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“Rudy likes club drugs.” (LIVE from Las Vegas!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. This episode is our show
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: at the Life is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas that
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: we did Sunday night. And right after that, You're going
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to hear an interview that Tommy and I did with
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Samantha Power, who just wrote a new book, Education of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: an Idealist, and that's it.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Look, it's that perfect mix of EDM, politics, and a
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: genocide expert.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as you know, we did open for Post Malone
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: on Sunday with a show about politics, and now we
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: want you to hear it.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: What's funny is we're recording this before we left, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: by the time you've heard this, we'll know how much
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: money I lost. Guys, we have some big news. Big news.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media is introducing our newest podcast, America Dissected, with
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Said. What is really up with anti-vaxxers? Why does
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: goop have such a massive appeal?
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Because I love it.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And who does our healthcare system really care for? In
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: America Dissected, host Abdul El-Said talks about the forces beyond
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the headlines that shape the issues that matter for our health,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the ways we're failing science, the ways the government is
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: failing us, and what we can do to get it
• 1:22
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• 1:23
  Speaker 3: And he does it by breaking down these stories in
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  Speaker 3: a way that's fascinating and entertaining. He goes inside the
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: health care system and explores some of the most surprising
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  Speaker 3: and interesting facets of what makes our system not work
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: and what makes our system work. And it's riveting. I know.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I listened to the Goop episode, which is just so entertaining.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: And I learned a ton.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's smart.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And it's not the conclusion he draws is not obvious.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I think the point is you're just not supposed to
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: put all your jade eggs in one basket.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: America Dissected is a 10-part series that explores what we're
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: up against in our health care system. and how we've
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: solved problems like this before through rigorous science and competent
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: government working hand in glove getting it done. Here's some
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of the topics that you're going to hear about on
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: this podcast. Anti-vaxxers, the cult of wellness, the high cost
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of prescription drugs, the Flint water crisis, the opioid epidemic,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: antibiotic resistance and superbugs, and the healthcare system. Listen to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the trailer and subscribe to America Dissected with Abdul El-Sayed
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. It premieres on September 30th. So
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: subscribe now.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Isn't this exciting? It's a cut above the other pots.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Also, National Voter Registration Day is Tuesday, September 24th.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Which is good because there are elections happening in 2019,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: as in November 5th. Consider this your reminder to make
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: sure you're registered to vote if there's an election near you.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: It also means we're almost a year away from the
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: most important presidential election since the last presidential election.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: That feels soon.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: To beat Trump at the ballot box, we've got to
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: outwork him and out-organize him. And that starts with registering
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: people to vote. We're partnering with Headcount to hold voter
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: registration drives across the country for the next week.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So guys, get involved. 2020 is basically already here, so
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: make sure everyone in your life is ready for it
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: by registering them to vote.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Sign up to volunteer at votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer. Votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Enjoy the show.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: What's up, Vegas?
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I have never seen so many rolling friends of the
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: pod in my entire life. People at home can't hear it,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: but a lot of you are licking each other's faces. Yikes.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us here at the Life is
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Beautiful Festival on this lovely Sunday afternoon. Quick housekeeping note
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: before we get into the news. We have now.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Raised $ 690, 000.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: For Fair Fight 2020, which is Stacey Abrams' effort.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: To fight voter suppression.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So, as many of you know, we are looking to
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: raise a million dollars by November 5th. So we need
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: everyone to donate, help out. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash fair fight.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And let's help stop voter suppression.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: How many of you have no idea what the fuck
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: this is? That guy. That guy. Thank you for your honesty. Yeah. Yes.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: We are in the EDM tent for those who are
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: listening at home. So, people have taken the wrong route.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: All right, let's get to the news.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: We know you all came here for a lively discussion
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: about impeachment, so here it goes.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: That is correct.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: This morning, the President of the United States admitted to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: reporters that he used the powers of his office to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: target a political opponent and his family. Trump said that
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: he did, in fact, talk to the president of Ukraine
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: about Joe Biden and his son Hunter during a phone
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: call that is now part of a whistleblower complaint against
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Trump that his administration has been illegally withholding from Congress.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Multiple outlets have now confirmed that sources within the administration
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that the president and Rudy Giuliani have been pressuring the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Ukrainian government for months to basically fabricate a scandal about
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the Bidens based on Hunter's business dealings in that country. Dan,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: why does the latest scandal rise to the level of impeachment,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and why does this feel bigger or at least more
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: clear-cut than some of the other Trump scandals around Russia
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and Mueller and all that stuff?
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: Well, let's be very specific about what Trump did, what
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: he admitted to doing to the world today, which is
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: the president of the United States used the power of
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: the presidency to pressure a foreign nation in desperate need
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: of foreign aid to conduct an investigation into.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Trump's political opponent. That's not good, right? That is not good.
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  Speaker 5: That would be the highest crime of the high crimes
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: ever committed by a U.S.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: President.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that really makes Nixon look like child's play right there.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Somewhere Nixon's rolling around in graves being like, what?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I was robbed.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Why didn't I think of that? Says Nixon.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what is Trump's defense here, and what's his overall
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: strategy with this story?
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So there's the Trump strategy, which is sort of the
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani strategy. So Rudy knows a few things. One,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: you can't go on TV until you've had three martinis.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: That's rule number one for Rudy Giuliani.
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  Speaker 3: Two.
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  Speaker 2: You can say literally whatever the fuck you want. You
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: can make up anything about your political opponents and the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: press will cover it as part of a both sides
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: discussion until 40 percent of the country thinks that Joe
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Biden is guilty of something that he never actually did.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: And three, the Democrats will do nothing about it. We'll
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: talk about that later. So they're just trying to muddy
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: the waters. I mean, Trump understands better than most politicians
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: do that. you win by going on offense at all times.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So if you're worried about being accused of colluding with
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: a foreign power or being accused of corrupt, he's going
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: to accuse his opponent of doing the exact same thing,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: even though it's completely baseless, because he just wants to
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: muddy the waters until he gets through an election.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and also, and can you also just explain
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: to everyone, since this involves Ukraine, like, what, it's particularly
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: bad for a couple of reasons that the President of
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the United States was withholding U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: or potentially withholding U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine unless they
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: dug up dirt on his political opponent.
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  Speaker 6: Right.
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  Speaker 3: He's basically holding them ransom.
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  Speaker 2: So, I mean, the thing to remember is that Ukraine
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: was invaded by the Russians in 2014, both the Crimean
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Peninsula and eastern Ukraine. And so the Russians still hold
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: like a bunch of their territory. The fighting's happening today.
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  Speaker 2: So this brand new president, this guy was just elected.
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  Speaker 2: He's desperately trying to get a meeting with Trump. to
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  Speaker 2: talk about the ways the U.S. can support the Ukrainian government.
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  Speaker 2: And he learned that Trump canceled a meeting with him.
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  Speaker 2: He was supposed to fly to Poland to meet with
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  Speaker 2: the new president, Zelensky, and he canceled it ostensibly to
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: monitor the hurricane.
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  Speaker 3: That was happening at the time. From the golf course.
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  Speaker 2: He just fucking played golf. And then they learned that
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  Speaker 2: this big aid package, $ 250 million of military aid, has
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: been frozen, and they have no idea why. Usually Republicans
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: and Democrats support This aid. So these guys just got invaded.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: They know that Trump has this weird relationship with Putin
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  Speaker 2: and they're trying to figure out, are we just getting
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: cut loose here and thrown to the wolves? Is Trump
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: going to tell his buddy, do what you want if
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: we don't dig up all this dirt on Biden? So
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: like they're in a terrible position in a really dangerous
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: neighborhood dealing with fucking Rudy Giuliani threatening them every other day.
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  Speaker 3: And Trump's bullshit.
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  Speaker 5: One amendment to what you said that's really important is
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  Speaker 5: Trump is not actually asking them to dig up dirt.
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  Speaker 3: I was just going to say that. He's asking them
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: to manufacture dirt. Good point.
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: Because Trump's lesson from 2016 is if he can lord
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  Speaker 5: an investigation over his opponent, then he can.
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  Speaker 3: Make it seem like we're both corrupt.
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: It's the you're a puppet strategy from the debate where
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton does her long speech about how Trump is
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: in the thrall of Putin and Trump just yells, you're
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: a puppet and that you're corrupt.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important because if the Ukrainians really wanted to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: play ball here and give Trump what he wants, and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: there was something there, they could maybe do that. But
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: from the Ukrainians' perspective, they're like... we don't have anything
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: on him. And Trump's like, no, I need something on him.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: And they're like, I don't know, what do you want
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: us to make some shit up? And he's like, yes,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of course.
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  Speaker 3: Make something. Oh, I'm sorry. I was not being clear.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: I'm Donald Trump. Make it up. It doesn't have to
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: be true. I just need something. I just need something.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I need some insinuations. All I know is that Joe
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Biden's son once had some business dealings in Ukraine.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: That's enough for me. That'll work. That's enough.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Love it. So I want to talk about how the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: media is handling this and how the media is handle this.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: There was a Politico headline this weekend that read, already,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: why Trump's Ukraine scandal could backfire on Biden. And there
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was a couple of these other stories in other outlets
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: as well. How should the media handle this completely debunked
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: allegation about the Biden family? And how should the Biden
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: campaign handle.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: It, too? Yeah, I mean, it's this strange fact of
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: how politics is covered entirely through the lens of how
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: the politics is being covered. The reason the story will
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: reflect poorly on Joe Biden is that there will be
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: stories looking at whether or not the story is reflecting
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: poorly on Joe Biden. If Donald Trump is insinuating something
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: that never happened, even though there are many stories pointing
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: out that that never happened, there will still be enough
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: coverage about the or if there's some truth to it
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: at all, it would hurt Joe Biden. Therefore, I will
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: tell you the politics, despite the fact that it's not true,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: which is covered in another section of this newspaper, are
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: still hurting Joe Biden because not enough people are hearing
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: about how the story isn't true because all the coverage
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: is what I'm saying about how even the story not
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: being true doesn't matter because the coverage is of the
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: scandal happening. It's the Ouroboros. It's the Ouroboros.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: That's why they're here. That's why they've come. I just
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: got more applause at this festival than Lil Wayne. You
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: mean our next guest? You mean our next guest. And
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you another thing. The Democrats... I need to
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: stop acting like Lil Wayne. I need to show up.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: It was just sitting there. I like that.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: It was just sitting there. Dan, is this going to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: be a repeat of 2016 with the media?
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: It sure as hell seems that way.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: This really is an exact repeat of most of the
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: allegations of the Clinton administration. Because to be very clear
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: how we got here, Peter Schweitzer, who is a Republican
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: operative who wrote the original book, Clinton Cash, which became
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: the foundation for a lot of the stories about Clinton,
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: wrote a book about corruption in politics, but specifically about
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. The New York Times, stenographers
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: of record, wrote a story about that.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Then Giuliani leaped.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: Onto it, and now we're having a conversation about it.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: And so we are very much headed that way. And
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: I think it's important for Democrats to take some lessons
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: here from what happened in 2016. One of them is
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: we can't trust the media to solve this problem for itself. Like,
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: all the coverage dynamic that Lovett's talking about is a
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: tremendous admission of impotency from the media. They're saying, we
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: know it's not true, but we are not powerful or
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: credible enough to tell people that.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Therefore, this is a problem.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And they're worried about balance, always. Like, if this is
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: going to be a huge Trump scandal, there has to
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: be something on the Democrat side that's wrong.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: And I think the problem for Democrats, and this is
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: true in how the media treats Biden, and it's also
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: true in how Democrats are awaiting the media to take
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: down Trump, is that the Democratic Party, too many of
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: us believe.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: In the media's own mythology of itself.
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: We are simply waiting for this idea that to ink-stained
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: wretches who look a little bit like Robert Redford and
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: Dustin Hoffman can take down a president. But there is
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: no silver bullet or smoking gun coming in the New
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: York Times or Washington Post that's going to change the
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: political dynamic. The only question is, what are Democrats going
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: to do with the information in those papers to convince
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: voters to change their opinion?
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: And we should say, too, that is correct.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: But since you brought up Woodward and Bernstein, like, The reporting,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, we know all this not because, you know,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the administration released the whistleblower complaint. We know this because
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: reporters from the Washington Post and then the New York Times,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal have been doing incredible reporting about this.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It's more like what Lovett says, which is, as always,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the incredible reporting of many journalists on a scandal like
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: this is then, you know, balanced with some fucking Yahoo
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in the analysis section of the paper writing about how
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: this is also maybe bad for Democrats.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the frustrating thing is that I think
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: by any objective measure, the fact of a president calling
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: a foreign country and holding ransom taxpayer dollars, military aid.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: until they manufacture some dirt on a political opponent. That
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: is a bigger deal, a bigger story than anything Joe
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: or Hunter Biden could have done.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Even though there is no evidence that they did anything.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: And like that waiting, we've not gotten that waiting part right.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: It's like five crimes in one. I mean, it's like
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: not joking around. The president committed multiple crimes. It is
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: the largest abuse of power. As we said, it makes
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: everything Nixon did pale in comparison. But because we are
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: so fucking broken in the brain because of Trump, we're
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: treating it like just a normal Trump scandal.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's also... I mean, and Democrats
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: are going to have to do this as we continue
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to push the story and talk about it more and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: hopefully impeach him, which we'll get to. But it is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: trying to make people understand why this is such a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: scary abuse of power. Like, today it's Joe Biden's son,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: but if we have a president who's going to use
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the powers of his office, the vast powers of the presidency,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: with all the resources he has, the money, the power,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: everything else, to go after... anyone he doesn't like, anyone
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: who's disloyal to him, anyone who disagrees with him, he
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: can target any American anywhere with the powers of the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: federal government just if he doesn't like you if it's
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: for his own political gain. That's what's at stake here.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I'd also, yes, and I'd also add, you know, this
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: isn't now a congressional investigation or journalistic investigation into what
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: happened in a previous election. Did Trump solicit help in
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: 2016 from the Russians? What happened in the Trump Tower meeting,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: in the election that already transpired. This is ongoing. He
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: is seeking the interference right now. He is still inside
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: the bank. And he is... I thought that would do better.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: He practiced it a couple times.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I tested it backstage. I thought it would do better.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: I don't want it. I don't want it now. I
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: don't want it now.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Trump made this phone call to the Ukrainian president the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: day after Robert Mueller testified. He gives so little shit
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: what the media or the Democratic Party or anyone's going
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: to say about his corruption that he was like, yeah,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: let's keep this thing going.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Let's run it back. Corruption V2.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Well, you get away with one collusion, you might as
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: well try another. Yeah, I just sort of gave him
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: the idea. Oh, right, that's what I did. Oh, that
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: was good. I'll do that again.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he, I mean, well, now this gets to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: our next topic, impeachment, because Trump basically has decided that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: because he got away with encouraging and accepting foreign assistance
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: in the last election, and no one did anything about it,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and he wasn't impeached, he can do it for the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: next election. And if he can't do it with Russia,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: he'll find Ukraine. He'll do whatever country wants to help.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Whatever entity, country... rich person, scumbag, wants to help him
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: win the election, he will seek that help. It doesn't
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: matter because no one did anything about the last time.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's assembling a suicide squad.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So, thankfully, the push for impeachment has intensified over the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: weekend among the Democratic presidential candidates, among some members of Congress,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: certain podcasters who are angry online. So, Adam Schiff, Congressman
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Adam Schiff, who, yeah.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Adam Schiff has never been cheered at a music festival
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: like this. This is a first for Congressman Schiff, and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he's going to be very pleased. Adam Schiff,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: who hasn't yet come out for impeachment, said today, Sunday,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that this may well have crossed the Rubicon. So Adam
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Schiff is getting closer. Even Nancy Pelosi released a statement
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: this morning that said Trump's refusal to let Congress see
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the whistleblower complaint will take the investigation into a whole
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: new stage. So, like, not super great, but better than
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: where she's been.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: You should comment, you should mention how she signed off
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: the letter. Yeah, she signed off yours in patriotism.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: What did she sign off?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: She said, thank you for your patriotism. Thank you for
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: your patriotism, Nancy Pelosi. Little patronizing.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Dan, do you think we're finally going to see impeachment
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: over this? Do you think we've finally moved into a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: new territory here?
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: We don't make predictions, John.
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: But I will say, if we are not going to
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: open impeachment proceedings over this crime, then there is literally
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: nothing that will be an impeachable offense.
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: Like, if you can't, like, you can create excuses for
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: yourself to not look into the Russia investigation and create excuses.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Around obstruction of justice, because those are hard.
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Obstruction of justice is a hard crime to prove in
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: a court of law. But if you cannot do it
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: over the president of the United States using the power
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: of his office.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: to.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: Push a foreign country to investigate his opponent. Like, that
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: is abuse of power. That is the whole.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Reason we have impeachment.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: And he fucking admitted it on live television. It's not
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: a secret. There was the admission.
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: Right, yeah.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: You're starting to see some Republicans, like Mitt Romney, who's like,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: if this is true, it is very troubling.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: He fucking admitted it, Mitt. Turn on the television, buddy.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: But yeah, Dan, you and I went through various stages
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: of grief regarding impeachment and sort of questioning the need
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to do it and the politics. What we have learned
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: is that the failure to respond to Trump means he
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: will just continue to act with reckless abandon, to be
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: corrupt with impunity, and he thinks he's invincible.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: What are we doing? How can you possibly.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: argue against punching back, like doing fucking something to slow
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: this down?
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: To me, this is very simple where the Democrats need
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: to go from here.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Like they don't have obviously you can't impeach him just
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: based on the news reports themselves. There is a whistleblower
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: complaint that was deemed urgent and credible by a Trump appointee,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: by the inspector general that Donald Trump appointed. So Democrats
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: tomorrow should go out and say. we demand the full
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: whistleblower complaint immediately. We will give you one day, two days,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: three days, whatever. You do not hand that over. We
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: will start impeachment proceedings the next day, and we will
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: impeach this president for obstructing Congress. Like, I don't... It's
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: not that hard here. This is not something where we
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: wait for litigation, we wait for the courts, we wait
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: for months and months. Like, the longer we delay, the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: more a whole bunch of other stories will fill the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: media cycle, and we'll all be on to the fucking
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: next thing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: For one week.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Everyone needs to pay attention for this one thing for
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: one fucking week and go out there and say, we
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: demand the whistleblower complaint right now, and then we're fucking
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: impeaching his ass after that.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, the moral case for impeaching
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is clear. It has been clear for a
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: long time. The political case is the one that has
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: not been successfully made to a lot of Democrats, in
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: part because there's a lot of Democrats who refuse to
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: make that case. There's this chicken and egg problem. Oh,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: the American people don't support impeachment, so we're not going
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: to talk about it. But they won't support impeachment until
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: you talk about it. And what that has led to
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: is a situation in which Trump's crimes exposed by Mueller,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: exposed by journalists over the past three years. Exposed by Trump?
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Exposed by Trump himself via tweet and press conference and
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: speaking in front of moving helicopter blades because nothing can
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: be good, nothing.
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: And.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Has kind of added up to a list of impeachable offenses,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: and yet because it's all old news, it hasn't galvanized people.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: So this could be it. This could be it. This
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: does feel different, and feeling different is important because we're
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: not just making a legal case, we're making a political case.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: And so what John is saying is both legal and political.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: It has to feel like a spark has been lit,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and otherwise we will miss it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: But also, like, Everybody knew about the Russia collusion allegations
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and the investigation in Mali.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: The country was well-educated on that.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: No one, not a single voter, like one-tenth of a
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: percent of voters know about this latest story and what's happening.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: In the Democratic Party, it's incumbent upon us to make
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: sure that all of them know about it before this election.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: The political case is so clear at this point because
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: there's this worry that because impeachment's not popular... the risk
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of impeaching Donald Trump without the Senate removing him is
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: too great for the fact that impeachment's not that popular yet.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: But also, John, impeachment is unpopular in the context of
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the Mueller probe, right? It's a whole different thing.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: No, so what I was going to say is, I
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: want to find the voter out there.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: This is the voter.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: You know, I was going to vote Democrat in 2020,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: but then the House went ahead and impeached the president
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: for using the power of his office to pressure a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: foreign government into targeting a political opponent. So I'm sorry
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I can't do it anymore. You know, impeaching him for
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: doing that, for abusing his office and pushing Ukraine to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: investigate Joe Biden's son, that really did it for me.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I can't vote Democrat anymore. Who the fuck is that person?
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: There's no voter like that.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Lou Dobbs.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: What?
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: No one.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: I mean, two points on the politics. The first one
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: is we have to... understand what successful politics on this means.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: There is not going to be a situation where an
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: impeachment hearing, a revelation, a smoking gun, fundamentally changes how
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: the electorate views this. There is going to be 40%
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: of voters who are going to be with Trump no
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: matter what.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: So this is about moving people on the margins. Are
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: there a handful of voters who, if exposed to the
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: information that would come out in an impeachment hearing, will
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: be less likely to Trump than that is a political success?
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: That is what's going to happen.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Also, not to be a total fucking nerd, but the
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: stakes of this decision, this policy decision, are actually a
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: pretty big deal.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: It's not like Trump was like, hey, I want you
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: to book a bunch.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Of rooms in one of my hotels in a sort
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of mundane corruption. He's making decisions to benefit his political
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: future about giving... $ 250 million in weapons to a country
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that is at war with Russia on a very low grade.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And he's like, that's playing with some fucking fire. It's
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a pretty serious thing.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: He's jeopardizing U.S. national security for his own political gain,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: which he's done many times in the past. But here's
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the thing. Lovey, you were saying, could it happen? Might
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: we be there? We don't know. We all have agency here, right?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: There is a list of Democratic House members who are
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: still on the fence, who have not come out in
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: favor of impeachment or opposed it. Nancy Pelosi still has
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of control over this herself. She's been against
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: it so far, but hopefully she's wavering too now. But
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: we don't have to just sit around, call your member
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of Congress. There's lists everywhere. All the outlets have them
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of who's for impeachment, who's not, who's still on the fence.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Call every member of Congress who's still wavering. Flood Nancy
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Pelosi's office with calls if you believe that this is important. And,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe we can actually get this done.
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: I think the other point on the politics here that
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: I think is important is Trump's election did something to America, right?
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: It awoke... a generation of activists. Yeah, you know what
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: it did?
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: We're talking about politics at an EDM festival.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: That's what it did.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Weird shit has happened, Dan.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: That is exactly right. There were people who thought they
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: could sit out politics and no longer think that. And
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: they got involved and they worked their asses off in 2018.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: They marched, they protested, they knocked doors, they voted. And
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: the question for the Democratic Party has been, will it
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: be a worthy vessel for that righteous anger? And the
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: answer right now is no. It is no on impeachment.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: It's no on taking up an assault weapons ban. They
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: have to understand the better politics for Democrats is not
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: always which persuadable voters you're going to get or which
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: people you're going to get to take off their MAGA hats.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: It's are you going to excite and inspire new voters?
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: Are you going to get activists? And there is no
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: question in my mind, as tricky as the politics are,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: that that is the better political path here is one
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: that's going to make people inspired to fight for Democrats,
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: not the opposite.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Excellent. All right. On that note, it's time for a game.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Now it's time for OK Stop. We'll roll a clip
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: and we can say OK Stop at any point to comment.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: It's fitting that we're doing this in an EDM tent
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: because it seems like Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: New York and current spokesman for divorce, has been on
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: club drugs during 100% of his TV appearances on behalf
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: of Donald Trump. During a recent four-minute interview with Chuck Todd,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: in fact, Rudy drank five bottles of water. Anyway, Rudy
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: had a meltdown on CNN because Trump was caught soliciting
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: foreign interference in an election again. Let's roll the clip.
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: Did you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: No, actually, I didn't.
• 27:00
  Speaker 8: I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there
• 27:03
  Speaker 8: was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, for which there already
• 27:10
  Speaker 8: is a court finding.
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: You never asked anything about Hunter Biden. You never asked
• 27:13
  Speaker 7: anything about Joe Biden and.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: His role with the prosecutors.
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to
• 27:16
  Speaker 8: get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko,
• 27:19
  Speaker 8: who was appointed, dismissed the case against Antac.
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: Of course I did. Okay, so.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: No, you son of a bitch, Chris Cuomo. Ask again.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, within three seconds.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I still haven't watched this whole clip yet,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: but I thought it came, like, much later in the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: interview that he did. That was the fastest reversal in
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the history of cable television.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Rudy always looks like he just surprised himself.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, what have I done?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: He drank from the wrong chalice.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: But you didn't.
• 27:55
  Speaker 8: No, I didn't ask him to look into Joe Biden.
• 27:57
  Speaker 8: I asked him to look into the allegations that related
• 27:58
  Speaker 8: to my client, which tangentially involved Joe Biden in a
• 28:02
  Speaker 8: massive bribery scheme.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Not unlike what he did in.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop. I didn't ask about Joe Biden.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: I asked about my client, which was tangentially involved with
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden in a massive bribery scheme.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Relatedly, Chris Cuomo cannot believe what good luck he has
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: right now. He's got this look on his face like,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: oh man, I got him, didn't I? And I didn't
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: even really do anything. I stumbled my way into being
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Woodward and Bernstein here. Oh, shit.
• 28:34
  Speaker 8: Ina, you explain to me how the kid got $ 1.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: 5 billion from China when Joe Biden was selling his allegations.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: But just be careful about what you say.
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: Okay, stop.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I asked you.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: A little coaching. Yeah, life coach.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: There's a point in every Chris Cuomo clip where he
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: says something like that, where it's this sort of like,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: it's like Walter Cronkite, but like 10% towards cold, you know?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense? Just like a little off.
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: Whatever.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: I am very careful about what I say. I asked
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: Ukraine to look at Joe Biden. You said no. Then
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: you went on to say that you did.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop. Chris Cuomo gets what happened.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: It does, like, in all seriousness, it does speak to
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: sort of where the journalists miss this, which it's not
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: the admission of the crime. It's getting caught lying about
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: the crime, right? So he's immediately gone to the gotcha
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: instead of the what he got him for.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he could have just been like, all right, so
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: you just admitted... What I asked, which was that you
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: did ask them to look into Joe Biden.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Next question.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: We're going to move on.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I'm no Cuomo stan, but I feel like he's allowed
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: to be surprised that Rudy is self-incriminated on live TV.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Don't say you're not a Cuomo stan. We know.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: You follow him on Instagram.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: You follow his workouts. Deadlifts and thirst traps for days, people.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Check that shit out.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: A lot of Tommy Vitor heart emojis beneath the Chris
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Cuomo Instagrams. I comment on all of them first.
• 30:12
  Speaker 8: I don't want to distort what I'm saying.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: I don't want to distort. Because you're totally biased.
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: I'm not biased.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: You are, Chris.
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: Why would I have you on if I were biased,
• 30:19
  Speaker 7: knowing that we're going to have this kind of conversation?
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Because it is sad to watch what happens.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Do you think Rudy has a coffin that he naps
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: in on the CNN set between hits?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: This is really, we're reaching the productive part of the
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: interview now.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Sorry, go ahead. You're biased.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not biased.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: No, I'm just, it's, roll it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Sad? Watch what happened to me. I'm a sellout.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: You are a sellout.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: You are telling me that I'm a sellout. These are
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: crimes of major importance.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, stop. What does a sellout mean in this context?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like we quickly went from admission
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of a crime to why everyone hates cable television.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Like in like a minute. Just like that.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: A lot of rubber and glue stuff happening. Yeah, exactly.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: And that's OK Stop. Back to you, John. Thanks, John.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: All right. Let's talk about 2020 and the Democratic primary. Yeah,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: it's happening.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: 17 Democratic candidates spent Saturday at Iowa's famous Steak Fry,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: which wrapped up just as the results of the latest
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Des Moines Register poll were released. As you all know,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: we frequently tell everyone not to obsess over polls, but
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: we make a very big exception.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: We are hypocrites.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: We will do this all the.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Time, but the Des Moines Register poll is historically one
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of the most accurate polls ever. So it is actually
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: very important. So today's poll shows Elizabeth Warren leading in
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Iowa with 22%.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: That's interesting. That's interesting. Is it? I thought that the
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: EDM tent would have a bigger yang component. We haven't
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: said his name yet. We got one.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: We got a couple sad de Blasio stans here, too.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren's at 22%, Biden's at 20%, Bernie Sanders at 11%,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg at 9%, Kamala Harris at 6%, with the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: other candidates at 3% and below. The poll also found
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: that only 20% of caucus goers have completely made up
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: their mind about the candidate they're supporting. Dan, plenty of
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: numbers to dig into here. Aside from the horse race
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: numbers that I just mentioned, what are the big headlines
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: out of this poll for you?
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: I mean, obviously the biggest headline is Elizabeth Warren is
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: now in the lead in the most important.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: It's like a fucking Warren rally here.
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: Elizabeth Warren being in the lead in the most important
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: primary is a huge headline. The other headlines you point
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: out I think are important is this race is still
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: very fluid. Most people have not made a final decision
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: about who they're supporting and are very open to a
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: wide range of candidates. I also think it's really interesting
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: that the candidates who have spent the most money on
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: TV in the last few weeks, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: and Kamala Harris, have gone down or stayed the same
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: in the polls.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's interesting.
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: It's interesting what that says about how the people of
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: Iowa are consuming the information around the race.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what were your big takeaways here?
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously it's good news for Warren, and it
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: seems like she's not just lurching ahead because of some
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: sort of little surge, but it's this methodical building that
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: I would be excited about if I were her team. Though,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: you know, 88% of her supporters said they might consider
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: somebody else, which just speaks of the fluidity of the race.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I also think, you know, obviously... That's a big deal.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: We should pause on that because we should... Talk about
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: some challenges that Elizabeth Warren faces here, even though I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: know people in the crowd have a certain feeling. 88%
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: is a lot. I mean, you've worked in Iowa for
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: a long time. We're in almost October, late September. It
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: seems like it's a big number of people who are
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: still making up their minds.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wide open.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, in October of 2007, Barack Obama was
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: in third place in Iowa.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: He won.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: In October of 2015, Hillary was up 7% on Bernie,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: and they basically tied. So there's a lot of room
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: for the numbers to move around here. But, you know,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: like that number for Warren would worry me a little bit.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Biden lost support generally, but his supporters are a little
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: more committed than Warren's, but they're less enthusiastic. So enthusiasm
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: does count for something.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Enthusiasm does count for something in Iowa because like that
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: means you're more likely to volunteer or, you know, get
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: out there and do stuff for the other person. Like
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: there's other notable headlines. I thought it's a tough pull
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: for Bernie, a tough pull for Mayor Pete. But those
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: are definitely, like, you know, there is a chance that
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: this thing's going to move around a lot.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we should talk about Bernie a little bit in
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: this poll, because I was a little surprised by how
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: much Bernie had dropped between this poll and the last poll.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: He's 37% unfavorable rating, which is one of the highest
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: unfavorables of any of the top contenders. This stat was
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: very interesting, too. They polled, of people who caucused for
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Sanders in 2016... Elizabeth Warren is leading among those people
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: who were Sanders supporters by 35 to 20-something, which is very...
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: That was surprising to me, too.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think that there was... We talked about
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: this on the podcast a few times when the race
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: was just beginning, which was there was this question around
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders, which was what share of his vote in
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: 2016 was a truly pro-Bernie vote and how much of
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: it was an anti-Hillary vote, and it turns out there
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: was a substantial portion of it that was an anti-Hillary vote.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean there's not a substantial constituency for Bernie
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Sanders in the Democratic primary, but I do think that's revealing.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: And the other facet of this, too, is if Elizabeth
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Warren is now going to be in the lead in Iowa,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: I do think that comes with scrutiny, and I do
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: think that scrutiny is ultimately good. The truth is, we've
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: seen it in the debates, there hasn't been a concerted
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: effort to bring Elizabeth Warren down from other Democrats. She's
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: sort of had a good, smooth run for a while. And,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: you know, we're putting these people through their paces. We've
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: seen Joe Biden face a lot of scrutiny and some
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: of it he's handled well, a lot of it he's
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: handled poorly. We've seen, careful, we've seen that happen to
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Mayor Pete, to other candidates. We've certainly seen it happen
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: to Beto right out of the box. And so I
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: think it's important as we're kind of running these candidates
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: through their paces that now Elizabeth Warren will get, I think,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: some front runner treatment and we'll see how how much
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: this holds. I do think Warren's rise is obviously most
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: is due most almost entirely to her strategy and the
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: power of her candidacy. But it does speak to the
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: strategic error of the other campaigns.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: So for the last few months, Biden and Bernie fight
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: each other. Biden and Kamala Harris fight each other. And
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: no one has been willing to go after Elizabeth Warren.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: That's in part because I think they're a little bit
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: scared of it. I think it's because she's been the
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: most popular. It's the hardest to go after her. But
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: now those campaigns are reaping what they're sowing because they've
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: given her a clear path for six months to build
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: a very strong base of support among particularly college-educated white voters.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: And that has come out of... very clearly come out of.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: Bernie's space of support and has come out of Mayor
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: Pete's support, who went from, he dropped five points in
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: a poll as his name recognition went up and he
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: was on TV. And we haven't seen the crosstabs to
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: the appropriate degree, but it's pretty safe to assume most
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: of those votes went to Elizabeth Warren.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: So the Pete thing is really interesting to me because
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: they did favorability ratings. Elizabeth Warren has the highest favorability
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: rating of anyone in the field at like 71%. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: then the number two with the highest favorability rating is
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg with 69%.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Nice. I was hoping you'd get that.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: And yet despite him having a 69% approval rating among
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Iowa caucus goers, second highest in the field, he's only
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: at 9% among support. And like you said, it's down
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: five points from the last poll. What do you think
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: that's all about?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think this could cut both ways for them.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: They just hired 30 more staffers. They just opened 20 offices.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: They've been on TV running pretty significant ad buys since
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: early September. So I would be nervous that I'm not
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: able to gain traction and gain supporters. But the favorability
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: thing is important in a state like Iowa, where there
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: is a scenario where you go into your caucus location.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: The person you really wanted to caucus for isn't viable
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: because of the way caucuses work. So you have to
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: go to a second choice. And Mayor Pete is well
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: positioned to be that second choice. Now, The thing that's
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: clear from the poll generally is that all Iowa voters
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: care about is electability, whatever that means. They just want
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: someone who can beat Trump. They don't really care as
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: much about differences on issues. They just want to win.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: And so I think I would be, if I were
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: sitting in literally every campaign office, thinking about what is
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: my best electability argument and how am I going to
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: make it every single day I'm in Iowa for the
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: next several months.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, again, because, you know... electability as a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: marker for success has been criticized widely. But in this poll,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: they asked people to define electability a bunch of different ways.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Some people define electability as the candidate who can excite
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the most new voters. Some people say, you know, how
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: can we get more Trump voters over? So there's many
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: different ways to define electability. But again, having a case
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: about why you are best positioned to beat Donald Trump,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: whether you're Elizabeth Warren, whether you're Joe Biden, whether you're
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg or anyone else, seems very important to voters who,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you know, prioritize beating Donald Trump more than almost anything
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: else in poll after poll after poll.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: I would bet within Elizabeth Warren's headquarters, they were unhappy
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: with that poll. I think they very much would have
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: preferred it to be Biden 24, Warren 21.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: Because momentum is everything in politics, and you want to
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: peak late. And so now Elizabeth Warren is going to
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: be determined by many in the media as the frontrunner.
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: I don't know whether that's accurate or not, because winning
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: Iowa is not necessarily enough to win the nomination. But
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: now it's going to come with more scrutiny. So her
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: campaign's got a few challenges ahead. How are they going
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: to deal with that scrutiny? Because all the other candidates
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: are going to come after her in some way, shape,
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: or form. The media is going to be tougher with her.
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: As Lovett pointed out, she's been running with a wind
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: at her back for six months. So now what's going
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: to happen next? The second thing is, what is their
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: strategy for keeping that momentum going for the next many months?
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: Because you have to get from October to February before
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: anyone casts it out. It is a long time, especially
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: in the Trump era where every day feels like a year.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: And then the third thing is, I still think.
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: The biggest hole in her candidacy is she often runs
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: like Donald Trump was never elected. Her campaign is about, accurately,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: corruption in our political and economic system that predated Trump.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: But there is something very unique about.
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: This moment, about the specific threat we are in right
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: now that is evident in what we're learning about Ukraine.
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: And I think it will be a proxy for the
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: electability conversation about Elizabeth Warren will be, what is her
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: story about Trump, this moment, and how we get out
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: of it? And I think that is the next turn
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: of the wheel for a campaign.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, to your point, Dan, Obama never led in
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: a public poll in Iowa until New Year's Eve 2007,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: and the caucuses were on the third, right?
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: So.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: That's when you want to pee. And those four days
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: were fucking hard to get through. Yeah, we were scared shitless.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Things were great at the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: The other side of the ledger for Warren is, like,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: I spent some time with her team in Iowa, and
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: they are fucking fired up and committed and building a
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: really sophisticated organization to capture that enthusiasm and translate it
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: to votes. The other, I thought, notable number in the
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: poll was Kamala Harris sort of remained flat. And that's
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: not a good result, but it was actually better than
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I expected because she hadn't been to the state of
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Iowa in 37 days.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: And in some ways, she's got.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: The best political athlete in the field at times when
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: she's at her best. And I wonder if she just
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: said she's fucking moving to Iowa. She was caught on
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: camera saying that. Does that kind of thing work? What's
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: the history of candidates moving to Iowa? Well, literally moving
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: does not work well. Chris Dodd moved there and enrolled
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: his kid in school and it didn't end well. But
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: if she does, you got to get, make all new friends.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: So your dad can not win. Uh, like I think
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: a delegate. Yeah, that's not ideal, but like, look, we'll see.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Like she's a competitor. She could, you know, she, I
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: don't think her story in this race is over.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: No, I do think, I mean, she lost a point
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: between this poll and the last poll and her unfavorable
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: ratings went up a little bit too, which was, which
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: was weird to me. But I do think like Kamala
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: moving to Iowa and spending all her time in Iowa
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: meeting voters, like, look, I think it's a good bet.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Well, one consistent thing in this poll for Kamala Harris,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: for Julian Castro, for some of the people that made
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: the more high profile attacks on another candidate, in this case,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, their unfavorability rating went up. So there is
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: a cost to you for making these attacks.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: And by the way, and that's not just like people
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: attacking Joe Biden. In the history of Democratic politics in Iowa,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: it is consistent that when you are the one who
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: starts going after another candidate, it ends up boosting your
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: unfavorability rating. It happens all the time, everywhere.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. Just to Dan's point, I was
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: just thinking about it, that there is this question of, like,
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: what is her case against Trumpism itself? Not the economic and,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: you know, political corruption that led to Trump, but against
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: what Trump represents. And one of the ways I think
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: she's tried to kind of address that is by being
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: first to the gate. She was very... She quickly responded
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: to the Ukrainian... scandal by saying that Congress must impeach,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: and if they fail to do so, they're complicit, a
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: very big word to use. But there is something even
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: beyond that in addressing the kind of pain and cultural
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: rot and toxic politics that allowed someone like Trump to
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: rise that is missing, that goes even deeper than just
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: having a kind of, she has a policy answer for
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Trump now, right? He should be impeached, we should take
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: that seriously. But she doesn't speak to that deeper pain
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: and cultural rot problems that would allow someone like that
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: get to get to the presidency. And it is missing
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: and it is important.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Um, one thing is, uh, one other development from this
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: weekend is Cory Booker's campaign, uh, sent out a memo
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: saying that if he did not raise a certain amount
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: of money by September 30th, the end of the next
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: FEC filing period, he won't be able to continue in
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the race. Um, and so asked for, you know, as
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: many donations as possible. Uh, Dan, do you think that's
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the kind of like, have candidates done that before? Is
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: that the kind of thing that works?
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: I mean, the way the Booker campaign did it was unique.
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: I think it's the first time any presidential candidate has
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: ever done this.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Just been honest about it.
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: Just being completely honest, being very transparent about the money problems,
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: and putting sort of a deadline to it. I have
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: almost no concerns that he's not going to make that number.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: I think he's going to raise more than that. I
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: think the challenge for— and I think the timing is very
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: notable— They needed to get that missive out before the
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: Des Moines Register poll, which showed Booker at one?
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: No, he's at three.
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: He did gain two points. But not in the conversation, right?
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: So they had to get it out before then. I
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: think they will raise the $ 1. 7 million. I think the
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: question is, what comes after that? You have sort of
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: painted a mural of desperation in your campaign headquarters. And
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: how do you sort of emerge from that? I think
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: this will be a real fundamental question for his campaign.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I mean, I think the one thing to
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: take from this poll, aside from the number that said
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that so many voters haven't made up their minds, is
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of Democratic caucus goers right now are
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: not with either Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren. And so
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: where do those caucus goers go?
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Who do they?
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: And so is there room for another candidate to sort
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: of break into that top tier? Or is there room,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: you know, for Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden to sort
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: of capture the support that other candidates currently have.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is very important.
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: Point that Tommy hinted at, which is you have to
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: get 15% to get delegates. And if you don't get
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: to 50%, someone else can get your support. And so
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: there is a large number. It's not like someone is
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: going to, these candidates are running at three and two
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: are going to get zero delegates and their support is
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: going to accrue to someone else.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: And the question is who.
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: I also think it's important to put this in perspective
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: of the larger nomination fight, which is we have this tendency,
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: because of the experience of the last few elections, to
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: believe that whoever wins Iowa becomes the nominee. Because Kerry
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: won Iowa, became the nominee. Obama won Iowa, became the nominee.
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: Hillary won Iowa, became the nominee. And we shouldn't assume
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: that is going to happen here. Iowa is less and
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: less representative of the larger Democratic Party in the Democratic
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: primary electorate where you get delegates than it ever has
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: been before.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: And so... We're here in Nevada. Well, right. Which is
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: a very important point.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: So.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: You matter.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: You matter.
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: Like Obama winning Iowa unlocked a lot of the map
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: for him because there was a huge, there was a
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: large amount of African-American voters around the country who went
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: from Hillary to Obama because now they believe, because Obama won.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Very white Iowa, they believed he was therefore electable.
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: It is not evident that some candidate other than Joe
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: Biden winning in Iowa is going to have a similar
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: effect right away. And this thing is going to move
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: very fast because within a month of Iowa, most of
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: the country is going to have voted for in the
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: Democratic primary. And so it's just, Iowa is important, but
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: we also have to look at what these, what is
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: this candidate, these candidates paths to the delegates come after Iowa.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: And that's the challenge of the Kamala Harris. So if
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: you move to Iowa, that means you're not in any
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: of these other states. And the biggest chunk of delegates
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: comes from our home stated California where she's not going
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: to be. Yeah.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: At some point you're just betting on momentum. All right.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll have another game.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: And we're back! Las Vegas. It's where America comes together.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Whether you're a middle-aged golfer who wants to cheat on
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: your wife with a woman, or a middle-aged golfer who
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: wants to cheat on your wife with a man. Whether
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: you're a bachelorette who is going to go crazy, which
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: means strip club, or a bachelorette who is going to
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: go crazy, which means get drunk, start texting ex-boyfriends, and
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Instagram a picture of yourself making out with a guy
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: from Provo, with the hashtag sorry not sorry, and wake
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: up to 17 missed calls from your mother.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Very specific.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Very specific. But Las Vegas is also in the middle
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: of a desert. Not a lot of people know that.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: Over the last few decades, no American city has faced
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: more dramatic effects from climate change than Las Vegas. What
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: are you cheering? The desiccation of your city? No city
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: shows more clearly why we need to act, so let's
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: play What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas, mainly because
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: you will most likely die here of heat stroke. I
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: will be playing with my boys. Didn't mean to sound
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: Shut up. Shut up! This game is Price is Right style.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: I'll ask you each a question, and you'll have to
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: guess the answer without going over. Are you ready?
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: Yes. Ready.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Question one. Lake Mead supplies water to Las Vegas. Recently,
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: because of rising temperatures, Lake Mead lost a lot of
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: water in a single year. Without going over, how much
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: water did Lake Mead lose? But please put your answer
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: in terms of Red Bull cans.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: How many Red Bull cans of water did Lake Meese
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: lose in a single year?
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: In a year?
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: A million.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: A million Red Bull cans. Tommy? 200 million. 200 million
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Red Bull cans. 200 million in one. Just kidding. That's bullshit. No,
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: that's a good move, Dan. I love that move. All right,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: 200 million in one.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: Fuck.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: Dan, you've gotten it right. It was 5.12 trillion cans
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: of Red Bull. 400 billion gallons of water in a
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: single year. Come on, Favreau.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I have no fucking idea. Any sense of proportion there.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: Do you know how big a Red Bull can is?
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I do know that. I don't know how big Lake
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Mead is.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: It's a start. Question two. Las Vegas is now 5.76
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: degrees hotter than it was in 1970. In fact, it's
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: getting so hot that before the end of the century,
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: Las Vegas is on track to have 96 days over
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 96 days. How many more days is
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: that than Kim Kardashian was married to Chris Humphries?
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: No, start with someone else. You're right, you're right.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: You're right. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Dan, you're up. 90 days.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: 90 days.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: 90 days. The crowd can help. It's Price is Right.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: Don't forget to have your pets spayed or neutered. 50 days.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: 50 days. John? $ 1. So smart. John, you got it.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: Fuck.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: 24 more days. It'll be hotter in this city for
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: basically a month longer than those two were married. Next question.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I thought they were going to make it.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Of those 96 super hot days, 60... will reach temperatures
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: above 105 degrees. Without going over, how many tenures of
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Anthony Scaramucci is that? Wait, say it again?
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, say it again.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: How many days... No, no. How many 105-degree days will
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: there be in terms of Scaramucci's?
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: A triple mooch. A triple mooch. Three mooches. Five mooches.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: Five mooches.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: How many were there in the last year?
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: There were 60.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Eight mooches.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: The correct answer is six mooches. Fuck. I know it
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: says 10, but he was there for 10 days. 11,
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: he says.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: 11 days.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Come on, Travis. Jesus, Travis. How was your massage? Unbelievable, right? Whatever. Whatever.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: The stakes are very low. Who was right? Dan got it.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Does one of us get a parachute gift card?
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: No.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: Bonus question. Of the 60 days that will be above 105,
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: a certain number will be off the charts, meaning our
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: current heat index has no way of measuring how hot
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: it is. Exciting. As you fan yourselves in the EDM tent. Yeah.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: You guys don't care. How many days do you think
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: that is? And please answer in the number of Carly
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: Fiorina vice presidential bids. How many days will be off
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: the charts hot expressed in the units of Fiorina's?
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go with 50.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: 50? Tommy, you go.
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: 12.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: 12? 6. You're all over. You're all over.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: That's good news.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: It will be seven full days of off the charts heat,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: which is one.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about? Where are you pointing? Dan
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: said six. No, he said six Fiorinas. It's seven days,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: one Fiorina. Fuck all of you. Thank you, people. What
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: is a Fiorina? You raise the hand when the teacher
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: says see you tomorrow and you point out it's fucking Friday?
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: I'm with the crowd.
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Crowd.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I welcome it.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I welcome it. Well, guess what? That's our game. Dan,
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: you won.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Parachute gift card coming your way.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, exciting.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Well, we are absolutely thrilled to have in the studio
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: our friend, our former colleague, Samantha Power. She is the
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: author of the fantastic new book, The Education of an
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Idealist Memoir.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: And.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Thanks for being here.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: It's great to have you in LA.
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: I could not be happier. This was when I was
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: in the dungeon writing, Pod Save America one day. It
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: will be done and I will be with my friends
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: on Pod Save America.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to take a break from this book
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: so I can listen to my friends yell about politics.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, be really emotional about politics because.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: That's really helpful.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Can we start at the beginning of the book? Because,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I love this book for a million reasons.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: I feel like I learned about your time at the
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: UN because we weren't working together anymore. It brought me
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: back to the campaign and the fun times. the less
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: fun times in the White House. But I was really
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: amazed at what you did in Kosovo and Sudan as
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: a journalist. And I don't really get it. And I
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: was hoping you would explain how this works. So you
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: are like 22. You forge a fucking letter for the
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: organization you work with so that someone will let you
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: go to a war zone so you can document atrocities
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: without actually having a job. You just say, hey, I'm
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: a stringer kind of.
• 55:22
  Speaker 6: I'd cover the women's volleyball team in college.
• 55:24
  Speaker 9: You're forgetting that really important detail.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Is that crazy to do something like that and not
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: have an organization like the AP or the New York
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Times behind you if something goes south?
• 55:34
  Speaker 6: Well, to the degree that it was crazy, there were
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: a lot of people doing it. There was something about
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: this kind of post-Cold War moment. The wall had fallen.
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: The Soviet Union had collapsed. There was all this hope
• 55:43
  Speaker 6: for the international order. And then suddenly there was this
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: war in the heart of Europe. where men and women
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: were getting rounded up because they were Muslim or if
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: they were in some other part of the country, maybe
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: because they were a crowd or even occasionally because they
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: were Serb. And people sort of thought, never again. Like
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: I thought, never again. If it didn't kick in during
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: the Cold War, maybe we can be part of a
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: world order where this kind of thing doesn't happen. And
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: so a lot of young people not knowing what else
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: to do. I mean, I should say first I went
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: around Washington and tried to get a job at an NGO.
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: I thought maybe I can help the refugees who are
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: flowing into other parts of Europe or even to the
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: United States. And I didn't have skills for that either.
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: And I had been a journalist in college, granted, a
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: sports journalist. And as it happened, I was in the
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: same building, the little think tank where I was interning
• 56:32
  Speaker 6: after college was in the same building as U.S.
• 56:34
  Speaker 9: News and World Report.
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: So I got a kind of orange light to go
• 56:37
  Speaker 6: over where the editor said, no problem, like, I don't
• 56:41
  Speaker 6: think you should go because it's risky. And have you
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: talked to your parents? But if you go, I'll take
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: your collect phone calls.
• 56:47
  Speaker 9: You remember those?
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: Where you reverse the charges. And I was like, yeah,
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: free phone calls. And then I realized I needed, as
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: you note, I needed a credential. And I knew that
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: this guy didn't want me enough where he was going
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: to take responsibility for me. So the other part of
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: the little think tank I was working is it was
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: affiliated with an academic journal, which subsequently became the Foreign
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: Policy Magazine we know today, which is a newsie journal now.
• 57:10
  Speaker 6: or whatever, internet site and magazine. But back then it
• 57:15
  Speaker 6: was very academic, but it was also my office, my
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: little cubicle or whatever was down the hall from the
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: editor's office. And when the cleaning crew departed one night,
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: and I really thought about it, and I also thought,
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: should I include this in the book when we're in
• 57:30
  Speaker 6: an ethically challenged period in our political life.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Nice that someone still thinks about that stuff. It's very quaint.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: Sort of the theme of the book, actually.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Good people thinking about ethics while today everyone's just like,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: fuck it.
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: But still, it wasn't the most ethical thing in the
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: world to do, but I did take the stationer and
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: I did really want to get over there and I
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: wanted to be a part of telling a story in
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: the hopes that someone would read the story and do
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: something about this horror show that was unfolding.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Were you.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: How scared were you on a daily basis? Because in
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: the book, you talk about your parents being very concerned.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: You talk about sort of your colleagues back in the
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: US being concerned.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: But you sort of say at.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: One point, you're like numb to, you know. bullets whizzing
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: by your head every day, all that.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Kind of stuff.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: How does that happen?
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: How do you become numb to that?
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Roger Cohen almost drove us off the side of a
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: mountain onto a well-mined area.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: That story.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: And we nearly blew up and died, but we made it.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: That was terrifying.
• 58:29
  Speaker 9: We did, luckily. I mean, you are a bit of
• 58:32
  Speaker 9: a boiling frog.
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: And at the beginning, and I think I write this
• 58:37
  Speaker 6: book in a way to try to reach people at
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: the different stages of their careers as well, where they're thinking...
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: do I take a risk? Maybe not that kind of risk,
• 58:46
  Speaker 6: but do I take a professional risk? Do I leave
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: my job? Do I go do this or that? And
• 58:50
  Speaker 6: the risks loom really large at the beginning. And then
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: you sort of acclimatize for good or bad. I mean,
• 58:57
  Speaker 6: in a war zone, it's probably not in your interest
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: to acclimatize too much. But I mentioned earlier that there
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: were so many other young people who were gravitating toward
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: this crisis. And in a way, I mean, the world
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: just looks so simple. in retrospect now from where it
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: is today, because there was kind of one big war
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: in Europe that got everybody's focus. It was on the
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: front page of the New York Times and Washington Post
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: all the time. You could make a living as a freelancer.
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: And so when I got there, one of my best
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: friends to this day, Laura Pitter, was the stringer for
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: Time magazine. And she's like, come on, you can do it.
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: Time's given me an armored car.
• 59:31
  Speaker 9: Hop in.
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: But I moved initially to Zagreb because it was peaceful
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: and it had been through its war.
• 59:37
  Speaker 9: And then I just.
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: Gradually started going to the peaceful parts of Bosnia and
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: then slightly more dangerous parts. And then once I felt
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: a little more comfortable and had senior people who were
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: willing to look out for me a little bit, like Roger,
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: then I went to Sarajevo. And that's when it was
• 59:52
  Speaker 6: really scary. And the bigger issue was really you know,
• 59:55
  Speaker 6: initially I felt we could do some good and people
• 59:58
  Speaker 6: really wanted us to be there. We were kind of
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: ambassadors for our country, small a, but by 1995, after
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: a couple of years there, people started to get really
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: brokenhearted and just, they basically gave up and they thought
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: that nothing that we wrote was going to achieve anything.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: So then you had that weird cost benefit where you're thinking, okay,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: it's getting more dangerous. I'm in the epicenter of the conflict.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: and it's not clear it's doing any good. And that's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: why I try to describe my thought process. I started
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: to feel voyeuristic going in and sort of forcing people
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: to relive what had just happened to their loved ones
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: while having no faith myself that the President of the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: United States was going to do anything.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: So you talk about when you first met Obama. So
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: it's like right when he gets to the Senate, you
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: have dinner with him. And by the end of the dinner,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: you on the way out of the restaurant, you basically
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: just offer yourself up as a full-time employee of his.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: What was it that A, sort of got you interested
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: in entering the political arena and B, got you so
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: excited about him, particularly that you sort of took the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: risk and asked him to work for him? Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: Well, he had reached out or Alyssa, friend of the pod,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: part of the pod, um, Um, Alyssa, his scheduler then
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: had reached out to say, Barack Obama's just read your book.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: He'd like to meet the next time you're in Washington.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 9: And it was very clear.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: It was like, when you're already here, you know, like
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: don't make a special trip. So of course I'm, you know, Delta,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: Barack Obama wants to, you know, we'll meet with me
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: if I'm in town. I happen to be in town
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: next week. And so Alyssa set up the meeting and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: then I don't tell this story actually in the book,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: but then Barack, right?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 9: I don't know what to, what do you refer to him.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: In the past tense?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: I now say Obama a lot more.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Which is weird.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 9: I know that's weird.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: So, so Obama, you can, and now that I know
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: him much better, he, he must've just read the book
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: or looked at the book and said, I'd like to
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: meet with her someday. And then when he saw it
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: on his schedule, he was like, who the fuck set
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: this up? Like, why am I, like, I want to
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 6: go home and watch SportsCenter.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: In fairness to you, that's what he says to most
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: things on his schedule and most people on his schedule.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Why the fuck am I saying hi to this person now? Seriously.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: And I walk in and the body language was just,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: I'm like, you know, we can cancel. And he said,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: we're not going to have time, you know, to really
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: probe the depths of foreign policy and how we can
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 6: create a smart, tough, humane, new way of doing business
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: around the world. But I'm hoping over the next 20,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 6: 30 minutes, we're at like a steak restaurant thinking, okay,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: I'm not ordering a drink, not ordering an appetizer, and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: speaking even more quickly than usual. But then, and this
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: happens with him, of course, because he is so much
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: the product of his curiosities and so fundamentally sincere when
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: he gets into a conversation.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 9: So four hours later... the dinner's winding down.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: You know, and we get up and then I think,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: oh gosh, you know, this is a real opportunity to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: do something more than just be an academic or an
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: activist on the outside. You know, maybe this conversation can
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: be the beginning of something more. And so, yes, I
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 6: volunteered to work in his office. And you ask why?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, I think I felt, even from
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 6: the time I was a war correspondent, that I was
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 6: practicing sort of bank shot advocacy. You know, I was
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: kind of, throwing something out there, whether an article from
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: Sarajevo where a playground massacre had occurred and I wanted
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: to convey the pain of those families to people back
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: in America, or on the sidelines of why we should
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: recognize the Armenian genocide, writing a column for Time magazine.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: And I was dependent on someone powerful, someone in power
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: at least, to pick up my cause and then do
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 6: something about it within the system. And so But my
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 6: objective through all of the different incarnations I've had as
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: a journalist or as an activist or as a teacher
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: in the government or as a diplomat, the objective has
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: largely been the same. But it's been about, this is
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 6: sort of the education of an idealist, is trying to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: figure out what's the best place to prosecute those ideals,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: taking away the inefficiency of the middleman in a way.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: But then I got to the Senate.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: It was a blast.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 6: And I met you guys in the Senate office, and
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 6: I thought, oh.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Well, that was going to be my follow-up because it's
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: clear from the book that you really enjoyed the campaign,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: your time on the Obama campaign. I loved the campaign.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: And really didn't enjoy the time in the Senate office.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I feel like we had it a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: bit easier in the Senate office than you did after
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: reading the book for sure. But I sort of felt
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the same way, too. Like I had the 08 campaign
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: is like the holy grail of this wonderful moment. And,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: you know, the Senate office, when you're sitting in the Senate,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a drag for.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: A couple of years.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: It felt a little small.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: It's 99th in seniority. I'm sure other people, other senators
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: have more interesting times.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I was spending my days pitching the Peoria Journal Star
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: about some LIHEAP funding, which is assistance for low income
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: people who need housing.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: Right. You're like it's.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: It feels a little small ball at times, especially someone
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: who had been on the global stage like you.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: I don't know that I've so much been on the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: global stage, but I think there was this real disconnect,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 6: which is what you're alluding to, between his star power
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 6: and what we were able to do for anybody. And
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 6: I think particularly because I didn't know Congress and didn't
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: know the executive branch all that well at that point either,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: although at least I'd interviewed hundreds of people in the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 6: executive branch for the book I'd written. But I think
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 6: I went there thinking this is going to be a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: big shift from being on the outside, that I wasn't
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 6: on the inside, certainly wouldn't want to have been on
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: the inside of the Bush administration, but that from that perch,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 6: given who Obama was, but also given the checks and
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: balances in our democracy, as naive as that sounds, I
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 6: thought we'd be able to do things. And whatever frustration
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: one experienced on the domestic side in being the minority
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: was and being a junior senator in foreign policy, especially,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: where the executive branch is so dominant, where the Republicans
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: really weren't willing to exercise accountability. I mean, now it
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: looks like they were profiles encouraged compared to the current
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: Republican Party. But, you know, it just was kind of
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: a lot like being an advocate on the outside. And
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: the idea that Barack Obama, who had so much to offer,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: who had a vision, who was very careful, even though
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: he deposed the war in Iraq, I write about this
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: in the book, to try to think through how we
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: draw down. But then fundamentally, the disadvantage of being an outsider,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: trying to figure that out. Yes, you're talking to commanders,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 6: but as a Democratic senator. And so I felt in
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 6: a way we were like a not very impactful NGO.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: That moment in the book where you're at the Foreign
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Relations Committee hearing with him. and he passes you a
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: note or something, and you think it's going to be
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: something substantive and big, and he's just like, I'm sorry
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: to bring you here that you have to see this.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: A bunch of senators just blabbing on about nothing, doing nothing.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: But that's how he felt most of those committee hearings were.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 9: It was not a great gig.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 6: He would hate, of all things, and as many of
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: us do, but just his temperament in particular, just the posturing,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: the idea.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 9: That you're there.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: Under the Constitution to hold accountable, you know, that you're
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I mean, which had been
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: such a prestigious committee, and that you're there fundamentally to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: get your points across.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 9: And it's just a, it's like a pulpit.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 6: And you're just, I mean, what he said in that
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: scene in the book, you know, or the scene in life,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 6: which is reprised in the book. was just watch the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: senators pretend to be asking questions and pretend to be
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: curious about what the answers are, watch the witness, who
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 6: happened to be the Secretary of State at the time,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: pretend to be responsive to the questions, but basically just
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: give us the same talking points she'd have given us
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: irrespective of what question we asked.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 9: And I mean, I don't mean... That's probably the most....
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: I don't want to say disillusion, but the darkest policy
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 6: part of the book, or at least the part where
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: you're like, where is the impact? And now we see,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: of course, why controlling the House really matters and how
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: you can block initiatives. And we actually see members of Congress, again,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: if the Republicans would occupy their constitutional role, would be
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: in a much better place. But needless to say, but
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: you see the impact and it aggregates over time. And so, again,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 6: I think with the benefit of hindsight, I look at
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: my youthful self and the imaging or the imagining I
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 6: had before I got there about all that we would do.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: And in a way, I sort of set myself up
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 6: to be disappointed. But at the same time, I think
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: it was a preview of how much less functional the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: Congress would become over time. And I think why fundamentally
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: Senator Obama, despite at that first dinner, which I write
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: about in the book, me saying to him, hey, I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 6: know you just got here, but any chance you might
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: run for president?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 9: And he'd be like, what? kind of.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: And he believed it at the time.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 9: What kind of asshole would run for president?
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: He really thought it was crazy.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: How presumptuous would that be to have just gotten here,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: to have barely figured out where the restrooms are, and
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: then to announce, like, no way. And then, but I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 6: think in experiencing himself, that gap between his star power
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 6: and what he could do, and then looking at the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: field and thinking that there were risks that the Democrat
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: wouldn't win, I think he felt, you know, all things considered,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: this is my time.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: Um, One thing I love about the book, this is
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: not a question, it's an aside, is I never really
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: felt totally comfortable with Obama. And it seems like you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: did what I do, which was remember in great detail
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: every dumb thing I ever said to him or every
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: time he was annoyed at me. And I also loved
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: how fucking boring your anxiety dreams are while you're waiting
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: to see if you're getting a job at the White House.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: You're like, oh, I lost my keys and I ran
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: over a woman on the way to the Hillary Clinton meeting.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know. It was nice to hear
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: that you felt that way, too.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 9: I don't think my anxiety dreams were boring.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: They were very exciting.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 6: I mean, to give a flavor to fellow Red Sox fans,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 6: it was not a coincidence that one of my anxiety dreams,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: first of all, involved your former boss, Robert Gibbs, who
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 6: I found completely terrifying.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 9: And still do. So funny.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: So the fact that Gibbs was in my dream was
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 6: not something I anticipated.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 9: And also.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 6: that the venue for one of my anxiety dreams was
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: Yankee Stadium. And I'm, and there's the, at that point
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 6: we're all waiting, will Barack Obama run for president?
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 9: Will he not?
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: And in the dream, you know, I've convinced Obama that
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 6: he needs a break from the action, needs to take
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 6: in Red Sox, Yankees. It's a beautiful sunny day. The
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 6: Red Sox are crushing the Yankees. Like all the details
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 6: are right in the dream. And then Gibbs calls and says,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 6: we tonight are going to have the mother of all fundraisers.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: And if we raise the money, I think we will.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 6: And it's going to be amazing, but you've got to
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 6: be there and you're going to meet a lot of
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 6: people and you're going to raise a ton of money,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 6: he says to Obama. He says, then we're going to announce.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 6: If we don't, we're not going to run for president.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 6: And so Obama cups his hand over the phone. He's like,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 6: you'll get me there on time, right?
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 9: I'm like, yeah, boss. You're going to be president. This
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 9: is amazing.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 6: And this is back again where there was actual suspense
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 6: about whether he would run And then, of course, we
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: leave the game and I escort him, you know, and
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 6: it's so vivid and, you know, the overpass near Yankee
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 6: Stadium and this and that. And the next thing I
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 6: look around, I'm like, wait, we're not on the subway.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 6: We're on Amtrak. And so I go up to the conductor.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: I'm like, we're going to Manhattan, right? He's like, no, Albany, ma'am, Albany.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 6: You know, is there a stop on the way?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 9: He's like, Albany, ma'am, Albany.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 6: And so we're going to miss the fundraiser because of me.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 6: But this is, of course, a preview of my screw
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 6: up on the campaign.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Well, let's go to that dark moment.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Because your campaign, there were highs and there were lows
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: on the campaign, right? I mean, there's this amazing story of,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: you know, you meet your future husband in Iowa and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: you go up out canvassing with the most, the biggest
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: collectin of brainpower ever to hit doors in Iowa.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: Newcastle, Sunstein, Austin Goolsbee.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: And Austin Goolsbee.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: And that ended perfectly. I'd love for you to tell
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: that story. But then you also had this, you said
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: in an off-the-record setting that Hillary Clinton, after she had,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: I believe it was after she'd suggested, it seemed like
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: that you stay in the race because RFK was assassinated
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: and you never know what's going to happen, right?
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: Wasn't that the.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 9: It was more the... about his faith and whether he
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 9: was a Muslim.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 8: You're right.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 9: As far as you know.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 9: As far as I know, he's, he's right.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: As far as I know, he's Christian.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: Anyway, there's so many things.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: So it was an ugly period.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: She's a monster.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: And in, in hindsight, you were frustrated. It was a,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: it was a bitter campaign. Sometimes her campaign would do
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: monstrous things. Doesn't it seem like the dumbest controversy?
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 9: We never did.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: We were assholes too. Like, doesn't it seem like the
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: dumbest controversy ever in hindsight?
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: I mean, compared to using the Oval Office to pillage
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: the country and, you know, encouraging a foreign government to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: hack the computers of Americans and so forth, it does
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 6: seem quite mild. But at the same time, you know,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: I did think Obama was trying to run a campaign
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: in a different way. And certainly I, as a human
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: rights professor and advocate who in the book as well,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: emphasizes individual dignity and just to be, you know, in effect,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: just part of the hate, especially.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: That Hillary got. Stop with the self-flagellation. No, I know,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: but I do feel bad.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: You know what the oppo I was peddling said when
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, with my computer and journalists?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: When you're in that moment, though, it is fucking... Well,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: you know. I've been there, too. I've been there, too.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: And when it happens, you... It's like no one on
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: the outside who's criticizing you fully understands... how much you're
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: punishing yourself and.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: How miserable you are.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: And you also, you wrote about this like great phenomenon
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: where when these things happen, you believe that everyone else
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: in the world is thinking about it, talking about it.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: And it, and it is something that's sort of in you,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: in your head a lot of the time, you know,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: like it seems bigger to you obviously than it does
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: to everyone else because it's your life that's going through it,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: but it's fucking miserable.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 6: And being married to somebody who knows behavioral science, I,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 6: you know, Cass would translate, the spotlight effect where you
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: think that the spotlight is shining down on you. No,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: I mean, we had cast, I, I actually cut it
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: short a little bit in the book, but we had this, um,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 6: argument where the, the, after I had to resign the
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 6: campaign and I, I, I really did, I was in
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: fact leading the newspapers all around the world. I was
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: in Ireland when it happened, certainly, uh, across Europe. This
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 6: was a big story because the campaign, and this also
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 6: seems quite quaint, but the, you know, every little, And
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: so I did have the experience of knowing I'd done
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: something bad. A lot of people saying to me, including Obama,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 6: you'll be fine. You know, we'll ride this out.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 9: No problem.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 6: And then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 6: So Cass is like, Oh, it's the spotlight effect. And
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: you know, you're exaggerating.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 9: I'm like, that's bullshit. Like I'm everywhere. Look at the newspapers.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks for trying. Yeah, exactly. Mr.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: Mr.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 6: Uh, rational actor on this earth. But he, but he,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 6: and we had just started dating. We hadn't been dating
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 6: that long. And when finally I got back to America
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: from Ireland and the fact that I'd suffered this scandal
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 6: and against completely self-inflicted, but in Ireland where everybody was
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 6: so proud and my family was coming out and, ever
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 6: since I'd left as a child, I just wanted, you know,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 6: not just to be the Yank cousin coming back, but,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: but for them to feel that kind of pride. And
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 6: then it, and you know, I had just had a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 6: drink with Bono and.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 9: It was like, life was good.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: I was Icarus, you know, and then just, but we
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 6: get back, uh, to America. And a few days later,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 6: Elliot Spitzer is caught up in his own, um, I
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 6: suppose much.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: More, uh, yeah, much worse, much worse.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 9: Yeah. And, uh, but the, the, Call.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 6: Girl with whom he was involved, the straw that broke
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 6: the camel's back in the investigation, there was a photo
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 6: of her on the front page of the New York
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 6: Times just after the scandal had broken. And I went
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: to my stoop and I was finally beginning to think
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 6: about reading the newspaper again because the attention to my
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: thing had faded. And there she was on the front
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: sort of also explaining that she was a good person.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 6: But the pull quote they had in the New York
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 6: Times was, I am.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 9: Not a monster. exclamation mark. And I just start bawling.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 9: I'm like, I've changed the way we talk.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: Everybody's.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 9: And so then Cass is like, that's not true.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: That's not true.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 6: There's the independent variable and the dependent variable. And we
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: have to do, you know, we've really got to study
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: this in order to know before your thing, you know,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: how much was this word in use in the lexicon
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 6: and how much after. And, and so he actually did
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 6: this before and after study, but it was impossible because
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 6: the use of monster and the coverage of my transgression
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 6: was so intense that we needed to wait a decent
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: interval in order to do a proper study, which we've
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: yet to do.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: The book makes me love Cass all over again.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: I know, I know.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: So you sort of write this, but how did your
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: apology to Hillary Clinton go?
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 9: Oh, well, first, how did it come about?
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 6: Because I had tried to reach out to her and
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: tried to reach her when we were still in the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: thick of the campaign. And again, when we pretty much,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 6: thanks to Plouffe, knew that we were going to win,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 6: but that we had to go through an awful lot
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 6: of further primaries and votes and so forth to get
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 6: the requisite number of delegates. And so I'd wanted to
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: talk to her and it's one thing to send a letter,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: but just to, so she knew that this, I'd lost
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 6: my temper, but those weren't my considered feelings about her.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: And I mean, I'd even been chastised by a couple
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 6: of people on the campaign for, in the interviews, always
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 6: saying Hillary Clinton would make a great president and then
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 6: pivoting to why I thought Obama was the right person
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 6: for the moment. So anyway, it didn't come about in
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: the campaign, and then finally Obama sealed the nomination, and
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 6: I really wanted.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 9: To come back to the campaign.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 6: Of course, there were people like, I'm sure, people we
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 6: know and respect enormously who prosecuted the campaign for Obama
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: and who are responsible for the strategy that helped the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 6: candidate win the overall election, but there was a concern
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 6: that if I came back, that the divisions in the primary,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 6: which did grow a little bitter in certain quarters, that
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: those would be exacerbated. And so there was one group
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 6: of people who wanted me to come back, of whom
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 6: you guys were part of that group, and I think
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 6: there was another very vocal and very influential part that didn't.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: But the only thing I could do, I can only
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: control what I can control, was to try to to
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: at least ensure that Hillary herself would not object in
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 6: any real way. But I didn't know how I could
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: get to her and it was proving hard. And then meanwhile,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: Cass had proposed after a very short time of dating.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: I was becoming dependent on him in this period of
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: having no job and wandering around hoping one day I'd
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: be able to go back to the campaign. And so
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: my normal immune system to screw up my relationships had
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 6: shut down. And so I embraced the best decision of
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: my life and married him. And at the wedding, Richard
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: Holbrook put to use his seasoned negotiating skills, or at
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: least the prospect of them, and said, how would you
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 6: like it if I broker a meeting between you and
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 6: Hillary Clinton and And.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: That was the toughest negotiation he ever did.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 9: The Taliban.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: But anyway, so he set it up and I met
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 6: with Hillary and you asked how the meeting went.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 9: It was proper.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think she really was stung by not
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 6: just what I had done, but the perception that we
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 6: who had the same values and the same baseline agenda,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 6: that it had gotten ugly. And I think she was disappointed,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: of course, that amid all of the expectations that she
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 6: would have won the nomination, that this insurgent had come along.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 9: And I think she, whatever. So she wasn't.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: Yet, the kind of reconciliation that became much thicker when
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 6: we all got a chance to work together, I think
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 6: hadn't yet taken hold, but she was very good and
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: she accepted the apology. And so I scrambled out of
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 6: her office and I called or I emailed Obama and
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 6: he called me back and I said, we've had our
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 6: reconciliation meeting I think I'm good. If you're ready to
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 6: take me out of the penalty box, I think it's
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 6: okay to do that.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 9: And he's like, wait, what? You had a meeting.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 8: How did that?
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 6: And I said, Richard Holbrook gave it to me as
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 6: a wedding gift. He's like, don't most people get toasters?
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: What the hell kind of wedding gift is that?
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: But eventually, eventually I was back on.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, yeah. It was a tough campaign.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: One tension in the book that I think goes throughout
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: it is You're this outsider, this advocate that goes into
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: the system to try to affect change and what tensions
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: there may or may not be there.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: And there's a great anecdote in the book that we.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: Really enjoyed because we were part of it was this
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: murder board we did for you when you were nominated
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: for the UN gig. So for listeners back home, a
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: murder board is when someone is nominated for a position,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: you get a bunch of people together and you ask
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: them the most obnoxious, most difficult questions that you can
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: think of in preparation for a future Senate hearing. And
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: not to brag, but I thought of the most douchey, hackish,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: stupid questions possible. And then Marco Rubio asked it verbatim.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: So patting my back.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were in the mind of Marco Rubio somehow.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: I was in the mind.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: It's a frat party and not a very fun one.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: But I remember that session. And I remember we were
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: in this weird trailer in the middle of.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: The State Department.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: But also, I remember feeling relieved when it was over,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: that I got to leave that thing.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: Because it was clear that you were not happy.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: And I felt a little bit like we were crushing
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: your soul by making you do a dance and play
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: a game with the Senate. And it's not like you
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: changed your beliefs, but you had to.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: It was especially you, too.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Because there's a lot of seasoned people that Tommy and
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I helped in that period who are going to become
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: ambassadors or something, ask them tough questions. But they had
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: been around politics for a while. And you're this pure person, activist.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: you.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Know, not going to play by the game of politics
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: and just like give these bullshit answers. You're going to
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: say the truth, even if the truth is complex and nuanced.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: And we're like, no nuance, no complexity. Stop thinking.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 6: That was such a tutorial. And again, part of the education,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 6: it's funny because the stories we're telling are, you know,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 6: could breed a sense that the arc that I follow
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: is one toward giving up on nuance, giving up on
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 6: the solidarity of campaigns.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 9: And it's the opposite story.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 6: I mean, I end up at the end of my story,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 6: or even to this day, more idealistic, or at least
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 6: more upbeat about the possibility for individuals to come together
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 6: and to make change. But that was a dark chapter
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 6: because I had written more than a million words, said
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 6: Lord knows how many, as an advocate and as someone
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 6: who hadn't thought I was ever going to end up
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 6: in a position of getting confirmed by the Senate and
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 6: having never pulled punches. And so suddenly, you know, I
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 6: knew that the Senate staffers, particularly on the Republican side,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 6: just had stacks of my writings highlighting the most, you know,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 6: sort of ill-conceived or convoluted or just different perspectives. And
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 6: then you all my friends, you know, are coming together
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 6: and what Cass would do alongside Tommy's abusive form of questioning.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 6: But Cass knows that when people put an S at
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 6: the end of my last name, it just drives me batshit.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: I remember being mad that he beat me to that point.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, you knew it too.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 6: So, and he'd be like, he was playing Rand Paul
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 6: and he's like, Miss Powers. aren't you going to be,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 6: when you get to the UN, aren't you just going
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 6: to be for some big treaty, some big, some big,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 6: huge treaty, like whatever, a big old treaty, Miss Powers.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 9: And I'm like, it's power, Senator Paul, it's power.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 6: You know, and I couldn't even in the murder board resist.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 9: But, and I hated the.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 6: I still hate the idea that, you know, answer the
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 6: question you wish you were asked rather than the question
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 6: you were asked. And, you know, in some instances this season,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 6: people wanted me to renounce things I'd written, but I
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 6: still believed them.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 9: And so I didn't want to do that.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 6: So I tell the story in the book of the
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 6: sort of comedy of this, but also getting to a
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 6: place where I hope I've remained, which is not doing
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 6: the Washington thing of just pivoting to some other cliche,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 6: but finding a way to answer with something that is,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 6: as I put it in the book, also true. So
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 6: the thing I want to say is true and I
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 6: shouldn't say.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 9: Perhaps.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 6: But there may be something that's also true that I can,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 6: with sincerity and conviction, find my way toward. But one
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 6: of the more painful parts of the book is my
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 6: back and forth with Tommy Veeder slash Marco Rubio in
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 6: real life in the Senate chamber where he wants me
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: to renounce the idea that America, when we, let's say, commit,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 6: you know, inflict collateral damage in warfare or, you know,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 6: have Guantanamo or we torture people or whatever, that there's
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 6: a desire to part of my team to get through
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 6: to just say, well, I don't really believe that we
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 6: need to apologize for those things, or I don't believe
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 6: we need to be held accountable. And I said, but
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 6: I still believe that we have to be held accountable
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 6: when we torture and when we do other things, and
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 6: that to pretend as if history hasn't happened is a
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 6: mistake for our interests. And so I got to the
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 6: place where you know, all of you were just saying,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 6: you just, you know, I wanted to talk about Clinton's
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 6: apology after the Rwandan genocide and, and, you know, what
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 6: we need to do about Guantanamo and torture and, and
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 6: all my whole team sort of had their head in
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 6: their hands and they're like, just, we're just trying to
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 6: get through the day. This is not on the level.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 6: They just want to hear themselves speak. And so I decided, well,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 6: what is also true? I love this country.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: But you know, it's funny.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's also when I was reading that part,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: it's evidence of how much The politics has shifted partly
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: because of Trump, partly because of everything else that if
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: I was advising you today, I would say to go
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: into that hearing and say, yes, we should apologize because
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: we did torture people. We have fucked things up around
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: the world. And I think you could. And I think
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: with the politics of the Democratic Party at this point,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: with sort of what Trump has done to the media
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: and offense and all that kind of stuff, I think
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: you probably get through.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: Right. Maybe.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 6: I don't know the extent to which the hypocrisy on
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 6: the Republican side.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: Would be such. It would all be if we had
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: the votes. If we had the votes, yeah. If we
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: had the votes, I'd get through anyway. It doesn't matter
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: about persuading anyone anymore. That's a sad thing. If we
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: had the bodies, we would be able to get you
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: through with that.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 9: But what I didn't want to do is renounce that idea. Right.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 6: But I also, you know, part of the challenge is
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 6: you know what those hearings is. You also don't want
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 6: to create distance between you and the president, and you
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 6: get questions from left field about your views on things.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 6: I'm like, oh, shit, what does Obama think about this?
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: I mean, I don't want then to force— him to
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 6: be answering for something that, you know, he's trying to
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 6: move away from. And again, I have the specter of
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 6: Robert Gibbs in my mind, don't screw up. So, and
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 6: I try to show that in the book, you know,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 6: what it's like to, to be part of a team
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 6: and yet, uh, you know, to have a set of
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 6: views where you can express them internally. But if you
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 6: lose a debate, you then are in a position where
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 6: you have to defend, uh, the administration as a whole. And, and,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 6: and for me, it was just amazing that there was
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 6: a president with whom I was aligned so often. And
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 6: I think on balance that then made it easier, not
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 6: easy at all, but possible then to be put in
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 6: that position by Tommy and others in the communications team
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 6: to go out and defend something that I might've argued
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 6: against internally. But that was the hardest part of the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 6: insider outsider switch.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: So we've talked about a few of the darker times,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: but as you said, you came out of this still
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: an idealist. At what point, in the White House or
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: when you were at the UN, did you start feeling like,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: you know what, despite all the bureaucracy, despite all the constraints,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: despite all the setbacks, and I feel like I'm making
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: a difference and I feel like this is where.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: I should be?
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 6: Probably on the issue of Iraqi refugees when we were
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 6: in the White House. And, you know, you just, you
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 6: learn that you can either sort of nurse your bruises
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 6: and bitch about access or lack of access and.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 9: Be like, Tommy's in the meeting. I'm not in the meeting.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, the NSC days.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 6: And then you talk to Tommy and Tommy's like, that
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 6: was the stupidest meeting. It was such a waste of time. Like,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 6: why was I even there? And again, Richard Holbrooke, the
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 6: late Richard Holbrooke, at one point said to me, just
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 6: go where people aren't, go where they ain't, hit it
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 6: where they ain't. And it turned out that with the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 6: backing of President Obama on a refugee policy agenda, with
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 6: the fact that we were drawing down from Iraq, we
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 6: could really significantly increase the number of Iraqis that we
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 6: vetted to come into this country, meeting a campaign promise,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 6: meeting our responsibility, having gone up and gone into Iraq
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 6: and sort of ripped everything up. And we could do
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 6: so in a way that in communities in this country
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 6: actually revitalized economies, like in Buffalo, New York, where there's
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 6: a huge influx of refugees over the course of the
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 6: last decade. And so it would have this knock on
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 6: economic effects, which of course you don't hear about anymore.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 6: And as these communities are crying out for the refugee
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 6: program to be revitalized because they're losing that influx of vitality.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 6: And I just thought, you know, everybody else is focused
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 6: on how we draw down and what do we do
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 6: about Afghanistan and do we surge? And yet here is
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 6: a discrete, small issue area. And, you know, there are
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 6: a dozen examples like this, but where, you know, a
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 6: lot of officials in the Defense Department and in the U.S.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 6: government as a whole really want to do something for
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 6: people they know. You know, there was all of this
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 6: also human lived experience. There were these friendships with translators.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 6: and people who'd risked their lives on behalf of the
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 6: United States who weren't getting into the country before. And
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 6: what was great is I could just see the machinery
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 6: of the U.S. government kind of crank up because this
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 6: White House signal was sent that this mattered to the president.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 6: And President Obama himself wouldn't have had the bandwidth to
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 6: drive this, and all he wanted.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 9: Was updates on how it was going.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 6: But I think that was where I thought, okay, it
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 6: doesn't matter what meetings you're in. It matters what you're
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 6: able to achieve on a given day and the coalitions
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 6: you can build across government. But I also had to
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 6: learn the lingo. I mean, and I tell the story
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 6: of– Exactly. We've all been purging ourselves for the last
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 6: two and a half years to try to recover our
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 6: ability to speak the English language.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: So many acronyms.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 6: But it was like, when I came to America as
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 6: a nine-year-old, I would be in front of the mirror
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 6: and I was trying to drop my Irish accent. I
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 6: was trying to learn ERA and RBIs and baseball lingo
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 6: and the Pittsburgh slang and all the rest. And while
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 6: I didn't stand in front of the mirror, mercifully, none
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 6: of us had the time for that. But I did
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 6: feel like to succeed, you had to at least understand
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 6: the currency. And there were these crazy, I mean, all
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 6: the gendered, lingo you know hey in these negotiations we
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 6: got to go in open kimono it.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: Is excuse me so many of so many of the
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: same pregnant.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 6: What well and i was five months pregnant so i
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 6: heard myself say hey we shouldn't be half pregnant we
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 6: got to decide one way or the other and i'm
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 6: like wait wait wait i'm i'm more than half pregnant
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 6: like this is crazy why am i talking this way there's.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of lingo can i ask you something since
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: you brought up refugees you're an immigrant you write about
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: immigration and refugees, you've worked on these issues. It does
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: seem like it might be one of the fundamental political
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: challenges of our time and into the future as climate
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: change causes mass migrations and there's more places like Syria
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: where there's going.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: To be refugees.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Like, how do we begin to change the politics around
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: this issue, not only in the United States, but all
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: over the world? Because, you know, We like to think, oh,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: you know, we have Donald Trump as a problem, but
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: this is an issue for so many countries, and it's
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: sort of just getting at the political challenges in so
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: many different countries.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 6: Well, I'd say a couple things. I mean, first, 70
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 6: million displaced people today. 70 million. I mean that, you know,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 6: when we left, 66 million, I think, our last year
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 6: in 2016. So it's not like we had cracked the
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 6: code on this, but just gives you a sense of
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 6: how many people are in motions. And desperate as we
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 6: would be, you know, on behalf of our families, if
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 6: it's conflict or if it's political persecution or if it's
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 6: criminal violence of the kind you see in Central America,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 6: what would it be like not to be able to
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 6: know if you could take care of your kids? You know,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 6: what would it be like to have an aging parent
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 6: who's just a sitting duck in an apartment building that's
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 6: under siege in Aleppo?
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 9: What would that be? You would try to leave.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 6: You'd find you would just the The right to life,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 6: the desire to just be safe would override all else.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 6: And unfortunately, as you note, it's become so political. I
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 6: gave an example earlier of the, I think, basically the empirical,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 6: thick empirical record of what in this country the economic
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 6: effects of refugee inflows have been. And I tried that
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 6: when I was ambassador as well, as this was becoming
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 6: more and more caught up and it caught me off guard,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 6: I must say, just how toxic the question of refugees became.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 6: You know, it started with Syrian refugees and like every
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 6: Syrian refugee is a terrorist, Donald Trump is saying. And,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 6: but then it has kind of bled into the question
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 6: of refugees generally. So, but there is, I mean, the
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 6: facts are completely on the side of what refugees have
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 6: done for this country. And for so many other countries.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 6: I mean, think of what, especially to get to the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 6: United States, imagine just how resourceful and dynamic an individual
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 6: who has made it here is. And this is why,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 6: I don't know if you know Hamdi, the CEO of Chobani.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 6: I mean, he just describes, you know, sort of looking around,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 6: he's like, I have this, because I'm hiring refugees and
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 6: immigrants and people who've just scrapped and scraped to get here.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 6: I have the most dynamic workforce of, of anyone I
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 6: know in the field. And it's not a coincidence that
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 6: I'm then coming to, to, to my brand is now dominant. I, I'm,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 6: you know, I have this team of people who just
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 6: want to be here, want to contribute, want to send
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 6: money back to their families. So unfortunately, one of the
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 6: part of my education again is, is the, on the
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 6: importance of figuring out a way to transcend fear. So
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 6: whether it's on Ebola or on, ISIS and the conflation
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 6: of a whole religion with terrorism. The craziness of what
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 6: is propagated now from the highest office in the land
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 6: and on refugees and whether it's in the realm of security,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 6: which Trump has done, but also the account of Trump's
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 6: xenophobia is rooted in the idea that immigrants and refugees
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 6: are coming to take your job. Even if it's not
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 6: fear of a physical kind, And it really is, all
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 6: the evidence shows that's not the case. Of course, it's
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 6: a complex set of factors that are causing jobs to
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 6: leave and automation to come in and so forth. But
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 6: what is hard is in the balkanized political environment, but
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 6: also the echo chamber media environment, is how do you
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 6: get those facts in there? And there have been studies
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 6: that show how Trump, and I write about this in
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 6: the book, how Trump used Ebola Uh, which was his first,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 6: you know, really taking ownership of a fear platform.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: You have him tweeting 50 times, you know, a zillion times.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 6: And, and he's, you know, he's already famous in quotes,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 6: which is all he's ever wanted to be. And, and
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 6: he's already got his real estate stuff and his reality TV,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 6: but he's suddenly he sees like, wait, the more fear
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 6: I'm generating, the more I'm invited back onto Fox, the
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 6: more people know me. When people get scared, then they
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 6: want to turn to me more.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 6: And so I think you all have grappled with this
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 6: in so many domains is how do we meet people's fear?
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 6: But again, the facts are on our side. I think
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 6: what I found on the Iraqi refugee front, but also
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 6: later on other refugee issues, is our military ended up
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 6: being a wonderful spokesperson on behalf of this. And I mean,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 6: across the board, this isn't just General Mattis, the favorite
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 6: general these days to quote on different things. but just
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 6: across the board because of how many refugees and immigrants
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 6: are in the ranks of our soldiers, how diverse that is,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 6: but then also because our soldiers had had the experience, again,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 6: of relying on Iraqi translators and others and just saying,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 6: not only are these people not a threat, these people
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 6: defuse threats against me and I wouldn't be here necessarily.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: I do think that's the turn because even when the
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: media does cover this, I think it's so often that
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: we treat, even if we're sympathetic, we treat refugees as victims.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: And so all everyone ever knows is that they are
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: victims of something.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: Social services.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: Why Hamdi's story is so inspiring and stories about the
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: troops and translators and stuff like that is because you
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: see how resourceful they are and also how they're just
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: like me and you. Like you said, like if I
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: was in a house that was getting bombed with my children,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: I would do anything to run away from that.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: You know, it's tough, though. Yeah.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: It's a, no, and it's beyond, it's one of those
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: beyond Donald Trump problems.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 3: Are we admiring the problem?
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 9: We might be.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 6: I mean, wasn't it the funnest at the White House
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 6: where you'd say something you thought was very brilliant and
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 6: then the chair of the meeting would say, meanwhile, back
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 6: at the problem.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, poor Barack Obama would convene a National Security
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: Council meeting and he would ask all his very accomplished,
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: very important, seasoned advisors what to do and they said, Mr. President,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: this is a devil of a problem. On the one hand,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: on the other hand, I don't know.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: It's like, Thanks. Give me a fucking decision memo. Completely.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: You have a great anecdote where Marty Dempsey, the chairman
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: of the Joint Chiefs, the president says, look, I don't
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: expect us to come to a solution. today to I
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: think it was a Syria crisis. And Marty Dempsey says,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: won't disappoint you there, sir. That was really funny.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 6: One last thing, though, just on flight and refugees generally
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 6: is we are totally under investing globally and of course
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 6: in the United States now, but in diplomacy. And so
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 6: one of the reasons that you're seeing more and more
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 6: refugees is, as you note, climate change and the fact
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 6: that people can't live in the places they once were
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 6: able to live in.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 9: So those are climate refugees, but.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 6: Also climate, the resources dry up and you get scarce
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 6: resources and you get conflict that grows out of a
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 6: fight over those resources. That's more conflict that we're seeing.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 6: But the other reason where there's at least scope, I mean,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 6: climate change, we just have to deal with independent of
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 6: all of this, but also because of all this, But
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 6: where there is scope for improvement is conflicts are lasting longer.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 6: They are not being resolved. That's partly because more and
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 6: more countries are getting into the action, you know, as
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 6: bad as the Cold War was and those proxy wars.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 6: Now you have these multifaceted wars with the Saudis and
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 6: the Turks and the Qataris. And so it is maybe
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 6: harder to make deals when you have so many actors
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 6: around the table. But I wish I could say we
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 6: were we were. getting caught trying. I mean, if you
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 6: look at the systematic underinvestment in our diplomatic corps over many,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 6: many years, the fact that we have almost more people
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 6: in military marching bands in this country than we have
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 6: in our foreign service acting as diplomats, and yet how
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 6: do conflicts end? Diplomats roll up their sleeves, invest the time,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 6: do the legwork, try to play with incentives and disincentives.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 6: And then if conflicts, if you could shorten the duration
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 6: at least of a conflict, then people begin to go home.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 6: All they want to do is go home. That's the
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 6: other aspect of it, right? It's not like they're like, oh, great,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 6: a free ticket to somewhere else. Their lives are there.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 6: Their families are there. Their grandparents and great-grandparents are buried there.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 6: Most refugees want to go home. And we need to
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 6: do more at the UN level among all countries. But
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 6: in the United States, now that we've hollowed out our
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 6: diplomatic corps, actually just replenishing that. One of the reasons
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 6: I wrote the book in such a personal way to
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 6: try to make it more relatable for young people was,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 6: as you know, the morning after a Democrat takes office,
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 6: whenever that is, hopefully in January 2021, if not before.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 9: But at the moment that happens, it's going to be a.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 6: A summons basically to our country and to our young
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 6: people to get back involved in public service and to
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 6: be part of rebuilding these institutions.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: Last question for me, and then you guys have a
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: lot of foreign policy to talk for the world is,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: how do you do that? Because I've spoken places, when
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: I talk to young people, you hear a lot of
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: maybe the best way to make changes from outside the
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: government because it's so broken and it's the cause of
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: so many disappointments. And I want to make a change.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: I should be an activist, but I don't know if
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: public service is for me. You're someone who started off
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: as an activist, started off as a critic. What can
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: you tell young people about why it's worth it to
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: participate in public service?
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 6: Well, again, that's kind of what my book is all
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 6: about is all the things you can do from many
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 6: different quarters. And for me, it was a big adjustment
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 6: and initially much harder to do it from within. But
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 6: then when you actually see the institutions of government working
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 6: on behalf of people, when you see domestically, people's healthcare,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 6: people getting healthcare who'd never had it and suddenly being
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 6: free of that worry. When you see Barack Obama confronted
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 6: with potentially a million people dying in West Africa of
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 6: Ebola and suddenly start seeing cases in Europe and in
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 6: the United States and him saying, you know, I don't
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 6: care that from a bipartisan standpoint, people don't want me
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 6: to do anything about this. We have to deal with
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 6: this problem at its source. And the privilege for us
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 6: to get to be a part of helping him mobilize
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 6: a global coalition and send U.S. military and U.S. health
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 6: workers into the eye of the epidemic and end it,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 6: supporting above all the work of the local people who
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 6: are on the front lines in West Africa. But when
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 6: you see that kind of impact, I tell the story of,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 6: you know, being very distraught as we all are now
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 6: and certainly even were in the tail end of the
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 6: Obama administration, but about the human rights recession around the world,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 6: which is part of what's, you know, again, contributing to
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 6: the despair that so many people feel.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 9: And I was so overwhelmed.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 6: It's like, geez, freedom declining everywhere, including in established democracies.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 6: And this is even before Donald Trump. But what can
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 6: I do? I'm a member of the president's cabinet, but
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 6: I have that feeling of like, what can one person do?
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 6: And we waged this little modest campaign called hashtag free
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 6: the 20, where we chose 20 female political prisoners from
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 6: around the world. And we profiled them, took advantage of
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 6: these tools in social media that are also contributing to
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 6: so many destructive trends in our society, but also can
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 6: do great good. And we project the stories of these
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 6: amazing women in China, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, you know, wherever they've
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 6: been arrested, and often they're investigating corruption, or they're just
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 6: speaking their minds, or in China, they were speaking up
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 6: against sexual harassment, I mean, and then got jailed for that.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 6: And we just decided, let's just take a small slice
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 6: of this huge problem of the human rights recession. And
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 6: we actually managed to do something that I Bipartisan way
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 6: with the US Senate because we were profiling 20 women.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 6: There were 20 US female senators at the time Republican
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 6: and Democrat They threw their weight behind this campaign we
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 6: were of course only supplementing the work of the lawyers
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 6: and the families of these amazing women and It took
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 6: us time, but we got 16 of the 20 women
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 6: Freed or or 16 of the 20 women were freed
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 6: and and I think we played a contributory role to
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 6: that and you know the gratification the sense of of
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 6: sort of exhilaration, actually, on the part of the junior
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 6: members of my team, you know, the young diplomats, because
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 6: it's so in government, it's so rare that you feel
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 6: close proximity to something so concrete that works. And yet
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 6: my book is full of stories where we do make
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 6: a difference at a time when people are very skeptical
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 6: that government can. But I think, yes, we have to
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 6: learn from the invasion of Iraq, and God knows we're
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 6: going to have so much recovery to do after Trump
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 6: has destroyed our alliances and cozied up to abusive regimes
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 6: and so forth. But we have to also remember that
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 6: for all of the mistakes we've made, from which we
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 6: have to learn, but that the United States can be
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 6: a force for good and the individuals who comprise our institutions,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 6: it's who those individuals are who will dictate whether we
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 6: are a force for good or for ill. And so,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 6: you know, I really, it's like your show, you have
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 6: found a way to speak to younger people. And one
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 6: of the messages is we need more and we need better, right?
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 6: We need more people activated and we need more rigor
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 6: and more sophistication in the way all of us do
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 6: our business. And, you know, that's why I've tried to
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 6: write a book that, again, appeals to young people and
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 6: shows The sense of purpose and meaning you can have
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 6: and the actual impact you can have if you're willing
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 6: to be self-critical, not ideological necessarily, but just rooted in
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 6: problem solving.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: Well, you have written a funny, brilliant, honest, and very
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: hopeful book. And so everyone, please.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: Buy it. Please go buy it.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 3: Don't you dare go to the library.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 9: We like libraries. We're pro-library.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: But also buy the book.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: You buy this book. You can read it in the
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: library if you want.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 3: Do you want more books like this? Buy the book
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 3: and donate it to a library. Thanks, Sam.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 9: Thank you guys so much.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segwin is
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: Katie Long.
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: For production support.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian, Yael Freed,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: a video every week.