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"We Don't Chalk About Susan." · Pod Save America

0:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:23
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:24
Speaker 1: On today's show, a Senate vote to protect abortion rights fails,
0:28
Speaker 1: but the larger fight has just begun. Joe Biden's top
0:30
Speaker 1: economic advisor, Brian Deese, talks about the White House strategy
0:34
Speaker 1: on inflation and more. And Donald Trump goes one for
0:37
Speaker 1: two in this week's primaries while getting some good news
0:40
Speaker 1: about his Twitter account. But first, Doctor Strange and the
0:44
Speaker 1: Multiverse of Madness is officially the second biggest movie release
0:47
Speaker 1: since the start of the pandemic. And your favorite crooked
0:50
Speaker 1: pods are talking all about it. On X-Ray Vision, Jason
0:54
Speaker 1: and Rosie talked to writer Michael Waldron to ask how
0:56
Speaker 1: much of the film was informed by his obsession with
0:59
Speaker 1: Don Draper. And on Keep It, Iris shares thoughts on
1:01
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Olsen's buzzy performance of Wanda Maximoff. Keep up with
1:06
Speaker 1: all the latest news in culture by listening and following
1:09
Speaker 1: X-Ray Vision and keep it wherever you get your podcasts. Also, Dan,
1:15
Speaker 1: I believe you have an update for us on your
1:17
Speaker 1: soon-to-be-released book that I know all of you have already pre-purchased,
1:21
Speaker 1: Battling the Big Lie. What do you got?
1:23
Speaker 2: Well, Jen, I would say that if everyone listening... or
1:27
Speaker 2: half the people listening, or a quarter of the people
1:28
Speaker 2: listening had already pre-ordered the book, we would be crushing
1:32
Speaker 2: Kellyanne Conway and Bill O'Reilly, who, believe it or not,
1:36
Speaker 2: is alive and number one on the New York Times
1:39
Speaker 2: bestseller list this week.
1:41
Speaker 1: What's the book called? Killing Something? Who are we killing
1:44
Speaker 1: this week?
1:44
Speaker 2: The killers, ironically. We have gone full circle. He is
1:46
Speaker 2: now killing the killers. The Bill O'Reilly book empire is
1:51
Speaker 2: now eating itself. In all seriousness, if defeating, if beating
1:58
Speaker 2: Kellyanne Conway, who's spoken about two weeks, or Bill O'Reilly,
2:00
Speaker 2: or any of these people is not inducement enough, we
2:02
Speaker 2: have an announcement that every pre-order of Battling the Big Lie,
2:06
Speaker 2: which for those who don't know, is my book out
2:07
Speaker 2: on June 7th, about the right-wing propaganda and disinformation machine,
2:12
Speaker 2: where it came from, how it works, and perhaps, I
2:14
Speaker 2: think most importantly, what Democrats can do about it. For
2:17
Speaker 2: every one of those pre-orders, I will be donating a
2:20
Speaker 2: portion of the proceeds to the Texas Library Association's Battle
2:24
Speaker 2: against book bans in Texas. And I think there is
2:27
Speaker 2: this connection between why Republicans spent so much time and
2:31
Speaker 2: energy building up Fox and Breitbart and Ben Shapiro and
2:34
Speaker 2: all of that, and why they are trying to stop
2:36
Speaker 2: kids from learning about our history, structural racism, LGBTQ plus issues.
2:43
Speaker 2: I think in my view, it's all of a part
2:45
Speaker 2: of an effort for this shrinking conservative, mostly white minority
2:49
Speaker 2: to hold on to political power. For every pre-order, we'll
2:54
Speaker 2: be donating a portion of the proceeds to Texas Library
2:56
Speaker 2: Association and my publisher, 12 Publishing, which is headed by
2:59
Speaker 2: Sean Desmond, a great guy and son of a Texas librarian,
3:03
Speaker 2: will be matching the donation for the next 1,000 books pre-ordered.
3:08
Speaker 3: Amazing.
3:09
Speaker 2: And if, but don't worry, if you were one of
3:10
Speaker 2: the amazing people who has already pre-ordered the book, I'm
3:13
Speaker 2: very grateful to you. And I will be making a
3:14
Speaker 2: retroactive donation from those proceeds for your purchase. So battling
3:20
Speaker 2: the big lie. Out June 7th, pre-order it. Let's try
3:23
Speaker 2: to stop some book bans in Texas. Thank you so much.
3:25
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
3:26
Speaker 2: End of awkward pitch.
3:27
Speaker 1: I thought that was very smooth and compelling.
3:30
Speaker 2: By book seven, we were going to fucking nail this.
3:35
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. A bill to
3:37
Speaker 1: guarantee abortion rights nationwide was defeated for the second time
3:40
Speaker 1: this year on Wednesday as all 50 Senate Republicans and
3:43
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin voted against the Women's Health Protection Act. Of course,
3:47
Speaker 1: the outcome was never in doubt because... Even if Manchin
3:50
Speaker 1: had supported the bill, he and Kyrsten Sinema still refused
3:53
Speaker 1: to break any Republican filibuster on the issue. Susan Collins,
3:57
Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski, and Manchin said they'd support a narrower bill
4:01
Speaker 1: that they argue will outlaw any restriction that would put a, quote,
4:04
Speaker 1: undue burden on a woman's right to an abortion, which
4:07
Speaker 1: is the language in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the decision
4:11
Speaker 1: along with Roe v. Wade that a Supreme Court majority
4:13
Speaker 1: appears ready to overturn. But again... Even if Democrats got
4:17
Speaker 1: those three senators on board, they'd still only have 52
4:20
Speaker 1: votes when you need 60 to break a filibuster. Dan,
4:25
Speaker 1: why do you think Chuck Schumer held this vote? Was
4:28
Speaker 1: there any substantive or political value in doing so?
4:32
Speaker 2: Look, this was doomed to failure. It was unsatisfying. Much
4:38
Speaker 2: of the coverage focused on Democratic divisions and failure and
4:42
Speaker 2: weakness and the limits to Senate control. But I'm not
4:47
Speaker 2: sure what the other option was, right? So as annoying
4:51
Speaker 2: as that was, I think it's probably a less bad
4:54
Speaker 2: outcome than a bunch of stories about how Democrats won't
4:56
Speaker 2: even take a vote on the issue, right? So I
4:59
Speaker 2: think in a world of bad and less bad, this
5:02
Speaker 2: was less bad. And I do understand the impulse in
5:07
Speaker 2: the wake of this opinion to do something, do anything,
5:10
Speaker 2: and desire from... the public, the people who work to
5:14
Speaker 2: put Democrats in charge to say, just do something, even
5:16
Speaker 2: though it doesn't work, just show us you're fighting. And
5:18
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, that's ultimately what they did.
5:20
Speaker 2: I don't think this is going to change the midterms.
5:22
Speaker 2: It's not going to change the fate of people's rights
5:25
Speaker 2: in various States, but it is, it's better than doing nothing,
5:28
Speaker 2: I think, which is probably an unfortunate, unfortunate reality of
5:31
Speaker 2: life in Joe Manchin's Washington these days.
5:35
Speaker 1: I guess it's just like, it's, I don't know. I
5:40
Speaker 1: think the, The political strategy there is that it's a
5:43
Speaker 1: what what is known in Washington in politics as a
5:46
Speaker 1: messaging vote messaging bill. The purpose of a messaging vote
5:50
Speaker 1: is to generate press coverage that is favorable to you politically.
5:56
Speaker 1: A scan through the headlines shows the New York Times
6:00
Speaker 1: headline about this was bill to guarantee abortion rights fails
6:03
Speaker 1: in the Senate. Republicans used a filibuster to thwart the bill,
6:06
Speaker 1: but Democrats hoped a high profile failure of their legislation
6:09
Speaker 1: would help them at the polls in November. That doesn't
6:11
Speaker 1: seem very favorable. Washington Post, Senate blocks bill to codify
6:14
Speaker 1: right to abortion. The Women's Health Protection Act failed as expected,
6:18
Speaker 1: but Democrats say the vote is about mobilizing voters, not
6:21
Speaker 1: passing legislation. I think the concept of a messaging vote
6:26
Speaker 1: or stuff like that, I just think it's outdated at
6:29
Speaker 1: this point. I don't think that we live in a
6:31
Speaker 1: media environment where you're going to take this vote, have
6:36
Speaker 1: this vote, and then have all the media cover it like,
6:39
Speaker 1: Republicans blocked abortion access and Democrats fought hard for it. Like,
6:43
Speaker 1: I just don't know. And again, I will say I
6:46
Speaker 1: don't think this is a big deal either way. I
6:47
Speaker 1: kind of think it was like a fairly meaningless gesture.
6:51
Speaker 1: And I also we can get into this. It's not
6:53
Speaker 1: like Chuck Schumer and the Democrats had any other options
6:57
Speaker 1: that they just sort of left on the playing field here, because, again,
7:01
Speaker 1: they are facing the Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema problem that
7:03
Speaker 1: they have been since Joe Biden took office. So it's
7:05
Speaker 1: not like there was anything they could do that they
7:07
Speaker 1: didn't do. I just don't know that it's much like
7:09
Speaker 1: the voting rights thing where you get everyone's expectations up
7:12
Speaker 1: that you're about to have a vote. And of course,
7:14
Speaker 1: the vote doesn't go anywhere.
7:15
Speaker 2: I think they did a better job of expectations management.
7:17
Speaker 2: There wasn't a bunch of efforts being like, call your
7:20
Speaker 2: senator and tell them to vote for this. It was
7:22
Speaker 2: sort of like, we're going to hold this vote. We
7:24
Speaker 2: understand it. I totally agree with you on the anachronistic
7:27
Speaker 2: nature of message votes. And that's particularly true in an
7:30
Speaker 2: election cycle where there's really only one Senate Republican incumbent
7:33
Speaker 2: who is casting that vote. who we are running it,
7:37
Speaker 2: who is vulnerable. And so it's, it's, I think this
7:39
Speaker 2: is much ado about nothing. It's, I think you can
7:44
Speaker 2: argue it either way. I think given those choices, having
7:46
Speaker 2: the votes slightly better, not having the vote, but none
7:49
Speaker 2: of it is affecting people's ability to actually make decisions
7:53
Speaker 2: about their own bodies. Like that's not changing because of this.
7:56
Speaker 1: So Schumer said that he didn't hold a vote on
7:57
Speaker 1: the Collins Murkowski mansion alternative because quote, we're not looking
8:01
Speaker 1: to compromise on something as vital as this. Do you
8:05
Speaker 1: think that was the right move?
8:07
Speaker 2: Once again, I think there is a very loud, very aggressive,
8:12
Speaker 2: very vituperative online debate about something of limited consequence. Because
8:15
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, what are we talking
8:17
Speaker 2: about here? We're talking about failing to protect people's rights
8:20
Speaker 2: by a vote of 49-51 or failing to protect people's
8:23
Speaker 2: rights by a vote of 52-48. What is the substantive
8:28
Speaker 2: political difference of that? There is a larger conversation about
8:32
Speaker 2: to be had about whether you should be sanding down
8:38
Speaker 2: differences to try to make the broadest appeal possible on
8:44
Speaker 2: an issue that the polls show you have broad appeal.
8:46
Speaker 2: Should you not do that? Are Washington Democrats overly sensitive
8:53
Speaker 2: to the opinions of activist groups. There's a larger competition.
8:57
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, in this particular case,
9:00
Speaker 2: I don't think once you like the decision to have
9:02
Speaker 2: a vote or not decision on which one to vote on,
9:03
Speaker 2: I think is a very limited consequence for the much larger,
9:06
Speaker 2: much more important fight in front of us.
9:10
Speaker 1: I do think if you are going to hold a
9:13
Speaker 1: vote that is purely a messaging exercise, which again, I
9:18
Speaker 1: just argued is of limited value, but if you're going
9:20
Speaker 1: to do it, I'm not sure why you don't Hold
9:24
Speaker 1: the original vote on the Women's Health Protection Act. Get
9:27
Speaker 1: everyone on record on that. We want to codify Roe v.
9:30
Speaker 1: Wade into law. We want to guarantee abortion access across
9:33
Speaker 1: the country. Then after that one goes down, have everyone
9:38
Speaker 1: vote on the Collins-Murkowski alternative to show now that you
9:41
Speaker 1: have a bipartisan majority in Congress in favor of codifying
9:47
Speaker 1: current protections for abortion that are out there, codifying Casey
9:51
Speaker 1: into law, and showing that... extreme Republicans are blocking a
9:56
Speaker 1: bipartisan majority. Then hold a vote on a provision that
10:00
Speaker 1: guarantees the right to contraception. Make the Republicans take a
10:03
Speaker 1: vote on that since some of them are now going
10:05
Speaker 1: after contraception. Make them take a vote that guarantees the
10:08
Speaker 1: right to an abortion in the case of rape, incest,
10:10
Speaker 1: and the life of the mother. Again, make them take
10:13
Speaker 1: a vote on that because a whole bunch of Republicans
10:15
Speaker 1: are now saying abortion bans with absolutely no exception. So
10:19
Speaker 1: you just sort of go down the list and you
10:21
Speaker 1: don't vote only on these provisions because you don't want
10:23
Speaker 1: to be have a bunch of Democrats saying, oh, yeah,
10:25
Speaker 1: we're only for abortion in those cases. But you've already
10:27
Speaker 1: had the Democrats go on the record on the Women's
10:30
Speaker 1: Health Protection Act. And now you can smoke out the
10:32
Speaker 1: Republicans in the Senate who are taking extreme positions on contraception,
10:38
Speaker 1: on exceptions and rape, incest and life of the mother,
10:42
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And I'm just if you have
10:44
Speaker 1: the Senate majority. I just wonder why you don't make
10:47
Speaker 1: Republicans take these uncomfortable votes, because, again, you want votes
10:50
Speaker 1: that unites your caucus and splits theirs.
10:55
Speaker 2: I agree with that. I think we may even see
10:56
Speaker 2: some of that if there is a budget budget resolution
10:59
Speaker 2: vote later this year, which we you may need a
11:02
Speaker 2: budget resolution to do budget reconciliation to pass covid aid,
11:06
Speaker 2: for instance. And then you have what they call the
11:08
Speaker 2: Voterama where people can put anything up and you won't
11:11
Speaker 2: need 60 votes or a motion to proceed or burn
11:13
Speaker 2: 30 hours on the clock. So you can do a
11:14
Speaker 2: bunch of these things. But I think once in a
11:17
Speaker 2: normal world, like in this world, this outdated, anachronistic world
11:20
Speaker 2: of message votes that we're somehow still talking about 10
11:23
Speaker 2: minutes into this podcast.
11:24
Speaker 3: You're right.
11:25
Speaker 1: You're right.
11:25
Speaker 3: You're right.
11:26
Speaker 2: There you have a bunch of vulnerable incumbents you're trying
11:29
Speaker 2: to get on the record. Depending on your view of
11:33
Speaker 2: how Florida would perform in a midterm, we're talking about
11:36
Speaker 2: one person, talking about Ron Johnson, right? And so it's
11:39
Speaker 2: not the most efficient thing. Like A series of show
11:42
Speaker 2: votes in the House, you know, if you were able
11:44
Speaker 2: to have such a thing in 2017 to make all
11:48
Speaker 2: those incumbent Republicans vote, you know, against pre-existing conditions, what
11:52
Speaker 2: else has value here? It's like, you know, we're worried
11:55
Speaker 2: about one person who is, even without a vote, going
11:56
Speaker 2: to take a batshit insane stupid position on their own.
12:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. I think this only matters for the
12:04
Speaker 1: next conversation we're going to have, which is sort of
12:06
Speaker 1: messaging this for the midterms in general, for all the
12:10
Speaker 1: candidates who are running across the country. And I do
12:11
Speaker 1: think it's important there. So let's talk about what's next.
12:14
Speaker 1: Joe Biden responded to the vote by saying, quote, to
12:17
Speaker 1: protect the right to choose, voters need to elect more
12:19
Speaker 1: pro-choice senators this November and return a pro-choice majority to
12:23
Speaker 1: the House. If they do, Congress can pass this bill
12:25
Speaker 1: in January and put it on my desk so I
12:27
Speaker 1: can sign it into law. This, of course, is an
12:30
Speaker 1: undeniably true statement. If we elect a Democratic House again,
12:34
Speaker 1: and we elect two more pro-choice, anti-filibuster Democratic senators, in
12:39
Speaker 1: addition to returning all the Democratic senators that we currently
12:42
Speaker 1: have to the Senate, Joe Biden will sign a law
12:46
Speaker 1: that guarantees abortion rights in America. That will happen. Now
12:51
Speaker 1: you might say, okay, well, will everyone be willing to
12:54
Speaker 1: get rid of the filibuster for this? It's a good question.
12:57
Speaker 1: I will say that every single Democratic senator, except Joe
13:00
Speaker 1: Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, voted to get rid of the
13:03
Speaker 1: filibuster for voting rights legislation a couple months ago, even
13:06
Speaker 1: though that failed. So, sure, maybe make sure that every
13:10
Speaker 1: Democratic senator goes on record to say that, you know,
13:15
Speaker 1: if we have two more pro-choice Democratic senators, they will
13:18
Speaker 1: get rid of the filibuster in order to codify the
13:21
Speaker 1: Women's Health Protection Act into law after 2022. But again, like,
13:26
Speaker 1: that seems to be the most honest assessment that of
13:29
Speaker 1: how we actually get this done on a nationwide scale.
13:34
Speaker 1: We can talk about the states in a minute. The question,
13:37
Speaker 1: of course, is how we do this, how we elect
13:39
Speaker 1: those two extra pro-choice, anti-filibuster Democratic senators. That's the real challenge.
13:46
Speaker 1: And of course, return a Democratic House, also a big challenge.
13:49
Speaker 1: Here's a headline from the Washington Post this week, quote,
13:52
Speaker 1: GOP's midterm bet, voters will care more about inflation than abortion.
13:57
Speaker 1: What do you think about that bet? Mitch McConnell flunky
14:00
Speaker 1: Josh Holmes is quoted in the story saying that abortion is, quote,
14:04
Speaker 1: not registering on any of the issue polls he's looking at.
14:09
Speaker 2: I would note that I put in the outline, as
14:11
Speaker 2: I put Josh Holmes, Mitch McConnell's miniest minion, and you
14:14
Speaker 2: just like cross that out and put in something much nicer.
14:17
Speaker 1: Dan. You know why I crossed that out? Because I
14:19
Speaker 1: said that's Dan's joke that he put in the outline.
14:22
Speaker 1: I want Dan to be able to use Dan's joke.
14:25
Speaker 1: I'll call Josh Holmes whatever the fuck I want.
14:28
Speaker 2: Fair. Okay, that's fair. Neither here nor there, Josh Holmes'
14:32
Speaker 2: stature is the least of his problems. Look, of course.
14:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what his height is. I don't
14:37
Speaker 1: know if you want to go after his height. That's fine.
14:38
Speaker 1: I've never seen him in person. I just see his
14:40
Speaker 1: annoying quotes and hear his annoying voice sometimes.
14:42
Speaker 2: Yes. He... So, I think as a general rule, if someone...
14:47
Speaker 2: works for, worked for, is a vocal supporter of, has
14:51
Speaker 2: been in Mitch McConnell's presence more than a dozen times,
14:54
Speaker 2: you should not trust them. Josh Holmes is lying here.
14:57
Speaker 2: We know he's lying because we've seen the polling. We
15:00
Speaker 2: know that people are highly engaged with the story. We
15:04
Speaker 2: know that Republicans, a significant number of Republicans, a majority
15:06
Speaker 2: of independents oppose what Alito is suggesting the court do.
15:10
Speaker 2: There's even a report out from the Center for American
15:12
Speaker 2: Progress Action Fund today, which shows that for only the
15:15
Speaker 2: second time in a very long time, Progressive engagement on
15:18
Speaker 2: Facebook is exceeding conservative engagement, and it's all because of
15:22
Speaker 2: the Roe decision. Mark Zuckerberg? Oh. Yes. So we know
15:26
Speaker 2: people are engaged in this issue, but that doesn't mean
15:28
Speaker 2: that come election day, Republicans won't be right that inflation
15:32
Speaker 2: trumps abortion as an issue. And that gets to the
15:34
Speaker 2: idea of issue salience, which is, I think, one of
15:38
Speaker 2: the most important but least understood aspects of political analysis
15:42
Speaker 2: and strategy, which is issue salience means what voters are
15:46
Speaker 2: thinking about when they vote. And that's something that we control.
15:51
Speaker 2: That is not going to happen organically. It's not going
15:54
Speaker 2: to happen on its own. It is going to be
15:55
Speaker 2: what Joe Biden and the Senate and us and everyone
15:59
Speaker 2: listening does to shape what people focus on. And if
16:03
Speaker 2: it's inflation, Republicans are going to win. If it's abortion,
16:06
Speaker 2: we have a fighting chance. Abortion, there are other issues
16:08
Speaker 2: there too, but that is one where we have seen
16:11
Speaker 2: in polling that if people are thinking about that, it
16:14
Speaker 2: is to our advantage. And That is, I think, like
16:18
Speaker 2: that is one of the things that we've said this before,
16:20
Speaker 2: but the Democrats too often ask voters what they're thinking
16:24
Speaker 2: and then go find the best message to address that.
16:26
Speaker 2: And Republicans focus on what they want voters to be
16:28
Speaker 2: thinking about and then go try to move the conversation
16:30
Speaker 2: to that. And that's going to be if we want
16:32
Speaker 2: to move the conversation, make sure the conversation in October, November,
16:35
Speaker 2: people are voting is on abortion or something else that
16:39
Speaker 2: we want. We're going to have to work really hard because.
16:42
Speaker 2: Inflation is going to be in the news. It's going
16:44
Speaker 2: to be at the grocery store. It's going to be
16:45
Speaker 2: on the, you know, people are going to drive past
16:46
Speaker 2: those gas price signs all the time. And so we're
16:48
Speaker 2: going to have to work really hard to drive it
16:50
Speaker 2: if that's what we want, if we want to win
16:52
Speaker 2: that bet.
16:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree. Look, very possible Josh Holmes is lying.
16:57
Speaker 1: Let's pretend he's not lying. The possibility here is that
17:02
Speaker 1: the polling on abortion is everything that we've said it is,
17:04
Speaker 1: but issue salience is not, it's not a salient issue
17:07
Speaker 1: yet to enough voters. And that is possible, but, and
17:11
Speaker 1: here's some reasons why. Because I would also argue that
17:13
Speaker 1: that's changing as we're speaking right now. It's early. The
17:17
Speaker 1: court hasn't actually overturned Roe yet, nor have the full
17:20
Speaker 1: consequences of that action been felt across the country. And
17:24
Speaker 1: of course, like you said, Democrats actually have to make
17:26
Speaker 1: something an issue. But FiveThirtyEight had a piece about this
17:29
Speaker 1: the other week. There isn't a ton of awareness about
17:32
Speaker 1: abortion laws, or at least there wasn't before the leaked opinion.
17:35
Speaker 1: So there was an ABC poll before the leaked opinion
17:38
Speaker 1: found that only 30 percent of residents in the 22
17:40
Speaker 1: states affected that have passed abortion restrictions since 2020 were
17:44
Speaker 1: aware of the restrictions in their state. Another poll found
17:48
Speaker 1: that only 38% of people who lived in states where
17:50
Speaker 1: abortion would become illegal if Roe is overturned were aware
17:54
Speaker 1: that that would happen. On the flip side, there's a
17:57
Speaker 1: new navigator polling out today. 73% have now heard about
18:02
Speaker 1: the leaked draft. 73% of voters. That's huge. That was
18:04
Speaker 1: almost the same. They found 78% had heard about Russia's
18:07
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine when that first happened, which was very,
18:10
Speaker 1: very high. So 73% have heard about the leaked draft.
18:14
Speaker 1: And since their April poll, there have been significant increases
18:17
Speaker 1: in the share of people who describe themselves as pro-choice.
18:20
Speaker 1: It's now 62-32, up seven points from April. Those who
18:24
Speaker 1: believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases
18:27
Speaker 1: is 59-37, up eight points. And that includes significant gains
18:32
Speaker 1: among independents and Republicans. And if you look at a
18:35
Speaker 1: state where abortion has been significantly restricted, Texas, the complete
18:40
Speaker 1: ban there, is now underwater in polling. Fifty four percent
18:43
Speaker 1: of Texans are opposed to that ban, only 42 percent
18:46
Speaker 1: in favor, according to a recent poll. So this is
18:49
Speaker 1: something that we're not just the polling on the issue itself,
18:52
Speaker 1: but the salience of the issue to voters is moving
18:55
Speaker 1: as we speak. So maybe Josh Holmes is looking at
18:57
Speaker 1: some outdated polls because this is now an issue that's
19:00
Speaker 1: actually getting people going. So the other big question is,
19:04
Speaker 1: what is the most persuasive way for candidates to talk
19:07
Speaker 1: about this issue? The National Republican Senatorial Committee released a
19:10
Speaker 1: memo last week urging its candidates to quote. It's hard
19:14
Speaker 1: to even read this without laughing or crying. It's urging
19:17
Speaker 1: its candidates to quote, be the compassionate consensus builders on
19:21
Speaker 1: abortion policy. And it even suggests sample ad language for
19:27
Speaker 1: Republican candidates in the memo. And the sample ad language reads, quote,
19:31
Speaker 1: I'm not in favor of putting women or doctors in jail.
19:34
Speaker 1: I would never take away anyone's contraception or health care.
19:37
Speaker 1: That's just the typical BS you get from politicians. Here's
19:41
Speaker 1: my view. I am pro-life, but in reality, forget about
19:45
Speaker 1: the political labels. All of us are in favor of life.
19:48
Speaker 1: Isn't that sweet? What does that heaping pile of horseshit
19:51
Speaker 1: tell you about how Republicans see the politics of abortion?
19:55
Speaker 1: And how do you think that should inform Democratic messaging
19:58
Speaker 1: on the subject?
19:59
Speaker 2: Well, it's very reminiscent of how they view the politics
20:01
Speaker 2: of Obamacare heading into the 2018 elections, which is they
20:04
Speaker 2: know they want to do something. They know the voters
20:06
Speaker 2: don't want them to do it, so they're going to
20:07
Speaker 2: lie about it. All of that is a lie. Everything
20:10
Speaker 2: they're saying is a lie. You remember Josh Hawley and
20:13
Speaker 2: others running ads in 2018 staring before a camera saying
20:18
Speaker 2: that they would always protect people with pre-existing conditions, even
20:21
Speaker 2: though they had each voted only months prior to repeal
20:26
Speaker 2: the protections for people with pre-existing conditions. That's what they're
20:28
Speaker 2: doing here. They're going to lie about their position. They're
20:30
Speaker 2: going to lie about our position. And so I think
20:33
Speaker 2: there are some ways in which I think Democrats have
20:36
Speaker 2: to address this. So we know Republicans are going to lie. Right. Well,
20:40
Speaker 2: we can't get defensive or we're constantly just calling them liars.
20:42
Speaker 2: We have to be very aggressive and proactive about our
20:44
Speaker 2: position and just assert their position and not get into
20:48
Speaker 2: the back and forth here. Like they're trying to drag
20:50
Speaker 2: us into the mud. That's one. Two, they want to
20:53
Speaker 2: get into the Republicans know that when the issue is
20:57
Speaker 2: about access to abortion, Roe v. Wade, they had Democrats
21:02
Speaker 2: and people who support choice have the advantage. When you
21:06
Speaker 2: get into specifics around weeks and other things, the polling
21:10
Speaker 2: gets much more complicated. So they want to sort of
21:12
Speaker 2: bring it down. And then the third thing we have
21:14
Speaker 2: to do is we have to highlight consistently the most
21:17
Speaker 2: extreme positions of the Republicans, where this is going, the impact,
21:22
Speaker 2: that they want to put women and others in jail,
21:25
Speaker 2: they want to put doctors in jail, that they want
21:28
Speaker 2: to ban IVF, that they want to ban contraception. And
21:31
Speaker 2: there are And every time some Republican state senator or
21:34
Speaker 2: candidate talks about that, we got to highlight it. The
21:36
Speaker 2: fact that in some of these major swing states, the
21:38
Speaker 2: Republican candidates running for governor are pledging to outlaw abortion
21:44
Speaker 2: with no exceptions. Not life of the mother, not rape,
21:48
Speaker 2: not incest, no exceptions. We have to make sure everyone
21:51
Speaker 2: knows that. Data for Progress had some useful message polling
21:55
Speaker 2: about what the best messages were. I'm quoting here from
21:58
Speaker 2: the poll. They're testing pro-choice messaging against anti-Roe messaging. Women
22:05
Speaker 2: and their doctors should have control over their medical decisions.
22:07
Speaker 2: The government should not interfere in personal matters like this.
22:09
Speaker 2: Families and individuals should have control over the reproductive decisions.
22:13
Speaker 2: 71% of voters, 49% of Republicans, and 78% of independents
22:17
Speaker 2: support that message compared to a Republican message which says
22:21
Speaker 2: the government should be able to make decisions about abortion,
22:23
Speaker 2: especially when it involves protecting the sanctity of human life,
22:26
Speaker 2: which is, I think, a very... That's not even... putting
22:29
Speaker 2: any spin on the ball about their public position. That
22:31
Speaker 2: is like a very generic, neutral portrayal of their position.
22:36
Speaker 2: So I think that that the giving this between people
22:41
Speaker 2: and their doctors and not as opposed to the government
22:44
Speaker 2: and politicians is I think probably the strongest point we
22:47
Speaker 2: have of contrast here.
22:50
Speaker 1: I think I agree with all of that. I think
22:52
Speaker 1: that it's so important to give specific examples because like,
22:56
Speaker 1: You know, everyone listening here, we all know Republicans lie
22:59
Speaker 1: about this shit. But I think that it's it's worth
23:02
Speaker 1: constantly lifting up those examples. Mitch McConnell and his his, quote,
23:05
Speaker 1: compassionate consensus builders on abortion in the Senate have now
23:09
Speaker 1: floated a nationwide ban on abortion, nationwide ban. If they
23:13
Speaker 1: are returned to if Republicans have Congress and Republicans win
23:16
Speaker 1: the presidency, they have now said. that they will explore
23:20
Speaker 1: nationwide bans. So, you live in California, you live in
23:22
Speaker 1: New York, you vote for state officials that are going
23:24
Speaker 1: to protect abortion access, doesn't matter, they're going to ban
23:27
Speaker 1: it all across the country, okay? Take the Pennsylvania's governor race,
23:30
Speaker 1: for example. All of the Republican frontrunners support total abortion bans.
23:35
Speaker 1: Two of them refuse to support any exceptions for rape, incest,
23:38
Speaker 1: or the health of the mother. Three of them support
23:41
Speaker 1: putting doctors in jail. You vote for a Republican governor
23:45
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania... A Republican governor wins in Pennsylvania, that's what's
23:48
Speaker 1: going to happen. Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor, if he wins,
23:52
Speaker 1: abortion access is protected in Pennsylvania. That's the difference in
23:55
Speaker 1: that race. That's the difference between voting and not voting
23:58
Speaker 1: if you live in Pennsylvania. Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senator from Tennessee,
24:01
Speaker 1: recently denounced the Supreme Court case that protected married couples'
24:05
Speaker 1: access to birth control, as did the leading Republican candidate
24:08
Speaker 1: from Arizona. And each of the Republican candidates running for
24:11
Speaker 1: Attorney General in Michigan, Republicans in Idaho and Louisiana, are
24:15
Speaker 1: considering legislation that could ban morning after pills, IUDs, and IVF.
24:20
Speaker 1: This is all fucking real. It is not theoretical. It
24:23
Speaker 1: is not, they might do this. This is happening in
24:25
Speaker 1: the country right now. You're absolutely right about the polling.
24:29
Speaker 1: And just to give people an example, like when you
24:32
Speaker 1: ask people to start talking about timing on abortions and,
24:35
Speaker 1: you know, 60% of Americans support abortion in the first trimester,
24:40
Speaker 1: 28% support it in the second trimester. So like that
24:42
Speaker 1: polling gets a little mixed, but when you, again, you
24:45
Speaker 1: cited this poll that Navigator did this today too, asked
24:49
Speaker 1: the same question, which is 80% of Americans agree that
24:54
Speaker 1: the decision to have an abortion should be left to
24:56
Speaker 1: a woman and her doctor compared to just 9% who
25:00
Speaker 1: agree it should be left to politicians and the government.
25:03
Speaker 1: And I do think it's worth, that messaging about the
25:07
Speaker 1: government should, you know, I mean, I think it's worth
25:10
Speaker 1: really drilling down on that messaging. Like, Every American should
25:15
Speaker 1: have the right to choose when to start a family,
25:17
Speaker 1: who to start a family with, and how many children
25:19
Speaker 1: to have. No politician or judge should ever get to
25:22
Speaker 1: impose a forced pregnancy on any American, especially a pregnancy
25:25
Speaker 1: that they didn't choose, a pregnancy that may have been
25:27
Speaker 1: the result of rape or abuse or one that threatens
25:30
Speaker 1: a person's life. And the government should never be allowed
25:32
Speaker 1: to dictate decisions about pregnancy that should remain between a
25:35
Speaker 1: woman and her doctor. Guarantee you that is an incredibly
25:38
Speaker 1: popular message that Democrats should go out and proudly say
25:42
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail, every single day. And it puts
25:45
Speaker 1: Republicans in a very, it puts a lot of Republicans
25:48
Speaker 1: who want to win in competitive districts, a lot of
25:50
Speaker 1: them in red districts are not going to fucking care,
25:52
Speaker 1: but the ones who want to win in competitive districts,
25:54
Speaker 1: it's going to put them in a tough place. And
25:55
Speaker 1: that's why the NRSC released a memo that's filled with
26:00
Speaker 1: so much lies because they are fucking nervous about this.
26:04
Speaker 1: That's the thing, like, they are nervous about it.
26:06
Speaker 2: I love that message and it's exactly right. And it
26:09
Speaker 2: can be, you know, built into a larger narrative because
26:11
Speaker 2: it's not just, the Republicans also want to want the
26:14
Speaker 2: government to decide what you can say, what you can read,
26:17
Speaker 2: what teachers can teach, what companies can believe, right? It
26:21
Speaker 2: is the government wants to stop you, conservative government wants
26:25
Speaker 2: to stop you from doing the things you want to do.
26:27
Speaker 2: It's why they're coming for marriage equality next. And I
26:30
Speaker 2: think just on the point of what Mitch McConnell said
26:32
Speaker 2: about a national abortion ban, we should be crystal clear
26:36
Speaker 2: that if in January of 2025, there was a Republican
26:39
Speaker 2: House Republican Senate and a Republican president, the Republicans will
26:43
Speaker 2: eliminate the filibuster to pass that bill. The political momentum
26:47
Speaker 2: behind doing that will be unassailable.
26:49
Speaker 1: And on that too, because there's a bunch of the
26:51
Speaker 1: fucking Hill reporters that Mitch McConnell and his staff have
26:55
Speaker 1: successfully spun for a long time. They all think Mitch
26:57
Speaker 1: McConnell's a fucking genius and has these principles that he doesn't.
27:01
Speaker 1: Even if Mitch McConnell was like, I don't want to
27:03
Speaker 1: get rid of the filibuster. I've said this before. It's
27:06
Speaker 1: not going to be up to Mitch McConnell. He's going
27:07
Speaker 1: to have an extreme Republican caucus that is going to
27:10
Speaker 1: be like, hey, Mitch, you're either leader of this caucus
27:13
Speaker 1: and you let us get rid of the filibuster or
27:15
Speaker 1: we're going to nominate someone crazy. We're going to have
27:20
Speaker 1: Rick Scott be the leader in the caucus. So you're right.
27:23
Speaker 1: It's absolutely going. Whatever Mitch McConnell says.
27:26
Speaker 2: Rob Portman. And under this scenario, right? Rob Portman plays
27:29
Speaker 2: by J.D. Vance. Herschel Walker, Ted Budd, Kathy Barnett. These
27:34
Speaker 2: are the Republican senators. There is no institutional... Extreme as
27:38
Speaker 2: they get. Yes.
27:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. I just... Oh, you know, Mitch McConnell,
27:45
Speaker 1: he says that he doesn't want to get rid of it.
27:46
Speaker 1: He's a real institutionalist. People on Capitol Hill know that. Yeah, okay. Okay,
27:50
Speaker 1: we'll see. We've talked a lot about the congressional races.
27:54
Speaker 1: What are the key states where races for governor and
27:56
Speaker 1: attorney general and state legislature will really matter if the
28:00
Speaker 1: court overturns Roe?
28:02
Speaker 2: You can sort of, you know, what it's important to
28:05
Speaker 2: note about this decision, or even in any version of
28:07
Speaker 2: this decision, is that abortion becomes a state's issue, right?
28:11
Speaker 2: Your constitutional rights will depend on what state you are
28:13
Speaker 2: in at any given moment, which is not how constitutional
28:15
Speaker 2: rights are supposed to work. And therefore, who you elect
28:21
Speaker 2: as governor, attorney general, local prosecutor, state legislator matters because
28:26
Speaker 2: they will decide whether abortion is illegal or either contraception
28:28
Speaker 2: is legal or illegal. What exceptions there are, all of
28:31
Speaker 2: that will be assigned at the state level. Now, in
28:34
Speaker 2: blue states where Democrats control all the levers of power,
28:37
Speaker 2: it abortion rights will be protected. In red states where
28:42
Speaker 2: Republicans control all levels of powers, where abortion rights are
28:45
Speaker 2: being strictly restricted or gone or banned immediately with much
28:49
Speaker 2: worse things to come. The focus is therefore on the
28:51
Speaker 2: purple states where Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, et cetera,
28:57
Speaker 2: all the places where we have a chance to elect
28:59
Speaker 2: a Democratic governor or Democratic attorney general. And that will matter, right?
29:03
Speaker 2: They are the bulwark. They have a chance to pass
29:05
Speaker 2: a law to enshrine those rights. They can veto the
29:08
Speaker 2: laws to try to further restrict them. The attorney general
29:11
Speaker 2: and prosecutor one is really important because Dana Nessel, who
29:14
Speaker 2: is the, we mentioned this in previous pod, the running
29:17
Speaker 2: for re-election in Michigan has said she's not going to
29:19
Speaker 2: enforce Michigan's anti-abortion law that will go in effect if
29:22
Speaker 2: and when Roe is overturned. Her opponent will and will
29:25
Speaker 2: prosecute it to the full force of the law. But
29:28
Speaker 2: having said all that, I mean, those are the states
29:30
Speaker 2: we're already telling people to get involved in. It's how
29:32
Speaker 2: we're going to protect democracy. It's how we're going to
29:33
Speaker 2: protect the integrity of the next election. It's how we're
29:35
Speaker 2: going to put in place higher minimum wages, et cetera,
29:38
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. We know that. But I think
29:40
Speaker 2: there is the tendency then with those red states to say,
29:43
Speaker 2: the ship has sailed. And I think that's a huge
29:45
Speaker 2: mistake because every vote in the state legislator matters. Every
29:52
Speaker 2: local prosecutor matters. And we have to compete there because
29:54
Speaker 2: that could be, that we're not, if we can't, we
29:57
Speaker 2: can't take control of the governorship and we can't take
29:59
Speaker 2: control of the legislature, we're not going to pass a
30:01
Speaker 2: law to protect people's rights. We're not going to repeal
30:04
Speaker 2: a Republican law in the books. But having a few
30:07
Speaker 2: more people in that state legislature may prevent something worse
30:11
Speaker 2: from happening, right? It could be the one that prevents
30:13
Speaker 2: contraception from being banned. It could be what prevents IVF
30:16
Speaker 2: from being banned. It could be the difference between you know,
30:20
Speaker 2: outlawing access to abortion pills or all those things. So like,
30:23
Speaker 2: that's why I think the stuff, this stuff that run
30:24
Speaker 2: from something and Emily's list and others are doing to
30:27
Speaker 2: compete in those state legislative districts in red States is important.
30:31
Speaker 2: Even if we're not going to take control of the legislature,
30:33
Speaker 2: I think just a couple more people who don't have
30:36
Speaker 2: some sort of prehistoric mindset about people's healthcare decisions could
30:41
Speaker 2: matter a lot to a lot of people in that state.
30:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally agree. Before we move on, we do have
30:47
Speaker 1: one more important angle of this story to discuss.
30:50
Speaker 2: Red Hen. Civility alert. Red Hen. Civility alert. Paging Chuck Todd.
30:58
Speaker 2: Paging Chuck Todd. Tip O'Neill.
31:00
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. You're needed with a bourbon in the West Wing.
31:05
Speaker 2: Red Hen. Red Hen. Red Hen.
31:08
Speaker 1: It just, it never, it never gets old.
31:10
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so funny.
31:11
Speaker 1: It never gets old. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you for that.
31:15
Speaker 1: There has been a particularly dumb debate over completely peaceful
31:19
Speaker 1: protests that have sprung up at the homes of Supreme
31:21
Speaker 1: Court justices and senators. Congress moved with unusual speed to
31:24
Speaker 1: pass a bill that ramped up security for the justices
31:27
Speaker 1: by extending security protection to their families. The White House
31:30
Speaker 1: released a statement saying that the president believes in the
31:32
Speaker 1: right to protest, but that it should never include violence, threats,
31:35
Speaker 1: or vandalism. And Susan Collins actually called the cops on
31:39
Speaker 1: protesters who wrote a polite message on the sidewalk outside
31:42
Speaker 1: of her home in water-soluble chalk. Now, Dan, that was
31:48
Speaker 1: a joke. The water-soluble chalk, that came from you, and
31:50
Speaker 1: I just took it. But I'm giving you.
31:52
Speaker 2: Credit for it. We are a team. I put it
31:54
Speaker 2: in the outline that it's for you to take.
31:58
Speaker 1: What's your take on all this?
32:00
Speaker 2: Also, I took the water-soluble chalk thing from Jonathan Chait
32:02
Speaker 2: and others, so I want to just give everyone free.
32:05
Speaker 1: Wow, look at that.
32:07
Speaker 2: It's like he didn't invent it. It was water soluble chalk.
32:09
Speaker 2: It's a fact, right? It doesn't own the facts or
32:11
Speaker 2: you can't trademark that shit. Anywho, like obviously this is
32:14
Speaker 2: the greatest threat to the Republic since Sarah Huckabee Sanders
32:18
Speaker 2: was denied a farm to table meal.
32:20
Speaker 1: We remember. We remember.
32:22
Speaker 2: The redhead. I mean.
32:25
Speaker 1: Redhead.
32:25
Speaker 3: Alert.
32:26
Speaker 2: Redhead. Chuck Todd, who I know, doesn't ever miss one
32:29
Speaker 2: minute of this podcast. Must wonder, like, how did he
32:32
Speaker 2: get wrapped into this?
32:35
Speaker 1: Just swerving out of our lanes. It's like a wacky truck. Anyway.
32:38
Speaker 2: All right. Anyway, look, this is obviously stupid and dumb
32:44
Speaker 2: and beside the point. And just another example of how
32:47
Speaker 2: the political conversation always migrates to optics incivility, which prevents
32:53
Speaker 2: people from having to take a stand on real things
32:55
Speaker 2: or talk about real issues or deal with nuance or complexity.
32:59
Speaker 2: Like who gives a shit? There is no, like, obviously it's,
33:03
Speaker 2: no one is condoning violence, threats, looting. None of that's happening.
33:08
Speaker 2: We're talking about peaceful protests. They asked Chuck Schumer about this.
33:11
Speaker 2: And he said, I don't really care because I have
33:12
Speaker 2: people protesting in my house three times a week. People
33:15
Speaker 2: are always protesting there. Like it happens. The sanctity of
33:20
Speaker 2: Susan Collins' sidewalk aesthetics is so much less important than
33:25
Speaker 2: tens of millions of people losing a constitutional fucking right.
33:28
Speaker 2: Like what are we doing? And Even though the polling
33:32
Speaker 2: is very clear that a huge majority of Americans disagree
33:36
Speaker 2: with what the Supreme Court is about to do, the
33:38
Speaker 2: both sides mentality of the political press and the pundits
33:41
Speaker 2: draws them to the civility thing. You can have a
33:44
Speaker 2: bipartisan roundtable on a cable network talking about this, having
33:49
Speaker 2: a conversation about what it really means for millions of people.
33:52
Speaker 2: If Roe is overturned, it's a very different and more
33:55
Speaker 2: complicated discussion that you don't want to have to take
33:57
Speaker 2: a stand on.
33:58
Speaker 1: I hate these conversations. I mean, here's my view. I
34:02
Speaker 1: think peaceful protest isn't just good. It's necessary to be encouraged.
34:06
Speaker 1: I think violence and threats of violence aren't just bad.
34:08
Speaker 1: They're ineffective. And I think that calling the cops about
34:12
Speaker 1: a drive by chalking is one of the stupidest fucking
34:16
Speaker 1: things I've ever heard. So that's my view. I think
34:18
Speaker 1: that we should not focus on this debate. I think
34:20
Speaker 1: we should not focus on fucking Joe Manchin. Keep tweeting
34:22
Speaker 1: about Joe Manchin. That's not going to do anything to
34:25
Speaker 1: get anyone rights to access to an abortion. Now that
34:27
Speaker 1: you can yell all you want. We do yell about
34:29
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin. Focus on the fucking Republicans who are trying
34:34
Speaker 1: to ban abortion nationwide, trying to criminalize abortion, throw doctors
34:39
Speaker 1: and women in jail. Go after contraception and like let's
34:43
Speaker 1: make sure that we defeat as many of them as
34:45
Speaker 1: possible in November. This is an issue. Now, first of all,
34:48
Speaker 1: it's not just a incredibly important vital issue, a basic
34:51
Speaker 1: constitutional right. It is an issue where we have just
34:54
Speaker 1: recited a whole bunch of polling where Democrats should be
34:57
Speaker 1: on the offense and should be going after Republicans. So
35:00
Speaker 1: let's keep the focus there. John, how can we do that?
35:05
Speaker 2: Do you have any suggestions?
35:07
Speaker 1: If you want to get involved, you should go peacefully protest.
35:10
Speaker 1: Chalk in hand. But you should also go to votesaveamerica.com
35:15
Speaker 1: slash row where you can donate and volunteer. The VSA
35:18
Speaker 1: community is incredible. All of you listening, all of you
35:21
Speaker 1: who've gotten involved in Votesave America from the very beginning,
35:24
Speaker 1: you are amazing. You've already raised, since the leaked opinion,
35:29
Speaker 1: you've already raised over $ 300, 000 to support more than 80
35:30
Speaker 1: abortion funds. That's direct support to abortion funds and patients.
35:37
Speaker 1: You've raised over $ 30, 000 to help elect a pro-choice majority
35:41
Speaker 1: in the Senate. Again, those two pro-choice anti-filibuster senators that
35:45
Speaker 1: we need to actually get something done. And over 3,000
35:48
Speaker 1: of you have signed up for Midterm Madness so we
35:51
Speaker 1: can elect a pro-choice majority in November. So I thank
35:53
Speaker 1: you all for that. Everyone who's gotten involved and everyone
35:56
Speaker 1: who's not gotten involved yet, please do. It's votesaveamerica.com slash row.
36:00
Speaker 1: When we come back, Dan talks to White House economic
36:03
Speaker 1: advisor Brian Deese.
36:14
Speaker 2: In poll after poll, Americans say inflation is their top concern.
36:17
Speaker 2: It's also Joe Biden's top priority. Joining us now to
36:20
Speaker 2: talk about that and so much more is the director
36:23
Speaker 2: of the National Economic Council and my old friend, Brian Deese.
36:27
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me, Sherman.
36:30
Speaker 2: Brian, yesterday we learned that in the month of April,
36:32
Speaker 2: inflation was down slightly, although still at a historic high.
36:36
Speaker 2: What is your analysis of those numbers? And what do
36:38
Speaker 2: they tell us about how much longer Americans are going
36:40
Speaker 2: to have to deal with elevated costs on food, gas,
36:42
Speaker 2: and other things?
36:43
Speaker 3: Well, it was heartening to see the number tick down
36:45
Speaker 3: a bit. Inflation is still too high. But it's important
36:49
Speaker 3: to put the numbers in context. We have an economy
36:52
Speaker 3: that has extraordinary strengths right now. Strongest economic growth in
36:56
Speaker 3: 40 years. strongest labor market outcomes. The unemployment rate has
37:00
Speaker 3: come down significantly, which has opened up all sorts of opportunities,
37:04
Speaker 3: particularly for lower wage workers. People of color are seeing
37:07
Speaker 3: job opportunities and opportunities to get jobs with higher wages
37:10
Speaker 3: that they haven't seen in decades. And we have a
37:14
Speaker 3: pricing challenge. Prices are high. And as I said, it
37:17
Speaker 3: was good to see a little bit of relief on
37:19
Speaker 3: that front in last month's print. But we know what
37:23
Speaker 3: we now need to do, which is we need to
37:25
Speaker 3: build on those extraordinary strengths while focusing on doing everything
37:29
Speaker 3: we can to bring prices down and have prices normalize.
37:33
Speaker 3: And that's a process that is going to take some time,
37:38
Speaker 3: but we could accelerate it. We could move it faster.
37:40
Speaker 3: And there are practical things that we can do, in particular,
37:43
Speaker 3: to address the practical cost challenges that people are facing
37:48
Speaker 3: in their day-to-day lives. The cost of gas, the cost
37:51
Speaker 3: of food, but also the cost of health care, the
37:53
Speaker 3: cost of child care, the things that add up to
37:55
Speaker 3: your monthly budget.
37:57
Speaker 2: And so obviously a lot of what is driving inflation
38:01
Speaker 2: is outside of your control, even outside of these borders, right?
38:04
Speaker 2: It's what's happening in Russia. It's lockdowns in China. It's
38:08
Speaker 2: stuff happening, just the general struggles to snap back from
38:11
Speaker 2: the pandemic all over the world. Recognizing there's limits to
38:15
Speaker 2: what you can do and not to mention sort of
38:17
Speaker 2: the challenges of getting something through Congress. What are the
38:19
Speaker 2: tools in your toolbox that the White House can do
38:23
Speaker 2: that'll give people some relief?
38:25
Speaker 3: So the president talked about it this week as a
38:27
Speaker 3: plan that is about lowering families' costs and lowering the
38:31
Speaker 3: federal deficit. And we can make progress on both of those.
38:34
Speaker 3: Lowering families' costs, kind of obvious why you want to
38:36
Speaker 3: do that, right? You want to give people relief when
38:39
Speaker 3: they're seeing these high prices. And we have a lot
38:41
Speaker 3: of tools that we can work with. Just this week,
38:44
Speaker 3: we announced a program to reduce the cost of high-speed internet,
38:48
Speaker 3: broadband bills for 50 million Americans. People pay $ 100, $ 150
38:51
Speaker 3: a month to have high-speed internet As we know, particularly
38:56
Speaker 3: now in a pandemic affected world, having access to high
38:58
Speaker 3: speed Internet is is a basic necessity to working, to engaging,
39:03
Speaker 3: to engaging the educational system. We're going to bring that
39:06
Speaker 3: cost down for 50 million people by 50, 60, 70
39:12
Speaker 3: dollars a month. And for a lot of them, we're
39:14
Speaker 3: going to make that free. We have the tools to
39:16
Speaker 3: do that in our own power. Yesterday, the president was
39:19
Speaker 3: out at a farm, and he was announcing steps to
39:22
Speaker 3: increase the amount of production that US farmers and growers
39:27
Speaker 3: can yield this year. More wheat, more corn. That's good
39:31
Speaker 3: for prices because it means there's more supply of product
39:34
Speaker 3: on the market. It's also good for farmers and rural
39:36
Speaker 3: communities because it gives them more economic opportunity. We can
39:39
Speaker 3: take steps like this, steps like working with our ports,
39:43
Speaker 3: working with our truckers to move goods more quickly and
39:45
Speaker 3: more cheaply across the economy. And we're doing that. We're
39:48
Speaker 3: moving out on that. But as you said, there's also
39:50
Speaker 3: some steps that we need Congress's help on, like lowering
39:52
Speaker 3: the cost of prescription drugs. We could, by allowing Medicare
39:56
Speaker 3: to negotiate better prescription drug prices, lower the cost of
39:59
Speaker 3: prescription drugs and also lower the deficit, as I mentioned.
40:02
Speaker 3: It would reduce the amount of money the federal government
40:04
Speaker 3: has to pay in Medicare for drugs as well. So
40:07
Speaker 3: there are some places where we're going to need some
40:08
Speaker 3: help from Congress, but there's also places we can move
40:10
Speaker 3: on our own.
40:11
Speaker 2: One idea that is, I think, largely within your power
40:14
Speaker 2: that's being pushed by a lot of economists out there,
40:17
Speaker 2: including our old colleague, Larry Summers, is reducing or removing
40:21
Speaker 2: some tariffs on Chinese goods headed to America. I understand
40:26
Speaker 2: the political argument against that. What's the substantive argument against that?
40:29
Speaker 2: Larry argues, I think, that it would reduce the consumer
40:31
Speaker 2: price index, maybe a point to do that. I don't
40:34
Speaker 2: want to ask you why Larry is wrong, but what's
40:36
Speaker 2: the argument against that or why you guys haven't done
40:38
Speaker 2: that yet?
40:39
Speaker 3: Well, it's something that we're looking at. We're actively analyzing,
40:42
Speaker 3: like any idea. We're pragmatic. The president said inflation is
40:45
Speaker 3: his top priority. So we'll look at any idea wherever
40:48
Speaker 3: it comes from. In practice, what you're looking at when
40:51
Speaker 3: you're looking at tariffs is what will happen when you
40:54
Speaker 3: reduce the tariff on a good and how much of
40:57
Speaker 3: that reduction in the tariff will go to the consumer.
41:01
Speaker 3: If you're buying a toys for your kid at the store,
41:07
Speaker 3: if you reduce the tariff on that, how much of
41:08
Speaker 3: that goes to you and how much of that goes
41:10
Speaker 3: to the company? And that has to do with how
41:13
Speaker 3: much demand there are for the products, where the products
41:17
Speaker 3: are made other than in the country where the tariff
41:19
Speaker 3: is applied. So you have to look at all of
41:21
Speaker 3: these and balance these things out. There are different estimates
41:24
Speaker 3: of the impact. At the end of the day, none
41:26
Speaker 3: of these steps, to be clear, none of these steps,
41:29
Speaker 3: reducing tariffs, reducing internet bills, none of them on their
41:32
Speaker 3: own is going to be sufficient to bring prices down
41:35
Speaker 3: in the immediate term. There is no magic bullet. There's
41:37
Speaker 3: no single policy tool to do this. But we're trying
41:41
Speaker 3: to look at every sensible step that we can take.
41:44
Speaker 3: And to do that consistent with the president's values. And
41:47
Speaker 3: it is important that even though inflation is top of
41:50
Speaker 3: mind for everybody and top of mind for the president,
41:52
Speaker 3: that we not lose sight of these underlying economic strengths.
41:55
Speaker 3: They did not happen just on their own. It was
41:57
Speaker 3: because Democrats and this president put in place an economic
42:00
Speaker 3: agenda that prioritized strong economic growth and strong growth and
42:05
Speaker 3: job opportunities, particularly for lower income working class people in
42:09
Speaker 3: this country. And that strength is something that we want
42:12
Speaker 3: to build on. We don't want to jettison. We don't
42:13
Speaker 3: want to lose track of that, even as we look
42:15
Speaker 3: at how we can address prices.
42:17
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the sort of broader questions
42:20
Speaker 2: and concerns a lot of people have is the traditional,
42:22
Speaker 2: it's been a very long time since we have confronted inflation.
42:26
Speaker 2: In the past, the idea was the Fed, and I'm
42:29
Speaker 2: not going to ask you to comment on the Feds,
42:30
Speaker 2: but the idea was that you slow demand, right? You
42:33
Speaker 2: slow the economy down, which has consequences for a lot
42:36
Speaker 2: of the people that, you know, whether it's wage growth
42:39
Speaker 2: or in some, you know, food industry or service industry,
42:42
Speaker 2: consequences for people that President Biden has talked a lot
42:44
Speaker 2: about helping. How do you find that balance between maintaining
42:47
Speaker 2: that growth, that strength, the job market and addressing inflation?
42:51
Speaker 2: Is there a new sort of a third way approach,
42:53
Speaker 2: a different way approach than the old sort of 1980s
42:57
Speaker 2: Paul Volcker way of doing this?
43:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say two things to that. The first is
43:01
Speaker 3: the Fed has an important role to play. They're in
43:04
Speaker 3: the midst of doing that, and it is important that
43:06
Speaker 3: they have the independence to do what they need to do.
43:11
Speaker 3: One thing that we have really talked about is how
43:13
Speaker 3: can we build more space and more capacity on the
43:18
Speaker 3: supply side of the economy? It's sort of a progressive
43:22
Speaker 3: approach to supply-side economics, which has traditionally been the coin
43:26
Speaker 3: of the realm for conservatives. And what that means is
43:29
Speaker 3: that if we can actually create more in our economy
43:35
Speaker 3: and we can have more people working, we can produce
43:37
Speaker 3: more goods and more services in the economy, we can
43:40
Speaker 3: reduce price pressures and also build on some of those
43:44
Speaker 3: economic strengths. So you take the issue of cars. I
43:46
Speaker 3: know this has been talked about a lot, but I
43:48
Speaker 3: think it's an example that illustrates where we are right now.
43:50
Speaker 3: The reason why car prices are as high as they
43:53
Speaker 3: are is because we're not building enough cars. We have
43:56
Speaker 3: a problem on the supply side. And the reason for
43:58
Speaker 3: that is we don't have enough semiconductors, the computer chips
44:01
Speaker 3: that go into cars. If we can accelerate the production
44:04
Speaker 3: of semiconductors, particularly in places other than China, particularly in
44:07
Speaker 3: places with more secure supply chains, and that allows us
44:11
Speaker 3: to build more cars, that will reduce prices and it
44:15
Speaker 3: will put more people to work. It means there's more
44:16
Speaker 3: job opportunities as well. You can replicate that on housing.
44:20
Speaker 3: We have a real problem of affordable housing in this
44:23
Speaker 3: country right now. Rents are too high. Housing prices are high.
44:26
Speaker 3: That's good for homeowners, but it's a problem for people
44:28
Speaker 3: who are looking for homes. What we need to do
44:31
Speaker 3: is we need to build more affordable housing. We need
44:34
Speaker 3: to operate on the supply side, more supply of housing.
44:38
Speaker 3: If we do that, that'll help bring prices down, but
44:40
Speaker 3: also put more people to work in the context as well.
44:44
Speaker 3: That is a very different approach than the sort of
44:48
Speaker 3: traditional Republican approach, which is the actual Republican approach right
44:52
Speaker 3: now of congressional Republicans, which is to say, The principal
44:55
Speaker 3: thing we need to do is to make working Americans poorer.
45:01
Speaker 3: Their current version of that is to increase taxes, have
45:06
Speaker 3: working Americans pay higher taxes, about $ 1, 500 more for people
45:10
Speaker 3: making less than $ 100, 000 a year. That is kind of
45:12
Speaker 3: a traditional view that we need to reduce the purchasing
45:16
Speaker 3: power of working class people as a way to advance
45:20
Speaker 3: the economy. I think building on operating on the supply
45:23
Speaker 3: side is one important answer and alternative to that.
45:26
Speaker 2: Speaking of supply chain issues, there is a ton of
45:30
Speaker 2: coverage and attention right now given the shortage in baby formula.
45:34
Speaker 2: You have parents rationing formula, people driving hours of stores.
45:37
Speaker 2: Could you just help explain why that's happening and what
45:41
Speaker 2: the Biden administration is trying to do to help alleviate
45:43
Speaker 2: that bottleneck? No pun intended, obviously. Absolutely.
45:47
Speaker 3: And it's right on my mind because as we're recording this,
45:50
Speaker 3: I will end this and walk downstairs and the president
45:53
Speaker 3: is going to be on the phone with major retailers,
45:57
Speaker 3: Target and Walmart and manufacturers of baby formula to try
46:01
Speaker 3: to move the ball. The reason why this is happening
46:04
Speaker 3: is because the FDA identified that there was a plant
46:06
Speaker 3: that made baby formula, particularly specialized baby formula, that was
46:11
Speaker 3: not meeting safety standards. And obviously, you know, in something
46:14
Speaker 3: as critical as baby formula, it's important that we maintain
46:17
Speaker 3: the highest standards of safety. That plant shut down to
46:21
Speaker 3: address those safety issues that created problems in terms of supply,
46:26
Speaker 3: and that has been compounded by some of the supply
46:28
Speaker 3: chain challenges we've faced. So we're working on a couple
46:32
Speaker 3: of angles. The first is Just make it easier to
46:36
Speaker 3: get formula in as many places to as many people
46:39
Speaker 3: as possible. There are a lot of restrictions about baby formula, understandably, appropriately,
46:43
Speaker 3: safety and health restrictions about what type of formula can
46:46
Speaker 3: be sold in what context. In immediate circumstances like this,
46:51
Speaker 3: relaxing some of those without sacrificing safety is an important
46:54
Speaker 3: thing to do. We're working on allowing more imports from
46:57
Speaker 3: European countries, for example, where they do have high safety standards,
47:01
Speaker 3: trying to get more product in immediately. And importantly, the
47:04
Speaker 3: president will today ask the federal regulators, the FTC, working
47:10
Speaker 3: with state attorneys general, to really increase our focus on
47:13
Speaker 3: price gouging. We're seeing some really unfortunate and illegal circumstance
47:19
Speaker 3: where people are going buying baby formula and then selling
47:21
Speaker 3: it online at exorbitant prices, taking advantage of the shortfall
47:26
Speaker 3: in supply. And so we're going to take some action
47:29
Speaker 3: today to really try to crack down on that as well.
47:33
Speaker 2: I'm sure that there's an element of probably painful deja
47:36
Speaker 2: vu for you from your time working for President Obama.
47:39
Speaker 2: Back then, you helped President Obama during the campaign figure
47:41
Speaker 2: out what his economic policy platform would be, what he
47:44
Speaker 2: would do when he got in office. That a crisis
47:46
Speaker 2: created and exacerbated by his predecessor caused you to rip
47:50
Speaker 2: up a lot of those plans and focus on stemming
47:52
Speaker 2: the crisis. Similar situation with President Biden with the pandemic
47:56
Speaker 2: continuing to persist. I mean, just a parade of problems
48:02
Speaker 2: that have happened that are beyond your guys' control. You know,
48:05
Speaker 2: what often I think gets lost in that because of
48:07
Speaker 2: the need to address crisis after crisis is like, what
48:10
Speaker 2: is the central issue? economic vision or philosophy of the president.
48:14
Speaker 2: Obama spent years trying to dig out from under that
48:18
Speaker 2: from having to focus on a stimulus first as opposed
48:21
Speaker 2: to a giant tax cut for working people. Obviously, we're
48:25
Speaker 2: going to have a big discussion in the coming months
48:27
Speaker 2: and years about President Biden's economic philosophy versus that of Republicans.
48:32
Speaker 2: He started that conversation last week. How would you define
48:35
Speaker 2: Bidenomics or Biden's approach to the economy I do.
48:39
Speaker 3: I associate myself with that frustration. But I also think
48:41
Speaker 3: that President Biden has been remarkably consistent on this front.
48:45
Speaker 3: The way he describes it is he wants to build
48:48
Speaker 3: an economy from the bottom up and the middle out.
48:50
Speaker 3: And that's a very, I think, straightforward and colloquial way
48:53
Speaker 3: of describing in economic terms where what you're trying to
48:57
Speaker 3: do is create more power and more opportunity and more security.
49:03
Speaker 3: for the bottom half of the income distribution and middle-class families,
49:07
Speaker 3: based on a theory that if you can actually build
49:09
Speaker 3: that type of economic opportunity, the entire economy is gonna
49:14
Speaker 3: do better. And he contrasts that with kind of conventional
49:18
Speaker 3: trickle-down economics. that in his view, his argument is that
49:23
Speaker 3: we have run the experiment of trickle-down economics for decades,
49:27
Speaker 3: and it has consistently shown that it's failed, that if
49:29
Speaker 3: you focus on trying to reduce restrictions for companies and
49:32
Speaker 3: those at the top, that somehow the benefits would redound
49:35
Speaker 3: to everybody. And therefore... this bottom-up approach is central. And
49:39
Speaker 3: you can see that in the way that he approached
49:41
Speaker 3: the crisis response. So you're right, he had to pivot
49:43
Speaker 3: and he had to focus on immediate crisis measures, but
49:45
Speaker 3: always in our economic policy has been a focus on
49:48
Speaker 3: trying to help those people who are just trying to
49:52
Speaker 3: make it, make their life a little easier. As Joe
49:55
Speaker 3: Biden would say, give them a little more breathing room.
49:58
Speaker 3: And we have seen that work, that part of the
50:00
Speaker 3: strength of this economic recovery and labor market is a
50:03
Speaker 3: result of those policies. A lot of the things that
50:06
Speaker 3: we aren't talking about today, we're not talking about a
50:08
Speaker 3: really slow return to employment. We're not talking about long-term unemployment.
50:13
Speaker 3: Long-term unemployment has come down the fastest in modern history.
50:17
Speaker 3: We're not talking about the kind of scarring of people
50:19
Speaker 3: who are usually at the margins of our economy and structurally,
50:25
Speaker 3: people of color and women who are structurally often impeded
50:28
Speaker 3: from making progress. We're seeing that play out. but we
50:32
Speaker 3: have more work to do on that front. And that's
50:34
Speaker 3: what is animating, uh, you know, that's, what's animating his approach,
50:38
Speaker 3: even as we have to deal with these crises, even
50:41
Speaker 3: as we're dealing with the war, uh, in Ukraine and
50:44
Speaker 3: global supply shocks to try to stay focused on that
50:47
Speaker 3: North star.
50:47
Speaker 2: Last question for you. Um, the white house put out
50:51
Speaker 2: a video, uh, earlier this week that included, uh, president
50:55
Speaker 2: talking to Chris Smalls who helped organize, uh, an Amazon warehouse, uh,
51:01
Speaker 2: President Biden has talked a lot and sort of been
51:03
Speaker 2: very proactive in talking about the importance of labor unions.
51:07
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about what the importance
51:09
Speaker 2: of labor unions, what the Biden administration is doing to
51:13
Speaker 2: help support the labor movement, and just sort of maybe
51:16
Speaker 2: what this moment where you're seeing organizing at Amazon and
51:18
Speaker 2: Starbucks and elsewhere maybe means for sort of the economic
51:22
Speaker 2: approach the president has?
51:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an extraordinary moment. And you're right, the president
51:27
Speaker 3: has been very clear and consistent with his position on this.
51:31
Speaker 3: And it connects to bottom up and middle out. A
51:33
Speaker 3: big part of that for the president, his economic philosophy
51:37
Speaker 3: is that when workers have more power and when they
51:40
Speaker 3: have more voice, we end up with better outcomes for
51:43
Speaker 3: middle class families. And unions and organizing is at the
51:47
Speaker 3: center of that. From an economic perspective, unionization helps to
51:53
Speaker 3: balance this, what we've seen for many years of the
51:58
Speaker 3: disproportionate share of overall company profits going to capital rather
52:03
Speaker 3: than labor, and labor having less and less power. And
52:08
Speaker 3: unionization is the most proven effective tool to actually create
52:12
Speaker 3: better outcomes and more of a balance between labor and capital.
52:16
Speaker 3: In practice, we are seeing a real resurgence, a resurgence
52:20
Speaker 3: of excitement, enthusiasm, and organizing in across the board, across America.
52:25
Speaker 3: It's happening in places that you're seeing and you really
52:29
Speaker 3: would expect, and then other places where you wouldn't as well.
52:32
Speaker 3: And what we're trying to do and what President Biden
52:34
Speaker 3: is trying to do is be very consistent, that he
52:38
Speaker 3: is a capitalist from your great state of Delaware, but
52:44
Speaker 3: that he is also intent on being the most pro-union
52:47
Speaker 3: president in history because The more opportunities there are for organizing,
52:52
Speaker 3: the more opportunities there are for collective bargaining, the more
52:57
Speaker 3: opportunity we're going to create for families to have that
53:00
Speaker 3: economic security, and that companies do well in those circumstances,
53:04
Speaker 3: that you don't actually have to create a zero-sum trade-off.
53:08
Speaker 3: So we're doing that in how we implement the infrastructure law.
53:11
Speaker 3: We're doing that in terms of how we use federal
53:13
Speaker 3: purchasing power and contracts, and how we how we implement
53:18
Speaker 3: the law. The last thing I'll say really important, the
53:22
Speaker 3: law of the land in the United States is not
53:24
Speaker 3: to be neutral. The law of the United States is
53:27
Speaker 3: that the administration is supposed to promote collective bargaining, encourage
53:32
Speaker 3: collective bargaining. Now that's not require it, that's not intervene
53:36
Speaker 3: in individual labor management disputes, but to encourage it, to
53:40
Speaker 3: encourage that it is a affirmatively good thing if workers
53:44
Speaker 3: have more of those opportunities in this economy, and that'll
53:47
Speaker 3: continue to be a key part of his, the President's approach.
53:50
Speaker 2: Brian Deese, thanks so much for joining us, and good
53:53
Speaker 2: luck out there.
53:53
Speaker 1: Thanks, Tim. Before we go, Donald Trump went one for
54:06
Speaker 1: two in this week's Republican primaries. In West Virginia, Republican
54:10
Speaker 1: Congressman Alex Mooney, endorsed by Trump, defeated Republican Congressman David McKinley.
54:15
Speaker 1: endorsed by Joe Manchin, with 54.2% of the vote. Mooney
54:19
Speaker 1: got Trump's endorsement after McKinley voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill,
54:24
Speaker 1: and the reason the two of them are running against
54:25
Speaker 1: each other in a primary is because redistricting took one
54:28
Speaker 1: seat away from West Virginia, so the two of them
54:31
Speaker 1: had to run against each other. In Nebraska, Charles Herbster,
54:35
Speaker 1: endorsed by Trump and accused of sexual assault by eight
54:37
Speaker 1: different women, was defeated by Jim Pillen, who was endorsed
54:40
Speaker 1: by outgoing Republican Governor Pete Ricketts. Dan, what, if anything,
54:46
Speaker 1: And I emphasize, if anything, can we learn from these results?
54:50
Speaker 2: Nothing.
54:51
Speaker 1: There we go.
54:52
Speaker 2: Nothing. I find the entire race-by-race measurements of Donald Trump's
55:02
Speaker 2: strength based on these results to be so fucking stupid
55:04
Speaker 2: and shallow, it's hard to take.
55:08
Speaker 1: Here's why I think they're interesting. I think it matters
55:13
Speaker 1: which Republicans win these primaries. Because I think the more extreme, look,
55:17
Speaker 1: it's always a tough situation. The more extreme the Republican,
55:21
Speaker 1: oftentimes in a competitive state or competitive district, the easier
55:27
Speaker 1: time a Democrat may have to beat them in the
55:29
Speaker 1: general election. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes. So it is
55:32
Speaker 1: interesting to find out which of these Republicans actually win
55:35
Speaker 1: the primary. I think that matters. Figuring out which one
55:39
Speaker 1: wins as a test of Donald Trump's strength is not
55:42
Speaker 1: as clear cut.
55:44
Speaker 2: I mean, Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to be
55:46
Speaker 2: the Republican nominee. He was the overwhelming favorite to be
55:48
Speaker 2: the nominee before J.D. Vance won. He is still the
55:51
Speaker 2: overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee after Charles Herbster loses.
55:56
Speaker 2: Whatever happens in Pennsylvania next week, whether his candidate, Dr. Oz,
56:00
Speaker 2: comes in first or third, it's not going to change
56:02
Speaker 2: the dynamic. What is true is that all of these
56:08
Speaker 2: candidates that are winning, whether Trump endorsed them or not.
56:11
Speaker 2: Every candidate in this Pennsylvania primary, every candidate in that
56:14
Speaker 2: Ohio primary are people who have the same MAGA extreme
56:21
Speaker 2: philosophy as Trump. Like this is, it's not about Trump.
56:24
Speaker 2: It's about Trump.
56:25
Speaker 1: They all bent the knee.
56:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's like, but they didn't bend the knee
56:28
Speaker 2: to Trump. That's where I think, like we make this
56:30
Speaker 2: about Trump when it's, they bent the knee to an
56:34
Speaker 2: extreme faction of the Republican party that happened to be
56:36
Speaker 2: the extreme faction that picked Donald Trump to be the
56:39
Speaker 2: Republican nominee in 2016. And that's the, where I think
56:42
Speaker 2: this is a little bit backwards, like which one of
56:45
Speaker 2: the MAGA lunatics wins the Ohio primary may make a
56:49
Speaker 2: difference in terms of who is easier for a Democrat
56:51
Speaker 2: to run against, but it doesn't tell you anything. All
56:54
Speaker 2: it tells you is that MAGA extremism or ultra MAGA
56:57
Speaker 2: as Biden would call it or whatever is that, that
57:00
Speaker 2: is what, that is mainstream Republicanism now, right? That's the rule,
57:03
Speaker 2: not the exception.
57:05
Speaker 1: Is there a MAGA that's not Ultra? Like, I'm now
57:07
Speaker 1: so confused. They're all just MAGA. MAGA is MAGA. It's bad.
57:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is no, we're like, oh, he's just.
57:15
Speaker 1: He's just regular MAGA. Who's regular MAGA? Who's regular MAGA,
57:19
Speaker 1: but not ultra MAGA?
57:20
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I mean, I like is like, I
57:22
Speaker 2: don't know.
57:23
Speaker 1: It's like David McCormick, regular MAGA now. He's original strength.
57:26
Speaker 2: He's original strength MAGA.
57:27
Speaker 1: Original strength because he was married to, because he was
57:29
Speaker 1: married to Rhino Dina Powell, you know, and so he's
57:32
Speaker 1: a hedge fund guy. So he's just regular MAGA, even
57:34
Speaker 1: though they worked, she worked in the administration. Who knows?
57:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
57:36
Speaker 1: Trump did get one more non-primary related big win this week.
57:40
Speaker 1: Elon Musk said that if when his deal to buy
57:42
Speaker 1: Twitter goes through, he plans to reinstate Trump's account. It's happening, Dan.
57:47
Speaker 1: And former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is the one
57:50
Speaker 1: who made the fucking decision to ban Trump in the
57:52
Speaker 1: first place, said the ban was a mistake. That fucking guy.
57:57
Speaker 1: What do you think? Trump's coming back.
58:01
Speaker 2: I mean, we have had like a half... joking conversation,
58:06
Speaker 2: both on this podcast, off this podcast about it's the
58:09
Speaker 2: fact that it seems like Trump's ban from Twitter has
58:12
Speaker 2: not hurt him and probably helped him. You know, it's been,
58:14
Speaker 2: it's sort of like the cone they put around the
58:16
Speaker 2: dog's neck to keep them from hurting themselves. His ability
58:20
Speaker 2: to make himself look like an ass is dramatically restricted
58:24
Speaker 2: without Twitter.
58:24
Speaker 1: Because again, He's trying to scratch himself. He's trying his hardest.
58:28
Speaker 1: He just can't get there.
58:29
Speaker 2: And his crazy, overly long, poorly edited, insane statements just
58:34
Speaker 2: get a fraction of the coverage a tweet would. That
58:39
Speaker 2: fact says something not particularly, I think, complimentary about American
58:43
Speaker 2: political media, that because it's not in Twitter, it's not news.
58:46
Speaker 2: But I think ultimately the fact that Donald Trump used
58:50
Speaker 2: Twitter to... incite a violent attack on the Capitol and
58:54
Speaker 2: he's going to return to the platform kind of maybe
58:57
Speaker 2: I think makes all of us reassess how we think
58:59
Speaker 2: about dealing with the prevalence of hatred, violence, MAGA messaging, extremism, racism, homophobia. misogyny,
59:10
Speaker 2: all of that on those platforms. Because basically since Donald
59:13
Speaker 2: Trump came around, like the move of sort of the
59:16
Speaker 2: progressive mainstream has been to try to pressure the platforms
59:20
Speaker 2: and the networks to restrict, to move away from that speech, right? To,
59:26
Speaker 2: you know, we're going to convince enough advertisers to take,
59:29
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson off the air. We're going to try to
59:32
Speaker 2: get pressure Facebook to take Alex Jones down or YouTube
59:37
Speaker 2: to take down other various conspiracy sites. And that's not
59:42
Speaker 2: the wrong thing to do because these companies have rules.
59:46
Speaker 2: And when they violate them to appease demagogues, they should
59:50
Speaker 2: be under pressure for that if you're a company. Same
59:51
Speaker 2: thing with companies, right? If you say you put out
59:53
Speaker 2: a statement about diversity and then you donate to Ron
59:57
Speaker 2: DeSantis' efforts to bully gay and trans kids. You should
1:00:01
Speaker 2: be called out for that. But in the end, that
1:00:04
Speaker 2: is a strategy that depends on billionaire tech moguls and
1:00:09
Speaker 2: corporations having good faith in doing something out of the
1:00:14
Speaker 2: goodness of their heart. And there's no precedent in history
1:00:16
Speaker 2: that that is a strategy of success.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: We either build the majorities and the power to regulate
1:00:23
Speaker 1: them or we're just yelling into the void here at
1:00:27
Speaker 1: this point. Like Elon, it's a private company. Elon Musk
1:00:30
Speaker 1: is going to fucking do what he wants to do.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: And it sucks. But like, just from, it's, it's more like, yeah,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: should it happen? Should Donald Trump be allowed on Twitter? No,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: of course not. But like, it's going to happen because
1:00:42
Speaker 1: it's a private company. Elon Musk is going to like
1:00:43
Speaker 1: do whatever the fuck he wants. The political fallout from that,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: I would argue like you just did, is not necessarily
1:00:49
Speaker 1: favorable to Donald Trump. He was kicked off Twitter and
1:00:53
Speaker 1: he currently has his highest favorability rating of all time
1:00:56
Speaker 1: right now. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe it's
1:01:00
Speaker 1: just a coincidence. Maybe it's just coincidence, but why are
1:01:04
Speaker 1: so many Republican strategists who are in competitive races all
1:01:07
Speaker 1: across the country telling reporters that they're terrified of Trump
1:01:11
Speaker 1: returning to Twitter?
1:01:13
Speaker 2: So what I think is very much agreed that there
1:01:16
Speaker 2: is a regulatory response to this that is, I think,
1:01:19
Speaker 2: focus not on how you ban individual people because.
1:01:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't do that. That's not a realistic- We're.
1:01:25
Speaker 2: Playing whack-a-mole, right? But there's a lot, and our former boss,
1:01:30
Speaker 2: President Obama, talked about some of these in a speech
1:01:32
Speaker 2: recently where it's like transparency from the companies on the algorithms,
1:01:35
Speaker 2: some reforms to the Section 230 laws, all of that.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: But I think the bigger thing, and that's the job
1:01:40
Speaker 2: for Biden's FTC and elected enough senators to pass laws
1:01:43
Speaker 2: and all of that. But I think from the progressive side,
1:01:46
Speaker 2: instead of trying to muffle the right wing megaphone is
1:01:50
Speaker 2: we have to build up our megaphone, right? Like that,
1:01:53
Speaker 2: like instead of trying to like moderate, moderate their content,
1:01:56
Speaker 2: amplify ours, create more of ours. Like we have to
1:01:59
Speaker 2: match them pound for pound.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: Don't quit and run away from Twitter. Stay on Twitter
1:02:04
Speaker 1: and fight.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: Also, also check out offline this week.
1:02:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you. I didn't even, I should have even
1:02:13
Speaker 1: spoken of speaking of offline, speaking of offline. You brought
1:02:16
Speaker 1: up a story to talk about today that you said
1:02:18
Speaker 1: you were sick of hearing about, and I hadn't even
1:02:21
Speaker 1: heard a thing about it. So maybe offline is working
1:02:23
Speaker 1: for me. This is the Rolling Stones story, apparently, that
1:02:29
Speaker 1: early in Trump's presidency, he asked his national security team
1:02:31
Speaker 1: if China had secret technology that would allow them to
1:02:34
Speaker 1: create large man-made hurricanes and then launch them at the
1:02:37
Speaker 1: United States. The first time I heard about this. Where
1:02:41
Speaker 1: was I?
1:02:43
Speaker 2: You were offline.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: I was offline. I don't think I was off. I
1:02:47
Speaker 1: think I'm doing too many podcasts maybe.
1:02:49
Speaker 2: That is for sure.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: That's a wild story. A hurricane gun. Maybe if he
1:02:55
Speaker 1: was back on Twitter, we'd know this because he'd probably
1:02:57
Speaker 1: comment on the hurricane gun. We'd all hear about it.
1:03:00
Speaker 2: You wouldn't have to turn to America's most legendary music
1:03:03
Speaker 2: magazine to read about gossip about the previous president.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: One more development for Donald Trump that is also not
1:03:09
Speaker 1: a win. This happened just as we were recording. Federal
1:03:12
Speaker 1: prosecutors have begun a grand jury investigation into whether classified
1:03:15
Speaker 1: White House documents that ended up at Donald Trump's Florida
1:03:18
Speaker 1: home were mishandled. Breaking news. And, you know, my first
1:03:23
Speaker 1: thought was, look, if a candidate who's running for president
1:03:26
Speaker 1: is under federal investigation for potentially mishandling classified info, the
1:03:31
Speaker 1: one thing we know for sure is that reporters everywhere
1:03:34
Speaker 1: will be consumed with this story the entire race.
1:03:37
Speaker 2: I mean, there is probably 50 New York Times reporters
1:03:41
Speaker 2: right now Working on the story. I bet the editors
1:03:43
Speaker 2: right now.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: This is all Ken Vogel is going to talk about
1:03:46
Speaker 1: and write about for the next two years.
1:03:48
Speaker 2: I mean, right now they are trying to figure out
1:03:50
Speaker 2: how to get that giant headline that will be exactly
1:03:53
Speaker 2: the same size as the headline about Jim Comey's announcement
1:03:56
Speaker 2: in October of 2016 atop the New York Times front
1:04:00
Speaker 2: page for tomorrow. But look, I don't want to prejudge
1:04:04
Speaker 2: an ongoing criminal investigation, but if classified documents ended up
1:04:08
Speaker 2: at Mar-a-Lago, by definition, they were mishandled.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: Seems mishandled. Doesn't seem like they just, uh-oh, the classified
1:04:15
Speaker 1: documents got up and ran out of the White House
1:04:17
Speaker 1: and ended up in Mar-a-Lago. It's an honest mistake.
1:04:20
Speaker 2: Government regulators are looking into how samples of the Ebola
1:04:24
Speaker 2: vaccine got in someone's home. Were they mishandled? Yes, they
1:04:27
Speaker 2: were mishandled if they were in someone's home.
1:04:29
Speaker 1: Also, another piece of breaking news. Apparently, the January 6th
1:04:33
Speaker 1: committee just handed out subpoenas to Kevin McCarthy and some
1:04:36
Speaker 1: of the Freedom Caucus members. loonies so that's something and
1:04:40
Speaker 1: as we know from i'm sure they'll comply as we.
1:04:43
Speaker 2: Know from impeachments one and two subpoenas are always enforceable
1:04:47
Speaker 2: mechanisms with very quick results so.
1:04:51
Speaker 1: Well we will be talking to the man who got
1:04:53
Speaker 1: uh his hands on some audio tapes of kevin mccarthy
1:04:56
Speaker 1: uh jonathan martin about his book his new book this
1:04:59
Speaker 1: will not pass on monday's pod save america so how
1:05:01
Speaker 1: about that that'll be exciting hopefully he saved some news
1:05:04
Speaker 1: for us i'm sure he did Bring the tapes, J-Mart.
1:05:08
Speaker 1: Bring the tapes. Bring other tapes. I want tapes that
1:05:12
Speaker 1: people haven't heard yet on Monday's Pod Save America, J-Mart.
1:05:15
Speaker 1: Let's do that. Thank you to Brian Deese for joining
1:05:19
Speaker 1: us today. Thanks to all of you. Again, go to votesaveamerica.com
1:05:23
Speaker 1: slash row to sign up and help out. Everyone have
1:05:26
Speaker 1: a good weekend, and we'll see you next week.
1:05:28
Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:05:36
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
1:05:43
Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
1:05:46
Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to
1:05:49
Speaker 1: Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
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Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
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