's the one that I said I was hoping would
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: be the end of April. But given the pretty big
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: gap between supply and demand, that we won't have enough
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: vaccine to get to that first goalpost until I believe May,
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: early June.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: That's what I meant by that. So I pushed it up.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: My bad. I wasn't I didn't.
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: I didn't sort of estimate it as correctly because I
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: didn't factor in the fact that we didn't have as
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: much vaccine as we would have liked to have. Then
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: you get to the July goalpost, which President Biden said,
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: when will we have enough vaccine available to everybody? There's
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: a difference between available and when are you going to
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: get it into the arms of everybody? So the July
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: time was that's when we will likely have all 600
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: million doses that we contracted for to vaccinate 300 million people.
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: Then the third goalpost is how long is it going
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: to take you to logistically get 600 doses into 300
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: million arms?
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: That likely won't be till the end of the summer.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: So those are the three goals.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: Benchmarks that tend to get confused when you don't distinguish
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: one from the other.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Do you think that we can vaccinate enough people in
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the next few months to avoid another big surge because
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: of the variants?
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I believe so.
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: I believe so because you see the kinetics of the
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: outbreak going way down right now, even without the influence
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: of vaccine, because we haven't vaccinated enough people to have
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: an impact on the kinetics of the outbreak, yet it's continuing.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: Like yesterday, there were 58,000 new cases. A month ago,
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: there was 300 to 400,000 new cases.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: So it really is going way down.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: That's just- Why do you think it's gone down so
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: quickly in the last one?
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: I just think that we had a big surge With
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: the cold weather of the fall and the winter, the
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: Thanksgiving holiday, Christmas, New Year's, it was going up at
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: a much accelerated rate. Then you reach a critical point,
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: it just turns around and starts coming down. People adhere
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: more to public health mitigations when they see the cases
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: going you know, off the ceiling.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: So that's what probably happened. So it's going to be
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: a race.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: It's going to be a race between getting enough people
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: vaccinated And the vaccine is quite good against the variant.
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: The variant that's becoming prominent in the United States is
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: the 117, which is the one that was dominant in
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: the UK, seems to transmit more efficiently from person to person,
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: which is the reason why it becomes dominant because it
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: outruns the other viruses and gets ahead of them. So
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: I believe that if we continue to implement the public
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: health measures, universal wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding congregate settings,
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: particularly indoors, at the same time as we distribute more
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: and more vaccines, I believe we can stay ahead of
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: an inevitable additional fourth surge. We've had three of them already.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: We don't want a fourth one. It's conceivable that we'll
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: get one. I think we can avoid it if we
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: do things correctly.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And you don't think that supply issues on the vaccine
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: side will prevent us from avoiding that surge if we
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: keep in place sort of the mitigation measures that we have?
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, actually, John, you're bringing up a good point.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: We are somewhat having one hand tied behind our back
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: by the supply-demand discrepancy because the demand far exceeds the supply.
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: If we had all the vaccine that we needed now,
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: like the way the president said will happen in July,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: if we now at the middle of February had all
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: of that, there'd be no problem. We would open up stadiums.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: and gymnasiums and just vaccinate everybody and we'd have no
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: trouble being ahead of it. But it's the supply-demand gap
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: that's really the problem. Yeah.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: So I've had people that I know, even a friend
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: who's a healthcare worker, tell me they're reluctant to get
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: to the vaccine either because they're not fully effective, or
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: you might still transmit the virus, or you still have
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: to wear a mask and social distance, not like anti-vaxxing things,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: but just some various concerns about the vaccine. Can you
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: paint a picture for people about how their lives could
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: change if they get vaccinated when it's their turn?
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: Well, there are a couple of, that's a good question, John,
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: but there were a couple of aspects to it. One,
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: the immediate impact on you and then the important role
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: you play to contain the kinetics of the outbreak. So
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: the immediate benefit to you is that you will protect yourself, A,
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: from getting clinically apparent disease, and certainly from winding up
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: in the hospital and maybe dying. So, I mean, if
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: you're a young, healthy person, I'm sure you fall into
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: that category. The chances of your getting into trouble are slight,
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: but not zero. There are a number of young people
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: who are otherwise robust and healthy who've rarely gotten into
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: serious trouble, but there's a lot of people out there
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: who have underlying conditions that make them very susceptible to
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: a severe outcome. So for your own personal health, it
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: benefits you. But also by getting vaccinated, you're preventing the
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: propagation of the outbreak. So namely, you're preventing the outbreak
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: from continuing. You're one dead end in the outbreak, which
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: is important. So there are, like I said, two really
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: good reasons, one for your own private, personal health and safety,
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: and one to be a contributor to the containment of
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: the outbreak.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: If variants like the one from South Africa ultimately require
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: a booster, will that mean that everyone who's been vaccinated
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: has to go back to square one with social distancing
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: and staying home? Or what does that look like if
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: a booster is ultimately required?
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: No, I don't think it.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: Would change anything in what we do. I think we
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: always have to adhere to the public health methods. Right now,
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: we know that the vaccines that we have available to us,
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines, are very good against
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: the UK variant, the 117. We know that they're not
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: necessarily as good against the South African isolate, the 351,
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: but it's quite good to prevent you from getting seriously
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: ill with hospitalization and deaths from the South African isolate.
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: So it still is value-added, even though you might have
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: the complication.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: Of a variant.
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: If it turns out that another variant or even this
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: variant takes over and you need to get an extra
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: bit of protection, that's when a booster that's directed against
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: specifically the variant could actually be important.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I'm in Los Angeles. Our state and local
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: officials responded to the recent drop in cases by reopening
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: outdoor dining, lifting staying at home orders, open hair salons
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: at limited capacity. Do you think that was the right call?
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't want to try and outguess the
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: local health authorities.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: You know, I've been dealing with several of my colleagues
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: in California.
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: If you relax some of the constraints, you got to
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: be careful you don't overdo it and just, you know,
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: turn the switch on or turn the switch off. As
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: you start to see cases comes down, you could gradually
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: and carefully pull back on some of the constraints, like
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: maybe have limited capacity dining or opening up certain areas
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: with the requirement for a mask and things like that.
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: So I don't necessarily think it was a mistake at
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: all on the part of the California authorities, as long
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: as they don't just turn things on and turn things off,
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: but do it in a gradual way.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. So a huge challenge over the last
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: year has been clear communication and messaging, as it always
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: is in public health. Of course, it was a challenge
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: not just from Trump. You know, here in L.A., there's
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: sort of jokes going around. We've been told to stay home,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: but enjoy outdoor dining, but don't gather with anyone. But
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the malls are open. Like, what have you learned about
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: how to improve public health communication in a fractured media
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: environment like the one we're in in 2021?
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: It is not easy.
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: I can tell you that because there are a lot
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: of landmines there. But what you could do is try
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: and be as consistent as you possibly can. And when
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: you don't know the answer, to just say you don't know.
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: Because if people say, oh, come on, well, what do
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: you think it is? And then you give an answer
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: not based on data, and then data come out and
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: they say, ah, you see, you said something and it
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: was wrong. So if you don't know the answer, you
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: should just say, I don't know the answer. Or you
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: might have to correct yourself sometimes. The way I just
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: recently did with when I thought we would get to
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: the end of the priority groups, which was based on
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: the assumption that there'd be more vaccine around than there
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: was around. And that's the easiest way around that in
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: communication is to say, I miscalculated, period.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You spent a lot of your career on the
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: HIV AIDS epidemic where, you know, we ultimately learned that
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: sort of a harm reduction risk mitigation strategy was more
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: effective than preaching abstinence only. Do you think the same
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: principle or a similar principle applies to sort of COVID
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and social distancing? Sometimes I wonder if messages that are
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: about like, stay home, don't see anyone, be locked down,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: or actually could be counterproductive, as opposed to telling people, well,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: you can do things, but you've just got to be
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: careful and try to limit your risk.
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: Oh, I think the latter. I think you're onto something.
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: That is really true. I mean, obviously, if you want
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: an absolute you should just say, go home and don't
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: ever come out again.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: But that doesn't work.
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, society needs to continue, particularly we
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: know the devastating impact it's had on the economy. So
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: you really gotta use some common sense about things. You know,
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: one of the most cogent example of common sense is
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: that we want universal wearing of masks.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: That's very important.
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: But if you're out on a trail, in which there
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: is no one within two miles of you, if you
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: put your mask down, there's nothing wrong with that because
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: there's nobody there. You see, I mean, that's the kind
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: of thing you got to use some common sense. If
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: you're in a room and you're indoors and there are people,
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: you have no idea who they are, then put the
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: mask on. But if you're all alone in a room,
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: the way I assume you and I are now, you
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: don't need to put a mask on.
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: So a Jesuit principle that was drilled into us at
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Holy Cross was that we should be men and women
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: for others. How do you think about the challenge of
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: solving big public health crises through collective action and shared
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: sacrifice in a big, diverse, extremely polarized country like ours?
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: After everything you've been through this last year, do you
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: think it's still possible?
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: It's possible, but it's very difficult.
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: One of the most difficult challenges that I think has
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: hindered what we've needed to do is the fact that
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: we have all living through and have lived through, particularly
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: over the last year, a historic.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: Public health challenge, to put it mildly. Crisis would be
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: a better word.
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: In the midst of divisiveness in society that's the likes
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: of which I have never seen in all of the
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: decades that I've been doing this. It's almost antithetical to
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: an adequate response to a public health crisis because when
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: you're dealing with a common enemy, the virus, to be
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: divisive is almost like fighting a war where you have
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: the army fighting with the Navy instead of fighting the
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: common enemy. I mean, it really is, I don't mean
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: to be melodramatic about it, but it's almost feels that
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: way where you have a political connotation to everything you do.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, wearing a mask becomes a political statement.
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: Going to a bar in a congregate setting or not
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: becomes a political statement. That just doesn't work when you
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: have a common enemy and you're supposedly all in this together,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: which we have to be all in it together when
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: you're dealing with a pandemic.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I asked people for questions, the two most
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: common questions, and then we can let you go. The
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: first was, is there any reason that states shouldn't be
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: allowing teachers to get vaccinated right now if opening schools
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: is so important?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: Well, I have nothing.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think that we should prioritize teachers to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: get vaccinated because they, in my mind, part of essential
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: personnel in the community. And that would put them in
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: the 1B group. And I think we should get as
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: many teachers vaccinated as possible.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: The one thing that I don't think.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: Would work is to say that you can't open a
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: school unless every single teacher is vaccinated.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: I think that would be unworkable.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: I think you can have a compromise and say, A,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: give them a high priority. get them vaccinated as quickly
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: and as efficiently as you possibly can. But you don't
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: have to make it a sine qua non, that unless
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: 100% of the teachers are vaccinated, you don't want to
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: open up a school because otherwise you would not be
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: opening schools for quite a while.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Right. And then the second one was related to that.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: What do you think the timeline is on vaccines for children?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's going to be probably several months before you
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: get to children of a certain low age. What we're
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: doing now with some of the vaccines, particularly the Pfizer,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: is to do what's called an age de-escalation, where you
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: do a phase one and then a phase two trial
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: for safety and to see if it induces the kind
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: of immune response that you would predict would be protected.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: You don't have to do a full efficacy trial at
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: every age group. You just need to show it's safe
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: and it induces a good immune response.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: And what you would do, we would go, for example, from.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: 16 to 12 and then go from 12 to nine
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: and then from nine to six. And that's called an
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: age de-escalation because children are vulnerable. You want to make
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: sure that you have safety in an older group before
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: you go to the next younger group.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Fauci, thank you so much for your time and thank
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: you for all the work you're doing. We appreciate it.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Good to be with you, John. Thanks for having me.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: Thanks, Dr.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Fauci, for joining us. Ted Cruz, hope you're having a
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: great time in Cancun. Sorry that this scandal cut your
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: trip short. I see there's pictures. I'm looking at pictures
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: of him arriving. I think he's boarding his plane back
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: to the U.S. right now. We'll see you when you
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: get home, Ted. We'll see you when you get home.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz, congratulations on finding a way to make people
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: hate you even more than they already do.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Didn't think it was possible. Didn't think it was possible,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: but you know, he's an ambitious guy, so he did it.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: All right, everyone. Have a good weekend.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: every week.