Latest / Pod Save America / “The Great Impeachment Bake Off.”

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“The Great Impeachment Bake Off.” · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Tommy Vitor here. I'm hosting a new podcast
0:02
Speaker 1: called World Corrupt with my friend Roger Bennett from the
0:05
Speaker 1: Men in Blazers podcast. Soccer is a game that is
0:07
Speaker 1: often called the world's most important, least important thing. Yet
0:10
Speaker 1: November's World Cup will force fans to confront and grapple
0:12
Speaker 1: with the complexities of the tournament.
0:14
Speaker 2: It was awarded via corruption and built.
0:16
Speaker 1: With atrocious labor practices that have left reported 6,500 migrant
0:19
Speaker 1: workers dead. Each week on World Corrupt, Roger and I
0:22
Speaker 1: will explore what it means to be a fan and
0:24
Speaker 1: responsible citizen of the world while watching the world's most
0:26
Speaker 1: popular sporting event. New episodes of World Corrupt drop each
0:29
Speaker 1: Saturday in the Pod Save the World feed.
0:32
Speaker 3: World Corrupt Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:54
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:55
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:57
Speaker 4: All of us have a different tone and I forgot
0:59
Speaker 4: my name.
0:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, look, we haven't done this in
1:01
Speaker 3: a while.
1:01
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
1:01
Speaker 3: It's been a couple of days.
1:03
Speaker 5: On today's pod, we'll talk about what's at stake in
1:05
Speaker 5: the next phase of impeachment and we'll check in on
1:07
Speaker 5: a 2020 primary that is as unsettled as ever heading
1:11
Speaker 5: into the final two months before the Iowa caucuses. We
1:14
Speaker 5: are two months away. Almost exactly. Speaking of Iowa. Tommy,
1:21
Speaker 5: I believe you have a new episode out tomorrow. You
1:22
Speaker 5: want to tell us what this one's about?
1:24
Speaker 4: I do, John.
1:25
Speaker 1: Well, episode three, we're going to check back in with
1:27
Speaker 1: some of the field organizers we've met along the way.
1:30
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the chase for big endorsements.
1:33
Speaker 1: That means elected officials and some people who might surprise you.
1:36
Speaker 1: You'll have to listen to find out. And then we're
1:39
Speaker 1: going to talk about all the reasons people think the
1:41
Speaker 1: Iowa caucuses are terrible, undemocratic, and otherwise shouldn't go first.
1:45
Speaker 6: Cool.
1:46
Speaker 3: All right.
1:46
Speaker 5: Well, tune in, everyone. And of course, we have a
1:49
Speaker 5: favor to ask. Please help fight voter suppression in the
1:52
Speaker 5: 2020 election by donating to Fair Fight, which is Stacey
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Speaker 5: Abrams' organization that has already helped Democrats win in Kentucky
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Speaker 5: and Louisiana. You've already helped us pass 1.5 million. Started
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Speaker 5: to a $ 2 million goal. And on the way to
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Speaker 5: 2 million, we're already at one and a half.
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Speaker 3: We would love you.
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Speaker 5: To help us get to two, get us that last
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Speaker 5: half a million. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash fair fight to
2:19
Speaker 5: chip in today. This is something that really makes a difference,
2:23
Speaker 5: which we've already seen in the 2019 election.
2:25
Speaker 3: That's right.
2:25
Speaker 2: Unless you don't care about that.
2:27
Speaker 4: Right. Unless you want Trump to win.
2:29
Speaker 6: Right.
2:30
Speaker 3: That's right. Okay. Let's get to the news.
2:33
Speaker 5: Today, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff is expected to send
2:38
Speaker 5: his colleagues a draft of the report on their committee's
2:41
Speaker 5: impeachment investigation. I don't think it's going to be too
2:44
Speaker 5: good for Donald Trump.
2:46
Speaker 2: I can't wait to find out where Adam Schiff came
2:48
Speaker 2: down on this whole thing.
2:48
Speaker 3: We're out of the prediction business, but I feel safe
2:51
Speaker 3: on this one.
2:52
Speaker 4: Did you see that shit last week?
2:54
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
2:55
Speaker 5: So he's going to circulate the report. The Intelligence Committee
3:00
Speaker 5: will then vote on whether to approve the report and
3:03
Speaker 5: send it to the House Judiciary Committee, which is the
3:05
Speaker 5: committee charged with drafting articles of impeachment. As they consider this,
3:10
Speaker 5: judiciary will be holding their first impeachment hearing on Wednesday
3:13
Speaker 5: of this week, which seems like it will be a
3:16
Speaker 5: schoolhouse rock for impeachment. They're going to have a bunch
3:19
Speaker 5: of constitutional experts testifying about.
3:21
Speaker 2: It'd be like schoolhouse rock, except if like some of
3:25
Speaker 2: the cartoons were on PCP.
3:27
Speaker 5: Sure.
3:27
Speaker 6: Yeah.
3:28
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
3:29
Speaker 4: Or nerdy professors.
3:29
Speaker 2: Like, how does a bill become a law? Well, first
3:31
Speaker 2: it passed the House, then Matt Gaetz comes at it
3:33
Speaker 2: with a box of pizza for a while.
3:35
Speaker 4: Charges it, yeah.
3:36
Speaker 3: And the biggest goons in.
3:37
Speaker 2: The House all gather together, try to beat it like
3:39
Speaker 2: a piñata.
3:40
Speaker 5: So what they're going to try to do is have
3:42
Speaker 5: a number of constitutional experts testify on what constitutes an
3:45
Speaker 5: impeachable offense and what the process should look like. Guys,
3:50
Speaker 5: what do we think the goals are for House Democrats
3:53
Speaker 5: in this next phase of impeachment? What is sort of
3:57
Speaker 5: an ideal process look like from now until the full
4:00
Speaker 5: House votes on articles of impeachment?
4:03
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure. I mean, look, so this this
4:06
Speaker 1: hearing on the fourth is this panel of constitutional experts.
4:10
Speaker 1: They're going to focus on defining an impeachable offense, which
4:13
Speaker 1: I guess is setting the mood music to understand why
4:17
Speaker 1: the charges against President Trump are in fact impeachable.
4:20
Speaker 3: Like like Lovett, I'm.
4:22
Speaker 1: Less than hopeful that it's going to be a staid
4:26
Speaker 1: and thoughtful, substantive affair.
4:28
Speaker 4: I think it will probably be.
4:30
Speaker 3: And why is that?
4:31
Speaker 1: Because you have goobers like Louie Gohmert, Matt Geitz, Jim Jordan,
4:36
Speaker 1: and Doug Collins. Those are four Republican members of Congress
4:38
Speaker 1: who are four of the worst of the worst people
4:41
Speaker 1: in the entire body who are going to do everything
4:43
Speaker 1: they can to distract, to make stupid process arguments, to
4:47
Speaker 1: otherwise trip up Jerry Nadler, who You know, like, let's
4:50
Speaker 1: hope he is as good at this as Adam Schiff was,
4:53
Speaker 1: but I think it'll be harder because of the Judiciary
4:55
Speaker 1: Committee's makeup and rules.
4:57
Speaker 4: So, you know, he won't be able to rule with
4:59
Speaker 4: an iron fist the way Schiff was.
5:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess part of it is that
5:02
Speaker 2: the Judiciary Committee now has to do two things. So
5:04
Speaker 2: on the one hand, it's like Adam Schiff and the
5:07
Speaker 2: Democrats just spent, like, it was like a Great British
5:10
Speaker 2: Bake Off and they made, like, a beautiful cake. And
5:14
Speaker 2: now the Judiciary Committee is going to kind of, like,
5:16
Speaker 2: cut it up and serve it and be like... Is
5:17
Speaker 2: it a technical challenge? This was a technical challenge. They
5:20
Speaker 2: did not know what was going to be in their baskets.
5:23
Speaker 4: Who was the showstopper?
5:24
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question. Who was a showstopper? I think patriotism. No,
5:32
Speaker 2: I guess we just don't totally understand what the judiciary
5:36
Speaker 2: views its role. What is success for the Judiciary Committee?
5:38
Speaker 2: Is it simply kind of taking what Adam Schiff did
5:41
Speaker 2: in the committee and putting it on the legal legs?
5:45
Speaker 2: Or are we going to hear a bunch of other
5:48
Speaker 2: impeachable offenses. We learned, uh, last week or the week
5:51
Speaker 2: before time runs together that they were going to look
5:53
Speaker 2: into some of the lies that Donald Trump may have
5:54
Speaker 2: put in writing in the Mueller report. Like, I guess
5:56
Speaker 2: we just don't fully understand the scope of what judiciary
5:59
Speaker 2: is going to do yet.
5:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.
6:00
Speaker 5: I think this is all about, uh, raising the stakes
6:03
Speaker 5: of what Trump did. Um, because Democrats have, uh, proven, um,
6:09
Speaker 5: pretty convincingly, uh, to most people who've actually been watching
6:13
Speaker 5: this closely and aren't, um, partisan Republicans who've had their
6:16
Speaker 5: brain addled by Fox News, that Donald Trump did what
6:20
Speaker 5: he's accused of doing. Witnesses testified, witnesses that worked in
6:23
Speaker 5: his own administration testified that he did this. And so
6:26
Speaker 5: I think the question left is, okay, he did this.
6:28
Speaker 5: Is it in fact impeachable? And we have said many
6:32
Speaker 5: times that trying to rig an election, foreign interference, using
6:38
Speaker 5: the powers of the presidency to target your political opponents,
6:40
Speaker 5: these are some of the things that the founders worried
6:42
Speaker 5: about when they wrote the constitution and created the impeachment
6:46
Speaker 5: clause in the constitution. And so I think the hope is,
6:48
Speaker 5: you know, we can educate the public about why it's
6:51
Speaker 5: so important. I think the obstacles they have or what
6:54
Speaker 5: Tommy just laid out is that, um, there are far
6:57
Speaker 5: more clown. There are a lot more clowns on, uh,
6:59
Speaker 5: in the Republican side of the judiciary, judiciary committee than
7:03
Speaker 5: there were in the Intel committee. And I think even
7:05
Speaker 5: on the democratic side, you know, people who are on
7:08
Speaker 5: the Intel committee tend to be a bit more serious
7:11
Speaker 5: and stayed. And so, uh, You know, look, my hope
7:14
Speaker 5: is that Nadler and all the Democrats on the Judiciary
7:17
Speaker 5: Committee take note of how well the House Intel Committee
7:22
Speaker 5: conducted the hearings and how Democrats did not launch into,
7:24
Speaker 5: no one launched into big speeches to hear themselves talk
7:28
Speaker 5: and try to get soundbites. Everyone took it very seriously.
7:31
Speaker 5: Almost every single Democratic member, they did fantastic jobs. People
7:34
Speaker 5: in the Judiciary Committee should follow that example.
7:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
7:37
Speaker 4: Raise the stakes, but also I think lowering the bar,
7:39
Speaker 4: which by that I mean, Got.
7:41
Speaker 1: To get in between the stakes of the bar. You
7:44
Speaker 1: don't have to commit a crime to be impeached. An
7:46
Speaker 1: impeachable offense is actually far short of a criminal act
7:50
Speaker 1: if you look back in terms of the Constitution and
7:53
Speaker 1: the founding documents that better define it than the Constitution.
7:56
Speaker 3: That's part of the process.
7:58
Speaker 5: For just one example, bribery the way it was written
8:00
Speaker 5: in the Constitution is not how we understand bribery as
8:03
Speaker 5: a legal term today with the law. In the Constitution...
8:08
Speaker 5: they included bribery and high crimes along with high crimes
8:11
Speaker 5: and misdemeanors for impeachable offense. And it meant simply using
8:15
Speaker 5: your public office for personal gain.
8:18
Speaker 3: That's what bribery is.
8:18
Speaker 1: You have Jared Grease, the zoning guy. And then you're
8:21
Speaker 1: good to go and build the building.
8:23
Speaker 5: Do you think it's going to be more challenging to
8:25
Speaker 5: hold media attention without any new bombshells or fact witnesses
8:29
Speaker 5: in this phase?
8:32
Speaker 4: Well, yeah.
8:33
Speaker 2: That's a good warning. It's also just... The thing that
8:38
Speaker 2: inured the Intelligence Committee hearings from Republican kind of showmanship
8:44
Speaker 2: winning the day is there were just fascinating, important pieces
8:49
Speaker 2: of testimony that, you know, we didn't know what Sondland
8:51
Speaker 2: was going to do. Then he went further than people expected.
8:54
Speaker 2: There was fascinating, dramatic testimony from career bureaucrats no one
8:59
Speaker 2: had ever heard of. They did a great job in
9:01
Speaker 2: pushing back against Republican talking points throughout that hearing. You know,
9:04
Speaker 2: absent that driving purpose... I do worry what happens when also,
9:08
Speaker 2: by the way, like, you know, they added Jim Jordan
9:12
Speaker 2: as a ringer to the Intelligence Committee because they looked
9:14
Speaker 2: at their lineup and they realized they didn't have the
9:17
Speaker 2: kind of showman that they needed.
9:19
Speaker 4: Right.
9:19
Speaker 2: And this is a committee that has multiple just it
9:22
Speaker 2: is a barbershop quartet of goons. And like they are
9:27
Speaker 2: going to do everything they can to make this a mess.
9:31
Speaker 2: And what we saw when Nadler was in charge of
9:33
Speaker 2: hearings like this, that had been more successful than it
9:36
Speaker 2: was in the Intelligence Committee.
9:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a little bit worried about our attention span.
9:41
Speaker 1: I mean, there's not going to be anything new. This
9:43
Speaker 1: probably won't be taken live, you know, from from start
9:46
Speaker 1: to finish the way the other hearings were. I'm also
9:49
Speaker 1: a little bit worried about the Democrats desire to be
9:51
Speaker 1: perceived as fair by the media, the referees. Right. There's
9:55
Speaker 1: all this conversation right now about whether Trump will or
9:57
Speaker 1: will not participate. And I think that's a fair discussion.
10:02
Speaker 1: I think it's fair for Trump to say, you know,
10:04
Speaker 1: to make that decision on his own. But, you know,
10:07
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee, I think, has been shown to be
10:11
Speaker 1: a little more worried about optics of fairness. And the
10:14
Speaker 1: media referees don't give a shit about optics of fairness, right?
10:18
Speaker 1: And that guides can storm a committee room and say
10:20
Speaker 1: that no one is allowed to hear the testimony that's
10:23
Speaker 1: being offered, even though a quarter of Congress has access
10:26
Speaker 1: to the depositions that are happening. And then it gets
10:28
Speaker 1: reported as a reasonable thing to do. So that makes
10:31
Speaker 1: me a little nervous.
10:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, to me, that goes, it goes back
10:34
Speaker 5: to the stakes, right? Like there's a reason that Democrats
10:37
Speaker 5: have decided that what Trump did may warrant impeachment right
10:41
Speaker 5: before an election where we may be able to vote
10:43
Speaker 5: him out of office. And that reason is he's trying
10:46
Speaker 5: to rig that election. He has tried in the past.
10:48
Speaker 5: And if he gets off, he will continue to try
10:50
Speaker 5: to do that. And that is a serious, extremely serious
10:55
Speaker 5: situation which warrants his impeachment. And that has to be
10:58
Speaker 5: on everyone's mind. To your point, Tommy, Nadler did invite
11:03
Speaker 5: Trump and his attorney to participate in Wednesday's impeachment hearing
11:06
Speaker 5: and question the witnesses. the president has declined to participate,
11:09
Speaker 5: at least for this hearing. Nadler has given Trump and
11:12
Speaker 5: the Republicans on the committee until Friday, December 6th, to
11:14
Speaker 5: decide whether they want to call any witnesses or mount
11:17
Speaker 5: any kind of defense of Trump whatsoever in future hearings,
11:20
Speaker 5: which there will be. Why do we think that Trump
11:24
Speaker 5: has decided that for now, at least, he's not participating?
11:27
Speaker 5: And is this a smart move?
11:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it seems very hard for me to
11:33
Speaker 2: imagine them participating, in part because what we saw in
11:37
Speaker 2: the Intelligence Committee hearings, I think, is instructive for the
11:39
Speaker 2: way Trump handles these things. There were two kinds of questions.
11:42
Speaker 2: There were the real legal questions from the committee lawyer,
11:46
Speaker 2: and then there was the fanfare, drama, Ukraine hoax, where's the,
11:52
Speaker 2: you know, Schiff lied, all that kind of Fox News noise.
11:56
Speaker 2: And that's actually, I think, where they were far more successful.
11:58
Speaker 2: They really, you know, didn't have very much luck in
12:00
Speaker 2: actually substantively attacking this case. I of perhaps engaging with
12:06
Speaker 2: this in seriousness was Will Hurd. And by the end,
12:10
Speaker 2: he just was like, he opened up his brain like
12:12
Speaker 2: a briefcase, took his brain out and just sort of
12:14
Speaker 2: like threw it away. We're like, sorry, I'm retiring. Don't
12:17
Speaker 2: need that anymore.
12:17
Speaker 4: I give up.
12:18
Speaker 2: I'm out. But so, you know, the lawyer, the White
12:22
Speaker 2: House lawyer's response to the Wednesday was basically like, why
12:26
Speaker 2: are we going to participate in basically school?
12:29
Speaker 4: That's right.
12:30
Speaker 2: This sounds like school to me. We don't do school.
12:33
Speaker 2: But so I don't really think the Wednesday hearing is
12:36
Speaker 2: matters very much in terms of whether Trump participates or
12:38
Speaker 2: not But whether or not they want to add legitimacy
12:40
Speaker 2: when they don't really have much of a substantive argument.
12:43
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to imagine.
12:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, participation is gonna be Rudy Giuliani Bernie Carrick and
12:47
Speaker 1: a bouncer from the 4040 Club just cracking his knuckles
12:50
Speaker 1: at the day.
12:50
Speaker 2: And they already have they already have lawyers. I Jordan's
12:53
Speaker 2: his lawyer.
12:54
Speaker 1: Let me just like one I don't think it's totally
12:56
Speaker 1: unreasonable of the Trump team to say in this instance. Hey,
12:59
Speaker 1: I It's weird for us to participate in a hearing
13:02
Speaker 1: where we don't know the witnesses yet. That to me
13:04
Speaker 1: would feel like a bit of a setup. I might
13:06
Speaker 1: not participate in it either, but like bigger picture, I
13:10
Speaker 1: don't know why I don't see the political upside to
13:12
Speaker 1: participation for them. They know he's guilty. They're not, they
13:15
Speaker 1: have their goons on this committee who can undercut witnesses
13:20
Speaker 1: or try to make it about crowd strike or Joe
13:22
Speaker 1: Biden or Hunter Biden or whatever nonsense they're going to
13:25
Speaker 1: do to distract. And then Trump, knowing that this is
13:27
Speaker 1: ultimately a messaging war about the election, can say what
13:31
Speaker 1: he wants to say on Twitter, on television, over the
13:34
Speaker 1: screaming hum of a helicopter, unchecked by Jerry Nadler or.
13:38
Speaker 4: The rules of a committee.
13:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there's also the possibility that they believe
13:45
Speaker 5: that the Senate is going to be friendlier territory because
13:47
Speaker 5: Mitch McConnell runs the Senate and the Republicans. And so
13:49
Speaker 5: if they participate in a Senate trial, maybe it'll be
13:52
Speaker 5: more favorable conditions for them. I do think This is
13:55
Speaker 5: an opportunity for Democrats to make this a political problem
13:58
Speaker 5: for him to not participate. And the reason I think
14:02
Speaker 5: that is because when you dig through the polling, both
14:04
Speaker 5: the polling that we did and some of the polling
14:05
Speaker 5: that's come out, it has surprised me at least that,
14:10
Speaker 5: you know, when you ask people, you know, what concerns
14:13
Speaker 5: you most about what Trump did, the cover up, the obstruction,
14:18
Speaker 5: him hiding something that worries people even more than some
14:22
Speaker 5: of the things that he did. And I think that
14:24
Speaker 5: him not participating and him refusing to testify, him refusing
14:29
Speaker 5: to provide witnesses, him refusing to provide exculpatory evidence, I
14:33
Speaker 5: think it makes him look guilty to people. And I
14:36
Speaker 5: think Democrats need this. And if you want to keep
14:38
Speaker 5: people's attention in this new phase, you have to change
14:41
Speaker 5: the story a little bit from what we had before.
14:43
Speaker 5: And before, during the Intel hearing, it was all about
14:47
Speaker 5: Trump and Ukraine and all the stuff that he did.
14:49
Speaker 5: This can be about Trump knows he's guilty. The Republicans
14:52
Speaker 5: know he's guilty. They're not trying to mount a defense.
14:55
Speaker 5: If he thinks that he's innocent, he would come testify
14:57
Speaker 5: or he would have witnesses testify. He would provide some evidence.
15:00
Speaker 5: He is not doing any of these things. And there
15:02
Speaker 5: is a reason for that. What is the president hiding?
15:05
Speaker 2: It's interesting. Also, you know, they're not. We saw this
15:09
Speaker 2: during the previous hearings. We'll see this again. They're not
15:11
Speaker 2: really thinking strategically in terms of what is their long-term
15:15
Speaker 2: plan for avoiding political repercussions of impeachment? They seem very
15:20
Speaker 2: much kind of day-to-day thinking through this. They hung their
15:25
Speaker 2: hat on hearsay in the early part of the Intelligence
15:28
Speaker 2: Committee hearings. And of course, they knew that by the
15:31
Speaker 2: early part of the next week, we'd be hearing people
15:33
Speaker 2: who heard the call directly. And so now you think, okay, well,
15:36
Speaker 2: they're just thinking about whether or not they should participate
15:39
Speaker 2: in the Judiciary Committee hearings. But in part, what they're
15:42
Speaker 2: doing by obstructing as they're setting up the possibility of
15:45
Speaker 2: genuinely new and important revelation in the trial. That there's
15:50
Speaker 2: a possibility we may hear from some of these people
15:53
Speaker 2: in the Senate trial that Trump barred from speaking earlier
15:58
Speaker 2: and their favorite defense, that this is the snooze, won't
16:01
Speaker 2: be available.
16:02
Speaker 5: Also, you know, there's some evidence over the weekend that
16:05
Speaker 5: Republicans don't necessarily see it as a political plus that
16:08
Speaker 5: he is not participating. Tom McClintock California Republican who's on
16:13
Speaker 5: the Judiciary Committee said, quote, I think it would be
16:15
Speaker 5: to the president's advantage to have his attorneys there.
16:17
Speaker 3: That's his right.
16:19
Speaker 5: He also said that John Bolton and Mulvaney should absolutely testify.
16:22
Speaker 5: But of course, Trump has to weigh that against the
16:24
Speaker 5: enormous catastrophic damage that would have been due to the
16:26
Speaker 5: doctrine of executive privilege. But, you know, you have these
16:29
Speaker 5: moments where the Republicans, because, like you said, they have
16:34
Speaker 5: like a day-to-day strategy, are not always on the same page.
16:36
Speaker 5: And so you have these moments when they're in interviews,
16:38
Speaker 5: when they're asked a question about something that's happening in
16:41
Speaker 5: the future around impeachment strategy, and they accidentally tell the
16:45
Speaker 5: truth before they're pulled back. And in McClintock's case, it's like, yeah,
16:49
Speaker 5: he should probably participate because he looks guilty otherwise.
16:52
Speaker 2: It's so funny. Obviously, Fox News exists because there's this
16:56
Speaker 2: claim that the mainstream media was biased against conservatives. There
17:01
Speaker 2: is a kind of quality that's a natural resting place
17:05
Speaker 2: for the media, which is to constantly be wondering if
17:07
Speaker 2: what Democrats are doing is working. because it's the flip
17:12
Speaker 2: side of the media coin that if people in the
17:20
Speaker 2: mainstream press are more likely to be liberals than they
17:22
Speaker 2: are to be conservatives, they tend to see these fights
17:24
Speaker 2: from the point of view of Democrats. And so the
17:26
Speaker 2: question is always, are Democrats going too far? What will
17:29
Speaker 2: happen with Democrats? But it's a reminder when you see
17:32
Speaker 2: the kind of whatever cross purposes Republicans are speaking at that,
17:36
Speaker 2: The same vexing questions as to what the politics of
17:38
Speaker 2: impeachment actually are and the fact that none of us
17:40
Speaker 2: really know, it applies to them just as much as
17:42
Speaker 2: it applies to Democrats.
17:44
Speaker 1: Early on, they said if Trump actually did withhold military
17:46
Speaker 1: aid to get dirt on Joe Biden, yes, that would
17:48
Speaker 1: be incredibly troubling. And now Lindsey Graham is like ripping
17:52
Speaker 1: his shirt off, screaming like he'll never, ever vote to impeach.
17:55
Speaker 4: He doesn't care what the facts say. He won't even
17:57
Speaker 4: read the transcript.
18:06
Speaker 5: Well, on that note, you know, a bunch of polling
18:08
Speaker 5: came out last week, basically showed the public opinion on
18:10
Speaker 5: impeachment hasn't really moved since October. There's still a slight
18:14
Speaker 5: majority of voters who believe the president should be impeached
18:16
Speaker 5: and removed from office. The average is 48.8% support impeachment, 43.5% oppose,
18:23
Speaker 5: according to 538, average of all the impeachment polls. Democrats
18:27
Speaker 5: are almost all in favor. Republicans are almost all oppose.
18:31
Speaker 5: Independents are split. And, you know, I bring this up because...
18:35
Speaker 5: This appears to be the current measuring stick for reporters
18:38
Speaker 5: to determine whether impeachment is a success. What was your
18:42
Speaker 5: reaction to some of the polling over the... Basically, a
18:46
Speaker 5: lot of it came out in that last week, right
18:48
Speaker 5: before Thanksgiving.
18:49
Speaker 2: I'll just say, if the polling got here slowly over
18:55
Speaker 2: the course of six months, like if the polling had
18:56
Speaker 2: been earlier in the Ukraine, when the Ukraine news started breaking,
19:01
Speaker 2: if the polling had been more anti-impeachment and ended to
19:04
Speaker 2: this place... people will be saying, wow, this is, we're
19:06
Speaker 2: at the end of Nixon here. But basically the status
19:09
Speaker 2: quo ante of most of the country thinking Trump is
19:12
Speaker 2: a criminal with his base continuing to support him no
19:15
Speaker 2: matter what. And then some squishiness around whether or not
19:19
Speaker 2: impeachment is, whether it's not, it's too far. The fact
19:24
Speaker 2: that we've been here from the very beginning has meant
19:26
Speaker 2: these polls don't have very much impact, but it's staggering.
19:29
Speaker 2: You know, a plurality of the country wants this guy
19:31
Speaker 2: removed from office immediately.
19:32
Speaker 3: It's hard.
19:33
Speaker 5: I mean, And, you know, look, we've been here for
19:34
Speaker 5: a little while since the Ukraine matter. But if you
19:37
Speaker 5: look at the polls since last spring and summer, when
19:40
Speaker 5: we were all calling for impeachment, too, it was like 30, 40, 40.
19:43
Speaker 5: Like it did have that bill.
19:45
Speaker 2: The Ukraine story hit and it changed it.
19:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:47
Speaker 5: And I and I just think that when we did
19:49
Speaker 5: our poll on impeachment, which was back in October with change,
19:54
Speaker 5: it was the number that really sticks in my mind
19:57
Speaker 5: still is 94 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaning independents
20:01
Speaker 5: were supportive of the inquiry. 94% of Republicans and Republican-leaning
20:06
Speaker 5: independents were against the inquiry, and 2% of people didn't
20:09
Speaker 5: have their mind made up.
20:10
Speaker 1: Well, so, though I do think, one, the polling came
20:14
Speaker 1: right after Gordon Sondland had testified. I don't know that
20:17
Speaker 1: it fully captured people understanding what he did or said,
20:20
Speaker 1: and then we hit this sort of frozen week with
20:23
Speaker 1: the holiday where there isn't new polling. So I think
20:26
Speaker 1: we might see things change still. Was I disappointed that
20:28
Speaker 1: it didn't move enormously?
20:30
Speaker 4: A little, sure. I'd love to see it move more,
20:33
Speaker 4: but did I expect it to move more?
20:34
Speaker 3: No.
20:34
Speaker 1: I think the key thing is the hardest part of
20:37
Speaker 1: this process, this education process that we're undergoing about Trump's criminality,
20:41
Speaker 1: is getting to the least well-informed, least partisan people. We
20:45
Speaker 1: need them to understand what Donald Trump did and what happened.
20:48
Speaker 1: And it's very hard to do when they're not paying attention.
20:50
Speaker 1: But there are persuadable voters out there. FiveThirtyEight said that
20:55
Speaker 1: one in four people are persuadable. And these are all
20:58
Speaker 1: the least liberal, least conservative voters. least well-informed individuals. And
21:03
Speaker 1: so that's the process and it's getting to those people.
21:05
Speaker 1: And I think, unfortunately, that's not going to be easy
21:09
Speaker 1: through earned media. It's going to have to be through
21:11
Speaker 1: paid media and TV ads and digital spends. And frankly,
21:15
Speaker 1: the whole course of the campaign could be about these issues.
21:18
Speaker 1: So we have some time here.
21:19
Speaker 2: We got to get Jerry Nadler on TikTok.
21:22
Speaker 5: And we should set this expectation now. We may never
21:25
Speaker 5: reach those people because... by virtue of the fact that
21:28
Speaker 5: they are not that partisan and don't pay attention that much,
21:32
Speaker 5: these may be voters who don't pay attention to much
21:34
Speaker 5: of what's going on in Washington and politics until it's
21:37
Speaker 5: time to vote in November. And that's just, I mean,
21:40
Speaker 5: we're dealing, we're going to talk about this in the
21:41
Speaker 5: primary too. There is a, you know, we talk about
21:44
Speaker 5: sort of like partisan bubbles a lot, but we don't
21:47
Speaker 5: necessarily talk as much about information bubbles and that there
21:50
Speaker 5: is all of us, whether we're Republican partisans or Democratic
21:54
Speaker 5: partisans who are watching the news and paying attention to politics.
21:57
Speaker 5: And there's a whole rest of the country that is
21:59
Speaker 5: barely checking in. And, you know, something like impeachment of
22:03
Speaker 5: the president, you can see a lot of undecided people
22:05
Speaker 5: being like, yeah, I mean, I don't like Trump that
22:07
Speaker 5: much either, but maybe this election's in November and I
22:09
Speaker 5: don't know what's going on. It seems like he did
22:10
Speaker 5: something bad, but I don't care.
22:12
Speaker 2: It's also, I think one, one lesson that's, it's an
22:15
Speaker 2: unfortunate lesson that Republicans learned and Democrats have slowly been
22:18
Speaker 2: learning too, is people take signals from leaders as to
22:23
Speaker 2: what's partisan and what's not. And the way Trump has
22:26
Speaker 2: successfully kept Republicans in line mostly throughout impeachment, including the
22:31
Speaker 2: people that were the most gettable, the Will Hurds, really does,
22:36
Speaker 2: I think, ultimately matter in that the process is partisan
22:39
Speaker 2: as long as Republicans don't participate in it. And as
22:41
Speaker 2: long as Republicans don't participate in it, they can claim
22:43
Speaker 2: the process is partisan and call it sort of a
22:46
Speaker 2: classic political fight in Washington.
22:49
Speaker 5: And it's literally been the strategy of the Republican Party
22:52
Speaker 5: since Mitch McConnell decided to obstruct everything that Barack Obama
22:54
Speaker 5: did since 2009.
22:55
Speaker 4: And it was.
22:56
Speaker 2: Effective and it worked. And I think, you know, it's really,
22:59
Speaker 2: really hard to break the back of those who look
23:01
Speaker 2: for those signals.
23:02
Speaker 1: But the reality is that one in five respondents in
23:05
Speaker 1: the recent Quinnipiac polls said they could still change their
23:07
Speaker 1: minds on impeachment. So there's lots of work that can
23:09
Speaker 1: be done. The challenge that we face as Democrats is
23:12
Speaker 1: that no one trusts the government, no one trusts the media.
23:15
Speaker 1: They think all politicians are bad. That's in large part
23:18
Speaker 1: thanks to decades of Republican efforts to undermine those institutions.
23:22
Speaker 4: But, you know, it's an uphill climb.
23:24
Speaker 1: But look, stepping back, I wouldn't want to be Donald
23:27
Speaker 1: Trump going into a reelection with these numbers.
23:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:30
Speaker 5: And I do think we may be underestimating what it's
23:34
Speaker 5: going to feel like to most of the country when
23:36
Speaker 5: they wake up one morning, turn on the news, read
23:39
Speaker 5: the paper and see Donald Trump has been impeached by
23:42
Speaker 5: the House of Representatives.
23:43
Speaker 4: That might break through.
23:44
Speaker 5: You know, that's going to be different than any of
23:47
Speaker 5: these hearings that some people didn't watch. I also think
23:49
Speaker 5: there was some data in all the polling that we
23:51
Speaker 5: got that shows that it might be making some difference.
23:53
Speaker 5: The CNN poll found that 53% say Trump improperly used
23:57
Speaker 5: his office to gain political advantage, which was up from
23:59
Speaker 5: 49% who said the same in October. The Reuters Ipsos
24:04
Speaker 5: poll was interesting. Just before the hearings, it found that
24:08
Speaker 5: net support for impeachment was three points. That increased to
24:10
Speaker 5: four points after the first week of hearings, five points
24:13
Speaker 5: after the second week of hearings. And the latest poll
24:15
Speaker 5: right before Thanksgiving showed it at seven points. So there is,
24:19
Speaker 5: some polls are showing some movement, but I think it's
24:21
Speaker 5: going to be slight. And I think, what does all
24:24
Speaker 5: this mean for the Democrats, right? Because I do think
24:28
Speaker 5: we have to set expectations now. We can't say that
24:31
Speaker 5: a win for us is if we suddenly convince all
24:33
Speaker 5: of these independents and persuadable voters.
24:35
Speaker 2: No, no.
24:36
Speaker 4: Because it just might not happen, you know? Or a
24:38
Speaker 4: single Republican.
24:39
Speaker 3: Right, exactly.
24:40
Speaker 4: Elected official. That just can't be the yardstick for success here.
24:43
Speaker 1: It's got to be just educating the people about who
24:45
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is, the ways he's bending the government to
24:49
Speaker 1: advance his political interests, and make that part of the
24:52
Speaker 1: narrative that we use to beat him in an election.
24:54
Speaker 3: Yes, I totally agree.
24:56
Speaker 2: It's also, you know, whenever we're defining success, we're talking
25:00
Speaker 2: about this in political terms. And I think one of
25:02
Speaker 2: the lessons of what we've seen so far is we're
25:04
Speaker 2: doing our best when we're not even engaging on those terms, right?
25:07
Speaker 2: If the question to a Democrat is, what does success
25:11
Speaker 2: look like in impeachment? I think the answer is, We
25:13
Speaker 2: are here to demonstrate what Donald Trump did and what
25:16
Speaker 2: he did wrong, right? Like success is simply doing everything
25:19
Speaker 2: we can to avoid this political pundit version of impeachment
25:24
Speaker 2: and stay completely focused on the substance and the facts
25:27
Speaker 2: and let success or failure be determined by our ability
25:31
Speaker 2: to get that in front of people.
25:33
Speaker 5: If Republican politicians want to be accomplices in his crime,
25:36
Speaker 5: then that's good information for the voters to know.
25:38
Speaker 3: When they go to the polls in November. That's the answer.
25:42
Speaker 2: And as Matt Gaetz switches license plates on a non-discrete
25:47
Speaker 2: passenger van in a parking garage somewhere in D.C.
25:49
Speaker 3: What?
25:50
Speaker 4: Who's he kidnapping?
25:51
Speaker 3: What's happening there?
25:52
Speaker 2: No, he's just making a, he's just, you know, getting
25:53
Speaker 2: a getaway car.
25:54
Speaker 4: Oh, getaway, okay.
25:55
Speaker 2: He's vetting.
25:56
Speaker 4: The van led me to believe this was a kidnapping.
25:59
Speaker 4: I was like, the A-team? What's happening here?
26:01
Speaker 3: I didn't know where that was going.
26:02
Speaker 2: Matt Gaetz has kidnapped Jerry Nadler, and guys, it's a comedy.
26:08
Speaker 4: It's a comedy.
26:09
Speaker 3: All right. Let's talk about 2020, please.
26:12
Speaker 5: With two months to go until the Iowa caucuses, the
26:14
Speaker 5: race for the Democratic nomination is still wide open, which
26:16
Speaker 5: Dan Balls of The Washington Post wrote about this weekend. Quote,
26:19
Speaker 5: what continues to define the Democratic race is the absence
26:22
Speaker 5: of a candidate who has truly captured the imagination of voters.
26:26
Speaker 5: He also wrote that the phases of the campaign where
26:28
Speaker 5: the progressive candidates seem to be rising this past year
26:31
Speaker 5: were a, quote, misleading indicator of where the party's electorate
26:35
Speaker 5: was on issues like health care. And that, quote, more
26:38
Speaker 5: than in some past campaigns, Democratic voters appear torn between
26:42
Speaker 5: heart and head. Many are looking for a candidate who
26:45
Speaker 5: will inspire them while also being somewhat risk averse. Wanted
26:49
Speaker 5: to get your reaction to this piece because I think
26:51
Speaker 5: it's a pretty accurate summary of where the media narrative
26:54
Speaker 5: is right now. Whether it's an accurate summary of where
26:56
Speaker 5: the race is right now, I leave that to you guys.
26:58
Speaker 5: But it's certainly not just Dan Balls writing this. I
27:01
Speaker 5: think he pretty much sums up where most of the
27:03
Speaker 5: punditocracy is.
27:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I do think this is something
27:08
Speaker 1: we've observed a lot, which is that a lot of
27:09
Speaker 1: voters are taking a game theory approach to how they
27:12
Speaker 1: make this decision. They want to choose someone that they
27:14
Speaker 1: think their neighbor will also choose. Therefore, that person is
27:17
Speaker 1: the most electable. You know, the race is pretty, it's
27:22
Speaker 1: a toss-up right now. And at this point in 2008,
27:27
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton was beating Obama by like 20 points in
27:30
Speaker 1: the national polls. The Iowa polls were tighter, but it
27:32
Speaker 1: wasn't until that result that Obama shot up and eventually
27:36
Speaker 1: overtook her. So I just think people are moving around
27:39
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't know what else to say right now.
27:42
Speaker 1: It's hard to predict. It's just going to be very
27:44
Speaker 1: fluid through the Iowa caucuses, I think.
27:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I thought it was a good piece.
27:48
Speaker 2: I think it sort of captures a feeling that we've
27:50
Speaker 2: all had. It's also in some ways pretty simple. If
27:53
Speaker 2: there was a clear person who could unite the party
27:57
Speaker 2: as the front runner, they'd be winning in a way
28:00
Speaker 2: that was unequivocal, and that's not been the case. I
28:02
Speaker 2: also do think, though, You know, I think sometimes narratives
28:07
Speaker 2: are taking things that are happening in parallel and trying
28:09
Speaker 2: to put them in order.
28:10
Speaker 4: Right.
28:10
Speaker 2: Like, oh, you know, there was this wave that happened. And,
28:13
Speaker 2: you know, there was this first there was the coming
28:15
Speaker 2: of the liberals and there was the coming of the moderates.
28:17
Speaker 2: And and actually, you know, you look at Biden's numbers
28:20
Speaker 2: that have ultimately been, I think, steadier than people thought,
28:22
Speaker 2: at least nationally. And maybe part of it is also,
28:24
Speaker 2: you know, what does it take for someone to change
28:26
Speaker 2: their mind?
28:27
Speaker 4: Right.
28:27
Speaker 2: You know, we follow every every every. every undulation in
28:32
Speaker 2: the race. Meanwhile, if you're just paying attention, right, whatever
28:36
Speaker 2: facts led you to support Joe Biden, they haven't changed
28:39
Speaker 2: enough to get you to change your view, right? That
28:43
Speaker 2: the race is actually.
28:44
Speaker 3: He's been, I think CNN did- Totally consistent.
28:46
Speaker 5: CNN did an average of 10 polls or something, and 30%,
28:51
Speaker 5: barely moved outside 30%. They said he got a bump
28:53
Speaker 5: over 30 when he announced, and then he went below
28:58
Speaker 5: significantly after that first debate when Kamala Harris roughed him up.
29:01
Speaker 5: And since then, he's been steady. And what's interesting is
29:05
Speaker 5: the other person, and this sort of ruins the narrative
29:08
Speaker 5: of like the rise of the moderates, the other person
29:10
Speaker 5: who's been very, very steady is Bernie Sanders, who's averaged
29:13
Speaker 5: around 16% in those same 10 polls that CNN averaged.
29:16
Speaker 5: So you get Biden at 30, Bernie at 16. And
29:18
Speaker 5: the only real movement that's happened in this primary is
29:23
Speaker 5: the rise of Elizabeth Warren, And then now she's lost
29:26
Speaker 5: some altitude after this Medicare for all thing, which we
29:29
Speaker 5: can talk about. And then sort of the rise of
29:32
Speaker 5: Pete Buttigieg early in the race. Then he sort of
29:35
Speaker 5: fell down to earth. And now he's sort of back
29:37
Speaker 5: on top, at least in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond.
29:40
Speaker 5: that it's been a bunch of other candidates Kamala Harris
29:43
Speaker 5: Cory Booker all the rest trying to break into that
29:46
Speaker 5: top tier and and not really succeeding that's basically been
29:50
Speaker 5: the whole race.
29:51
Speaker 2: And and and also I think part of it too
29:53
Speaker 2: is it's like there is like a little bit of
29:54
Speaker 2: a Mario Kart effect in that when you're in the
29:56
Speaker 2: lead in Mario Kart you don't get as good items
29:59
Speaker 2: You know?
29:59
Speaker 3: Do you say Mario?
30:00
Speaker 2: I say Mario because I'm trash from my island. But,
30:05
Speaker 2: you know, every time one of, like, you know, Warren
30:07
Speaker 2: rose to the front and then all of a sudden
30:09
Speaker 2: every red shell was coming for her.
30:11
Speaker 4: And you're like, yellow banana.
30:12
Speaker 3: What am I going to do with this?
30:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, then you're getting nothing.
30:14
Speaker 4: Yeah. Green shell?
30:16
Speaker 2: Green shell. What are you, what am I, a marksman?
30:18
Speaker 2: What am I, an American sniper? I can't use this
30:20
Speaker 2: green shell.
30:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think, look, I think you can.
30:25
Speaker 4: God, I love that game.
30:26
Speaker 3: I know, it's really fun.
30:27
Speaker 5: I think that the, um, I think you can overdo
30:30
Speaker 5: the whole like moderate lane, progressive lane. And, you know,
30:34
Speaker 5: you can see that there's another piece in the Washington
30:36
Speaker 5: Post this morning by Lynn Vavrick and John Sides, who
30:39
Speaker 5: are two great political scientists at UCLA. Lynn's been on Wilderness.
30:43
Speaker 5: And they're doing the, you know, they did this whole
30:44
Speaker 5: thing where the second choices of all these candidates, it's like,
30:49
Speaker 5: if you support Bernie, who's your second choice? A huge
30:52
Speaker 5: chunk is Joe Biden. If you support Joe Biden, who's
30:54
Speaker 5: your second choice? A huge chunk is Bernie Sanders. Same
30:57
Speaker 5: thing with Warren. Same thing with Buttigieg. All of these
30:59
Speaker 5: like progressive moderate lanes are all mixed when you ask
31:01
Speaker 5: people their first and second choice. I think what we're
31:04
Speaker 5: talking about here, at least with Warren, is the Medicare
31:07
Speaker 5: for all fight. And I do think she's probably lost
31:10
Speaker 5: some altitude, not just because Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar
31:14
Speaker 5: and Joe Biden and a bunch of other candidates have
31:16
Speaker 5: sort of attacked her about Medicare for all on the
31:18
Speaker 5: debate stage and in their own ads, but Republicans and
31:22
Speaker 5: the insurance industry have been spending, which I didn't even
31:25
Speaker 5: realize until I read this long piece about it in
31:27
Speaker 5: the Washington Post, like a ton of money in a
31:30
Speaker 5: lot of swing states, just running ads against Medicare for
31:33
Speaker 5: all and eliminating private insurance. And that I think has
31:36
Speaker 5: had an effect on some voters. So it's not that
31:38
Speaker 5: she's too progressive in general, or Bernie is because Bernie's
31:41
Speaker 5: been steady. It's a specific attack on eliminating private health
31:45
Speaker 5: insurance and Medicare for all.
31:46
Speaker 1: I also think in Iowa, it's a proxy for an
31:49
Speaker 1: electability argument. And so I think people like Michael Bennett,
31:52
Speaker 1: who is not someone we've talked about a ton on
31:54
Speaker 1: the show. I think he ran a million dollars in
31:56
Speaker 1: ads in Iowa against Medicare for All.
31:59
Speaker 3: Oh, really?
31:59
Speaker 6: Yeah.
32:00
Speaker 1: So you're seeing that there's a lot of headwinds for
32:03
Speaker 1: her on this policy issue and on the electability conversation generally.
32:16
Speaker 5: So for most of the primary, Medicare for All has
32:18
Speaker 5: been the issue that most exemplified the moderate versus progressive battle.
32:22
Speaker 5: But over the weekend, Pete Buttigieg started running an ad
32:25
Speaker 5: in Iowa about his college affordability plan where he dings
32:28
Speaker 5: Warren and Sanders for their free college plans with this line.
32:32
Speaker 5: And I think we have a clip of the ad.
32:34
Speaker 6: I believe we should move to make college affordable for everybody.
32:38
Speaker 6: There are some voices saying, well, that doesn't count unless
32:40
Speaker 6: you go even further, unless it's free even for kids
32:42
Speaker 6: and millionaires. But I only want to make promises that
32:45
Speaker 6: we can keep. Look, what I'm proposing is plenty bold.
32:48
Speaker 6: I mean, these are big ideas. We can gather the
32:51
Speaker 6: majority to drive those big ideas through without turning off
32:54
Speaker 6: half the country before we even get into office. And that,
32:57
Speaker 6: I think, is the best governing strategy, as well as
32:59
Speaker 6: what it's going to take in order to win. And
33:01
Speaker 6: Lord knows we've got to win.
33:02
Speaker 4: I'm Pete Buttigieg, and I approve this message.
33:05
Speaker 3: Interesting music there.
33:06
Speaker 4: Upbeat. Because Pete's upbeat.
33:08
Speaker 3: It's upbeat Pete. All right.
33:09
Speaker 5: So just so you know the difference between the plans.
33:12
Speaker 5: Under Warren's free college plan, and Bernie's too, but this
33:16
Speaker 5: is the details for Warren's, any American could go to
33:19
Speaker 5: a two or four year public college without paying a
33:21
Speaker 5: dime in tuition or fees, which is a $ 1. 25 trillion
33:25
Speaker 5: investment over 10 years that she'd pay for with her
33:28
Speaker 5: wealth tax on people with a net worth of over
33:30
Speaker 5: $ 50 million. Under Pete's plan, Tuition at a two- or
33:34
Speaker 5: four-year public college would be free for families earning up
33:37
Speaker 5: to $ 100, 000, which he says is 80% of all families,
33:40
Speaker 5: and tuition would be reduced for families earning between $ 100, 000
33:42
Speaker 5: and $ 150, 000. This is a plan that costs $ 500 billion
33:47
Speaker 5: over 10 years, paid for by higher taxes on the 1%. Warren, Sanders,
33:51
Speaker 5: and Pete have also all called for expanding Pell Grants
33:54
Speaker 5: so that students could get help with books and living
33:56
Speaker 5: expenses as well, and they're all going to invest more
33:59
Speaker 5: in historically black colleges and universities. But Pete's shot at
34:03
Speaker 5: free college, caused all kinds of controversy on Twitter over
34:07
Speaker 5: the break, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who accused Buttigieg of channeling
34:13
Speaker 5: a Republican talking point about subsidizing rich kids.
34:17
Speaker 3: What did you guys think?
34:20
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this. It's a really sort of
34:22
Speaker 2: complicated political question to unpack because, as we've seen throughout,
34:26
Speaker 2: this is actually very similar to the healthcare debate in
34:28
Speaker 2: that the political arguments and the policy arguments kind of
34:32
Speaker 2: get mixed up and you kind of get the worst
34:35
Speaker 2: of both, right? So I think you separate the politics
34:39
Speaker 2: and the policy. Pete Buttigieg's plan is progressive. It is
34:43
Speaker 2: also true that what we're talking about.
34:45
Speaker 5: One reason why it's progressive? It was Bernie Sanders' plan
34:48
Speaker 5: in 2017 that he introduced in the Senate.
34:53
Speaker 2: And I've seen a lot of people being, I think,
34:55
Speaker 2: too critical of Pete's plan in that for a for
35:01
Speaker 2: the vast majority of people, it's equally generous, right? It's
35:04
Speaker 2: going to provide free college for most people. Now the question,
35:08
Speaker 2: what happens at the higher tax brackets? And this to
35:11
Speaker 2: me is actually an important policy debate that's been unfolding.
35:14
Speaker 2: And you have kind of two democratic schools of thought.
35:17
Speaker 2: One says, we need to do the most good as
35:20
Speaker 2: efficiently as possible, that that's what it means to be practical.
35:23
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense to tax people, then turn around
35:26
Speaker 2: and use it to send rich kids to college That
35:29
Speaker 2: just makes the program more expensive. It makes it less popular.
35:32
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to run around saying that they're going to
35:35
Speaker 2: give free college to millionaires. The more effective measure is
35:40
Speaker 2: something that is means tested, costs less, it does more good.
35:46
Speaker 2: And that has been, I think, a democratic consensus approach
35:48
Speaker 2: to policy for a long time. What has changed in
35:51
Speaker 2: part because of Obamacare, because in part because of the
35:53
Speaker 2: politics of Republicans, is a bunch of more liberal members
35:56
Speaker 2: of the party looking at the Democratic record and saying,
35:58
Speaker 2: hold on a second. We've been biting off our nose
36:01
Speaker 2: to spite our face. When we do these means-tested, more
36:05
Speaker 2: complicated policy solutions, we get all the pain. associated with
36:09
Speaker 2: doing big things. But because the benefits are diffuse, a
36:12
Speaker 2: little bit harder to understand, you're not sure who's getting them,
36:15
Speaker 2: who's not. Because they're not universal, there's less of a
36:18
Speaker 2: universal buy-in from everybody from the wealthy to the upper
36:22
Speaker 2: middle class to the middle class to the working class
36:24
Speaker 2: to the poor. They point to a lot of democratic
36:26
Speaker 2: tax proposals that have an income tax credit here, a
36:30
Speaker 2: working tax credit there, that makes the system complicated to
36:33
Speaker 2: understand who exactly is fighting for you. That's the kind
36:36
Speaker 2: of policy fight.
36:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is. No, that accurately represents.
36:40
Speaker 1: But it's also, I mean, I think a lot of
36:42
Speaker 1: people are sort of, it's a philosophical fight. It's a
36:45
Speaker 1: fight about a philosophical approach to policymaking, which is that
36:48
Speaker 1: if you make a program universal, it's going to get
36:50
Speaker 1: the most support and going to be the hardest to unravel.
36:52
Speaker 4: That's one piece.
36:52
Speaker 1: The other piece is that there's probably a legitimate critique
36:55
Speaker 1: that Pete's cutoff for getting free college is too low.
36:59
Speaker 1: So when he says we shouldn't be giving free college
37:01
Speaker 1: to millionaires, there are in fact a bunch of people
37:03
Speaker 1: between his cutoff level at like $ 100, 000 a year and
37:07
Speaker 1: a millionaire who wouldn't get free college under his plan.
37:10
Speaker 4: And so that seems misleading or insufficient.
37:12
Speaker 5: I think on the policy front, there's a good, and
37:14
Speaker 5: this is not a lot of the arguments that I
37:16
Speaker 5: saw on Twitter, but on the policy front, there's a
37:18
Speaker 5: good argument against Pete's plan based on what you just said, right?
37:20
Speaker 5: Which is like, you know, if you're a family making $ 200, 000
37:23
Speaker 5: a year, so look, it's average four-year tuition at a
37:27
Speaker 5: public university is $ 10, 000 a year, right? So it's $ 40, 000
37:29
Speaker 5: over four years. So if you're a family making $ 200, 000
37:30
Speaker 5: a year, you got a couple of kids like, yeah,
37:37
Speaker 5: maybe it could be a bit more generous in that regard. Now,
37:40
Speaker 5: he still says, and I haven't read the numbers, but
37:42
Speaker 5: that 80% of families would get free college under this plan.
37:46
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people, right?
37:48
Speaker 4: But you're right.
37:48
Speaker 5: You could argue that it's not generous enough. I do
37:52
Speaker 5: think some of the people on Twitter are being like, oh,
37:53
Speaker 5: does Pete also hate public parks and libraries and stuff
37:56
Speaker 5: like that? Okay, the cost of a rich person walking
38:01
Speaker 5: into a public library or a public park is a
38:05
Speaker 5: little bit different than you know, tuition at a four
38:09
Speaker 5: year university.
38:10
Speaker 4: Well, right.
38:10
Speaker 2: But I mean, this is the philosophical question that I
38:12
Speaker 2: actually think it's a really interesting debate, right? Because the
38:15
Speaker 2: point that now, now this is, I think it's worth
38:17
Speaker 2: pointing out too, that there's a way in which Pete
38:19
Speaker 2: is being so disingenuous. It's like the reason the politics
38:23
Speaker 2: are toxic is in part because of the argument you're
38:25
Speaker 2: currently making. You are making the argument toxic.
38:28
Speaker 4: Right.
38:28
Speaker 5: Because he's had this plan for a while and no
38:30
Speaker 5: one said anything about it until he decided to take
38:31
Speaker 5: the shot in the ad, which is important to him.
38:34
Speaker 6: Right.
38:34
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, so, so Yes, he's conflating the
38:38
Speaker 2: richest of the rich with a huge number of people
38:40
Speaker 2: that won't get it. But even taking that on, even
38:42
Speaker 2: you take it on Pete's, the political argument he's making. Okay,
38:46
Speaker 2: so you don't want 1% of students to be eligible
38:48
Speaker 2: to this because you don't like the message it sends.
38:51
Speaker 2: But of course, the cost of 1% is about 1%
38:55
Speaker 2: of the program.
38:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I get that, what he's saying. But there's also,
38:59
Speaker 5: I mean, we just talked about the totals of each
39:00
Speaker 5: of the plans, right? So it's, I think, and this
39:03
Speaker 5: would be a better argument from him because I think
39:05
Speaker 5: you're right. He's exaggerating it. And his spokesperson, Liz Smith,
39:09
Speaker 5: did so even worse on Twitter.
39:10
Speaker 2: Well, they want the fight, clearly.
39:11
Speaker 5: She said, if you think that a worker who didn't
39:13
Speaker 5: go to college should pay for college for a CEO's kid,
39:15
Speaker 5: then Pete Buttigieg isn't your candidate. That's just incorrect, because
39:19
Speaker 5: a worker who didn't go to college will not be
39:21
Speaker 5: paying for this plan, because whether it's Pete's plan, Bernie's plan,
39:25
Speaker 5: or Warren's plan, they're all paid for by taxing rich
39:28
Speaker 5: people in the top 1%.
39:29
Speaker 6: Right.
39:30
Speaker 3: Worker is not paying for it.
39:30
Speaker 5: I think the better argument is, you know, Warren's plan
39:34
Speaker 5: is 1.2 trillion over 10 years. Pete's is 500 billion
39:37
Speaker 5: over 10 years. I think you can make an argument.
39:40
Speaker 5: That's a lot of money in between there. Could we
39:42
Speaker 5: use that extra money to pay for anti-poverty stuff or
39:46
Speaker 5: healthcare or any of the other things that we need
39:49
Speaker 5: to do out there as opposed to using those subsidies
39:51
Speaker 5: for wealthier people.
39:53
Speaker 1: Look, I think a lot of what's driving the ferocity
39:56
Speaker 1: of the attacks on this plan and on Pete generally
39:58
Speaker 1: is the same as what's driving the viciousness of the
40:01
Speaker 1: attacks on his team doing a dance to high hopes, right?
40:04
Speaker 1: It's like he's doing better, people are nervous, and they're
40:07
Speaker 1: mad at him and they're lashing out. So, okay, it
40:11
Speaker 1: is what it is, it's a political fight. But I
40:13
Speaker 1: do think it's gone a little too far. People are like,
40:15
Speaker 1: this is how we're going to create an entrenched elite
40:17
Speaker 1: class by sending millionaires, kids to non-public institutions. It's gotten
40:23
Speaker 1: completely absurd. I do think there's some disingenuous to the
40:27
Speaker 1: argument made by Pete. You're exactly right that no one
40:30
Speaker 1: attacked him back until he started running this TV ad.
40:32
Speaker 1: But a lot of people might argue that tax dollars
40:35
Speaker 1: are fungible. So in some ways you are asking lower
40:38
Speaker 1: income people to pay for the tuition of rich kids because, right,
40:42
Speaker 1: all tax dollars go into the same pot. But this
40:45
Speaker 1: attack is going to come in a general election. Like
40:46
Speaker 1: we should figure out a way to deal with it
40:48
Speaker 1: on substance.
40:48
Speaker 5: I just think, yeah, it's like money is not free here,
40:51
Speaker 5: you know, and like $ 700 billion difference between the plans.
40:55
Speaker 5: Like I think you can make an argument that that
40:57
Speaker 5: $ 700 billion, it's better spent on poor and working class
41:02
Speaker 5: Americans than people making over $ 150, 000, families making over $ 150, 000
41:06
Speaker 5: a year on college. You can make that argument. Now,
41:08
Speaker 5: I think you're right. I don't think Pete has zeroed
41:10
Speaker 5: in on that argument. He's made a much simpler one
41:12
Speaker 5: that can be taken as disingenuous as well. But I
41:15
Speaker 5: think there's an argument there for sure. The other thing
41:19
Speaker 5: that I want to point out on the means testing
41:21
Speaker 5: thing is it has long been a democratic argument that
41:24
Speaker 5: Universal programs are more politically popular because they're universal.
41:27
Speaker 3: That's Social Security. That's Medicare.
41:29
Speaker 5: No one wants to touch either of those things because
41:31
Speaker 5: wealthier people get them, too. But I will say Medicaid
41:34
Speaker 5: is very means tested. In fact, it only goes to
41:36
Speaker 5: the poorest people. The last poll taken on Medicare last month,
41:39
Speaker 5: 74 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Medicaid.
41:43
Speaker 5: We just won two governorships in deep red states because
41:46
Speaker 5: the Democrat, both moderate Democrats, by the way, defended the
41:50
Speaker 5: Medicaid expansion. Medicaid is extremely popular, even though it's for
41:53
Speaker 5: only low-income people. So I don't necessarily know that.
41:55
Speaker 2: It's not a perfectly clear... There are arguments to be
41:58
Speaker 2: made on both sides. I mean, look, we talked about
42:02
Speaker 2: this recently, that because there was so much good stuff
42:06
Speaker 2: inside of the Recovery Act, a lot of people didn't
42:08
Speaker 2: know how much good it did on energy or that
42:10
Speaker 2: their tax credit may have come from the stimulus bill.
42:14
Speaker 2: And we talk about how Republicans were able to use
42:17
Speaker 2: the complexity of Obamacare to undermine Obamacare, right? Medicaid is
42:20
Speaker 2: very popular, but we've also seen that it took until
42:23
Speaker 2: the threat of Obamacare being removed that people became protective
42:27
Speaker 2: of the benefit, in part because it was a more
42:29
Speaker 2: complicated and not a clear universal program.
42:34
Speaker 5: No, I just think, you know, last point of this,
42:35
Speaker 5: we can move on. I think the reason we're talking
42:38
Speaker 5: about this is we're getting to the stage in the
42:40
Speaker 5: primary where, and you alluded to this, Tommy, like the...
42:44
Speaker 5: We are, the candidates, it is in the interest of
42:47
Speaker 5: the candidates to magnify to a huge degree their policy differences.
42:52
Speaker 5: And in reality, those differences may not be as large, right? Like, yes,
42:57
Speaker 5: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have more progressive college tuition
43:02
Speaker 5: plans than Pete Buttigieg, but they're all sort of, they're
43:04
Speaker 5: all going to make college a lot more affordable for
43:06
Speaker 5: a lot of people who need it. You know, it's
43:08
Speaker 5: going to be free for a lot of people who
43:09
Speaker 5: need it. And I think like, as I watch all
43:11
Speaker 5: of these profiles and read all this stuff, like, Elizabeth
43:14
Speaker 5: Warren is more pragmatic than I think even her campaign presents, right?
43:20
Speaker 5: Like she's done a lot of wheeling and dealing in
43:21
Speaker 5: the Senate. So has Bernie Sanders. And I think Pete
43:24
Speaker 5: is more progressive than he is even presenting himself as
43:29
Speaker 5: right now because he's trying to carve out this lane
43:31
Speaker 5: for him. He's the one who started the primary talking about,
43:33
Speaker 5: you know, getting rid of the electoral college and the
43:35
Speaker 5: filibuster and all those other things. So I think these
43:37
Speaker 5: candidates are closer together. than they are trying to appear
43:40
Speaker 5: right now in order to win a primary. And that's
43:42
Speaker 5: just something that people should keep in mind.
43:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true. I also do think, though,
43:45
Speaker 2: this is the ideological debate right now at the core
43:48
Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party. It's do you add a public
43:51
Speaker 2: option or do you go for single payer? Do you
43:53
Speaker 2: do universal programs in the spirit of Medicare, Social Security
43:56
Speaker 2: and the public schools? Or do you expand on the,
44:00
Speaker 2: you know, the social safety net by doing more means
44:04
Speaker 2: tested and practical measures?
44:06
Speaker 4: Additions, right?
44:07
Speaker 2: Like, I think that that's a really good philosophical place
44:11
Speaker 2: for the party to be. I mean, that's just where
44:12
Speaker 2: we are.
44:13
Speaker 6: Yeah.
44:13
Speaker 3: Okay.
44:14
Speaker 5: One last story from over the break. On Friday, the
44:16
Speaker 5: New York Times ran a brutal piece about Kamala Harris's campaign,
44:19
Speaker 5: including quotes from a resignation letter signed by former state
44:22
Speaker 5: operations director Kelly Mellenbacher. Quote, this is my third presidential campaign,
44:26
Speaker 5: and I've never seen an organization treated staff so poorly.
44:29
Speaker 5: With less than 90 days until Iowa, we still do
44:31
Speaker 5: not have a real plan to win. Times went on
44:33
Speaker 5: to say, quote, Even to some Harris allies, her decline
44:37
Speaker 5: is more predictable than surprising. In one instance after another, Ms.
44:40
Speaker 5: Harris and her closest advisors made flawed decisions about which
44:42
Speaker 5: states to focus on, issues to emphasize, opponents to target,
44:45
Speaker 5: all while refusing to make difficult personnel choices to impose
44:48
Speaker 5: order on an unwieldy campaign. This piece is sourced to
44:52
Speaker 5: more than 50 current and former campaign staff members and allies,
44:56
Speaker 5: most of whom spoke on background or off the record. Tommy,
45:01
Speaker 5: what did you think of that story?
45:01
Speaker 4: Man. It's weird.
45:04
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been a couple stories like this about
45:05
Speaker 1: the Harris campaign. It's weird that you see a sort
45:09
Speaker 1: of rolling shakeup story. Usually something happens, you know, like
45:13
Speaker 1: a change is made, someone is fired, a new strategy
45:16
Speaker 1: is put in place.
45:17
Speaker 4: This doesn't seem to go away. And it's a huge problem.
45:21
Speaker 2: It's a huge problem.
45:23
Speaker 1: Your ability to run a campaign is in many ways
45:26
Speaker 1: the best proxy for your ability to run a government.
45:29
Speaker 1: And this is going to get wide circulation among Iowa
45:33
Speaker 1: caucus goers in New Hampshire, everywhere else. So, you know, look,
45:35
Speaker 1: all 50 people quoted in that story are doing her
45:39
Speaker 1: an enormous disservice. That said, if clearly the strategy to
45:44
Speaker 1: date has not worked, clearly a lot of people feel
45:46
Speaker 1: deeply mistreated. Clearly there have been challenges in the campaign
45:50
Speaker 1: from the beginning that were not rectified fast enough, but man,
45:55
Speaker 1: it was shocking.
45:56
Speaker 2: That the article was, just to be honest, when I
45:59
Speaker 2: read it, I was having incredible 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign flashbacks.
46:04
Speaker 2: I mean, it really, you could go through and change
46:06
Speaker 2: the names. And I felt like I was reading a
46:08
Speaker 2: story about 2008 because it was people being disloyal to
46:12
Speaker 2: the campaign, people airing their public grievances, and people feeling
46:16
Speaker 2: as though they really had no other choice because things
46:19
Speaker 2: were being so mismanaged. So, you know, the people speaking
46:23
Speaker 2: do a great disservice when they undermine their campaign by
46:26
Speaker 2: talking to a reporter. But that said, the fact that
46:29
Speaker 2: so many are putting themselves in that position tells you
46:32
Speaker 2: something is incredibly unhealthy inside of that campaign.
46:36
Speaker 5: We've had, what, 20-something candidates now, campaigns? Two campaigns have
46:42
Speaker 5: consistently had a lot of leaks to reporters about what's
46:46
Speaker 5: going on in the campaign in the process, Kamala Harris
46:48
Speaker 5: and Joe Biden. And a lot of the other candidates,
46:52
Speaker 5: whether you're at the top of the polls, like, whether
46:54
Speaker 5: it's Warren or Buttigieg or Sanders, you don't hear a
46:56
Speaker 5: lot internally about their campaigns, or people who've struggled, Cory.
47:01
Speaker 3: Booker, Beto O'Rourke dropped out.
47:03
Speaker 5: You didn't hear a lot about the internal machinations of
47:05
Speaker 5: theirs campaign. It is one of the most important things
47:08
Speaker 5: when you're building a campaign is to have a culture
47:11
Speaker 5: where people don't feel like when something goes wrong, you
47:14
Speaker 5: go run to a reporter. And it does seem like,
47:16
Speaker 5: I mean, 50 people is a lot of people, but
47:17
Speaker 5: it does seem like in her case, there is a
47:20
Speaker 5: lot of issues with some of these consultants. you know,
47:22
Speaker 5: that are on her campaign. And I feel bad for
47:24
Speaker 5: a lot of the younger staffers on that campaign, right,
47:26
Speaker 5: that have to deal with that. But look, to me, like,
47:29
Speaker 5: and we've said this from the beginning, Kamala Harris, I think,
47:32
Speaker 5: is one of the most talented politicians out there. I
47:36
Speaker 5: think she is charismatic and she is brilliant. And she, like,
47:40
Speaker 5: you know, I just, I've always been a huge fan
47:42
Speaker 5: of Kamala Harris. And I think we've all sort of
47:45
Speaker 5: been worried since the beginning of the campaign that, this
47:49
Speaker 5: enormous talent and the candidate has not been served completely
47:52
Speaker 5: well by at least some measure of people around her.
47:56
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
47:57
Speaker 1: Look, I've been on campaigns where on the Edwards campaign
47:59
Speaker 1: in 2004, uh, we were not winning. Uh, we were
48:04
Speaker 1: struggling to raise money at one point, uh, to try
48:08
Speaker 1: to make our, uh, our financial disclosure about the amount
48:12
Speaker 1: of money we had on hand look better. We delayed
48:14
Speaker 1: a paycheck from before Christmas to after it. So there's
48:17
Speaker 1: a lot of grounds for bitching and moaning and carpeting
48:20
Speaker 1: on that campaign. But no one did it because there
48:22
Speaker 1: was an internal culture and people liked each other and
48:24
Speaker 1: they felt loyal to the candidate and to each other ultimately.
48:28
Speaker 1: Because when you're one of 50 people calling back the
48:30
Speaker 1: New York Times to shit on the campaign strategy, you're
48:34
Speaker 1: making the likelihood that you and your best friends have
48:37
Speaker 1: a job in a couple weeks considerably lower.
48:40
Speaker 4: So it is, it's weird. I've never seen anything like it.
48:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also at a certain point, it's not just that,
48:49
Speaker 2: it's okay, so there's clearly no, why do you do that, right?
48:52
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you don't do that if you feel
48:54
Speaker 2: like you're part of the team and that you're rising
48:57
Speaker 2: and falling together. You do that because you don't think
48:59
Speaker 2: it's your fault and you don't feel like you're being heard.
49:01
Speaker 2: You don't feel like your views are being represented. You
49:02
Speaker 2: feel like the candidate's being misserved. And all of that, yes,
49:05
Speaker 2: it ultimately, yes, it falls on the people that Kamala's
49:09
Speaker 2: put in place, but ultimately she determines who that team
49:12
Speaker 2: is and that team clearly is not serving her well
49:14
Speaker 2: at this point.
49:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, and look, it doesn't necessarily mean you always lose.
49:18
Speaker 5: I mean, I was on the Kerry campaign in the
49:21
Speaker 5: primary was a fucking viper pit there. And it was
49:25
Speaker 5: way worse than the Kamala Harris's campaign. There were firings
49:29
Speaker 5: and people quit and everyone went to the reporters all
49:31
Speaker 5: the time. And when it got to the point by
49:34
Speaker 5: when we won the primary, we were like, what? We
49:35
Speaker 5: won the primary.
49:36
Speaker 1: But to the point, John, at least you guys made choices, right?
49:39
Speaker 1: Like Jim Jordan was fired. Robert Gibbs quit. Like it
49:43
Speaker 1: was shook up. John McCain in 2007, things were shook up.
49:46
Speaker 1: They changed their strategy. They invested all in New Hampshire
49:49
Speaker 1: and like, then they could sort of move on from there.
49:52
Speaker 1: What's remarkable to me is they made this decision to
49:55
Speaker 1: fire half their staff in Baltimore and go to an
49:58
Speaker 1: Iowa first strategy and move people out, move a bunch
50:00
Speaker 1: of people out there. many, many months ago. And then
50:03
Speaker 1: this story pops up like a month later. That's the
50:06
Speaker 1: weirdest part.
50:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
50:07
Speaker 2: There's been every, every four or five weeks, it feels
50:09
Speaker 2: like there's been an internal Kamala Harris process story that
50:12
Speaker 2: is detrimental to the campaign.
50:14
Speaker 5: And, you know, in contrast that to the Obama campaign
50:17
Speaker 5: in 07 and 08, I can count on one hand,
50:19
Speaker 5: the number of really bad process stories we had, because
50:21
Speaker 5: you can remember them because they made you feel so bad.
50:24
Speaker 5: You know, I remember that like It's like a Nagourney,
50:26
Speaker 5: Jeff Zeleny story in the New York Times in the
50:27
Speaker 5: fall when we were losing Hillary.
50:29
Speaker 4: And everyone was wondering, like, who talked? Because no one
50:32
Speaker 4: ever really talked, you know?
50:33
Speaker 5: And look, this is just, this is a cautionary tale
50:35
Speaker 5: for everyone else who is working on another campaign and
50:39
Speaker 5: also the Kamala Harris campaign. Don't call reporters back. Don't
50:43
Speaker 5: email them back. Politely decline.
50:44
Speaker 2: If you want your candidate to win.
50:46
Speaker 3: You should be friendly to reporters. They are not your friends.
50:48
Speaker 4: You tweeted this and a bunch of reporters at the
50:50
Speaker 4: New York Times texted me. Be like, tell your buddy
50:52
Speaker 4: to shut up.
50:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
50:53
Speaker 4: Because they know.
50:54
Speaker 5: Because guess what? Their job is to get the story.
50:56
Speaker 5: And a lot of them are very good at it.
50:58
Speaker 5: Our job is to not give them the story. Giving
51:01
Speaker 5: them the story does not help the campaign. Politely decline.
51:04
Speaker 4: It's tough.
51:05
Speaker 3: Sorry, reporter friends.
51:06
Speaker 4: You know, it is interesting.
51:07
Speaker 1: We're finally starting to see some of the winnowing of
51:09
Speaker 1: the field we thought would happen. Joe Sestak dropped out.
51:11
Speaker 1: I mean, look.
51:13
Speaker 3: Well, I have a whole other section about Steve Bullock.
51:14
Speaker 3: Steve Bullock dropped out today.
51:16
Speaker 4: So things are changing. Finally, things are winnowing.
51:18
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about it now that I'm no longer
51:20
Speaker 2: a camp. You know, I'm no longer. I'm a journalist now.
51:22
Speaker 2: And my view is campaign aides, keep reaching out.
51:25
Speaker 4: Call me.
51:26
Speaker 2: Keep speaking your truth. Blow those whistles.
51:27
Speaker 4: DM me.
51:28
Speaker 2: All right? We need to know.
51:29
Speaker 4: All right? We care about the truth here at Crooked Media.
51:31
Speaker 4: Whistleblower protection.
51:31
Speaker 2: Leak, leak, leak, leak, leak.
51:32
Speaker 3: All right, everyone. That's it. We don't have a guest today,
51:35
Speaker 3: so we're out right now.
51:37
Speaker 2: Happy Thanksgiving.
51:38
Speaker 3: Happy Thanksgiving.
51:39
Speaker 2: Great to be back.
51:40
Speaker 3: It's great to be back. We'll see you on Thursday. Bye, guys.
51:43
Speaker 4: Bye.
51:52
Speaker 5: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
51:54
Speaker 5: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
51:58
Speaker 5: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
52:01
Speaker 5: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and
52:05
Speaker 5: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
52:07
Speaker 5: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who
52:10
Speaker 5: film and upload these episodes as a video every week.