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"Josh Hawley’s Masculinity Press Tour." · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Jon Favreau is not here today.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: So what happened was, he was walking down the street
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: and there was a little piece of keto pizza. And
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: he went to grab it, and then it moved a little.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: He broke.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: And he kept following it, kept following it, kept following it.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: It was a trap.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: John is out because he's sick. No, it is not COVID.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: He's just good old-fashioned under the weather with the plague.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Smallpox.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Did Pundit just cough in solidarity? Sure. Anyway, we have
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: an amazing show for you today.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: We are going to talk about the infrastructure bill, how
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: it got passed, how the vote came together, and the
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: political road ahead for Joe Biden as he tries to
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  Speaker 4: pass his larger economic plan. Then we will be joined
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: by Dave Roberts, who writes the Volt Newsletter about clean
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: energy and politics, to talk about the climate summit happening
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: right now in Scotland, the climate provisions in Biden's Build
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: Back Better bill, and what else Biden can do to
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: prevent the planet from burning. I'm going to try not
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: to say Build Back Better bill today a lot, but
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: whatever you want to do, it's going to be hard. Also,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: don't miss the latest episode of Offline with Jon Favreau,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: where he's joined by Peter Hamby, the host of Snapchat's
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Good Luck America. They talk about how Twitter... ruined political
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: journalism and how to fix it.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Also love it. New York comedy festival. Love it or
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: leave it. Match made in heaven.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: We have today is you're hearing this on Tuesday. The
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: show is Friday night in New York. There are a
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: few tickets left. We have a great show. Some very
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: special guests, some surprise, special guests, big names, cricket.com slash events.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Last chance. They're almost gone.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: It'd be very fun to do a big live show.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Everyone should go. Okay. Let's talk about the biff, love it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: And we'll try not to use the word biff a lot.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: So late Friday night, the bipartisan infrastructure bill finally passed
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: the House of Representatives by a vote of 228 to 206.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Third time was the charm here in terms of this
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: bill for President Biden, Speaker Pelosi. And to get it
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  Speaker 4: over the finish line, Pelosi needed 13 Republican votes after
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: six progressive Democrats voted no. We're going to get into
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: how all this came together in a minute. But let's
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: first start with the substance because we're substance guys.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: We're substance guys.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: We're substance people.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: We start with a substance.
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  Speaker 4: We are trying to improve the media we complain about
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: so much. So this bill includes the biggest investment in roads, bridges,
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: public transport, tons of stuff in decades. Unfortunately, the recent
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: polling says that voters have no idea what's actually in it.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: You are famously fond of infrastructure, John.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I am fond of infrastructure.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: What are your favorite parts of this bill? What should
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: people be excited about?
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to run you through a few. First, California,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a state run by Democrats, has been so far unable
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  Speaker 3: to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles,
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  Speaker 3: a route that is roughly the same distance as Barcelona
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: to Madrid, but would serve 10 times as many people. Instead,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: we've just been trying to connect Bakersfield and Merced, which
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: is a pathetic, desperate capitulation to American decline. This pool
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: of money has the chance to unlock this project and
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: other projects like it in rail. The Times also did
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: a good look at a lot of the ways it
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  Speaker 3: impacts California and the West. Funding around disasters will help
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: California bury power lines in rural areas where sparks have
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: been setting off wildfires. That is huge.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: That's good.
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  Speaker 3: Also some good water conservation in there. I'm also excited
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: about the money that expands charging stations for musk mobiles.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: and other electric cars, especially for people who got Teslas
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: before he became so toxic and still think Teslas are good.
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  Speaker 3: Also money to get rid of lead pipes like the
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: ones that ravaged Flint. This is also an example of
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  Speaker 3: a larger trend. Cities and towns across the country are
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: trying now to figure out how to invest in projects
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  Speaker 3: that unwind some of the worst decisions we made in
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: the history of infrastructure that wrecked a lot of cities
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: like interstate highways, cutting through cities like Hartford. Connecticut has
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  Speaker 3: a plan to invest in transit and connect parts of
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Hartford where the interstate had like sliced it in half,
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  Speaker 3: like a rusty ax that. And there are projects across
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: the country that are trying to figure out ways to like,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: where we built multi-lane highways and acres of parking that
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: could be more like kind of communal spaces. So there's
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: lots of projects like that that are interesting. Also the
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  Speaker 3: bills passage means we'll hopefully finally get a new tunnel
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: between New York and New Jersey important for the entire Northeast.
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  Speaker 3: And just my usual reminder. that being a Trump sycophant
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: who shut down a bridge to punish a mayor are
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  Speaker 3: actually not the worst things that Chris Christie ever did.
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  Speaker 3: The worst thing Chris Christie ever did was killing the
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  Speaker 3: tunnel when he was governor. It was a despicable act.
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  Speaker 3: And finally, there's 16 billion for major projects that are
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  Speaker 3: large and complex. This is a fund that will be
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  Speaker 3: controlled by Secretary Pete.
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  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Here we go, Pete.
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  Speaker 3: To try to figure out how to unlock big, complicated
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  Speaker 3: projects that are sometimes between states that just get stuck
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  Speaker 3: pretty early. We have a huge problem, which is, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: we need money for infrastructure. That's on the supply side.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: On the demand side, projects take forever and cost way
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: too much. I don't know if this will help, but
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I think it's an interesting attempt to try to get
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: things moving faster. And I like electric ferries.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very cool.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Electric ferries.
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  Speaker 2: They're the future.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: That's the future.
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  Speaker 2: Might do one in Alaska, I read. This is a
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  Speaker 2: big win for the bridge and tunnel crowd.
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  Speaker 6: Hey.
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  Speaker 2: Talking to you, Long Island.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: Billions for water quality, billions for climate change measures, environmental cleanup.
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  Speaker 4: In terms of the political impact, Biden says we'll start
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: to see the impact of the bill in two to
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  Speaker 4: three months. Mayor Pete, like all the interviews Mayor Pete
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: was doing about this bill, he was like jumping out
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  Speaker 4: of his chair. He was so excited. You know, he
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: just has like a farm of nerds, like pouring over
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: grant applications and other projects as fast as possible. So
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: it's exciting stuff. But also this money will play out
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: over years when you're talking about like expanding the Northeastern
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  Speaker 4: corridor for Amtrak or the rail project you talked about
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  Speaker 4: in California, it's going to take a while.
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  Speaker 2: So lots of stuff that will pay dividends for years here.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, love it.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: So when something big happens in Washington, this bat signal
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: goes up over the city that tells all the news bureaus, hey,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: time to write your TikTok stories about how it all
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: came together.
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  Speaker 2: That's where you get the juicy details, right? What was
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: in the Starburst Bowl, Kevin McCarthy, et cetera, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: So let's walk through what we learned.
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  Speaker 4: The issue, as we've discussed ad nauseum, was that progressives
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  Speaker 4: in the House refused to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: bill unless that vote was somehow tied to passage of
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  Speaker 4: the larger Biden economic plan, the BBB. Politico says what
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  Speaker 4: finally got a vote on the infrastructure bill was when
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  Speaker 4: the moderates put out a statement saying, if we can
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: get a cost estimate for Biden's bigger economic plan from
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: the Congressional Budget Office, and it's basically in line with
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: what the White House told us this thing's going to cost,
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: we'll agree to the vote on the economic plan no
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: later than the week of November 15th. The New York
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: Times reported that the Congressional Black Caucus was really the
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: key to cobbling together that final agreement. We've also seen
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: reporting over the last few months that Pelosi and the
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: House leadership were frustrated that Biden wasn't engaged enough. They
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: said he wasn't pressuring Democrats enough. This time, Biden, the
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  Speaker 4: vice president, they were working the phones, they were pressuring moderates,
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: they were begging progressives apparently on a conference call with
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  Speaker 4: like 50 people in a room. Biden put out a
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: statement specifically asking the House to vote in support of
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: the BIF. So it's also clear that the election results
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  Speaker 4: in Virginia, in New Jersey last week scared the shit
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  Speaker 4: out of Democrats and the message was get it done.
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  Speaker 2: So John, if the BIF got.
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  Speaker 4: 13 Republican votes in the House and it got 19
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  Speaker 4: Republican votes in the Senate. Is this vindication of Biden's
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  Speaker 4: whole message that he can actually do stuff across party lines?
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: Were we wrong to be a touch cynical there?
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  Speaker 3: What a question.
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  Speaker 2: Did he show us?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. No, I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I think this was a place where I think on
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  Speaker 3: the House side, you saw kind of the Republican Party
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  Speaker 3: has become running into what politics used to be just
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: for 13 members, several of whom are retiring. But Axios
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: talked to one Republican, Don Bacon, who said, if you
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: vote one way, you get hurt in the primary, you
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: vote the other way, it'll hurt me in the general.
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  Speaker 3: And basically he said, I helped draft the bill to
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: do a flip, wouldn't have been appropriate, wouldn't have been right.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: And he said, if I face a primary, I can
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: still win. What was remarkable about that is like, that
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: was old politics. That's just the way it used to
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: be done. And people would just vote for a bipartisan
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: infrastructure bill because everybody recognized that we need these kinds
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: of projects. And it is what Biden said he wanted
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: to do from the beginning. Now, at that moment, you
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: have Kevin McCarthy basically whipping votes against this from happening,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: saying it's tied to the Build Back Better plan. And
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: you have Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz calling it
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: a communist takeover of the United States. So I think
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: of it, I feel like it's a little bit less
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: about kind of I mean, it is Biden delivering and
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: it is Nancy Pelosi delivering, but it's also just, I think,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: the kind of last gasp of normal politics. And some
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: of these people may not be here. Some of them
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: are retiring. Some of them may get primaried and picked off.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Like Kinzinger is retiring.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: I was listening to my favorite show, Steve Bannon's podcast,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: The War Room, and they were putting.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Stop putting, you don't need to say the name. You're
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: plugging it if you say the name.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Listen, the guy knows content. No, I'm just kidding.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: But I do listen because I want to know what
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: the hell they're talking about. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Bannon were putting up the names of all these moderates
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: on the screen, putting up their phone numbers, saying, call them,
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: pressure them, tell the Democrats who are moderates that we're
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: going to defeat them.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: So for those listening, if you have a.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: member of Congress in your life who voted the right way,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: you want to call or write, give them an attaboy, attagirl, attarep.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: We'll let one through.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: You know, when we were right before the vote, I
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: think there were some people that were watching it unfold
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: and were a little bit confused because they saw the
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: progressives falling out of the vote. And they were wondering, like, well,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: what are we doing? It's just wait, neither one of
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: these can happen right now. And then all of a sudden,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: you're like, wait a second, there are 13 Republicans that
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: are going on board. It was kind of a surprise.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was surprised. I did not think they'd get
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: that many.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: So the problem for Biden and Pelosi is that things
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: get more difficult from here. So here's what needs to happen.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: The Congressional Budget Office is going to provide this analysis
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: of how much they think the Build Back Better economic
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: plan costs. Punchbowl News reported that that process could take
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: until Thanksgiving week to get them that score, the price tags,
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: but it could be faster. So that's a lot of
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: time for things to kind of erode. If the CBO
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: score is in line with what the moderates wanted to be,
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: they said they will move forward with the vote.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: If there are some changes or the things that need.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: To be worked out in the price, then they'll work
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: on that, but that could take a little extra time too.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Then it goes to the Senate where we know Manchin
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: and Kyrsten Sinema are eager to cut down the price
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: tag and make it harder. For example, Manchin could again
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: object to paid family and medical leave being in the bill.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Then it goes through the parliamentarian for that whole Byzantine process.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: And then if the Senate makes any changes, it goes
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: back to the House for another vote. Oh, and by
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: the way, in early December, Congress will have to vote
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: on another vote to fund the government.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, the government could shut down again. The Byrd rule,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: which is about what can fit inside of reconciliation, may
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: kill immigration. There's questions about the negotiations and compromise over SALT,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: which is the state and local tax deduction. that a
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: lot of Democrats from wealthier parts of the country and
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the coast really want, but it's fundamentally not a progressive tax.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Bernie hates it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Bernie hates it. It's just not good policy.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Terrible. Terrible.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: And a lot of people that we like, man, are
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: they full of shit on this issue. It's just how
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: It's politics.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: They want to get this tax cut. And on top
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: of that, you have questions about what this promise from
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: moderates really means. I think you see The squad saying,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: hold on a second. These were supposed to go together.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Now we're going based on a promise and around costs.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: There's a lot that can go wrong if the costs
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: come back differently, if there are changes that make it
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: look fundamentally different than the framework we have now. I
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: think Biden and the Congressional Black Caucus got a deal.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And I think what a lot of people went along
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: with this deal were saying is we are trusting the
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Biden administration. We are trusting this deal. We are trusting
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: their ability to see this to the end. And I
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: think that there is just some skepticism. on the part
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: of the squad for how much we'll have to ultimately
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: give if they've now given up their biggest piece of leverage,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: which was passing this bill.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, AOC did this 71-minute Instagram Live explaining her
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: no vote on the infrastructure bill.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And it was really interesting.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: She walked through some specific policy concerns she had about
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: the BIF without the BBB and how it could increase
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: climate emissions and there's some other specific things. But the
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: gist of her concern was basically that there had been
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: an erosion of trust with her camp and the moderate
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: camp who have slowed down the process because, you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: she talked about how there's all these procedural votes and how,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: you know, they had an agreement that one part would
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: go first, but then something else. So, you know, I
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: guess my question basically is what is your level of
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: anxiety about the BBB actually getting voted on given all
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: the hurdles we just talked about and given the reality
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: that progressives don't really have that much leverage anymore? We
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: voted the infrastructure bill through.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: I think we all should be concerned about it. There's
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways that this can fall apart. There's
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways that now that they have this
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: infrastructure bill, that some of these monitors can get squishy.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: They want to negotiate it down again, that they take
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: some objection to what comes from the Congressional Budget Office
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: as an excuse for lowering our sites even more. It
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: is already a compromise. My hope is that what the
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: squad did, I think if something ultimately passes, it will say, see,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: you were wrong. It all worked out. But also, I
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: do think it lays down a marker and says, we're watching.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: We're paying attention. This is what we don't want to
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: see happen. I think that ultimately getting this infrastructure bill
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: done is a really good thing. I also think we
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: really need to do build back better. There are, I think,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: legitimate concerns about saying, okay, we have $ 500 billion of
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: policy that will help fight climate change, and then we
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: need to get that done. Right now, what this bill
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: does is invest in things like highways and invest in
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: things that actually will in some ways make this problem worse. Now,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I think it's part of a larger agenda that makes
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: a ton of sense. But if we don't get these
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: climate pieces through, that's not a great record. And they're
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: not wrong about that.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: They're definitely they need to be coupled together. The other
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: challenge is just for Biden that there's a USA Today
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: poll out today that found Biden's approval rating down to
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: 38 percent. Now, that polling, the calls done for that
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: poll were done between Wednesday and Friday. So they would
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: not have captured the momentum coming out of this infrastructure
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: vote and the signing ceremony on Saturday. And, you know,
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: that I'm sure that Mayor Pete and everybody else will
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: hit the country and, you know, try to sell this
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: thing in states. But, you know, 38 is a tough number.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that have
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: to happen to get out of this moment. It has
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: to we have to see a successful legislative agenda. We
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: also have to see a shift in what's happening with COVID.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: And there's just a lot that has to happen. We
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: have to see. I think people really are worried about
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: based on what they're seeing on the news every day.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: You know, they're Twitter can spend a day saying, actually,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: the cost of milk isn't so high. But then in reality,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: what is on the news are people worried about the economy,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: worried about inflation, worried about the supply chain. There are
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: legitimate worries about the supply chain as well. So all
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: of this, we've talked about this, just adds together to
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: a moment where it doesn't feel like this is what
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: the news portrays, that he does not have his arms
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: around the challenges facing the country. He was put in
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: place to kind of set things right. And so they
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: just need to get momentum and need to get I
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: think this is an important pivot. Between that, the approval
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: of the vaccine for ages five and up, the fact
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: that there's this great news from Pfizer about these antivirals
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: that can really help and make sure we can get
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: out of having another wave and another round of masks
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: and restrictions. So I think a lot of things have
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: to change. And this number is not just because the
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: BIF hadn't passed.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: I will take whatever jab you give me or wear
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: whatever mask is required if it gets rid of the
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: milk discourse. If you don't know what we're talking about,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: consider yourself lucky, but a lot of people on Twitter
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: decided to get really mad about a CNN segment.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: And I don't, I just, I can't care. I don't know.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: We don't care.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: There's no crying over spilled milk.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Hey, there you go.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: As John Favreau wrote in the State of the Union, famously.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Famously.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: He wrote about, yeah, he really set Barack Obama up
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: there to fail.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: When we come back, we'll take a quick break. And
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: we come back, we are going to talk about the
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: major climate change summit happening right now in Scotland. climate
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: change provisions in Biden's economic bill, and all things climate
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: with Dave Roberts.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: So stick around for that.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: He's a climate reporter and the author of the Voltz
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: newsletter about climate and politics.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: David Roberts, welcome to the show. Great to be here, guys.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: Thanks.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: So the COP26 climate change summit is happening in Glasgow
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: right now.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Scotland. The political leaders were there last week.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Now it's mostly negotiators, technocrats, board ex-presidents named Barack Obama.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: They're all negotiating a new agreement. What should we all
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: who like living on earth hope will come out of
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: this summit and what do you make of it so far?
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: I don't know how popular this answer will be, but
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: the real answer is that as a normal civilian, you
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: probably don't need to care that much about what happens
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: at COP26. Most of what I mean, most of what
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: was significant was the Paris Agreement. And most of what
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: COP is about now is playing that out, is fiddling
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: with the rules, tightening up the rules, boosting the ambition
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: of various countries, figuring out reporting methods, figuring out how
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: often to raise national ambitions. Right now, it's every five years.
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: There's some discussion of making it every year. So it's
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: a lot of very technical wrangling right now. You should
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: hope that it doesn't fall apart in acrimony. But as
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: you guys, I'm sure, remember quite well from Paris, what's
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: going to happen is about midway through this week, there's
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: going to be a bunch of headlines saying COP26 might
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: fall apart in total acrimony. It might be a disaster.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: And then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, there will be headlines. Oh,
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: at the last minute, leaders came together and pulled through
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: with this sort of half-ass agreement that's pretty good, but
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: not great. And we're going to make it to the
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: next COP. It's basically every COP.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: So what did you make of the Washington Post had
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: a story that looked at the way countries have been
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: reporting their climate emissions, and they basically found just huge
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: exaggerations around the amount of carbon that they're that they're
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: absorbing into forests that they're claiming that they're reducing. And
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: so much of what we're seeing in these conferences depends
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: upon voluntary and honest reporting of information. So what do
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: you make of that story?
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: Well, I think it's been a slightly open secret for
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: a long time that there's been a lot of exaggeration.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure people appreciated how bad it was. But yes,
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: it's mainly about fuzziness around the carbon accounting for plants, forests, mangroves,
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: things like that. And the science itself is fuzzy. So
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of room for shenanigans. And so this
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: is one reason why one of the most contentious sort
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: of negotiations that go on in every one of these
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: COPs is about monitoring and verification. People don't want UN
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: monitors coming into their country with total access. But at
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: the same time, a report like this, I think, is
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: going to really put the screws on having some standards
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: and having some actual verification. Because as you say, a
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: lot of this is shell games. Sort of the closer
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: we get to, you know, the more it becomes clear
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: that we've kind of bungled our way to the point
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: that we're not going to be able to hit our target,
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: the more forms of denial arise to dodge grappling with that.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: But that's what this is about.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: You know, so you got 105 countries agreed to cut
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: methane by 30% by 2030. 130 countries said they would
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: stop deforestation by 2030. Interesting sounding, exciting sounding pledges. But
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: critics again would say, well, they're voluntary.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: And past summits, by the.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: Way, have included pledges to stop deforestation. And then, oh,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: by the way, Indonesia signed the pledge on deforestation and said,
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: but we won't do it at the expense of economic development,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: which seems like quite the loophole. What do you make
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: about the significance of these pledges, especially when it comes to,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: you know, methane, hydrofluorocarbon, black soot? and the impact they
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: might have, but the fact that they are also voluntary?
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: Well, you have to have a certain perspective on these things.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: It's obviously better than not having a bunch of countries
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: agree to reduce methane, right? And what you get out
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: of these voluntary agreements is everybody starts paying attention. Everybody
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: starts tracking at least a little bit. And what you
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: often find in these areas is that once people start
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: paying attention, relatively easy and cheap ways of reducing pollution
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: are everywhere around you. And so you can get action going.
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: You don't have an enforcement mechanism, but that's just true
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: across international politics. You just can't. There's no alternative, I guess,
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: to the voluntary agreements. So getting people on record is
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: about the best you can do in this international context.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Do you see so far based on Paris that these
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: voluntary agreements have made a difference? I I was sort of,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: in some ways, heart-heartened. And I think the only way
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: to appreciate climate progress is to be both heartened and terrified.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: But the Times did this great piece looking at, all right,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: where are we before Paris? Where are we because of Paris?
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Where do we need to get to to not hit 1.5?
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: And I was surprised by how many of the predictions
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: had us in that middle band of having actually really
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: bent the curve in a significant way. I don't know
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: how much the reporting about these numbers being fake and
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: someone saying, You see that tree over there? I didn't
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: chop it down. So that counts. But how do you
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: think of these voluntary measures have been playing out so
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: far since Paris?
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you have a real trick of analysis here
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: since everything's based on counterfactuals, which is how fast would
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: progress have moved if this voluntary agreement had not been
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: in place? And no one knows the answer to that.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: So it's really difficult to answer. We have moved. We
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: are moving. And I think this is an under... told
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: story of climate is that a lot of the really
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: super apocalyptic eventualities or possibilities have been ruled out by
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: concerted action. And we are bending the curve. So it's
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: all about speed now. It's all about making it move faster.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: We're going to end up somewhere in the middle of
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: the range. The question is, is that low end of
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: the range that we think of as safe, is that
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: still within reach? And we're not moving fast enough to
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: do that. One of the interesting aspects that's really become
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: clear at this COP, and I think it's becoming clearer
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: and clearer over the last few years, is that governments
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: are in a lot of ways the caboose of this effort.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: Banks and corporations and cities and sub-state actors of various
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: kinds are moving much faster and are arguably driving bigger
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: changes than national politics at this point. It looks like
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: we're just going to sort of belatedly national politics is
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: going to adjust to facts on the ground, I think,
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: is how things are going to work.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was one of the saving graces of
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: the past four years, was that the reason we're still
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: on target for Paris is because a lot of other
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: municipalities and local governments and corporations did kind of continue
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: to strive toward the agreement, even as Trump was trying
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: to pull us out of it, right?
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: I mean, yes. And it feels weird for me to say,
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: as I died in the wool lefty, but the corporate
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: procurement movement in the US is a real thing. It's
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: responsible for about 20% of total renewable energy built at
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: this point.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Look at Elon Musk over here. Look at this guy.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Neoliberalism comes for all of us.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: When are you going to Barry Weiss's university?
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but I resisted the conclusion, but I'm watching it
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: happen that corporations like Google are dragging utilities and state
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: governments along with them.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: So speaking of sweet, sweet cabooses, Joe Biden's Build Back
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: Better economic bill includes $ 555 billion.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I thought he was talking about Joe Biden's ass.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, the bill, the bill.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: His sweet caboose.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Half a trillion plus for climate change. Can you give
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: us a sense of like, it's an enormous amount of money.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you can't detail all of it, but like,
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: is there an overview of where that money might go
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: and what you think the impact would be of that
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: kind of spending on climate?
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it would be transformative. I think it's
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: easy for this to get lost in the endless and
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: wildly frustrating back and forth that we've been going through
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: all together over these last few months. And the serial
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: disappointments and the just bile that Joe Manchin causes in
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: all of this can cause us to lose sight of
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: the fact that this would be transformative. It's an enormous
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: amount of money. I mean, Obama... Obama's stimulus had $ 90
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: billion for clean energy and sparked market revolutions in those
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: markets and solar and wind and batteries that have brought
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: the cost down by many, many multiples since then. And
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: this is six times that. So it's going to be huge.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: And it's also distributed quite widely. There's a lot of
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: it going to clean electricity, as is as is right
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: and proper, but there's stuff for resilience, there's stuff for
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: carbon capture that's really comprehensive. The one thing I would
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: say about the bill is if you're sitting down with
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: a clean sheet of paper and making carbon policy, you
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: want a mix of carrots and sticks, right? You want
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: incentives and subsidies, things like that, tax breaks. And then
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: you also want some regulations, some rules that you can't exceed.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: what mansion has basically succeeded in doing is taking all
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: of the sticks out of the bill. So no one,
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: no entity is punished or forced to do anything by this.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: It's all, it's a giant, giant bucket of carrots. Yeah.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: But, but if like, here's the thing, if I'm, I
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: don't even know who the original carrot and stick was
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: aimed at a donkey. Uh, but, but if I'm, if
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I see a, like a really amazing carrot, like I
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: don't need a stick all the time, you know, I just,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: I'll be cool going for the carrot.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Carrots absolutely cause change. The modeling shows that they
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: have in the past causes change. We don't have modeling
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: of the very latest version of the bill yet, so
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: we can't say precisely how many carbon emissions will be reduced,
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: but you lost the SEP. That took about a 20%
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: chunk off the emission reductions, but all that SEP money
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: was preserved and put elsewhere in clean energy tax credits,
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: which are going to get a lot of those emissions back.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: So it's plausible that the final product is going to
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: reduce emissions more or less as much as the $ 3. 5
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: trillion original. And when you think about it, when you're
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: cutting back from 3.5 to 1.7 or whatever, almost everything
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: is getting cut and whacked or thrown out the window
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: completely or dialed back Climate money was just about the
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: only thing where there's just as much of it now
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: as there was in the original bill, which means democratic
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: policymakers behind closed doors rallied to protect the climate investments,
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: which I think in that alone is quite heartening and
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: ought to be, you know, a sort of feather in
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: the cap of the climate movement.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: So a lot of this, what you're describing is like
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: kind of modeling about what the impact of some of
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: these incentives would be, whether carrots or sticks. Do you
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: feel just based on looking at how, let's say the
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Obama era investments, how they impacted the market, do you
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: think of those models as being conservative? Do you think
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: that there's a significant possibility that actually there's a kind
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: of resonance in the direction the market is going and
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: actually these kinds of investments have a bigger impact than expected?
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: My prior is that the models are almost always conservative
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: in this respect. They're almost always conservative about these things
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: because what you get is, I hate to use the word,
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: what you get is synergies, right? You get a bunch
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: of research.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Yes. Lots of, lots of pushing the swing at the
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: right time.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: So you get the multiple different strands of research, multiple
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: different markets going, and then they start interacting and you
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: get social and political effects you can't predict. And basically
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: all you're trying to do now with clean energy is rolling,
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: In the right, the boulder is rolling downhill. We just
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: need it to go faster. So this is all about
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: just pushing and pushing and pushing it, but it's gaining
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: momentum on its own. So I think there will be.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: sort of emergent effects that are bigger than what the
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: models will show.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: But you don't know. That's why they're the models.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: Models are always wrong, as they say. And generally, when
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: it comes to clean energy, it has gotten cheaper, faster,
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: and grown faster than people predict.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: That's exciting.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: You know, so, you know, when the when Congress won't pass,
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: you know, some sort of stick to reduce emissions, you
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: might hope that administrative action could fill that void, potentially
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: the EPA. What do you think the prospects are that
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden's EPA could take steps to reduce emissions? And
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: how worried should we all be that the Supreme Court
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: is considering or hearing a case that something could gut
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: the EPA's power on climate change?
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Uh, you know, it's like everything else you guys say
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: on your show, you should be very concerned about it,
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: but don't panic.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: I mean, the limits of what Joe Biden can do
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: with executive power on clean energy are solely in Joe
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: Biden's hands, right? So he can get as ambitious as
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: he wants. He's already, EPA is already going after methane
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: to sort of compensate for the loss of the methane
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: fee and the in the bill and they're going to
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: go after cars. They're going to tighten standards on cars,
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: on power plants, on all these things. So he could
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: do it. That could be where all the sticks come from.
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: And then you could get this sort of carrots and
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: sticks and moving everything much faster. If the Supreme Court
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: rules the wrong way in this current case, which you
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: just kind of got to assume they're going to, that
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: would be absolutely devastating to EPA's ability to do this.
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: It would take EPA's ability to regulate carbon dioxide directly
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: off the table, basically say they can't do this unless
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: Congress specifically says they can do it. And as you
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: guys know, Congress is not going to say that anytime soon.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: So it would be a very big deal if they
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: did this. But on the other hand, like them gutting
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: federal laws environmental enforcement powers was basically inevitable from the
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: moment the court became a 6-3 conservative majority. It's just
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: what shape will it take and what excuse will they use?
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Now we see your dog behind you.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Very cute puppy behind you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: He's 10 years old, far from a puppy.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: He appears to be a very good boy from what
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I can tell from here.
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: You've got a keen eye.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: So one thing you mentioned was the carbon sequestration in
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: build back better. Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Because I feel like right now there's sort of, I
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: don't know, two ways this is being, two ways that
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: carbon sequestration is being described. One is capturing it as
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: it's being emitted and sequestering it in some way underground
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: or in some sort of substance. And then you see
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: these kind of startups, Times just did a write-up of one,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: I believe Coldplay is somehow involved, where they really are
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: just sort of, aren't they always, where there's a plant
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: and it really kind of Acts like it kind of
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: pulls the pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: it and it turns it into some kind of solid
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: And deposits in a way and on the one hand
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: I find that really hopeful I've joked about on the
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: podcast and they don't they don't think I'm a serious
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: scientist when I say I look at the numbers and
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I say the only hope is we got to reach
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: up into the air and Grab it and bury it
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: because none of this other shit is working and then
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: at the same time I see people say wow it
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: took this long for a bunch of fucking tech people
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: to invent a tree.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: And Yeah, it's more powerful than a tree, but it
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: is just about the most expensive way extant to reduce
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: a ton of carbon. It's a lot easier to just
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: make energy efficient buildings or just not emit it in
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: the first place.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Shut up, nerd. I'm going to pull it out of
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: the fucking air.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: The background fact here is that even if we went
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: to zero net emissions, we still have a lot more
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: in the atmosphere than is compatible with a stable environment. climate,
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: so we need to remove a bunch from the atmosphere
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: no matter what. What you don't want carbon capture to
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: become is an excuse to build more polluting factories. That's
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: how Joe Manchin thinks of it. Joe Manchin thinks, I
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: got all these coal and natural gas plants. I'll just
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: clean them up. I'll stick something on them that cleans
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: them up and they'll keep rolling. That is delusional. All
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: those plants are going to have to close. You're going
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: to have to use carbon capture to go negative emissions.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: So you do need to develop it. It's good to
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: do the R & D. It's good to do the development,
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: but you need to watch the fossil fuel industry like
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: a hawk because they are going to try to use
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: it disingenuously to their own benefit. Shock and surprise to everyone.
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: But there are also, and another background fact to keep
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: in mind, is there are also industrial facilities that are
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: doing things that we don't know how to do without
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: creating emissions. So our only real option for those like
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: steel plants or cement plants, things like that, Our only
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: real option for those is to capture the emissions after
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: they come and bury them because we don't know how
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: to make that stuff without emissions yet.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: And that technology could get cheaper, right? I mean, yes,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: of course, it's very expensive now. But by the same
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: logic for clean energy generally, you could see carbon sequestration
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: becoming a cheaper technology.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Yes. Scale makes everything cheap. Deployment makes everything cheap. That's
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: what the Obama energy bill should have shown. Deployment is
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: the number one best R & D method.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: You needed more of that Coldplay money.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, this planet, we're going to fix you.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: Back then we only had you two. Back then we
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: only had you two. We didn't have Coldplay.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: So, okay.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: I don't know a hundredth as much about this topic
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: as you do.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: You live in this. You write about it all the time.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: You're a bona fide expert.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: What is your level of hopefulness or anxiety that we
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: can actually meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold that everyone's
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: talking about is the gold standard we need to avoid
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: climate catastrophe?
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: You know, it's always tough to answer this question. But
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: I guess I'll just be blunt and say the chances
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: of us limiting warming to 1.5 degrees are slim to
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: nil at this point. That would be... I mean, if
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: you could just... you can still torture your model and
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: make your model do it. But what the model shows
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: is what if every system of any kind on the
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: planet turned on a dime tomorrow and sprinted in the
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: opposite direction, then we could get where we need to go.
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: But if you look around, it does, that's no real
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: reason to think that's going to happen. So 1.5 is
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: probably off the table. We can still do two.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: Right. We can still hit two.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: Two is the new 1.5.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: And I'm obliged contractually to say every increment of a
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: degree matters. So like 2.1 is better than 2.2, et cetera,
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: et cetera. There's never any reason. There's no cutoff point here, right?
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: You just got to keep it as low as you can.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Two is still reasonably within reach. 1.5, I think, is
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: probably gone. And if anything saves us, it's going to
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: be this sprinting forward of technology and it's getting cheaper
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: and cheaper and cheaper. And the engineers are engaged now
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: with building clean grids and what's required for clean grids.
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: And like the whole world nerd community is now engaged
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: in this subject. There's a lot of nerds on it. So,
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: so insofar as I have any faith, it's mostly in
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: the nerds politicians, as I said, will, will, to fuck
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: around until we're all dead and there'll be the caboose
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: of this whole thing. But it's gotten enough momentum on
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: its own now that I think we can have some
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: hope in that.
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: What if I put on Fix You and then I
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: asked you that question again? Could we Aaron Sorkin this
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: thing and maybe get a more hopeful answer?
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I feel like I should have had a mournful
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: ballad of some kind behind me as I was saying
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: that stuff.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Look, I got a way to get to 1.5.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: And it's called Reaching Up and Pulling Out of the
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: Fucking Air. And I keep saying it and everybody tells me,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: everybody laughs at me. That, and also, I assume you're
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: not a huge fan of filling the atmosphere with some
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: kind of reticulate matter that we'll have to do every
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: six months until humanity is dead?
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I look around at the competence we display in
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: much more mundane matters, and I try to project that
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: onto some sort of grand atmospheric experiment, and I'm just.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Not a fan.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: I think that makes a lot of sense. Let's just
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: try to get everybody fed, right? That's a tractable problem.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: We know we have the technology to do that. If
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: we can nail that competently, then I'll have more confidence
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: in our ability to engineer the entire global atmosphere.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: That's a good point. That's a really good point. I'm
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: going to reach out. I'm going to reach out. I'm
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: going to pull it out of the fucking air. I'll
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: keep saying it.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Or some like algae or something.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, get some algae going. Okay, what do we get
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: some algae going? Get some algae on some buoys. We
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: got lots of ideas here.
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: Do you know that we create more CO2 than we
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: create any other man-made material on the planet? It is
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: the number one material we generate. There's a lot of
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: it up there and it's just way, way easier on
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: every possible score not to put it up there in
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: the first place than it will ever be to try
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: to reach up and pull it back in. Because it's
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: very dispersed up there in the air, John. It takes
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of energy to... to pull those molecules back
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: together when they've been dispersed.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what they said about, I don't know, probably
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: some stuff.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: You got nothing there, did you? You got nothing. You
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: started that and you didn't have anywhere to go with it. Listen, visionary.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: Visionaries are always laughed at. That's what they said to Gandhi.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: If listeners out there want to hear more of your
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: very smart answers and fewer of our very dumb questions,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: where can they find you?
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: On Twitter and how can they subscribe to your newsletter?
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: On Twitter, I'm brvolts. And on the interwebs, I am volts.wtf.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Great website.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Great website. How'd you get the WTF?
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: I was just looking through domains and I was like, what?
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: That's available? Boom. Good one. Mark Maron's pissed.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Volts.gay. That's been my option.
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: That was taken.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: That was taken. Well, thank you so much for being here.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: It was a great conversation.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for having fun with us about a
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: tough topic.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Woo!
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: There are a lot of very important news stories that
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: deserve our time, attention, and deep focus. These are not them.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: It is time for a segment we call If That
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Wasn't Bad Enough. We're going to cover three stories today. First, Tommy,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: during a keynote speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: United States Senator, lifestyle vlogger, and guy who pretended to
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: be a guy who pumps his fist in a manly
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: way so that he could buck up some insurrectionists at
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: the Capitol, Josh Hawley announced that he wants to save
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: American masculinity. Can we be surprised, he asked, that after
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: years of being told that their manhood is the problem,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: More and more men are withdrawing into enclaves of idleness
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: and pornography and video games. Josh then took his masculinity
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: press tour to Axios, where this exchange took place. Viewers
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: watching this and they're thinking, really?
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: What the liberals are doing are going to push me
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: to watch Pornhub more or play Donkey Kong more?
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: Do you mean that literally?
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: Well, what I mean literally is that I think the
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: liberal attack, the left-wing attack on manhood says to men,
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: you're part of the problem. It says that your masculinity
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: is inherently problematic. It's inherently oppressive.
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: What's your basis for linking that to what liberals or
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: the left, as you would say, do? Is that based
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: on data or based.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: On a hunch?
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: Well, it's policy over many years. I mean, if you
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: look at the policy of deindustrialization, those are policy choices
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: Mike pursued over many years.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Wait, how does that connect to porn?
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: Tommy, two points. One, if your search terms are right,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: your porn problem can also be a Donkey Kong problem. Second,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: do you consider yourself one of Josh Hawley's idol masturbators
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: adrift in a sea of femme socialism?
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: I love my guy. I'm just dropping some porn brands
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: on him.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: It's like the Pornhub mic.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, right, right, right. Wow.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Josh Hawley.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: His Missouri Senate colleague might soon be a guy named
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Eric Greitens, who is accused of sexual assault, sexual violence,
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: and of taking photos of a woman naked to hold
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: as blackmail in case she talked about the things he'd
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: done to her. Maybe he could call his future colleague
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: and have a conversation and not worry about video games
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: and pornography.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: And presumably that's not the kind of manliness he's looking for.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Is that good manly or bad manly? I can't tell.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: I've lost the thread.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: So Mike Allen asked him, What is a man? And
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: he says and Holly says a man is a father.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: A man is a husband. A man is somebody who
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: takes responsibility. And it always gets back to this with
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: these like this like right wing attack on masculinity, which
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: I never can.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: No one can.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: There's no good answer for which is what are the
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: good qualities that men should have that women and others
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have? And what are the good qualities that women
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: and non-binary people should have that men shouldn't have? That
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: is the discourse about masculinity. What is it if it's
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: something only men should have? And I'm sorry it makes
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: people like Josh, well, he's not really uncomfortable. He doesn't care.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: He's just an endless hole of fucking ambition.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just performing.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry that Josh thinks it's valuable to perform for
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: people who find that idea threatening. But that's all it is. Yes,
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: you're right. You're absolutely correct. There is a challenge for
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: men because our economy has changed and left a lot
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: of people behind. There is a challenge around masculinity because
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: we are actually having a really big cultural shift about
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: how we think about about gender, but that's not, he's
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: not offering any kind of answer for either of these challenges.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: He just wants to make both worse.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: He just lumped every sort of current right-wing bugaboo under
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: the framework of masculinity and included CRT and like all
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: the things we've been talking about lately were in this
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: masculinity speech.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like de-industrialization. Yeah, no, like I agree. Like
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: that's a really serious problem. Like it is a problem
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: that rural parts of the country are in a state
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: of permanent recession. Who on the earth is, is helped
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: by claiming that is caused by the woke left.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the macho NAFTA.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I don't think college professors didn't de-industrialize the Midwest. That's
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: not what happened.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: No, they didn't.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Why do you think Josh thinks this is good politics
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: for him?
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I really don't know.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: I watched the whole speech, which I was kind of
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: pissed about after 25 minutes of it were over.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I saw some... I don't know. I think it just
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: gives him a chance to talk about....
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: Criticized transgender rights. I think he did the attack on
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: how the left wants to attack women's sports and let
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: transgender athletes play. And I think that was his attempt
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: to get into that sort of cultural war.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: And I have a feeling that gay men do not
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: figure into his thinking about masculinity. I don't think he's imagining...
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: I don't think he's trying to stop gay men from
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: masturbating and playing video games. Because when he's asked what
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: a man is, it's a husband and a father. And
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: I don't think he means... Ryan Murphy. You know what
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: I mean? Like, I don't think that's like top of mind,
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: like as good examples.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Next story. In a new edition of her sub stack,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: former times columnist and current person who has a massive
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: platform in reach where she decries being silenced. Barry Weiss
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: announced that she is opening up a college to fix
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: higher education. Weiss's university of Austin, Texas already has a website,
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: but it does not have accreditation complete with a FAQ
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: that includes an offer for students to start next summer
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: in the forbidden courses program. Tommy, can you imagine a
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: more obnoxious group of matriculating students than the people that
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: will select to spend their time learning about cancel culture
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: from Neil Ferguson, Larry Summers, Steven Pinker, Andrew Sullivan, Caitlin Flanagan,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: David Mamet?
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: No, that's an incredible list of people. Barry, you're.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: Such a good example of someone who takes it so far.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: I agree that there are times when I'm sure the
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Twitter and the online discourse, and I'm sure campus discourse
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: can feel constrained. People can feel intimidated out of saying
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: what they want to say. And there's real examples of
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: teachers and students like getting disinvited from stuff, and that's
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: not great. But what frustrates me about Barry Weiss being
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: at the vanguard of this movement is that the early
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: part of her career, when she was in college in particular,
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: focused on getting Arab professors fired who criticized Israeli politics.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: Glenn Greenwald's ironically wrote a really long comprehensive piece about
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: this back in 2017. So she, she has every right
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: to think and say what she wants about us policy,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: Israel policy. Like it's not about freedom of speech. I
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: just don't think this is like a blanket commitment to
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: intellectual or academic freedom. I think this is a business opportunity.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I have a feeling that that's right. I also,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: it's like a lot of times when they decry cancel
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: culture and I feel like there's two ways that can
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: be broken down. One is to say, I don't like
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: the way people are criticized by the public these days
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: and the way in which that leads to repercussions. Okay.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: But who are the repercussions actually being delivered by? They're
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: not being delivered by Twitter users. They're being delivered by institutions, corporations,
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: organizations that are choosing to listen for reasons that are,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: I think, often quite good and then sometimes not good.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: They're choosing to listen to The noise and making decisions
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: based on it. Now, sometimes outcries are extremely valid. Sometimes
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: they aren't. But the problem people like Barry Weiss have
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: is with corporate decision making, being too short sighted, caring
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: too much about about social media. And I do wish
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: that more people would think of some kinds of storms
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: online as like the food in the movie Hook. with
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Robin Williams, which is like, it only makes you full
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: if you think it's real. You know what I mean?
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: And like, sometimes you can just, you can just like,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: you don't have to, you don't have to imagine it
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: being these, these, these such powerful, uh, you don't have
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: to give it such force.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: And then a lot of these problems aren't, they don't,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: don't deserve the level of attention that people like Barry Weiss. Yeah,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: that's right.
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, I would love to see them spend a
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: little more time talking about the, uh, faculty members of
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: the university of Florida who were told they couldn't testify
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: against in a voting rights lawsuit against Ron DeSantis because
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: presumably some powerful donors pressured them out of doing that.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: That's a real academic freedom question.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Or the kind of endless campaigns, as you mentioned, that
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: people like Barry Weiss launch against professors that they think
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: do not hold a position on Israel that should be acceptable,
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: or the endless proposals from right-wing legislators across the country
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: to ban certain words in schools, to ban certain books
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: in schools. There is a real threat to intellectual freedom
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: But they don't care about those.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: And also, Barry came out of the New York Times
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: opinion page, which sort of ranged from the center.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Left to the center right. Right between the 40-yard lines
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: of political discourse.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. Next up, Senator Ted Cruz teased his
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: plans to secede from the U.S. during a talk at
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Texan A & M about Texit. Cruz cautioned that he's
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: not there yet. Wow, that's nice. That's nice, Ted. Love
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: to have you. Welcome to America. Don't let the door
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: hit you on the way out.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Right. Right. Right.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Audience member. What might make him want to actually secede
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: from the U.S.? Cruz responded, look, if the Democrats end
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: the filibuster, if they pack the Supreme Court, if they
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: make D.C. a state, if they federalize elections and massively
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: expand voter fraud. Tommy, if Joe Rogan is the president
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: of Texas, how quickly would the U.S. have to send
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: in humanitarian relief and some kind of peacekeeping operation?
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: God, that's just the lamest. I don't think that that
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: kind of sucking up is going to work with Joe Rogan.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: You know, I think like, I bet Joe Rogan thinks
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: Ted Cruz is a fucking loser and can't stand him.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Can I add a little someone to our little grievance
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: pile real quick? Aaron Rodgers. You know him? NFL quarterback.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Green Bay Packers. Got COVID.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: The thing that drives me a little bit crazy about
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: all of the people we've talked about today is like,
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: Aaron Rodgers, get vaccinated.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Don't get vaccinated. I don't give a fuck what you do.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: And I'm not going to complain at you because you're
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: not going to listen to me and it's not going
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: to help and blah, blah, blah. But what I'm so
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: sick of is the language that he uses and Ted
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: Cruz and Barry Weiss, like the language of the whining
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: and the victimhood.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: Because Rogers, like he was allergic to the mRNA vaccines.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: And then when he was trying to figure out what
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: to do about COVID, the other option was J & J.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: And he didn't want to take that because it got
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: recalled for the clotting reasons. Like that's a perfectly good
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: reason to be hesitant. But instead, you come out of
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: the gate when you get busted because you got COVID
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: and you said you were immunized and you lied about it.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: And claim that the woke mob is coming after you,
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: that this is some sort of broader cultural fight. And
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: it's like, no, man, it's just that all the guys
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: in the sort of like, I'm just asking questions crowd
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: tend to ask questions that they could find answers to
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: if they wanted to hear them, but they don't.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, the, what I often think with people like
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: that is it's like when people say like, actually, you know,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: nothing is real and it only exists in my own mind.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: It's like, okay, but you still are pretty careful when
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: you cross the street, right? Cause you don't want to
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: get hit by a bus. And like these, especially the athletes,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: there's that other famous athlete, Kyrie.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Kyrie Irving.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Aaron Rodgers and others. And I find it really frustrating
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: because I'll tell you what kinds of medicine they don't doubt,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: sports medicine, right? They take great advantage. The luxury that
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: these celebrities live under provided by the scientific method that
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: they cast aside when they have a kind of intuition
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: that they're not testing against facts is so frustrating like
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: you live in a world that science creates for you
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: and you have so little regard and respect for that
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: creation because you don't see it with your own eyes
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: it's like it's like so childish it's such it's like
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: it's like they don't have the what's it called when
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: you play peekaboo with a baby Object permanence? They don't
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: have object permanence for science.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: For reality.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like, hey, I know you didn't see the
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: test being done, but you trust it when it helps you.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: You got the treatment you needed when you got sick,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: but you won't get the vaccine because peekaboo.
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: You don't know how every medical procedure works because, of course,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: you don't. You're not a doctor.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: But then he says things like, if the vaccine is
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: so great, how come people are still getting COVID? Aaron,
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: there's answers to this because the vaccines aren't perfect, just
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: like you're homeopathic immunization process that you went through, your
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: DIY vaccine is also not perfect because now you are
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: out for 10 games because you went to a Halloween
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: party dressed as John Wick and we're fucking around without
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: a mask on.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: You got COVID and you got busted. So don't claim,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: don't act like.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: You're being, you know, harmed by the woke mob. Like
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: you made dumb choices. Now you can't play in two games.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: Jerk.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: That's the masculinity that Josh Hawley is looking for.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Final story this morning. Pundit the dog woke me up
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: an hour early because she does not observe standard time.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: She lives on daylight saving time. Switching time zones twice
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: a year is deadly. Standard time has been reduced to
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: four months as it is. 19 states have already voted
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: to move to daylight saving time permanently, but are blocked
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: by the federal government. Now the Sunshine Protection Act, backed
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: by a partisan group of senators and introduced by Marco Rubio,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: would make daylight saving time permanent. Except in places that
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: do not observe daylight saving time now. Patty Murray is
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: one of the co-sponsors. She's also been looking for other
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: potential workarounds, including a waiver from the Biden administration. It
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: is going to get dark at around five o'clock. If
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: you're in Massachusetts, enjoy the sun being gone before five o'clock.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: And if Maine, it's basically Alaska over there. Tommy, how
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: do you feel about standard time versus daylight saving time?
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: I'm sincerely, like I've talked to you alone about this.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Can you give me like the 30 seconds on why
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: people think we should keep it and why they think
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: it should go?
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: Okay. So basically, so there's two parts of this debate.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Should we be switching? And if we stop switching, should
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: we be on standard time versus daylight saving time? Now,
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: the arguments against switching are pretty strong. The changing of
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: our circadian rhythms, the shifting of traffic patterns causes premature
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: deaths from heart attacks from people not getting enough sleep.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: It causes traffic accidents. Kids get hit by cars because
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: people are driving home in the dark. There's health consequences
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: for this time switch. Now, The argument in favor of
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: it is that what people really say when they like
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: daylight saving time is they like the summer and the
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: days are longer. When the days are shorter, there is
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: an argument for why you'd want to shift back to
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: standard time. That being said, I think the evidence for
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: stopping the switch is pretty strong. And one problem you
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: have when you are switching every few months is localities
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: don't really adapt to the way the natural rhythm of
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: the sun is in those regions. We do see that
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: a bit. So Places on the western edges of time
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: zones tend to have later start times just naturally than
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: places on the eastern edges of time zone. Like work
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: just starts a little bit later when you're closer to
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: the border of the time zone because the sun comes
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: up a little bit later. But those kinds of effects
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: would be easier to produce if people kind of lived
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: in the reality of their time year round and didn't
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: have the switch. So the switch should stop. Now the
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: question is, should you have daylight saving time or permanent
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: daylight saving time or permanent standard time?
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Now, I think this requires a little bit more nuance
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: than what Marco Rubio and several others are proposing. There
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: are a lot of states that have already passed laws
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: that would move them to permanent daylight saving time if
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: the federal government allowed it and we amended the Uniform
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Time Act. However, one of the issues is in places
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: like Michigan, the sun actually sets almost an hour later
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: than it does in places like Massachusetts. And one of
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: the challenges of permanent daylight saving time So in the
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: summer in parts of Michigan, the sun sets so late
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: that actually has negative health repercussions because people go to
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: bed later and work doesn't start later. And so people
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: get less sleep and that causes everything from heart issues
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: to diabetes. So my view is every state should be
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: given the option to switch to either permanent daylight saving
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: time or permanent standard time. And then each individual state
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: should end up having the chance to decide because states
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: on the current eastern edges of time zones are probably
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: best suited to stay on permanent daylight saving time. But
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: states which naturally already have slightly later sunsets because they
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: live on the western edges of time zones might want
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: to think about permanent standard time. But my view is
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: give everybody a window where they can decide. And at
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: the end of that period, we'll just have new permanent
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: time zone maps where people have chosen basically when they
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: want their new debate.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: It's like a bunch of referenda.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, well, actually, it can be right referenda. Some
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: states have already done this and had passed bills. You
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: just want to leave it up to legislatures or the
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: states to make a choice during a window. And The
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: end result is this doesn't end up being more complicated.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: We just have new time zone maps.
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: Or just move to California where no one starts work
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: until like 10.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: And think about how late work will start when we
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: go to Daylight Saving Time permanently, which our center is
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: one of the co-sponsors. Alex Padilla is one of the co-sponsors.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: I approach this.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: From a purely dog walking perspective. And now basically, if
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: I don't walk Luca before dinner from now until... the spring,
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: then I'm not going to walk her. Cause she doesn't
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: like walking at night.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: I would much, I prefer a dark morning walk than
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: to a dark evening walk.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, we solved that one.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: We solved that one. But, uh, shame that involves Marco
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Rubio getting a win. Reason enough to give up on
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: my dream.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: So you a fan now? No.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, I am. I'm a huge fan of Marco Rubio.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: You should do an interview with him.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: I would, I would like to do an interview where
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: I stop fight every fiber of my being, uh, to
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: go off topic.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You should interview him at Barry Weiss University. What
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: is it, University of Austin?
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: University of Austin, Texas. I'm taking a class called Anti-White
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: Fragility for Dummies.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: The thing about choosing Austin is it's famously home to
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: one of the cooler places you could go to college already,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: UT Austin. I mean, of all the schools, when I
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: look at myself in hindsight, if I could go back
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: in time and shake myself as a 17-year-old and say,
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: don't go to tiny liberal arts school in the middle
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: of Ohio where it's gray 10 months a year. Love you, Ken,
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: in college, but come on, I'm talking about the weather.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: I would say, hey, have you heard about UT Austin?
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: And I would say, hey, John, you closeted 17-year-old, your
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: decision to go to a tiny, freezing cold sports college
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: in Northwest Massachusetts was good. Do that.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Do that. See, we both learned something. Hey, I funded.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: And that's our show.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Dave Roberts.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Tommy.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Marco Rubio.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Marco.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Barry Weiss. Thank you, Aaron Rodgers.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Josh Hawley. You manly man. One note on
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: Josh Hawley. One note on Josh Hawley. Remember that story
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: that he did not deny about the fact that he
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: had a poster on his wall in his college drawer
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: called L'Enfant, which shows a fucking A-plus hot guy without
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: a shirt holding a baby, and he said it because
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: it was pro-life? Okay, pal. Pro what kind of lives?
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: Hot gay lives? Josh, weird poster, buddy. Manliness. Not implying anything. L'enfant.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: Classic manly teen guy poster. Hot, hot 80s men.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Shirtless.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: Holding babies.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: End of show. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: our sound engineer.
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman,
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montooth. Our
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.